601 Guy Winch: How to Heal a Broken Heart

We need to think about feelings and how we respond to them as something we have control over. I have had a lot of injuries in my life. I've even had a physical injury that destroyed my sports career. Honestly, that was nothing compared to some of the emotional injuries I've been through. We all tend to neglect our emotional injuries. We push them off and consider ourselves as wimps or over-emotional. In reality, these injuries are extreme. They need to be cared for like any broken bone. If we continue to ignore our heartbreaks, that pain will never heal. It will carry with us for years, or even decades. On this episode of The School of Greatness I'm joined again by the amazing psychologist, Guy Winch, to discuss emotional pain -- whether it's from a break up, the loss of a loved one, or any other negative feelings that may be holding you back in life. Dr. Guy Winch, is a licensed psychologist, author, and in-demand keynote speaker whose books have been translated into twenty-four languages. Dr. Winch's viral TED Talk, Why We All Need to Practice Emotional First Aid, has been viewed over 5 million times and is rated among the top 5 most inspiring talks of all time on TED.com. His upcoming book, How to Fix a Broken Heart, just came out and that's what we dove into in this episode. Previously on the show (way back in year 1), we talked about the idea of "emotional first aid" and how important it is for us to learn how to heal our emotional injuries just like we do our physical ones. However, as Guy pointed out, heartbreak is a special kind of emotional pain and there are certain behaviors that support us in healing from this (and many that don't.) Learn how to understand yourself and your friends in heartbreak, and heal the healthy way, on Episode 601. Some Questions I Ask: How do we communicate with someone who has a broken heart? (7:02) Should we feel embarrassed for grieving? (12:32) What are examples of some things people do with feelings thare ok, or that they shouldn't be doing? (14:21) What are thoughts we should be having after a heartbreak? (18:30) What's the best approach to process the feelings? (25:36) What's the best way for friends to reach out to someone going through a heartbreak? (31:08) What's the longest it took you to get over a romantic relationship? (40:15) What's the biggest lesson you've learned about yourself from 20 years of psychology? (43:10) What do you think is holding you back from doing what you want to do faster? (47:03) Has there ever been a challenge someone brought to you that you didn't feel like you could find a solution for? (52:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: What happens if you don't process your heartbreak (10:36) The stupid feelings Dr. Winch has (13:02) The time frame for when someone should be able to get back to a normal life after a heartbreak (16:32) The best process for when you breakup with someone (21:42) Which is harder to recover from, an emotion or a physical injury (27:34) A serious heartbreak that took Dr. Winch a long time to recover from (35:45) What's the greatest part about being a psychologist for Dr Winch (41:32) The greatest challenge Dr. Winch faces in his life right now (44:34) A common theme he's learned about people (49:00) And much, much more 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 601 with Guy Winch.

• 0:06Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a 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.

• 0:31Lewis Howes?

  Herman Hesse said, "Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go." Ah, yes, we have a juicy one today, a powerful one for those with a broken heart or those who are experiencing breakups, emotional healing, whether it be with a human being breakup or the loss of an animal and a pet. I'm very excited about this one. Guy Winch, PhD, is a licensed psychologist, author, and in-demand keynote speaker, whose books have been translated into 24 languages, my friends. His new book is called How to Fix a Broken Heart, and it's out Valentine's Day. That's right.

• 1:13Lewis Howes?

  And his viral TED Talk, Why We All Need to Practice Emotional First Aid, has been viewed over 5 million times and is rated among the top 5 most inspiring talks of all time on TED.com. So that's pretty cool. Top 5 most inspiring TED Talks of all time. He's constantly featured in the press, and he also writes for the popular Squeaky Wheel blog on PsychologyToday.com. And he's been working with individuals and couples in his private practice in Manhattan for over 20 years. And what we talk about today is what happens if we don't process heartbreaks in a healthy way? So what actually happens to the body, the mind, and our energy if we don't process heartbreaks in a healthy way?

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  Also, a good timeframe to gauge if you're healing healthily. Also, a good timeframe to know if you're healing in a healthy manner. We talk about the best way to handle a breakup, why treating an emotional injury the way you treat a physical injury is so important, and why most of us don't do this. And also, how to support your friends who experience some type of heartbreak in their life as well, as we all have friends, family, who go through these types of things. This is a powerful episode. Make sure to take a screenshot and post this over on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook. Let your friends know you're listening to this or watching it. LewisHowes.com/601 for the link to share it on.

• 2:42Lewis Howes?

  All right, guys, I'm super excited about this one again. When dealing with the heart, it's one of the most challenging things. A lot of us can deal with physical pain much more than we can with emotional pain. So this is a powerful episode for you to understand if you're ever dealing with a broken heart, again, with an intimate relationship, or an animal, a loved animal in your life, or just so you have the tools to understand how to connect with your friends and family who might be going through a breakup or some type of emotional broken heart as well. So without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only Guy Winch.

• 3:23Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness Podcast. We have the legendary Guy Winch in the house. Good to see you, my friend. Great to be here. You were on episode number 42 back in December 2013. It was such a profound and powerful episode we did on emotional first aid. So many people loved that when it was just a baby podcast, but everyone was talking about it, because I think most of us don't know how to move through our emotions when we feel pain or any type of thing we're going through. And so it was very powerful then for me to go through that at that time and a lot of our audience. But now you've got a new book out called How to Fix a Broken Heart. You guys can get it, it's out right now. Check it out, Amazon and everywhere else in the stores.

• 4:07Lewis Howes?

  How to Fix a Broken Heart. And this is really something that's not talked about. We were talking about this before we started. People don't really talk about how to fix your heart when it's broken, and how to connect with someone who's got a broken heart without making them feel wrong. Not making them feel embarrassed or like it's a silly thing. Right, because we have some friends sometimes who go through a heartbreak in a relationship or they lose a pet. And sometimes we don't know how to communicate with them. So what would you say first is how do we communicate with our friends or loved ones who are going through a broken heart? What's the first kind of approach to create a space for them, would you say?

• 4:46Dr. Guy Winch?

  So I think the biggest problem in doing that is that our perception of heartbreak in general is that it's something that the young go through, the teenagers, you know, when your 14 year old comes home and they're heartbroken, you go, how do you know they're 14? So that's why this is so painful for them, because they're only 14, so they don't know how to deal with it. But heartbreak is as painful at 44 and 64 and 84 as it is at 14, except we forget that, because we're not heartbroken. We remember it pretty quick when we are.

• 5:17Lewis Howes?

  Why are we heartbroken?

• 5:19Dr. Guy Winch?

  So the kind of heartbreak that I speak about in the book, there are two specific kinds. Romantic heartbreak, and I'm not talking about divorce, because divorce is something established, oh, you're going through a divorce, you poor thing. People acknowledge and recognize that's a difficult life shift. But heartbreak short of divorce, your significant other you're not married to, it's a boyfriend, it's a girlfriend, what have you, that is considered, that's not really that important. It should be something you can get over. So I speak about romantic heartbreak.

• 5:48Lewis Howes?

  Someone breaking up with you?

• 5:49Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yes.

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  Or someone passing that you're in love with? Is that a heartbreaker now?

• 5:53Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yes, if it's not a spouse. In other words, the idea is that marriage conveys this legitimacy of a relationship in many ways, but emotionally as well. And so we feel it's valid emotionally to be very upset if your spouse

• 6:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:07Dr. Guy Winch?

  left you or passed away. But if they're not your spouse, or your, let's say, fiance, if they're just, you might have been living with them for 15 years and be spouse in every way except the marriage license, that's considered different. So that's one of the heartbreaks I talk about. The other is about losing a pet. And I'm not talking about goldfish.

