The Biggest Myths about Relationships w/DeVon Franklin EP 1106

“Love expands when our capacity to accept each other expands.”Today's guest is DeVon Franklin, who is an award-winning producer, New York Times best-selling author and renowned motivational speaker committed to inspiring people around the world through entertainment. He’s written a new book called, LIVE FREE: Exceed Your Highest Expectations. DeVon has be on the show a few times, so make sure to visit the show notes if you enjoy this, but each time we sit down, it’s always an incredibly powerful conversation. In this episode Lewis and DeVon discuss the biggest myths about marriage, the truth about expectations in relationships, the 3 questions you should ask the person you’re dating to know if they are right for you, and so much more! For more got to: www.lewishowes.com/1106DeVon's other episode: www.lewishowes.com/769Check out his website: www.devonfranklin.comCheck out his book: www.devonfranklin.com/live-free/The Power of Erotic Intelligence with Esther Perel: https://link.chtbl.com/732-podFind Lasting Love with Matthew Hussey: https://link.chtbl.com/811-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.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 1,106 with New York Times bestselling author Devon Franklin. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:30Lewis Howes?

  Robert Morley said, "To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness." And Helen Keller said, "The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard. They must be felt with the heart." My guest today is my friend Devon Franklin, who is an award-winning producer, New York Times bestselling author, and renowned motivational speaker, committed to inspiring people around the world through entertainment. He's written a new book called Live Free, and it is powerful. It's all about exceeding your highest expectations. And I've had Devon on my show a few times before, and they've all been inspiring episodes. So make sure to check them out in the show notes of this episode. But each time we sit down, it's always an incredible and powerful conversation.

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  And this one is going to blow you away, because in this episode, we discuss the biggest myths about marriage. And I have Devon open up and share and reveal things about his marriage that he's struggling with. The truth about expectations in relationships. The three questions you should ask the person you're dating to know if they are right for you long-term. Ooh, these are juicy questions. We also talk about why we often stay in the wrong relationships for too long, the importance of showing up and loving ourselves, and so much more. If you're enjoying this, if you're getting value out of this, then make sure to share this with someone who needs to hear it, who would be inspired, and start a conversation of improvement and greatness with a friend in your life. Post it on social media as

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  well. You can copy and paste this link wherever you're listening to this episode, or you can use the link lewishowes.com/1106 and share that to your friends via text, social media, anywhere online you can think of. And make sure to subscribe to the School of Greatness on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If this is your first time here, and you want to be inspired by great minds in the future, then subscribe right now. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Devon Franklin.

• 2:26Lewis Howes?

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• 3:09Lewis Howes?

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• 3:34Lewis Howes?

  When I launched this podcast in 2013, I had no idea how complex the production process would become. From increasing the amount of shows per week to booking more and more guests, there is a lot to keep track of. But now that my team uses monday.com, I have the confidence to keep scaling up what the School of Greatness offers for my listeners, without scaling up the complexity of the process for my team. Monday.com WorkOS is a customizable platform that gives my team the ability to easily create the tools we need and want for the work we do. We've been able to create any workflow we can imagine on monday.com, and it's made meeting our team's needs so much easier. Projects, leads, client requests, and more, all of these processes are kept organized in monday.com WorkOS.

• 4:18Lewis Howes?

  As our business continues to grow and scale, we are able to stay efficient and focused with monday.com. The platform is so flexible, so teams can customize it to fit their needs. Create a workflow from scratch, or simply pick a template and get started right away, and adjust it however you want. And it's a great solution for teams of five or even 5,000. Collaborating across the globe is easy with monday.com. For your free two-week trial, visit monday.com, that's M-O-N-D-A-Y.com, for your free two-week trial.

• 4:53Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We got my man Devon Franklin in the house.

• 4:57DeVon Franklin?

  Yo, what's up my brother?

• 4:58Lewis Howes?

  So good to see you. Yeah, man. You are, you're just a symbol of inspiration and truth and life for so many people. And you really inspire people, not only with your career and the business sense and the producing, the entertainment world, but also in the relationship side of things. And this is what I know you as and respect you as the most. And I know you've been married almost a decade now.

• 5:21DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 5:22Lewis Howes?

  And there, there are probably things you learned the first couple of years of marriage versus the last couple of years of marriage, especially during a pandemic and during trying hard times.

• 5:33DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 5:34Lewis Howes?

  What is the biggest lesson you learned about marriage and relationships, being in a committed relationship during an extremely adverse time of the world? What's the biggest lesson for you?

• 5:45DeVon Franklin?

  How much time you got?

• 5:48DeVon Franklin?

  Bro, listen, I've, I've learned so much, right? But here's the number one thing that I've learned.

• 5:57DeVon Franklin?

  We have been sold a myth.

• 5:59Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, what is that myth?

• 6:02DeVon Franklin?

  That love heals all, you know, marriage is the answer. Like if you're not married, there's something wrong with you. Like you gotta be in a relate. Like we've been sold a myth. And here's what I mean about the myth. We have held marriage up. Like it's the top of the mountain. And when you get there, all of your problems are answered and gone.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  That's not true.

• 6:30DeVon Franklin?

  It's not true. And that, that I, cause you know, from, from being, you know, from a kid, we're watching movies, we're watching television shows, we're listening to music. It's all about love. It's all about finding, it's all about getting to that mountain of, oh, when I find the one, then I can relax.

• 6:49DeVon Franklin?

  No. Marriage is like getting to the beginning of the mountain.

