952 Glennon Doyle: Live Untamed and Unapologetic In Business and Life

“Be what you were before the world told you what to be.”QUESTIONSWhat’s the thing you are the least proud of and most proud of in your relationships? (10:02)What’s the biggest challenge with untaming things? (19:22)How do you reflect on attraction in your prior relationship? (24:13)When looking back, would you choose to forgive others faster if you could? (31:21)How do those with relationships that are good get to great? (39:38)What are your greatest hopes for your children? (45:37)What do you admire the most about yourself? (53:32)What advice would you give to any kind of family during quarantine? (1:01:01YOU WILL LEARNHow to undo the social programming and social conditioning of putting others’ needs before your own (6:31)How we give permissions to traits that have been traditionally gendered (19:31)How giving yourself permission helps others to give permission (30:12)How women with ambition have had to overcome fear (40:41)Why telling the truth about who we are is important (47:12)Why not letting hate into your life is powerful (50:19)How blended family quarantine is working for Glennon (55:06)LINKS MENTIONEDUntamedLove WarriorWalt WhitmanIf you enjoyed this episode, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/952 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 952 with number one New York Times bestselling author Glennon Doyle. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams." And Shonda Rhimes said, "You can waste your lives drawing lines, or you can live your life crossing them." I am so excited about this episode. One, because I met Glennon during a time of deep emotional challenge in my life where I revealed for the first time about being sexually abused as a young boy. And Glennon guided me in crossing over that line and revealing something that was really scary, that was really challenging to talk about, and something that I've been holding inside for 25 years.

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  And she has a new book that is going to rock your socks. Glennon Doyle is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Untamed, which is a Reese's Book Club selection, and Love Warrior, an Oprah's Book Club selection, as well as the New York Times bestseller, Carry On Warrior. She's an activist and thought leader, and Glennon is the founder and president of Together Rising, an all-women-led nonprofit organization that has revolutionized grassroots philanthropy, raising over $25 million for women, families, and children in crisis. She lives in Florida with her wife and her three children.

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  And in this episode, Glennon talks about her definition of motherhood and letting go of shame as mothers.

• 2:08Lewis Howes?

  When Glennon came out to the world about her love for her now wife and how she handled her divorce and raising her children during a book tour. We talk about truth, grace, and forgiveness in personal relationships and marriage, how this can be so challenging at times, and how to do it. We discuss the importance of collaboration over competition in your business. Glennon breaks down the definition of confidence and how you can truly embrace it in every area of your life. Why it's not just important who you surround yourself with, but also what you surround yourself with to have true peace in your life. And she gives her top advice for families in quarantine right now. That and so much

• 2:49Lewis Howes?

  more. I am so excited for you to listen to this episode. If you feel moved and inspired in any way, make sure to share this with one friend today. LewisHowes.com/952. Or you can just copy and paste the link over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this podcast and share it with a friend. You have the power to change someone's life. Make sure to share it if you think of anyone who you think could be useful in listening to this episode. And make sure to tag Glennon as well over on Instagram and Twitter when you're posting this on social media. All right. I'm so excited about this. So without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one, the only Glennon Doyle.

• 3:36Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We have the lovely Glennon Doyle in the house. I'm so grateful you're here. Thank you.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Thrilled to be here. Well, to be here.

• 3:45Lewis Howes?

  I know. I'm so bummed because I wanted to do this in person, but we, we had to postpone it. And then I was like, well, I want to wait to do it in person. I don't want to do this, this video conferencing stuff. I want to see you. I want to give you a hug, which I don't even know if I'm allowed to hug anyone in the future. I saw something come out this morning and said there, there, there's the person who's like the virus expert is saying that we should never shake hands again. And I'm just like, as an affectionate human being, I don't understand that personally. You can't hug someone. You can't shake their hand. I don't know.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  No. And I feel like that's catastrophic thinking too for me. I can't go there. I'm just, I can barely make it to dinner with these children. Right? I have just one freaking hour at a time. And then we'll deal with the after, the next life after this.

• 4:34Lewis Howes?

  Well, you've had a crazy journey over the last lifetime, but over the last four years specifically, since I've seen you last and you've written a number of books. We were talking about this beforehand that you said this is probably the the last book you need to write. I'm sure you'll write many more because you're too talented of a writer not to write more. Um, but I was reading something that really blew me away when I was reading part of this. And I just want to read a couple of things to to set the context. You said mothers have been muttering themselves and their children's names since the beginning of time. We have been trained to prove our love by uh, ceasing to exist.

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  Proving our love by ceasing to exist. I was like, I started, I started opening my mouth and just like highlighting this and starting. And I was like, this is like something every mother needs to hear that line. And I watched my mom do this for thirty years. And being a marriage where she felt voiceless, where she felt unseen, unheard. And I eventually saw my father transform and go through his own emotional intelligence training and start to change. But I think with the tools that they had, there was very limited options for her or seeming limited options. And I feel like there's millions of women who probably have felt that way or feel that way right now. And you're saying we don't need to prove our love by ceasing to exist.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  No, because it's just such a terrible legacy to pass on, right? I mean, I, um, the reason that story is in the book is because I was in a bad marriage to a good man.

• 6:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Um, and that's a tricky place to be for a woman because we are taught

• 6:15Lewis Howes?

  Really hard. And you have kids, you're, you feel

• 6:18Speaker 01

  And we're supposed to be grateful for good enough. I mean, I had a good enough life. I had a good enough marriage. I had the kind of marriage that women are trained to be grateful for, right?

• 6:26Lewis Howes?

  Which is what? Why? How is it? How is it good?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Because, I mean, well, as you know, from Love Warrior, there was a lot of infidelity that I didn't know about. But, but also Craig isn't, wasn't, is a fantastic father. Like the, the, there's no kinder person. Just he's just wonderful in so many ways and And still, in that marriage, I was full of rage. I didn't act like it on the outside, but I was just this like low level river of rage all the time. And I just

• 7:02Lewis Howes?

  Boiling up, just like

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Just right under the surface, like a dormant volcano, just ready to Just like, I'm fine, I'm fine.

• 7:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Um, and I had this longing, you know, for a deeper, truer love that I couldn't let myself admit. And, um, and then, as you know, I met Abby and fell madly in love.

• 7:27Lewis Howes?

  And she was at a

• 7:28Speaker 01

  But I almost didn't

• 7:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right?

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I almost didn't, um, follow my heart with Abby because I was trained to believe that a good mother does not hurt her children. Right? So one day I was braiding my middle daughter's hair and I just looked at her and I thought, oh my God, I am staying in this marriage for her, but would I want this marriage for her?

• 7:58Lewis Howes?

  Oh, you wouldn't. If your daughter came to you 20 years later and said, this is what I'm going through, Mom, you would ferociously say, do not do this, get out, right?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Right. So I was So I was, um, modeling bad love and calling that good mother.

• 8:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Right? Because, I mean, really what this, what Untamed is about, is about figuring out these root beliefs that are planted beneath us that control us and we don't even think about them. Right? They're planted in us by culture and for women, all of these root beliefs have to do one way or another with disappear. Right? A good girl is quiet, pretty, submissive, accommodating, pleasing. Right? A good wife is supportive, sacrificial. A good mother is a martyr. Right? A good mother

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Slowly, she just buries her feelings, her emotions, her ambition, her dreams, and does that in the name of her children, right? Which is such an unbelievable burden for the children of mother, mother of martyr mothers to bear.

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  Is it in the name of children? Or is it in the name of appearances of what you're doing for your children? Like your social circles? It's the name of showing that you're a good mother to other people?

