Before You Ask AI for Relationship Advice, Listen to This:

Right now, someone is telling a chatbot about the guy she went on a third date with — and it's giving her a pretty good answer. That should worry you. Stefanos Sifandos has spent 25 years coaching people through relationships face-to-face, in the room. In this episode, he explains why AI can make you feel self-aware without ever making you change — and why that satiation is quietly keeping people stuck. We get into: Why AI relationship advice feels helpful but isn't the same as real growth Why the avoidant partner always leaves first, and the anxious one won't stop chasing How to tell if you're doing "the work" or just talking yourself into feeling better What actually separates self-awareness from real change Whether sunk cost is ever a good reason to stay in a relationship What makes a marriage last when love alone isn't enough If you're in a relationship, thinking about leaving one, or trying to figure out why you keep repeating the same patterns — this conversation is for you. Connect with Stefanos stefanossifandos.com

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Right now, someone is telling an AI chatbot about the guy she went on a third date with, asking it what to do, and it's giving her a pretty good answer. And that should worry you. Stefanos Sifandos is a relationship expert who has spent 25 years coaching people through this exact kind of moment, in person, in the room, face to face. And he's telling anyone who will listen that relationship shortcuts like using AI are a trap that gives you just enough relief to stop doing the harder work of actually facing yourself.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  There is no substitute for deep inner work. That is a reactive posture to unprocessed, unresolved, unsettled pain, trauma, feelings that are fractured, that are unwilling to be looked at. And the convenient thing is, let me integrate as much pleasure into my life as I can to mitigate the pain that I'm not willing to feel.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  This episode is all about moving from disempowerment to empowerment. If you're someone who wants a relationship, is currently in one, or needs to leave one, this episode is a must-listen. And in this conversation, he explains why the avoidant always leaves first, the anxious is the one who won't stop chasing, and why a good answer from a machine might be the exact thing keeping you stuck. This is the story of Stephanos Sifandos, and welcome to Big Swings Only. Today's episode is brought to you by Shopify, Granola AI, Quince, and the Anxious Achiever Podcast. Stay present in your meetings.

• 1:49Speaker 00

  Get three months of Granola free at granola.ai/kwami. For your gift list, shopquince.com for free shipping and 365-day returns, and make sure to tell them that Kwami with Big Swings Only sent you. Subscribe to the Anxious Achiever today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Do you have an idea that you want live for the holidays? Launch before Black Friday at Shopify.com/kwami. Okay, let's start off with the hard hidden questions. So people are dating robots now? Is that what we're doing, Stephanos?

• 2:26Speaker 01

  People are doing very interesting things, man. And when you were talking about this a moment ago, I thought to myself, yes, I cannot wait to go on this because it is not only fascinating, but I think people, we, are going to get a very rude awakening.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  Ooh, tell me more.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Tell me more, okay. So what I'm observing is happening, and I'm directly experiencing this. And I've been in personal transformation for 25 years, coaching, leading, teaching, 25 years. And now more than ever, I've seen such change in my industry, in the space that I occupy and work and live in. And people are going to AI, and I may say something now, it's even in a moment, it's even going to shock people, what I'm about to say. They're going to AI, and they're asking meaningful questions about their lives, about their business, about their relationships, about their intimacy, about a conversation they had with this person that they've gone on a second or third date for. And AI is spitting back to them information.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  And let me just say that the information that it's giving back to the person is not that bad. It's actually, that's the sort of shocking thing that I think people may think, what? Yes, it's actually pretty informative. And if you frame the question in the right way, I don't know, I'm kicking myself out of a job here, right? But let me continue. If you frame the question the right way, it's going to give you back a pretty meaningful, reasonable response that's grounded in some truth. And so people are becoming satiated with this relationship they're having with AI. But satiation's a problem because self-awareness only brings you so far. In order to make real meaningful change, you have to feel it and experience it not

• 4:13Speaker 01

  only in your mind, not only in the way you frame the world, your outlook, but in your nervous system. And it has to happen relationally. You have to do these things, make these changes in real time. And so the rude awakening that we're going to get is that satiation's only going to take us so far, and we're going to slingshot back into human-to-human contact in a really meaningful way. It's just what happened with COVID. The world shut down, people isolated. They liked it for a while, and then people hated it and said, fuck this, I'm done with this. I need human-to-human contact. It's going to happen here as well. So what AI, the conversations you're having with AI are great for self-awareness, they're great for talking points and conversation styles. You can even ask, hey, what do I do?

• 4:58Speaker 01

  But to be more accountable, you need the human-to-human contact, you need someone being with you, whether it's a friend, or a support group, or a coach, or whatever, a therapist that's working with you in the nuance, in the gray, where AI can't really live there because it doesn't know you in that way, it's not feeling you in real time because it hasn't got that capability. But if you and I had a conversation even through a screen, but even better in person, I am unconsciously picking, and you are too, unconsciously picking up the way we're interacting with each other, what's really being said underneath what's being verbally said. You can't manufacture that with AI, no matter how hard you try. We're not there yet. Maybe in some Battlestar Galactica future, by the way, 2007 version of that, watch it, or 2004, it's epic. But right now, no.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  So we think, we're getting confused, we think, oh, AI is doing something for us. It's doing something, but it's not doing what you think it is, and it's not doing enough.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  Oh, Stefanos, this is such a great place for us to start because I think a lot of people would have been surprised by your response because it's hard to deny the fact that a lot of times it can be really effective at helping you really understand yourself.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Perception check with it.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  Yes, absolutely. Because it's kind of like, it reminds me of Carl Rogers' approach to therapy, where he would just hold up the mirror, reflect back your understanding, you see yourself differently, you start to make the change. But if it's coming from a machine, we don't get that true human connection that actually gives us the true sustenance. So that's the distinction is what I'm hearing. You can feel satiated but not actually have meaningful sustenance, and as a result, we don't get to where we want to go, and therefore we feel unfulfilled and we don't get the full transformation.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  And we get frustrated, and we tend to, instead of blaming AI, we'll either blame ourselves or blame the other person because that's what's convenient. That's very unrelational, and that's not healthy dynamics. You're not learning in real time healthy dynamics. That, you know, again, we can perception check effectively with AI. I'm not bagging it, I use AI. If I have an issue with myself sometimes, I'll sit with myself, I have my own practices, I have a men's group that I'm part of, I have peer groups, and my wife, whatever it is, like I have people in my life that I can perception check with as well. But I will often also perception check with AI. But that's another thing, like, because it will give me insight, it will help me realize something that maybe I've missed, maybe. But I don't put everything, all my eggs in that basket.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  And also, it's very reliant on the inputs, but also the way you've trained the AI and the instructions you've given it and how to respond to you. By default, it's very accommodating. It's just very, I'm going to agree with you. It's very agreeable. That's not useful because then you're just caught in your own echo chamber. And then you bring that same version of you that is unchanged into the relationship, and the relationship, I'm using a relationship as an example, doesn't then shift, doesn't change, and so you blame the other person. But don't blame the other person, hold the mirror up, just like Rogers did. But don't blame yourself either, just hold yourself accountable so that you can empower yourself to make the change. So when we get caught in these self-awareness loops, we think, we mistake self-awareness for change, or for healing, or for growth. It's not.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  It's a very minute growth at the level of non-action. It's just, you're just living in the ether with it. That's not enough.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it makes a lot of sense because we can feel good and feel as though we're making progress, but that progress is not real unless it's manifested in the real world. So we still need to have that human-to-human contact. And now let's make this weirder. Let's make it weirder. I like to get weird sometimes.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Okay, so let's talk about the next level of this because now we can see how the benefits and limits of using AI as a self-check, right? Getting a better understanding of yourself. But what about the people who are taking it to the next level? They say, listen, man, about my heart has been broken far too many times. And I can prompt this thing and code this thing in a way that it is endlessly empathetic, incredibly validating, and to be my perfect conversational lover, right? We're seeing the people who are actually literally falling in love with the AI chatbots. We're seeing some of them that are designed for those, for that purpose, the AI companions. What do you think about that?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  There is no substitute for deep inner work. That is a reactive posture to unprocessed, unresolved, unsettled pain, trauma, feelings that are fractured, that are unwilling to be looked at. And the convenient thing is, let me integrate as much pleasure into my life as I can to mitigate the pain that I'm not willing to feel and not willing to face. The greater the pain in our lives, the greater the pleasure required to mitigate the pain. The only way to deal with the pain is not to layer and stack pleasure on top of it,