• 6:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:28Dr. Guy Winch?

  Or maybe some people are very attached to their goldfish.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:30Dr. Guy Winch?

  I don't wanna criticize the goldfish.

• 6:31Lewis Howes?

  We're lizarder, yeah.

• 6:32Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yes, I'm sure there's some adorable lizards, but mostly mammals. And I'm joking, but cats, dogs, maybe other kinds of animals. We can be horses.

• 6:41Lewis Howes?

  Pigs, cows.

• 6:42Dr. Guy Winch?

  Perhaps. We can be very, very attached to. And can they conserve a huge function in our lives? And when we lose them, we can feel extremely bereft. We can go through a significant grieving process. But if you're a forty-year-old executive who just lost his cherished cat, who had been with him for twenty-two years, ever since, you know, his mother died when he was eighteen, and he is bereft because the cat died, he is not gonna go into work and say to his boss, "I need a week off, my cat died."

• 7:11Lewis Howes?

  Cat died, yeah.

• 7:12Dr. Guy Winch?

  Because that wouldn't be good for his career.

• 7:13Lewis Howes?

  Right, or his image and, yeah, exactly.

• 7:16Dr. Guy Winch?

  Exactly that. But the grief he's going through can be as significant as losing a first-degree relative. Yet it's not sanctioned, it's not something we acknowledge, we think is serious enough. So I wrote this book because I want to talk about, these are very important emotional, psychological, and life events. There are things we need to know about how to handle them ourselves and how to handle people in our sphere who are going through them. And if we don't know them, we don't talk about it. So that was the main reason I covered those two topics.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  What happens to us emotionally if we don't process these heartbreaks in an effective way? If our cat dies, but it's our companion for twenty years, if a cat lives that long.

• 8:03Dr. Guy Winch?

  They don't.

• 8:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and it's there with us for all the heartache that we've gone through, and it passes, and we don't process it. We don't share these things with our friends, or we don't talk about it, or we don't take a few days off, or however many days off we need. What happens long term to us if we don't process it?

• 8:21Dr. Guy Winch?

  That depends on who you are, your psychological makeup, your support systems, a lot of things about your own psychology. But to some of us, there is a concept called complicated grief. And this is true of pet loss, of romantic heartbreak, and of any kind of grieving, even grieving relatives and friends, etc. If we don't go through the grieving process in a adaptive way, in a way that literally takes us through it and think of recovery as any kind of recovery. You know, if you have broken bones, you have a heart attack, and you're recovering from it, you need to recover, build your strength, set the bones, etc., etc. If you don't go through the recovery correctly, you can end up with a phenomenon called complicated grief.

• 9:05Dr. Guy Winch?

  And in complicated grief, it means you don't quite recover, that the wounds don't quite heal. And then there are all kinds of vulnerabilities that are there in terms of your mood, in terms of how you respond to certain things.

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  Your energy, your attitude.

• 9:18Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yes, in other words, if you lose a romantic partner or a cherished animal, and five years from then, if somebody talks about it, it should, it can give you an ache. It will, you know, elicit that kind of sadness for a moment, but it shouldn't take you right back. And in complicated grief, it can take you right back. You can literally start bawling your eyes out 10 years later because you never quite processed it in a way that got you through it. You're still somewhere stuck in there.

• 9:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:49Dr. Guy Winch?

  And so it's very important to actually process grief in a, in a correct way, all kinds of grief. It's especially difficult to do when you feel embarrassed, weird about the fact that you're grieving in the first place.

• 10:02Lewis Howes?

  Right, so we shouldn't feel embarrassed for grieving, is what you're saying?

• 10:06Dr. Guy Winch?

  We shouldn't feel embarrassed for having any feeling we have, truly, because we never summon the feeling, right? I mean, the feeling happens, we're not in control of it. We are in control of how we respond to the feeling and what we do with it, whether we indulge it, whether we wallow in it, whether we try and manage it in some kind of way. How we respond to the feeling, we are responsible for, but not for having it. We, it's not in our control. So we shouldn't feel embarrassed for any feeling we're having, any strong feeling we're having, we're having. Question is, what do you do with it when you are having it?

• 10:38Lewis Howes?

  Do you ever feel like you have any embarrassing feelings or stupid feelings yourself?

• 10:43Dr. Guy Winch?

  I have many stupid feelings.

• 10:44Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 10:44Dr. Guy Winch?

  Because we all do. Look, I'll just give you a very trite example. The Super Bowl is coming up. It's coming up now. It already have happened. But there are going to be these Super Bowl commercials. There's going to be one, because there always is every year, in which I start to do this. And I start to feel emotional because it's a really good commercial and it made me emotional. And I usually feel like, really, it's Kleenex. I don't know why I'm feeling so moved. I know this is a-

• 11:08Lewis Howes?

  Dumb soap or something, yeah.

• 11:10Dr. Guy Winch?

  But it's well done. It triggered something in me. I had the emotion. I know it's silly, quote unquote. So we all have these responses. You know, we all have our soft spots where we see something and it just really touches us or infuriates us. You know, we have our stuff. And so the buttons that get triggered, we all have them. And those are emotions that if we know our buttons, we can go, yeah, that's just how I respond to this thing. And it's silly, but I can also get over it. And I get over the Kleenex commercials rather quickly. So, yeah, we all have silly feelings. But that's an example of a silly feeling. When we're actually responding emotionally to stuff that happens in our life, it's not silly. It's just how we respond. It's important information.

• 11:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. But you said how we respond is what matters, not having the feeling is okay.

• 11:51Dr. Guy Winch?

  Right, what we do with the feeling.

• 11:53Lewis Howes?

  What we do with the feeling. So what are examples of some things that people do with feelings that are okay or maybe that they shouldn't be doing?

• 12:01Dr. Guy Winch?

  So, look, it's interesting because I think there's a significant portion of the population that doesn't believe in doing something with a feeling. In other words, my feelings are my feelings. I don't have to do anything with them. Those are people that, you know, just behave very, very angry when they're angry because, well, I'm angry, so I'll behave angry.

• 12:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:18Dr. Guy Winch?

  You might be angry, but the question is, are you imposing that on someone else? How is that affecting the people around you? How is it affecting your ability to be productive and to be, you know, happy in your own life? So we need to think about our feelings and how we respond to them as something over which we have a certain level of control.

• 12:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 12:38Dr. Guy Winch?

  Except this is psychology. This is not hard science, you know, in the sense of put A in, multiplied by B, C comes out. It's not exactly that way because we all have a different black box there. So put A in, do B. Some will get C, some will get D, some will get E. You need to know your stuff. You need to know what your emotional responses tend to be and how you manage emotions best. For example, some people are great with denial. And I don't mean that in a sarcastic way. I mean that when something comes up that's distressing, they can actually compartmentalize, put it aside and get on with things.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:13Dr. Guy Winch?

  Some people can only do okay if they then call 12 to 15 people to talk about the feeling. And only once they've spoken about it to that many people and delved into it and dived into it and mashed it to pieces, then they can put it aside. There's no right or wrong. It what works for you. My point is everyone should actually be thinking about that and be asking themselves, what does work for me? What does help me move on more quickly? What does help me get back to my baseline and get back to functioning? What does help me process the important things but not have it interfere with my life? That is a trial and error process. We're all in in life, except we need to be aware

• 13:57Dr. Guy Winch?

  that that's a question we have to ask ourselves.

• 13:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Do you think there's a timeframe where someone should be able to get back to normal life after a heartbreak? Like it shouldn't take you more than six months where you have to talk about the person or the the pet you lost or the relationship you lost or the person who broke up with you or whatever. Okay, Sally, it's been six months. We've been hearing your story every single day. Like, get off the couch, it's time to do something. Do you think there's a good timeline or are we all different?

