Speaker 1: You don't win love, you don't find love. The love
Speaker 1: is already there. The analogy I like to use as
Speaker 1: love as the breeze, and the work that we're doing
Speaker 1: is to open our sales. You know, I struggled in
Speaker 1: my last situation because I could not receive love. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that there wasn't love there. It was my inability
Speaker 1: to open my sales because of the walls, the lack
Speaker 1: of vulnerability might need to win in an argument, all
Speaker 1: of these ideas, I realized that it was me. I
Speaker 1: had my door close, I had my sales close to
Speaker 1: the breeze that was always there. Hey, everyone, welcome back
Speaker 1: to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
Speaker 1: Thanks to each and every single one of you that
Speaker 1: come back every week to become a happier, healthier and
Speaker 1: more healed Now. One of the things I love about
Speaker 1: the show is sitting down with a friend who's an
Speaker 1: incredible thinker or a thought leader, a philosopher, or a poet.
Speaker 1: It provides a very special conversation when I get to
Speaker 1: sit with someone that I hang out with the law offline,
Speaker 1: but then we get to turn the cameras on and
Speaker 1: the recording devices on and do something online. I hope
Speaker 1: you get to hear that friendship, that brotherhood in today's conversation.
Speaker 1: And I find there's something really special about sitting down
Speaker 1: with someone who has really interesting ideas has taken the
Speaker 1: time to document them and systematize them into a book.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking about one of my dearest friends, Humble the Poet,
Speaker 1: a Canadian born rapper, spoken word artist, designer, poet, internationally
Speaker 1: best selling author, and former elementary school teacher. What began
Speaker 1: is reciting spoken word poetry and coffee shops to impress
Speaker 1: girls evolved into creative adventures that has spanned the last
Speaker 1: ten years, crossing genres, mediums, and oceans. His first two releases,
Speaker 1: Unlearned and Things Nobody Can Teach Us have become international bestsellers.
Speaker 1: And today we're talking about his new book, How to
Speaker 1: Be Loved, Simple Truths for going easy on yourself, embracing imperfection,
Speaker 1: and loving your way to a better life. I want
Speaker 1: you to go and grab a copy of this book
Speaker 1: right now, Order it right now. We're putting the link
Speaker 1: in the captions and in the show notes, How to
Speaker 1: Be Loved by Humble the Poet. Humble, it is so
Speaker 1: great to have you here man officially, Yes, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. You didn't you including my
Speaker 1: bio Ping pong front of me? Oh yeah yeah, ping
Speaker 1: pong front of me. Yeah, I mean, well we shouldn't
Speaker 1: go there. We shouldn't. I mean the only official game
Speaker 1: we've had I won, and that's why fund in front
Speaker 1: of me. You won that pair of very old headphones.
Speaker 1: That was the prize. It was a birthday party and
Speaker 1: our friend found a pair of headphones and made that
Speaker 1: the fries. And then in the first round you knocked
Speaker 1: me out. No, it was so when we play unofficially,
Speaker 1: Humble beats me in ping pong all the time, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever beaten you when we've been
Speaker 1: hanging out. Ever, when it doesn't count, it doesn't. God. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then the official game, and then I gave the
Speaker 1: headphones away to someone who I felt deserved them more.
Speaker 1: I was lucky that day. I can't believe it. I
Speaker 1: was on some lucky street. Well, yeah, it was a party. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a little bit gypsies. I don't drink, so I
Speaker 1: got away. Yeah, you have a few competitive advantages. I
Speaker 1: love it, bumble man. We've been friends for like I'm
Speaker 1: like four years now. I feel like since since we
Speaker 1: started having our conversations completely, and it's been beautiful to
Speaker 1: like just you know, I think as two people in
Speaker 1: an industry where it's busy and we're doing so much,
Speaker 1: somehow I think we found a way to have these
Speaker 1: really meaningful conversations. I remember I was at your house
Speaker 1: earlier this year, at your apartment earlier this year, and
Speaker 1: we were hanging out. And then the next day everyone
Speaker 1: was like, well, what time did Jay leave or what happened?
Speaker 1: Because everyone I always leave early to go to sleep
Speaker 1: early generally is what I do. And I was at
Speaker 1: your house to like two am, and I was like,
Speaker 1: how did you get Jay to stay out to two am?
Speaker 1: And we weren't. All we did was have deep, meaningful,
Speaker 1: thoughtful conversation. It was so You're one of the few
Speaker 1: people that I can actually do that with. So I
Speaker 1: cherish our friendship very deeply. I mean, likewise, as I said,
Speaker 1: this is the first conversation. I'm not holding a notepad.
Speaker 1: I just sit here and try to pick your brain
Speaker 1: as much as I can and try to learn as
Speaker 1: much as I can. And I appreciate you always make
Speaker 1: time for me always man always. But I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you wrote this book, bro, because you know, I'm obsessed
Speaker 1: with love, my new books about love. But I think
Speaker 1: when you're obsessed with something and you get deep into it,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to hear from someone else who's obsessed
Speaker 1: with it and gotten really deep into it. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about what we said
Speaker 1: in the intro about the idea of how you used
Speaker 1: to be spoken word to impress girls. And I think
Speaker 1: the idea of impressing someone is such a big part
Speaker 1: of how love starts, Like I can relate to that
Speaker 1: so much like the extent I've gone through to impress
Speaker 1: women in my previous life. It's insane and woke me through.
Speaker 1: Why do we try to impress people that we may
Speaker 1: be attracted to or maybe not even attracted to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think for thousands of years
Speaker 1: we lived in smaller communities, and we only understand ourselves
Speaker 1: in relation to everybody else. You know, you walk into
Speaker 1: your family, you know where you are in the hierarchy,
Speaker 1: and then we you know, many of us only two
Speaker 1: generations that go came from families and small villages. So
Speaker 1: it's like you find your definition and your value in
Speaker 1: relation to others, and in modern life in these big
Speaker 1: metropolis cities, it's not as relevant, but that need to
Speaker 1: be seen, that need to be validated, is completely there.
Speaker 1: And I think that's where we have a lot of
Speaker 1: challenges in realizing love is because we spend so much
Speaker 1: time try to feed our self esteem, not realizing that
Speaker 1: love comes from self respect, which is way more internal
Speaker 1: and it's completely you know, you're absolutely right. Like even
Speaker 1: me doing poetry back then, it was like I was
Speaker 1: writing about things as an artist that mattered to me,
Speaker 1: and I was exploring concepts, but my only motivation to
Speaker 1: share it was to get attention. And you start to
Speaker 1: feed off of that, and it gets really interesting now
Speaker 1: because we live in a world with that attention, there's
Speaker 1: a metric beside it. You can count your likes, you
Speaker 1: can count your comments, you can count your followers. So
Speaker 1: now it's like the world subtenly tells you who to
Speaker 1: be if that attention matters. Like, oh I did a post,
Speaker 1: it didn't get enough engagement, so let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: post something else, and then oh this really got a
Speaker 1: lot of engagement. Let me make five more things like that,
Speaker 1: and it's killing our ability to discover ourselves and our
Speaker 1: authentic selves, and instead it's making us live for display purposes,
Speaker 1: which is going to continually close pathways to love. This
Speaker 1: is why I love talking to you. I'm loving this already.
Speaker 1: There's so many things that you said that I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about this. Let's I love what
Speaker 1: you just talked about. And I saw you post about
Speaker 1: this a few months ago about the difference between self
Speaker 1: esteem and self respect, and that really hit a nerve
Speaker 1: with me when you first posted about it. Walk us
Speaker 1: through how you define them differently and why that's useful
Speaker 1: in this journey of to love. So, for me, self
Speaker 1: esteem is external, self respect is internal, and I feel
Speaker 1: like the ways we go about it don't have to
Speaker 1: be much different. When you keep your promises to yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, you build self respect, and I think either
Speaker 1: you're chasing one or the other. The more self respect
Speaker 1: you develop, the less self esteem you're going to chase.
Speaker 1: The more self esteem you chase, the less self respect
Speaker 1: is going to be in the room. They kind of
Speaker 1: can't hold hands. So for me, you start to realize
Speaker 1: that it's a relationship. It just depends on how you're
Speaker 1: going to spend and devote that energy. The challenge with
Speaker 1: self esteem and it being external is there's just way
Speaker 1: too many people with way too many opinions on who
Speaker 1: you can be, you know, like that Dita Vant's quote,
Speaker 1: you can be the juiciest peach in the world. There's
Speaker 1: just some people who don't like peaches, you know, and
Speaker 1: that can have an impact on people. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people are negatively impacted by the comments on their
Speaker 1: social media, by how well they're received when people are
Speaker 1: looking at them or what have you. So what I'm
Speaker 1: realizing is as we focus on self respect to me,
Speaker 1: which is I said, honoring your commitments, doing hard things,
Speaker 1: focusing on progress and not perfection, that's a really big one.
Speaker 1: I think when we have these ideas of what we
Speaker 1: think love is, it's oftentimes not love. Attention, control, power, admiration, beauty, success,
Speaker 1: these things are all external things that we can receive
Speaker 1: from the world, and they feel like love and they
Speaker 1: give us a lot of immediate gratification. I refer to
Speaker 1: them as bootleg loves, Like when you go to the
Speaker 1: outlet mall got a fake Gucci belt and you know,
Speaker 1: you get a little rush from it. Immediately, but you
Speaker 1: keep thirsting from more. You know it puts you in
Speaker 1: further scarcity. So when we focus on that, it's a
Speaker 1: never ending journey. Whereas when we develop more self respect,
Speaker 1: we feel a level of peace. It's not instead of
Speaker 1: getting everything you want, you start to want less. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think for me that's the really big difference.
Speaker 1: And self respect can be literally developed through anything that
Speaker 1: you commit to do and the more difficult to better.
Speaker 1: Let's say, don't do hard things for me as a
Speaker 1: cold shower in the morning. And when we focus on progress,
Speaker 1: especially as we're entering a new year, it's really important
Speaker 1: to set intentions instead of expectations because oftentimes we say, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to lose ten pounds. Now you subtly have
Speaker 1: told yourself I'm not good enough as I am, and
Speaker 1: when I lose ten pounds, magically, I'm going to feel better.