• 9:28Speaker 01

  I think a lot of what we show, I think a lot of things have to do for show. I don't think this is one of them. I think that the mothers I know, that the way I feel, that it was deeper than that. It was truly, that I truly believed that my calling as a mother was to put everyone else's needs in front of mine. That that was the way that I proved my love.

• 9:53Lewis Howes?

  Where did you learn that?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Well, from culture, right? Just, it's social conditioning. You know, we are all born with these beautiful individual selves. And then, right around 10 years old, we start to formalize our social conditioning and our social programming. So, very early, this is what, you know, your last book is about. Very early, you're told, "You're a boy. Here are the things that boys do."

• 10:16Lewis Howes?

  "Don't cry, don't do this, do this." Yeah.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Right. So you, so that's your taming, right? You start to lose your wild, you start to lose who you're born to be.

• 10:25Lewis Howes?

  "Don't tame me, come on, Brennan."

• 10:27Speaker 01

  That's right. And I mean, then we hit this certain time and we're thinking, "Why do I feel so caged? Like, why do I feel like I'm never being myself? I'm always acting, I'm always, what I say on the outside is different than what I feel on the inside." And that's because we're all, we're all being stuffed inside these little cages of gender, of religion, of sexuality, of roles, right? So, and that's why, you know, when I looked at Tish and figured that out, I realized the role of a mother is not to be a martyr, it's to be a model, right? Our children will only allow, will only allow themselves to live as fully as we allow ourselves to live.

• 11:05Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Of course, though, we have to refuse to settle for any relationship or any community or any nation less beautiful than the one we want for our babies.

• 11:16Lewis Howes?

  I love what you said before this, on the page before, which I think is an exercise. You should actually create an exercise somewhere online, unless it's at the end of this chapter. I didn't see it, but you said it's important to take a look at yourself every once in a while in the mirror. And you said you had a moment where you just sat in the mirror and looked at yourself. And I've had a few of those moments in my life where not where you're just putting, you know, cream on or your makeup or doing your hair, but actually just sitting and asking yourself the question, who am I? And is this the life I want to be living? And do I respect the person I'm looking at in the mirror? I had this a couple of times in the last seven years with myself. And I was not happy with the person I was looking at, or I was, something was off in some area of my life. And you said you did that.

• 12:01Lewis Howes?

  And we all need to make sure we look ourselves in the eyes and see if we're proud of who we are. I think that's something we should do every morning. Or even a quick moment of just like, am I proud of how I showed up today? Not needing to be perfect, but am I proud of, you know, my values and how I want to live in the world? And I think that's, these three pages.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Are there any lies there, right?

• 12:21Lewis Howes?

  Are there any lies? What are you, what are you hiding?

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Hide stuff from ourselves, man.

• 12:25Lewis Howes?

  All the time. How long did you hide stuff from yourself?

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, well, it's like, you know, in the book I described it as, it's like we're the, we're the snow globes. You know, we just like keep everything shaken up around ourselves, like with busyness and, you know, all the distractions that we use so we never have to like see that little immovable object in the middle of the snow globe. That's what sobriety was for me. It was just a settling of all the snow, of like, there's no more flurry, there's no more distractions. And I'm just left with this like eye to eye.

• 12:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Me and you, just, just us, like no lies anymore.

• 13:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, no, and, and no, you know, no one's saying how good you are, how amazing you are, no, no book to put out and be like, oh, you're doing great, you're an amazing mother, you're amazing writer, you know, all those things, right?

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, because all of that is just flurry.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  It is, yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Right? All of that is.

• 13:15Lewis Howes?

  What, what's the thing that you're most, um, I would say the least proud of, uh, since being married and having kids, uh, with your first marriage? And the thing you're most proud of since ending it?

• 13:32Lewis Howes?

  I was gonna say ashamed, but I I'm not saying you should be ashamed of anything, but just thinking you're like, for looking back, you know what, I'm just not proud that I did this.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  This is so crazy because I am like the queen of revelation, like revealing things.

• 13:44Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  But I would say that, I mean, I think there's ways that Abby and I kind of rushed the kids a little bit that I would do differently now.

• 13:52Lewis Howes?

  In what sense? How did you rush them?

• 13:54Speaker 01

  I think that we've had talks since then that maybe we were openly affectionate a little bit before they were ready.

• 14:03Lewis Howes?

  Like day one, like, hey, we're hanging out and now we're all.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  No, I mean, we weren't like that. We were actually very care, very careful.

• 14:10Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Um, but and and slow for what I thought. And yet, my, and this is my middle daughter who tells us every single thing we've ever done wrong, like in our life constantly. She gives, she's a feedback daughter, you know?

• 14:26Speaker 01

  As was I.

• 14:27Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Um, so I think maybe I would have done things a little bit slower there. I think the thing.

• 14:34Lewis Howes?

  It's it's hard to contain love. It's hard to slow down appreciation, affection, uh, you know, the the feeling of wow, this is a ma- magic. It's hard to be like, oh, let's contain our magic.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and especially when you're forty two and it's the first time you've ever been in love before. I was like twelve.

• 14:53Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Twelve year old. I mean, I'd never been in love before.

• 14:57Lewis Howes?

  Never. What's the difference between loving someone and being in love?

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  First of all, I I don't know. I I still can't tell people like, okay, well, were you like gay the whole time? Were you just, I I don't know, like, I don't know. But I do know that I always just matched myself with people that it made sense to match myself with. Okay? Here's a person that checks the things off on the list that I should want, that I should want.

• 15:32Lewis Howes?

  Not that you want, but that you should want.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  That I should want, that makes sense, right? And that is what I did in high school. It's what I did in college. It's what I did afterwards. And I never felt like a deep burning passion ever. Like, the only deep burning passion love I ever had before Abby was um for my children and for my activism. Literally it. I mean, I, my family used to joke about, they'd call me the ice queen because I just didn't have that like romantic. I thought there was something wrong with me. Like I just, I used to say, Louis, you know, love is like a light and um, some people are good at laser love and I'm more of like a floodlight.

• 16:15Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  When I fell in love with Abby, it was like, I was so excited about being in love, but I was so excited for myself. Because I thought that I was gonna die without ever having this experience.

• 16:28Lewis Howes?

  You hear other people talk about it. You see Disney movies with your kids show it, but then you're like, well, I guess I'll never have it.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  And I used to not even wanna see it. Like I'd be, I was like one of those sour grapes people, like.

• 16:40Lewis Howes?

  Turn the kissing off. Fast forward this far.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, right. Like, so, and, and I, I think it's, it's so fascinating, Louis, because one of the reasons why I trusted it, like trusted the love that I felt, was because it was the first time, I wanted Abby so much and it was the first time I had wanted anything beyond what I had been conditioned to want. Right? And it was, and I loved her and it was the first time I had loved anyone beyond who I had been expected to love.

• 17:14Lewis Howes?

  Or what you thought you should love.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's sometimes how you know that your true untamed self is coming out because the whole rest of the world is going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  Is it, is it good to be untamed all the time? And be a wild, wild beast just frolicking in the streets? You know, I'm untamed here in my love life and I'm untamed in my business and you know, all my relationships in my fam, you know.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, first of all, I don't think anyone is all the time. I mean, I think the important thing is to define what untamed means.

• 17:44Lewis Howes?

  Okay, here, let's hear it.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Untamed just means living an examined life, right? It, it means doing what Walt Whitman suggested, which is reexamining everything you've been taught in a book, in church, in school, in the world, and dismissing whatever insults your own soul, right? So there's a hell of a lot of people that desperately need to untame from their religion.