• 14:27Dr. Guy Winch?

  We're all different, but I do think, I mean, you threw out six months. It's actually a good marker. Because if after six months, you are in a very similar emotional place than you were, let's say a month out. Two months out, you're not moving. You're not progressing. You're not, and so you are stuck. And people do get stuck. They are, and the friends do know it. Wow, I've heard this story six months now. Yeah. And it's the same story. And it's the same, you know, and that's somebody who's stuck, who's not actually moving, moving past it. It depends on the relationship. It depends on the quality of the, of the loss. It depends on the circumstances of your life. Like, somebody can, what's disproportionate is it might take somebody six months to get over a two-year relationship.

• 15:11Dr. Guy Winch?

  It might take somebody six months to get over a 10-year relationship. And it might take somebody six months to get over a two-week relationship. Hmm. Because for them, they were, you know, They're magical. for so long, it was just not happening for so long. And then it really seemed like it did, and they, and they were so hopeful, and their expectations were such, and suddenly, and they live in some kind of island where they don't meet people that often, and what have you. But, I'm saying, an island can be, you know, a city. The idea is, it depends. So it, it can really, it depends on the meaning for you. And it depends again on how you process it. If, for example, you're, you're saying to yourself, I'll never meet somebody again. I'll just, this is it. That's not gonna help you move forward. Because that makes it so big. And A, you don't know that. So it's a very demoralizing thought.

• 15:55Dr. Guy Winch?

  So you have to, even if you think it, is it valuable to dwell on that thought? Is it valuable to really buy it? What are the thoughts we should be having after heartbreak? That if I met one, I can meet another. That if there's one person that I felt really works for me, there's gotta be another that really works for me. People aren't that unique. You know, we should be able to find somebody who was in that realm. Yeah. So our thought should be, boy, that sucks losing that. Boy, that's painful. That's really, really difficult. But let's actually look at what it is we lost. Because one of the things that happens is that, in romantic love, for example, when that loss happens, we tend to idealize the person we lost.

• 16:40Dr. Guy Winch?

  So we don't look back and- The greatest ever. Ever. Everything was perfect. Everything. Yeah. And you look through the pictures in which they were smiling, and look through the pictures in which you were holding hands. You do have pictures of them looking terrible or picking their nose. You're not gonna look at those, right? You're gonna look only at the ones that, oh, this- It was so amazing, it was so amazing. What I lost, it's A inaccurate and it's certainly not gonna help you recover. And so it's terribly tempting because your mind will bring up those images. Your mind will remind you of, oh, that restaurant, we had such a great time in that restaurant. You also had a really bad date in that restaurant. You got into a wicked fight two weeks after the great one. You're not thinking of that. So it's important to balance.

• 17:25Dr. Guy Winch?

  It's important to say, yes, this was great about them and this was great about the relationship. Let's also focus on what was not. And literally do that, not in the sense of like, yeah, let's, let's like think badly of them. But no, let's think realistically of them. These were all the ways in which they were not great. These were all the ways in which the relationship was not great for me. These were all the compromises I made, which I was okay in making, but they were compromises. These are all the friends I lost touch with because they didn't get along. All the activities I didn't do because they weren't into them, et cetera.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And if it's like a three month romantic experience where everything was perfect seeming, then do you just say, well, there's gotta be other people like that out there as well?

• 18:09Dr. Guy Winch?

  But that's a question I have, right? So let's say a three month romantic relationship where everything seemed perfect. Really, then why did the person leave?

• 18:16Lewis Howes?

  What if they died?

• 18:18Dr. Guy Winch?

  I'll give you the death. But how, that's the much rarer situation. That three months into a romance, somebody gets hit by a car, it happens.

• 18:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 18:27Dr. Guy Winch?

  But those are rare.

• 18:28Lewis Howes?

  Very rare.

• 18:28Dr. Guy Winch?

  Really.

• 18:29Lewis Howes?

  But if someone leaves, then you're like, okay, well, why did they leave?

• 18:31Dr. Guy Winch?

  Well, right, then how perfect was it?

• 18:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. If they were willing to let it go.

• 18:35Dr. Guy Winch?

  How perfect was it if they were thinking of leaving and I didn't even realize it? So there was some

• 18:40Lewis Howes?

  Disconnect.

• 18:40Dr. Guy Winch?

  Disconnect or there was some ways in which I wasn't paying attention. So you really have to question the perfect three month relationship that ended suddenly. It could not have been that perfect. And then you need to figure out, you know what? Here's how was, here's what I was not looking at. Here's actually, yeah, I see all these things now, but I didn't pay attention to them at the time.

• 19:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So what's the process then? When a breakup happens, do you try to connect with the person who left you or broke up with you? And talk to them and ask them questions? Or do you just go on your own way and process it a different way? Like, what is the best? Do you reach out to friends and family? Do you hire you as a therapist and like connect on these things? Like, what does someone do?

• 19:24Dr. Guy Winch?

  Here's the thing. You first need to acknowledge that this is really painful and that it's okay that it's painful. There's nothing wrong with it being painful. But you have to acknowledge that you just sustained a big emotional wound and you now need to heal. And then your question needs to be, what are the steps I need to take to heal? And what are the things that are not gonna be helpful for me to heal?

• 19:49Lewis Howes?

  Looking at them on Instagram or looking at photos or reminiscing constantly and...

• 19:54Dr. Guy Winch?

  Not gonna help.

• 19:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:55Dr. Guy Winch?

  Now, for example, it is helpful to have a clear understanding of why the breakup happened. There's research that shows that if we have a clear understanding of why the breakup happened, it's a little bit easier to move on.

• 20:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 20:08Dr. Guy Winch?

  Not many of us get that chance. Not many of us get the chance to sit across from the person and go, so, tell me honestly why you're breaking up with me? And have the person say, to be honest, you snored at night, I didn't like your habits this way, you didn't like my mother, and I did... You're not gonna get that. It's very... Some people are like, I'll tell you.

• 20:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:27Dr. Guy Winch?

  But not common. And usually the ones that say, I'll tell you, you don't feel great after they did. So, the thing is, you don't need a ironclad explanation. Mostly, if they broke up with you, then something about that chemistry connection didn't work for them. Something about them match wasn't perfect. Now, it could be that this is the wrong time in their life. Their ex came back and their old feelings got reactivated. They really weren't emotionally available, although they said they were really interested in a serious relationship. Given their history and their age, it's possible, no, they would like to be, but they're not. There are all these reasons that you can assume

• 21:12Dr. Guy Winch?

  without getting information from the other person to conclude that, here's the thing, it wasn't the right time, they weren't ready, et cetera. The thing you should not do is look at all your faults or your perceived faults and say, I just wasn't tall enough. I wasn't blonde enough. My body wasn't this enough. I didn't make enough money. In other words, if they were with you for three months, your height is not an issue.

• 21:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:37Dr. Guy Winch?

  Because that's something that's... That's a threshold. Thing, in other words, if you were good enough for three months, it's not, you know what, but after three months, I realize they are too short. It doesn't happen that way. So it's very painful to start looking at all your deficiencies and going, I just wasn't adequate, I wasn't good enough. It's not useful, it's not accurate. And it will be very demoralizing and make you hurt more.

• 22:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, eat you up inside, yeah.

• 22:04Dr. Guy Winch?

  And that's the thing most people do.

• 22:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:06Dr. Guy Winch?

  They literally lament, I wasn't this enough. I just know if I was prettier, they would still be with me. Hmm, no.

