How to Know They’ll Cheat on You - Cheating Expert Reveals Warning Signs! | Neil Strauss

Today, Lewis sits down with best-selling author Neil Strauss to explore the complex world of relationships, infidelity, and personal growth. Strauss opens up about his own journey from infidelity to intimacy rehab, sharing powerful lessons on rebuilding trust and nurturing secure connections. He delves into the psychology behind cheating and the signs that can indicate whether a partner might be unfaithful. Strauss provides a candid look into his most secure and insecure moments in adulthood, discusses the challenges of monogamy, and reveals the keys to a healthy relationship. Drawing from his experience interviewing extreme personalities, he sheds light on persuasion, manipulation, and how to identify red flags in potential partners. After today’s episode, be sure to check out Neil’s new podcast, To Die For! In this episode you will learnHow to identify red flags that suggest a partner might be unfaithful. The essential principles for fostering trust and intimacy. Why commitment can be challenging and strategies for overcoming fears. Insights from Neil Strauss’s journey through intimacy rehab. How to spot manipulation and protect yourself in relationships. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1614For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Matthew Hussey – https://link.chtbl.com/1590-podCharles Duhigg – https://link.chtbl.com/1580-podJay Shetty – https://link.chtbl.com/1571-pod 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The reason I'm such an expert on cheating is because, well, I cheated, got caught. And I remember talking to Rick Rubin, he was, he's in the books as well.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 0:07Speaker 00

  He's like, you did all this for like sex that wasn't that good anyway.

• 0:12Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  You know, that wasn't even a great experience and like.

• 0:15Lewis Howes?

  It wasn't worth it.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so what's wrong with you? And it took a long time of talking to him to recognize something was broken in me.

• 0:24Speaker 02

  Our next guest became the world's greatest pick-up artist.

• 0:27Speaker 03

  Former New York Times rock critic Neil Strauss, one of the most renowned and respected pick-up artists in the world. Please say hello to Neil Strauss. Please welcome.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Well, you know why you've never been in a relationship? Know why? And she goes, well, because your mom wants to be in a relationship with you. And then like as soon as she said it.

• 0:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Like logically made no sense, my whole body felt the truth of it. I felt it like just, I'll never, I'll literally never, that moment, like exact moment changed my life. When people lie, they think they're protecting the person or something, but they're not. They protect themselves from feeling uncomfortable emotions from that person. Right? They're like, I can't deal with your emotions, so I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing in case you have an emotion that I'm uncomfortable with.

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Do you have any signs that you can see if someone potentially would be a cheater that you're getting into a relationship with?

• 1:19Speaker 00

  Totally. I mean, yes, totally.

• 1:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Here's a great hack that I haven't heard other people talk about, but it's also affordable, powerful, it will change your life.

• 1:30Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Neil Strauss in the house, my man. So good to see you.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  Good to see you again.

• 1:38Lewis Howes?

  Um, I think we met originally about 13, 14 years ago. Uh, and one of the first interactions I had with you was at your house. You were doing an interview show with a number of porn stars. And since I've met you over the last 13, 14 years, we've had a number of interactions. You've worked on so many high-level books, projects, podcasts. You, you know, were originally famous, I think, for writing The Game, then you wrote The Truth. You've now got a podcast, uh, that's about Russian spies, on how women can manipulate men and persuade them to falling in love with them. You've had these wide range of topics and conversations that you've, you've dived into for 20, 30 years.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  And I'm fascinated with your idea on relationships. Because really, you're a person who understands relationships from all the journalism that you've done. The interviews, the books, the conversations. And the first thing I want to talk about is, again, you went from the game to the truth. One was black, one was white. And I want to talk about cheating first. Because I think cheating is a hot topic right now in relationships, but also just hookup culture. I think people are in this world of hookup culture with social media. And I'm curious, do you think someone can be in a monogamous, long-term relationship after they've cheated? First off.

• 3:03Lewis Howes?

  And also, from all the interviews you've done, do you have any signs that you can see if someone potentially would be a cheat-er that you're getting into a relationship with?

• 3:12Speaker 00

  Totally. I mean, yes, totally. So they're absolutely, they're absolutely signs. Before you say that, by the way, it's just so great seeing you because when we met all those years ago, I remember you were sort of looking for your place.

• 3:23Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  I remember like you were sort of like, okay, I'm going to transition from like sports to sort of like doing something that helps other people. And I remember sitting on my couch and talking about that. And really seeing like how much, I really had this great feeling. Like I knew like this is gonna work out for him because you just have this quality of, besides greatness is like likability. You're a very likable guy and you communicate yourself with so much heart. I'm like, oh, that's, he's like gonna be great. So it's been so fun to watch your career and check in over the years.

• 3:56Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. I appreciate it. Appreciate it.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  So, so, so, so back to the question, there were two questions. The first one was, can a relationship recover after cheating? The second one is, what are signs to spot someone who would cheat?

• 4:08Speaker 00

  So the first answer is, a relationship can absolutely recover out of cheating, but not by someone promising not to cheat again.

• 4:15Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Right? Because what happens is, there's a cycle that happens, which is someone.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  They get caught. They're not guilty about it till they get caught usually.

• 4:26Lewis Howes?

  Right. There's a pain, there's a wound, there's a trauma afterwards right from the other person.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  And then, and then the relationship they currently have is then threatened. They go get fearful and desperate of abandonment and they promise anything to get that safety and security again.

• 4:43Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  Once they get the safety and security again, they then rebel against it and cheat again.

• 4:47Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's the pattern, right?

• 4:50Lewis Howes?

  How many people would you say cheat one time in a relationship, repair and then cheat again? What do you think that percentage is?

• 4:57Speaker 00

  I guess I couldn't, I couldn't tell you the percentage, but the saying, you know, if we want shame on you, for me twice shame on me. However, being somebody like that, sure version of the answer is you can, if you actually do the work to change. Right? So in other words, if someone says, I cheated, that's, I really need to look at myself and why I would do that to somebody I supposedly I do love and care about and like, you know, in a relationship with and are married to or live with or have children with. And I'm really going to do the work on myself and, and to really understand, first of all, they have to own it entirely, a hundred percent.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  One like important message about cheating is that it's, it's so hard when you're cheating on to think, what did I do? Or what did I do wrong? Or it's my fault? Or you have nothing to do with it. There's nothing, it is your fault. And make someone else act outside of their integrity. So it's a, so we'll talk about the cheaty later. But, um, but they have to do the work, which is why do they do it? What was going on? What was, what was the wound? And then actually do the real work to repair that wound to become whole again and then relationship is possible.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  Flip side of that. So a partner, don't this is too much because it's such a broad topic.

• 6:18Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 6:20Speaker 00

  So, so relations, so the cheater can repair and can really repair, but the relationship can still not work out. And this is because the person who was cheated on can experience, does experience what's called betrayal trauma. Literally is a trauma, being cheated on is a trauma betrayal. And sadly, even though you're the victim in this situation, it's a trauma, one that it's important to heal from. So, so a lot of times, how do you have forgiveness? Someone, how do you have trust again? You can't repair the relationship unless that trust is restored gradually over time.

• 7:03Lewis Howes?

  Now, you've had many, I mean, open conversations in your books and on interviews,

• 7:10Lewis Howes?

  you know, from the game to the truth. And the truth, you talked about how you were in an open relationships. I think you lived in a house at one point with like everyone in a relationship with everyone type of thing.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, you were at that house. It was that same house.

• 7:23Lewis Howes?

  Everyone, there was like a bunch of people lived together and just had open love essentially. And because I think at one point you said, this is the way. And then you flipped it to no monogamy and intimacy with one person and commitment. That's the way. And then, you know, it's kind of gone back and forth. Where are you now in terms of relationships? Of what is a healthy, loving way to be in the best relationship possible?

• 7:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, I think to back it up, I really, when I started writing the book, The Truth, I think it's interesting you, for me, I start writing a book with a question and the book tells me the answer, right? Not saying, because I started, I really thought, started writing the book thinking, monogamy isn't natural, monogamy doesn't work. It's just there are all kinds of evolutionary reasons why that support this. But what I've actually found out, and I think this is 100% true. Just about everybody is that if you are not healthy in one kind of relationship, you won't be healthy in the other kind of relationship. So I found there are so many couples in, or throuples or whatever you want to call them, in open relationships and polyamorous relationships that still cheat.

• 8:31Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 8:31Speaker 00

  And I found it happens so often, but cheating might be like, okay, you can, there's some, just small rules, like just be protected, right?

• 8:39Lewis Howes?

  And they're not protected.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  And they get carried away, you know, or don't do that, or this or that, or being honest. So I found that a lot of cheating happens the same, almost in all relationships across the board.

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  Really? Yeah. Even in open relationships, people still cheat?

• 8:53Speaker 00

  There's, yeah, they're still cheating or betrayal or this. And again, there are some that are amazingly healthy and great ones I've seen, but, and just like they're healthy monogamous relationships. But that said, I believe if you're not healthy in one kind of relationship, you won't be healthy in another kind of relationship. What I found was separate from monogamy, polyamory, you know, ethical non-monogamy, all those things, and just like get healthy and secure in yourself and any kind of relationship will work.

• 9:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  That said, to have a healthy, like, non-monogamous relationship, it takes a lot more work on yourself in terms of communication and, you know, emotional maturity and all those sorts of things.

• 9:39Lewis Howes?

  Do you know anyone in a 20, 30 year plus open relationship that have been together themselves but are in an open relationship, that have a thriving relationship, healthy, conscious relationship together, lots of love, lots of trust, have kids and have raised healthy, conscious kids as well? Have you seen that?

• 9:58Speaker 00

  I have seen it.

• 9:59Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 10:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have seen it. Like, and I think just, I think...

• 10:05Speaker 00

  In a sense, I think that, let me start with this, there's actually a study on polyamorous families that showed, and again, I guess studies can show anything, right?