• 10:11Speaker 01

  or convenience on top of it, or validation external or other on top of it. It's to actually face and deal and be with the pain. That means you've got to feel your feelings. So when we're going to AI and creating these circumstances that are validating our existence, validating our beliefs, our ego, our personality, our protective and survival strategies, we're not doing our inner work, we're avoiding it. There is no substitute for inner work, but inner work. And that means you've got to face yourself. That means you've, once again, you've got to feel your feelings. And you can't replace pain with pleasure, you're just stacking it on top. And I'm not saying avoid pleasure and don't bring pleasure into your life. In fact, part of the quote unquote healing process is to experience deliberate pleasure,

• 10:56Speaker 01

  but it's done very intentionally and deliberately. It's not done in the, in the um face of avoidance. It's done because your body and your nervous system needs some reprieve, needs some spaciousness, needs some oxytocin, needs some serotonin, needs to soften and move in a parasympathetic nervous system as opposed to being continually jacked, because doing the inner work can be very confronting. And doing it consistently without a break or reprieve is probably too much for your body. But turning and orienting towards AI as a solution or as a companion, because people are unsafe, people can't be trusted, that is an unhealed wound. That is an unhealed relational wound, and most wounds occur in a relational context.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  And most wounds must be healed in a relational context. Relational meaning human to human, or living being to living being, not living being to machine.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh, let's, let us talk about this, because this is one of the things about conversations, about relationships that I don't think um is discussed enough. Because we often play the blame game. Whose fault was it that things went wrong? But we don't talk about what is underneath it and the, the, the trauma, unhealed wounds that people have to overcome or deal with. Because those wounds often are the, the, the, the seed through which the, the pain manifests and the maladaptive behaviours come from, right? So let's talk about that. When those past hurts, how do we process them? How do we overcome them?

• 12:33Speaker 00

  And also what impact can it have on our lives and our relationships if we don't?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  If left unchecked, our past hurts that are unattended to will wreak havoc in our lives. Really simply put, what does that look like? It looks like destroying relationships, it looks like being hyper protective and defensive. It means that we cannot attune to our own needs and learn to express them in a communicative way that is healthy, compassionate, empathetic. We can't actively listen to the other person, we cannot attune to their needs. We're constantly threatened by people, therefore we attack before we even give them a chance to share their own selves in the world. We feel lonely, we feel disconnected from others. We can move into self-loathing and self-hate, dislike of self.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  We constantly are constantly seeking external validation through our performance. So we're only, we only believe to be of value in the world if we perform well. Usually, all of this is learned at a very early age, and it's established at a very early age. And these conditions become patterns, and these patterns carry on into adulthood. And so when we, when we leave these parts of us that are hurt and, and, and in pain unchecked, we just continue to suffer and we continue to make the same choices over and over again in order to have a redo, in order to move from disempowerment to empowerment. If I was just to get quote unquote spiritual for a moment, it's how do we move from disconnection from God into connection from God?

• 14:08Speaker 01

  If I go into a more maybe grounded, material sense, it's how do I move from inaction, passivity, fear, contraction, inability to take a meaningful action that's healthy for me to action? In other words, how can I set healthy boundaries? How can I communicate my needs and make requests of other people in a healthy way that still considers them? How do I not project, not defend, not shame, not, not um blame other people, but rather take self-accountability and self-responsibility? None of this can really take place if we're not committed to growth. Now, how do we do that? Because that was one of your questions.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  I'm going to go back to what I said earlier. Most patterns, most wounds, like if we talk about attachment theory, not just attachment theory, but um the reality of attachment, the reality of how we feel safe in relationship, how we give and receive love, how we trust or not trust others. It happens in a relational context. And so if there is a rupture there, it has to be healed in a relational context, meaning that we need proof, we need validation, evidence in our nervous systems, in our minds that um if we believe bad, quote unquote, bad people existed, we need evidence that good people exist. So it has to happen in a relational context. So if your father was abusive to you emotionally and or physically,

• 15:34Speaker 01

  and let's say you're a woman in the world and your father was abusive to you, I'm going to use this example. You become an adult woman, as a little girl, you turn into an adult woman, and you don't trust men. And there's a part of you that says, men are dangerous. Men are just going to take advantage of me. I'm not going to be listened to, I'm not going to be heard, I'm not going to be cared for. My heart won't be held, my opinion won't matter.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  All men are abusive. You may think that consciously or unconsciously. And until you have the experience, usually multiple times, of men not being that thing, it's very difficult for you to believe otherwise. Now, before you get to that point, you've got to understand your beliefs, you've got to understand your wounds, you've got to understand your patterns, how as an adult you behave in this way and it's linked to these childhood experiences. That's all self-awareness, and it's all very important, like I mentioned earlier. It's just not the end all, it's not the end point. And then from there, you've got to be in the relationship, when you're in conflict, when you're in tension, when you bring your opinion forward and the man says, tell me more. He doesn't shut you down, he doesn't tell you to go away, he doesn't defend himself. He says, tell me more, I'm listening.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  And your nervous system goes, whoa, what do you mean you're listening? Well, no, no, no, no, no, men don't listen to me, so you push a little harder. I hear you, you're hurting, I'm sorry, tell me more, what can I do? No, no, no, no, I don't trust that, I don't believe that. So you need multiple experiences of that, so you're going to have to find healthy men. Right, you're going to have to, they're going, and you're going to have to recognise when they're there and initially will push it away, but if you're committed to your own work and you're committed to your own path, you'll recognise them faster, you'll let them in a little longer. And then things start to shift, orientation changes. Instead of being myopic in your view, you're more like this. Those maladaptive coping strategies that we spoke to, that you mentioned a moment ago, they change and shift, we don't lean on them so much. They're, they're entrenched in the personality and the ego.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  That begins to dissipate, you start to change your life. Like I'm giving you a very high level, very quickly condensed version of how this works to some degree, but it's very possible. And we've got to believe it's possible, but you've got to be willing to do some really meaningful, hard work.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it, and it's not just hard, it's scary. It's scary because it requires a lot of vulnerability to say, okay, I've been hurt in a specific way in the past, but the only way I can have a healthy relationship is truly if I put myself in a vulnerable position where the other person could hurt me in the same way today. And so, because I don't want to gloss over this. How, and I know it's probably going to be different for different people, but how do we build up that courage to put ourselves out there again after being hurt?

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is a question that in many shapes and forms I get, I receive, and it's a beautiful question, right? And it's also a really difficult one to answer, and you already prefaced that by saying, hey, it's gonna be different for different people. But here's the thing, there are so many, and I don't claim to know everything in any capacity. There are so many unknowns in our existence, in our reality, in our cosmos. My daughter's four and a half years old, and I've just started asking her, what do you mean in real life? Cause she'll say, oh, but daddy, goblins aren't real, right? And I'll say, no, no, darling, they're not real, but what's real? What do you mean in real life? So why am I sharing this?