• 22:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:15Dr. Guy Winch?

  Because they were with you already, so once they were, you know, it's something else. And so, and then it's just about the mix, you know, about the match, the chemistry. So it's much better to just assume a likely explanation and then put it aside. And not wrestle with the question, why, why? That why question gets people on the hook for months and years on end for no good reason. Because even if you, you know, the heavens open and somebody told you the why, you're still broken up.

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  Right, you're still hurt.

• 22:45Dr. Guy Winch?

  So what does it matter?

• 22:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so you might as well make up your own why.

• 22:48Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yeah, and move on from the why.

• 22:49Lewis Howes?

  Move on from the why.

• 22:50Dr. Guy Winch?

  Not useful.

• 22:51Lewis Howes?

  And then still, you're gonna have to heal. You still need time to heal.

• 22:54Dr. Guy Winch?

  That's just one thing.

• 22:54Lewis Howes?

  The wound, but first, come up with a conclusion for yourself of why.

• 22:59Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yes.

• 23:00Lewis Howes?

  So you have something and you can put it to the side.

• 23:02Dr. Guy Winch?

  Right.

• 23:03Lewis Howes?

  Then you're still gonna need to process the feelings, the emotions, correct?

• 23:06Dr. Guy Winch?

  Right.

• 23:06Lewis Howes?

  What's the best approach to doing that? Telling all your friends constantly and nagging them to come over and cry with you and have pizza and wine?

• 23:15Dr. Guy Winch?

  The first week, yes.

• 23:16Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 23:17Dr. Guy Winch?

  No, I mean, I'm all for, you know, food and alcohol as a, as a, you know, emotional numbing device, uh, device, but, but yes, social support is a very important ingredient. People who have more social support are gonna recover more quickly.

• 23:31Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 23:31Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yes.

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  So if you're isolating yourself, you're not gonna recover as fast?

• 23:35Dr. Guy Winch?

  Except, there are some people who do better. Remember I said there's some people who can compartmentalize and put it aside and that works better for them? There are some people whose approach to emotional pain is, I don't wanna talk about it. And that works for them. That is different from people who like, I would love to talk about it, but I'll bet none of my friends want to hear it. And then they don't call their friends because they're afraid their friends won't wanna hear it. Yet they do have the need. That's not healthy for them.

• 24:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:01Dr. Guy Winch?

  If they have the need for social support, reach out, get it. But there are some people who are like, I don't wanna talk about it. Talking about it makes me feel worse. I'd rather just move on, and they can. But if that's your approach, and again, four months later, you haven't moved on, maybe you need to rethink your approach.

• 24:19Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 24:19Dr. Guy Winch?

  But this is the thing about there's no right answer. This is the importance of this book. This book says to you, you have to monitor how you're doing, right? In other words, if you have an injury, a sports injury, which I know you've had, I've had, and you go to physical therapy, you're sometimes fine within three months of physical therapy. This is much better, and sometimes it's not. And then the physical therapy clearly isn't helping. You need to try something else. So you monitor a sports injury. You gauge, week to week, how you're doing, whether you're getting stronger, whether you can do more things. Sensation, function is returning, what have you. You need to be monitoring your emotional recovery in the same way. Is this working? Is this not working? That made me feel worse. That just set me back three days, you know, stalking their Instagram account. Maybe that's not a good thing for me to do.

• 25:02Lewis Howes?

  Right. What do you think is more harder to recover from? An emotional injury or a physical injury?

• 25:09Dr. Guy Winch?

  When I ask most people, which would you rather have? Emotional pain? If you had the choice, here's physical pain, here's emotional pain. What are you choosing? Everyone chooses the physical.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:19Dr. Guy Winch?

  Everyone chooses the physical because when you break a leg, right? It is a very painful moment, few moments thereafter. But two weeks into the leg healing, it's not that painful.

• 25:32Lewis Howes?

  Starts to get better. Yeah, the shock of the pain only happens for an hour, maybe.

• 25:35Dr. Guy Winch?

  Emotional pain lasts and lasts and lasts. It is longer.

• 25:40Lewis Howes?

  Heartbreaking.

• 25:41Dr. Guy Winch?

  Sharper. And.

• 25:42Lewis Howes?

  Deeper.

• 25:43Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yes.

• 25:44Lewis Howes?

  Into the soul, yeah.

• 25:46Dr. Guy Winch?

  So most people would say, I'll take the physical.

• 25:48Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:49Dr. Guy Winch?

  For example, there are people, and this is completely off topic, but I'll just mention it. There are people who do the cutting, right? Where they cut themselves with a knife. You know, familiar with that? You know, teenagers, sometimes adults.

• 25:59Lewis Howes?

  On the wrist or wherever you are.

• 26:00Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yeah. But what they're doing is they are feeling such emotional distress, they are distracting themselves from the emotional pain with the physical pain.

• 26:08Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 26:08Dr. Guy Winch?

  They are choosing that as a distraction over the emotional pain.

• 26:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Crazy.

• 26:17Lewis Howes?

  So we should be monitoring over the following months of emotional heartbreak.

• 26:21Dr. Guy Winch?

  When you're recovering from anything, you should be monitoring.

• 26:23Lewis Howes?

  Ask yourself what's working, what's not working, what gave me a couple hours of relief or allowed me to move forward? And then what took me back? Maybe like stalking something on social media? Or are you waiting to see if they're gonna show up at a restaurant?

• 26:36Dr. Guy Winch?

  Right.

• 26:37Lewis Howes?

  Seeing who they're liking or whatever.

• 26:39Dr. Guy Winch?

  So here's a silly example of that. Somebody will say to me, "Well, my friends called and said, 'Let's go out.'" And I was like, "Nah, I'm not in the mood." Now, you should go out. And then they'll go out. And then they'll say, "Yeah, I had a fine time, but then I came back and I was sad again."

• 26:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:55Dr. Guy Winch?

  Except that if you did, don't go out. Those three hours that you were distracted and felt better and felt more connected, you won't have. Number one. Number two, the going out with your friends, it's reminding you of something very important of your life without that person. You can still go out. You still have friends. You still have a social life. You still have you.

• 27:17Lewis Howes?

  Guys still flirt with you, or girls flirt with you.

• 27:19Dr. Guy Winch?

  That can happen certainly, and is less likely to happen if you're sitting at home in the dark. So yeah, so there's a lot of value in pushing yourself to do things, even if you not feel it. Yes, you should go out. You should try and restore the life you had before, or reinvent the life you had before. Sometimes after a ten-year relationship, you don't wanna go back to the life you had before. But you want to reestablish what the new single life then is. And a lot of people have the thought that, "I don't wanna reestablish what it's like to be single. I just wanna find the next person and not have to have the single part." But you as a person, your sense of identity, your sense of who you are, your sense of what your life is about, what you stand for, yes, you do have to recapture that. That's part of ego and self-esteem.

• 28:03Dr. Guy Winch?

  Ego in the positive sense of it, of self-esteem, of feeling connected and tethered and know who you are and what you stand for. And those are important things. So reestablishing your sense of self is an important step that you should not try and just skip over until you find the next person.

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  Right. Reestablishing those healthy habits for yourself, seeing who you are, what your identity is, single, not just being in another relationship.

• 28:28Dr. Guy Winch?

  Reminding yourself that, "Yeah, I can have a good life being single, even if I don't wanna be single."

• 28:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. How can friends connect to someone who's gone through a heartbreak? The best way, should we be reaching out to our friends consistently? And if they're constantly complaining month after month, how do we support them then?

• 28:45Dr. Guy Winch?

  So the general guideline is, let's say this person lost a first degree relative. You would reach out to them, you would check in on them, and you wouldn't do it for a week, you would do it for a while.