Speaker 1: Instead of doing that because you're harming your relationship with yourself.
Speaker 1: Focus on progress. I want to have a healthier breakfast,
Speaker 1: and maybe my breakfast has ten different elements to it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to switch out one at a time, or
Speaker 1: I want to wake up earlier. Let's say I'm waking
Speaker 1: up at noon every day and I want to get
Speaker 1: to six am. You can't just jump from noon to six.
Speaker 1: Let's focus on progress. Let's start with eleven forty five,
Speaker 1: slowly workout way down. Progress can be endless. You know,
Speaker 1: whereas I think society, especially in capitalism, they need to
Speaker 1: sell us stuff to make us feel like we matter.
Speaker 1: And the message they keep sending us is chase perfection,
Speaker 1: and perfect doesn't exist, and perfect is the last place
Speaker 1: love would exist. Because the only way to develop a
Speaker 1: deep connection with somebody is through your vulnerabilities. You are perfect,
Speaker 1: you can't be vulnerable. So for me, vulnerability comes through
Speaker 1: self respect, being brave enough to admit you know where
Speaker 1: you're difficult to be with, what you struggle with, what
Speaker 1: your challenges are, and then that opens up someone else
Speaker 1: an opportunity to do the same, and then you connect
Speaker 1: on a deeper level. Yeah, I want to reflect on
Speaker 1: some of the things that came to my mind as
Speaker 1: you were talking. It's interesting, isn't it. Like we say
Speaker 1: we want love, but actually we want attention. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: say we want love, but actually we want validation. We
Speaker 1: say we want love, but actually we just want compliments.
Speaker 1: So we don't actually know what love is or want
Speaker 1: love because we're chasing it through these other forms of
Speaker 1: cheap adoration or cheap affection. One of the things that
Speaker 1: hit me about what you just said about vulnerability and
Speaker 1: this pursuit of perfection when actually imperfection is at the
Speaker 1: core of love and relationships is I was coaching a
Speaker 1: CEO recently and we were working through some of their
Speaker 1: mental health challenges. It was really interesting to me because
Speaker 1: I was encouraging them to share that with their team.
Speaker 1: I was saying, you should share the challenges you're going
Speaker 1: through because it will be a healthy thing to do.
Speaker 1: And they said to me, they said, Jay, how can
Speaker 1: I share my challenges? I'm the strong one, I'm the
Speaker 1: brave one, I'm the one who has it all together.
Speaker 1: And I said to them, I said, what's stronger than
Speaker 1: you telling them your truth? Like, what's braver than you
Speaker 1: being vulnerable with that person? Like, there's nothing more strong,
Speaker 1: There's no greater act of courage. And when they went
Speaker 1: and told their team, they followed through on the advice.
Speaker 1: The team's unanimous response was us two like they were
Speaker 1: going through the same stuff and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they felt connected. So I guess what I love about
Speaker 1: what you're saying when you talk about like not chasing perfection,
Speaker 1: when you talk about doing hard things. There was one
Speaker 1: more thing you said, commitments, honoring your commitments. So those
Speaker 1: three things that you mentioned to me, that's actually what
Speaker 1: self love is, Like we keep her in self love,
Speaker 1: and you've talked about self respect, which I think is
Speaker 1: a really great pivot a pathway. But those three habits
Speaker 1: are really deeply important when we're alone and when we're single,
Speaker 1: and when we're not in a relationship. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: why doing hard things is so important in the pursuit
Speaker 1: of love, because I don't think those things a lot
Speaker 1: of what you just mentioned. I'm like, is this a
Speaker 1: habit's book? Like you're helping people with their day to
Speaker 1: day habits, But there's a connection there that I don't
Speaker 1: think people see. Yeah, one of my favorite mantras from
Speaker 1: myself is an easy day at the gym was not
Speaker 1: a good day at the gym, And I start to
Speaker 1: apply that to life, an easy day of life is
Speaker 1: not a good day. I think what we have in
Speaker 1: this society is we sell convenience and we sell comfort,
Speaker 1: and both of those don't inspire growth or evolution. Or
Speaker 1: for us to unlock a better version of ourselves. So
Speaker 1: voluntarily doing hard things, you know, prepares us when hard
Speaker 1: things find us. You know, I think, for example, you know,
Speaker 1: when you know as an entrepreneur it's a very challenging job.
Speaker 1: But then when you're an entrepreneur, you understand that, hey,
Speaker 1: money's not guaranteed. I don't get a salary every two weeks.
Speaker 1: Nothing's promised to me. So then when you come across
Speaker 1: a situation where things shut down, layoffs for session, what
Speaker 1: have you, you're better prepared. You know, life's gonna throw curveballs.
Speaker 1: What we can do when things are good is practice
Speaker 1: our swing. So for me, doing hard things is picking
Speaker 1: a challenge. And my personal equation is one foot and
Speaker 1: what I know foot and what's familiar in one foot,
Speaker 1: and what's unfamiliar and what's uncomfortable. So I'm not overdoing.
Speaker 1: If I want to learn to swim, I don't jump
Speaker 1: into the ocean the first day. We started in the
Speaker 1: kiddie pool, and then we work our way up and
Speaker 1: picking things voluntarily that are difficult, whatever it is, and
Speaker 1: understanding that even for us, you know, it took ten
Speaker 1: years to learn how to read, there was a systematic
Speaker 1: program put in school for us to do it. Forget that,
Speaker 1: We forget that, and we didn't have We didn't have
Speaker 1: self esteem issues or confidence issues back then, being like
Speaker 1: I don't know the alphabet, I shouldn't even bother where.
Speaker 1: When we were babies trying to learn how to walk,
Speaker 1: you know, we got up and we fell back down.
Speaker 1: We didn't give up to say it's not for me.
Speaker 1: But as adults, because we don't have somebody kind of
Speaker 1: laughtering over us, we may start something we're not okay
Speaker 1: with sucking at it in the beginning, we don't see
Speaker 1: it as fun. But you know, I play a lot
Speaker 1: of video games. If I dropped ninety bucks on a
Speaker 1: video game and it's too easy, then it wasn't worth
Speaker 1: it for me. You know, we need challenges, We need
Speaker 1: to we need resistance, We need to push and pool.
Speaker 1: We need that tug of war because that's going to
Speaker 1: make us stronger. It's going to make us more resilient.
Speaker 1: Sitting in the ice makes you resilient, helps you recalibrate
Speaker 1: your fight or flight. So now your fight or flight
Speaker 1: isn't triggered through an awkward conversation or an email or
Speaker 1: a text message or a bill that comes you know,
Speaker 1: it gets back to where it needs to be, which
Speaker 1: is important. So I think for me, it's recognizing that
Speaker 1: it's not chasing comfort, it's not chasing the simple stability,
Speaker 1: it's not chasing convenience. It's being like, Okay, there is
Speaker 1: a harder way of doing things. Let's do that for
Speaker 1: the sake of doing it, because when the difficulties of
Speaker 1: life find us, we're much more resilient and much more prepared.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, that allows me to realize
Speaker 1: my value as an individual, what I'm capable of, and
Speaker 1: how I can spread that and be of service to
Speaker 1: other people, which to me is a massive language of love. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean when I'm hearing you speak, it's like
Speaker 1: that getting comfortable in discomfort is almost like the number
Speaker 1: one skill needed in life, because I feel like most
Speaker 1: of as you said, what society is trying to teach
Speaker 1: us in your words, convenience and comfort, and it's trying
Speaker 1: to avoid discomfort that we're trying to avoid it, We're
Speaker 1: trying to dodge it, We're trying to hope that how
Speaker 1: can I avoid any sort of pain, struggle, discomfort, And
Speaker 1: while while you're not saying to invite it, but we've
Speaker 1: got to get comfortable in that uncertainty and comfortable with
Speaker 1: that pain. And that applies to anything from dating, through
Speaker 1: the breakups, through to loving ourselves of course through the
Speaker 1: journey we're on. One of the things you say in
Speaker 1: the book that I wanted to pick out was feeling
Speaker 1: left out and rejected brings up those ancient anxieties of danger.
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the biggest discomforts, is
Speaker 1: feeling left out and rejected, Like when you talk about
Speaker 1: being uncomfortable when you go to an event and you
Speaker 1: feel like you'd rather lock yourself into a bathroom because
Speaker 1: you don't want to be around anyone, or forget that
Speaker 1: you didn't even get invited in the first place. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you get upset because you didn't get invited, even
Speaker 1: if you didn't want to go that. Yeah, so talk
Speaker 1: to me through that sentence. Feeling left out and rejected
Speaker 1: brings up those ancient anxieties of danger. Again. If we
Speaker 1: were ostracized from our communities back, you know, generations ago,
Speaker 1: it actually meant our death, you know, And that's in
Speaker 1: our programming now, which makes us in modern life prioritize
Speaker 1: likability over everything. And the challenge with that is there's
Speaker 1: so many things that create pathways of love and allow
Speaker 1: us to realize love won't necessarily make us likable to everybody.
Speaker 1: If you want to establish boundaries. For example, establishing boundaries
Speaker 1: will reduce the amount of people that want to be
Speaker 1: around you because so many people enjoy crossing boundaries or
Speaker 1: you know, find power in that or find significance in that.