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Because at some point, you have to make a determination in your life, what you will allow to be real and what you won't.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  And at some point, you'll have to make a decision in your life. Each one of us have to do this. And I don't know where it comes from. Maybe it comes from hitting multiple rock bottoms. Maybe it comes from having so many multiple past lives, if that's a thing, and all of a sudden something clicks and it changes your purview. Maybe it comes from you seeing something and it changes in your mind, your belief or a perception of how reality needs to be. I don't know where it comes from, but at some point, you have to make the all in decision of, I'm going to change my life. I'm going to do whatever the fuck it takes to change my life. I'm tired of this pattern and I'm tired of being tired of the pattern.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  And that arrival point comes differently for all different people. For most of us, for when I look at the collective consciousness of humanity, it's very easy and I think reasonable to say that it is the rock bottom moments in our lives that create such contrast in our lives that then slingshot us into not wanting that anymore. You'll either, you'll either take one of two paths. You'll, the contrast of that deep painful experience will slingshot you into wanting to get out of it.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  And you'll get out of it by making change in your life in this world, or you'll kill yourself. Like whether you kill yourself by immediate suicide, or whether you drug yourself, or alcoholism, or destroy your life over seven years, 20 years, whatever, right? You'll degrade your physical body.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  That decision is a very personal one. Once you make that decision though, you then seek support. It's actually not that complex. We're relational beings. Seek support, work with a coach, work with a therapist, join a group, see a shaman, have a spiritual guide, spend more time in with your friends and people that love you and care for you and respect you, that you respect and revere and care for, and it's reciprocated. Spend more time in being in relationship or doing the confronting, difficult, scary thing and making different choices in that relationship. So if you were usually, if you're the type of person that's very avoidant, and the moment you have conflict, boop, you're out of there, don't run. Stick around for a moment, say, hey, I usually like to run when there's conflict.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  And I don't want to do that right now, but I'm just letting you know that I'm really scared and all of me wants to leave, but I'm gonna hang around for another hour, which is more than I usually do. So let's talk about this. Or I want to hang around for another hour in your presence, but I don't want to talk about anything just now. Can we do that? Is that okay? These are just relational, mature conversations that we're also scared of having because we're also scared of being rejected, because our self-worth is so shot, because our sense of belongingness is nil, which is a whole other rabbit hole. That's my second book, Belongingness, but we'll get there later. So I'll pause there. I hope I've explored your question enough.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  Oh, you, you did. Oh, this is great. Because of all the things that you said, there's, there's one thing I really want to double click on, and it is the fact that one of the keys to being courageous enough to take this big swing and open yourself up and be vulnerable is to not just focus on the relationship that you're having with the individual in front of you. It's also to focus on your relationship with others and community, because that is your safety net. And because even if you do the thing, you, you are vulnerable, you open up, and then the person confirms your pre-existing fear and hurts you. You still have that sense of belonging with the community that you've created that can give you a soft landing spot to come back.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  And I think even just recognizing that can help people feel a little bit more courageous because it's not an all or nothing thing. Because sometimes it can feel like either it works out with this person, or my life completely falls apart. Now we're seeing, no, I can, if, even if it doesn't work out, I still got my tribe. I still have my people and they've got my back.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's a very, what you're saying, that that all or nothing mentality is a very neurodivergent, ADHD approach to life, so to speak. It's a very neurodivergent approach to life in terms of how our brain is wired, where we live and move in extremes. But I want to add something to what you said. You're very perceptive and you just made a very interesting point about the soft landing.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  So when that person, or if that person quote unquote rejects us, and I-

• 23:40Speaker 00

  If you were going to take a big swing this holiday season and start a business, what would you build? Maybe it's that one idea that you can't stop thinking about. I've built a business from the ground up and I can tell you that the hard part isn't the idea, it's getting it live. That's where Shopify comes in. You can sell everywhere people shop, online, in person, across social media, even in AI chats. And Shopify checkout with shop pay converts up to 36% higher than the competition. So more of the people who show up actually buy. Plus, Black Friday is when more people are already shopping and ready to buy. So the sooner you're live, the better. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/Quami to start your free trial.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  That's Shopify.com/Quami. Go to Shopify.com/Quami to hear your first-

• 24:32Speaker 00

  Try this, pull up your notes from a meeting last week. Do they still make sense? Or do they just seem like random notes that only the old version of you could decode? That used to be me. And as a negotiator, that's a real problem because my job is to listen, not type or write notes. That's why Granola has been one of my favorite tools, period. It's an AI-powered notepad. I jot my usual rough notes and then Granola securely transcribes the meeting in the background. And when it ends, I get clean, structured notes that still make sense a week later. Decisions, owners, next steps, everything that I would need to feel good about going forward. And it works through your device's audio too. So there's no additional setup or any annoying AI joining your call. Just your normal meeting, but with superpowers.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just go to granola.ai/Quami. That's granola.ai/Quami to get your time back. Get three months free at granola.ai/Quami.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Say that because I actually don't believe rejection is ever really about us. It's about the other person's preferences and values and the historical context in which they see the world. That's actually it. It's not that much more complex. It's, it's so, like, let's just say someone, it's so true, I mean, think about it, like, someone comes to me and they, let's just say, I'm single and I'm sort of dating and someone comes to me and there's a, there's a thing there and they're like, mm, they're repulsed by me. I'm not doing anything. I don't smell, I don't, I'm not being an asshole, I'm just being me. But maybe they had a really negative experience with someone that had some tattoos when they were younger. And unconsciously, that associative trauma is coming up and they're projecting that and layering that on me and they're saying, you know what?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  No, you're not my type or I don't want to be with you. Or they don't like the color of my hair or the shirt that I'm wearing or the scent that I have, actually, it's still not me. That shit's not me. My voice isn't me. Is my mind me? Not, not to get too deep into philosophy here, like, it's, it's other people's preferences projected on us. So I don't, I'm not a big thing, I'm not a big fan of saying we're actually being rejected. I, I think about 99.9% of the time, we're not. That was the side note. Let me go to the point I was actually making. Let's say someone rejects us, right? The opportunity we have in that moment is to not take it personally and to not be with that rejection like we normally have, which is probably contracted, you know, self-beat,

• 27:01Speaker 01

  negative self-talk, I'm a piece of shit, I'm unworthy, I'm not a good person, I did something wrong again, I am wrong, this person doesn't like me, no one likes me, I keep experiencing, you know, all or nothing, I keep experiencing this. No, don't go down that path. Take the, take the potential reality of, hey, this person is just not aligning, I'm not aligning, or what I represent is not aligning with their values and what they want. That's not a me thing. Because I guarantee you, it's mathematically improbable that there's no one out there that doesn't align with you. And, and so, so that's, you know, when we start to be different, I want to loop this back to disempowerment to empowerment, because let me ask you, what's disempowering?

• 27:45Speaker 01

  The self-talk, the negative self-talk, the self-beat, the self-loathing, the self-hate, the I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, I don't matter. Is that disempowering or empowering?

• 27:54Speaker 00

  Hmm, very disempowering.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Very, very easy to understand. What's more empowering? You know what? Thank you for being truthful with me. You're not into me. Thank you for saving me a heap of time. It hurts a little bit, I appreciate it, but I'm not gonna take it personally. That to me seems pretty damn empowering. That's the journey. I think our whole journey, brother, is disempowerment to empowerment. Our whole life. Again, it's, am I in contact with God, the cosmos, the universe, the divine source? Or am I more disconnected? Am I closer or further away from it? That's it. And our actions determine, not only our actions, that's part of it, but I'll just stay on the actions for a moment because it's tangible and material. Our actions determine if we're closer or further apart.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  And the repetitive nature of those actions determine whether we can get on that line, on that track, because they run in parallel, right? They run in parallel whether we get on that track of empowerment or whether we're not on it.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  Yes. Oh, my gosh. This is so good. And what you said liberated so many people. And what's really cool is that you liberated them not just from that fear of rejection in the future, but also gave them the power to reinterpret stories from the past, where they might have internalized that pain and said, oh, it's something about me. But one of the things I say is that you can't negotiate flavor. You know, for me, if you talk about peanut butter, peanut butter, it doesn't just taste great. It doesn't just feed my body. It feeds my soul, right? And if somebody doesn't like peanut butter, I can't persuade them to like it. My, uh, my son, thankfully, he grew out of the peanut allergy. I was devastated. Stefan, I was devastated. Um, I felt like I was smuggling in contraband every, every day.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  But if, if they are allergic to tattoos, or your religion, your race, your belief, you're where you're from, whatever, that's not about you. That's about their preference. And just recognizing that we don't need to take that personally is so empowering, because now we can have the courage to do what it takes, because they're not rejecting you as a person. They're just, they have their preferences and that's okay. And now I, I think it would be a good time to say, to talk, talk to a person who happens to have a program called, Be the Queen, this question for the queens out there, because I've got a lot of friends, um, who are single women, dating, um, they are displeased. I'll say that.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  And so we, you've mentioned earlier in the episode about healthy men. Where are they?