• 28:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:56Dr. Guy Winch?

  What you would also do is you would be sensitive to what clues they're giving you about how they want to talk about it. Some people were like, yes, I want to talk about the loss, I want to talk about the missing the person, I want to talk about those things. And some people will, you'll say, how are you doing? I'm okay, and they'll start talking about other things. And you get the sense that they really appreciate the connection, but it'll be more helpful for them if you just connect and talk about other things rather than about that. So that's in regular kind of grief. Same with this. In other words, reach out, ask, but also be aware that if they don't want to talk about it.

• 29:33Lewis Howes?

  Don't push them.

• 29:34Dr. Guy Winch?

  Don't push, but show them you are there in case they do want to talk about it.

• 29:39Lewis Howes?

  This the romantic breakup as well?

• 29:41Dr. Guy Winch?

  For all, yeah, for pet loss, romantic breakups. With one caveat, because you asked two questions essentially. A, how are you there for someone? And the other question you asked really was, what do you do when you see somebody floundering? See somebody not recovering, see somebody stuck? Do you say something, it's been five months and you're still talking about it the same way? How do you approach them? How do you let them know that you think they need to deal slightly differently? And I would just do it in a very matter of fact, but compassionate way of saying, look, I'm happy to talk to you about this whenever you want. So I want to be super clear that I am your friend, I'm happy to talk to you whenever you want. I do want to point something out to you.

• 30:22Dr. Guy Winch?

  You sound the same now as you did five months ago. So I'm not sure you are recovering as well as, as speedily, as efficiently as you could be. You are still so sad, and I'm not saying the loss wasn't significant, it was. But it should be getting better, and I'm worried that it's not. And so I'm gonna suggest you think about approaching your recovery in a different way, doing something different, taking some different steps, because you feel stuck.

• 30:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:55Dr. Guy Winch?

  Now, they might come and go, what are you talking about? I don't feel stuck at all. You're like, alright, you said it. As a friend, that's your duty.

• 31:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:04Dr. Guy Winch?

  Say it, put the idea in their head.

• 31:05Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 31:06Dr. Guy Winch?

  But you can't force them.

• 31:07Lewis Howes?

  Right. Did you ever have a challenging heartbreak, either romantically or with a pet, that took you a long time to overcome? Even though this is stuff you study and you work with people as a psychologist all the time?

• 31:18Dr. Guy Winch?

  Amazingly, that doesn't make you immune to anything. You know, in other words, I'll tell you a story about a... My childhood pet was a dog. She was a collie and she was a neurotic dog. And I'm, you know, my brother and I are both psychologists, so not because of the dog, I don't think, but certainly she was clearly neurotic. We got her, I forgot how old we were, but there was a point in which she was older and we were leaving the country and we could give her to someone, but no one wanted a ten-year-old collie. And so we decided the more humane thing we'd do would be to put her to sleep. She was, you know, she had cancer. She had a medical history.

• 32:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:02Dr. Guy Winch?

  And we found a vet and we told him the situation. And he said, wow, sad, I get it. Neurotic dog, she's not gonna do that great with new owners. Maybe that's the best thing to do. Bring her in.

• 32:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:17Dr. Guy Winch?

  We brought her in and I put her on the table.

• 32:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 32:21Dr. Guy Winch?

  And he's, you know, he's petting her. He's a young vet.

• 32:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:26Dr. Guy Winch?

  He's petting her and then he starts examining her teeth. And I'm like, this is very thorough for a... Is this for the coffin? Is he gonna like select her dress to put it? Like, what's going on?

• 32:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:39Dr. Guy Winch?

  And he goes, you know, she looks much younger than ten. And I'm like, yeah, she's a young-looking ten-year-old collie. I'm not sure where this is going. He said, look, um, I know she's neurotic. I can see she's tense, but I'm really good with animals. And I have a wonderful clientele. I know you guys are leaving and you can't take her. What if I brought her here for two weeks? And displayed her for my clients? And see if anyone that I know has a good home and a good heart wanted her? Would that be okay? Now, we had tried to give her away of five people, but we couldn't. No, yeah. And I said, what if you can't?

• 33:24Dr. Guy Winch?

  He goes, here's what I'm proposing. Pay me for the injection. Leave her here. In two weeks, you can call me and find out if I was able to place her. Or not. And then think what you want.

• 33:40Dr. Guy Winch?

  And my brother and I looked at one another, we were like really emotional because of the idea of it. You already thought the dog was gonna be gone in ten minutes. It was torturous, right? And at that point, the vet's wife runs into the room and starts screaming at him. No, no! Your practice has been open for six months and we have seven dogs at home! He looks, she looks at us, she goes, he's not gonna offer her to anyone. He's taking her home, I'm telling you right now. No, I won't have another. Shut up! And he looked at her and he goes, but look at the dog, the dog's great! And that's what happened. And then he said, you know, his wife is still there glaring at him, because no, no, I will be trying to offer to other people. But he was kind of saying, I'll probably take her. Oh, wow. And so that's what we did.

• 34:26Dr. Guy Winch?

  We paid him for the injection. Wow. We left her there, we sobbed on the way out. It was horrible. It's like leaving your kid for camp, knowing you're coming to pick them up. Wow. It was so horrible. We felt horrifically guilty. We felt like we are such terrible people, we couldn't take the dog with us. And so, but he seemed like a really good person. Obviously, if that's the issue he was having as a vet. And then the question came, two weeks later. Did she call? What would you have done?

• 34:59Lewis Howes?

  I don't know, I would just imagine that he was in a happy place with the home.

• 35:03Dr. Guy Winch?

  That's what we did.

• 35:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:04Dr. Guy Winch?

  We assumed that she's with him. This is a great guy, she, we assumed she was with him. We didn't wanna call and find out that wasn't the case.

• 35:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:12Dr. Guy Winch?

  And that allowed us to think she's gonna have a good home, this is a great guy. He's great with dogs, she'll have the best care, obviously.

• 35:19Lewis Howes?

  Maybe a couple more years, who knows?

• 35:20Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Lewis Howes?

  And then she'll

• 35:22Dr. Guy Winch?

  Right.

• 35:23Lewis Howes?

  pass on her own.

• 35:24Dr. Guy Winch?

  But the guilt stayed with me for a long time.

• 35:26Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 35:27Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yeah, because, look, this is your dog, you know, you're

• 35:31Lewis Howes?

  Abandoning your friend who's been with you for ten years.

• 35:34Dr. Guy Winch?

  It's, there's no easy, now, there's no great way to feel about that. And I felt guilty for a long time. And I didn't do work on feeling guilty, because indeed I was moving to the States, I had a whole new, you know, I had a lot

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  Passion and career you were chasing.

• 35:48Dr. Guy Winch?

  I had a, you know, set up a new life, there was a lot on my plate. But I realized a couple of years later, when every time people would, I would go to people and they had a dog and I would be like

• 36:00Dr. Guy Winch?

  just petting the dog, or like, I would be like, I need to do some work on this because I'm not

• 36:04Lewis Howes?

  You're still affected, yeah.

• 36:05Dr. Guy Winch?

  I'm, this hasn't been processed well.

• 36:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so did you start doing some work on it?

• 36:10Dr. Guy Winch?

  I did.

• 36:11Lewis Howes?

  What did you do?

• 36:12Dr. Guy Winch?

  At the time I was in therapy, when you're in graduate school for, to become a psychologist, they strongly recommend that you be in therapy mode because you should know your stuff, right?

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:21Dr. Guy Winch?