Speaker 1: But it's important to establish boundaries. It's important to show
Speaker 1: your I have a chapter in the book called Love
Speaker 1: is Showing your teeth. It's important to let people know
Speaker 1: if they've crossed the line. It's important to let people
Speaker 1: know if they've made if they've hurt you. It's important
Speaker 1: to let people know if you're doing things that you're
Speaker 1: not okay with, because if you don't, you absorb it
Speaker 1: inside instead, and then you fall into this world of resentment,
Speaker 1: which to me, I think is one of the darkest
Speaker 1: places we can be. And you can't express or realize
Speaker 1: love in this place of resentment. So our fears of
Speaker 1: not being likable, you know, as I said in the subtitle,
Speaker 1: this book is going easy on yourself. This is in
Speaker 1: our programming. We want to be liked. We want to
Speaker 1: be accepted, and we are in a modern society which
Speaker 1: is given us scores for our likability and acceptance, but
Speaker 1: that will not necessarily help us realize more love. And
Speaker 1: we have to see the difference. Not everybody is going
Speaker 1: to like you and that's okay, and focusing on that
Speaker 1: will allow us to build deeper connections with people that
Speaker 1: do matter, you know, going back to this idea of
Speaker 1: the CEO and the vulnerability, you know, I was raised
Speaker 1: in a household that subtenly told me to suck it up,
Speaker 1: be self regulated. So now I also viewed vulnerability as
Speaker 1: a weakness. I viewed having a romantic partner that complained
Speaker 1: as just being naggy and weak, not realizing that my
Speaker 1: inability to have empathy, you know, was because of the
Speaker 1: fortresses I made. I made a fortress to protect myself,
Speaker 1: but really it was a prison. And then when somebody
Speaker 1: came to me that I cared about what their problems,
Speaker 1: I wanted to instantly solve it. I thought, that's what
Speaker 1: men do, Men solve problems. We're solution oriented. But the
Speaker 1: truth what I realized from myself was no, they were
Speaker 1: sharing their pain. It was triggering my pain. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to feel my pain, so I wanted to shut
Speaker 1: them up. And the three ways I was trying to
Speaker 1: shut them up was either not speaking to them, trying
Speaker 1: to solve their problems, or saying something really stupid like
Speaker 1: well there's other people going through way worse than you,
Speaker 1: like have some perspective, and then slowly realizing through this
Speaker 1: journey that empathy is feeling their pain, not saying anything,
Speaker 1: just giving them a hug and being in that pain together.
Speaker 1: And for me, like these are very recent realizations for
Speaker 1: me as I'm trying to figure out how to deepen
Speaker 1: my connection with human beings as well. And I don't
Speaker 1: hold it against anybody from being raised to think that
Speaker 1: vulnerability is a weakness. But you are absolutely right. The
Speaker 1: strongest thing you can do is be vulnerable and admit
Speaker 1: where you're having trouble. That's ultimate strength. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that that story worked out for him. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: But I mean you just said something again interesting which
Speaker 1: I actually had noted down, was where is this? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you reference the need to sit with your pain in
Speaker 1: order to experience love. Yes, I don't think we naturally
Speaker 1: put those thoughts together. And that's what I've always loved
Speaker 1: about what you do with ideas is I don't think
Speaker 1: we kind of like when you hear that, you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I need to unpack that, because you wouldn't necessarily think
Speaker 1: those two things correlate. The inspiration behind this entire journey was,
Speaker 1: you know, a relationship that I was in that that
Speaker 1: didn't run the course, and all I would do, and
Speaker 1: in isolation, especially during the pandemic, was beat myself up
Speaker 1: over it, as if I had somehow failed. So there
Speaker 1: was a lot of reflecting and thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the what it could have should us, and city not
Speaker 1: realizing the subconscious because whether we're aware of a trauma,
Speaker 1: whether we're aware of a discomfort, we feel it and
Speaker 1: we're going to feel and then most often, going back
Speaker 1: to modern society, there are so many convenient options to
Speaker 1: suppress that temporarily. So for me, I was living that
Speaker 1: life was if I felt anxious, I would go and
Speaker 1: have a slice of pizza, or I would go and
Speaker 1: you know, watch television or go on my phone. And
Speaker 1: then you start to realize that so often the only
Speaker 1: reason we get involved with somebody is because we're outsourcing
Speaker 1: the antidote to our loneliness, not realizing that loneliness isn't
Speaker 1: having people around. Loneliness is a lack of connection. And
Speaker 1: I could contribute to why we have such a high
Speaker 1: divorce rate because people are getting together, but they're not
Speaker 1: getting to get as two individuals are getting together with
Speaker 1: these kind of romanticized ideas of your my better half,
Speaker 1: you complete me. Humans don't need completing humans aren't half
Speaker 1: a person. And I think, but these are ideas that
Speaker 1: are sold to us. They're sold to us in media.
Speaker 1: They're sold to you know, every single famous couple of
Speaker 1: Ross and Rachel's. They have to be people with very
Speaker 1: unhealthy attachment styles to be entertaining because the most healthy
Speaker 1: relationships we know are not very eventful. They wouldn't make
Speaker 1: for entertaining television. I don't. I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: conspiracy that these television shows exist. They're just entertaining us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think realizing that for me, having a relationship
Speaker 1: with yourself is being alone. Being alone isn't sitting in
Speaker 1: bed on your phone. Being alone is being absolutely alone
Speaker 1: doing absolutely nothing, which for me is also a form
Speaker 1: of meditation. And for me it's my favorite form of
Speaker 1: meditation because it's it's a form that doesn't require you
Speaker 1: to ask, am I doing this right? The right way
Speaker 1: of doing nothing? Instantly you started to feel anxiety because
Speaker 1: you're not stimulated. You know, the dopamines, it's not coming.
Speaker 1: And but the longer you do that, the more ground
Speaker 1: did you become with yourself? Yeah, and now you're in
Speaker 1: a position to be in a relationship where you can serve.
Speaker 1: The book has love stories, and there's one love story
Speaker 1: about somebody I connected with wanted to pursue. They explained
Speaker 1: to me they don't have time and and and I
Speaker 1: was upset, and I was like, look, if you don't
Speaker 1: make time for people, then you're never gonna have anybody.
Speaker 1: Don't you get lonely? And she goes, I do get lonely.
Speaker 1: And then I said, so what are you What are
Speaker 1: you gonna do when you're lonely? She goes, I dance.
Speaker 1: It was when I'm lonely, I dance and then I
Speaker 1: connect with myself. Wow, that's super mature. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was on the phone, like, I guess I got together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But and I left her alone after that, because you know,
Speaker 1: she was very clear with her bound she said, what
Speaker 1: have you and what you realize is we want connection
Speaker 1: the you know, the fast food version of connection. Self
Speaker 1: connection would be self pity. Nobody understands what I'm going
Speaker 1: through except for me. Nobody's ever had the heartbroken. I'm
Speaker 1: all by myself. I just want to be able to
Speaker 1: complain about it. But something deep to actually create an
Speaker 1: authentic connection with just yourself can be dancing to feel
Speaker 1: your body. How many of us, when is the last
Speaker 1: time we've looked at ourselves in the mirror and looked
Speaker 1: at our body and we're not critical and looked at
Speaker 1: our body from a perspective of gratitude, Like how many
Speaker 1: of us have already chosen our favorite body part, even
Speaker 1: though our body has been with us since day zero,
Speaker 1: And even when we make poor choices, our body tries
Speaker 1: its best to adjust. We have bad posture, our body
Speaker 1: tries to adjust we don't put good things inside our body.
Speaker 1: It tries its best to adjust. This relationship with ourselves,
Speaker 1: our physical body can be the first step to creating
Speaker 1: an authentic pathway of love, which can then inform the
Speaker 1: relationships we can have with everybody else. You know, this
Speaker 1: conversation is just in a beautiful way as always just
Speaker 1: connecting so many dots that are coming up, and I
Speaker 1: want to talk about a few things. One thing that
Speaker 1: came up was this idea of what you're saying setting boundaries.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the challenges that we have
Speaker 1: with setting boundaries is we want to be perceived as nice,
Speaker 1: and when we set a boundary, we think we're going
Speaker 1: to be perceived as unkind, and so we'd rather not
Speaker 1: set the boundaries so that again, someone likes me and
Speaker 1: thinks that I'm a nice person, but inside I'm going, God,
Speaker 1: I wish I wasn't around this person. I wish I
Speaker 1: wasn't here, I wish I wasn't doing that. Why do
Speaker 1: you think so often or what are your thoughts about
Speaker 1: how we compromise our own values and our own boundaries
Speaker 1: in order to appear more nice and likable Like that
Speaker 1: seems to be the biggest disassociation from ourselves. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's the short term gratification versus a long term
Speaker 1: I think the short term gratification. For me specifically, I
Speaker 1: can say I became someone that people came to with
Speaker 1: their problems and I felt value that I was needed,
Speaker 1: and it took a therapist to help point out where
Speaker 1: she said, listen, the reason you actually want people you
Speaker 1: were receiving people is because it's such a one sided
Speaker 1: conversation that it gives you the impression that you have
Speaker 1: a relationship. But you're never vulnerable because they're just telling
Speaker 1: you their problems. They don't even notice that they're not
Speaker 1: asking you about yours. And you like that because that
Speaker 1: helps you avoid being vulnerable, which feels uncomfortable for you.
Speaker 1: But she goes in the long run, which you don't realize,
Speaker 1: and you said it, it builds resentment, and there can't
Speaker 1: be loved if there's resentment. So what happens is this
Speaker 1: feeling of I need to be needed, which, again, if
Speaker 1: we think about how we were raised, a lot of
Speaker 1: us were raised to find our value when we were needed.
Speaker 1: A lot of us made these decisions and decided our
Speaker 1: pathway of life when we were kids, when we were
Speaker 1: thinking very binary. It was either this or that, black
Speaker 1: and white. And as we became adults and we can
Speaker 1: see life a lot more complex, we never updated our policies,
Speaker 1: and so what happens is life is more complex, but
Speaker 1: we're looking at it through such a simple shade. And
Speaker 1: this idea is like okay. And when we were kids too,
Speaker 1: whenever something negative happened, we absorbed it as if it
Speaker 1: was our fault. You know. I have a story in
Speaker 1: the book my mom once got sick and I vomited
Speaker 1: all over my bathroom as a little child, and my
Speaker 1: mother was awakened from that. She had work, she got
Speaker 1: upset with me, and I blamed myself for that, not
Speaker 1: having context as an adult realizing, wait, you know, she
Speaker 1: works a night shift. He's not a horrible person. You
Speaker 1: didn't mess up. It's just everybody can be cranky and
Speaker 1: what have you. And now you know, making jokes about
Speaker 1: my mom because the grandmother version of my mom is
Speaker 1: completely sweet. She has time, she's not working anymore, no
Speaker 1: more survival mode. But me internalizing that story, that narrative
Speaker 1: stuck with me up until today. We've had conversations about
Speaker 1: gratitude versus guilt, you know, and my journey as an artist,
Speaker 1: crashing people's couches, people giving places to stay, hearing my
Speaker 1: mother's voice, don't be a mooch, fill up their fridge
Speaker 1: full of groceries. Make sure they know even for you know,
Speaker 1: the help that you've done with me in this journey
Speaker 1: what can I give J? What can I give J?