• 18:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  My wife is somebody who was taught very early that she was an abomination to God, right? She was raised in the Catholic church and she has spent her entire life. Feeling alienated from, feeling angry with, feeling left behind by God. Because that is who she was, that's what she was taught. And it has taken me five years to convince her that she did not choose herself instead of God and church. That she chose herself and God instead of church, right? Church and God are not at all the same.

• 18:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, church is manmade.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Oh, God, right? So untaming yourself from religion and returning to the idea that you were, that everyone was born with, that everyone is equally made up of the divine, right? Um, yes, I feel like everyone needs to do that. And also the untaming from these gendered ideas.

• 19:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  That's what you've worked on for much of your career.

• 19:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Boys are so caged and boys are...

• 19:19Lewis Howes?

  Caged.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, in our culture, like, we wonder why all these problems in the world, right? And one of the reasons for all the problems in the world is because we have raised men who express no emotion other than rage and anger, right? Who are completely invulnerable, who think they have to be certain in every scenario.

• 19:39Lewis Howes?

  Right, win.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Their power is through conquering women and being completely narcissistic. Like, are the way we have created little boys in terms of masculinity is going to take our planet down? If we don't undo it.

• 19:54Lewis Howes?

  It is taking our planet down. I mean, you know, when I came out with masculine masculinity a few years ago, it was, I didn't plan this, but that was the height of me too. That was the height of all the Vegas shootings and all the racial marches and all these. And I was just like, the common denominator is everything bad that's happening is by angry men at this moment. Uh, you know, angry men or men in power that are expressing some type of masculinity they think is okay. And I'm one to blame that's had these, these beliefs my entire life. I wasn't that extreme of killing people, but it was just like, I would get angry, I would react, I would wanna fight in situations as opposed to assess the situation and be

• 20:37Lewis Howes?

  a true man, which is a man of leadership, a man of vulnerability, a man of uh calm and assessment first before just reaction mode. And I think that's um, you know, something I had to learn the hard way many different times in my life, that being this way gets you certain uh rewards, you know, needing to be right, needing to win at all costs, making yourself bigger, faster, stronger. There are certain benefits and rewards. Having sex with lots of women, there's certain benefits to going after that lifestyle. But there's also a lot of prices you get to pay in the journey of doing that as well. There's pain you cause on yourself, hurt you cause on others, relationships that suffer, you know?

• 21:21Lewis Howes?

  And um, that's just part of the journey that I think we all need to learn, how to untame any type of role we've lived or any type of societal thing we've lived our lives, so.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  There is a price to pay for it.

• 21:33Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  I do think we will get to the point, years from now, where we won't even say, "How, how do you be a real woman? Or how do you be a real man?" Like, I think that's gonna sound so weird.

• 21:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  To, to us a decade, because certainly, we are starting to understand that personality characteristics or character traits are not gendered.

• 21:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Right? There is no like, list of character traits that are male and list of character traits that are female. There is only permission to express certain character traits, right? So women are just permitted to express gratitude and sweetness and deference and whatever.

• 22:13Lewis Howes?

  Honorability, yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  They have just as much rage and certainty and ambition and

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  Experience that.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  And all the things, right?

• 22:21Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  So soon, we're just gonna get our little babies and we're not gonna say, "How do I turn this into a real man?" We're gonna say, "How do I encourage this being to have the entire human experience?"

• 22:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and be a leader of love. And, and, and learn multiple things in the world. Yeah, you, you, you're preaching to the choir for me, this is my, this is my jam, and um... I'm curious, what has been the biggest challenge for you then with your your relationship and untaming things and stepping into, you know, the person you've always wanted to be, the person who's always been there that you've never allowed to come out?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, good question. So the funny thing is, I mean, you know, Louis, that I announced my divorce and my love for Abby, six weeks before my epic marriage loves my epic marriage and story, Love Warrior came out, which was book club picket was like the world as like a redemption story. I mean, it was unbelievable timing, right? I mean, I announced my my wedding to Abby while I was on a nationwide church tour.

• 23:26Lewis Howes?

  So wait a minute, the book was telling one thing, and then you were saying to the world, the opposite?

• 23:32Speaker 01

  No, not at all. I've never ever been anything except unbelievably fiercely inclusive. I've been I've been an LGBTQ activist for a decade and a half. I've been to more gay pride parades than Abby has.

• 23:46Lewis Howes?

  Not about not about that, I mean, about the love, the love story.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it's timing, right? As you know, it's so wild because these books, you finish.

• 23:55Lewis Howes?

  It's two years later, yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  It's two years later.

• 23:58Lewis Howes?

  You're a different person, you're a different human being. So how do you navigate that? How do you navigate that when the world is reading one thing that came out and then you're saying, well, actually, this isn't true anymore for me, and here's what I've discovered? How do you sell a book that's not what you think anymore, totally, and then go and speak about, well, this is actually, go get my next book, that's what's the real truth?

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, tragically, for my agents and my entire publishing team of Love Warrior, I am the only rule that I have myself for myself in all things marriage, family, career, is related to my sobriety. Okay, so my sobriety is

• 24:42Speaker 01

  The point from which all other good things come in my life. So if I don't, you know, keep my eye on sobriety, then I have nothing else.

• 24:49Lewis Howes?

  Everything falls.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Right. So my rule for sobriety is, is that I will live in integrity, which for me does not mean doing the right thing. It just means that my inner self, my feelings and my desires and my experience will match my outer words and actions. So that my outer self and my inner self will be integrated, which is what integrity means. So what I knew at that time was that it was wildly inconvenient for the book, but that I was gonna go ahead and tell everybody the truth the whole time.

• 25:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow, gosh.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  And Louis, I mean, the meetings about this, like, just, you know how this goes. I mean, I would be on calls to New York. There would be seventeen people on these calls. They would be saying, just wait six weeks, just please.

• 25:36Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  No one's gonna buy this book if, you know, they're gonna... And I was like, I'm sorry. Like, I don't, that's not my one thing.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and this was two years ago, and you guys took too long for me to put it out.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  You signed a truth teller, man. Like, what can I tell you?

• 25:55Lewis Howes?

  So, I mean, how do you feel about... How do you give yourself grace of, you know, we all learn and grow and evolve into different human beings. How do you give yourself grace from what you preached from the rooftops two years ago, five years ago, ten years ago, in whatever book or article that you wrote at times, just saying, you know what, it's okay. That's where I was at in my life now, and this is where I'm at now. How do you give yourself that grace and kind of like, oh, you know, was I steering people in the wrong way, or?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I never, I thought of it more as a, a kind of, uh...

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Culmination of everything that I'd been teaching as opposed to like a difference than everything that I'd been teaching.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  I mean, Love Warrior was a book that was largely about me learning how to not abandon myself.

• 26:49Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Right? So, um, I think like if you're not gonna be somebody who's okay with, um, living one story, one season of your life, writing about it, and then living another season of your life and writing about it.

• 27:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  That's cool, you just can't be a writer.

• 27:09Lewis Howes?

  Right. You have to stand by one thing that you've done is like this is the truth forever.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  And there's nothing I hate more than that.