• 10:14Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Prove whatever point you want.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  Exactly. I think there's even a study on studies that shows it just confirms the bias that the researcher had at the beginning, especially in psychological studies. But that said, that children born in healthy, like, poly families grew up healthier, because I think it actually makes sense if you have more loving caregivers.

• 10:39Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Like, how great is that, instead of just mom and dad?

• 10:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's interesting.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  But the answer is, the unhealthy version of an open relationship is when one partner wants to explore other partners, the other partner doesn't, but they don't want to lose that partner. So they're like reluctantly accept it. That's the unhealthy version.

• 11:02Lewis Howes?

  But they don't really want it, but they accept it because they don't want to lose something?

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Yes. So they just go along with it, even though it's against the way they feel.

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  Is that a lack of self-worth, or a lack of creating boundaries in that person?

• 11:12Speaker 00

  I think it comes from both sides. I think one side has narcissism, right? It's the balance. One side has narcissism, and the other side has the opposite, insecurity, and together, that's how that dynamic works.

• 11:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  So I think it's sort of found on both sides. Versus a healthy one is, if you think about it this way, there's three entities in a relation, which is the person, one partner, the other partner, and then the relationship itself. Or if there's more partners, you can do it. But the relationship itself, and if you, so if you're going to choose to explore, and I think, I really think that most, a lot of couples want to explore, there's just fears attached to that.

• 11:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  Right? Just to, even just for a night or a weekend, like, but there's fears attached to that. So I think we should kind of remove those definitions, and I'll talk about that in a second, but I think everything you do should be healthy for all three entities. So in other words, we're in a relationship, but like, I feel trapped, so I want to just go have another experience with someone else, and you're going to let me even though it hurts you, well, that's not good for you or the relationship. So if you think about what can be good for all three, and if it's a yes or a green light, then go.

• 12:21Lewis Howes?

  Right, but it's gotta be healthy for all three.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  Right, exactly.

• 12:23Lewis Howes?

  If it's not, then you're fracturing a part of the relationship.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:27Lewis Howes?

  Right?

• 12:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:27Lewis Howes?

  You're fracturing yourself, or you're fracturing the relationship, or the person you're with. So it's choosing out of a place of, you know, conscious integrity that is best for all three, I guess.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Well said. That's good.

• 12:38Lewis Howes?

  But if one is against it, then you can't really choose that then.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  And you have to either accept that, or not be in the relationship, I guess, right?

• 12:46Speaker 00

  And the key, the other key is, a lot of people wanna explore outside, because they're lacking something in their relationship. And like, the smartest, kind of, polyamorous, sort of, experts that I spoke to, said, and I think this is so true, your partner has to have an abundance of you, before you, to start with. And then they're on that secure platform. But if you're like, this is starting not to work, maybe we should try some other things, like, that's gonna go downhill quickly.

• 13:14Lewis Howes?

  So why do you think, because not all monogamous relationships work out, right? People are not happy after 20, 30 years, but they're monogamous, I guess. What do you think are the keys of a happy, healthy, monogamous relationship?

• 13:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:28Lewis Howes?

  What are each partner doing for themselves and for the relationship?

• 13:32Speaker 00

  As a note, I think it's the same for all relationships. And the way I think about it, because it's funny when you ask the question, whether you're monogamous and you're this, and I think that, I think that, that a relationship should be a constant discussion, and it can evolve. Like, imagine you're just working a job, and you're like, this job is never gonna change. Don't even discuss it changing. This is your job forever. But people grow and people change, and you can have discussions. You know, as an example, when I had that Sirius radio show, the engineer, I think this is okay to share. His, his, uh, wife was going through menopause over several years.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  She said, you know what, I feel bad for you. Like, I don't wanna be touched. I wanna think physically. You should go have some experiences, and get that need met. And then she thought that was healthy for him. It was good for her, because she wants him to be happy, and it's good for the relationship.

• 14:31Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  So these things can change. So I think, I like the idea of a relationship as just... I love you and I'm committed to you. And let's just see what's the most, what grows from there and is the most exciting for us.

• 14:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think each individual focusing on their own happiness and the happiness of their partner and saying, how can we both be happy together? I think that's really key at the end of the day.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:54Lewis Howes?

  When do you feel like has been the most insecure time of your adult life? And the most secure time of your adult life? In a relationship and out of a relationship? Can you think about those?

• 15:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:06Lewis Howes?

  Times?

• 15:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. I think the I think, I think the most insecure time in a relationship, then again, I'm just being super, uh, I don't think I've talked, I don't think I've really talked about this, but I think the most insecure time is probably right after my wife at the time had our first child. And I think I wasn't ready, I was really ready to be a good parent, all the stuff we know about trauma, healing, I'm like, I can, this is a chance to right to the wrongs of the previous generations before us and live what I talk about, but what I wasn't ready for was how that affected our relationship.

• 15:40Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 15:41Speaker 00

  And so I'd say the most insecure time was when all of a sudden,

• 15:46Speaker 00

  all of a sudden, for the next couple of years,

• 15:52Speaker 00

  any need, it does say in my case, it was sort of, it was all very overwhelming for her, combined with postpartum and the things that are going on with that, that, uh, that, that just kind of sort of completely disconnected and, uh,

• 16:05Lewis Howes?

  The relationship for yourself?

• 16:07Speaker 00

  The relationship, to the degree that, that I remember I was doing, I was doing my podcast about with the missing persons case.

• 16:14Lewis Howes?

  To Live and Die in L.A.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:15Lewis Howes?

  Incredible podcast.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  I was getting a death threat from the, from the, from, from someone. And I was trying to tell her about it and she's like, listen, I have no time for you. I'm like, but I'm getting, someone's trying to kill me. She's like, just enough, what? I'm like,

• 16:31Speaker 00

  and because I'm recording everything, this is a podcast. I literally have it on tape, I didn't put it on the podcast. But I was like, man, I'm like, I, I, but I, but by the way,

• 16:41Speaker 00

  I think it's important to say that she was just overwhelmed at capacity. It's not like she was, she was just at capacity. And I think the toughest time for me then was having no space and my partner having no space. No space, so I think it's tough. And I think it was something I wish, hopefully for those of you who have children on the way or first or sometime in the future can prepare you for it is like, is that it's a really, it's really hard on the other part. It's hard on both partners, you know, like it's, imagine going through, if you're going through postpartum, like.

• 17:11Lewis Howes?

  Your identity's changing.

• 17:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, husband's still doing, doing exactly what he did before and somehow it just feels, even though, even you can spend the time exactly equally, I just think for the person who carried the baby, it's, feels like her responsibility. It's such a, I feel like, I'd love to see a book, I can suggest someone write it for, it's not about parenting, but about relationshiping after having kids. So that was the most insecure time.

• 17:38Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. When's been the most secure time for you in your adult life?

• 17:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, the most secure time, same relationship, right before the child.

• 17:46Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. And this speaks to exactly your first question. By the way, thank you, I liked this conversation because it's like, these are things I think about all the time, so, so it's so interesting to talk about, is that, the reason I'm such an expert on cheating is because, well, I cheated, got caught, did, went to, not just to rehab, but really just made it a mission. I'm like, whether this relationship works out or not because of what I did, I want to be a better person who lives inside my own values system. And just because why would I hurt somebody who I love, who I care about, who I want to get married, we weren't married at the time. And just really it took like a long time, it healed so much.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  We can talk about the steps I did or the things I did if helpful, but.

• 18:33Lewis Howes?

  How long were you in the relationship for, committed? And again, when was the first time you cheated within the relationship, I guess, how long after you were committed?

• 18:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, we were probably, I want to say it was maybe about like a couple of years and then maybe like.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Nine months in or something like that and it was like and I remember talking to and it's in the books it's not to like my kind of friend mentor or to Rick to Rick Rehm and he was he's in the books it's not he's the producer and

• 19:04Lewis Howes?

  And the truth?

• 19:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, and the truth, yeah, so so he's like he's like you did all this for like sex that wasn't that good anyway.

• 19:12Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  You know, that wasn't even a great experience and like

• 19:15Lewis Howes?

  It wasn't worth it.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so what's wrong with you and it took a long time in talking to him to to to sort of recognize something was broken in me.

• 19:26Lewis Howes?

  What do you think of the main reasons a guy or a girl might cheat?

• 19:29Speaker 00

  Oh, by the just to finish the second part of the question, so after I did all the work on myself and this speaks to like the monogamy like and and I got back in the relationship.

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh, so you went there you went to rehab?

• 19:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:41Lewis Howes?

  And to kind of heal the wounds or the root cause of why you wanted to cheat or?

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think and I think actually rehab is not enough. I think I literally think rehab should be a year long. But if it but it's hard to sell it's hard to sell it if it's a year long. But it takes a long time to rewire those patterns.

• 19:58Lewis Howes?

  It does.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  It can be built up in a brain over seventeen eighteen years of childhood and then reinforced over another ten or twenty years of without living. So so I probably just rehab is like I really made it a project like almost like this podcast or a book we do or something I made it. My healing is the most important project in my life.

• 20:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  And so I I really did and tried everything till

• 20:21Lewis Howes?

  What what what what did you learn in I guess it's sex rehab or what's the rehab?

• 20:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can just call like yeah, it was it was like sex sex addiction rehab or whatever, but a lot of it to me felt like a maybe it's just splitting calling it a nicer word, but it felt like an intimacy disorder, but what I learned there. I'll tell you what I what I learned there, but just to finish the point was once I was back in the relationship. Like I felt so, I didn't need to look at people on so, you know, just little things like I felt so happy to be with her. I felt so committed, same person, I just changed. And then those three things, the relationship and she changes within that. So, side note, if you want to change your relationship, something's wrong. The only thing you have control over is yourself. If you change yourself, the whole system changes and gets better.

• 21:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  So that's literally like all you have to do to make your relationship better is actually change yourself and stop trying to get someone else to change.

• 21:16Lewis Howes?

  Why is it so hard for people to want to look within and change the things about them that might be broken or that need improvement on? Why is it so hard for us to look in the mirror and say, I need to work on me?