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll say, I'll answer in two ways. They are within you. And they are everywhere.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Let me attack, let me, let me attack the first one. If you believe,

• 30:50Speaker 01

  good men, quote unquote, good men by how you define them, aligned men with your values and the, and the life that you want. If you're clear on that, got to be clear on it. Caveat, if you believe those men don't exist, then you will never find them. If that belief that lives in you says, yes, there are healthy men out there. There are men that can align with what I need and what I want and what I desire in relationship. Then they will be everywhere. They won't be everyone, but they will be everywhere. You only need one. Unless you want non-monogamy, that, that complicates things because it's just a game of numbers. That, that's the complication, right?

• 31:32Speaker 01

  But it's, it's amplified in magnitudes because the complexity of personality and ego and individuation and the history of that a person brings. You just amplify, it's sort of like, oh, three people in a relationship means, you're saying there's two people and now there's an extra one. It's, you know, like 50% more complex. No, it's infinitely more complex, right? Because of the way all those patterns are interacting with each other. Um, and I, and I touch on non-monogamy because it's a very real relational container that, you know, enough people abide by and move into, you know, and move through. Um, but I'll, I'll put that aside for a second. They're everywhere, not everyone, but they're everywhere. If you can believe that men can be trusted, that healthy men do exist,

• 32:15Speaker 01

  and that ultimately, that when I say inside of you, when you've healed that wound with a masculine, the core masculine, or a specific or specific masculine, or specific men in your life. Maybe it's your father that hurt you, or a past partner, or a brother, or a bully, or whatever it was. When you can heal that within yourself and you're free of that, you're then free to, to see the inverse, the opposite of what you've experienced largely. And remember, what you've experienced, if it's been intense and if it's been traumatic, it will shade and shape every interaction with man to protect you, until it doesn't need to anymore, because you've broken free of that relationship to the past.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  And, and it's a process, right? It's not an easy one. Um, but it's so freeing and liberating once it's done. And that goes for any wound and any pain, any projection we have, or any pattern we hold, or any mistrust we, we hold in the world as well.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  Yes. And essentially, in, in a lot of ways, it's just the, the age-old truth of whatever you're looking for, you'll find. And a lot of times what we're looking for is confirmation of our beliefs.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  And so we're looking for confirming evidence and ignoring disconfirming evidence.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  And so we just orient ourselves in that way. And that's 100% true. It's kind of like the, the reticular activating system. Once you start to get in the pattern of seeing certain things, you start to see it more frequently. Like when you, um, buy a specific car, you start to see it everywhere. It's not that there are more of them. It's just that you are seeing them.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  You're noticing them. It's a noticing. Yep.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  The noticing. Good. Yes, that's right.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And no, that's such a great point that you make. It's, it's,

• 34:03Speaker 01

  if you just look back and forget about what we're saying, what you and I are talking about, whoever's listening, just literally just pause for a moment and think about your own life and think about how this has unfolded in your own life over, you know, the two, three, four decades that you've been alive.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. For sure. And now let's, let's get a little bit more specific. Let's say hypothetically, let's say there is a lady who says, okay, good. Now I have re, I've reprogrammed my mind, Stefanos, and now, okay, so now I'm over that. So now, if you were coaching a woman who is single and you're trying to help them say, like, run a playbook, like, what should I do? Where should I be? What, should I go on Tinder? Should I go on Bumble? What, what is the move? What do you think?

• 34:47Speaker 01

  It's very different for different people. So many women that I work with despise dating apps. Rightly so. They have their own reasons. They don't think they're wrong or right. Um, it's just, when I say, well, I'm contradicting myself. When I say rightly so. So firstly, it's not wrong or right to like or dislike a dating app. It's a personal preference. When I say rightly so, what I mean by that is that they're aligning with their values and their preferences. And their preference is to meet people, quote unquote, in old-fashioned ways, meaning in, in person, right? Not through a digital interface. Some people don't care about that. That's not limited to demographic. I know women that are in their 40s and 50s and 60s

• 35:30Speaker 01

  and absolutely love dating apps. They have no problem with men. It's not coming from a, like a wounded place, or they're scared to be seen or anything like that. They just actually, that they enjoy the possibility of meeting more people at a faster rate. Um, and in really interesting ways that they couldn't access before, right? Some people just dislike it because it doesn't feel personal and they don't trust the app. And they don't, they want to really feel the presence of a man, right? So it's just personal preference in terms of dating apps, in terms of strategy. What I say to, to women that are dating in this, in this way, you've got to ensure that you've grieved

• 36:10Speaker 01

  your, the life you haven't had, the previous relationship that didn't go the way you wanted it to go, that you've grieved, um, your own, you know, losses in life that you've, and I'm not talking to completion. It's not about arriving at perfection. It's ensuring that you've created enough space in your emotional and relational body, your spiritual and physical body to say, hey, I'm ready to date again. And then you'll date based on your preferences. Lead with vulnerability and truth. Lead with what you need. Lead with what you're looking for. Lead with honesty. These things are not easy. You said this before, man. You're very, you're very astute. I'm, I'm hearing how you're responding to me and how you're, um, interpreting what I'm saying or rephrasing what I'm saying, and it's really beautiful.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  And so I say that because we have to be able to communicate what we're attuning to in our environment. And so many of us don't practice that enough, right?

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  And when we do that, and we lead with that, and it's scary, right? Like, because we're putting ourselves out there. When we're being truthful, we're not putting a mask out there. The justification is, well, and this is more unconscious. If I lead with a, with what I think people want, but it's not really what I want, but I think it's what he wants, or what people or men are looking for, and that gets rejected, I'll be okay. It hurts less. But when you lead with your absolute truth in the moment, and it's not met with reciprocity in any capacity, and/or it's mocked or ridiculed, that hurts more. But you've got to get yourself to a place where you can do that. Because that's, because what you're doing is the more no's you get, the more yeses that come to you.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Right? Again, we're only looking for one person. You want a lot of no's. Because it's all those no's, it's all those half no's that lead you to a fully embodied yes and a fully embodied truth. You've got to be patient. You've got to trust the process. Trust yourself. And so that, I, I say to women, you've got to grieve your past, grieve what wasn't, grieve what was, what you wanted it to be, how you wanted it to be different. And from that place of clarity and spaciousness that lives in you, you'll act it, if you can act in accordance with truth and be in service of beauty, and beauty and truth is synonymous, as is love and growth, you will naturally evolve into the relationship you want to. Because when one comes to you and it doesn't align, and this isn't about being, again, not about being perfect,

• 38:34Speaker 01

  not about being rigid, not about having a, a, a stickler checklist. It's not about that. When it comes to you and it doesn't align intuitively, intellectually, somatically, all of that, you say no to it. And it may hurt, but you'll say no, because you value your truth more than just, oh, just settle. No, that's not where you want to be.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  I, for me, the thing that's most empowering, because I, I love the fact that everything that you're teaching and talking about is rooted in empowerment. And which is vastly different from the majority of dating content out there. Because it's far easier for me to just be like, yo, he's a narcissist. That's why things messed up. Or she's selfish. That's why things messed up. It's easy to just externalize the problem. But for you, it's rooted in empowerment, because now we can actually do something. There's something meaningful that we can do to have a meaningful impact on the outcome that we want to see. And the most powerful part of this empowerment is the reframing around rejection. You only need one yes.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Only need one. And so it's almost like we are in the past before, we could say, yeah, I'm afraid of rejection. I'm taking it personally. It hurts me. It triggers those past wounds. But now we're saying, I need to get these people who are not mine, not for me, out of the way quickly. So the faster we can get to that no, the better. And what's funny is that you're, you're giving us a strategy that again flies in the face of what a lot of common, not explicit dating advice is, but kind of subconscious, unspoken dating advice is, where you say, hey, listen, make yourself as generally attractive as possible, even if that means some deception. I remember I was talking to a friend, this friend shall