• 27:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Like, I, I feel like that's everything that's wrong. Like, if, if you're a person who's like stuck in your beliefs and stuck in your place and sticking by your, and not paying attention to, to the evolution of being human, like, I don't want anything to do with you anyway. So, I'm completely, completely fine with living a decade of my life. I, I think of it as like, you know, Lois, when you go to the eye doctor and they like put those little things on you and you can see more clearly each time? And they're like, eh, one or two? One or two? Like, that's me, looking back at every decade of my life. I'm like, oh, maybe a little clearer, I can tell what that part was about. A little clearer, I can tell what, I mean, I just read this, this review on Amazon that

• 27:59Speaker 01

  made me laugh so hard. It was a review that, it said, "All I could think of when I read Love Warrior was, 'Girl, you're gay.'" And I was like, oh my god! Oh my god, they knew it before I did!

• 28:13Lewis Howes?

  Well, I mean, let's talk about this for a second because if you never liked to make out with your husband and if you never, I don't know what your sex life was like, but I'm assuming it wasn't this passionate, romantic, you know, fairy tale type of experience. And I'm not saying that's what love needs to look like either, but if you weren't fully attracted to your husband and he wasn't feeling fully desired by you or attracted, when you look back now and you know that he had a lot of infidelity, are you still, uh, you know, feel like he should've just ended it and not done that? Or he was doing the best he could do because he wasn't getting what he desired from his wife that was the person he loved? What do you, how do you reflect on that now?

• 28:55Speaker 01

  And, yes.

• 28:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes, and all of it.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  And more, and, I mean...

• 29:01Speaker 01

  I, you know, Craig and I are close, like he's one of my best friends.

• 29:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  And I have so much empathy for both of us.

• 29:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, both of you.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  For both of us. I mean, we got married so young. I had been sober for maybe a hot second. Like, he, I got pregnant, and so we got married.

• 29:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you didn't, you didn't know each other.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  We didn't know each other. And, and we got married because it was the right thing, not because we were the right ones, right? And he did, you know what we did? We got married because we thought we were supposed to.

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  And whenever you make a huge decision in your life because you think you're supposed to, it's never, ever gonna be like the wild, true, beautiful decision you were supposed to make, right? So, you know, I'm not one to be like, well, he sh- I, I, I do think that we have learned that you don't abandon yourself like that. Like, I should never have stayed in a relationship where I hated sex. And he never stayed in a, in a relationship where he needed to go elsewhere for it. Like, that's what not abandoning yourself is, right? I mean, I learned from it, you know, when I fell in love with Abby, we were only, we were in a room together for ten minutes,

• 30:15Speaker 01

  and then we were, we spoke on, on a stage together for an hour. That's all the time we spent together before we separated from each other, never saw each other again, and just managed with our entire lives to be together. I don't know if you know that part.

• 30:27Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  We never touched.

• 30:29Lewis Howes?

  I remember, I, I read in a book how you like called each other, and she was like, are you sure you're ready to do this?

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, so, so I told Craig the minute I knew.

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and that's after you looked in the mirror and you were like, okay, I feel like this is not true anymore.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I knew how it felt to like, well, I just remember thinking, I don't owe this man the rest of my life, but I do owe him my honesty when we know it.

• 30:54Lewis Howes?

  Snap.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  And that's why-

• 30:56Lewis Howes?

  It's one of the hardest things to do.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  Is to tell the truth and to be honest about how you truly feel in a relationship. Especially, I can imagine if you've been together for a decade or more and you have kids, it's gotta be the scariest moment of your life.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  It was.

• 31:11Lewis Howes?

  I can only imagine.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and for him, and he, the, I mean, he, we had been through so much, Louis, I mean.

• 31:17Lewis Howes?

  So much, publicly, you know, intimately, everything.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Right, and we had been through the infidelity and we had fought to forgive each other for that. And I thought that I was doing all of that work with him so that we could be happily ever after. But, but I was doing all that work with him so that we could separate and love and respect and have. Right?

• 31:36Lewis Howes?

  And not hate each other right now.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  No, because the way we are able to cope now with Abby, we earned all that, right?

• 31:44Lewis Howes?

  He went through five, six, seven years of therapy and stress and tears and pain.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, um, and it's so interesting because we don't tell each other things. We don't tell the truth in relationships because we think I'm gonna hurt them, I'm gonna hurt them. But like, what I've learned is that there's no such thing as one-way liberation, right? When I finally stopped abandoning myself and I got the nerve to say the thing and set myself free, I also set Craig free.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Now he's out there dating a woman who wants to make out with him.

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, and he was, he was abandoning himself, the whole marriage, it sounds like. Because if, if it wasn't working, or if he wasn't getting what he wanted, or whatever, that it's like, he wasn't being honest with himself, or with you, you weren't being honest with yourself, or with him, and you both were hurting. And the kids are essentially seeing a model, like you said, that is, they're probably going to follow in some way, shape, or form in the future until you break it.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  That's right, and I think one thing that women are told often is we think that we cannot, you will hear this all the time, Louis, like, people will say it in response to this interview.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Well, women can't just do what they want, we can't do what we want, that's selfish.

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  We can't just do what we want, like, our people, it will hurt our people. We, we are told, we are brainwashed to believe that if we do what is true and beautiful for ourselves, that it will hurt our people.

• 33:12Lewis Howes?

  It might hurt for people.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like for women especially, like we, you're trained that what is good for us and what is good for our people are mutually exclusive. That is what women believe. And I, if there's one thing that I've learned from this experience, it is that that is not true. When we allow ourselves to live as ourselves, right? When we give ourselves permission to exist fully, we automatically grant permission to everyone in our worlds to exist fully too. Right? And that's what I mean by one-way liberation. Like, if you are a woman, you can continue to hide and you can continue to, to use our children as excuses not to be brave with our lives, right? Or, we can

• 33:58Speaker 01

  demand to set our own selves free, to live fully. And our children will look at us and go, huh, I guess I have permission to do that.

• 34:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. It's like being at a high school dance where everyone's just trying to look cool on the outside and, and just have their own conversation and pose up against the wall and like talk with their, you know, until one person decides to untame on the dance floor and say, hey, I'm gonna let myself loose. You can look at me, you can laugh at me, but eventually you're gonna be joining me and be grateful for this. That's what it's like.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  And I think the idea of untaming, it isn't, I think sometimes when people hear the words like tame, it makes them think of wild. And then when they think of wild, they think of, oh, to untame means to come in, to be just crazy and bold. And that's not what it means at all. To get back to your own wild just means to be the person that you were before the world told you who to be.

• 34:51Lewis Howes?

  Right. Yeah. To be yourself. To be yourself. This is who you are.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Be yourself. Right.

• 34:57Lewis Howes?

  It's not to get back to yourself, it's just to be who you've always been.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Be the self that's just hidden underneath all of these cultural expectations and conditioning and all of that. I mean, I've got two little girls. One of them is wild AF, like.

• 35:14Lewis Howes?

  Like you.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I've got this other one who's quiet and cautious. Like, that is her wild. Right? You have to shame her into being loud and whatever, like everyone else, because that's not who she is. So I think it's important to know, like, our wild inside of us doesn't have to do with volume. Right? It has to do with who we actually are.

• 35:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Why, why is it so hard to forgive ourselves and other people? And if you could go back in the marriage or

• 35:48Lewis Howes?

  in divorce, or any of these, any of this time, and you could forgive yourself or other people faster, would you choose to do that?

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Okay, well, I have some different thoughts about forgiveness.

• 36:00Lewis Howes?

  Share.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  I, I just think our idea of forgiveness is kind of bullshit. Like,

• 36:05Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  I think we have this idea that forgiveness is like, um, a linear process, that we're just like, doing, we're like, holding our breath, somebody's done something to us, and we're like, holding our breath, and we're just like, waiting for the moment that forgiveness is like bestowed upon us from the sky, and then we're gonna forever feel fine about that person. Right? But that's not my experience with forgiveness. I think forgiveness is circular, right? It's like walking a spiral staircase, and, and we're still gonna run into our rage and our unforgiveness.