Speaker 1: And then questioning is that authentic gratitude or am I
Speaker 1: just operating from a place of guilt? And if it's
Speaker 1: not authentic gratitude, then it's not being done with love.
Speaker 1: And then if it's come from a place of guilt,
Speaker 1: that's usually related to fear, which is definitely not from
Speaker 1: a place of love. And I think going through that journey,
Speaker 1: I think is extremely important. So when we fear being unlikable,
Speaker 1: we're closing off an option in a pathway to realize
Speaker 1: love for some short term peace from our anxiety. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like pleasure, Like we're chasing pleasure to medicate a
Speaker 1: lack of peace. Yeah, when the peace would come from
Speaker 1: establishing boundaries, there's going to be an uncomfortable transition period,
Speaker 1: but you'll get to a point where the people who
Speaker 1: love you view your boundaries as an instruction manual on
Speaker 1: how to be with you and how to have a
Speaker 1: healthy relationship with you. Because what is for the people
Speaker 1: who have boundaries and you respect their boundaries, they will
Speaker 1: stay in your lives. Yeah, you know, instead of you
Speaker 1: just trying to avoid somebody who always tries to overstep
Speaker 1: your boundaries. Yeah, I mean what you just said that
Speaker 1: was so powerful. I was interviewing someone the other day
Speaker 1: and they asked me the question. They said, well, what's
Speaker 1: your working style? So they're like, what's how do you
Speaker 1: like to be communicated with? And how do you like
Speaker 1: to be informed of updates and things like that. I
Speaker 1: don't like, this is a great interview question, like for
Speaker 1: someone to ask me. I'm interviewing them completely, but they're
Speaker 1: asking me that. And I got to tell them and
Speaker 1: they were like, what are your pet peeves when it
Speaker 1: comes to communicating and so like I got to walk
Speaker 1: them through. What I realized was they made me feel
Speaker 1: really comfortable and confident with them because I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this person's really mature and knows that I'm not perfect.
Speaker 1: I'm not always going to be available. They need to
Speaker 1: understand a few things about me to work well with me.
Speaker 1: What was demanded of me, though, was self aware ns
Speaker 1: in order to infer that to them. And so what
Speaker 1: I find here is that what happens in relationships or
Speaker 1: in love is that we don't feel that way. We
Speaker 1: feel that person should be perfect. They should already understand me,
Speaker 1: I should understand them and we're going to do whatever
Speaker 1: it takes to love each other. And the other problem is,
Speaker 1: even if you ask that question, chances are a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't have the self awareness to share what
Speaker 1: their pet peeves are. So the girl who says to you, Hey,
Speaker 1: I dance when I'm lonely, that's high self awareness, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's the fact that there was an answer there that
Speaker 1: was satisfying to you and that almost left you speechless
Speaker 1: to some degree. Yeah, it's like, oh wow. So I
Speaker 1: find that there's two sides. One is our openness that
Speaker 1: I'm going to get into a relationship where we're both
Speaker 1: not perfect. The other is the other person having the
Speaker 1: knowledge of themselves. And it feels like we're lacking in
Speaker 1: both right now, I think definitely. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the reasons is because of our ideas around love,
Speaker 1: we don't have to teach somebody that imperfection is okay
Speaker 1: in the world of love. Every single person we currently love,
Speaker 1: we could probably list out their imperfections and then the
Speaker 1: second question is do any of those imperfections disqualify them
Speaker 1: from your love? You know? Also, you know, the analogy
Speaker 1: that I always think about too, is like the first
Speaker 1: time I held my baby niece. I had never met
Speaker 1: her before, I had never had an interaction before, but
Speaker 1: just holding her filled me up with love. So you
Speaker 1: don't even need history, you don't even need interaction. So
Speaker 1: oftentimes we have this diskewed idea that love is something
Speaker 1: you earn, love is something you win, love is something
Speaker 1: you qualify for. Love is at the end of the rainbow.
Speaker 1: And I think these ideas motivate these types of actions
Speaker 1: where it's like I have to appear perfect. Another thing
Speaker 1: I realized about myself recently, and I think this is
Speaker 1: for a lot of men who are often seen as
Speaker 1: distant or avoidant. Is we spend and so much time
Speaker 1: on a date trying to win over the other person,
Speaker 1: charm them, make them, make them feel like we're really
Speaker 1: worth it, that we spend no time looking at the
Speaker 1: other person to see is this a good fit for me?
Speaker 1: We get over their wall, we penetrate their fortress, we
Speaker 1: make them feel safe. Then once they communicate to us
Speaker 1: that they like us, then we begin this process of like, wait,
Speaker 1: are they for me? And then also we are viewing
Speaker 1: a human being. And then also we get this realizations
Speaker 1: subconsciously or consciously that to further connect with this person,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to be vulnerable and then that raises
Speaker 1: anxiety and then we pull away. And I think often
Speaker 1: women women find that confusing. Like I thought he was
Speaker 1: into me. He was into the idea of you liking
Speaker 1: him without asking himself if you're a good fit. And
Speaker 1: I think before we enter any of these situations, we
Speaker 1: have to do that. And I know the activities and
Speaker 1: the practices for that will build self awareness and it
Speaker 1: really is going deeper than what we normally do. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's so well explained, all right, So that is no, no, no,
Speaker 1: But that is so well explained because love bombing is
Speaker 1: such a big thing right now. And I did that
Speaker 1: in my teens massively, Like that's how I spent the
Speaker 1: majority of my teens where I would be interested in
Speaker 1: a girl only to win her over to then retreat
Speaker 1: as exactly like you said, So I can relate to
Speaker 1: that so deeply. How does and generally I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've I've heard a lot of men admit to that,
Speaker 1: or at least men that I've opened relationships with where
Speaker 1: people will say that. I don't know how much women
Speaker 1: do that, Like, I just haven't heard that and I
Speaker 1: don't want to build gender stereotypes or anything. But I guess,
Speaker 1: as the person in the relationship on the receiving end
Speaker 1: of that, how do you know? Because it's somewhat a
Speaker 1: mutual exchange, right, So I'll give an example of what
Speaker 1: I mean, and I want to unravel this with you
Speaker 1: because I think that's very common the amount of friends
Speaker 1: I have that are girls recently that have said that's
Speaker 1: happened to them numerous So what's happening is I'm trying
Speaker 1: to win you over, but you're allowing me to win
Speaker 1: you over. You're also not doing the checking as to
Speaker 1: whether I'm for real or questioning that. So I guess
Speaker 1: what I'm asking is, if you're on the receiving end
Speaker 1: of someone love bombing you and trying to impress you
Speaker 1: and trying to win you over, what do you do
Speaker 1: in order to make sure that you are actually taking
Speaker 1: things slower? Because what ends up happening is you fall
Speaker 1: in love too fast, that person then walks away, and
Speaker 1: then you go, oh, but I thought we had something,
Speaker 1: So how do you avoid that? I think you have
Speaker 1: to be intentional with what you're looking for. Okay, if
Speaker 1: I don't you know, if I don't know you, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna love bombing you based off what I think your
Speaker 1: values are. You know, let's say, oh, I think based
Speaker 1: on the fact that she's wearing a pair of expensive shoes,
Speaker 1: I need to seem like I have a lot of money.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to pull out the Rolex. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pull out the nice car. That's what I think matters
Speaker 1: to her. I don't know, and maybe for her she
Speaker 1: you know, she's looking for the spark, you know, which
Speaker 1: I think is a whole other conversation to itself. I
Speaker 1: think the best thing to do was abandon this idea
Speaker 1: of the spark and instead actually ask yourself what do
Speaker 1: you want in a person? So the activity that I
Speaker 1: was required as to do and my therapy was I
Speaker 1: had to relive my entire love life. I had to
Speaker 1: write it all down, and then when I read it,
Speaker 1: anytime I felt warm or I felt some love, I
Speaker 1: had to highlight it. And that's how I began to
Speaker 1: figure out what I specifically want. I think generically everybody
Speaker 1: kind of wants the same thing. Well, everyone goes like
Speaker 1: good looking, good sense of humor, like everyone says the
Speaker 1: same thing. I literally went on the streets a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, a couple maybe a month ago now,
Speaker 1: and I was asking what are the top three things
Speaker 1: you're looking for look for someone? And they were like
Speaker 1: a nice smile, good sense of humor, and like, I
Speaker 1: was like really, like literally everyone said the same thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, sorry, carry no completely. But and again I'm
Speaker 1: guilty of that as well. But the next question is
Speaker 1: you're you're focused on the details and not the feelings.
Speaker 1: So the next question should be what does a nice
Speaker 1: smile make you feel? What do good looks make you feel?
Speaker 1: What does knowing somebody is rich make you feel? That's
Speaker 1: your that's your actual list, you know, knowing like, oh
Speaker 1: I want him to be rich. Why, well, that's that's
Speaker 1: going to make me feel like I'm secure. You know,
Speaker 1: that makes feel I'm taking care of So what you
Speaker 1: want not someone who's rich, You want someone that you
Speaker 1: know what to take care of you. Now, there can
Speaker 1: be people who may not have the juiciest bank account,
Speaker 1: but their energy, their effort, their determination, you can just
Speaker 1: see it in their eyes, you can see it on
Speaker 1: their day to day activity. You can always put your
Speaker 1: money on that person. They're always going to show up
Speaker 1: that'll give you that'll that'll scratch that same itch. And
Speaker 1: I think when we get very specific with what we
Speaker 1: care about and how it makes us feel now, that
Speaker 1: love bombing just won't work. Yeah, you know, because they're
Speaker 1: going based off of things that they think. They're kind
Speaker 1: of generic. And as I said, like, we have this
Speaker 1: generic idea of what beauty is, you know, but beauty
Speaker 1: isn't that you know, for some person might be watching
Speaker 1: me right now. I think I'm super handsome. Somebody else
Speaker 1: may not. And that's completely okay. Everyone's allowed to have
Speaker 1: their own taste. But the feelings is what we're actually chasing.