• 40:20Speaker 00

  not be named, and they said, I looked at their dating profile and it said, interested in kids? Yes. I was like, bro, you're not interested in kids. I know that. He's like, well, how else am I going to get in the game? Eventually this is going to become an issue at some point. He's like, you have to understand how to play this game. So I'm going to send him this episode.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Yes. And in the episode, because he's only hurting himself. Yes, he's hurting other people, but he's hurting himself, man. Like, that's the thing. Like, you lead with a mask, you're going to attract mask wearing individuals. It's standard, right? Like, if, if, there is, there is no substitute for truth. And if he genuinely does, and that's a big, that's a deal breaker for, I'd say nearly a hundred percent of people, if not a hundred percent, like yes or no to kids. It's a deal breaker, man, because it's life changing. You're a father, you know. Like, it is, we're talking about it this morning, I have every Wednesday morning, I bring a group of guys to my place and we just, we hit it hard, like we just

• 41:26Speaker 01

  train hard, right? Today, we just lifted heavy stuff, walked with it and, and did a lot of sprint work and whatever, right? So, but we were talking about, not everyone's a father, but most of them are fathers. And we were just talking about, quiet time, talking about The Odyssey. And when are we going to watch The Odyssey? Then we're talking about, should we watch it on seventy mil IMAX, authentic, or should we just watch? And I said, man, I just watch it on my laptop and it'll still be good, you know? And then my friend said, yeah, I mean, usually the only time I get to watch a movie is when I'm on a plane. And then there's three of us there, four of us there. And we, we all said, yeah, it's quiet time. That's like when you're away from the kids, so to speak, right? And I said, yeah, quiet time, the most valuable asset a father, you know, a parent can have. Right? And so,

• 42:09Speaker 01

  so, you know, to the point of kids, yes or no, like, there are women out there that don't want children. Not every woman wants a child. Or maybe there's women out there that have had children and don't want any more, or whatever it may be, right? Or they can't have children, or they're just, there is someone out there like him that maybe doesn't want children.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  That is, that is, I'm willing to bet my entire net worth, or my left arm, I like my left arm, on that fact, that there are women out there and men that don't want children, and there are women out there and men that do. I get it, you limit your pool, but that's what you want to do. You said that a moment ago, and I agree with you. Limit your pool to have a better quality pool to choose from.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  Right. Oh, powerful, powerful. This is great. I mean, one of the things that's catching a lot of steam, picking up a lot of steam on, online, is the conversation around the anxious avoidant trap. So we're seeing a lot of material around the, the different attachment styles. Can you just give us a brief overview of what attachment theory is, but more so the relevance it has, especially in relationships?

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. So attachment theory is, is formed at a very early age, right? And it really, it's, it's a, it's a model. It's like a psychological model. And it, it's all about the emotional bonds that we form with our primary caregivers. I, I use the term, you can say parents, but not everyone has biological parents. It could be grandparents, it could be foster parents per se. It's just our primary caregivers. And they shape basically, and I mentioned this earlier about how we give and receive love, how we trust, how we love, and how we ultimately connect, not only in our childhood, teenage, but largely our adult relationships, right? And so there are, the, the core styles are secure, and then there's

• 43:57Speaker 01

  insecure anxious, insecure avoidant, and there's also disorganized, which is a combination of both avoidant and anxious. And so, let me, what's his name? Is it Josh or John? John, John Bowlby. So John Bowlby, there was Mary, that's right, Mary Ainsworth, John Bowlby, they are sort of the, the pioneers of this work, and that expanded through. And it's, again, it's, it happens at a very early age, you know, infancy to, oh, maybe two or three years of age, somewhere there, where these attachment bonds are formed. And when you're secure, you're not going to have issue, you're going to trust that a parent can leave the

• 44:40Speaker 01

  room, or a primary caregiver can leave the room and they'll come back, right? When you're insecure, anxious, that's going to be tough. Like, you're, you're not, are they going to come back? I'm worried that they're not going to come back. I'm going to start crying. I'm going to start stressing. I'm going to start doing all of these things as a little baby to try and get their attention. That carries over into adulthood. But in adulthood, it may appear as needy, it may appear as texting fifteen times in the space of ten minutes, it may appear as panic, it may appear as asking too much, too many questions too soon, like wanting too much information, having, needing to have resolution and conflict

• 45:25Speaker 01

  resolution and communication immediately. Whereas that insecure avoidant is indifferent if the caregiver's there, if they're not actually avoiding them upon return. These are all survival strategies, by the way. So that carries over into adulthood. If someone is indifferent to them, they turn their backs. If there's conflict or a difficult situation, they turn their backs, whether they physically leave the space, or they emotionally check out and disassociate, right? The disorganized is, like I said, it's a mix of, of both, of, of insecure, oh, sorry, of anxious, or insecure anxious, and, or, you know, insecure, I think it's called insecure resistant now, if I'm, if I'm accurate on that, as opposed to insecure

• 46:09Speaker 01

  anxious, and then insecure avoidant. I'm, I'm personally disorganized. So, and not so much now. Like, I'd like to say I have quite a secure attachment now. But my, my primary, because you can, you can shift this, like with, with inner work and practice and, you know, quote unquote, therapy, and, and being deeper relational in, in relationship and doing differently, you can absolutely shift these and move into secure attachment with other human beings and with yourself, right? You'll often experience, people often experience disorganized when there's a lot of volatility and uncertainty in a household, a lot of, maybe, maybe violence, just unpredictability, chaos.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  Every year, I swear that I'm going to get ahead of holiday shopping. This year, it started with a Quince cashmere sweater that I bought for myself. It was so soft, so well made, and my first thought was, who else on my list needs one? Quince makes high quality staples with one hundred percent Mongolian cashmere and Italian leather. And their cashmere sweaters start at just sixty dollars. All of it is fifty to eighty percent less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. As a negotiator, I know a great deal when I see one. This is luxury quality without the luxury price tag. I use Quince and you should too. Give the gift of quality this season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers, or just go

• 47:30Speaker 00

  to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Kwame with Big Swings only. That's the best way to support the show. Try this. Pull up your notes from a meeting last week. Do they still make sense? Or do they just seem like random notes that only the old version of you could decode? That used to be me. And as a negotiator, that's a real problem, because my job is to listen, not type or write notes. That's why Granola has been one of my favorite tools, period. It's an AI powered notepad. I jot my usual rough notes, and then Granola securely transcribes the meeting in the background. And when it ends, I get clean, structured

• 48:13Speaker 00

  notes that still make sense a week later. Decisions, owners, next steps, everything that I would need to feel good about going forward. And it works through your device's audio too, so there's no additional setup or any annoying AI joining your call. Just your normal meeting, but with superpowers. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just go to granola.ai/kwame. That's granola.ai/kwame to get your time back. Get three months free at granola.ai/kwame.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  You know, there's calm, there's peace, and then there's not. And that can often shape the disorganization of a, of a child as well. Just to, I can just speak directly to that myself, you know?