• 36:37Lewis Howes?

  I forgive you, I hate you, I forgive you, I'm mad at you, like.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  I find, I think that Craig and I are in a very evolved place. Like, we respect each other deeply. We get it, we forgive each other, and every once in a while, I still wanna stab him. Like, a- and I think that we will always have that. We will come back around to forgiveness. But I don't think it's linear. I don't think it's a check done and done. I think it's a repetitive process over and over again. And I will tell you this.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  I spent so much of my marriage angry, like deeply.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  Give me, give me a percentage. Eighty percent, fifty percent? Wow.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm like, after the infidelity, yeah.

• 37:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, right, yeah.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Eighty to eighty-five.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  You were like, he's punished all day long.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  I mean, I tried not, you know, I just, I think it came across daily as just cold. Well, you know how a person acts when they need to get their boundaries back, right? But I think that what I learned, I kept raging, I kept internally raging, like, how could, the repetitive loop in my head was, how could he abandon me like that? How could he abandon me like that? Until I figured out that the actual question I should have been asking myself is, why do I keep abandoning myself?

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Why? If, if I am trusting myself, if myself, if this anger inside of me is telling me over and over again that I am not safe, why am I abandoning myself?

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  Why are you staying in it to stay appearance or for the kids or?

• 38:12Speaker 01

  I mean, we actually believe that it is kinder to keep people close and hate them.

• 38:18Lewis Howes?

  Than to set them free.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  To set them free, so we can love them, right? I realized my job was to forgive the husband of my children. And I needed to do whatever it took to make that happen. And what it took for me to be able to forgive the children of my husband was to divorce him.

• 38:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  When I, the first time I remember feeling tender, safe, loving feelings for Craig was when I was in the elevator going downstairs after our divorce mediation.

• 38:53Lewis Howes?

  That was the first time?

• 38:54Speaker 01

  And I looked at him and I felt safe and I felt tender feelings and I felt forgiveness and I felt friendship. And that is because I had done what it took to make myself safe again, to restore my own boundaries. So what I'm saying is, I, first of all, I don't think forgiveness is a before and after. I think it's a process again and again forever. And I also don't think forgiveness is something that just falls from us, to us, from the sky. I think sometimes we have to forge forgiveness by restoring boundaries.

• 39:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow. How do we create those boundaries?

• 39:27Speaker 01

  You ask yourself what you need and then you don't tell yourself you're being dramatic or you should be grateful or you should, should, should, should. You say to yourself, what do I need to feel safe again? And then you do that shit.

• 39:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think.

• 39:47Lewis Howes?

  What about the relationship? Here's a question for you. I think like, you know, I'm still this uneducated human being that is always learning and asking questions. So forgive me if I sound uneducated. But sexuality is on a spectrum.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:01Lewis Howes?

  Where, you know, you may not be fully, fully gay. You might be part gay. You might have tendencies, whatever, right? And excuse me if I mess up terminology.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  No, Louis, don't have to worry here. You don't have to be worried about that with me. I'm brand new to the gayness.

• 40:18Lewis Howes?

  I know that, I'll speak for myself. I know that I love women and I'm sexually attracted to only women. But I also know that I love to put my arm around and be affectionate with a buddy of mine. A couple of guy friends of mine. I like to hug people in general, but I would never, I shouldn't say never, but I've never thought that I would ever cross the line and want to be sexual or kiss a man in any way, period. It's never crossed my mind as something I'm even curious to attempt. So that's just where I'm at. But there's probably some tendencies of like, well, but I'm affectionate and there's men that would never want to touch another man. So there's a spectrum there.

• 40:59Lewis Howes?

  There's also a spectrum of love that couples have for each other. And this is something that you said a few minutes ago about, I was in a, it was a good relationship or a good marriage.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  A bad marriage with a good man.

• 41:16Lewis Howes?

  Yes, a bad marriage with a good man. What about the people who have good marriages with good partners? But it's not great. It's a 78% marriage, not an 88 to 90%. And sometimes it drops down to 69, 68%, goes back up to 70. It's a good marriage with a good person, but it's not. It's still not everything that that person wants. It's still, I'm missing some, there's something a little bit that's missing. What are the people that have really good marriages, but it's not great? What do those people do?

• 41:54Lewis Howes?

  It's like having the great, good corporate job that's making you 250 grand a year, but ah, there's something that's like, missing. Do they get out of that relationship? Is it, you know, a process of communication and therapy? What is it to get to the level that we truly want that it looks like, it sounds like you're experiencing right now?

• 42:14Speaker 01

  So I think that, I mean, first of all, the thing that I would say is like, this isn't a Cinderella story, except like, a girl replaces the prince. Like, it's not like I'm skipping around in daisies all day. Like, marriage is still marriage and being human is still human and all the things. Like, there's no Disney shit here.

• 42:31Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Secondly, um, I think that one of the bravest things that people can do is to even admit that discontent. I think that most-

• 42:42Lewis Howes?

  But it's good. It's 80% of the way there. We-

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Or, or they won't even tell themselves that. They won't even, because I think that admitting that you have any discontent or longing for more means that you have to then do something about it. Like, it's easier just to deny that longing, because I think you're talking about longing.

• 43:02Lewis Howes?

  And be grateful, and be grateful for what you have.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Grateful. I mean, and Louis, you, this wasn't part of your particular indoctrination, but women are trained from the minute we're born to be scared to death and ashamed of wanting more. The, the original sin for women-

• 43:18Lewis Howes?

  Is to want.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Right?

• 43:20Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, that sucks.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Think about Eve. Like, the first story I ever learned about being a woman and God is the chick who showed up on the earth, wanted more-

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  And got punished.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  And the whole effing world fell apart.

• 43:34Lewis Howes?

  Man, that's a, that's a tough pill to swallow.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Right, and that story is told to women in every situation, across the corporate world, across the family worlds, do not want more. Smile and be grateful for what you have. And if you do ask for more-

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 43:48Speaker 01

  It all up.

• 43:49Lewis Howes?

  Why is that? Why is that story?

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Well, because we live in a patriarchal culture, so of course, women have to be scared to death to demand what they deserve. Because if we demanded what we deserved, power would be threatened. Right? So the the the clearest way we can get women to stay in their place is to have them terrified of wanting more.

• 44:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow, like telling a story of the past, yeah.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Right, so and it's the story of today. So that's why when you hear a woman be ambitious, look at, look at every woman who's ever run for, for political office. Oh, she's ambitious, she wants power, she wa- we won't have it. We will not have it. We will not have a woman who wants power. We hate her. We, we say things like this, I don't know what it is, I just can't put my finger on it. She's just not likable. Right?

• 44:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  I can put my finger on it. It's because we have been culturally conditioned to the, the more successful, the more successful, the more confident and the more happy a man becomes, the more people like him. And study after study have proven that the more successful, the more confident, the more bold a woman becomes, the more people dislike and mistrust her.

• 45:00Lewis Howes?

  That's not, that's not the case for me and my girlfriend. She's, she goes after what she wants and she is passionate about it. I'm like, for once, I'm with someone who's, who I feel like is a match, who's like, has the same type of, you know, drive for her dreams.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  And that's what you, that's the way that you react to her. But ask her if she thinks that the world ever thinks she's getting too big for her britches. Ask her how many times she's put in her place for being beautiful and strong and powerful. Because there will be a difference in the way that she, the real world reacts to her than the way that you react to her.