• 21:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, because it's so much easier to criticize someone else. It's so easy to look what, I mean, look at all of Twitter is people looking what's wrong with the world and everyone else. And then would they do better in that position? Probably not, they'd be defending their own, you know, behavior. So I think it's, I think, I think it's really hard. And I've worked really hard on it to say, I have no control over anyone else. And before I accuse anyone of anything, like how, what, what's my, how am I contributing here? What's my part in it? What am I doing? How am I engaging? And how am I trying to control for my own safety? All these, all these types of things.

• 22:12Lewis Howes?

  It's so hard to, I mean, grow up and have a perfect set of values that you're integrity with all the time, especially if you've got trauma, wounds, psychological breaks from childhood that you never addressed.

• 22:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 22:26Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to carry those wounds into your adult life and then say, okay, here are my values, I'm going to stick to them at all times. I'm not going to lean into temptation, I'm not going to sway away from my commitments, I'm going to honor my word. It's really challenging. Unless you do the healing work.

• 22:41Speaker 00

  And you can't do it alone because the harder thing, there are other reasons it's hard is you can't see yourself. So there, there was, nobody thinks they're a bad person. Like, nobody actually thinks they're a bad person. And, but, some people do really, really bad things and justify it, right? They justify it by getting into a story of, well, they had it coming. They did this to me. That was wrong. And who even knows if those are factual. So like, it's important to have someone qualified see you from the outside. Thing pointed out and you to be open to it. I have a hack for that that's good because the other problem is healing is expensive.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  It is.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Rehab is like expensive and health insurance usually doesn't cover it. It's really broken our whole mental health model.

• 23:24Lewis Howes?

  And it takes time. Healing doesn't happen overnight or a weekend or two weeks in rehab. It happens, you might have aha moments during those times. But then it takes months, if not years, to rewire your brain, to integrate the lessons, to process, to transform into a healthy version of yourself.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so here's a, like, here's a great hack that I haven't heard other people talk about, but it's also affordable, powerful, and will change your life. That sounds like, you can just put that out there. But, but here's a great hack, which is, and I did this and it really helped a lot, which is I've got a group of men in my community who are in the same place. Maybe they were just married, just had children, wherever they're at. And we decided to form sort of a therapy group. And if you get a bunch of guys together who are broken in their own ways to form a therapy group, it's not going to go well. And then we hired a therapist.

• 24:18Lewis Howes?

  To help all of you.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  Right, to help all of you. And so when you think about it, even going to individual therapy can be expensive for some people, but if it's five, six, 10 of you, hiring one therapist, you can all split that and afford it or pay as you want. We've been meeting every Monday night for what's now like, I want to say it's eight years now.

• 24:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Same group of guys. And so when I walk in and I say, hey, you know, I'm having this issue with my relationship or with work or something. I don't even have to finish the story. They're all like, Neil, that's you again. You're doing that same thing you did that time and that time. But the reason why it's powerful, going back to us not being able to see ourselves is if I'm sitting with a one-on-one therapist or even just a friend and they have a critique or something to point out, I can just disagree.

• 25:01Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  But if it's eight guys or eight of your people you respect.

• 25:05Lewis Howes?

  So you're not the jerk in this situation.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. And all eight of them have this point, you can be like, I don't agree, but they probably got something there.

• 25:13Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So you've been doing that almost every week for like eight years.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I literally don't make any major decisions without discussing them.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:21Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful. I really, I mean, I'm such a believer in either group therapy, one-on-one therapy, therapeutic experiences, week-long retreats to help you kind of reset, relook at yourself, reevaluate your values, where you're at in your life, and just try to get you on track to a better version of you. So I think it's really beautiful you're doing that. And I think in general, a lot of men don't have one friend that they can open up to and talk about their insecurities, their problems, their challenges. And it feels suffocating when you don't feel like you have the ability to just share or express your feelings.

• 25:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:54Lewis Howes?

  So the fact that you're creating that commitment for yourself and other men is a beautiful thing.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  And they'll say things that they maybe can't share with their partners or even with their best friends because there's that cone of trust in there.

• 26:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's really, it's really, I love it. So I really recommend that. And also there's something, our wounds happened in relationship, right? Relationship with our parents, they're relational. And so we can heal them in healthy, trusting relationships as well.

• 26:20Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So our wounds happen in relationships and the only way to heal them is through relationships, it sounds like.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 26:29Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  And what, and I was, interesting, the other thing for, I think a lot of people will be precious about what they do to help themselves, like, I'll give you one caveat, but I think anything you do with that as the intention of healing you is not gonna hurt. I'll talk about a couple of exceptions to that, obviously, but you know what I mean? If someone's gonna say, if there's a therapy and it's, I don't know, surrounding you. Anything that's any as long as A like obviously there's there's a you know that the person running it isn't toxic, dangerous, abusive, and then B, there is a certain segment of and I'm just a warning. There's a certain segment of self-help improvement courses that are mind-blowing, phenomenal, amazing. However, they also try to get it's their members to recruit for them.

• 27:15Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  So if you ever I some people are mad for me saying this and I it's been forever doing a course and part of the idea of improving yourself is going to get other people to join the course. You know, get people to join courses if you want it, but if it's sort of a compulsion or part of the education, it's beware.

• 27:33Lewis Howes?

  Beware, for sure. What were the the three main takeaways you got from sex rehab or intimacy rehab?

• 27:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I think the big takeaway, and this actually goes back to your second question you asked. I love that we have so many.

• 27:45Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  So they close by the second question, but how can you identify a cheater ahead of time? So the big takeaway, and I'll never would the big takeaway was understanding the idea of enmeshment, which I didn't understand.

• 27:56Lewis Howes?

  What is enmeshment?

• 27:57Speaker 00

  Right. Do you know what it is, or you said it as a thing?

• 27:59Lewis Howes?

  No, what is it? Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  Okay, so there's like generally like three types of parenting. There's, you know, healthy parenting, which is the parent takes care of a child's needs, right? And and obviously, a parent can take care of all the child's needs because children are so needy and wherever they sort of miss a need or especially consistently miss a need or one-time dramatically miss a need, that creates the wounds that we're talking about as trauma. Then we all know about abandonment, which is a parent's we actually don't know as much about. I think people think abandonment is a parent physically not being there, but abandonment can also be a parent emotionally not being there, right? A parent can literally be present all the time and just emotionally checked out.

• 28:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  And and that's creates the same kind of abandonment. Abandonment can also be, by the way, if you're really young and a parent passes away, that has nothing to do with you, but when you're that young and a little bit, you know, it feels like, why is that parent not there?

• 28:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  You know, even sometimes Having surgery, have an operation when you're young or something like that, your parents left you with someone who then cut you, cut into you and caused you pain. Like, why weren't you protected? So, there's a lot of things that are actually come from, that are out of the parents' control, it can come from love or protection, that can still land these wounds. I think it's important, people often think it's blaming the parents, but it's just understanding ourselves.

• 29:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Okay. That's the second thing you said?

• 29:18Speaker 00

  Oh, so the second, so, so, so, so there's, there's, there is enmeshment, and enmeshment is, if abandonment's when the parent doesn't take care of their child needs, enmeshment is when the child take care of the parents' needs.

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  Right?

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  Like, a lot of, a lot of people can relate to that, I think.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:37Lewis Howes?

  Like, they had to grow up too fast, the parent was throwing their baggage on them, their problems on them, saying, "Oh, you're a lifesaver, you're, you're so strong for me," you know, all these different things.

• 29:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so, and why it's so hard to catch, I don't know why, I just got the chills for some reason, because it's so, what's so interesting about it is, it doesn't feel like trauma, because abandonment is like disempowering, we feel like, "Why don't I matter? If that parent cared about me, they'd be there, or they'd not just like divorce and then never see me again, except for like twice a year, like, and why, what's wrong with me?" Um, but, so it's disempowering, whereas enmeshment is falsely empowering. Like, "Look at me, I'm taking care of dad, look at me, I'm taking care of mom, look at me, dad realizing me, look at me, mom realizing me, look at me, I'm special to that," like, "Look at me, like, you know, so, so you feel you're, you're being sort of elevated, so it doesn't, it's harder to recognize this trauma, and that's why it's lesser known."

• 30:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  And those people, by the way, this will probably hit like a chord for some people, people who are enmeshed, and they get into relationships, they like tend to date people they can help or save.

• 30:41Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 30:42Speaker 00

  Like, projects. And then what happens is, they date someone they want to help and save, because that's how they get their worth and value, right?

• 30:49Lewis Howes?

  Because that's how they got it from mom or dad.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  Right, exactly. "That's my job. Like, if I don't have a job, then I'm not lovable," right? And then what happens is... That after a while, they can't really help save, change that person and they start to resent. So like they did with their parent and then push them apart and cheat or act out. Like they feel trapped.

• 31:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow, yeah.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  And they might act out in some other way. It doesn't have to be.

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 31:15Speaker 00

  It can be some other addictive compulsive behavior.

• 31:18Lewis Howes?

  Man, that's interesting. There's a big book out there. I can't remember the name of it. I think it's something like Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents or something like that.

• 31:26Speaker 00

  I love that, that too.

• 31:27Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if you've seen that, but I see it. I see it out there. I gotta check it out. But it sounds like, you know, being raised by a parent who was emotionally immature, that you had to grow up and kind of be the parent to your parent.

• 31:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:40Lewis Howes?

  And the wounds and the traumas that that causes.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:43Lewis Howes?

  Of those three, which one did you experience the most growing up?

• 31:46Speaker 00

  Oh, for sure in measurement. That's why I was, yeah, that's why I was, that was, that was the big takeaway in rehab. When all of a sudden, I literally thought as a, I was a journalist and a writer. I thought I was the sane person who wrote about the, you know, extreme people who were unhealthy. And because all of her, for most of us, our childhood just seems normal because we have nothing to compare it to. That's just normal. That's how it's done, right? So, so once I was there and as we're talking, I saw my challenge from the outside. I remember the therapist like pointed, once you pointed out the patterns, like it was like a, all of a sudden, everything made sense.