  So I actually did discuss it, talked about it in therapy and I talked about it for quite a bit and I

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:25Dr. Guy Winch?

  came to, you know, and I really went through, A, is the guilt warranted? Could I have done something better? Should I have fought? And, and it really, there weren't really alternatives like that, but I had to go through a process of self-forgiveness.

• 36:40Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 36:40Dr. Guy Winch?

  Which is what I did.

• 36:41Lewis Howes?

  So you forgive yourself and you can move on?

• 36:42Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yeah, and my brother went through a process where he kind of vowed that any dog he has is gonna be, you know, uh, the next dog is gonna be a rescue dog.

• 36:49Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 36:50Dr. Guy Winch?

  And his next dog was a rescue dog.

• 36:52Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 36:52Dr. Guy Winch?

  And, and so that was, it was many years later, probably twenty years later that he had his next dog. But it was a rescue dog and he, he wanted to, to do that, you know, kind of in her name.

• 37:04Lewis Howes?

  Now, this might be interesting, you felt a lot of guilt with the dog, right? For how long?

• 37:09Dr. Guy Winch?

  Well, probably a couple of years, though.

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  Couple of years?

• 37:11Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yeah.

• 37:11Lewis Howes?

  Now, was there ever a romantic relationship where it took longer than that for you to heal?

• 37:17Dr. Guy Winch?

  No.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 37:22Dr. Guy Winch?

  Because I didn't put anyone to sleep.

• 37:24Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, there you go.

• 37:26Dr. Guy Winch?

  I didn't.

• 37:26Lewis Howes?

  I guess you're killing somebody, yeah, yeah.

• 37:28Dr. Guy Winch?

  I didn't drop them off somewhere and go, "I'll be back later, maybe."

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  That's so bad. Oh, man. So, what was the longest?

• 37:41Lewis Howes?

  With a romantic relationship, what was the longest it took?

• 37:44Dr. Guy Winch?

  To get over?

• 37:50Dr. Guy Winch?

  Look, my general guideline is I think the recovery does have to be in proportion to the length of the relationship.

• 37:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Doesn't matter if it's a dog, an animal, or, well...

• 37:59Dr. Guy Winch?

  But again, if you're dating somebody for two weeks, it might take two years to get over, but usually it should take less than if you were dating for two years or 20. And in my experience, my limited experience of me, the recoveries have been proportionate to the length of relationships. But I was also very much aware of that in my recoveries. I was very much aware that this is the relationship, this is how long it should take, these are the steps I need to take. I was not a passive participant in my recoveries.

• 38:28Lewis Howes?

  You were active.

• 38:29Dr. Guy Winch?

  I was a very active person in general as a psychologist, and since I'm informed of the information and I know there are tools I can use and steps I should take, it would be silly of me not to.

• 38:38Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 38:38Dr. Guy Winch?

  So I tend to.

• 38:39Lewis Howes?

  So you're like, "I need to go out three times a week with my friends."

• 38:41Dr. Guy Winch?

  No, I had to force myself to do those things.

• 38:43Lewis Howes?

  "I need to go to the dog park, I needed to go do this, whatever."

• 38:45Dr. Guy Winch?

  It was literally like, I don't feel like it, but I know it's good for me.

• 38:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:49Dr. Guy Winch?

  I feel like doing this, but that's not gonna help.

• 38:51Lewis Howes?

  And over time, you just start to feel better.

• 38:52Dr. Guy Winch?

  You recover more quickly. It is less painful.

• 38:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 38:56Dr. Guy Winch?

  And there's something empowering about feeling like, "Here are tools, and I'm using them."

• 39:00Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's cool. What's the greatest part about being a psychologist, therapist for you? You meet with people every single day who come to your office in New York City. What's the greatest part of it for you?

• 39:12Dr. Guy Winch?

  The greatest part is not what I would have expected when I started. I've been in practice for twenty-five years. And I have people who I saw when they were eight years old, who came with their parents, who twenty years later call me and saying, "I'm twenty-eight. You saw me when I was eight. I wanted to come see you about something."

• 39:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:31Dr. Guy Winch?

  Or people that I saw as a couple for ten years ago, who were like, "We need to come back for a few sessions." People, I think, need to use a psychologist, or this is at least my approach to therapy, is I'm a family doctor in that sense. I'm not going anywhere. We'll come, we'll work on stuff. Other things will happen in your life. You'll need to go and see someone at some point. You come back and you leave as needed. There is no, "You must be in therapy once a week for this many years and then never again." Not how it works.

• 39:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:59Dr. Guy Winch?

  And so to me, the greatest satisfaction is I get to see the stories unfold. I get many, many Christmas cards every year of people who send me their family pictures, their individual updates from fifteen, from twenty years now, of telling me how they're doing. And I always write back and I always cherish them because that's the satisfaction, like, look how their lives are progressing. So to be able to see the full story is a real gift because you were involved in that story, you care. And often they leave and then, "Did it work out? Did it not? Did they..." you know, and in many cases, I do find out.

• 40:39Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 40:39Dr. Guy Winch?

  And it's great.

• 40:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's cool. What's the biggest lesson you've learned about yourself from twenty-plus, twenty-eight years now? Practice, twenty-five? Twenty-five. Twenty-five years of practice.

• 40:50Dr. Guy Winch?

  The biggest lesson I learned about me?

• 40:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:54Dr. Guy Winch?

  That is a tricky question. I'll answer it this way. There's, it never fails that, it happens very frequently, that somebody will come in and talk about something and I will have a moment where I'm going like, huh. I need to address that in my own life. In your own life. Or that's something I didn't do well in my own life, which I didn't realize until they started talking about something that was so similar that I realized, ugh, I'm guilty of that. So when you're talking with somebody about, and when you have many patients, eventually, and not that eventually, frequently, it's gonna dovetail with things that are going on in your own life. I have authors I work with talk about their books and the frustrations about marketing books. And I'm like, mm, yeah.

• 41:35Dr. Guy Winch?

  I feel like applauding, but it really helps me because then I have at least the honesty with myself of, if that happens, to not ignore it and go, yeah, but to then actually do some thinking about it and then figure things out about it. And to me, that's, I mean, that's great. That's a great gift. So that's what I learn about myself. It's these little moments where somebody's going through something that I had gone through, I'm going through, and I realized through their narrative that there are options that I hadn't explored. Yeah, new tools that you had. New tools and new perspectives that I should be adopting. What's the greatest challenge you face in your own life right now? It's not a challenge per se, but as you get older, and this is trite for people who've gotten older,

• 42:19Dr. Guy Winch?

  but it turns out it's true. As you get older, you start to care more and more about legacy, about what's your impact on the world? Are you just in this life, visiting, taking what you can? Or are you trying to have an impact? Are you trying to change? Are you trying to help? Are you trying to leave this place better in your small way than how you found it? And that becomes more urgent because you have less time to do it. You know, when you're younger, you go, I'll get to that. And as you get older, it feels more important to, just for me, but not saying for everyone, but for me to make sure that I can do what I can do. Right. And so my next challenge, mission, assignment

• 43:04Dr. Guy Winch?

  is to continue to doing that and then figure out what's the next. So right now, it's about heartbreak. Right now, it's about all these heartbroken people walking around and the people around them who don't know how to deal, who are not. Really doing the right thing for themselves and could be. And that's information I really wanna get out there. And after that, there'll be the next piece of life that I wanna tackle. And say to people, oh, here's another piece of life you can do better with. And that we're not really talking about. Because in all my books, the theme, the thread throughout them is they all are about issues that we all confront on a daily basis, but do not talk about. My first book, The Squeaky Wheel, is about the psychology of complaining. And complaining is a broad thing.

• 43:47Dr. Guy Winch?