• 45:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Well, it's, it's interesting you say that because I remember getting notified of an interview I did on a podcast, it was like eight years ago. And something around like the title was like, I can't remember exactly what it said, but something like Lewis Howes's definition of, like, winning, uh, success is like winning at everything.

• 45:56Lewis Howes?

  And this is pre like Louis on a journey of evolving and trying to like discover myself. But I remember like reading the the highlights from it where I was like the whole mission of my life is to win at everything and and to be the it was like to be the best. That was before I went through a journey of talking about sexual abuse and discovering myself and healing and forgiveness and everything, which you were a huge part of my journey because I reached out to you and said, how do I share this with the world? I have no clue what I'm doing and I'm terrified and you guided me. So thank you. I'll be forever grateful for your guidance on how to share my story. Seven, I guess it was seven years ago, six, six years ago now.

• 46:35Lewis Howes?

  And it's funny to look back and see like my mindset was just like, no, I have to be the best. I have to win. And if not, I'm worthless. And no one's gonna love me and I'm gonna feel like a loser. All these things that I was taught and conditioned. But I felt like, man, I'm, I'm, this is not a good place to come from. It does not support me. It makes me feel so lonely. It makes me feel insecure. It makes me feel like I'm never gonna be good enough. And now I come from such a place of collaboration and yeah, sure, I'm just kill competitive at certain things, but it's like, I want everyone to win. I want to promote everyone. I want everyone's voice to be heard. It's not only me. It's how can we all support and collaborate? As opposed to be competitive and win.

• 47:19Lewis Howes?

  And it's, it's amazing when you shift that you can get so much more done when you try to collaborate as opposed to compete. And when you try to lift others up as opposed to win at everything, it's amazing what you can create. It's amazing how much better you can sleep at night. I've slept so good over the last five years. It's crazy.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that. It makes you feel so much less alone because doing anything like doing this work alone, forget it. Like you, you can just spend all of your minutes on earth just feeling like you have to earn your existence. Like I used to just feel like if I wasn't producing something.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  The day wasn't even worth, I would just feel like complete crap about myself.

• 47:57Lewis Howes?

  If you didn't write an article that didn't get shared by thousands of people and you know, whatever comments and views, then I'm not enough.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Right, right, right. And that's so wonderful to have a team of people now that you can celebrate with. It's, everything's just about, and at the end of the day, it really is, is just about community.

• 48:13Lewis Howes?

  What, what is your greatest hope for your children through witnessing the, the, the lifestyle that you had, pre Abby, to the lifestyle you have now? Do you feel worried that they were so conditioned to see one model and now they're learning a new model that may be, you know, unique in itself? Because there's, they're not seeing a lot of that in society, I guess, maybe. But now they're seeing a new model with two women together in a different type of union.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:45Lewis Howes?

  What's your hope for them as they grow up and evolve?

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Well, I remember when I sat them down to tell them about the divorce and later when I sat down to talk to Abby, I remember I said, I have always told you that in this family, we tell the truth about who we are. Even when it feels scary and even when it could disappoint other people. And I'm about to show you how that's done. And I told them. And what I want, I talk to my girls and Chase a lot about the word confident. I'm not obsessed with the word brave because I feel like everybody on earth has a different freaking idea of what brave is, right? I just, brave

• 49:27Speaker 01

  is like, bleh. But I love the word confident because it, its Latin roots are con and fid, which means with fidelity, right? With loyalty. So confidence means loyalty to self. And I talk to the girls about, and Chase about this all the time because what I want for them, from them, for them, is that they live lives of confidence, meaning that they are willing to disappoint everybody else on earth so that they don't have to disappoint themselves.

• 49:58Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that is strong.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I want them to disappoint as many people as humanly necessary, including and especially me, especially their parents. Because I learned during my own unteaming that. It was easy for me to tell the entire world about Abby than it was than it was for me to tell my mom. Okay, like you can think you're untamed until you have to call your parents.

• 50:23Lewis Howes?

  And you go back into your certain, yes mommy, yes daddy.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Sorry, tell me what to do.

• 50:29Lewis Howes?

  Well, how did your mom react to it? Or?

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Well, this is interesting, so this is my, my, my situation with my mom during this time is when I became an adult. I had to pinpoint the moment I actually became an adult. It was during this time.

• 50:46Lewis Howes?

  Why, why do you say that?

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Because I told my mom and she, my mom's my best friend. Okay, we talk four times a day.

• 50:55Lewis Howes?

  She was before this, huh?

• 50:56Speaker 01

  No, no, she is.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  And um, she was scared shitless, okay? She was, she was worrying to death in calling that love. She was um, repeating and repeating all of these questions. Well, what are the kids' parents gonna say? What are, how is the world gonna react? She was so fearful. And every time I talked to her, I'd, I'd find myself getting defensive and afraid and, and shaken. Because it's not the hate from, from the people. It's not like the rage from the people who hate us that shakes us from ourselves. It's the quiet concern from those who love us, right? That shakes us.

• 51:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  It's always it. Um, and so I remember one day, Louis, my mom said to me on the phone, we're coming to visit. And I found myself saying, no, you can't come. Because you are afraid. And my children are not afraid, right? We've taught them that love in any form is to be celebrated and that it is best to be yourself and let the world catch up. So they don't carry the fear that you carry. But if I let you bring it to this house, they will see it in your eyes and they will help you carry it because.

• 52:10Lewis Howes?

  They'll start to question, they'll start to wow.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  So I said, I have to tell you this hard thing, mom, which is that your fear is not my family's problem. And it is my duty as their mother to make sure it never becomes their problem. So go figure out your problem. And when you are ready to come to the island of my family with nothing but love and celebration and respect, we will lower the drawbridge for you, but not one second sooner.

• 52:37Lewis Howes?

  That's profound. Now, would you need your mom, what if your mom was like, well, I can just never accept this. What if, I'm just hypothetical, I can never accept this, but I can be neutral and still love you. And I'm not gonna say I like it, and it's okay in my beliefs, but, because that might shatter her, who knows, I'm just saying for anyone else watching. But if she said, but I'll have a neutral stance, and I won't make you wrong for it. Would you be, is that something?

• 53:05Speaker 01

  I don't know. And all I can tell you is that I'm, I feel very lucky that that wasn't, isn't my What you just said, I know a lot of people here, but it sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.

• 53:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  I will never understand, like, I love you, but I disagree with you. Like, you know, like, opinions are something you disagree with, but people's families are not something you disagree with. Like, you don't get to disagree with the love of my life. Like, if you disagree with the love of my life, that's great, but you're sure as hell not coming to my house. Right? So I'm glad that that situation has never arisen for me. And one of the reasons it hasn't arisen for me is because I would not have it.

• 53:50Lewis Howes?

  Well, that she wouldn't be in your life in this way.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 53:53Lewis Howes?

  What about Abby's?

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Like, I think that what people do is that they decide who gets to be in their life.

• 54:01Lewis Howes?

  Even if it's family, even if it's parents, even if it's?

• 54:04Speaker 01

  And what we decided early on was, we were gonna do something different. We were gonna decide what is not left in our life. And homophobia was one of those things. So no matter who brings it, even if it's my mom, you don't get to come. No matter who's holding it on the other side of, like, our island drawbridge.

• 54:23Lewis Howes?