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 32:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:24Lewis Howes?

  What was that like the first time you were able to see little Neo in front of you?

• 32:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that, I think that, um, and I love that you, you know, like, cause you've done the work. We're talking about little me. We have, it's true that just to speak to what you said, we have that inner child that feels that when it recognizes someone familiar, it takes over and gets in the driver's seat. And all of a sudden, we're not in control of our own lives. And so, so I remember the first time, I really didn't expect that. I was super cynical, like rebellious, you know, like, like, and then when she pointed out the patterns and said, well, you know, why you've never been in a relationship? And I'm like, no, why? And she goes, well, because your mom wants to be in a relationship with you. And then like, as soon as she said it.

• 33:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 33:12Speaker 00

  Like logically made no sense. My whole body felt the truth of it. Like I felt it like just, I'll never, I'll literally never, that moment, like exact moment changed my life.

• 33:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so you had the aha in that moment?

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:25Lewis Howes?

  But healing didn't happen right away. It probably took a little time to kind of process and integrate it, right?

• 33:29Speaker 00

  I think the hardest part of healing is having the awareness and still doing the same stupid shit.

• 33:35Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Because like, because man, the awareness is just the first step, right? Once you have awareness, now you have to actually do the work together. Like, I have awareness, I have this goal, but the awareness doesn't get to the goal.

• 33:53Lewis Howes?

  Why do you, you mentioned, you know, you wanted to kind of write about, interview and do journalism on kind of like the weirdest or most extreme types of people? Why do you think you were fascinated with the most extreme personalities in the world?

• 34:07Speaker 00

  Well, you guessed from what you just, from what we just talked about. Just put the puzzle pieces together, I think. See if you just give it a push.

• 34:13Lewis Howes?

  Well, I mean, I think you, I don't know, it sounds like you were trying to learn about extreme personalities because you didn't feel emotionally safe, or you didn't feel like you had safety growing up in some way from the relationship you had with your mother, it sounds like. And you were trying to make your life more normal by interviewing or learning about extreme people and their personalities.

• 34:36Speaker 00

  And who is the extreme person I grew up with?

• 34:40Lewis Howes?

  Your mom?

• 34:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, so, yeah, so, so thinking, yeah.

• 34:42Lewis Howes?

  And you were trying to make her feel normal by looking at, well, there's gotta be more extreme people out there, so my mom can't be that extreme.

• 34:49Speaker 00

  Right, and by the way, I didn't, at that time, and I think that there's a lot of accuracy to that, I think I didn't, I didn't, I didn't see her as extreme because I didn't know any other mom.

• 34:57Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  So, so I think what it is, was enmeshment makes a great interview. Were you enmeshed at all with mom and all?

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  I felt, I was the youngest of four.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:09Lewis Howes?

  And my, my brother went to prison when I was eight, so from eight to 12. It was just kind of like scarcity, survival feelings, you know, for a number of years because we would go to the prison to visit him on the weekends for visiting hours. It was just a lot of trauma and sadness and shame.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:27Lewis Howes?

  And so I didn't feel like I had the attention towards me because it was my older siblings, my brother. It was just us trying to get through this time of sadness.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  Right. So by the way, it's interesting you said that because one of the signs of enmeshment is not like, oh, I'm taken care of. Sometimes, or dad, sometimes it's like if mom is or dad are sad or depressed and that can be.

• 35:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, they didn't have a loving relationship either.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:53Lewis Howes?

  So there was just no love between them. So it was always just kind of insecurity, fear. When are they going to communicate each other? It was just like uncertainty constantly.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  One subtle form of enmeshment was kind of mom or dad, they feel bad. You don't want to bother them with your needs. Like, so if you feel sorry for a parent, that's usually a good measurement.

• 36:12Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  Did you feel sorry for one of your parents or not? I'd curious.

• 36:15Lewis Howes?

  Man, I was just like, I felt sorry for myself.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  Good for you. That's a smart, wise child.

• 36:21Lewis Howes?

  You know, I'm stupid. I have no friends. I'm not enough. I felt just like very insecure, you know, and I didn't feel the love. I know they loved me and they showed moments of love, but it was hard for me to feel it.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Right. I think, yeah, it sounds like abandonment and stuff.

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And I was dealt with sexual abuse, which you know about that when I was five from a man that I didn't know. So I just had like a lot of uncertainty and like, like when's, what's going to happen next?

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  There'd be screaming in the house. There'd be fighting. There'd be a disconnection feeling between my parents. So I just didn't know what's going to happen all the time.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's like hypervigilant.

• 36:54Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes. Yeah. So it just, yeah, it fractured my personality.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:00Lewis Howes?

  And it took years to heal.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:03Lewis Howes?

  So it drove me, probably just like you, it drove me to like, how do I be the best I can be? And how do I win? And how do I get girls to like me? And how do I make money? And it's like, how do we become significant in society? But it also left me feeling.

• 37:15Speaker 00

  Wanted and accepted and seen.

• 37:17Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent. Yeah. And love.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  And safe.

• 37:18Lewis Howes?

  And loved and safe. But no amount of success, money, girls, or fame made me feel more loved.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course.

• 37:27Lewis Howes?

  And so about 11 years ago, I started going through my own transformation, healing journey, you know, events, therapies, workshops, meditation, retreats.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  To reclaim the inner child and create safety within myself. And that, you know, it's been a 10, 11 year journey of different waves of emotions and healing and then regressing and then healing and, you know, ups and downs. And I finally feel like I'm in a extremely emotionally safe place with myself. I feel like the adult me is on a cautious, healthy journey to, to take care of the little me inside of me.

• 38:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  And it's a constant relationship with the two. To be my word to my younger self, to acknowledge my younger self for, for carrying me all the way to this moment.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:18Lewis Howes?

  For loving and accepting myself, but also it's like just really doing the work like you talked about from, you know, I guess sex rehab. It's like being committed to the daily practices and work where I can align with my vision and values for myself and the effort that I'm putting in consistently.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:37Lewis Howes?

  Not trying to be perfect, but being consistent. And that journey gives me peace. The, the effort gives me harmony. It makes me feel grateful and abundant as opposed to beating myself up or talking negative to myself or saying, ah, you could be doing better. It's like, yes, I want to improve, but not from a, a negative place.

• 38:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:58Lewis Howes?

  And that's been a beautiful journey.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I love that you said like, it really is, I think a lot of people like this pretend like it's, and again, even some stuff I said may, may appear that way, but it really is a back and forth thing like you're, I mean, I think of healing like the half life of radiation, like you're cutting it in half and half and half, but it never goes away entirely. And I, I love, I want to say this is, I'm going to elaborate this and it goes back to what we're saying in the, the green room back there before is, uh, um, I get excited when I backslide. Really, why? Meaning that like, I'm like, there's something to learn here. Okay, there's something I gotta work on here. Like, so, so it's easy to beat yourself up when you backslide.

• 39:43Speaker 00

  And, and go into, you know, reactive mode, shutting down, or, you know. Ego. Ego, whatever it is. And it's easy just to be like, all this healing's for nothing, I'm just right back here where I was before. But, I had, it's really about how quickly you recover from it. It's not about, it never ha, it's not about never backsliding, or never getting in a reactive place again. It's about how quickly when it happens, can you go back and recover to your, you know, healthy, adult, functional, you know, self. And then I'll go back and look at it and say, okay, what was going on? What was, I'll try to look at it this way. What was the stimulus that I received? Right?

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Then what was the behavior that I had? Then this is the key question. And what was the belief that was underneath it that drove the behavior? Because literally so often, like, I grew up with a very critical mom, right? So that explains a lot of self-esteem issues. Yeah, yeah. And, and so if I get, you know, if Ingrid was my ex-wife and best friend. If she criticizes me, I might take it more personally. And I might be like, you're always criticizing me or something. I'm like, wait, maybe it's a fair, maybe what she said was actually just factually accurate. So, so, but in my brain, I'm like, well, what am I, what's my belief? Where does that come from?

• 41:08Speaker 00

  And as soon as you can make it not about the other person, then you have a shot of healing. And then the other key thing I'll think about afterward is, how did I feel after it? Afterward? So, you know, often when someone's, is in a reactive state, because some people act in. A lot of people act in, some people act out, some act in. How did I feel afterward was usually shame. Mm-hmm, exactly. And so, so I'll try to look at those pieces and then figure out, is there, is there a lie? Is there a lie I'm telling myself that I need to intervene on? Like you were saying about your childhood. I don't matter, like, you know, I don't fit in, like, I'm, all those things you were saying were all.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  They, when you say they're adults, they're not true, they're just lies and you have to intervene. When you talk about being consistent, that was a great word you said, you have to intervene on the lies. Like, right away, as soon as they happen, you have to tell yourself the truth.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  Not an affirmation, because I think some affirmations are another forms of lies, like-

• 42:01Lewis Howes?

  It's like a spiritual bypass.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  Right, right, right, but, but if you say, as an example, here's a small intervention I'll do, is like, let's say, when I first moved to LA, I started driving, my friends would call me Kirby, because I always hit the curbs when I was trying to park. So, so maybe I'm driving, I hit the curb, I'm like, I'm such an idiot. Right, that's not a, that's not true.

• 42:20Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  That's not true.

• 42:22Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 42:22Speaker 00

  And so, but the truth is, uh, um, I'm still learning to drive, and I made a mistake.

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  So you can just, you can not, not, you don't say I'm an idiot, instead of say, no, I'm a super powerful, you know, human being, and I, which is great too, but it's nice to just actually correct it with the actual fact.

• 42:38Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm, yeah. I don't know if we answered this yet, but I wanted to get back to-

• 42:42Speaker 00

  There's only questions we have, hey-

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  I wanted to ask you about, if you're entering a relationship, what are the signs that you might be entering a relationship with a potential cheater?

