730 Love, Intimacy, and Relationships with Stephan Speaks

MARRIAGE ISN'T THE PROBLEM - MARRYING THE WRONG PERSON IS. We all want connection. We all want an amazing, sexy, supportive romantic relationship. So why is it so hard to find the person who can fill that position? Most often, it’s not other people that are the problem- it’s ourselves. We have so much hurt from our past that we haven’t worked through that keeps us from experience true connection with someone else. Hurt people hurt people. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I discuss what is keeping people from accepting love and why marriages fail with an incredible relationship guru: Stephan Labossiere. Stephan Labossiere a.k.a Stephan Speaks is a certified relationship coach, speaker, and author. From understanding the opposite sex to navigating the paths and avoiding the pitfalls of relationships and self-growth, Stephan's relationship advice and insight help countless individuals achieve an authentically amazing life. Seen, heard and chronicled in national and international media outlets including; the Tom Joyner Morning Show, The Examiner, ABC, and Huffington Post Live, to name a few. To coin a phrase by an individual who attended one of his speaking engagements, "he's definitely the relationship guy, all relationships all the time." Stephan talks about how important it is to heal before you get into a relationship. Otherwise, you’re going to be projecting your past hurt onto your partner. He says that the most important part of every relationship is connection. Connection will bring chemistry. So get ready to learn all about the things that make a romantic relationship last on Episode 730. Some Questions I Ask: Who runs away from relationships that have potential more? Men or Women? (15:00) What makes you an expert on relationships? (19:00) What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned in a relationship? (22:00) What are the key things people should be looking for in a partner? (24:00) How often should we be talking about our sexual needs? (35:00) How do you manifest “the one?” (42:00) When someone feels like they have found “the one,” what are the conversations they should have to know it’s the right decision? (49:00) How do you know when you should end a relationship? (1:08:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: The number one thing holding people back from successful relationships (10:00) Why men ruin relationships more than women (18:00) How abstinence helped Stephan see things more clearly (20:00) The things that every great relationship needs (23:00) About the “Who Hurt Me” List (39:00) The attitude many women have that pushes men away (44:00) The truth about open relationships (58:00) The one thing that Stephan wishes men knew about women (1:13:00) 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 730 with relationship expert, Stephan Speaks. 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.

• 0:32Lewis Howes?

  William Shakespeare said, "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." And Charles Dickens said, "A loving heart is the truest wisdom." Welcome to our episode today. One of the greatest lessons I've learned in life has come through relationships. And so many people will say that relationships are your greatest teacher. Now, how many of you have gone through a challenging relationship in your life, an intimate relationship? Maybe you're in a relationship right now that you're stressed about, you're going ups and downs, that you're not sure about. Maybe there was some toxic relationships in your past,

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  and you've just always struggled in relationships. Or maybe you're in a place right now where things are going really well, but you want to take it to another level. If you're in that place, or if you're looking for the right partner, then this episode is for you. My friend Stephan LaBosier is a highly respected dating expert, and he is blown up online. Millions and millions of followers, mostly women, that just resonate with his message. He's an incredible listener, an incredible coach, and he's got a wealth of wisdom and information for you. I had found out about him online, started devouring his information, and just really loved his approach towards relationships. And in this interview,

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  we talk about the greatest test for a man today. We talk about the biggest obstacles that hold men and women back in relationships. How to manifest and attract the right partner for you? And how to know if the partner you're with right now is the right partner for you? Also, how to be mindful of the energy we give off? And how to focus on giving your partner the best of you and not the worst of you? I am so excited about this because, again, relationships are some of the things that hold us back the most. If our relationships are out of sync and out of harmony, then typically our career, our work, our business, our passion, our drive for life is held back as well.

• 2:43Lewis Howes?

  But when our relationships are working and they're thriving and the environment and the experience of our relationships are one of peace, love, and harmony, then man, we are unstoppable in our lives. And so, relationships can be our greatest kick and springboard to move us forward and the thing that holds us back the most. I remember in my twenties going through a couple of breakups where I literally was in like the fetal position for weeks in my room, in my bed, just like laying on the floor. And it's crippling when you don't have the emotional intelligence or the ability to move past those experiences.

• 3:27Lewis Howes?

  And if you don't have the ability to, while you're in a relationship, handle conflict. And so, that's what I'm excited about today. It's gonna be a powerful one. Make sure to share this with your friends. LewisHowes.com/730. Stefan Speaks on Instagram and tag me @lewishowes as well. All right, my friends, this is all about how to build true connections, how to maximize the relationships in your life, about finding love, keeping love, building intimacy, and all that good stuff with the one and only Stefan Speaks.

• 4:06Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back on one of the School of Greatness podcasts. We have Stephane La Bosiere in the house. Good to see you, my man.

• 4:12Stephan Speaks?

  Appreciate it, man.

• 4:13Lewis Howes?

  I'm glad you're here. You learned about me a few years ago, you said, from my website. And I learned about you, I think, in the last year from your incredible message that you have online, which is all about relationships. And you speak to men and women, young and old, but I feel like the essence is around women as well. Like, a lot of your messages is helping women understand how to find the right life partner, how to find, how to get married, how to know what's right for you. And you talk a lot about healing.

• 4:43Stephan Speaks?

  Yes.

• 4:44Lewis Howes?

  And why is healing, in your mind, so important in terms of building strong relationships?

• 4:49Stephan Speaks?

  It's important because it's the number one thing, holding people back from having healthier relationships. It's the issue that so many people are facing, but they sweep under the rug. We've all been through stuff. We've all been damaged. We've all been disappointed and hurt, but we have not properly processed those things. And then we take those negative experiences and we project them onto people. We project them onto our future. We project them onto our self-esteem and self-worth, and we throw everything out of whack. And now, we can't even embrace or set ourselves up for that great relationship because we're still holding on to the bad one that we experienced before. So, it completely gets in the way of people seeing progress in their life. So, to me, it's like, okay, we can give you all these tools and tips on how to date and how to navigate through this relationship world.

• 5:34Lewis Howes?

  Online dating stuff and this.

• 5:36Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. And it's all useful, but if you don't heal, you're gonna end up in a bad spot. There's no way around that. It's inevitable. And people who think they can ignore a lack of healing and still have a great relationship are being naive.

• 5:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it sounds like if you don't heal, you're gonna keep hurting yourself and hurting the person you're in a relationship with.

• 5:55Stephan Speaks?

  Yes, and/or hurting people that you could have been in a relationship with. Because so many people have run away or pushed away that real love because it was scary. It made them feel too vulnerable. And again, that stems from, you've been hurt, and so you don't want to go back to that hurt again. So, when somebody you feel deeply for pulls out all this love and this vulnerability out of you, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is too much.

• 6:22Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting. You know, many years ago, I was dating someone, and it was like...

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  You know, we were very connected very quickly. I felt like, wow, there's something different about this person. And after months, she started sabotaging things. Like, we were having like the most incredible nights. Like, everything was going great. And then all of a sudden, she would just get mad at me over nothing, right? Which seemed like nothing. And I was like, what, what did I say or didn't say? Like, I thought we were having fun here. And then the whole night, the next 24 hours would be ruined because she would be upset about something. But wouldn't tell me. And I was like, what is going on? She was not the right fit for me in the long run. And we broke up eventually. But at one point, she said to me, she goes, "I didn't think I'd find you." Like, "I didn't think I'd find you now at this age of my life." "I thought I'd find you like in my 30s." She was like in her young twenties.

• 7:14Lewis Howes?

  Where she's like, "I thought I'd like have my fun in my 20s." And then the version of you, the idea of you would come at like 30 or something. When she was ready. And she was holding on to so much baggage and like hurt from previous relationships. But she wasn't healing from it at the time.

• 7:30Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 7:30Lewis Howes?

  She was just kind of like sabotaging and like pushing away like the vulnerability that we were creating. Like, we were having so much connection and vulnerability, but she was just like, "I'm scared," you know?

• 7:40Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. Because she's, she lost emotional control with you. And that's a scary place to be in. And so, the only thing she can do at that point is look for something to be wrong to validate walking away. Because if she can't find something wrong, how can she say, "I can't do this. I don't want to be here anymore." So now it starts to nitpick, create issues. But it all stems from, yes, she has not healed. And I would argue that the vast majority of people are married to someone they don't even have the deepest feelings for.

• 8:11Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 8:11Stephan Speaks?

  Yes.

• 8:12Lewis Howes?

  How, what's the percentage, you think? In your mind?

• 8:15Stephan Speaks?

  If I had to throw out a number, I'm gonna say 60%.

• 8:18Lewis Howes?

  On educated guess, yeah, 60%.

• 8:19Stephan Speaks?

  60% I'm just gonna throw out there. And it could be a lot higher.

• 8:23Lewis Howes?

  I feel like 60% of people don't love, what did you say?

• 8:27Stephan Speaks?

  They're not married to the person they have the deepest feelings for, all right? The person they had the deepest feelings for, that situation somehow went left, people run. Like in your situation, in her mind, you were too good to be true.

• 8:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:39Stephan Speaks?

  This was not real.

• 8:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:40Stephan Speaks?

  She could not believe that she was experiencing this at this time of her life. And to be honest with you, she wouldn't have been ready at thirty either.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:48Stephan Speaks?

  Because at thirty, she still wouldn't have healed. You would have came along and she'd been like, what is going on here?

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:53Stephan Speaks?

  And so, it's a very common thing. It happens a lot more than people think. I'm willing to bet, there are men who are gonna hear this. And they're gonna say, oh my gosh, that happened to me.

• 9:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 9:04Stephan Speaks?

  All right, and people don't hear about it as much because now, when that woman tells her story to someone else, she doesn't say, oh, he was too good, I was scared, I ran away.

• 9:13Lewis Howes?

  He did this, and he had this fault, and I had this red flag.

• 9:16Stephan Speaks?

  Yes.

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  All these challenges came up, and he looked at me, I don't know, something.

• 9:20Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly, because again, she has to validate her decision, and she has to make herself feel more comfortable about the fact that she ran away from you.

• 9:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 9:29Stephan Speaks?

  But I'm gonna tell you right now, it's gonna hit her. It's gonna hit her hard one day. And don't be surprised if one day, I mean, I don't know.

• 9:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, it's already happened many times. It's happened many times, don't worry. No, it's, we weren't the right fit, it was, you know, it's all good.

• 9:41Stephan Speaks?

  Oh, good.

• 9:41Lewis Howes?

  And I wish her the best. Yeah, she's tried to come back many times and.

• 9:44Stephan Speaks?

  They always, always.

• 9:46Lewis Howes?

  It's all good. Who do you think runs away more from vulnerability in a, a relationship that has the potential to be great? Men or women?

• 9:56Stephan Speaks?