Speaker 1: Even when we think about a person of the past
Speaker 1: an X, we don't miss them. We miss the way
Speaker 1: they made us feel. We can carry that feeling forward
Speaker 1: and require that as we get to know somebody. Can
Speaker 1: you establish all those feelings and those markets in a
Speaker 1: first day. No, And I don't think you should. You know,
Speaker 1: I think it is important to be open to people,
Speaker 1: give them about, give them that opportunity and see if
Speaker 1: they can elicit those feelings. And I don't think love
Speaker 1: bombing someone can be clever enough to love bombing you
Speaker 1: through those feelings because love bombing is not going to
Speaker 1: tap into a pathway of love. It's going to tap
Speaker 1: into this fast food version of it, the attention, the validation,
Speaker 1: making you seem like you matter. You know. I read
Speaker 1: one of these posts recently that said, listen, stop bragging
Speaker 1: that you were chosen over somebody else. Most likely you
Speaker 1: were chosen because you have less boundaries. Wow, you know,
Speaker 1: so this isn't a bragworthy thing. And again, our media,
Speaker 1: our songs, all the things, you know, making us seem like,
Speaker 1: you know, we should be competing for each other. All
Speaker 1: of this stuff. It informs what we think matters. You know.
Speaker 1: We have this idea of the night and shining armor
Speaker 1: and the damsel in distress, Like I went deep to
Speaker 1: try to figure out where that that came from real life,
Speaker 1: back in feudal society, is the only social mobility, you know.
Speaker 1: A man had to increase his chances of finding a
Speaker 1: partner was to join the army, you know, because if
Speaker 1: he grew up on a farm, you know, there was
Speaker 1: an access to education or anything. He had to join
Speaker 1: the army potentially come back a hero. And now that
Speaker 1: he's a hero, he will have more more opportunities in
Speaker 1: an arranged mirrorge society as well to choose something. So
Speaker 1: now it's like be chosen and be chased. And I
Speaker 1: think that that that dogging cat situation right now is
Speaker 1: really making us focus on external things, whereas if we're
Speaker 1: grounded and who we are, develop a healthier relationship. Initially,
Speaker 1: it's going to close us off to a lot of
Speaker 1: people who aren't on this journey of self awareness, but
Speaker 1: in the long run, it'll allow us to be that
Speaker 1: very minority now who stay in healthy relationships throughout their life. Wow. Man,
Speaker 1: if you're listening right now or watching, I'm talking to
Speaker 1: Humble the Poet. The book is called How to Be
Speaker 1: Loved by Humble the Poet. Simple Truths for going easier
Speaker 1: on yourself, embracing imperfection, and loving your way to a
Speaker 1: better life. Make sure you go and order a copy
Speaker 1: while you're listening. This conversation is blowing my mind. It
Speaker 1: better be blowing yours too. And I think there's just
Speaker 1: so many, you know, huge insights that I'm taking away
Speaker 1: from you listening to you today, because ultimately you're demanding
Speaker 1: a sense of vigilance from a person. I think we're
Speaker 1: all still living in that very basic sense of I
Speaker 1: just want to be validated. I want to be complimented.
Speaker 1: I want to be appreciated. So as long as someone's
Speaker 1: doing that, we must be in love. They must be kind,
Speaker 1: they must be nice. And that's too shallow, like it's
Speaker 1: it's not a healthy way of inferring whether someone feels
Speaker 1: good about you. And it's funny because it can be
Speaker 1: really intoxicating, Like it can be really intoxicating that you
Speaker 1: lose all sight of reality and you think, well, this
Speaker 1: must be love or this must be the truth. I guess,
Speaker 1: how do people slow down the idea of falling in
Speaker 1: love when, like you said, it's sold is so important
Speaker 1: and special and we're so desperate for it almost right,
Speaker 1: like we're wired to just want it now? How do
Speaker 1: you kind of take your time, as you're saying? And
Speaker 1: I read a study that said it takes two hundred
Speaker 1: hours to get to know someone, And when I saw
Speaker 1: that number, I thought, well, how many people in my
Speaker 1: adult life have I spent two hundred hours with? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I was thinking, not many people have I spent
Speaker 1: two hundred hours. I don't even think we have two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. I don't think so either, And so you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you start thinking about that, you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: and we're all trying to fall in love and like
Speaker 1: two months. I think the study said that men say
Speaker 1: I love you after like three months and women take
Speaker 1: maybe four to six months to say I love you.
Speaker 1: But that's quick, yea. So how do you kind of
Speaker 1: slow this process down? And what do you do in
Speaker 1: that slowness because as me and you know, this isn't
Speaker 1: just about how many months you've been together. It's more
Speaker 1: than that completely. I think the big realization that I
Speaker 1: have is chasing the delicious. Well, we'll never bring you
Speaker 1: around the nutritious, and I think you know, and that's
Speaker 1: really what this is. So when when you say that,
Speaker 1: you know, the validation is addicting. It is. It's it's
Speaker 1: salty French fries and you can't just have one. But
Speaker 1: you do this long enough, you're gonna feel like crap,
Speaker 1: you know. And now if you've been eating French fries
Speaker 1: all day and now here here's a plateful of broccoli,
Speaker 1: it's going to be an adjustment. And that's what I'm
Speaker 1: saying here. You have to establish a healthy relationship with
Speaker 1: yourself or you will be incapable of having a healthy
Speaker 1: relationship with anybody else. I had a friend yesterday. Tell me,
Speaker 1: if I break up with my boyfriend and he doesn't
Speaker 1: call me nine times panicking, then he doesn't love me
Speaker 1: because he's not fighting for me. I'm like, first off,
Speaker 1: he's not fighting for you. You know. The only reason
Speaker 1: he's calling you nine time because he is super anxious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's he's trying to suppress anxiety. There's not There's no
Speaker 1: love in this conversation at all. And what we have
Speaker 1: to understand is we have again the Bobby's in Whitneys,
Speaker 1: the Ross's and Rachel's, all of these things that we see,
Speaker 1: you know, even are including our parents. You know, our
Speaker 1: first models of love were those who raised us, and
Speaker 1: they were imperfect beings, you know, And now we often
Speaker 1: find ourselves attracted to what's familiar over what's actually healthy,
Speaker 1: you know. And if your parents, if your mom or
Speaker 1: your father was hard to impress, you're gonna find yourself
Speaker 1: being gravitated towards somebody who's hard to impress, you know,
Speaker 1: if you were a caregiver in the house and you
Speaker 1: want someone that you can take care of. And again,
Speaker 1: it's building this awareness, it's understanding that I can keep
Speaker 1: doing this again. I can keep eating fast food every
Speaker 1: single day and it'll feel like sustenance. But it will
Speaker 1: take a toll on me, and all of this stuff
Speaker 1: will exhaust us, you know, versus taking the long route,
Speaker 1: which is, Hey, I need to establish my relationship with myself.
Speaker 1: I need to actually have a clear definition of what
Speaker 1: I want and a partner. And the deeper I go
Speaker 1: with that, the more unique it is. That I I shouldn't
Speaker 1: be in a room full of five people and we
Speaker 1: all have the exact same wish list for a dream partner.
Speaker 1: It should be very specific, based off our experiences, based
Speaker 1: off what we care about, and based off where we're
Speaker 1: headed in our lives. One of the analogies I use,
Speaker 1: especially for my last relationship that didn't work, is I
Speaker 1: don't have a bad thing to say about that person,
Speaker 1: but we weren't going where I needed to go in
Speaker 1: that relationship. And it's like if I got to go
Speaker 1: to Boston and there's a beautiful private jet going to Hawaii,
Speaker 1: I can't get on that jet. You know. If there's
Speaker 1: another amazing limo going to Florida, I can't get on that.
Speaker 1: If the only the only vehicle going to Boston. Is
Speaker 1: that bike. I have to get on the bike. But
Speaker 1: the first question is do I know where I'm going
Speaker 1: or where I want to go? And I think for
Speaker 1: everybody right now, if you feel alone, you cannot outsource that,
Speaker 1: you cannot address that on the outside. And now we
Speaker 1: do live in a world where Okay, you make the
Speaker 1: decision to get someone else to make you feel less lonely.
Speaker 1: You build a life together, you share a mortgage together,
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of kids together, and now you're
Speaker 1: just in that world. And then you know you're doing
Speaker 1: external things to medicate from that as well. And the
Speaker 1: challenge with that is, as this modern life gets more
Speaker 1: and more convenient, most of the things that we use
Speaker 1: to medicate ourselves turn into weapons against us as well.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a lot easier to get access to alcohol,
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to get access to any substances
Speaker 1: or drunk food which are quick, easy, convenient, and cheap.
Speaker 1: So instead, let's focus on what's nutritious. And we all,
Speaker 1: everybody listening knows what's nutritious for them. They know that
Speaker 1: people when they're around that fill them up with energy
Speaker 1: instead of the people that they're around that drain them.
Speaker 1: They know the places, they know the activities, we're all
Speaker 1: aware of those. It's taking the long road because the
Speaker 1: long route lasts longer. You know, it takes longer to
Speaker 1: get there, but it'll last longer. And these short bits
Speaker 1: of like I just need to feel like I matter
Speaker 1: to somebody because my entire life I didn't feel like it.
Speaker 1: That has to get addressed, and that has to get
Speaker 1: addressed through journal writing, potentially therapy, potentially coaching. But and
Speaker 1: all of that is getting us out of black and
Speaker 1: white thinking and encouraging us to be more self aware.