• 42:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I think a few signs are, obviously if they cheated before and haven't healed. But I think it goes back to the parenting, so it goes back to the enmeshment. Like, I tend to find, as an example, I was, I was somewhere in the makeup artist's work, and she was talking about she's never had like a relationship, cheats all the time. I'm like, what's your relationship with your dad like? She rolls up her sleeve and it says like Daddy's Girl on her sleeve.

• 43:15Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  And I'm like, I'm like, okay, you, you, because nobody's like your dad, so, you know, and so, I think, I think, and I don't want to say like never date someone who's enmeshed, but, uh, but you can actually see that if, if someone is deeply enmeshed by a parent, um, and sometimes people are still-

• 43:38Speaker 00

  Taking care of the needs of their parents and it's different if your parent is ill or something like that, but if your parents just calling you every day for everything.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  Just a victim.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  Right, right. And just relying on you just for their own mental, for their own, just to get through each day. Often what will happen in a relationship after some period of time is they'll start to, they'll start to feel smothered by their relationship and then act out for their freedom. And again, it doesn't have to be sex or cheating, but it doesn't mean, oh, they're going to cheat a hundred percent, but you can say, oh, this is something and just see if they're aware of it and working on it.

• 44:14Lewis Howes?

  Where they numb themselves, they need drugs or alcohol to numb the feelings of being stuck or trapped and then they're neglect the relationship, they're not present, they're not intimate, vulnerable, whatever it might be.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 44:25Lewis Howes?

  They distance themselves some way.

• 44:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, they have to distance themselves in some way because they're not suffocated.

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  And literally, I remember when I was, they just, just being with one person and dealing with their need, neediness and they usually choose someone needy as a partner, right?

• 44:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  Can be a big deal. I think it's interesting when I talked about cheating and I just think when it comes to cheating, it's, it's, it's someone being, it's afraid to be honest in a sense of that like I realized afterward is you're, it's also you're making your partner, you, people who cheat often think my partner's not letting me do this. They don't allow me to do this. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna take care of myself because they're not letting me. Like they get in this victim child position to their partner. But the truth is you can literally do anything you want and your partner can respond to it how they want to. So you can literally just say like, hey, you know, I met someone today

• 45:25Speaker 00

  and I would love to go sleep with them. And you can say, cool, you can do that. I don't think I can still be in a relationship afterward, but go enjoy yourself. Thanks for letting me know who you are. Right? Like I think, I actually think it'd be healthy if, if you can, and then would you still cheat with that person given that choice? You know, but you kind of wanna, yeah. And then people think, well, I'm by, I don't want to hurt the person. So I'm not going to tell them what I'm doing, but you're actually.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  When people say, when people lie, and I'm jumping like to a thought, but I think it's important, which is when people lie, they think they're protecting the person or something, but they're not. They protect themselves from feeling uncomfortable emotions from that person. Right? They're like, I can't deal with your emotions, so I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing in case you have an emotion that I'm uncomfortable with.

• 46:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think they're probably also hurting themselves the most because they're out of integrity with their commitments or their word to their partner they're with.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  Totally. Yeah, and you're lying, you're not even in a relationship, you're lying in bed next to your partner in this secret world that they don't know about. And that's also an important thing to say is, what is cheating? Cheating to me is break, acting outside the rules that you have established for your relationship.

• 46:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:44Speaker 00

  Meaning that if someone's like, you can't watch pornography, guess what? You watch porn, you didn't sleep with somebody, you have an affair, but that's, you broke the rules and that's cheating.

• 46:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:53Speaker 00

  You can't take a, you know, exchange phone or whatever. First of all, rules should be stated. A lot of times people start dating and they have these assumptions, but you haven't agreed on the rules. And secondly is, you don't have to agree to anything you don't want to. It's a, it's a, it's a consensual thing. No one's making you not do that, you're choosing to do it because it's important to your partner.

• 47:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think that's beautiful with my fiance, Martha and I. When we got into a committed relationship, we were dating for a few months, but then we entered a committed, you know, relationship. One of the things I requested was to start the relationship in therapy. And I said, I've always-

• 47:28Speaker 00

  Damn man, you're a keeper right there.

• 47:32Lewis Howes?

  Because I'd had five, I'd had five or five or six kind of, you know, year to three year relationships for the last 20 years, right? Since I was in high school or college or whatever. And all of them ended in therapy.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  And they, they didn't end, you know, typically well. I tried to end them well, I tried to like make them work. And I was the one who was always requesting to do therapy. This was the crazy thing. I don't know if this is something wrong with me or me choosing a certain type of personality. I would always say, let's do therapy. Let's try to find a way to make this work. And the people that I was choosing to be in relationships with never wanted therapy. They, they resisted it. It was almost had to- Begged them for like six months to a year to be like, something's not working. I'm trying to improve. I'm trying to do what you want me to do. It's still not working. Can we go to therapy? And they didn't want to go. And so we would finally go and then it would end, right? And it wouldn't end well. They weren't happy that we went to therapy. And I never understood. So I was like, I'm not entering another relationship.

• 48:30Lewis Howes?

  I'm happy to be single for as long as it takes. And I'm not entering another relationship unless the person is willing to work on themselves and create agreements in therapy together in a conscious way from the start. And Martha right away was like, yeah, man, let's do this.

• 48:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, and for the right person, that's like such a value add.

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing. And so when you talk about rules, we created agreements earlier. Like every time we did a session, we're like, okay, we're experiencing a little discomfort here or friction here. Can we create an agreement around this? So that we both know where we're at. And just make sure we're going in the right direction. Otherwise, let's get out of this thing early. You know, it's like, why wait two years and just have all these chemicals connecting? And not talk about our values, our vision, our lifestyle, kind of our agreements, and make sure we're aligned. And so it has created a lot more peace and harmony in the relationship by creating that. And it doesn't mean everything's perfect every moment, but it's creating more safety.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  And one thing I love, I love that we have so many thoughts about what you said. And one thing I love, someone said, and I haven't been able to do it. I think I liked, I think it's a way better way to, they said, we have intentions, not rules.

• 49:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:39Speaker 00

  Everything in tensions.

• 49:39Lewis Howes?

  Our agreements, yeah, yeah.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, what's one of your agreements?

• 49:42Lewis Howes?

  Um, one of the agreements was like, I don't know, within the first year. And it's like little things could turn into big things, right? You know, it's like a little thing where like, oh, maybe it's not that big of a deal, but it can be if it happens every other month.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 49:53Lewis Howes?

  Um, one of them was like, within the first year, you know, she would want to talk about something challenging at night. Like we get into bed, I'm ready to fall asleep. I'm exhausted. You know, it's 10, 11, 12 o'clock, whatever. I'm like winding down mentally, emotionally, physically. And then she wants to start a conversation. And it's not like a light conversation. It's like something that takes time and energy and presence from me. And a couple of times this happened where it's like, all right, we're up until 3 a.m., 4 a.m., talking about these things. And I want to be there to support her, right? It's not that I don't want to talk about these things, but I, I'm like, listen, this doesn't work for me anymore. Having these conversations like after 10 p.m. do not work.

• 50:37Lewis Howes?

  Because I want to show up fully for you and I can't show up fully to be present. So I have to wake myself back up. I have to turn the lights on. I have to sit up at like 1 a.m. And try to like look you in the eyes, be, you know, open body position, be present with you, like open my heart when I'm like falling asleep.

• 50:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:54Lewis Howes?

  So the agreement was no challenging conversations when we're in bed. Like we talk about what we're grateful for. We talk about like lighter things so that we can go to sleep.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:06Lewis Howes?

  And we can talk about them tomorrow and that, and everything's gonna be okay.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  And so we created that agreement in therapy together and it has created so much peace for both of us.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's really understanding too. People have different processing styles.

• 51:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  She might want to process everything right away.

• 51:22Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 51:22Speaker 00

  In the moment and maybe accepting that you waiting a little bit to your present is going to help her process it better versus getting, you know, re wounded by you not being present.

• 51:31Lewis Howes?

  And then we're both exhausted the next day and more resentful the next day. We didn't solve this thing.

• 51:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:36Lewis Howes?

  So it's like, let's just talk about it over dinner. Like let's talk about it when we're both awake, when we're both like still have energy. And if not, then we'll wait till the next day. We'll talk about it then.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  There's one little tool I love that I use, uh, like, um, I call them, I guess, check-ins. Uh, I don't know. So I, I realized that sometimes in a relationship, um, you can start, stop, uh, you can start to just grow distant without meaning to by not talking about certain things, especially things that might be uncomfortable with each other. So I started doing this every other night. Um, it was in bed, but, but earlier.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  Uh, with, uh, we, and I kind of recommend this is it. It's great for relationships and check it. Here's how it works is one person shares everything uninterrupted of what's going on for them.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  Then afterward, the other person can share everything of what's going on for them. And the deal is you just listen, don't interrupt the other person. And you also don't defend yourself, right? If they're like, you know, I was frustrated. And sometimes when you hear everything versus reacting right away, you'll see that it's not about you.

• 52:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  Like one big key, when like, this is like the hardest thing for people to do, but the most important thing to do, whether work or relationships. It's so hard is just not to defend yourself.

• 52:55Lewis Howes?

  Very hard.

• 52:55Speaker 00

  As soon as you defend yourself, someone shuts down from telling you their truth.

• 52:59Lewis Howes?

  It's very challenging.

• 52:59Speaker 00

  And even if they're wrong, if I'm like, listen, Lewis, when I walked in here, you were so disrespectful to me, like I walked in and you like, you were busy doing other stuff and I haven't seen you in so long. Let's just say it's that, and we know that's not what happened. You're nothing but awesome when I walked in. You can, you can say like, so what was your experience of that? Like what was it like for you? Did that hurt? Was that hard for you? Without ever validating that reality as being yours. And so you can just let them say everything about it. Well, how they felt. And once they feel emptied and complete, you can say, I'd love to share what my experience of you was, was when you walked in, and I just want to share my reality with you.