  People are gonna be shocked, but women, hands down.

• 9:58Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 10:00Stephan Speaks?

  Okay, one, I, I think that because women are more emotionally in tune, and they, they give more emotionally, so become a lot more emotionally invested in situations, it's quicker for themselves to feel like they're losing themselves when they feel this amazing connection with somebody. Because again, it pulls you into an area that you're not used to being in.

• 10:22Lewis Howes?

  They lose control.

• 10:22Stephan Speaks?

  Yes, because it's like, if you're with a guy that you really like, all right, and you're really into him, but he doesn't call you today, it'll bother you. But it's not gonna drive you crazy like the guy who you're madly into, all right? When he doesn't call you, you might be thinking, oh my gosh, what is he doing, what's happening? My good enough, women will start to question, analyze everything. That will drive them insane. Also, the reality is that women are hearing so much from other women or from what they've all experienced, good men don't exist. There are no good men here. This is a fairy tale to believe. You can meet this guy who's so great and so amazing. So when they meet that guy, it's something has to be wrong.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  This is too good to be true.

• 11:07Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. I cannot believe this is what it is.

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  Let me check his like background record. Let me, he went to jail.

• 11:12Stephan Speaks?

  He must have secret kids somewhere. Something is going on. On the flip side, when men come across that situation, they think, oh my gosh, I've hit the jackpot. Like I've found a woman who separates herself from everyone else. They latch on to it. The problem though with men is we don't typically handle those situations well in regards to, one, how that woman is reacting. So if she's feeling insecure or she's feeling uneasy, we get frustrated because it's almost like, well, we had this amazing connection. I'm doing my best to love you. Why are you acting like this? So now we may react in a way that fuels her fear.

• 11:49Lewis Howes?

  That fear, yeah.

• 11:50Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. And creates more problems. So we do contribute to the issue, but we're not quicker to run away. We're quicker to latch on and say, oh my gosh, I want this. This is an opportunity I can't let pass me by. Where she's thinking, this is not a real, this, this can't be true. I'm fooling myself. Let me run now before I get hurt even worse later.

• 12:11Lewis Howes?

  Before I get too deep in and then it's hard for me to get out.

• 12:13Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 12:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man.

• 12:16Stephan Speaks?

  Yeah.

• 12:16Lewis Howes?

  Who messes up relationships more? If women tend to run away more, if a man knows how to like manage the running this away, like who, who ends up messing up relationships more, men or women, in your experience?

• 12:31Stephan Speaks?

  That one's hard to say. I'm gonna lean towards men. And only because I feel like men aren't as in tune into what we're doing wrong in the moment. So for example, the other day I had a client came to me, his fiance broke up with him, alright? And he had said that back in, earlier this year, they had this argument. And it was over the fact that there weren't towels prepared for her when they were staying at some family's house. Now, she's saying to him in this argument, "You don't appreciate me, you don't make me a priority essentially." And he's saying, "Why are we arguing about a towel?"

• 13:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:06Stephan Speaks?

  And I had to explain to him like, "Listen, it's not about the towel. Listen to her words." She said, "You never appreciate me. Let's explore that." So I think that there's a disconnect a lot of times with guys not understanding what they're overlooking, what they're missing, not truly hearing what the woman is saying. Because she's not always very clear and transparent about what's going on. Which, yes, is an issue, which does contribute to the problems. But I do think that men knowingly and unknowingly sometimes make a lot of mistakes that cause damage to relationships. I don't want to necessarily put more blame on them, but I do think, yeah, it happens more on that side.

• 13:43Lewis Howes?

  And when did you start to learn about relationships so well? Because right now, you're not married, you're not in a relationship. So what gives you this experience of relationship expertise and understanding?

• 13:56Stephan Speaks?

  So, it's a combination of things. One, it was ever since I was a kid, people came to me and told me their life story.

• 14:03Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 14:03Stephan Speaks?

  Yes. I remember being 13, I would meet, I met a woman for the first time at a party. At the party, she's telling me how she's been raped, how all these horrific things have happened to her, that she's never told anyone else. And I could see this was a one-time thing, but this was a reoccurring theme. People, I could be, I remember at the bus stop one time, someone sitting next to me and then opening up. And I never understood why, but what that did was it allowed me to see into people's lives more than the average person does. Therefore, gain a better, more clear understanding of what's really going on.

• 14:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:36Stephan Speaks?

  But what really, I think, bust the doors wide open was when I went abstinent. Because I feel like as men, when we still have sex on the brain and sex as the focus, we don't see straight, alright? And we don't process things properly.

• 14:50Lewis Howes?

  Were you in a relationship at the time, you mean?

• 14:52Stephan Speaks?

  No, I was single and, you know, fuck, God was telling me I need to step away from women and just be abstinent. And this also coincidentally was when the business really took another step and went to a higher level. And so it allowed me to refocus, but in not just refocusing purpose and business-wise, I was able to really see things for what they were. I was able to step away from situations and really evaluate, understand. Because so much is happening and so much, it's not that we don't know, but sometimes we don't know how to articulate it. We don't know how to process and break it down. Now, that I do believe is a natural gift that I've been given. I just know how to express things in a way that people can understand it. And I know how to process things and see beyond what you're showing me.

• 15:36Stephan Speaks?

  Because a lot of people will act like, "I'm happy, I'm good, nothing wrong with me," and I can see right through that, alright? So, that combination of natural gift, letting God lead me as far as my purpose is concerned. But I do think that being abstinent and really taking my selfish desires out of it.

• 15:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow. When did this happen? How old were you?

• 15:57Stephan Speaks?

  This was, I was what, 27?

• 15:59Lewis Howes?

  You've been abstinent since 27?

• 16:02Stephan Speaks?

  There's been some on and off.

• 16:05Stephan Speaks?

  I haven't been perfect with it.

• 16:06Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 16:06Stephan Speaks?

  But I did go a stretch of five years.

• 16:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:10Stephan Speaks?

  And I really think that helped open my eyes to another level and really allow me to see things more clearly. And not to see things more clearly, but also fine-tune how I express things. Because I was the person when I was younger who was very blunt, very bold, just said how I felt, didn't care how you felt about it. And I learned, you know, it's not what you say is how you say it. And learning how to convey the message in a way that people can actually receive it was something I had to work on as well, especially as I found myself in this position. I never knew I was gonna be doing this. I never saw this as my future, but once I kind of got to that place of accepting it, I realized I had things I had to improve upon and make better so that I can truly help people the way they need to be helped.

• 16:53Lewis Howes?

  What's the greatest lesson you learned in a partnership or intimate relationship of yours? That you've had?

• 16:59Stephan Speaks?

  Don't internalize things personally.

• 17:02Stephan Speaks?

  And what I mean is, a lot of times, we react to what they're doing, or how they're talking to us, or their behavior towards us in that moment, not realizing it's deeper than us in that moment.

• 17:13Lewis Howes?

  It's not about us.

• 17:14Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. And if we internalize it and we react to that, we will now make things worse. And we will pile on more negative energy into the situation, and it starts to make things harder to overcome, or it can just break apart the whole relationship. So, learning to kind of take a step back, and really, again, hearing them, not, not just listening to what they're saying, or not just hearing them, more so listening as far as, listen to the key words, listen to what's really going on with them. Take your own emotions out of it, don't react emotionally to things. And I think that's a lesson for not just romantic relationships, that's for any relationship. Business, family, whatever, don't be so quick to react emotionally. Allow yourself to process. I always tell you, you know how they say, they say,

• 17:59Stephan Speaks?

  "Think before you speak, pray before you speak." Pray before you react. Allow yourself to just calm your spirit, listen, process, then speak. Because too many times, that emotional reaction, it just, it's just adding more fire to the flame.

• 18:15Lewis Howes?

  What should be the key things people are looking for in any partner to thrive and maintain a relationship long-term in today's society?

• 18:25Stephan Speaks?

  The first thing that came to mind is connection, alright? I am a firm believer that you can't have an amazing relationship, at least long-term, without connection. A lot of people get by on that initial hype, alright? That initial excitement, "Oh, they're so wonderful, their resume's so great, blah, blah, blah." Okay, that's cool, but that's not gonna sustain you. Is there something deeper there? Can you two truly be each other, be yourselves with each other? Open up, share your inner thoughts, be emotionally naked with this person. If you can, and you still enjoy their presence, enjoy speaking to them, you feel good when they're around you, okay, we got something we can work with here. Even if everything's not in perfect alignment, we have the foundation to now grow the relationship.

• 19:10Stephan Speaks?

  But without that, it's just fluff.

• 19:12Lewis Howes?

  Is connection something that's... Created, or is it just, does it only happen between certain people?

• 19:19Stephan Speaks?

  It only happens between certain people.

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 19:20Stephan Speaks?

  It's either there or it's not.

• 19:22Lewis Howes?

  And you should know it in the first few minutes, or is it, maybe it takes?

• 19:25Stephan Speaks?

  I won't say you'll know it in the first few minutes. I think it can vary. I think it depends on how spiritually in tuned you are, how emotionally grounded you are. If you're in a very emotionally healthy place, I do think you're gonna recognize it very quickly. All right? But a lot of times, you pick up on it, but you're scared to embrace it. You're still rationalizing, what's going on here? And we've been programmed to believe it all takes time. So when we see this experience where two people are, it's like this, they click, and they're feeling these intense feelings right away, everyone else is saying, slow down, this can't be real, or you know, you're jumping the gun. In reality, no, because in most situations, let's just say, if not in a few minutes,

• 20:08Stephan Speaks?

  the first date, people know. People know, like, there's potential here or there's not, or this one could be the one, or they're not. But we rationalize why we should entertain this and move further, give it a chance, waste our time, and then we find ourselves stuck in situations we don't belong in. And now we try to make it work, because we've invested so much. We don't wanna now admit that we were wrong, or we wasted our time, we're lonely. Various reasons cause us to hang on to situations we don't belong in. But we knew from the beginning. Like, when I speak to people who are divorced, and I ask them.

• 20:46Lewis Howes?

  When did you know?

• 20:47Stephan Speaks?

  When did you know, yeah?

• 20:48Lewis Howes?

  A lot of people, like, my wedding day, or like, it's like.

• 20:50Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 20:50Lewis Howes?

  I knew when I was walking down the aisle. You're like, why did you get married?

• 20:53Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 20:54Lewis Howes?

  I hate when people answer that way. I'm like, why would you get married?

• 20:56Stephan Speaks?

  And even way before then. Forget, but the marriage day might have been when reality truly hit, or they allowed themselves to see it, but then at that point, what are you gonna do?

• 21:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you gotta fall through. Your family's there, and you don't wanna be embarrassed.

• 21:08Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. But again, the reality is, that person saw it way before. But again, they rationalized past it then, and now they find themselves in this more difficult position, and they can't do anything about it.