Speaker 1: What I'm hearing is like, there's a big difference between
Speaker 1: people that feel good for us and then people that
Speaker 1: are good for us. And we're so addicted and obsessed
Speaker 1: with what feels good that we're not able to focus
Speaker 1: on what is good because we're almost compelled to be like, well,
Speaker 1: this person feels great, they look great, they sound great,
Speaker 1: my friends think they're great, my parents think they're awesome.
Speaker 1: The world thinks really highly of them. They must be
Speaker 1: the right person. Rather than what you're saying, and all
Speaker 1: all I keep hearing and everything you're saying is like
Speaker 1: there is just so much work to do individually and
Speaker 1: personally and simultaneously in being in a relationship. There's just
Speaker 1: so much reflection. There's reflecting on the way your parents
Speaker 1: loved you. There's reflecting on your axes. There's reflect which
Speaker 1: is what you've been doing through this whole book journey.
Speaker 1: There's reflecting on like how you got here. There's reflecting
Speaker 1: on where you're going. Like, there's just so much reflection
Speaker 1: and introspection required, and most people just want to throw
Speaker 1: the towel in because it's exhausting. It can be hard,
Speaker 1: But I guess what we both agree on is that
Speaker 1: it's a hard lot harder to not do the work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the pain of the work or the pain of
Speaker 1: the regret. You know, it's one or the other. And
Speaker 1: I think also, you know, the subtitle says going easier
Speaker 1: on yourself. Look, nobody is weak. You know. If I
Speaker 1: open up a bag of salty potato chips and I
Speaker 1: give you one and you want, you're not weak from
Speaker 1: wanting another one, you know. And for people who eat
Speaker 1: really healthy, they understand that that's not having unhealthy food
Speaker 1: in the kitchen, that's leaving it at the grocery store,
Speaker 1: you know, And you do that long enough, you can
Speaker 1: start to change your taste. And you know, personal story,
Speaker 1: you showed me your snack drawer and you've pointed to
Speaker 1: a bunch of things that were delicious, and after trying
Speaker 1: them's like, oh, this is all super healthy. His definition
Speaker 1: of delicious is way healthier than yeah. And I've seen
Speaker 1: that before because we can actually change our taste. You know. Addiction.
Speaker 1: We all have addictions, you know, and there's to go
Speaker 1: from a bad place to a better place, we have
Speaker 1: to travel through a worse place. And the multiple addictions
Speaker 1: we have, whether' addicted to our person, whether we're addicted
Speaker 1: to social media, all of it falls under the exact
Speaker 1: same category of unintended rewards. I scroll through my phone,
Speaker 1: see a bunch of stuff that makes me feel insecure,
Speaker 1: See a bunch of news that heightens my anxiety. Oh,
Speaker 1: look at cute Puffy. It was all worth it. You know.
Speaker 1: That's no different than gambling on a slot machine. You
Speaker 1: just keep pulling it and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: reward comes. That's no different than being in an abusive relationship.
Speaker 1: The bad days are really bad, but the good days,
Speaker 1: we don't know where they're coming, but they feel euphoric
Speaker 1: and getting ourselves out of that. I think it's really important.
Speaker 1: It's like, if I'm like, oh, I'm in the mood
Speaker 1: to have to go to this fast food restaurant, I'm
Speaker 1: so in the mood, I go, I eat it. How
Speaker 1: long does the satisfaction from that actually last? And also
Speaker 1: when things feel good, they're not. You know, our roller
Speaker 1: coaster isn't going super high and super low, so it's
Speaker 1: hard to even pay attention to that. How you know,
Speaker 1: we don't notice when we're not feeling anxiety because it's
Speaker 1: not a feeling. And I think we have to really
Speaker 1: be mindful of that because we're not in a world
Speaker 1: that is designed or encouraging us to make these healthy decisions,
Speaker 1: because this world just needs us to run on fumes.
Speaker 1: Contribute to its economy. Work work, work, work, work, keep
Speaker 1: up with everybody else. If you're sleepy, have some caffeine.
Speaker 1: If you're too hyped up, have a xanax. Take them
Speaker 1: both different times. And it's like this contribute and being
Speaker 1: aware of ourselves means we would find a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, we'll realize and the Reason to Cover says
Speaker 1: how to be loved with a D in parentheses is
Speaker 1: the only way to realize love is to be love,
Speaker 1: is to realize you're the source of love. And when
Speaker 1: you're the source of love, you're not going to be
Speaker 1: going out and doing retail therapy. When you're the source
Speaker 1: of love, you're not going to be, you know, traveling
Speaker 1: halfway across the city to take an Instagram photo account
Speaker 1: your likes. When you realize you're a source of love
Speaker 1: and that you can give it to everybody, and it's
Speaker 1: a gift, it's not alone. You're not giving it hoping
Speaker 1: it comes back. You're giving it because you're overflowing with it,
Speaker 1: the same way you would give it to a baby.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be reciprocated. The more we realize that,
Speaker 1: the less we need it from the outside world. And
Speaker 1: as I said, nothing is designed around that. We just
Speaker 1: have to again, keep this junk food out of our kitchen,
Speaker 1: keep it out of our homes, and not be hard
Speaker 1: or critical on ourselves when we falter or when we
Speaker 1: have a bad day. The last chapter of this book,
Speaker 1: I specifically say, I am all I'm doing. I am
Speaker 1: not a love guru. I'm a kid who I am
Speaker 1: somebody who's despinitely trying to understand this because I've made
Speaker 1: mistakes in my life. I'm the kid at the front
Speaker 1: of the class taking notes and at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, all I'm telling you is a difference between
Speaker 1: French fries and broccoli. And while I'm telling you the difference,
Speaker 1: I'm eating some French fries when I'm eating some broccolis,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's important, I think, and for you
Speaker 1: and I we both noticed being in being embraced in
Speaker 1: the wellness community, you know. Over on this side of
Speaker 1: the ocean, everything's very linear. It's like, hey, I used
Speaker 1: to be really messed up, and then I learned all
Speaker 1: this stuff and now I'm awesome. If it's three payments
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety five, you could be awesome too. And
Speaker 1: I think for guys like us, we're more in the cycle,
Speaker 1: and like, hey, I'm messed up. I figured out what
Speaker 1: the problem was. I learned some stuff. I'm sharing what
Speaker 1: i'm learning. I'm still struggling with stuff, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to continue this journey and it's a cycle. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have my winter, spring, summer, and fall, and that's going
Speaker 1: to be a constant thing and I'll be constantly working
Speaker 1: on it. Joined me on that journey, and let's compare notes,
Speaker 1: let's compare best practices, and let's realize that we're not
Speaker 1: because we're critical when we think we're the only one
Speaker 1: unrelated to love. I remember finding, you know, finding an
Speaker 1: accountant and having so much anxiety because I was an
Speaker 1: artist for so long and didn't do any taxes or anything.
Speaker 1: You know. He helped me out in an hour, and
Speaker 1: it told someone that story realizing that they had the
Speaker 1: same anxiety, and told someone else and they had that exist.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of anxiety that people have and they
Speaker 1: feel shame and guilt that they're the only ones going
Speaker 1: through it. And I think the more we reveal this stuff,
Speaker 1: the more we have these conversations openly, you know, it
Speaker 1: may not get us a lot of likes on Instagram,
Speaker 1: and it may scare away some people who want who
Speaker 1: have an idea of who they think we are. And
Speaker 1: and for me, one of the biggest lessons I learned
Speaker 1: in the last year was more damaging than any criticism
Speaker 1: I've ever received with the compliments, because the compliments put
Speaker 1: me in a cage. It was one friend that said, yo,
Speaker 1: humble nothing ever bothers as this guy it's always cool,
Speaker 1: he's always calm, and then I want to live up
Speaker 1: to that, and I almost crumbled with that facade. Wow,
Speaker 1: you know, and that became Reputations themselves can become a prison.
Speaker 1: So we need to do our best to break out
Speaker 1: of those, knowing that half the time, those reputations we
Speaker 1: create were there to protect us and we don't realize
Speaker 1: now they're imprisoning us. I mean, that's a whole another
Speaker 1: level of Yeah, No, it's so true. It's so true.
Speaker 1: I you know, I was just in the studio recording
Speaker 1: my Calm Meditations. So we once a month, I'm in
Speaker 1: the studio of like four or five days a week,
Speaker 1: four or five hours at a time to do a
Speaker 1: month of content for my daily meditations on Calm. And
Speaker 1: me and the crew have a really good like banter.
Speaker 1: So there's a producer in the studio, there's a sound
Speaker 1: engineer in the studio, and there's two sound engineers remote.