• 48:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. Wow. This is powerful. Because we can see how those, what was formed in childhood really has significant ripple effects throughout the entirety of your life.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  Without, if, if you don't do anything about it. But again, going back to that foundation of empowerment, you can do the self-work to get to the secure attachment. And I think that's really powerful. And on the other side too, one of the things that's really challenging though, is you might be in a relationship, and we, and each person might have their attachment style. And then you work hard, you get to a secure attachment, and I make it sound super easy, it's not. It takes a lot of time, a lot of self-work, a lot of humility and vulnerability with yourself and self-awareness to get there. But let's say you put in that work. But then your partner doesn't do the same work. How, what, how do we navigate somebody else's attachment style? Because they're in the relationship too.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Hmm. Let's talk about values for a moment. And that, this might take care of the attachment styles or competing attachment styles, right? And so if you're committed to growth and doing the work in a relationship, and one of your highest priorities and values is growth? And your partner is unable and or unwilling to grow with you in the ways that you really value in a relationship and they're not committed to growth. You have to make a decision whether that's a non-negotiable for you in the relationship and in your life and in the kind of relationship you want to live.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  I have had instances where specifically women have said to me, my partner is not really interested in growth. I'd sort of, I'd sort of, not argue is a strong word. I would posit differently, but I'll, I'll explain, I'll, I'll share their stories anyway, which are very similar. I say, my partner's not interested in growth. But he's so amazing in so many other areas of life that, and growth is so important to me. But he's so nurturing. He listens, he's caring, he does this one. Like there's all these things that they can list very clearly. They say like, even though he doesn't really value growth, he doesn't come to the seminars, he doesn't read the books, he doesn't, he's just such a sweet human. I love him so much and I just want to be with him.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  I would say, I think he does value growth, just in a very different way. And, and, and, and so you, it's very individualized. You've got to, you've got to, and this isn't about, you know, I'm going to tell them that they're wrong or right about growth. It's irrelevant. It's like how you both match with each other, you know?

• 51:35Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  And I, I think that really, really matters. And, and to my, to your point around the attachment piece. Now, let's use a little bit more of an extreme example, or a more, a more, I should say prominent example. Let's say you're doing your work and you're really tidying up your anxious attachment, right? And you're getting to a place where your partner can disappear and you're actually regulated in your nervous system. You feel calm and grounded. But you also say, hey, like, I don't appreciate how you're being when we're in conflict. My request is this. And they're not making that request because they're still in their avoidant patterns and they're unwilling to do their work.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  You're going to make a choice, like, can you be with that? Are you okay with that? You seem to be okay with yourself. Like you seem to be secure or you're just going to keep getting activated eventually. And is that going to ground you? Because here's the thing, right? If, if, if you're a heroin addict and you want to quit heroin, I think living and sleeping and eating in the heroin in the snack house ain't going to be very useful, particularly at the beginning. So you've got to make that decision on how important growth is to you and your needs in the relationship.

• 52:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Just notice one thing I said, sorry, just one, notice, notice what I didn't say. I didn't make it about the other person.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  How you value growth and your needs in the relationship.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  Oh my goodness. You're giving people no excuses because you, we cannot, we cannot externalize success here. Right? Because essentially, you know, let me, uh, uh, echoes of negotiate anything, deal or no deal, do the, doesn't work. Right? Does this work? And at the end of the day, we can, you know, psychoanalyze this to death in a way that becomes a little bit, um, performative, where we say, well, their attachment style is this, and so I'm trying to do that and blah, blah, blah. Essentially you're saying, hey, either you're compatible or you're not. And you have to make that decision for yourself, even after you do that self-work, whether or not this works for you. If it works for you, fantastic. If you can make it work, fantastic. But if it doesn't work for you, you need to be honest with yourself

• 53:44Speaker 00

  and the other person and set effective boundaries and then make the best decision for you. Again, it doesn't mean that it's easy to make that decision, ending a relationship or anything, but it is still within your control to, to recognize, hey, I have the, the full right and responsibility to make the best decision for myself and it's rooted in compatibility. So you, it's, it sounds like it's more important for you to understand your own attachment style. So you can kind of have a map. So it's not a diagnosis where this, this is not going to change. You say, this is where I am now. And this might be where I am now on this map and I am navigating to secure attachment for myself. The other person, they're on their own journey and I need to ask myself whether or not I'm willing to be on that journey with them.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  And that really is the end of the analysis. It could be helpful to say, you know what? I can hypothesize about their attachment style. So maybe I can, um, anticipate some things. Maybe I can make some adjustments that are still authentic to me, aligned with my values. But at the end of the day, it just really comes down to compatibility.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. When we, very well said, when we focus on the externals, all we're really doing is the attempt to apply control in our lives and control is fruitless. And that, that's just the, the tool of the personality. I'm scared, so I want to control. That doesn't mean now and manipulate. It doesn't mean that we don't have honest, earnest, open conversations with our partners, right? We actually, we, we need to, and we want to communicate with them and we want to, we want to sit back and observe what happens when we make a statement, make a request, state a need, share a truth. How do they behave and interact with that? Not just once, but consistently over time.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  I've heard you speak on multiple business podcasts. I'm pretty sure it was you, right? The reason why you're very proficient and very well regarded in the space of negotiation, largely in business, right? Sure. Is because you understand relationships, understand psychology, human psychology. It's just, that's what it is.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  And when I was listening to you, I would say, this was, I just, I just had a recollection now. This is why I'm mentioning this. It's like, I was training my girl to have a home gym. This was months ago. It could have been at the beginning of the year. I was just listening to this business podcast. I can't remember which one it was. And you were being interviewed. And I'm like, oh, this guy, oh, he knows what he's talking about. This is awesome. Because it was, but I was seeing everything because I tend to most things through a psychological, emotional, relational lens.

• 56:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  I was just interpreting you doing the exact same thing. And so I just wanted to mention that because it just came to me, but importantly as well, sit back, state your truth, put it in the space and shut your mouth. Be quiet. Listen. It's all information. If they turn around and walk away and they keep doing that, that's information. If they argue and defend, become defensible and blame and shame and make excuses, information. If they get curious about you, if they're attentively listening, actively listening, asking question, information. It's not neutral or, or, sorry, it's not positive or negative. It's just neutral. It's how, what, what meaning make, we're meaning making machines. We're going to make it means negative or positive

• 57:09Speaker 01

  in alignment with what we want and what we think we want. That's fine, but don't do that immediately. Just listen.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Put it out there and slow down and absorb. That's going to be the best thing you can do to make your decision. I don't want to disempower you and say, here's the three-step or seven-step framework, which I have plenty of them, by the way, on what you need to do. Sure, but the one thing you need to do, maybe two things, is being your truth to the maximum capacity you can be and then pause. That's it. That's a two-step process.

• 57:44Speaker 00

  I love this, man. And hey, listeners, you see this budding bromance in front of you? This is amazing.

• 57:51Speaker 00

  I love it. And that's the thing, when people hear me.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  Respect for you.

• 57:55Speaker 00

  Thank you, man. Appreciate that. And it's, the, the work that you do is so important because we're doing like essentially the exact same work, just in different contexts. And I, it's funny because when people hear me speak, they're surprised because they expect, oh, he's a lawyer. That's, so that's the angle. And then they're really surprised at the approach. My undergrad's in psychology. I wanted to be a therapist, you know? So you see that come out so much more. And this is, this is great. Again, always rooted in empowerment. I love this. And now, Stefanos, we have gotten to the, the most exciting part of the interview. We are going to do the do, do, do, do, do, lightning round. Simone, don't edit that with, this is the, that's the best sound we could ever have. Keep those do do's in there, okay?

• 58:40Speaker 00

  We're doing this. Okay. So we're going to ask you eight quick questions. Um, and let's see what we can do to get quick responses. And then after that, Simone will come in at the end. You ready to rock?

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  All right. What is one sign that someone is emotionally unavailable by date number three?

• 59:05Speaker 01

  They still haven't asked you a question about you. But they're still talking about their accolades, the things they've done in their past, and they haven't even really got to know you. You've even fed them lines. You've even given them every opportunity, but very quickly it orients towards them.

• 59:27Speaker 00

  Oh, this is good.

• 59:30Speaker 00

  Oh, this is so good. And it, you know, it's funny, you know, this, wow. Man, you're good with you. You're good. No, Kwame, lightning round. Stay top, stay on topic. Okay. Number two. Okay.

• 59:45Speaker 00

  We have one person who's anxious, one person who's avoidant in the relationship. Who leaves first?