• 21:20Lewis Howes?

  And then they get a divorce a year, two later.

• 21:22Stephan Speaks?

  Ten years, twenty-five years later. I know, listen, I know one couple who were married for twenty-five years. After they got divorced, everyone was against it because on the outside looking in, they looked like this great couple, alright? But they were miserable, alright, behind closed doors. Well, the wife let me read a letter that the husband wrote her before they got married. I read this letter and the first thing I say is, "Why did you ever get married?" It was clear as day in this letter that you guys should not have taken that step.

• 21:53Lewis Howes?

  What did it say generally?

• 21:55Stephan Speaks?

  It was, it was just in general, uh, calling out all these different issues and problems. It was a clear disconnect between the two. And once I started to learn the real story, you saw that they did not have that deep connection. They were two people who did not fit together. And what they lacked is, was the other thing I was gonna bring up as far as what people need is balance. Alright? I think too many times we're fixated on equality and not enough on balance.

• 22:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, what's the difference?

• 22:23Stephan Speaks?

  The difference is this, equality is almost like, alright, LeBron and, and Dwyane Wade join together. They both are alpha males of their team, they're both superstars, they both can shoot. There's some level of equality there. But you know what? They could not win a championship until one decided who's going to be the main person here. It wasn't about equality, it was about balance. It was about complementing each other, learning how to work together. D Wade or the, or the rest of the team being able to do the things that LeBron can't do everything on his team. He needs the right players around him. So it's the same thing in relationships. It's not about they have to be able to do everything we do, we gotta be able to do everything they do. It's about can we complement each other? Can we balance each other? Can I fit in? Or can I have the strengths where you have the weaknesses? Alright?

• 23:08Stephan Speaks?

  And in a way that doesn't conflict. And I believe the conflict part is when you don't have a connection, they will conflict. When there is a connection, that's when you're gonna find balance. Because now, when there's a connection, we embrace our differences.

• 23:22Lewis Howes?

  Communicate better. You can say, "This is what you're really good at, why don't you do more of these things and let me do these things?"

• 23:28Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. And we can find a way to make it a whole unit.

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:32Stephan Speaks?

  That's how we create amazing relationships. Balance to me is the greatest key. Balance and connection, you have those two things, you win. Win.

• 23:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:40Stephan Speaks?

  And if you look at most failed relationships, they lack those two things.

• 23:45Lewis Howes?

  Two things, connection.

• 23:46Stephan Speaks?

  And balance.

• 23:47Lewis Howes?

  There might be some forced connection, or they've lost the connection because it wasn't really a.

• 23:51Stephan Speaks?

  They never had the connection.

• 23:52Lewis Howes?

  It was never true. It was like the hype of the connection.

• 23:55Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 23:56Lewis Howes?

  The sexual connection, or the resume of this person, or the idea of this person.

• 24:00Stephan Speaks?

  It was more so chemistry. Like, chemistry is not connection. All right? Chemistry, chemistry can be created. All right? And again, so using the whole basketball analogy, a team comes together, you can build chemistry. We can learn how to work together. We can learn how to coexist, so to speak. But that doesn't mean we really like each other at its core. All right? There's the difference. So you can have a team where the players learn to play together, but they still hate each other. All right?

• 24:27Lewis Howes?

  So they had chemistry.

• 24:28Stephan Speaks?

  But no connection.

• 24:29Lewis Howes?

  But not connection.

• 24:29Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. When you have a connection in a relationship, that is way more important than chemistry. Because the connection will bring the chemistry. We don't got to worry about the chemistry part. When two people have a connection, they learn. Exactly. And it's a rare thing. Again, we don't experience that with everybody. It's something that happens, you, it's rare to find someone who can say they've had that deep, genuine connection more than two times in their life. If even twice. All right? It's usually once, to be honest with you.

• 24:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:00Stephan Speaks?

  But I'm gonna give it two times. And yes, there're gonna be some people out there that say, well, there's billions of people in this world. Why could, it's not about, yes, is it technically possible? Maybe so, but you're not gonna come across billions of people in the world. You're only gonna come across a certain amount of individuals. And in that group of people, yes, you're only going to find that connection maybe once or twice. And once you get there, like, once somebody sets the bar that high in your life, it is very hard.

• 25:26Lewis Howes?

  To go, yeah, you have to refine that.

• 25:28Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. You're not gonna feel comfortable anymore going beneath that. If you do, you're gonna find yourself not at peace and very miserable in your relationship.

• 25:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:38Stephan Speaks?

  Connection, balance. Is there anything else? Or is those the really the main two things? And then everything else is figure out. I would, the, the last thing I'm gonna throw in is attraction. And the reason I throw it in is because I feel like in this world, we, we try to shame people for putting a focus on attraction. And to me, it's not about looks. Looks is about specifically saying you have to look like this, you have to be this tall, you have to have this body shape. I'm not saying looks, I'm saying attraction. We have to be physically drawn to each other. That's the last ingredient that takes a relationship from platonic to romantic. And that's the ingredient that if you remove it, will make a romantic relationship. Friends. Exactly, friends, roommates. You got people living together? No sexual chemistry. Exactly. Because why? The attraction is gone.

• 26:23Stephan Speaks?

  But if you bring it back into that relationship, see how quickly things change. That is the ingredient. So we have to be willing to embrace the fact of, yes, attraction is necessary, one, when we first meet each other, and we need that to be more drawn to each other. But then to maintain and sustain that great relationship, we can't make excuses for letting ourselves go. And, and understand, there's a difference between aging and letting yourself go. A lot of people are letting themselves go, making excuses for it. I understand life hits us, it's tougher as we get older, yes, but you gotta work to maintain attraction in your relationship. You let that go to the wayside. Friends. Exactly. How important is sex in a relationship? Hugely important.

• 27:07Stephan Speaks?

  This is coming from a guy who's abstinent, right? Yeah, right. Well, you know what? To me, I, I say hugely important from the standpoint of, I think people have to look at sex not just from the sta, from the perspective of pleasure, but from the perspective of bonding. I believe it is an opportunity for two people to grow closer together. And when two people know how to truly satisfy each other, it creates an amazing bond. Deeper connection, better balance. Exactly. More attraction. Yes. And it keeps it going. Exactly. Because if you have to unsatisfy people sexually, you're gonna have a problem. You can't find a relationship where that exists, and they're all happy and everything's great. It doesn't work that way. People crave intimacy.

• 27:50Stephan Speaks?

  People crave that level of bonding with each other. And yes, biologically speaking, we can talk about the needs of a man and a woman and all these things, but I think even going deeper spiritually and all that. Sex is important and we are not taking enough of a mature approach to understanding and learning sex. I think people are very much behind in their understanding of it.

• 28:12Lewis Howes?

  Especially in America, it's like we weren't educated.

• 28:15Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 28:15Lewis Howes?

  It's a very like hush hush type of thing. It's not talked about in schools. Your parents, at least most parents, aren't talking about it until it's like the moment. And it's like, let me say something to just get it out and then let them figure it out.

• 28:28Stephan Speaks?

  And not just that, a lot of our parents don't know either.

• 28:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:31Stephan Speaks?

  Like, people just don't take time to get more educated on their bodies, on sex, on true sexual satisfaction. There's a lot of lies going on. I tell people all the time, listen, a lot of women aren't being sexually satisfied, alright? But they're lying to their friends, they're lying to their partners. So there's a perception that everything is all good. No, it's not. There's a huge disconnect between the reality or the perception of women's sexual satisfaction and the reality of women's sexual satisfaction. And that contributes to a disconnected marriages. Because again, if the woman is not satisfied, she now becomes less willing to be sexually involved with her husband. Now, he starts to gain resentment, he starts to feel neglected.

• 29:15Lewis Howes?

  Starts to wander.

• 29:16Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. Everything, it snowballs from there. We can't overlook that and act like everything's gonna be fine. And we can't say, well, you should love them enough to where it doesn't matter. Listen, we're talking about maintaining a committed relationship. That's a part of it, plain and simple. And we have to learn how to make it better on both sides and how to be more honest with each other. I think if we can learn to be more honest and transparent, then we can work on the things that are lacking. But people, again, they feel very uncomfortable speaking about sex, speaking about their needs and constructively criticizing their partners. We have to learn.

• 29:53Lewis Howes?

  Because you don't want to hurt someone, yeah.

• 29:55Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 29:56Lewis Howes?

  How often should we be talking about our sexual needs in an intimate relationship? Should it be like, once a month, we sit down and like? Schedule it out, is it like pillow talk every week? Like what should be, again, everyone's different, but what do you think is an appropriate amount of time?

• 30:12Stephan Speaks?

  So what jumps in my head, I would say every three months. If I had to put a number on it, alright? But I do think it depends on the couple. I think more so it's when an issue arises, talk about it.

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 30:22Stephan Speaks?

  The key is we have to create environments where we can have those talks. See, again, we're laying the wrong foundations in our relationships to where we can't have these open discussions about sex and other things lacking in our relationship. And we're afraid to push our partners away. We're afraid to ruffle the feathers or rock the boat. But if you can't talk to them-

• 30:43Lewis Howes?

  We resent things, right?

• 30:44Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. And what happens is you hold it in, and now the negative energy comes out in other ways. And now, they're confused because they're like, "Why are they giving me this attitude?" And they're thinking, like I said earlier, "He's thinking it's about the towel." No, it's not about the towel. It's really about something else that you're not telling him. So we need to be more honest and transparent, and we need to create an environment where we can have this talk and you're not gonna take it personally to the where you're gonna internalize it or allow it to now throw our relationship off because you're getting upset and you're allowing it to, you know, have a negative impact. No, take it as, okay, that's how you feel, cool, let's work on this. How can we make this better? You know, we have to be serious about tending to the needs of our partner if we're gonna have successful relationships.

• 31:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. There's so many divorces happening, you know, it's higher than ever, right? I think it's the, we had the divorce attorney on who's talking about how it's higher than ever. There's also even more people who stay married who probably shouldn't be divorced, who aren't happy. And so it sounds like there's a very small percentage of married people who've been together for many years who are actually still thriving in relationship. I'm just, maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's more, but it sounds like it, right?

• 31:55Stephan Speaks?

  Uh huh.

• 31:56Lewis Howes?

  There's a very small percentage of them that are having like these incredible, long-lasting marriages and relationships that like have the attraction and connection and balance and all these things. Why do you think that is? And how can we decrease the number of failed relationships? Or is that the wrong question to ask?

• 32:15Stephan Speaks?