  I mean, you can't do that, because that's negative energy. Yeah, it's negative energy.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  It's a lie. Like, it's, it's just like, you're not gonna bring your racism into my house. You're not gonna bring your racism, you're not gonna bring your homophobia, you're not gonna bring lies into my house while I entertain it and try to make space for it. No. Like, I can't control the whole world, but this is my island. And I'm not gonna bring that shit into my house and let my kids see it. Then, then my kids look at me and think, oh, I see, in my, in our family, we make room for racism and homophobia. We try to make nobody uncomfortable.

• 54:58Lewis Howes?

  Right, we try to not say what needs to be said, yeah. I haven't.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  My mom, it's amazing, Louis, when you do stand in who you are and you do make your non-negotiables.

• 55:10Lewis Howes?

  You create your boundaries, yeah.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  You do make your boundaries. People come around.

• 55:16Lewis Howes?

  They're either gonna come around or they'll be alone and upset.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  They come around or they don't come around anymore. Either way, lovely.

• 55:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Because I think what we do is, we go around trying to convince everybody we're okay. But the only way to convince other people that we're okay is to just go about being okay and let them witness it. Right? I think in the end, my mom was just really scared for me.

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  And now she saw, she respects what I decided. She realized, oh my God, their family is as beautiful as she thinks it is, right? And now she likes, Abby is her favorite daughter now.

• 55:52Lewis Howes?

  Oh, she's like the more than you, yeah. What about Abby's parents? I haven't, I haven't seen a lot about her. Is she, her parents accepting of stuff? Are they out of the picture? Is it?

• 56:03Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Actually, we were just on an hour-long Zoom call with her entire family because she has seven brothers and sisters. And I don't know, something like forty-nine million, we have forty-nine million nieces and nephews. No, Abby's parents are lovely, wonderful, and very Catholic. So, we, they love us as human beings. I don't know if they will ever get to the point where the, the real come-to-Jesus discussion, come-to-Jesus is a funny way to describe it. The discussion about like, do we really, at the end of the day? Right, I, I don't know.

• 56:39Lewis Howes?

  So if they're, so if they're lovely to you and lovely people, but they're not fully accepting of this belief, is it okay to still have a relationship and have people in your lives who are?

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Well, part of that's Abby's decision.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Right? Because every relationship is so different and I, Abby, I'm a little bit more scary spice than Abby is.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  She's much nicer than I am.

• 57:04Lewis Howes?

  It's black or white.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, right, right. So, like every family, we have different situations with everybody. Yeah.

• 57:14Lewis Howes?

  What's the thing that you admire about yourself in the last five years the most?

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Oh, I like that question. I admire that I have always, so far, till this minute, I don't know what'll happen next hour, but I really have been able to honor the commitment to just do the next right thing. Even if the next right thing is not the most easy or profitable, or, you know, even when the next right thing has been, okay, that's great, but if you do that, your career's gonna be over. I've been able to look at groups of people and say, okay, I guess my career will be over then. Yeah.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  That's been pretty fun and badass and like, I've never, I have never had to abandon myself. And I've been able to see over and over again that the fear that people bring to you is never true. The only thing you really have to be afraid of is losing your integrity and losing yourself. The rest falls in line when you do.

• 58:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. That's beautiful. I love that. And what's the thing you admire the most about Craig in the last five years?

• 58:27Speaker 01

  I mean, I guess his constant grace. I mean, he like supports, he's over here a lot right now because we're in blended family quarantine, the whole thing.

• 58:37Lewis Howes?

  It's gotta not, it's gotta not be easy, even if it wasn't the right thing anymore to be together. It's still gotta be challenging for anyone, man or woman, to see someone within it, finally happy, although I couldn't make them happy, but she's finally happy. It's still gotta be somewhat challenging to the ego or to the heart or anything, right?

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I'm sure it is. And the fact that he shows up so relentlessly and still has such deep kindness. I think that's what I respect so much about him because you're right, it can't all, it can't be easy. I think that it's a little easier for Craig and I than it is for a lot of couples. And this is what I figured out. I think that there is like a very thin line between love and hate. Like, they're both passion, right? So it's like, who cares whether it's on this side of this day or this side of this day? What do you are crazy about each other or hate each other? It's just the same thing. It's all just passion, right? So I think that's why it's so hard for a lot of couples who fall deeply in love and have

• 59:40Speaker 01

  deep passion to divorce and co-parent because those things are so close, right? And my friends who can't be in the same room as their people, they can't, they can't even understand me and Craig's situation because they can't be in the same room. It's because they have deep passionate love that it's just a while to move over to the friend zone. And I think Craig and I will kind of never.

• 1:00:05Lewis Howes?

  You weren't kissing, you weren't having sex.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  So it's like, you can have a fairy tale marriage or a fairy tale divorce, but maybe you can't have both, like.

• 1:00:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and, and it's also, I mean, who knows? I dated a girl in high school who, you know, she's an amazing woman and she ended up being in love with a woman. She dated another guy after me and then dated a woman for like 10 years. And I remember being like, there's something, it's a different energy. I'll speak for myself. I don't want to speak for Craig or any other man, but it's a different energy, I think, where it's like they're with another man and they're happy and they're with a woman. I don't know, I don't know what the energy is, but it's, who knows if he'd be so kind of loving if he was like in a house with you and another man with his kids all day. There might be some type of energy, I don't know.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Well, I remember, this is what something that Oprah said to me. She was like, well, you know, most guys have to feel like they weren't man enough, but at least Craig can just say, I wasn't woman enough.

• 1:01:06Lewis Howes?

  There you go, yeah.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  But also, Louis, for real, like, I think the energy, like, for me, watching Craig, well, he just had, he had a very serious girlfriend who was wonderful, but I had, so I had to go through the. Pain of watching another woman with my children. Like, he never had to watch another man with his children. It's different. I'm telling you, like Abby is not, you know, that's not like watching another dad figure come in.

• 1:01:36Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. It's like, oh, is she a better mom than me? Is she the fun mom? Is she the this mom?

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Oh, God, Louis.

• 1:01:42Lewis Howes?

  Or is she evil or whatever? Yeah.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  And she wasn't. She was wonderful. So that was worse.

• 1:01:48Lewis Howes?

  You're like, oh, she's perfect. I hate her.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Perfect and wonderful and lovely and nice. And she knew how to do perfect braids and the kids.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  It was like, whoo. I mean, it was actually a wonderful experience for me because I really had to face all of the, talk about making, making yourself feel worthy. Like, I had to be like, will my kids still love me? Am I enough? Like, I had to go through all of that. It's hard. It's complicated, man. Parenting, no matter what, family, love, all of it's complicated, no matter what form it happens.

• 1:02:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, even if you have the perfect marriage, with the perfect partner and you're loving it, it's still gonna be hard.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  Hard for everybody.

• 1:02:26Lewis Howes?

  Being a human being is challenging.

• 1:02:30Lewis Howes?

  You have another human being in your life all day long. That's more challenging, learning and growth. What's the thing you admire most about Abby?

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  Oh, Jesus.

• 1:02:39Lewis Howes?

  In the last five years?

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  Abby is, hands down, the kindest person I know. She's the kindest person that everyone knows who's in her life. Well, I think one of the, one of, what came to mind when you said this is that Abby, more than anyone I know, brings 100% of who she is to every scenario, every person, every moment. She is the most present. I would say she's the most generous with her being person that I've ever met. Meaning, if you're in a room with her, she is giving you 100% of who she is. And I don't even understand it. I mean, as a raging introvert, like, I'm usually not even in the room when I'm in the room.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Gone. And she just has this ferocious presence that really comes across to me as just complete love, just generosity of spirit. She just makes every room, she makes everybody feel seen. She makes every room more fun and more alive. She's just, I don't know, she's just magic to me.