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Who leads first or who leaves?

• 59:55Speaker 00

  Leaves.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Oh, the avoidant is always going to leave first. They are looking for any excuse to not be in the relationship when the going gets, the going gets tough. The tough doesn't get going because they're not tough. They have no resilience. They don't want to stay in there. And so, by the way, the anxious is the same. They're, they're just, their act of non-resilience is by being clingy and desperate and needy, right? Instead of actually feeling their feelings, the avoidant is going to run out of there so quick. Physically, emotionally, they're going to shut down, they're going to distract, they're going to go drink alcohol, they're going to have sex with other people, they're going to immerse themselves in their work. They're going to distract massively. And until they really make that wound whole, and it only can happen in relationship, really, especially for the avoidant, by the way.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  The anxious is a little different. Their work is actually out of relationship just as much as it is in. But the avoidant is particularly in relationship until they actually stick around and face the discomfort of that thing that they're feeling, they're going to keep running forever.

• 1:00:57Speaker 00

  Oof. So the avoidant runs and the anxious cling on to them as they run away?

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Perfect storm.

• 1:01:05Speaker 00

  Oof. Okay. Ooh. Is a good morning text to an ex micro cheating?

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  Yes and no. It can be. What are your agreements in your relationship? These are defined by your values, the values you bring as an individual, the values your partner brings as an individual. If you believe that that good morning text is out of integrity and your partner would be disappointed, hurt, upset, and or you actually have agreements around how you communicate and you're breaking that agreement, then it's quote unquote, micro cheating, meaning that it's dishonorable or it's dishonest. If you have agreements around how you communicate and what you're doing, um, then no, it isn't necessarily cheating. So it's very context and situational dependent.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  You know, people know when they're cheating, whether it's a micro cheat, emotional, physical or other, you know, if you're out of integrity.

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  So what is one boundary that everyone should set on date number one?

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  It's more of a commitment. And if the commitment is broken, then a boundary is broken. And the commitment to me is

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  do we both promise, no matter how long we are together for, how many dates we have and what this becomes? Can we be in the highest service of beauty? As often as possible, not wearing masks. In other words, can we serve truth? Can we be explicitly and implicitly clear on the truth that we want in this relationship, what we need, where we're at in life? What we've worked on, what our, what we believe our deficits are, where we believe our fears live within us? I'm not saying you have to share all of that on date one, on date one. But on day one, if you're dating with intention and if you're dating to be in a long-term relationship, let me just put that caveat in there because if you're just dating for

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  casual, whatever, I mean, I still think being in service of beauty and truth is awesome. But there's going to be less revealing, there's going to be less depth traverse, right? But if you're specifically dating intentionally for long-term relationship,

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  make the commitment and the boundary, hey, can we be in service of truth? Yes or no?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  It's that simple.

• 1:03:33Speaker 00

  My goodness. Listen, I've been married 16 years, but if I wasn't after this episode, I would be dangerous, man. I would be like the best person on the market. My gosh.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  I think about myself too.

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  My goodness.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  At least I would hope I would be.

• 1:03:49Speaker 00

  I know. Geez. Okay.

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  So we have, ooh, chemistry versus anxiety. How do you tell the difference in the moment?

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Chemistry is going to feel, um,

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  I'm going to, I'm going to create a distinction between the two, right? And then I'm going to create a similarity between the two. So chemistry is going to feel very chaotic. And anxiety is when they're different, chemistry will feel very chaotic. And anxiety will feel more like tension and contraction. And almost, um, this confusion between fear and intuition, right? Chem, I'm going to stay on this line of delineation for a moment. Chemistry is more, um,

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  more related to limerence, less related to lust, so to speak. Lust is this pure biological physiological drive that is saying, I'm magnetic and physically attracted towards you. That lust. The limerence or the chemistry is more rooted in disorganization, dysregulation. It's more psychological. It's, it's more that massive attraction is needed because it's really attracting from a wounded place. Attracting from a painful place that's unresolved. And the reason why you're coming together is to have some resolution possibly, but you've got to know that to actually be able to be different, move from disempowerment to empowerment and not be controlled by your patterns. Where, where the anxiousness and the, um,

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  the chemistry can almost blend is that they're, they're, they're both more related to that limerence and they're both just chaotic and they're both fear-based and they're both around contraction. And there isn't really that much distinction between them. And the anxiousness is there because you know that you shouldn't really continue with this relationship, but you're so pulled towards it or you're pushing yourself towards it. Because basically you're attracting from a familiar pattern, you're attracting from familiarity. Because you know, low self-worth or, um, in and out relationships or unavailable men or unavailable women have been your norm. And so the, the anxiousness and the chemistry blend.

• 1:06:18Speaker 00

  Wow. So sometimes it's one or the other and sometimes it's both, which is scarier.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  Hmm. I, I, I tend to feel that is, yes, I believe so.

• 1:06:29Speaker 00

  Amazing. Amazing. Okay.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  My goodness. What is one thing that good men tell themselves right before they cheat?

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  I'll never do it again. This is the first time.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  I deserve this for A, B, and C. You know, we haven't been into murder or we're disconnected anyway. Or I need nurturance and love and I haven't received it. All the justifications that can take place. I really like the framing of the question. I think it, it de-demonizes um, the person and focuses more on the action, you know, because and I'm not justifying any action that is out of integrity or that hurts other people. And God knows I've done that many times myself and, you know, of course I have regrets around that.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Um, and I've also found that the more I've shamed myself in the past and demonized myself in the past, the more I actually did it because it just puts us in this vicious same shame spiral. And in order to get out of the shame spiral, you know, we go to what's pleasurable, the greater the pain, the greater the pleasure. And so it just repeats itself. So those good men will, will say anything they need to, to, to have what they believe they want or need. And then at some point, man, you've got to ask yourself the question, right? Like,

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  what defines a good man, which is a whole, you're a good person or a good woman, right? It's a whole rabbit, it's a big rabbit hole.

• 1:08:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so it sounds like it's almost like a drug where you just begin to self-medicate and numb through the constant seeking of pleasure.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Hmm, hmm, hmm.

• 1:08:23Speaker 00

  Wow. That's good. Okay.

• 1:08:28Speaker 00

  These questions are so good. Okay. What is the fastest way to spot a situationship before you end up in one?

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  When you're already looking metaphorically or physically for the exit, you know you're in a situationship.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  When you know you're only bringing a partial version of you into the situationship or into that dynamic, it's a situationship. When you don't fully trust the other person and or yourself, it's a situationship. When you're lying about what you really want and need, which is related to the truth piece, but more specifically around um long term versus casual, and you're saying you want a casual relationship, or the other person is, right? Um, but really, you know, sorry, you're saying you want a long term relationship, but really you're just there for a casual relationship because you don't want to commit.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  That's a situationship. When you are non-committal and you know you're not going to commit to anything of substance or long term, not to say that short term relationships don't carry substance, they absolutely do. But when you're in denial or lying about that or both, it's a situationship.

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  Man, this is so good. Listen, I think lightning rounds will stick around, Simone. I think this was pretty good. I think this is pretty good. You crushed that, crushed that. Okay. Listen, before we wrap up, let's bring Simone in. You you've done a ton of research. I know you've been listening in. Simone, what's on your mind?

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  Uh, when is uh, how do you know that someone is the right uh person for you to get married to? So for the the reason why I asked this is because I have two uh friends. These guys are brothers, uh are twins actually, and they are getting married at the same time, a double wedding. So I I was talking to them and I asked them, why are you getting married? So one of them told me, because I've spent seven years of my life with this girl. And the other guy told me, I am getting married because I love her. So are those real reasons for them to get married?

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  I asked my daughter yesterday, what's real, darling? What's real? Real reasons is an interesting question. Um, so your original question was, how do we know it's the right time to get married, essentially?