  No, I think it's a good question. I think, one, we have to understand marriage is not the issue. It's marrying the wrong person and marrying for the wrong reasons. All right? And then underlying to those things are the lack of healing. Because it's the lack of healing that leads us into these wrong relationships and allows us to entertain situations we should not entertain. Because again, for example, if you're a guy or a woman, if you've been through some things and now you think you don't deserve that great person, that great relationship, because your perception of yourself is low. Now you're gonna just latch on to whoever comes around who says, "I wanna be with you and willing to give you what you want at that moment."

• 32:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:52Stephan Speaks?

  And you're thinking, "Okay, this is safe. This will work. Let me go ahead and go with it." But you're never truly into them like that. It's never gonna be the relationship it needs to be. All right? But that all stemmed from your lack of self-worth because you didn't heal from whatever traumatized you emotionally before.

• 33:07Lewis Howes?

  So how do we heal first? What's that process look like?

• 33:11Stephan Speaks?

  So it's a long process. And I do plan on, I have a book I'm working on right now called Finding Love After Heartbreak. And it's gonna lay out the entire process. So I'll give a little bit right now and I'll save the rest for later.

• 33:23Lewis Howes?

  Great.

• 33:23Stephan Speaks?

  So one thing is first, we gotta get the hurt out. And so I have this exercise I do at all my events called the Who Hurt Me List. And so you get a piece of paper.

• 33:31Lewis Howes?

  Like a hundred people.

• 33:35Stephan Speaks?

  Ask yourself the question, "Who hurt me?" And now every person who comes to mind, write them on that paper. Doesn't matter if you think you moved past it. Doesn't matter if you think it's small and insignificant. If they came to mind when you asked yourself that question, put them on the paper.

• 33:49Lewis Howes?

  Anyone in your life?

• 33:50Stephan Speaks?

  Anyone.

• 33:51Lewis Howes?

  From a childhood friend, to your parents, to a lover?

• 33:54Stephan Speaks?

  Anyone. Anyone, anything, if they come to mind, put them on that list. Because that's how we start to recognize the pain points in your life. Now we see, okay, this is where it's coming from. A lot of people have suppressed what has happened to them. And so you can't, you can't address and resolve something that you're not willing to accept existing in your life. And the reality is that just because it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, it's still lingering within you. And it's causing a lot of problems and it causes a lot of emotional stress, which then turns into physical ailments. And it just snowballs.

• 34:27Lewis Howes?

  Tension, anxiety, fear.

• 34:30Stephan Speaks?

  Yes, depression.

• 34:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:31Stephan Speaks?

  All right, a lot of these things that we go through in, in mental health, stems from things that we have not resolved from our past. And it's just all contributing to the, the issues that we're experiencing in the now. And some of us, we may not be experiencing the issues right now, but we will, it's coming. It's just festering in you and it's gonna come out at some point.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so write a list and, and think about those moments and reflect on them or what?

• 34:53Stephan Speaks?

  Well, no, so at, at that point, once you get the list, now we can see the first person and I won't go too much further, but let's just say, you're gonna have to go through a process of getting things off your chest. We have not released these things from our spirit, from our system. And we need to essentially emotionally detox. And to do that, you've got to get it out. So whether you're speaking to a recorder, write a letter, something.

• 35:16Lewis Howes?

  Steam into a pillow, right?

• 35:18Stephan Speaks?

  Yeah, but, but I do want like a full release. Again, we don't fully release.

• 35:24Lewis Howes?

  Would you release each person or just everyone at one time?

• 35:28Stephan Speaks?

  So I would say this, you wanna start with, let's say your top three. Now I've had clients where they did their top three. And that kind of, once they got through those, they were able to process everyone differently to where it wasn't necessary to do everyone else. All right, now if you have 10 significant experiences and 10 significant different people that need to be addressed, yes, you may have to release with 10 different people. So it depends on the person and that's why something like this requires a more in-depth process. We gotta talk about things, we gotta understand what about it did you internalize? How you're seeing it, because some of it is changing your mindset, changing your perception of what happened. Understanding that it wasn't about you, like as we said earlier, hurt people hurt people.

• 36:10Stephan Speaks?

  And so once you understand that and understand how they behave and why they behave the way they do, it changes how you look at things and how you internalize those situations. So there's so much more we gotta get into, but just getting at least that list started, well, at least, yes, because now you at least get to see, okay, here's where it is. Here's what needs to be addressed. Now let me get help to address these things and start the process of healing so that I'm not ending up in more bad situations or bad relationships.

• 36:38Lewis Howes?

  Repeating the process. Let's say you've dealt with the hurt and it takes, you know, it takes the time that it takes you and. You've gone through all that. How do you manifest and attract a partner that you want to be with that has those three keys? The connection, the attraction, and the balance? That you feel like is the one, could be one of the ones? How do you set yourself up to attract that incredible partner?

• 37:04Stephan Speaks?

  So, one, you gotta be yourself. So finding yourself is number one, alright? You can't connect with someone if they're connecting with the fake you, alright? That's a false connection. So you have to discover who you are, become confident in that, stand strong in it. Now, who is drawn to that person, you know it's real, alright? And so that's where we begin. Two, you need to exude positive energy, alright? I think this is very important for women, alright? Because the reality is that it's men, or the type of men that a lot of women want, aren't gonna be drawn to a negative woman.

• 37:43Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 37:43Stephan Speaks?

  There's millions of good women, but that doesn't mean they're positive women, alright? And it's that lack of positive energy that holds them back more than they realize.

• 37:52Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 37:53Stephan Speaks?

  Yes.

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  Just like even just saying negative things throughout the day? They might be a good person, but if they're always complaining or negative.

• 38:00Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. And not even just what they say. Again, it's how they're coming off.

• 38:04Lewis Howes?

  Their facial energy, their body language.

• 38:07Stephan Speaks?

  Yes. It's like, so look at it like this. I tell people all the time, it's not what you say, it's how you make them feel. Alright? So you can say all the wonderful things you want, but if in your presence, they don't feel that ease, they don't feel peace, they don't feel that positivity, that's still gonna throw everything off.

• 38:21Lewis Howes?

  If you say nice things, but you have a frown. What's the point?

• 38:24Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. Exactly. And what, what a lot of women aren't realizing is that their energy is off because they have walls up. They're so scared, they're so fixated on protecting themselves.

• 38:36Lewis Howes?

  Because they've been hurt in the past.

• 38:38Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. Having healed from those things. But I tell people all the time, the same walls you have up to protect you are the same walls blocking your blessings, alright? So you don't realize, you're restricting your ability to love and be loved because you're walking in fear. All right, you can't walk in fear and expect all these wonderful things to happen. It doesn't work that way. Even in business, the ones who succeed are the ones who put the fear aside and say, I'm gonna have faith and push forward no matter what, no matter how it looks in front of me, no matter how many people tell me you're doing the wrong thing, get a regular job, whatever. No, you believe what you need to do and you push forward past that fear. It's the same thing with relationships.

• 39:18Stephan Speaks?

  You have to push forward in faith, not fear, if you want to receive that great relationship. And so, yes, this can happen with men as well. I don't want men thinking they can carry around a bunch of negative energy and they're gonna get a great relationship. But I do think it shoots women in the foot more, because here's the other thing that people don't talk about a lot, and some people may not like this, but I'm just gonna keep it real. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It pulls women away from their feminine energy. When they're not positive. When they're not positive. And when they're holding on to these fears and have these walls up. And it's the feminine energy that makes the woman so powerful. That's the tool that's at her disposal that can make the world her oyster, all right? But women have become very detached from their femininity. And the thing is this, if you... A lot of women will say they're not feminine.

• 40:03Stephan Speaks?

  They're just not that way. I dispute that in most situations. No, you become detached from it, you become uncomfortable with it, due to, again, a lack of healing and due to experiences in your life. Now, if you are more masculine, so to speak, and you are happy that way, then by all means, continue to live your life as you are. But if you're not seeing things work for the way that you want them to, and you're in that energy, that more masculine energy or more further away from your feminine, then consider making a switch. Consider at least trying it. Yeah. See the difference. And what I find with a lot of women is that not only is it beneficial to them as far as relationships-wise, it's beneficial in the quality of their life. Or their health.

• 40:45Stephan Speaks?

  Their health, their peace, their work, you name it. I have a client, she's a doctor at a big hospital. And when she came to me, she was frustrated with relationships, ready to give up on men. Nobody liked her at work. She was just a hard, tough manager. So we worked on her energy. We worked on healing. We got her energy, we got her to embrace more feminine energy. She will swear by it right now. In one month, her whole hospital started to love her. Now they're all helpful, whether they were women or men. Men started coming out the woodworks, alright?

• 41:19Lewis Howes?

  Let me get your number, girl. Let me get at you, girl.

• 41:21Stephan Speaks?

  She ended up meeting her soon to be fiance on an airplane. Two months after we started doing the coaching. So-

• 41:30Lewis Howes?

  What were the shifts that she made every single day? Like, what was the things that she said, "Okay, I'm gonna not be this way. I'm gonna start trying this."

• 41:36Stephan Speaks?

  It was just, it was one, being more conscious of your energy. I think number one, we have to be mindful of the energy we're giving off. We become so distracted by our issues that we're facing in the world, by our responsibilities. We're not always in tune with what we're giving off. So, to give an example, and this is just a small one. Even for me as a man, I work out a lot. When I come out the gym, I started to notice I'm very tense. My face is, you know, hard, exactly. So I've learned to, when I walk out the gym, take a deep breath, relax the body, relax the muscles. And the energy completely changes, alright? Because yes, you can become very intimidating as a man, just like you can become very intimidating as a woman. And so you have to be mindful of, are you making yourself more approachable?

• 42:20Stephan Speaks?

  Are you allowing people to feel more comfortable being around you? And so that starts with being mindful of it, being conscious of it. And one great way to do that is getting an accountability partner, alright? Tell someone who, who has the ability to be positive, because you don't want to pick a negative person to be your accountability partner. It's gonna throw everything off. But you pick a positive person, and you say, "Hey, listen, whenever I'm being negative, whenever I'm giving that bad energy, let me know." Because now when they tell you, you won't always realize when you're doing it. At least not at first. But once they start calling you out, now you become more mindful of it. Now you can take hold of it and control it. And now you master what energy you're giving off at certain times. And that changes everything.

• 43:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:05Lewis Howes?

  When someone feels like they've found the one, and I've heard this a lot, like, I know this is the one, or I thought they were the one, and then it didn't end up working out.

• 43:17Lewis Howes?

  And they wanna get married. They've decided marriage is for them. They wanna be life partners. What are a few of the conversations that they should have to not know for certain, but know for better certain that this is the right decision? This partnership is the right decision? To move forward in a long-term committed relationship?

• 43:35Stephan Speaks?

  Okay.

• 43:35Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to just maybe the infatuation behind it, or the initial connection, or the attraction? What are a few questions they should be asking each other that maybe they haven't asked yet to know whether or not they're setting themselves up for that successful, long-term relationship?