• 1:03:46Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. I feel like I could get lost listening to you and learning from you for hours, but I want to ask you a couple of final questions.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:56Lewis Howes?

  What advice do you give to people who are in, whether you're a blended, mixed, normal family, whatever you want to call it, any type of family with kids and challenges, what advice do you give during quarantine of how to keep peace and love and

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:12Lewis Howes?

  boundaries in confinement?

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  First of all, I just think that every parent on earth needs to lower their freaking expectations, right?

• 1:04:19Lewis Howes?

  Just stop. Be flexible.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  Oh, all this like, oh, we'll just teach our kids Spanish during this time. We'll all learn jujitsu and we'll like all this freaking hustle and like just no, we're, we're in a freaking global pandemic. Like, let's lower our expectations. We are just trying to survive, right? People are being asked to do impossible things right now. Like, you cannot do your job, homeschool your children, deal with your own grief and their grief and everybody, you can't, nobody's nailing it. Nobody's nailing it. We're all just trying to survive it. Don't mom shame yourself. Don't dad, turn on the freaking TV.

• 1:04:59Lewis Howes?

  And watch some Disney Plus.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  All day. All day. If you need a reading lesson, just push mute and turn on the closed caption.

• 1:05:09Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Reading, reading lesson, check, right? Just lower your expectations. And then I also think that really, I think this is a hard time for families because, especially in my parenting generation, we were taught to fix everything, to not let our children feel any pain at all.

• 1:05:25Lewis Howes?

  You can't fix this.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  You can fix it, right? These kids are in a place that we have never been in. Like, they have just lost the illusion we've tried to sell them, which is that we are in control and we can protect them from things. Poof, that's gone, right? This is a weird time for these kids. And they're gonna have weird feelings and so are we. And I think we need to practice not fixing each other. When our kids tell us that they're afraid, when our kids tell us that they're angry, when our spouses do. We don't move to solution, we just move to connection, right? We don't say, here's how I'm gonna fix this for you. We just say, I see you, me too. We practice allowing everybody to have their pain.

• 1:06:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  I think that this is a good time to practice that since we can't fix anything anyway.

• 1:06:10Lewis Howes?

  Uh, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Glennon, for being loyal to yourself and for expressing confidences with yourself and integrity with yourself and sharing all this with the world by first doing it yourself and practicing something that's very, very challenging and was probably one of the scariest things you've ever done. And I also want to acknowledge you for being a voice for so many people that need this message and for also being there for me when I needed to go through something really challenging and really scary for me to share with people.

• 1:06:53Lewis Howes?

  You were the person that got on the phone and guided me. I was clueless of what I was doing, terrified, so scared, and you gave me a sense of peace. You gave me a sense of everything's gonna be okay. It's gonna be hard and scary and you're gonna deal with lots of emotions, but you were really there for me in a big way and I'll always be grateful for your time, your energy, your presence, your truth and your wisdom. So I'm just very grateful for you and the person that you are, the person you've become over the years and for untaming yourself. And I want to make sure everyone gets this book because there's some stuff in here when I was going through it that dropped my jaw. So make sure you go check this out in a positive way, in a powerful way

• 1:07:37Lewis Howes?

  that will support you in your life and give you more courage in your life to be who you've always been, which it seems like you've gotten back to. So I want to make sure everyone gets this book. Uh, there's a, there's a, something I asked you the last time you came on, but I think that your truths might be different. I asked this to everyone at the end, it's called the three truths. It's a question, hypothetical question. I want you to imagine it's your last day on earth, a couple hundred years from now. But one day you gotta go. And you've accomplished every dream you could imagine. You have the most beautiful relationship, life, kids have done everything. You've done it all, written all the books, anything you want to do, you've done it. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you to the next place.

• 1:08:20Lewis Howes?

  And so your writing, your books, your movies, your interviews, speeches, they're all to the next place. There, no one has access anymore. But you got a piece of paper and a pen to write down three things you need to be true about life. Three things you would leave behind to your friends, your family, your loved ones, into the world. And this is all we would have are these three truths from you. What would you say are yours?

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Be still. These are the three things I would tell my kids. That's how I have to think about it. Be still, because I truly believe that the only way we end up living the life we were meant to is if we practice not looking outside of ourselves, but inside. There's a guide in here. We can only get to in stillness. The second one would be feel all your feelings. Not just the easy ones. Feel them all, because feelings are alchemy that turn us into the next version of who we're supposed to be. And the third one would be imagine. I believe so strongly in the power of imagination.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  I think our imagination is not where we go to escape reality, but it's where we go to discover the deepest reality that we were meant to birth.

• 1:09:37Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  So be still, feel all your feelings and imagine.

• 1:09:40Lewis Howes?

  That is beautiful. Uh, one final question for you before I ask it. Where can we support you besides getting the book? How can we follow you online, your website? Where can we go? There's no book tour right now, so how can we see?

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  Go to Glennon Doyle on Instagram and then go to Together Rising. Together Rising is my nonprofit, which is really my baby. We've raised $25 million for women and children in need all over the globe.

• 1:10:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  All grassroots. The, the, the most frequent donation is $25. So this is just a completely grassroots revolutionary activism crew. So come to Together Rising, come to Glennon Doyle. Mostly on Instagram, I'm on Twitter, but I don't understand Twitter. I suck at it.

• 1:10:26Lewis Howes?

  Instagram is great. You show a lot of your lives. You show a lot of the stuff you're doing behind the scenes. So make sure to check it out there. I love what you're doing there. Glenn, and you're amazing. My final question for you is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Of greatness? To thine own self be true.

• 1:10:42Lewis Howes?

  Ooh. You're the best, Glenn. And I can't wait to hopefully hug you in the future if we're allowed to.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  We will, we will.

• 1:10:49Lewis Howes?

  High fives, shake hands, all that stuff. So, thank you for all your time. I really appreciate it.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  Thank you, Lewis. Bye.

• 1:10:59Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you feel more loved, more inspired, and more empowered to take on your life with fuller clarity and purpose moving forward. If you did enjoy this, make sure to share this on social media and tag me at Lewis Howes and tag Glennon Doyle as well. And share this with one friend. Text a friend, message a friend on WhatsApp group message, Facebook Messenger, wherever you can. You have the power to transform and change someone's life today. All you gotta do is share this message of inspiration and greatness with a friend. And if this is your first time here and someone sent you here to listen to this, then please subscribe over on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review and make sure to pay this forward. Share this with one other friend you think might be inspired and text the friend back

• 1:11:45Lewis Howes?

  who messaged you this link and say, hey, thank you. Here's what I learned. Here's what I got out of this. And here's how I'm going to apply this today in my life. Make sure to check out all of Glennon Doyle's information. You can go to the show notes, lewishouse.com/952 to check out all of her info, where to get her book, how to follow her on social media, and all that good stuff as well. And Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams." For me, that really means don't be consumed in the mess of what's not working. Focus on the vision and the clarity of what you want to get out of and create in your life with those dreams that you do have. And Shonda Rhimes said, "You can waste your lives drawing lines,

• 1:12:27Lewis Howes?

  or you can live your life crossing them." What are the lines you need to cross over into to become something greater to achieve what you want? Thinking about those lines. Don't stay behind them, don't draw them. Go over them. Never again will you fall back behind the line. You'll always be moving forward. If someone hasn't told you lately, I love you so very much. I'm so grateful for you to be here. Appreciate you. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.