• 1:11:11Speaker 00

  Every year, I swear that I'm going to get ahead of holiday shopping. This year, it started with a Quince cashmere sweater that I bought for myself. It was so soft, so well made, and my first thought was, who else on my list needs one? Quince makes high quality staples with one hundred percent Mongolian cashmere and Italian leather. And their cashmere sweaters start at just sixty dollars. All of it is fifty to eighty percent less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. As a negotiator, I know a great deal when I see one. This is luxury quality without the luxury price tag. I use Quince and you should too. Give the gift of quality this season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or just go to quince.com.

• 1:11:55Speaker 00

  Get free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Kwame with big swings only. That's the best way to support the show. If you were going to take a big swing this holiday season and start a business, what would you build? Maybe it's that one idea that you can't stop thinking about. I've built a business from the ground up and I can tell you that the hard part isn't the idea, it's getting it live. That's where Shopify comes in. You can sell everywhere people shop, online, in person, across social media, even in AI chats. And Shopify checkout with Shop Pay converts up to thirty six percent higher than the competition.

• 1:12:38Speaker 00

  So more of the people who show up actually buy. Plus, Black Friday is when more people are already shopping and ready to buy. So the sooner you're live, the better. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com slash Kwame to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com slash Kwame. Go to Shopify.com slash Kwame to hear your first.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  Sometimes we don't know. It's not an intellectual or a cognitive choice that we make. And it's more an intuition, an alignment of our physiology and in annoying a trust. Um, even some logic and rationale that lines up and says yes to this thing, right?

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  So much of our lives are culturally constructed, as is marriage, right? And there's something deeper to marriage um and to union that if we allow it to, can really shape the trajectory of our lives and shape our humanness. So when we view marriage as something as deeply symbolic and revealing and an opportunity for growth and to be in the highest service of beauty and love, um, union or marriage or that level of of commitment can be very heart opening for us. It's very difficult for me to say, these are the right reasons, these are the wrong reasons. Because again, like I can give some overt reasons, um, very clear, like,

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  you know, should you get married because you you have a a fear of not having money and your spouse is a, you know, has generational wealth and has a trust fund of ten million dollars a year and you get access to that? And that's why you should get married, but you don't really care for that person? Most people would say, no, that's not right, that's wrong, that's not good. But if those people have an agreement and an arrangement and it works for them, I mean, maybe it's not wrong. Do I think it's nourishing for their souls? Not necessarily, but who am I to judge? And I don't know all of the unknown reasons and factors as to why they've got together, and I'm not trying to avoid your question here. I'll I'll actually directly answer it. If, in the example of the twins,

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  the twin marrying for love, I think is sitting in a more advantageous evolved position than the person just saying, oh, well, we've been together seven years, so I should get married. Anytime you do anything out of should, you know, obligation, shame, judgment, um guilt, you probably shouldn't be doing it, right? But again, who am I to judge? Maybe that time they've spent together, he values so deeply quality time, and he also does have deep care for that person, that he wants to marry her. So there's no, there's no, what are the right reasons, what are the wrong reasons? We we live in such gray and such nuance.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  But again, like, I can give a stack of reasons as to why you probably shouldn't get married, if these are the reasons. Um, and they're pretty obvious. I don't even think I'd have to say, I'd put it to your audience now and say, you know, like, write in the comments, what are the reasons you think you shouldn't get married? And and most of the comments are gonna are gonna be pretty accurate. It's it's pretty, it's pretty self evident, you know, um, like the example that I gave. Um, but really, it comes down to what's happening in here in the person. And again, if you can look at marriage as a deeply spiritual union, something that carries tremendous meaning, especially if you want to bring life and co-create life into this into this earth. And this doesn't mean the relationship's gonna last forever.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  But if that intention is there and you can, you're willing to grow through um that life when that intention is ruptured and challenged and so forth. And again, that may mean breaking up at some point, but maybe not. Then I I think if you're committed to growth and and beauty in that moment, um, you're gonna grow and it's gonna be a valuable marriage and a valuable commitment.

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  Hmm, that's such a good answer. That's such a good answer, especially what I liked about it is the the liberty and capacity to self define what good is for you within your relationship. And that's really powerful, but also that's that sense of obligation. I laughed because I was having lunch with a friend who said, I've been with this person for so long, do I end it? I was like, sunk cost fallacy is not a good reason to stay in it, bro. You know, so I'll give an economic answer to a relationship question here. And so, yeah, it's, but again, just giving yourself the liberty and again, empowering people. I I love this about you and your work you do.

• 1:17:25Speaker 00

  And listen, before you go, I really want to make sure that folks know that you are a resource. You're not just a beautiful mind and a pretty face on an incredible podcast. You have other ways to help people on deeper levels. So let them know about the book, let them know about your programs and how they can get in touch.

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. Thank you. So firstly, the easiest access point for my work is social media. I I really post a lot of content in terms of volume and my perception is it's quality. So I do my best to keep it as quality as possible, but it's a subjective thing. So if you don't think it's quality, it's all good, no offense taken. You're not rejecting me. Maybe sometimes, uh, but that's free, right? The next entry point is my book. Um, very cost effective, just released uh earlier this year with Hay House. Uh, you can get it at tuned in and turned on book dot com. Stack of bonuses there, you can get it through all your retailers like Barnes and Noble, Amazon, et cetera, through that link. The reason why I direct you to that link, tuned in and turned on book dot com is because there's a stack of bonuses there.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  I also suggest you get the audiobook because in the audiobook, I added a lot more than what I wrote in the book because I um filmed or rather recorded the audiobook twelve, nearly twelve months after I'd finished writing the book and I'd grown a fair amount in twelve months. So I just added a stack of stuff to it, which is great. Um, if you want to work with me in a one on one capacity, I've been doing this for twenty five years. Um, coach with Steph dot com and that gives you an application. But spend some time on my on my Instagram and my YouTube. I get to know my work a little more. I've recorded hundreds of podcasts, I've been guests on hundreds of podcasts, get to know my work a little more before you apply. And I say that because I have a waitlist and I don't say that to big note myself in any capacity.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  I just, I want you to go through a process, a pretty articulate questionnaire, and I want you to be confident that we resonate um before you apply. Um, and not waste your time. Uh, but yeah, those are the places you can find me. And for for the ladies out there um that are looking for deeper love, my wife and I, Christine, run a wonderful program called Be the Queen. Um, I will get you the, we we are on a waitlist at the moment. I'll get you the actual link for that. I I'm my apologies, I can't remember off the top of my head, but I'll get it to you so you can put it in the show notes. But we kick that off in October, at the end of October. We're on a waitlist right now. We've been running this program for seven years, tremendous success. There's an in person component to it as well. Uh, that three months live virtual coaching, um, program design, all those beautiful things,

• 1:19:53Speaker 01

  working directly with Christine and I in a container full of amazing women, like minded, like hearted. Um, not so much just looking for love, but looking to be greater versions of themselves, and that's where we start.

• 1:20:03Speaker 00

  Incredible. Stefanos, thank you so much, brother. Really appreciate it.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  Appreciate you, man. Thank you. Thanks, guys.

• 1:20:10Speaker 00

  Oh, man, this looks so good, man. This is so good. And for me, I was asking questions essentially on behalf of my my single friends who are pissed off, you know? But I I hear them complaining, I was like, he has the answers. So dude, I know you know you're good, but sometimes it's good to hear it. This was

• 1:20:31Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother.

• 1:20:31Speaker 00

  exceptional, so good.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, likewise, man. And and it literally like mid podcast, you remember, oh, man, I've heard Kwame before and I fucking love this guy. Um, and I totally didn't make that connection. And yeah, you're you're likewise, brother. You're brilliant. I wouldn't and I wouldn't personally say that if you weren't. I just, um, I really respect your work and the way you see things. And I love the very grounded approach you have and the very, you know, not only the intellectual approach you have from the varied background that is you, you know, your psychology law, et cetera. Um, but man, just the way you you re-explain and explain things and just, you know, very heart centered. And just what an honor to to be here with you. I really appreciate it.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  Thank you. That means a lot.