• 43:51Stephan Speaks?

  Okay. Number one, how do you envision your role in a marriage? All right? People don't go in finding out what the expectations are before they get married. They have this assumption that we're just gonna transition from how we are in a relationship to being that way in a marriage. No, no, no, no, no. Because a lot of times, things change. And the level of expectation raises now in marriage. You also have some people who may think, for example, you may have a man out there who thinks, okay, my job is to court you when we're boyfriend and girlfriend.

• 44:28Lewis Howes?

  When we're married.

• 44:29Stephan Speaks?

  When we're married, I don't gotta do all that work anymore. Now I'm your husband. I've given you the ring. Satisfy me, make me happy. You gotta find that out. Because you're setting yourself up for failure if you don't realize he thinks he gets to take time off now that he's married you. Or he may think, as long as I'm paying these bills, don't ask me for anything else. You gotta find out. So we need to ask, what do you?

• 44:49Lewis Howes?

  She should be asking that.

• 44:51Stephan Speaks?

  Both of them should be asking. What, how do you perceive your role in marriage? What are your expectations from me in marriage? Let's find out what we need, what we're expecting from each other. Number two, making sure our values are aligned. All right? So whether that be spiritual, whether that be even financial values, whatever those things are, let's make sure we're on the same page about it. And if we're not on the same page, are these things we can balance out and work out? All right? So for example, if, let's look at it from a financial perspective. If I'm a very frugal man.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 45:25Stephan Speaks?

  And this woman is a spender.

• 45:28Stephan Speaks?

  I have friends in this situation and it's not good. Exactly. And I'm sure they didn't even talk about it in advance. You want to talk about these things and say, okay, how do we view this? What are your, what are your expectations as a spender? Are you someone who thinks, well, I gotta be able to spend some free money every month? I gotta go shopping every month? What is it? Let's come to an agreement beforehand that we're both comfortable with. But let's understand what we're walking into here. All right? Again, we don't talk about these things. We just assume, oh, because she's not asking for money now, she won't ask for money later. And that's not necessarily true. Right. Let's find out. What are we expecting? Do our values align in marriage? I definitely think number three, sexual expectations. I think that needs to be discussed and understood.

• 46:13Stephan Speaks?

  And again, it's all about compromise if a compromise can be found. So it's not saying, okay, well, I expect it four times a week. Right. You know, he or she says two times a week and now we're just going at it. No, well, then maybe we go with three times a week. But we make sure the compromise is something that we can both be happy with. Don't, when you compromise on something that you're not gonna be happy about, you're not compromising, you're sacrificing. And those sacrifices can be good in some instances, not when it's very important to you or it's going to be important enough that it would cause you to wonder if you're not getting it. Never sacrifice something that's gonna make you wanna look at someone else in your marriage. All right? So if you need three times a week to be happy and satisfied, make that very clear. Don't agree to two. And then. Then wander, yeah. Exactly.

• 46:57Stephan Speaks?

  And now you're entertaining other people because you never set that expectation. Another expectation, as we talked about earlier with attraction, is how we keep ourselves out physically. Hmm. I do think. So what if I just gained 60 pounds in seven years? And is that okay since we're married now? Listen, people need to be honest. So like I, I tell some men, if you can say, you know what? If my wife gained 60 pounds, I don't care. I'm cool with it. And you're going to love her with the same energy and desire that you did 60 other pounds ago? Great. But if you can't maintain that desire, that passion, sixty pounds let, you need to make that known now. You can't be afraid and say, well, that sounds too shallow. So would we rather be shallow now?

• 47:41Stephan Speaks?

  Or have a disastrous relationship later? Have you cheating on your partner because you weren't willing to be honest in the beginning? All right, same and and women too, because an epidemic that's happening is women are less honest about their attraction needs, so to speak, all right?

• 47:58Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 47:58Stephan Speaks?

  So whenever we talk about attraction, letting yourself go, I think people automatically think of the woman letting themselves go. But a lot of men have let themselves go and have fallen far from what he looked like when they first got married. But she's not always being as honest and straightforward about that. One reason may be because she doesn't want the pressure on her. So that's that's one issue right there. Or she may be afraid of his ego and think it's too fragile, exactly, and and doesn't want to say anything. But again, if you can't maintain the same passion and desire with that fall off, you've got to be honest about that so he understands. Because what happens is this, so let's just use this example.

• 48:40Stephan Speaks?

  He lets himself go, he lets himself go, the sex falls off, all right? And the sex has fallen off because she's not as attracted to him anymore. But she's not being honest about it. Now, when she does say anything about whether it's his weight or whatever the case may be, he's gonna think you're just making excuses. You're just trying to give a reason not to have sex, rather than embracing it as this is the reality of what's holding us back. However, if we had this conversation from the jump and you were honest about it, then I always knew this would be an issue, not when you bring it back up, it's gonna be like, yeah, you did tell me that this happened. So now it's gonna be easier for me to embrace that and actually do something about it.

• 49:20Lewis Howes?

  And have the recognition and awareness about it because you'd already talked about it.

• 49:24Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 49:24Lewis Howes?

  You do a lot of these events and workshops for, you know, hundreds of women at a time. Are women opening up in these experiences when you're connecting with them and saying, yes, I do lose the attraction? Like appearances are important to me? Or is it not as important? And you're, from the events that you've done with the women you've talked to, what is the feedback on appearance and looks?

• 49:47Stephan Speaks?

  So I will say this, when it comes to appearance, looks and sex. Women aren't as vocal and transparent in a group of people.

• 49:55Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 49:55Stephan Speaks?

  Yes.

• 49:55Lewis Howes?

  But one on one with you?

• 49:56Stephan Speaks?

  One on one, different story. So same thing like using the sex example. If I ask a group of women, are you getting orgasms regularly? There's gonna be women in there who lie. Because they don't wanna feel inadequate. They don't wanna be the woman who doesn't raise their hand and say, yes, I'm getting it good. So they're gonna be hesitant or not know how to answer it. But if I ask in private, now I'm gonna get the real truth. Yes. And now she's gonna be very clear about loss of attraction, lack of sexual satisfaction and all these things. So that's why people have to be careful. Cause I think sometimes we're assuming these issues don't really exist because we're not hearing it in that group setting. Don't be fooled. Some women just, they feel more comfortable privately expressing those things.

• 50:38Stephan Speaks?

  And I've heard it enough times to know this is real. And again, you just have to, even if you haven't heard it enough times, pay attention. There's a reason why we're seeing people fall off in marriage. There's a reason why we're seeing this disconnect. And even when it comes to infidelity, there's a great focus on men who've cheated. But there's a lot of women who've cheated.

• 50:56Lewis Howes?

  A lot of women.

• 50:56Stephan Speaks?

  And it's not always for emotional reasons. It's for sexual ones too. So again, my thing is not to sit here and say, well, it's about who does work. It's about, okay, how do we fix this? How do we make this better? And we have to accept that, yes, there are contributing factors to why we see failed marriages, why we see infidelity, why we see disconnects in our relationships. Let's address the underlying issues and be honest about it so we can get this on the right track.

• 51:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Are there any relationships that you're aware of that have open relationships that are successful? Or do you think it's very hard to do? Because more and more with the Burning Man scene and all these people exploring these things, what's your thoughts on, you know, open relationships or, you know, being together but also having multiple partners?

• 51:42Stephan Speaks?

  So I'm gonna be honest. I I'm very skeptical of open relationships. Now, I don't want to sit here and say it's impossible for it to be successful. Because I haven't met everybody and I haven't studied it enough. But I have studied it to a certain extent. And from what I have found is, again, a lot of open relationships stem from, one, the perception that one person can't fulfill me. And since one person can't fulfill me, why not have more than one? All right? And to me, find a person who's experienced that deep and genuine connection. They don't have that perception. Because they had a moment in their life where they met someone that they thought, this could be it. I could put my all into this and I would be happy with this one person.

• 52:26Stephan Speaks?

  If you haven't experienced that connection, of course, there's a natural progression to thinking, well, maybe it's not going to work with just one. Can I entertain multiple if I can even handle multiple? The other thing is, I do think it also stems from a lack of successful monogamy. And when I say a lack of successful monogamy, I don't necessarily mean that they weren't able to maintain monogamy. It's like, okay, if I get in this monogamous relationship and I get cheated on. Or I've had multiple relationships where I've been cheated on. I may start to think, what's the point of trying to be monogamous? It's not going to work anyways. Exactly. Why not just get an open relationship, which one allows me to not be so vulnerable to one person? I now have a more emotional control.

• 53:09Stephan Speaks?

  And what you'll find in a lot of situations is, there's still somebody running that show. And what I mean by that is- One of the people are running the show. Exactly. And they're running it in a way that it's protecting them. All right? So I met a woman one time, she was into polyamory. And she said, well, her ideal polyamorous relationship was a man and a woman. But they're not allowed to have other people. All right? So it's like, you're trying to control this environment for your sake. All right? For your protection. So that means there's something deeper going on here. So, to me, I just tell people when it comes to open relationships, if you really believe that's your thing, fine. I'm not here to tell people that they can't live their life that way. But I just want you to make sure you've healed from everything first.

• 53:54Stephan Speaks?

  If you've healed from everything and you still feel like this is for you- Do your thing.

• 53:59Lewis Howes?

  Do your thing.

• 53:59Stephan Speaks?

  But you might be surprised what's gonna happen when you uncover and address some of these past traumas and issues. You may not be so so inclined to wanna be in this open relationship anymore.

• 54:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:10Stephan Speaks?

  And again, I would still argue that if you meet that person you had that amazing connection with, it changes the game.

• 54:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:18Stephan Speaks?

  And it will, it can completely throw you for a loop. Cause I've seen people who were once into open relationships and completely shift to monogamy because they met that person, it was like, I never thought this could happen, but it's here and I want it, I'm going for it.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:35Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful insight. What about in a relationship that's, you've been together for a long time, you've been married together for a long time, and it just feels like it's not working? And you're talking about divorce, and both of you aren't happy. You've got the kids, you've got the home, you've got the lives together.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  And both of you aren't happy, right? And you've like addressed this and talked about it, you've tried different things, they haven't worked maybe. Is there a way to rekindle those three things? Find that connection again, maybe, maybe you've lost that attraction and that balance. Is that even possible in these times? Or is divorce the only way? To to try, to then go find true happiness or connection somewhere else?

• 55:23Stephan Speaks?

  If a true connection ever existed in that relationship, then it can be fixed.

• 55:27Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 55:28Stephan Speaks?

  But that's the key, did it ever really exist? And we gotta examine that because again.

• 55:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:33Stephan Speaks?