• 53:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 53:33Speaker 00

  And so you could actually, it's like, it's the most beautiful thing to really hear someone out when you don't disagree. And you never need to agree with them or say it's right. But what is right is those were their thoughts and feelings. Those are facts that they were their thoughts or feelings, whether a camera would have seen those same actions or not.

• 53:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but it's how they were feeling, it's their interpretation.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I love, I love relationships. I literally think, some people think they're healthy till they get into a relationship, right? And it's like, so I think like, once you're in a relationship, going to therapy, doing that work is like, it's two people growing together is beautiful.

• 54:08Lewis Howes?

  Well, the thing I, thing I, you know, I don't, I would, I recommend it to everyone, but I know not everyone's gonna do this, because it's like completely opposite of what people would want to do is start a relationship in therapy. But I've. For me, my highest currency is inner peace and harmony.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:24Lewis Howes?

  And to have and be harmonious and to create peace inside of me means having uncomfortable conversations consistently.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't mean like never having challenging conversations. It means being willing to go there and having the courage to communicate and listen when you ah, that doesn't feel that good.

• 54:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:43Lewis Howes?

  But communicating it gives me more peace. And the consistency of it is supportive for us. But even I respect her so much more because I know she wants to continue to evolve and grow.

• 54:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:55Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't mean we have to do it every week or every month even. It's just we're committed to each individually growing. And for me, I value that a lot.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:05Lewis Howes?

  And it creates more peace in the relationship.

• 55:06Speaker 00

  It's great. I mean, doing it ahead of time before their problems. But as you said, like with all your relationships, most people, the time you're in therapy dealing with a problem, it's almost.

• 55:13Lewis Howes?

  It's challenging.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  It's challenging.

• 55:15Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to like make it work, right?

• 55:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. By the way, I love, I love what you said. It was interesting. I just had a thought on what you were saying earlier, which is I dated these people who wouldn't go to therapy.

• 55:27Speaker 00

  And then you said later, because I wasn't doing what they wanted me to do. I think the key of why, tell me if this fits.

• 55:32Lewis Howes?

  And then I would stay with them and try to change myself to make them happy.

• 55:35Speaker 00

  Because I think the idea was like for them, tell me if this is right, I don't know them. But for them, control was safety.

• 55:44Lewis Howes?

  Probably, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They wanted to control me.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 55:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  And so if they can't bring a therapist in the mix who might ruin their control over you.

• 55:51Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  I think that's what it was.

• 55:53Lewis Howes?

  Because when we do the, it's funny because when we go to therapy, the therapist, and I always say, you choose the therapist, right? Like you choose who you like. I will go anyone. Because I'm willing to open up and reveal and talk about anything. And the therapist would be like, okay, yeah, you shouldn't be doing that to the, you know, the previous partners I had, like this is like a better way of going about it and here's how you can look at it. But also they would criticize me for what I needed to work on. And I was like, cool, tell me more. What do I need to do, you know? But the other people didn't want to look themselves in the mirror based on what the therapists were sharing. And I don't blame these women, you know, I, you know, I accept them for who they are. And I just chose out of a wound, these types of personalities.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:34Lewis Howes?

  And so again, it's not me blaming anyone and saying, ah, they didn't want to go to therapy or whatever. It's me looking within and having to say, why did I repeat this pattern consistently?

• 56:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:45Lewis Howes?

  And why did I stay in this pattern? Why was I unwilling to heal from certain traumas? Or why did it take me so long? And so.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  I don't think you're being blaming or victiming about it.

• 56:54Lewis Howes?

  No, no, yeah, yeah. It's just, it's just looking myself in the mirror and saying, okay, I chose. A lot of my relationships, I chose out of, you know, chemical reactions over actually communicating values, vision and lifestyle.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  Or maybe being lost in your family, you're like, and there's someone telling what to do and how to be. Maybe you're, I'm just throwing this out there. But look at your whole, your whole like life is like, let me be around parental figures who can tell me.

• 57:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 57:21Speaker 00

  Who can be healthy parents and tell me good things. And so maybe you're choosing someone to, to give you some of the structure.

• 57:26Lewis Howes?

  I know. Even if it's unsafe, it's still like someone trying to control or something. So anyway.

• 57:31Speaker 00

  And also, yeah, and then like, how can I be better? How can I be better for you? How can I, you know, and then eventually like you realize that it's actually not about you.

• 57:38Lewis Howes?

  It's not, yeah.

• 57:38Speaker 00

  I think it's so interesting. So many, there are a lot of partners who, who, just like you were saying about self-esteem, right? I'm trying to get it from, you know, work, career, achievements. Some people are like that with, that they're trying, so you try to get your self-esteem. I'm just trying to think, because some people try to get their self-esteem from the outside world. Just as some people try to get their safety from their relationship partner.

• 58:04Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  And then they're like, if you didn't, then the relationship partner starts like, like, okay, I have to do this, this and that to make you feel safe. And I didn't call you that thing, you're not safe. And all of a sudden, like, it just, that's the most, it can be a real toxic dynamic.

• 58:16Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 58:17Speaker 00

  And then you really, eventually you realize and it breaks up when the other partner realizes, oh, nothing I'll do will make you feel safe.

• 58:22Lewis Howes?

  Nothing, nothing. Yeah, no matter how much I change who I am and change my behaviors, they're never going to feel like it's enough.

• 58:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:30Lewis Howes?

  It's exhausting.

• 58:30Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 58:31Lewis Howes?

  It sucks the life out of you.

• 58:32Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 58:33Lewis Howes?

  And I repeated that so many times. It's like, why did it take me so long to learn this lesson? But I think the lesson's going to keep coming to you until you're willing to make a change and heal.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  And the ironic thing is that's often when people cheat, because like, I feel like the life's getting sucked out of me. I just want to be somewhere where I just feel free and I know I can connect with myself again.

• 58:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's interesting. I think, I really think, like, I really think that

• 58:58Speaker 00

  that like, just relationships are so hard and our culture does not raise us to have that right. We just see movies and, you know, TV shows and Instagram, all these things where we're just told how they're supposed to be and we develop this fantasy and we don't get any tools.

• 59:13Lewis Howes?

  I know. Well, I'm glad you're teaching these tools right now. I wanna, I wanna pivot a little bit.

• 59:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know, we can talk about this.

• 59:19Lewis Howes?

  This is fascinating.

• 59:20Speaker 00

  It's a great, such a good subject.

• 59:21Lewis Howes?

  It's a good subject. Yeah. But I wanna, I wanna use part of the subject we've talked about into this next topic, which is, I, I think one of the most interesting things about you, I don't think anyone in the world has the experiences you have in terms of interviewing, diving into the world of and researching the world's most extreme personalities from, uh, at the top of their game, I guess, from, you know, musicians, porn stars, FBI spies, Russian spies, uh, and everywhere in between. You've dived into these worlds of unique personalities that have learned

• 1:00:02Lewis Howes?

  a unique set of skills around charisma, persuasion, manipulation, lies, um, creating fake personalities, and literally transforming themselves to get anything they want from anyone else. And you have a new podcast that I'm so excited about. It's called "To Die For", where you essentially immerse yourself in a, uh, a number of conversations with a Russian, a female Russian spy who learns how to make men fall in love with them so that they could get information and ultimately hurt them in big ways. And I'm curious, what have you learned from all these different personalities about manipulation,

• 1:00:47Lewis Howes?

  persuasion, influence, that they used for evil that we could actually start to use for good?

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, let, let's think about that for a second. Because, first of all,

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  I would guess that a spy thinks they're using it for good. So if you take the case of the woman in the podcast, the Russian spy, she was kind of brainwashed to believe you're serving your country. You know, you're, you're, these are bad people. And by doing this, you're doing, using this for good. So I don't think-

• 1:01:20Lewis Howes?

  You're doing a service for your country.

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  Right, so it wasn't until later, when she gets out of the country and sees all the horrible things and is sort of, they do, that she realizes that she's willing to talk about it now. Because it wasn't good, she was brainwashed.

• 1:01:34Lewis Howes?

  And what was the, what was some of the things that this woman that you have on this podcast series did?

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  I'm trying to think I'm allowed to say them yet. Let's see, because it's, but, but let's just say she was, she was trained to seduce men for their secrets or sometimes their lives, right? Depending what the, what, what they need. And literally, again, according to her, like, was in this training thing where she taught, was taught, there's a great-

• 1:02:03Lewis Howes?

  So she was trained on how to manipulate men?

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And there's, and one of the keys is this, and I was, I was reading about actually, like, a lot of men are caught in these love traps or honey traps. The love trap is longer, the love trap, some people are literally, some people, and this is, this is like historical fact. There were like, the, so that, it's such a crazy world. So the, the men are called, often called Romeos. And, and the women, or, and the women are called swallows. Here they, it's called red sparrow, but the real word is swallow in Russian. But swallow has different connotations. So they probably changed to spas, to sparrow.

• 1:02:46Speaker 00

  But the, there were women who were, often if they were, this one woman who worked in an embassy or several people who, usually they'll get someone lower level, who was secretary in this Romeo from Russia, or East Germany, I think at least at that time, seduced her. And she literally was in a relationship with him. And he was saying he was working on a world peace project. Never knew he was a spy and she was giving data to help him find world peace.

• 1:03:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:03:14Speaker 00

  To help him create his world peace project and literally is just feeding it all back to the, all back to the Russians. Then as soon as the, the Soviet Union collapsed, well, guess what? That guy, that relationship ended and later she's, you know, being looked at as a traitor.

• 1:03:26Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:27Lewis Howes?

  So men were doing this, but then there's women doing this as well.

• 1:03:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's women doing, yeah, and there's all kinds of different forms of it.

• 1:03:33Lewis Howes?

  What was the training like for this woman that you, you know, interviewed in this podcast? Well, like what is training camp on seduction and manipulation and getting men to fall in love with you? What does that look like?

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  The training, what's interesting is that key part of the training is that he has to approach you.

• 1:03:53Lewis Howes?