Speaker 1: But it's the same team we work with every month,
Speaker 1: and I've worked with them for twelve months now nearly,
Speaker 1: and it's we have such great banter and all we
Speaker 1: do is lay into each other. We're joking around and
Speaker 1: then I'm teaching meditation at the same time, and I
Speaker 1: kind of set that culture from the beginning, where I
Speaker 1: was joking around with everyone, messing around with everyone for
Speaker 1: that same reason that I don't want to be perceived
Speaker 1: as a guru. And I'll often go out my way
Speaker 1: to talk about soccer or FIFA or whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: just because and I love soccer and FIFA, like that's
Speaker 1: a real genuine love for me. But I'll do that
Speaker 1: in order to get away from this kind of pedestal,
Speaker 1: because what I've realized is everyone's a theist. Like everyone's
Speaker 1: looking for God in their own way, whether your God
Speaker 1: is your football team or whether your God is your
Speaker 1: favorite restaurant, or your God is person, and so everyone's
Speaker 1: looking for God in some way or the other. And
Speaker 1: we keep projecting godlike imagery onto people, and then they
Speaker 1: let us down, and everyone will let you down. There
Speaker 1: isn't anyone who live up to that godlike imagery, and
Speaker 1: then we almost make it like it's a fault in them,
Speaker 1: as opposed to realizing that it was a fault in
Speaker 1: a vision that someone could be that way. It's hard
Speaker 1: to feel that pressure on yourself, like what you're saying,
Speaker 1: like if humbles always the calm, collected guy, that's like
Speaker 1: a godlike projection. None of us are always calm. I'm
Speaker 1: definitely not always calm. I'm definitely not always you know,
Speaker 1: thoughtful and reflective. I can be irritable and irritated. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that idea of breaking your own reputation for yourself,
Speaker 1: and I think just the reminder that it will not
Speaker 1: disqualify you from love. There is a four minute compilation
Speaker 1: video on YouTube of Beyonce falling off stage, and I
Speaker 1: challenge anyone to watch it and think if it changes
Speaker 1: their love for her in any capacity. It doesn't anything,
Speaker 1: it increases it. And and again, going back to our
Speaker 1: our village, small tribe days, this was this is also
Speaker 1: a survival tactic. It's you had to find the best
Speaker 1: hunter and start to emulate them and almost worship them,
Speaker 1: because you would hunt like them, and that would be
Speaker 1: good for the whole tribe. But not only when we
Speaker 1: start hunting like them, we would start dressing like them,
Speaker 1: walking like them, talking like them, you know, And that's
Speaker 1: built into our culture where it's like I love the
Speaker 1: way Lebron James plays basketball. I love the way Steph
Speaker 1: Curry plays basketball, but now I'm also going to drink
Speaker 1: whatever beverage he drinks. I'm also going to wear the
Speaker 1: shoes he wears. And then also they're encouraged to not
Speaker 1: film their practice and just let us see them become
Speaker 1: superhuman on stage in front of us. We don't watch
Speaker 1: them to be good, we watched them to get better.
Speaker 1: So this also puts in this message that perfection is
Speaker 1: something that you want, but again, perfection is not real.
Speaker 1: These people aren't perfect. I'm not perfect, You're not perfect,
Speaker 1: And that's important for us not to be perfect because
Speaker 1: that's the only way we can actually be vulnerable and
Speaker 1: have these meaningful connections and knowing, you know, And it's
Speaker 1: having these conversations, especially having conversations with people who are
Speaker 1: on social media that don't even have they're not even
Speaker 1: public figures, and they still refer to the people like
Speaker 1: the people need, the people want to see where I'm
Speaker 1: going on vacations, and you're like, who is the people?
Speaker 1: The big and the big thing I've been thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, recently, is this concept of again getting out
Speaker 1: of the black and white thinking. You know, there are
Speaker 1: rewards and punishments society and social media and your friends
Speaker 1: groups will reward certain behavior, and it can be subtle,
Speaker 1: and you can see that your parents growing up, they
Speaker 1: reward a certain behavior. We have to realize that not
Speaker 1: receiving a reward, it's not the same as the punishment.
Speaker 1: You know, someone people say, society expects me to be beautiful.
Speaker 1: You may be right. I'm not going to argue with
Speaker 1: that society. I can't tell someone what signals and cues
Speaker 1: they get. But what I can tell you is if
Speaker 1: you decide not to play the game, you won't be punished.
Speaker 1: If anything, you'll be left alone. You know. If I
Speaker 1: don't play social media the way it needs to get played,
Speaker 1: I may not grow. But they're not going to blow
Speaker 1: up my phone, you know, and you know and make
Speaker 1: it impossible for me to exist. I just may not
Speaker 1: get any more rewards. And I think that's important to
Speaker 1: understand that not getting a reward is not a punishment.
Speaker 1: Let's get out of that black and white thinking, and
Speaker 1: then again we can be a little bit easier on ourselves,
Speaker 1: a little bit more liberated, because maintaining these expectations expectations
Speaker 1: are going to only close more pathways to love, Expectations
Speaker 1: from other people, expectations of ourselves. What we have to
Speaker 1: do is just have intentions, which is I want to
Speaker 1: get better every day, you know, and that progress is
Speaker 1: something that we can celebrate each self respect and we
Speaker 1: can also do that with other people. We can the
Speaker 1: intentions of what we want things to be, and those
Speaker 1: intentions will also include our boundaries. Oh man, So powerful
Speaker 1: want to I want to talk about We've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about like finding love within yourself, you know, being alone,
Speaker 1: finding that inner growth, that confidence. We've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about meeting the right person. How do you know whether
Speaker 1: the figure are out, is someone's right for you? Knowing
Speaker 1: what you want in someone I'm intrigued by. You know,
Speaker 1: when we have been in a relationship for a long time,
Speaker 1: and you were in a long relationship that inspired you
Speaker 1: to write this book, and you find, as you said,
Speaker 1: you're going those separate ways that you want to get
Speaker 1: to Boston, private jet, going to Hawaii. Sometimes we spend
Speaker 1: longer in a relationship trying to figure out whether it's
Speaker 1: going to last then we do in actually building it
Speaker 1: making it last. So we're questioning a relationship for longer
Speaker 1: than we're creating a relationship. So if someone's in that
Speaker 1: phase of their life. What are some of the things
Speaker 1: that you thought about, What are some of the things
Speaker 1: you discovered the writing of this book that you'd encourage
Speaker 1: them to reflect on our introspect on without playing the
Speaker 1: blame game. Let's always focus on where we can take responsibility,
Speaker 1: because that's where we'll have power in any situation. You know,
Speaker 1: if somebody rear ends my car, that's not my fault,
Speaker 1: but it's still my responsibility. I gotta go to the mechanic,
Speaker 1: I gotta go handle insurance. And I think in our
Speaker 1: conflicts with people, we have to look at our responsibilities
Speaker 1: as well. And I think that's super important in these situations.
Speaker 1: When we look at our responsibility, what we can start
Speaker 1: to focus on is love as the verb love through service.
Speaker 1: One of the simple things that I realized was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: when I feel enthusiastic about somebody, I want to share
Speaker 1: my world with them. That doesn't build a connection as
Speaker 1: much as me enthusiastically diving into their world. So true, man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this doesn't just apply to romantic relationships. This can
Speaker 1: be you and your grandkids, This can be you and
Speaker 1: your siblings, This can be you and a co worker.
Speaker 1: You know, these relationships. We make them about ourselves because
Speaker 1: we want to find that value. But we'll gain more
Speaker 1: value and build stronger connections when we dive into the
Speaker 1: other person's world and start to see that. Now, for
Speaker 1: some people, communication, I think, you know, communication is key.
Speaker 1: You know, everything needs to be a conversation. We need
Speaker 1: to become more aware of a couple as well about
Speaker 1: what we have expectations of, because so often it's a
Speaker 1: template having a conversation with somebody yesterday. Even like the
Speaker 1: definition of things, what's the definition of cheating? Everyone has
Speaker 1: different definitions, you know. And if somebody's like, oh way,
Speaker 1: well it's physical, but then somebody else might be emotional,
Speaker 1: you know, and that is something that you know, these
Speaker 1: are uncomfortable conversations need to happen for folks like us.
Speaker 1: We grew up around arranged marriages, and I think the
Speaker 1: one thing that I always thought was cool about arranged
Speaker 1: marriages is they ask a lot of the inconvenient, uncomfortable questions.
Speaker 1: They asked those up from the jump, you know, family history,
Speaker 1: medical history, finances, all of this type of stuff. But
Speaker 1: I think all these uncomfortable conversations which we think, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll just kind of fall into place. Jordan Peterson talks
Speaker 1: about this. He goes, have a definition of what a
Speaker 1: made bed looks like, have a definition of what you know,
Speaker 1: the rules are at the breakfast table, you know, including yourself,
Speaker 1: recognizing the micro issues that can become bigger issues, and
Speaker 1: you address them. You nip them at the butt, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think those are really interesting things to do.
Speaker 1: I love the Shirley Glass analogy too, which is walls
Speaker 1: and windows, which is when you're in a romantic relationship
Speaker 1: with somebody, there is a window between you. So first
Speaker 1: acknowledge there's a window. So now let's not look at
Speaker 1: the other person as our possession. Let's look at them
Speaker 1: as someone who's opened a window to us and we
Speaker 1: have access to them, and then we need to create
Speaker 1: a wall around us because the moment somebody outside gets
Speaker 1: a better view what's happening on the inside, that can
Speaker 1: be a really strong definition of infidelity, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's physical or not. But I think that's a really
Speaker 1: important thing to understand. This is not your person, This
Speaker 1: is somebody who's giving you access to them, and now
Speaker 1: you can continually strengthen that relationship. And I think the
Speaker 1: other one is love is a game, but the goal
Speaker 1: of the game is not to win. The goal of
Speaker 1: the game is to keep it fun, so everybody keeps
Speaker 1: wanting to play. So treat it like a game, but
Speaker 1: treat it where the goal is for every You want
Speaker 1: to keep everybody in the room wanting to play. And
Speaker 1: I think that's important because when we get into battles
Speaker 1: or disagreements, the disagreements turn into something else very quickly.
Speaker 1: And there's something called the bagel method or donut method,
Speaker 1: depending on what you like better. And you have the
Speaker 1: small circle, you have the big circle. Whenever there's a disagreement,
Speaker 1: the small circle is where you should identify and this
Speaker 1: is from the Godman Institute. I'm not taking credit for
Speaker 1: this one, but the small circle is where you identify
Speaker 1: your non your actual non negotiables. Me and you're gonna
Speaker 1: go to dinner, what are the actual non negotiables? You're vegan.
Speaker 1: That's an actual non negotiable. Now all that everything else
Speaker 1: becomes a lot clearer, or there might be three or
Speaker 1: four more things that maybe hide Mexican yesterday, so today
Speaker 1: we're not We're not going for Mexican. Don't want to
Speaker 1: have carbs, so I don't want to do pasta or
Speaker 1: what have you? Doing? That for yourself first prepares you
Speaker 1: to communicate to somebody else, and I think that's really important.