  Many people have been living off the fantasy of their perception of things, what they wanted to believe it was. And and wanting to hold on to this feeling of being in love, but in reality, they were involved in an unhealthy attachment to this individual. So we have to go deeper and find out, is that there? So if the connection was there, yes, we can work on everything else, we can get things on track. It's gonna cause, it's gonna create a lot of, uh. Deeper emotional discovery, so to speak, as far as finding out, okay, why is there a disconnect now? How did we fall off of track? How can we now correct these specific things? Because there's very specific things that need to change. Are we both willing to put in that work? If both sides are willing to do that, then it absolutely can work.

• 56:16Stephan Speaks?

  Now, if there was no connection, you had divorce.

• 56:19Lewis Howes?

  You had divorce?

• 56:20Stephan Speaks?

  You had divorce.

• 56:21Lewis Howes?

  Sooner than later?

• 56:22Stephan Speaks?

  I'm a man of God, and I would love for everyone to be able to stay married, right?

• 56:27Lewis Howes?

  Even when, even when people have been convinced that you get married, you stay married forever, even if it's a religious thing, or you feel like the pressure of society, like...

• 56:37Stephan Speaks?

  Here's why, despite those things, you don't stay married. Especially when you have kids. So, so many people stay married because of the kids, right? But if you can't create a positive environment at home, you are damaging the kids worse than you would in divorce. Divorce isn't, in my opinion, the greatest struggle for the child. It's lacking the understanding of what just happened here. So if you've been feeding your kids all these years that mommy and daddy love each other and everything's all good, despite our dysfunctional relationships. Exactly. So now, one day you wake up, we're getting divorced, the child is confused. And the thing is, we're not honest with the kids about why this happened, what went wrong. We're not saying, yeah, you know what? We knew a long time ago, we weren't best for each other.

• 57:20Stephan Speaks?

  We're not giving them the honest truth for them to learn and not make the same mistakes.

• 57:24Lewis Howes?

  Repeat the pattern.

• 57:25Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. What the child now thinks is, you can't trust love.

• 57:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 57:29Stephan Speaks?

  You can't trust marriage. Because you can love each other and one day, now it's over. And now they become dysfunctional, or they now have dysfunctional relations because of their skewed perception of things, because they lack clarity in understanding what just happened here. But, going back to divorce versus staying together, again, what a child needs more than anything is a positive, loving environment. If you can achieve that together, great. If you can't, you are better off apart.

• 57:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 57:56Stephan Speaks?

  Because when you speak to adults now, adults who are struggling today grew up in dysfunctional households. And it didn't matter if it was a one parent or two parent household.

• 58:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I felt it, man.

• 58:06Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. Dysfunction is dysfunction.

• 58:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:09Stephan Speaks?

  And we pick up on these things. No one is that great of an actor that they're hiding it from their child. The child sees the problem.

• 58:16Lewis Howes?

  Feels it.

• 58:16Stephan Speaks?

  Feels it, exactly. And then, you don't even realize, you neglect the child in certain ways because you're dwelling in your own issues, your own, uh, struggle. There are women right now who have mommy issues, or they have what I call, I don't wanna be my mother syndrome, where they saw their mother allow herself to be treated poorly, abused, suffered through a horrible marriage, and the woman is like, I don't wanna ever be that. And now, because she's holding on to that, she either becomes her mother, or creates other issues not trying to be her, alright? So it still creates a negative cycle of dysfunctional relationships, all stemming from, we stayed longer than we should have,

• 58:58Stephan Speaks?

  we tried to hold on to something that we can't work. My thing is this, even for those who are spiritual, if you're gonna say, we're not supposed to get divorced because of God, well, God didn't say act a fool in the marriage at the same time. Like, what's the point of staying together? Exactly. How are you glorifying God or your spiritual beliefs by staying in a negative marriage for the sake of staying? You're defeating the purpose. The purpose is to have a healthy, happy union, to raise healthy, happy children. If we can't achieve that together, it's time to go. I mean, I wish it could be different, but that's just the reality of the world we live in, because too many of us have made the wrong decision in who we married. And we have to accept that. I'd rather you accept that now,

• 59:41Stephan Speaks?

  go through your healing process, and both of you can find your happiness and learn how to coexist as, uh, co-parents. And again, creating a positive environment in that co-parenting relationship, because I don't want you to be co-parents and still be dysfunctional. Exactly. Again, defeating the purpose, alright? I, I want you to get away from each other so you can find happiness, not be more negative.

• 1:00:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, heal, move forward.

• 1:00:04Stephan Speaks?

  Yeah, exactly. Be happy. Be happy for them if they found someone else. I know that's tough for a lot of people.

• 1:00:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Stephan Speaks?

  But be happy if they're at peace. You find your peace. Let the children see happy, healthy relationships, not just with other people, within yourself.

• 1:00:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:00:19Stephan Speaks?

  Stop showing them a miserable father or mother. They see it, and they hold on to resentment. I can't tell you how many, I won't say every, but... I wanna say ninety percent of clients that I've seen, and I would argue that if you spoke to any therapist or coach out there, the majority of people have issues stemming from their parents. Growing up in that household.

• 1:00:40Lewis Howes?

  Or their environment.

• 1:00:41Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 1:00:42Lewis Howes?

  Their parents or their environment, yeah.

• 1:00:43Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly, and it's just all because of dysfunctional relationships. Relationships is the backbone of society. When we allow that to be as dysfunctional as it is right now, that's the reason why we have all these problems. We fix that, man, this world becomes a hundred times better placed.

• 1:00:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Stephan Speaks?

  Easily.

• 1:00:59Lewis Howes?

  More loving, more peaceful, more enjoyable.

• 1:01:02Stephan Speaks?

  Happy people all around doing horrible, negative things, alright?

• 1:01:07Lewis Howes?

  When should people, when do they know that, okay, we just need to work on things in our marriage or our relationship? Like, not every marriage is gonna be perfect all the time and happy. Like, there's gonna be some dysfunction or challenges or issues that arise. Hopefully, you've addressed all those things. But let's say you've set expectations early. You both understand these things before you got married. Like, you communicated everything and you're aligned to a certain vision for your marriage. Five years goes down the line and it seems like things are getting worse and worse. Maybe expectations change, maybe values change, who knows what it is? When do you know, like, okay, it's getting too far? Or we should stay in this relationship? When should we get divorced or should we keep trying?

• 1:01:53Stephan Speaks?

  To me, the first sign that we have problems is that when whatever is going on in our marriage is affecting me in a way that I can't be the best husband or wife I need to be, we got a problem. That's step number one. I think what's happened is we've normalized dysfunction too much. We've normalized this idea that we're gonna all have problems. Yeah, but we all have problems because we don't learn how to work through them.

• 1:02:18Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:02:18Stephan Speaks?

  Because we have dysfunction and individual dysfunction that we have not processed and resolved. That's the reason why dysfunction is so common. It's not healthy, though. Like, I've heard some people say, well, arguing is healthy in a relationship. No, it's not.

• 1:02:32Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:02:32Stephan Speaks?

  No, disagreement is acceptable.

• 1:02:35Lewis Howes?

  Yelling at each other is not good.

• 1:02:36Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 1:02:37Lewis Howes?

  I just watched the Will Smith and Jada, the Red Table talk.

• 1:02:40Stephan Speaks?

  Uh huh.

• 1:02:41Lewis Howes?

  Of Will Smith, like, opening up about their marriage. I don't know if you watched this yet.

• 1:02:44Stephan Speaks?

  I haven't watched it yet.

• 1:02:45Lewis Howes?

  I just watched it last night. It's actually really powerful what he said. Jada, I guess, when they first started, like, dating or whatever, at one point... She like raised her voice at him and like swear at him or did something where she made him look foolish in front of other people. And he took her into the other room and said, can I speak with you for a minute privately, took her in the other room and said,

• 1:03:08Lewis Howes?

  I can't be with someone who's going to raise their voice, yell at me, or swear at me. It just doesn't work for me and it's gonna put me into a shell, like I'm not gonna be the best version of myself. And if that's you, then I love you, but we can't be together anymore. But I need us to be able to have complete peace. If we don't agree on something, then we have to set ground rules where we step away. We take care of our anger on our own, not in front of the other person, then we come back and communicate from a peaceful, loving place about what we're upset with or frustrated with. And so we never put that on the other person. When I heard that, I was like, wow, that's so powerful because most of us seems like in relationships will allow themselves to yell once and swear once.

• 1:03:51Lewis Howes?

  And then it's just like, once you've said, you son of a B once, it's like, you can say it whenever you want.

• 1:03:56Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 1:03:56Lewis Howes?

  And then that respect is gone, that, you know, that love is gone, or it seems to be gone.

• 1:04:03Stephan Speaks?

  And the other problem is we expect our partners to be our emotional punching bags. All right, we think, well, because you love us, you should deal with our crazy moment, our dysfunction, our disrespect, all these things because, okay, but we show you love in other moments, so don't blame me for this one. No, like, focus on giving your partner the best of you, not the worst of you. Yes, they should help you through your struggle. But struggle is not an excuse to blatantly disrespect, stress out, throw negativity at your partner. Yeah, you know, that's, you can't do that. So I think we have to all hold ourselves accountable to a higher standard of how we behave in our relationships. And yes, stop giving this excuse of, well, we're all gonna have our dysfunction.

• 1:04:46Stephan Speaks?

  No, listen, it can happen, granted, but we should be focused on, as Will laid out for Jada in that talk, we have to discuss things peacefully.

• 1:04:54Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:04:54Stephan Speaks?

  We have to come to the table calmly, maturely, and see how we can resolve it and not just lash out. That's not healthy.

• 1:05:01Lewis Howes?

  Because screaming is not communicating.

• 1:05:03Stephan Speaks?

  No.

• 1:05:04Lewis Howes?

  It's not creating a connection. There's not an attraction there and there's no balance.

• 1:05:08Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 1:05:09Lewis Howes?

  You don't have those three things.

• 1:05:10Stephan Speaks?

  It destroys all of it.

• 1:05:10Lewis Howes?

  It destroys all of it. And you know, whenever I have gotten in arguments in the past, in my relationships, all I want to do is go be alone afterwards. I'm like, I don't want to be around you. I just want to be alone, like I need space to like heal and recover now. Cause it's very traumatic, or at least it has been for me. And that's just been my personal experience. And I think that's why it is so important to learn how to communicate in a peaceful way. And sure, you might get frustrated and and tension might come up, but you gotta create ground rules, I think, for yourself and your partner. What are we gonna do when that happens?

• 1:05:44Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 1:05:45Lewis Howes?

  Maybe we're just quiet until we can breathe and like communicate calmly. But I don't think there's anything good that comes from screaming.

• 1:05:52Stephan Speaks?

  No, not at all.

• 1:05:53Lewis Howes?