  See, the man has to approach you.

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  So you have to get the man to approach you. And I was reading other, other, other sort of cases. There's one, um, and, and again, men can be kind of not so sparse when it comes to, she has a great line, she's like, yeah, like men's biggest weakness is sex. And so there's one case in the, in the podcast about this Israeli nuclear technician who defects to spill the secrets of the program. And then he's in London, talking to reporters, he's at a newsstand getting a cigarette or whatever. He meets, there's a woman that he's attracted to. He starts talking to her, so he thinks he picked her up. You know?

• 1:04:38Speaker 00

  And so the first thing they'll teach you is how to sort of get someone. It started for her, she says, that she was, it started with posture, clothing, makeup. She was actually from, uh, she's from Kazakhstan, so she, yeah, I think Kazakhstan, she really strict upbringing and never even, you know, wore makeup.

• 1:05:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:05:03Speaker 00

  Never had a boyfriend, never even kissed anyone before. And so really a lot of it was, although it sounds sexy, so much is, is really, you know, abusive, abusive, abusive power and like it was a horrible, you know, it really is. That was. It's dramatic for everybody, this kind of line of work. Wow. But uh. So they put her through a training camp on essentially how to get men to approach her without her saying anything to them. Yeah, every, everything, literally like they teach her poisons, they literally, and they also. Poisons? Yeah. Oh my god, how to poison someone? Yeah, like, like, for example. And I'm an expert in this, but Coca-Cola, like sodas, like Coke is a good thing because it has such a strong taste and it covers up other things. And water is tough.

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  You know, so rum and Coke is a great concealment. So then the other thing is also they taught her how to like to be sexual stuff. So if you're the best he's ever been with. He has to want more. Yeah, he has to want more. It's like a drug. That's, that's literally what she says in the podcast. She says, she says like a drug, you get a little bit and you take it away. You get a little bit and you take it away till they're addicted to it. And then they reveal all their secrets. Yeah, and there's, there's two ways, yeah, there's, you can just sort of overtly, covertly, you know, different, different ways to get the information. Sometimes it's not about revealing their secrets, sometimes it's about trapping them, in other words, like if they are married or acting outside of, sometimes it's about trapping them.

• 1:06:30Speaker 00

  Black, blackmail, or, yeah. It's so sophisticated, and I don't know if this is, this is just your listeners, but I'm just, it's so sophisticated that let's just say you're, you're, and it's very funny, it's really widespread, the transcriber of my podcast is transcribing it.

• 1:06:47Speaker 00

  At the interview, she gets the first interview, she's like, oh, you know, I used to work on like a secret program and they warned everybody about these women, that if you're somewhere traveling and you meet someone who's out of your league, they probably are. Right, right, right, yeah. So, so, so this is how it kind of, once they got somebody on the hook, so let's just say they have some blackmail material, they call it compromat, blackmail material, they would just say, hey, we just need to do this for us, and it might be a real harmless, a harmless thing, we just need to get this piece of information, like this doesn't hurt this security, make safety, it gets rid of this thing, you give them the harmless piece of information, then they really have you, because now it's one thing to be caught. Having sex with someone, now you've actually betrayed your country with this tiny piece of information.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  And now we really have you.

• 1:07:33Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:07:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Lewis Howes?

  This is crazy.

• 1:07:36Speaker 00

  It's crazy. There's like a world out there that I never knew about.

• 1:07:39Lewis Howes?

  How do men know if women are truly falling for them or are trying to manipulate them?

• 1:07:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now we've gone from cheating to are they Russian agents?

• 1:07:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Or maybe they're just more narcissistic. They wanna get money from them or they wanna get, you know, fancy dates from them. You know, it's like wanting them for their personality and who they are versus wanting them because of what they have.

• 1:08:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. That's a great, great, great question. And let's match that with there's some men and some people who are just so insecure that think their only value is giving something. If I'm not paying, buying, giving, I'm not lovable as I am.

• 1:08:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:08:19Speaker 00

  So like we take the first step is like, do you feel that you're lovable as you are?

• 1:08:22Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:08:23Speaker 00

  And if you don't, you're really ripe for manipulation. And the second thing is, is like, is, um, if you don't comply with a request, are they still gonna love you or care about you?

• 1:08:39Lewis Howes?

  So how do you know if they're actually manipulating you or if they care about you? Based on how they respond to your actions or?

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  Let's see. How do you so how the question is, how do you know if someone's just kinda using you? Or, or, or with you? I mean, I think the may, I think, I think the things are that, I mean, first of all, there are always telltale signs. And by the way, I would also say the other ones, how do you know if someone's using you just for sex? Also. And I think the sex, money, dynamic across, across the board is, are they willing to spend time with you without any of that?

• 1:09:09Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:10Speaker 00

  Right?

• 1:09:11Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:09:11Speaker 00

  Like, like, there's so many, it's like, you have to be, uh,

• 1:09:17Speaker 00

  secure enough within yourself, or at least rude enough for yourself that you can see that, oh, okay, they're, unless they're, when all of a sudden you're jumping through hoops. When I, when A, maybe that person won't get, doesn't wanna see you if there's not a sex possibility involved, right? Like, oh, we'll see each other on Saturday night instead, instead of meeting for lunch, junior work. Like, okay, they probably are interested in that. Or on the other side is like, okay, they're not gonna do this unless I roll out all these luxuries. Otherwise, they don't wanna,

• 1:09:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  you know, go for dinner or something. But that said, I do think that I like to operate on a position of trust with everybody. Meaning like even if they're enmeshed, you know, even if all these other things we're talking about, like I really want to give someone 100% trust. Because if you don't, you're already hurting the potential for what it can be. And just be aware if there are warning signs and just be like, hey.

• 1:10:08Lewis Howes?

  Be discerning, yeah.

• 1:10:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, be discerning. So like, I think being really, really open and then not being afraid to see the warning signs and take a step back or discuss it.

• 1:10:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:10:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I think it all starts, I think it all starts from being secure within yourself.

• 1:10:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  I think that it's important, I don't know why, people know this until they know it emotionally that we're wired when we're children, right? If our parents, caregivers leave us, well, we die when we're just infants. So some people think that as adults.

• 1:10:41Speaker 00

  If the person we love leaves us, we're gonna die. And some people,

• 1:10:45Speaker 00

  you know, do catastrophic things to themselves or others because of that, you know?

• 1:10:52Speaker 00

  But the fact is, you're literally gonna be okay and you're gonna find love again. And just wreck having that insecurity and be like, I'm gonna find someone great or probably better.

• 1:11:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:11:02Speaker 00

  And again, if somebody cheats on me, like, thank you, you showed me who you are. Like, now I get to move on. Like, I wish you told me sooner. But, uh, so there's a great line that one of the therapists in The Truth said, that the only people who can be abandoned are, you know, children, independent elders. Everyone else, the only person who can abandon you is yourself.

• 1:11:24Lewis Howes?

  That's strong. It seems like people want love and intimacy more than ever, but people are afraid of commitment more than ever. Why do you think that people are afraid to commit?

• 1:11:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's part of that paradox of choice, right? Like, I've noticed that, I've noticed that too, that, that we live in this, people have that mind and I think.

• 1:11:46Lewis Howes?

  Endless possibilities or choices.

• 1:11:48Speaker 00

  Can I do better? And now it's so easy to meet, like, literally, like, you're single, you download three apps and now you've got 50 options, right? And it's so easy to be like, well, I'm gonna trade this, I'm gonna trade that, I can get better, I can do better, and that thing's not right. I don't have to fix it, I can just throw it out and start all over again. And, and that's why? That's why on these apps, when you're hiring for a job, right? It's really hard if you're going off, if you do a posting, because a lot of people come to you and been looking for jobs forever. And we're just leaving jobs there for a few months because they're not hirable. The same is true in the dating apps, which is a lot of undateable people are circulating endlessly there.

• 1:12:27Lewis Howes?

  With other undateable people.

• 1:12:28Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah. And not to put it be hard on that. And by the way, many people have had love and gotten married and amazing things. And just as many people have gotten amazing jobs through.

• 1:12:37Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:12:37Speaker 00

  Jobs searching, but it's tougher and there's less time to interview people.

• 1:12:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:12:44Lewis Howes?

  This is fascinating stuff, man.

• 1:12:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's such interesting, it's really interesting. So it's funny, we got back to relationships.

• 1:12:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:49Speaker 00

  It all gets back to relationships.

• 1:12:50Lewis Howes?

  What is, I've only got about 10 minutes left with you. I've got a whole nother section like creativity that we'll have to do another episode on.

• 1:12:57Lewis Howes?

  But I want to ask you, you know, from this podcast that you're launching, when we put this out, it'll be out that week. It's called The Die For, and it's really powerful. Eight episodes that, from this series of interviewing this former Russian spy.

• 1:13:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:12Lewis Howes?

  Who manipulated men, who, you know, did harmful things to men, who got secrets from men, all these different things. What were the three biggest takeaways you learned from interviewing her about the human mind?

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. In some other words, yeah, I think the three, I think the three biggest takeaways is, one is she had this technique called Circles of Hell.

• 1:13:35Lewis Howes?

  What was that?

• 1:13:36Speaker 00

  I know. So Circles of Hell was basically that what really gets us hooked and be aware of this in your own life when you fall for it is, is the push pull. If I give someone, she would control people by punishment reward. So we really, we really go crazy with punishment reward, which is you're acting nice, you get to come close and hang out with me and get, then you're now I don't like how you're acting, so I'm gonna punish you, make you distant.

• 1:14:04Lewis Howes?

  Until you beg for forgiveness or whatever, yeah.

• 1:14:07Speaker 00

  And we've seen people in relationships who fall on that and also in really toxic ways. So when we have a very toxic partner, but all of a sudden a person's all nice and loving and they go back to them and they.

• 1:14:15Lewis Howes?

  I've experienced that in the past, yeah.

• 1:14:17Speaker 00

  And so, so just beware if you're sort of in, so that was one.