Speaker 1: So often we expect people to just know us, just
Speaker 1: understand us, read our minds. Through all we've been talking
Speaker 1: about a self awareness and it's an endless journey. We
Speaker 1: don't even know us. I don't know me. How can
Speaker 1: I expect you to know me? And then when you
Speaker 1: do know me through your observations of me, externally recognize
Speaker 1: that you're on my team and you're telling me these
Speaker 1: things for the benefit of us. When there's a problem,
Speaker 1: it should not be me versus the other person, It
Speaker 1: should be us versus a problem. And the big idea
Speaker 1: and explaining all of this is realizing that love is fuel,
Speaker 1: not glue. Love doesn't keep us together. Love is what
Speaker 1: we use to work at it. And this applies to
Speaker 1: romantic relationships, our relationships, our co workers, our friends, our family.
Speaker 1: We have to work at it. We sometimes feel like
Speaker 1: it's autopilot because especially I know Brown boys and their moms,
Speaker 1: we get this unconditional love just for existing. That can't
Speaker 1: be what we're looking for in our romantic relationships. There
Speaker 1: needs to be conditions, and then we need to stay.
Speaker 1: We need to be on our toes, putting in energy
Speaker 1: and effort, you know, and I think that's really important.
Speaker 1: Where you know, back to what I've learned from you
Speaker 1: through the Githa, you were only entitled to the labor,
Speaker 1: and that labor in itself should be the reward, not
Speaker 1: the outcome of that labor. And in these relationships, saying
Speaker 1: I love you and I want to serve you, and
Speaker 1: serving you is the point of revealing. And this is
Speaker 1: where the love is revealed. You know, love is going
Speaker 1: back to the original. You don't win love, you don't
Speaker 1: find love. The love is already there. You're doing the word.
Speaker 1: So the analogy I like to use as love as
Speaker 1: the breeze. And the work that we're doing is to
Speaker 1: open ourselves. You know, I struggled in my last situation
Speaker 1: because I could not receive love. It wasn't that there
Speaker 1: wasn't love there. It was my inability to open my
Speaker 1: sales because of the walls, the lack of vulnerability. Might
Speaker 1: need to win in an argument, might need to be
Speaker 1: in control, my silly ideas, there might be something better
Speaker 1: out there. All these ideas, I realized that it was me.
Speaker 1: I had my door closed, I had my sales closed
Speaker 1: to the breeze that was always there. When we do
Speaker 1: that work, and that, by default, will create a better
Speaker 1: relationship with ourselves, which will inform every single relationship we
Speaker 1: have around us. Master class, Man, Master Class. I want
Speaker 1: everyone to know when you open up this book, because
Speaker 1: you're going to order it straight after this conversation if
Speaker 1: you haven't already, there are chapters in there that will
Speaker 1: blow your mind. I want to share some of them
Speaker 1: with you. We've talked about a lot of them today,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot we have not talked about. So
Speaker 1: we have. We discussed this one, we did not talk
Speaker 1: about Love and ego won't hold hands. Definitely going to
Speaker 1: read that chapter. Chapter nineteen, Envy pulls us away from love.
Speaker 1: I definitely want you to go and check out that chapter.
Speaker 1: This one is one that really struck out to me.
Speaker 1: They can only love us for yesterday. Love is saying no.
Speaker 1: There are some phenomenal chapters in this book. I highly
Speaker 1: recommend it. The book is called How to Be Love.
Speaker 1: The Simple Truths for going easier on yourself, embracing imperfection,
Speaker 1: and loving your way to a better life. Humble. This
Speaker 1: has been I mean, we should record our conversations more
Speaker 1: often because I'm like, this has even been one of
Speaker 1: those like it's been a really fun Like what I
Speaker 1: love doing with you, which we've done today, which we
Speaker 1: do in real life all the time, is we like
Speaker 1: really unpack stuff. We kind of like critically analyze stuff.
Speaker 1: We kind of try and like break down as much
Speaker 1: as we can to try and get to the core
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about. Is there something that I
Speaker 1: haven't asked you about today or that you feel compelled
Speaker 1: to share with our community that's really on your heart
Speaker 1: that you want to pass forward. I mean, as we
Speaker 1: were reading all the chapters, I want people to every
Speaker 1: chapter is only two pages. That's why there's so many chapters,
Speaker 1: just over sixty chapters. And the way we designed the
Speaker 1: book and I would love for you to do it.
Speaker 1: You can open to any page and you will find
Speaker 1: a quote that that stands out immediately that will give
Speaker 1: you that. So what do I say, The more we
Speaker 1: keep our word and act on our commitments, the more
Speaker 1: momentum we create and the better habits we can build.
Speaker 1: And that is talking about self love. So all it
Speaker 1: is is you can open this book, to any page,
Speaker 1: you'll find something you love. If you read that first chapter,
Speaker 1: you know you'll definitely be in tears, as I was
Speaker 1: in tears writing it. And if you finish this book,
Speaker 1: you're gonna walk away and not considering love complicated. You know,
Speaker 1: love is simple, not easy. I'm not saying love is easy,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying love is simple. You know, this was
Speaker 1: a labor of love and a labor too love for
Speaker 1: me to write. And I really really really appreciate you,
Speaker 1: you know, opening me up to your community and all
Speaker 1: the help that you've done for me, even behind the
Speaker 1: scenes with this. You know, it taught me. The journey
Speaker 1: of going through this has taught me a lot in
Speaker 1: terms of service, in terms of authentic love, and super
Speaker 1: grateful for that, and thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: me man. Of course, brother, I highly recommend this book.
Speaker 1: As Humble said, it's one of those rare books that
Speaker 1: you can literally flip to any page and you're going
Speaker 1: to find wisdom right there. And so if you're one
Speaker 1: of those people who needs it made really simple, really
Speaker 1: accessible to kind of shake you up, woke you up,
Speaker 1: you know, take your mind away from distractions. This book
Speaker 1: is beautifully created. For that, I highly recommend this book.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be picking it as one of my
Speaker 1: books of the months for my genius community as well.
Speaker 1: Please please please go support Humble. He's an awesome dude
Speaker 1: as well in real life. Please go follow him on Instagram,
Speaker 1: on Twitter, on all forms of social media, and make
Speaker 1: sure that you tag me and Humble with your insights
Speaker 1: and your takeaways from this episode. I think we've really
Speaker 1: got into some fascinating territory that I didn't even think
Speaker 1: we would and I want to know what your thoughts
Speaker 1: are on that, what your reflections are on that. So
Speaker 1: make sure you tag us both on Instagram with your biggest,
Speaker 1: biggest insights. And I can't wait for you to listen
Speaker 1: to another episode of On Purpose. Big shout out to
Speaker 1: Humble for turning up again. Humble was I mean, I
Speaker 1: want to end with this because you were one of
Speaker 1: the first guests to ever come on the show. You
Speaker 1: were in the first couple of months when we launched,
Speaker 1: and that's really special for me because when we started
Speaker 1: the podcast and when you would have recorded with me,
Speaker 1: the podcast didn't even exist, I don't think, and for
Speaker 1: everyone who believed in me to come on the show
Speaker 1: back then means the world to me. So the credit
Speaker 1: goes back to you, because I mean when you asked me,
Speaker 1: I was like me, well, me on the podcast, and
Speaker 1: it was you know, it filled my heart and yeah,
Speaker 1: it was definitely. You know, there was a little kind
Speaker 1: of a juxtaposition here, like I'm coming to talk to
Speaker 1: my friend, but this is also the biggest podcast in
Speaker 1: the world, and it's like the excitement of talking to Jay,
Speaker 1: but the anxiety around being on the podcast, it's just
Speaker 1: it really tripped me out a lot. And I appreciate,
Speaker 1: as I said, I appreciate you having me, but I'm
Speaker 1: so happy and proud. I think what I want your
Speaker 1: audience to know. It's one of the reasons our conversation
Speaker 1: goes too long. It's because you are so clear and
Speaker 1: purpose driven with what you do, so you don't when
Speaker 1: we La is a city full of dreamers and you
Speaker 1: are you are your your mission based, so you don't
Speaker 1: tell me your ambitions. You tell me your mission. And
Speaker 1: then I watched the mission come to life. And you know,
Speaker 1: with most people, you know, your goals should be clear,
Speaker 1: your strategies can be negotiable, and I think you know
Speaker 1: when you mentioned this podcast or you mentioned a million
Speaker 1: of the other things that you that you're doing. To
Speaker 1: watch you speak about it, to watch it come to
Speaker 1: life and to watch it grow, and to watch it
Speaker 1: become like and everybody's people quote you all the time
Speaker 1: to me, not knowing we know each other. I think
Speaker 1: recently in an episode you mentioned my name, my phone
Speaker 1: blows up and it becomes But it just makes me
Speaker 1: so proud because this is a this is purpose driven,
Speaker 1: but it takes work, and you have an amazing team
Speaker 1: helping you do it, and you're consistent with it, and
Speaker 1: good things happen to people who stick with it. So
Speaker 1: just like congratulation with this, For me, it's being full
Speaker 1: circle being being one of the first episodes and me
Speaker 1: being here now seeing all the changes that you do
Speaker 1: has been. It's just it fills my heart. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: that also lets me know where love exists well, and
Speaker 1: as your friend and also as someone who you know
Speaker 1: doesn't like to falsely glorify and just pump people out
Speaker 1: with the zake of it, because I don't see the
Speaker 1: value in that in the same way as I don't
Speaker 1: see the value in criticizing people for no reason. You
Speaker 1: crush to them, man, like everything that you shared. There
Speaker 1: was so many great messages and I honestly haven't like
Speaker 1: thought this fast and reflected on so many things this
Speaker 1: much in a long time. And so you have this
Speaker 1: unique ability to get me in the zone really quickly too.
Speaker 1: And I value that friendship so much. Man, it's such
Speaker 1: a rare intellectual pleasure and joy as well. No, it's
Speaker 1: always fun, man. I wish you know. I'm glad this
Speaker 1: is recorded. It. I don't need to know Pad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well everyone else gonna need to know, Pad. But thank you,
Speaker 1: humble again. Everyone in the book is called How to
Speaker 1: Be Love. Go and grab your copy right now. And
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening to this episode.