  I I witnessed that with my parents screaming and escalating. And it was just like, it never felt good in the house. There was nothing that ever came from that that was good. They always had to like apologize to each other in ways. And then it was like passive aggressive for a week. And it's just like, it's like, why can't we just be, you know, more peaceful about these things? So I think it's really important. It doesn't just affect your relationship. It affects the people that are in your relationship, family, friends. It affects those people as well.

• 1:06:22Stephan Speaks?

  It even affects your coworkers because,

• 1:06:24Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:06:24Stephan Speaks?

  you know, I'm a firm believer that people take a lot of their relationship issues into the office. And it affects their attitude, their energy, their focus. And they don't realize how they're hurting their efficiency and hurting their ability to do so much more and do so much better, whether they're an entrepreneur or they work for somebody, because their relationship is dysfunctional. And so like, I'm a firm believer in if we can help people who work in corporate or whatever, have stronger, better relationships, their careers will thrive, their companies will thrive. It pours into everything. So we have to create that positivity in our lives so that we can reach our true potential.

• 1:07:02Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, hmm. I think it affects everything in business. I mean, when you're having a bad relationship intimately, it affects the way you show up in your career, for sure. What's one thing you wish men understood more about women in general? And one thing you wish women knew about men in general? All right, every man and everyone's different, you know, everyone, humans different, but in general, based on all the work you've done and the things you hear over and over again, one thing you wish men knew about women and women knew about men?

• 1:07:32Stephan Speaks?

  This may sound bad, but what's coming, I always just say what comes to mind, all right? Because I don't, I never practiced any of these things. Is learn to look past her words. And what I mean by that is, a lot of times, again, women don't always fully express themselves. As much as women will say, "Men are horrible communicators," women are actually horrible communicators. And it's because, yes, they talk, but they're not always clear. And part of it is because women can see past our words, all right? Sometimes, to the point where they overanalyze and over-rationalize things, and it causes them to look at things the wrong way. But they know how to pay attention to all the small details.

• 1:08:13Stephan Speaks?

  They, they understand if our moods are different, even if we say we're okay. They're very in tune with that. So they kind of have that expectation with us.

• 1:08:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:22Stephan Speaks?

  And though I want women to be more clear and transparent, I want men to be more aware and be more in tune with your partner. It's not just about her saying, "I'm okay." Look at her, pay attention. Does she show you she's okay? Does she really look like, "There's nothing going on right now"? And if you can see past that, I'm not saying badger her, because, yeah, she might not want to be badgered. But at least, one, show a true concern for her feelings. And show that you are going to be there for her when she is ready to let you know and have that talk. You want to create a very secure environment with your partner, a very safe environment where she can open up to you, she can be herself. And again, I do believe that starts with, look past the words.

• 1:09:07Stephan Speaks?

  And even in understanding how to keep her satisfied and happy. It's like the woman who says to you, "You don't need to buy me anything for my birthday." All right. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Don't listen to her words. Exactly. Look past that. And even if you think she's telling the truth, you know what? There's nothing wrong with still doing a little special something for her. It just shows that, again, you're more in tune with what's really going on with her emotionally and not just what she's speaking. But I do believe that as you do that more often and you show a willingness to hear her out, we have to consider our partner's feelings. I think too many men don't consider their partner's feelings. When you do that, she will become more transparent. When she knows that she can be open and honest and you're not going to reject how she feels

• 1:09:51Stephan Speaks?

  or what she says or call it crazy, she'll be more willing to speak up about it. So I do think women, I mean, men need to be more in tune, look past the words. As far as what I wish women would know with men, so it's kind of the flip side of that. He can't read your mind. Yeah. He can't read your mind and a lot of times men generally just don't know. There's a difference between the man who loves you but does not know how you want to be loved and the man who doesn't care about what you want and how you want to be loved, all right? Don't confuse the two. Some guys not doing the right thing is simply a lack of knowledge. Not a lack of caring. Exactly. So it's like, I tell women, you gotta be more specific. If you say, I need you to spend more time with me, what does that look like? How much time?

• 1:10:36Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. What are we doing together? Exactly. I have this example where I was counseling this couple and the wife was like, he doesn't spend any time with me. I just want him to watch some TV with me, you know, whatever. So I said, okay, cool. I'm gonna speak to your husband. We're gonna get this worked out. So I spoke to him. He said, all right, deal. I'll do it. I said, let's do it for a week. Let's see what happens. So a week passes. I said, what's the progress report? He says, man, I did everything you told me. I watched TV with her every single day. I was there. You know, I showed interest. I asked her, I said, what happened? Oh, he didn't do anything. I said, what do you mean? He said he watched TV with you. She said, yeah, he watched TV with me, but he was on one side of the couch and I was on the other side of the couch. So you see, in his mind, it's you asked me to watch TV with you. I did that. In her mind...

• 1:11:20Stephan Speaks?

  He asked me to cuddle you and caress you. Exactly. She wanted intimacy. She wanted desire to be shown. She wanted a closeness or non-sexual intimacy is what I call it. And that's what she was really looking for. So on one end... I can go back to the man and say, listen, look past the words. If she says, I want time with you, it usually means she wants a closeness to you. She wants to feel there with you. So be mindful of that, but on her end, be more clear. Be more specific. It's not fair to hold it against him or to claim he doesn't care when you didn't explain to him what you need. I tell women all the time, one of the greatest tests to seeing if a man is serious about you is not seeing what he does on his own or what he already knows.

• 1:12:05Stephan Speaks?

  It's seeing how he handles your desires and your feelings. If when you express those things to him, he makes the corrections, you're good. But you gotta be specific. You gotta make it clear. Let's see if he actually does what you ask him to do. Because a man who's very much into you, he'll do it.

• 1:12:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:12:22Stephan Speaks?

  I know plenty of husbands or men who are like, if she would just tell me what she wants, I'd give it to her. But he has no clue what she wants.

• 1:12:30Lewis Howes?

  Communicate very clearly.

• 1:12:31Stephan Speaks?

  Yes.

• 1:12:32Lewis Howes?

  Don't just expect them to read your mind.

• 1:12:34Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 1:12:35Lewis Howes?

  I have a few questions for you left. This has been fascinating. This one is about gender roles with all the gender roles being redefined in society, at least in, let's say, you know, at least in our culture, I feel like it is, it seems that way. What are the best ways for men and women to create healthier roles in relationships? With all this that seems like it's being redefined and figuring out and equality and, you know, role shifting or whatever it may be.

• 1:13:01Stephan Speaks?

  So, one, I am a believer in roles, alright? Even if you wanna dispel gender roles, we still need roles. Roles is what makes any unit thrive. A team needs roles.

• 1:13:13Lewis Howes?

  Basketball team.

• 1:13:13Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly.

• 1:13:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:14Stephan Speaks?

  Corporations, you gotta have, members gotta know their roles. That's how we're gonna get to the next level. If you have an entrepreneur and you got a team, they gotta know their roles. So roles are important. Now, once we start to slap gender on it, here's my thing. You need to look at this long term, not in the moment. And here's what I mean by that. So you have a lot of people arguing against gender roles. So they say, well, the woman can do this, the man can do that. Okay, fine. If that's what makes you happy, go with it. I do believe that traditional roles are more beneficial in the long run. But let's start with the non-traditional ones right now. So let's just say as the woman, you're the breadwinner of the household. You're kind of leading the household.

• 1:13:55Lewis Howes?

  To the woman or the woman saying this to the man?

• 1:13:57Stephan Speaks?

  No, I'm saying, I'm saying, let's just define that dynamic. Where the woman is more in the mask, in the more traditional mask.

• 1:14:02Lewis Howes?

  Is the breadwinner?

• 1:14:03Stephan Speaks?

  Yes, he's the breadwinner. He's more the, a house dad, so to speak.

• 1:14:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, stay at home dad.

• 1:14:07Stephan Speaks?

  Yeah, this is just one example, alright? Now, if you can picture yourself 20 years from now, still happy in that dynamic, you gotta be honest with yourself, then okay, cool, roll with that. The problem that I'm coming across is, they'll start off that way. And then 10 years later, you're mad because he's not doing more with his life. You're mad because he's not being more assertive. You're mad because he's not walking in that traditional role of masculinity, so to speak. Now you're resenting him, you're losing respect for him. He's feeling like you don't treat him like a man. You don't respect him, he doesn't feel valued. Now, if they go cheat, I tell people this all the time, pay attention. If they go cheat, she always ends up cheating with a masculine man,

• 1:14:51Stephan Speaks?

  and he ends up cheating with a woman that treats him like a king.

• 1:14:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:14:54Stephan Speaks?

  Every single time. So that's my only argument. It's like, okay, fine, if you want to say we don't need traditional gender roles, cool. If that truly makes you happy, you can live with that, cool. But I need you to look at it from the long term. Because what's happening in a lot of situations is, a lot of people are trying to switch the roles based on what's convenient for them right now. So for example, if I'm the guy, and I'm not doing well successfully, alright? And I don't have all my stuff in order. Then of course, I'm gonna champion the reversal of roles. Because I need a woman who makes some money.

• 1:15:28Lewis Howes?

  Take care of me.

• 1:15:28Stephan Speaks?

  Who's gonna accept me exactly as I am. Who's not gonna expect me to do all the manly things we're used to doing. It's about convenience. He's not really looking. Out for the interest of the woman, he's looking out for himself. On the flip side, you got a lot of women who champion this role of her being more of the masculine role. Because it's protection, it's control, alright? She feels safer, which is why. One thing you're hearing from a lot of people right now is narcissism, alright? And everybody and their mama has dated a narcissist or is with a narcissist. But they don't realize that that dynamic feeds into narcissism. Because what happens is, this woman now gets with this guy in a lot of situations, not always.

• 1:16:09Stephan Speaks?

  Cause there are some genuine dynamics where maybe the guy is the house dad and she's aware and they're happy and everything's good and it's healthy. But you have a lot of situations where she's with him because she feels needed and valued in the relationship. He's with her because she, he needs her, alright? He, she is his meal ticket, his come up. And now he's draining her and taking and taking and taking. This is the narcissistic dynamic that happens, alright? And she's not happy and at some point, this is gonna all blow up in everyone's face. Or before it even, even she comes to that full realization, he'll get everything he needs. Move on to someone else, because a man's desire for a woman can change based off his status. Wow.

• 1:16:53Stephan Speaks?

  You see a lot of men who when they're broke, have nothing, will date this one type of woman. Let them become successful and now they're dating this completely different type of woman. And I always say it's because they always wanted that woman they wanted when they were successful. But it was easier to get that other woman when they were broke, alright? So with that said, I encourage women to consider, is he really dating you at his best? And when I say at his best, I don't mean he has to be rich, alright? I don't mean he has to be super popular, super successful, any of that status stuff. But is his character developed? Is he a man who embraces responsibility? Is going to be willing to pour into the relationship? See, that kinda guy, whether he is the breadwinner, whether he is the house dad. Is the guy you can respect and be in a relationship with.