  It means how we complain to our spouse, to our friend, to our colleague, to customer service, in all those realms. And complaining psychology is very screwed up. And we do that very poorly and very ignorantly. The next book, Emotional First Aid, was about the common wounds of daily life, like failure, rejection, loneliness, and how there are very clear steps we need to take to heal. And yet we don't. And yet, so here are these steps. This is what you need to know. This is about heartbreak. The through line is daily experiences that are not pathology, right? They're not depression or anxiety. So we don't talk about them enough. And emotional health, something we need to pay more attention to. So it's all in that vein. And so the next thing is gonna be the next aspect of that.

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:30Dr. Guy Winch?

  That I will choose to tackle, that I think needs to be spoken about more. And people need to be more informed about, and yet they're not.

• 44:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. What do you think is limiting you or holding you back from doing more of what you want faster?

• 44:44Dr. Guy Winch?

  Hours in the day. And I have, in my life, made certain choices. People who have seen my first TED Talk will know that I have a twin brother, identical twin brother, who is also a psychologist, who has cancer. And he's had it for a long time. And he's in remission, but he's not cured. It's not a curable cancer. I, long ago, around the time of the diagnosis, obviously, made a decision that there's a certain amount of time. I'm gonna carve out to spend with him. And it's a significant amount of time. That's time I'm not gonna be in my office working. I'm not gonna be writing. I'm just gonna be spending with him. Because that's really important for me.

• 45:28Dr. Guy Winch?

  That limits things in a certain way. My practice is really important for me because my work is to talk about the human experience. My practice puts me in touch with the human experience. I am a sample of one. I'm not sufficient to think about this is how it works for me. Therefore, this is how it works for people. That's not sufficient. Reading science journals is not sufficient. Working with regular people in their daily lives through their variety of struggles is incredibly informative, is incredibly useful, and incredibly grounding. And that's not a part I'm willing to give up. With those limitations, there's only so much time left over for, you know, the writing, the speaking. And I do, I think, quite a bit of it.

• 46:11Dr. Guy Winch?

  So I try to maximize how much time I can do that. But I don't wanna sacrifice

• 46:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:17Dr. Guy Winch?

  my time with my brother, my practice, my personal life, you know, for the sake of I'm not that selfless that I will be like, my needs don't matter.

• 46:26Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 46:26Dr. Guy Winch?

  That's part of my message, so kind of they do.

• 46:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. Interesting. What's the common theme over twenty-eight years you've learned about people? What's the thing that we all want and need the most and we're all looking for?

• 46:41Dr. Guy Winch?

  The thing, it's again gonna sound like duh, but I'll say it this way. My last book is in twenty-four languages. Languages, you know, it's in Arabic, it's in Indonesian, it's in Vietnamese. What it taught me was that our emotional fabric, our emotional DNA is identical. Our emotional experience of the world and how we tend to react. Is far more similar than disparate. And we always tend to think, well, I feel this way, but other people don't in that situation. Or I'm feeling insecure in this situation, but other people don't seem to be. I feel really pained by this mild rejection that happened when my colleagues went to lunch, but didn't invite me, but someone else would shrug it off.

• 47:26Dr. Guy Winch?

  And what I've learned is that, no, the person who looks like they're shrugging it off are not manifesting it, but it stung. Because it stings when your colleagues go to lunch without you, even if you didn't want to go to lunch with them. Even if they're going to a steakhouse and you're a vegan, the rejection of it stings. I've learned that there is something extraordinarily universal about our emotional experience. And it crosses cultures, it crosses age, it crosses gender, it crosses race, it crosses nationality, and it binds us. And yet, we don't experience the commonalities we have with the human race all over the planet as we really have a very similar emotional experience.

• 48:08Dr. Guy Winch?

  Now, somebody from a war-torn zone does not have the same emotional experience as I do, because they're dealing with survival.

• 48:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:15Dr. Guy Winch?

  They're not dealing with, am I happy today? They're dealing with, is a bomb falling on me today? It's a very different, you don't have the luxury to ask whether you're happy when bombs are falling over you. So, in that sense, it's not a similar experience. But when you look at the similar situations, we respond similarly.

• 48:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:32Dr. Guy Winch?

  And that universality, and that is something I feel is such a strong bond we should have with one another, that we all bleed the same when it comes to emotions. It makes me warm to humanity when somebody comes into my office who's very different than me in terms of the life experience, their race, their age, whatever it is. And they start talking, and I always don't remember, because I know it, but I always am struck by how much we're similar, how much we respond the same.

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  Our feelings, yeah.

• 49:00Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yes, and I get them, because I feel those things. And that's the thing, the thing that struck me most in my practice, which is New York City. So it's incredibly varied, not in some kind of place where I'll have all of the same people of the same race, the same culture. It's very varied. And yet, when people are in my office, it doesn't matter what their race or culture are. It does for certain things, of course, just because that's their context, and that's the life experience. But in terms of their emotional responses to typical things, it doesn't.

• 49:31Lewis Howes?

  Has ever been a challenge brought to you by someone over 28 years? That you didn't feel like you could find a solution for? That was just like, I don't know.

• 49:42Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yeah, I can't help you. So, sorry?

• 49:44Lewis Howes?

  Figure it out, like, just take some time. It's just gonna take time and I hope, wish you luck, you know?

• 49:50Dr. Guy Winch?

  Look, I'll be honest with you. No. And here's what concerns me about saying no.

• 49:57Dr. Guy Winch?

  Because I know the answer is no, because it just hasn't happened. But then I thought, well, what does that mean? Am I that conceited that I think, no? But actually, here's why it's no. Because I don't need to know the answer when they come in. I just need to know how to start getting out of the stuck place they're in. If somebody comes in and says, "We are stuck," which is a general theme, that's a general language of somebody going to therapy. "Something's not working. I'm stuck. The relationship to this or that." Then they're stuck because they are seeing things in a certain perspective. The minute I'm looking at things in a different perspective, they are less stuck in my mind. Because they're stuck because they are seeing it like, "I'm stuck because I'm unhappy with my partner, "yet I can't leave them for A, B, C, and D."

• 50:42Dr. Guy Winch?

  And I know that's assuming the partner can't change at all, which is probably not true. That's assuming A, B, C, and D are all valid in the same way, which is probably not true. That's assuming they've tried everything, which is also probably not true. So I don't have to know the answer. I just have to know what options they have. How to help them think through developing new options. How to show them a slightly different perspective on how they're thinking about things that makes them feel less stuck in that perspective. So that I can do. And in that sense, no.

• 51:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, there you go. There you go. I've got a couple of questions left for you, but make sure you guys get the book, How to Fix a Broken Heart. It's out right now. Go check it out. Also, a great TED Talk that you should watch as well. It's called the same thing, How to Fix a Broken Heart.

• 51:25Dr. Guy Winch?

  It would probably be called How to Fix a Broken Heart. But if you go to ted.com and just put in Guy, even if not Guy Winch, you'll see my profile and then you'll find both my TED Talks. Or my website, guywinch.com will have, will feature them prominently.

• 51:38Lewis Howes?

  Both of them, yes. Go pick up the book. Are you Guy Winch on Twitter and Instagram as well, Facebook?

• 51:44Dr. Guy Winch?

  Guy Winch on Twitter, Guy Winch Author on Facebook.

• 51:48Lewis Howes?