• 1:14:21Lewis Howes?

  I needed to listen to this podcast like 20 years ago.

• 1:14:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:24Lewis Howes?

  Because I would have heard the signs.

• 1:14:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's funny too, I also think. Listen to your friends when you have relationships.

• 1:14:30Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man. Yeah.

• 1:14:32Speaker 00

  Sometimes the friends, I have so many friends, I've had friends with those relationships where I'm like, I can't say anything to them till later. Like, why didn't you tell me earlier? Like, I tried, but you shut me out of your life when I tried, so I stopped.

• 1:14:41Lewis Howes?

  It's tough. Okay, Circles of Hell.

• 1:14:43Speaker 00

  Circles of Hell is one. Uh, second one is, uh, let's see, second awesome technique from her. It's funny, a lot of the stuff overlapped with the game. Right? Uh, but, uh, but she-

• 1:14:55Lewis Howes?

  But from the female point of view.

• 1:14:57Speaker 00

  Female point of view. And besides sex, men's other big, men's other biggest weaknesses? Flattery.

• 1:15:04Lewis Howes?

  Compliments, flattery, oh, you look so good in that.

• 1:15:07Speaker 00

  Right. And they get addicted, they get addicted to how they feel about themselves when they're with you.

• 1:15:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:15:12Speaker 00

  Right?

• 1:15:14Lewis Howes?

  Flattery.

• 1:15:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. So it's like, it's so nice to be around, uh, that, but like, sometimes it can be like a manipulation.

• 1:15:23Lewis Howes?

  I remember, yeah, it's very seductive and manipulating.

• 1:15:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'd say so. Flattery, Circles of Hell, um, let me think, there were so, there was, there was so much, uh, stuff. A lot of the stuff came from NLP. She did like a lot of, oh, she just, she did a lot of, uh, do you know what anchoring is?

• 1:15:39Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:15:39Speaker 00

  NLP. So basically, she's talking to you and having you talk about a peak positive experience. She tried to touch you somewhere.

• 1:15:45Lewis Howes?

  Touch you on your shoulder, your, your arm.

• 1:15:47Speaker 00

  Try to choose a place where maybe people normally don't touch, so like your neck would be a good one.

• 1:15:53Speaker 00

  I can go fourth place one. She's like, you know when the men are the most vulnerable?

• 1:15:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:59Lewis Howes?

  Yes, in bed.

• 1:16:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that one certain point in bed. And that she's like, at that point, you can do anything. She's like, you could kill, it's pretty intense, I can't even believe. She's like, you can kill them, or you can, if you whisper something or tell them something, it really implants in their brain in that point.

• 1:16:14Lewis Howes?

  At their most vulnerable sexual moment.

• 1:16:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:16:21Speaker 00

  It's unbelievable. I mean, but I think it's none of this makes me be any less trusting in the world, but also, so I think none of this, I think we should still have trust, but I think we should also see warning signs and run.

• 1:16:36Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:38Lewis Howes?

  This is fascinating. So the new podcast is called To Die For. You can find it anywhere on podcasts. Where else can we connect with you personally? I mean, I don't know if everyone knows this, but we had Rick Rubin on and you helped co-write the book with him, which has been, I think, on the New York Times Bestseller list for, what, a year and a half now?

• 1:16:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, every year.

• 1:16:58Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy how this has taken off and it's such great writing. So congrats on the work together. Because I know you played a big part in that collaboration, but how can we connect with you and support you besides listening to this podcast?

• 1:17:12Speaker 00

  Thank you. By the way, it's a great question. I don't know. I just love, I think I just, I just love, I love what I do. Like I love telling, I love, I love having these discussions and I'm learning the stuff about the human mind, whether it's creativity from Rick or like, you know, men's vulnerabilities from the Russian spy, or, you know, again, talking to you about your past. So I think just like, it just means a lot, just either engaging in conversation or reading, listening to the works or whenever. I love sharing the stories and the information.

• 1:17:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Where can we connect with you online? What's the best website and social media?

• 1:17:46Speaker 00

  I guess it's whatever one people use. But I would really rather people connect with me through, like, just listen to the podcast.

• 1:17:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, listen to the podcast. But where can they, if they want to leave a comment about like, message to Twitter or Instagram?

• 1:17:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I try to like, but boy, it's so hard promoting myself because I hate when people do that. But it's good. Your first assistant. Yeah, probably Instagram.

• 1:18:04Lewis Howes?

  Neil Strauss on Instagram, right?

• 1:18:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:07Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:18:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:09Lewis Howes?

  So maybe if you listen to the podcast, you know, share this with a friend. If you thought this was interesting, send it to a friend and then leave a comment of one of Neil's Instagram posts and let him know what you thought about this episode, of course. But listen to To Die For. It's an eight-part series. The last one you did, which was To Live and Die in L.A. Is that right? To Live and Die in L.A. Like took over the world. It was fascinating what you did with that. And I think that was four or five years, five years ago when you had that podcast. So if this is anything like that, and I know you probably even better now, five years later, it is going to blow people's minds. So I'm so excited to listen to it myself. When it comes out March 26th, make sure to leave a review on there, you know, leave a comment, give it five stars when you listen to it because

• 1:18:54Lewis Howes?

  that'll help get the traction for the podcast as well. But it's to dive for on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

• 1:19:02Speaker 00

  By the way, first I gotta make you a quick note. First of all, thanks for saying all those things. And I'm giving you an example of remember what we talked about earlier when like you do something and then you reflect on it later. So I grew up in a childhood, this relate to exactly what you're saying, just had this great epiphany from your, what you just did, which is I never spoke up for my own needs. So we're like, what can we do for you? How can we do that?

• 1:19:23Lewis Howes?

  Nothing.

• 1:19:23Speaker 00

  I'm like, nothing, right? And I'm like, oh, me doing that instead of just saying, yeah, I'd love it if you could do this with actually like a bit of that leftover than just discomfort of like that. So interesting, right? So, so, so no matter where we get, we're still working on ourselves and looking at these things. But that's a cool lesson. So thank you.

• 1:19:41Lewis Howes?

  That's good, man. That's good. A couple of final questions for you, Neil.

• 1:19:48Lewis Howes?

  This is called the three truths, and you answered this five years ago when you were on last, I think. But I'm curious where you're at with this question now.

• 1:19:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:19:56Lewis Howes?

  Hypothetical question, imagine you get to live as long as you want to live.

• 1:19:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:20:00Lewis Howes?

  But it's your last day on earth.

• 1:20:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:20:02Lewis Howes?

  You're as old as you want to be, but you know, you're turning off the lights, you're going somewhere else. You're not in this world anymore. And you get to, from this moment until then, create anything you want to create. You get to have the relationships, the life, the, the art, the work you get to do, it all happens. But for whatever reason, you've got to take it all with you. So we don't have access to any of the articles, books, podcasts, anything you ever make, it's gone. It's hypothetical world.

• 1:20:25Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:20:27Lewis Howes?

  But in the last day, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. And this is all we have to remember your information lie. I call it three truths. What would be those three truths for you?

• 1:20:38Speaker 00

  I don't know. You know, it's funny, these questions are always so.

• 1:20:42Speaker 00

  I think, I think I would at least, I think, you know, I guess my, my thought is I don't want to like, I feel like we learn through stories and so I'm a storyteller. So I probably would find a way to, you know, to, to tell a story. I'd want to leave rhyme just some very short story that you remember in your, that, that people would remember that somehow helps them with themselves. But if there are three truths, I don't know. I don't, I don't know. Maybe I got a little longer before I find what those truths are. And because I also know that what I said five years ago is not what I'd say now.

• 1:21:11Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:21:12Speaker 00

  Five years from now.

• 1:21:14Lewis Howes?

  What would you say today? What would be the, what are the three things?

• 1:21:16Speaker 00

  Today, I'd really, I'd be like, don't listen to anyone else's truths, just go find your own.

• 1:21:20Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:20Speaker 00

  You know, I think we have to, the truths don't work if you don't find them yourself. And so, and, and I realized that like, as an example, I read a friend recently who's like, I just did this experience where I did ayahuasca straight for seven days. It was like mind blowing. It changed my whole life. I'm like, cool, after doing ayahuasca straight for seven days and doing whatever you just did to your brain. Like, what did, what did you learn? He goes, man, tell me what I learned. Trust.

• 1:21:47Speaker 00

  You know, so I could just say my lesson is trust, but you have to be in that guy's life for 30 years and then take ayahuasca for seven days to really get that lesson. So yeah, go, go live and experience and find your own truths.

• 1:21:59Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:22:00Speaker 00

  There is this live, experience, find your own truths. There's three, I still.

• 1:22:02Lewis Howes?

  There you go, I like it, there you go. Before I ask the final question, Neil, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, even though you don't like acknowledgement, but I want to acknowledge you for the consistent, really commitment you have to your craft, because you have such a wide range of unique talents from writing and researching and podcasting and interviews and conversations, and then shaping stories and narratives to help people or share experiences in a beautiful way. I just want to acknowledge you for the gift you have and consistently showing up. You've written so many books in the last five years for some of the biggest names and talent in the world that you co-write with. You've written many of your own books. You've got this journey you're on with the podcast. So I just appreciate you, man.

• 1:22:44Lewis Howes?

  I acknowledge you for the whole journey you're on and how you keep evolving as a human being in life and health and relationships. So I just want to acknowledge you for a moment.

• 1:22:53Speaker 00

  Thank you. And I'll give you all my secret information. That was great.

• 1:22:56Lewis Howes?

  Very, very good.

• 1:22:57Speaker 00

  Thank you, no, thank you, seriously.

• 1:22:59Lewis Howes?

  Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:23:03Speaker 00

  I think my definition of greatness is like just always improving and striving to be better of taking where you are and thinking what, looking at yourself and saying, how can I do better or be better from whatever your starting point is.

• 1:23:17Lewis Howes?

  I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend, leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to

• 1:24:02Lewis Howes?

  your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.