• 1:17:38Stephan Speaks?

  Because that kinda guy, even if I'm not the breadwinner, I have the mentality of, I want to do for you. I want to take some burden off of your back, I want to have balance. I'm not gonna just be here and leech off of you, alright? Take, take, take. Exactly, but you have men who will just take, take, take in those dynamics. And drain that woman dry and destroy her.

• 1:18:02Stephan Speaks?

  So we have to be very careful. And again, going back to the original question, are you gonna be happy with this, the current role you're setting yourself up for in the long run? And if you will be, cool. But if you won't, reconsider what you're about to walk into.

• 1:18:18Lewis Howes?

  Ding, man. I'm loving this stuff. I feel like we could talk about this for a while. This is gonna be powerful for people, I think. I wanna ask you a question I ask everyone at the end of our interviews, and this is called the three truths. So you've had a lot of experience working with people for a long time, and a lot of life experience. We haven't even gone into your personal life, which we'll go on after off-camera and go more about it. But imagine this is your last day many years from now, and you get to pick the last day that you're physically here in this world. Right? It's just hypothetical. It's as long as you wanna be. It could be 100 years old, 300 years old, whatever you wanna be. But you gotta pick a day eventually, and you pass.

• 1:18:54Stephan Speaks?

  Okay.

• 1:18:55Lewis Howes?

  But it's a beautiful moment, and you're at peace with everything, and you've created the life of your dreams. You've written all the books you wanna write. You've done all the work. You feel like you've been the person you're meant to be. But for whatever reason, you gotta take all your information with you. Like, all the work you've created, the videos, this podcast, it's with you. You can't leave it for the rest of us.

• 1:19:16Stephan Speaks?

  Okay.

• 1:19:16Lewis Howes?

  But you get to write down three final truths, three lessons that you would leave with the world.

• 1:19:22Stephan Speaks?

  Okay.

• 1:19:22Lewis Howes?

  And these would be the only three things that you could essentially leave behind.

• 1:19:26Stephan Speaks?

  Okay.

• 1:19:27Lewis Howes?

  What would be the three truths that you would share or the lessons to the world for us to have?

• 1:19:31Stephan Speaks?

  Okay. Lesson one: You have to heal. There's no way around that. Your key to success in every area of your life starts with healing. And so when you can learn how to address hurts and disappointments, not internalize them, learn from them, grow, you are going to set yourself up for amazing things in life. So number one: You have to heal. No way around that. Number two: You have to find who you are. All right? Purpose, your true personality. So many people have... Flawed perceptions of who they really are. All right, and and they're trying to find themselves by things that are only there because of the trauma they've experienced,

• 1:20:14Stephan Speaks?

  not because of the true essence that exists within them. So you gotta find that true self, all right? And I do believe that finding your purpose, whatever that may be, is a very powerful freeing thing in life, all right? Because so many people are, they might find success, but they're not finding purpose. And that's why you'll find people who are millionaires and still depressed. Because the purpose isn't there. You gotta find that thing that it's you, it's your gift, it's why you're here, it's what you're gonna share with the world. Because purpose is always about what can you share with the world? We're not here to be selfish. We're here to love and share and connect. So find that, but also find your true self. And I think that all goes together.

• 1:20:57Stephan Speaks?

  So we got heal, we have find your true self, and then number three, never be afraid of love. Can't be afraid to love yourself. So many people are making excuses for not taking care of them. Well, I have kids, I have this, I have to worry about that. Oh, isn't it selfish to love? No, it's not, it's necessary. You've got to make time for yourself, you gotta take care of yourself. You need rest, you need healing, you need to pour into yourself happiness and positivity. We allow so many negative things from this world to be poured into us. And we don't balance that out with any positivity or enough positivity. So take an inventory of your life, whether it be the TV shows, the things that you listen to, how you're eating, whatever it is, are you taking care of yourself and truly loving yourself?

• 1:21:42Stephan Speaks?

  So loving yourself, but again, not being afraid of love in general. When that true love comes your way, don't run. Rather than run, figure out why am I even trying to run? Let me fix this, because that opportunity doesn't come around all the time. And there are people who wish they could have that right now. There are people who are regretting that they let it go. Yeah. All right? So you don't want to fear love in any kind of way. And it's it's our fear of love that doesn't allow our community and our society to grow to another level. If we would learn to love each other, no matter what, this world would be amazing. So we can't keep fearing love, we can't keep, and love equals vulnerability. We're afraid to be vulnerable, all right? And it's vulnerability that is a beautiful thing because

• 1:22:27Stephan Speaks?

  You ever have a situation where you may share a story with someone that you don't know? And it might be a deep story that you don't share with everybody. And then once you share it with them, they're like, oh, my gosh, that happened to me too.

• 1:22:36Lewis Howes?

  Greater connection.

• 1:22:37Stephan Speaks?

  Exactly. And not even just a greater connection. You free them from being afraid to express their own story. There are so many people who think I'm the only one going through this. But they don't realize you're not alone. And that's why when people who go through traumatic experiences get on big stages and share it, they free millions of people from their bondage. Because it's almost like, oh, my gosh, if they can talk about it, I can talk about it now. I can accept this. And now with me accepting it, I can resolve it. And I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and turn this into something amazing. Turn my trial into my testimony. So we gotta be willing to love and in being, in not being afraid to love, we're willing to be vulnerable. And that opens the doors to everything in our life.

• 1:23:19Lewis Howes?

  Powerful stuff, man. You've got a number of books. Make sure you guys check out the, I think it's the latest book, How to Get a Man to Cherish You If You're His Wife. Make sure you check this book out. You've got another one. You've got like four or five books right now, right?

• 1:23:32Stephan Speaks?

  Yeah, I got, I got a few that are coming up, so.

• 1:23:34Lewis Howes?

  You got a few that are coming up, but they can get this at, what's your website where they can get this?

• 1:23:38Stephan Speaks?

  stephanspeaks.com. S.T.E.P.H.A.N. speaks.com. And if they want to get updates, free advice, things like that, all my books, they can go to stephanspeaks.com/vip. Join my list and you'll get all the updates that you're looking for.

• 1:23:52Lewis Howes?

  It's great stuff. You've got a great social media following, a massive audience. What's your, your social media handles and?

• 1:23:58Stephan Speaks?

  So at @stephanspeaks, S.T.E.P.H.A.N.

• 1:24:01Lewis Howes?

  On Instagram?

• 1:24:02Stephan Speaks?

  Instagram, Twitter, and on Facebook is @stephanspeaksrelationships.

• 1:24:06Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Very cool. You're doing a tour right now, I think, or you do different events where you, you'll speak for a half day or a day? What are these events?

• 1:24:14Stephan Speaks?

  Yeah, so right now I'm doing the Truth About Love Tour. I actually have an event Sunday in L.A. And it's, what is it, like three to four hours? We're talking different topics. We're doing Q and A. We're addressing all these things. I'm laying out how to heal. So even though we gave a piece today, if they come to the event, they get the whole thing. And yeah, just helping people. Overcoming and winning life, winning when it comes to relationships. Again, not just romantically, but personally, family, business, everything. Relationships are all around us. And so I want to give people the tools to experience better and just to see the things that they're really looking for finally manifest.

• 1:24:51Lewis Howes?

  Amazing, man, amazing, man. I'm excited to get to learn more about you and your personal life. Wish we had more time because I think you got a fascinating experience. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Stefan, for constantly challenging yourself to gain clarity, to find clarity within your own life so that you can serve as many people as possible. And I think you stepping up, going through different challenges, whether it be getting into relationships or being abstinent or trying these different things and putting yourself out there. You're constantly testing how to help more people. And I think that's a really cool thing. So your way of being, your energy, your clarity, your vulnerability is a powerful thing and you're helping a lot of people in the world. So I acknowledge you for your truth, man.

• 1:25:35Lewis Howes?

  It's really powerful stuff and I'm glad we've connected. Is there anything else you want to share before I ask the final question?

• 1:25:41Stephan Speaks?

  No, I think we can go to the final question.

• 1:25:44Lewis Howes?

  Final question is what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:25:47Stephan Speaks?

  My definition of greatness is living your true purpose, living, being your true self. That's greatness. When you find that, man, that's it. Whatever it is, whether you're a skateboarder, a gamer, a relationship coach, an internet group, whatever, you know what I'm saying? Like whatever that true purpose is, that's greatness right there. Because once you find your purpose, everything else can fall into place. Your relationships can fall into place, your career, your health, you name it. All of it can get aligned when you find your true purpose. So that to me is greatness.

• 1:26:20Lewis Howes?

  My man, Stefan, thanks, bro.

• 1:26:22Stephan Speaks?

  Thank you for having me, man.

• 1:26:23Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it.

• 1:26:29Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this one for me. It was so powerful and insightful to hear about this. Again, Stephon is, uh, he does this all day long. This is all he does is just learn how to build better relationships, listening to people, hearing people's, uh, different challenges and helping people find solutions. Make sure to check him out on social media. He's got millions of followers. Follow him online. Tag me at Lewis Howes and at Stephon Speaks to go check out and let us know what you thought about this episode. Share with us what you enjoyed the most about it. And check out some of his books. We'll have it all linked up at the show notes, lewishowes.com/730. And if you're struggling in any relationship right now, if you have any questions, just

• 1:27:14Lewis Howes?

  send us a message and let us know. I'd love to see what your thoughts are, what you're going through, and how we can support you moving forward. If you want more episodes like this on relationships as well, please let me know. Just send me a message over on Instagram, at Lewis Howes, so I can see if you want more like this. Relationships are our greatest teacher. And if you are struggling in your relationship, that means there are lessons that you still get to learn. There means there are lessons that you get to overcome and embrace. And if you're struggling right now, instead of saying, "Why me? Why is this happening? Why am I struggling so much?" Say thank you. Say thank you to the universe. Say thank you to the world. Say thank you because there's

• 1:27:58Lewis Howes?

  something that you still get to learn. Maybe you're not standing up for yourself. Maybe you're not communicating the right way. Maybe you're not listening. Maybe you're not taking action on something that you need to be. These are all beautiful lessons for you to experience in your life to help you grow and become a better person. So embrace the challenges and lean into your relationships. Don't run away from them.

• 1:28:21Lewis Howes?

  And as William Shakespeare said, "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." And Charles Dickens said, "A loving heart is the truest wisdom." No matter what adversity you're going through in your relationships, don't let it hold you back from having a loving heart. Your heart is kind, it's loving, it's pure. And even if you've gone off track and you don't feel that way right now, you can always get back to it. I love you so very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.