  And shamefully, I am not an Instagram. What are you gonna do about it? I actually, I signed up. Okay, good. But that's it. But you're never on there? No. It's a waste of your time. It's not a waste of my time. It's making choices. You don't have the time. Yeah, yeah. It's making choices. There you go. Okay. We'll go check them out on Twitter and Facebook. And your website. This is called the three truths, this question. Imagine you've achieved everything you want. You've built a legacy. You've written all the books. All your wisdom has gotten out of you. You did it all. And you feel like, you know what? I did it all. I feel complete. Feel solid, like my life meant something, it mattered. My legacy will go on. But for whatever reason,

• 52:31Lewis Howes?

  for whatever reason, everything you've created has been erased.

• 52:35Lewis Howes?

  I love finishing on upbeat note, but please. Everything's been erased. So no one has access to any of your information anymore, right? But it's the last day for you. This is many years from now, 100 plus years from now, right?

• 52:51Lewis Howes?

  No more.

• 52:53Lewis Howes?

  No, I go to pictures.

• 52:59Lewis Howes?

  And you have a piece of paper and a pen.

• 53:03Lewis Howes?

  Something about when I hang out with you now. No, because I'm curious about where is this going?

• 53:09Lewis Howes?

  You have a piece of paper and a pen, right? And you get to write down the three things you know to be true about everything you've learned. Maybe you've written about these things, maybe you've talked about them, but they don't have that information anymore. Okay. All they have is a piece of paper left by you. You could write down three lessons or three truths from everything you've learned. Okay, so they stood it down to three things? Three things of like, this is all that you have access of me anymore. Even though you got to share it, it was erased. This is all you have left. These three truths. From Guy Winch to the world. What would you write down as your three biggest lessons or three truths? And that's all people have. All right. Here's one. Prioritize your emotional health. Pay attention. Make it important.

• 53:54Lewis Howes?

  Be proactive about it. That to me is very important. Number two, I would say, if you have this feeling in this situation, other people do too. Even if you don't see it.

• 54:07Dr. Guy Winch?

  So you don't need to walk around feeling what's wrong with me. Why am I having this reaction? Why do I not? Why do I? Other people do too. They don't show it. And you might not show it either. But they're having a similar experience or they would have a similar experience in your circumstance. Right. And by the way, since I'm just answering off the hat, which is to say if this actually happens, I might with more thought change some of these. Of course, of course. Off the top of your mind. The first, uh, blush is, and this is not new, but people still don't buy this enough. Um, and to me, it's hugely important. Self-criticism isn't valuable.

• 54:49Dr. Guy Winch?

  It actually doesn't do much. What do you mean by that? We all get self-critical. We criticize ourselves. We call ourselves stupid or loser. I'm such an idiot. You know, why do I have these feelings? Why did I react that way? What's wrong with me? Oh, I'm so stupid. People literally have an internal voice in their head, many of us, that is harsh and cruel. And they literally, when they are feeling worse, they beat themselves up. Mm-hmm. It is a, and it's something many people do. When we feel bad, we become self-critical. I always ask, what do you think you're getting out of that? Well, A, I deserve it. B, it'll, it'll prepare me for next time. Hmm, I won't. And, um, C, it'll lower my expectations appropriately. No, it'll just demoralize you.

• 55:33Dr. Guy Winch?

  So people have all these reasons for why that's an okay thing to do. It is pointless. It is damaging. It is, it's the self-esteem thing. Like, we need to build our self-esteem in difficult moments and our tendency is to do the exact opposite. And it is incredibly damaging. And when I put people on the spot and I say no, and I can prove to them that it's useless, that the one thing that they think is useful about it actually isn't. Because if you wanna actually look at your mistakes, you don't have to be self-critical about it. You can just say factually, I probably shouldn't have said that on the date because that probably wasn't appropriate to talk about my ex for 20 minutes in the first half hour of a date. Uh, wrong. Without going, I'm such an idiot. What's wrong with me? I'm a loser. I'll never meet somebody because I'm such a loser.

• 56:18Dr. Guy Winch?

  Not necessarily the second part. First part, true. Yeah. Don't need the second part to make the point. Know it and move on. The first part, actually, you will listen to much more if you don't add that. Stuff on later on that'll just make you feel so terrible. So self criticism, not useful.

• 56:32Lewis Howes?

  Don't need it.

• 56:33Dr. Guy Winch?

  Yeah, very automatic, stop it.

• 56:35Lewis Howes?

  Right, acknowledgement is good, but not criticizing for hours afterwards.

• 56:40Dr. Guy Winch?

  Right.

• 56:40Lewis Howes?

  Got it, those are good three truths off the top of your head.

• 56:42Dr. Guy Winch?

  There we go.

• 56:42Lewis Howes?

  I like it, I like it. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Guy. I really value your relationship and the information you did the first podcast has stayed with me. I think it was very powerful for me in a time when I was going through a lot of emotional, I needed some emotional first aid myself during that time and it helped so many people. And I think the work that you're doing, whether it be one on one with couples or individuals, you're making a massive impact. The TED Talks, you do this book, everything you do, you do it with a uniqueness. There's something about you that brings also this witty humor and fun to things as well. And you're able to connect universal ideas to help us all relate to the idea.

• 57:27Lewis Howes?

  So we can use it more effectively, these tools in our life. So I want to acknowledge you for constantly diving into the research, to studying your information, to mastering it, because you work extremely hard to make something so complicated, so much easier to experience for all of us. So I want to acknowledge you for that.

• 57:44Dr. Guy Winch?

  Thank you very much.

• 57:45Lewis Howes?

  Of course. Make sure you guys get the book, How to Fix a Broken Heart. The final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 57:52Dr. Guy Winch?

  My definition of greatness is setting a goal and reaching it. It doesn't have to be Everest.

• 57:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:00Dr. Guy Winch?

  The local hill. If that's a challenge for you and you set that goal and you climb that local hill, that's greatness to me.

• 58:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:09Dr. Guy Winch?

  Because it's not one thing, it's not a monolithic thing. It's an everyday thing, I think. I mean, that's how I would prefer to think of it. This greatness is something we should try and achieve every day. And so it's about living your potential, about trying to, about setting goals and whatever they are, and meeting them.

• 58:28Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 58:28Dr. Guy Winch?

  That's greatness to me.

• 58:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Go get the book. It's a small, but powerful book. Get it for a friend who's going through a heartbreak. Read it yourself. Guy Winch, thank you, appreciate it.

• 58:38Dr. Guy Winch?

  You're welcome, thank you.

• 58:47Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I hope this brought you some healing, some tools, some insights on how you can help heal yourself with a broken heart, or how to support your friends and family and loved ones if they ever experience a breakup or a broken heart as well. Again, the full interview is lewishouse.com/601. Take a screenshot, let me know what you thought of this. Tag me on Instagram, @lewishouse on Twitter and Facebook. Let me know what you think. All the resources and information are back at lewishouse.com/601. To watch the full video interview, make sure to go there. You can subscribe to us on YouTube as well because we come out with

• 59:29Lewis Howes?

  a new video every single day to inspire, educate, and entertain you in an uplifting way. So check us out. We've got over a quarter of a million subscribers over on YouTube and it keeps growing every single day. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. And again, this is a journey. We're all going on a journey together. There's going to be moments in our life where we deal with heartache, where we deal with stress, where we deal with emotional trauma. And it's all warranted, you know, based on our own experiences. It doesn't matter how, how long we've been with someone, how little we've been with someone. It's all okay for us to feel these things. And in fact, it's healthy for us to feel these things.

• 1:00:11Lewis Howes?

  But I hope these tools and insights and lessons give you some options for how to not let it ruin your life or control you for too long, or hold you back from living fully and getting yourself back out there in a healthy way. And again, Herman has said, "Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it's just letting go." And again, we get to let go of those feelings and emotions that hold us back from fully living and experiencing life in the most powerful and beautiful way. I love you very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.