• 6:54Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man. Base camp.

• 6:55DeVon Franklin?

  Base camp. And guess where the summit is? And guess what? That altitude is steep. It's high.

• 7:01Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to breathe up there.

• 7:01DeVon Franklin?

  It's hard to breathe up there. It's jagged. It's not a smooth, you know, ride. That's what marriage is. And so, you know, understanding, you know, and be in coming into the myth of it, it's like, oh, God, it. I love my wife. She loves me. The union is great, yet we got work to do. And and until we do our work, the union itself can't subsidize it. And so that myth, that marriage is the answer, was one of the myths that I, you know, came completely,

• 7:38DeVon Franklin?

  directly had to confront. And what I realized.

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  When did you confront it? At what? What year in the marriage? Or what day?

• 7:49DeVon Franklin?

  You know, you know what it was is that it was gradual. You know, it was gradual for me, you know, and part of that gradual revelation was

• 8:00DeVon Franklin?

  looking for the marriage to bring me a certain level of fulfillment that I was not actually pursuing on my own. So so don't get me wrong. Yes, marriage is great. Love is great. It can be fulfilling. However, if we are not actually doing our work and finding out what makes us happy, what makes us fulfilled, and we're relying on the union to do that, we we we ultimately find ourselves becoming manipulators.

• 8:33Lewis Howes?

  To get what we want.

• 8:34DeVon Franklin?

  To get what we want. We're trying to like.

• 8:36Lewis Howes?

  Because we expect that that person or the relationship is supposed to provide us something.

• 8:40DeVon Franklin?

  Exactly.

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  What is a relationship supposed to provide us?

• 8:44DeVon Franklin?

  Here's what I believe a great relationship provides, right? One, first and foremost, um, you know, let's look at it for a minute like a business.

• 8:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:53DeVon Franklin?

  Right? So you, you know, if you have a, if you have a business and you have a partner, uh, what what makes a great partnership?

• 9:01DeVon Franklin?

  When both bring something to it, right? Because you have a partner.

• 9:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, if your partner is just taking everything and not adding value to the business, you're like, why is this person making money?

• 9:10DeVon Franklin?

  There you go.

• 9:11Lewis Howes?

  Why am I paying back into this person?

• 9:14DeVon Franklin?

  There you go. So when you look at it that way, you know, the purpose of a relationship is both people making a contribution so that that contribution enriches the lives of both, right? So I'm bringing something, you're bringing something. Now we both, you know, our happiness, our joy is enhanced. It's not created. This is very important. The myth is that the marriage will create your happiness. It's not true. It can enhance it if you already have it. So if you have a partnership, both people are bringing their contributions and then as a result, your business thrives. Because you have two people who are committed. Here's the second part.

• 9:58DeVon Franklin?

  Both going in the same direction.

• 10:00Lewis Howes?

  Is that related to values then?

• 10:02DeVon Franklin?

  It's related to values. It's related to purpose, you know? I had one of my friends, you know, we were talking and they kind of gave me this visual, right? And so I think this is, and it was very helpful when it came to like marriage and relationships and how to think of them. So they were like, alright, so I want you to look forward. Like do a visualization and I want you to look forward. And when you look forward, I want you to see God. I said, okay. And they said, now start walking to God. I said, great, I'm walking to God now. They said, now your partner is right next to you, right?

• 10:47DeVon Franklin?

  So hold their hand. Great, I'm holding their hand and now we're both walking to God. It's beautiful. Now, turn to your partner and then they turn to you and now try to walk to God.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  It's challenging.

• 11:07DeVon Franklin?

  Exactly.

• 11:08Lewis Howes?

  You're sidestepping over there, you know?

• 11:09DeVon Franklin?

  Exactly.

• 11:10Lewis Howes?

  You're like a crab or something.

• 11:11DeVon Franklin?

  Exactly, precisely. So, when you talk about the, you know, what is the purpose of a union? A purpose of a union is that when you have your right purpose partner, and that person is committed to you and you're committed to them, and you both are heading in the same direction, you both can walk together.

• 11:28Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 11:30DeVon Franklin?

  But when you're trying to get somebody, you know, to a direction that they otherwise may not want to go.

• 11:36Lewis Howes?

  They're turning the opposite way.

• 11:37DeVon Franklin?

  They're turning the opposite way. Or, they're trying to get you where you may not want to go. You can't get there from there. So, I believe that the purpose of a relationship is, one, you know, making a contribution to each other's happiness. You know, having that partnership.

• 11:53Lewis Howes?

  Not making the other person happy.

• 11:54DeVon Franklin?

  You cannot do it.

• 11:55Lewis Howes?

  Contributing to the other person's happiness, yeah.

• 11:57DeVon Franklin?

  This is why I wrote the book. You can, this is another myth. This idea, how many times have you seen it in movies? How many times have you heard people say it? "Oh, this person makes me happy." "Oh, they make me so happy." It sounds so good to say. But what happens when you say someone makes you happy? It means you are outsourcing your happiness to that person.

• 12:18Lewis Howes?

  Ooh. Yeah.

• 12:20DeVon Franklin?

  Because that same person that makes you happy can then make you mad. Okay, so then tell me, who's in control of how you feel?

• 12:28Lewis Howes?

  The other person.

• 12:28DeVon Franklin?

  Exactly. So, why don't?

• 12:31Lewis Howes?

  You're a victim to their...

• 12:32DeVon Franklin?

  There you go.

• 12:32Lewis Howes?

  Their, their, their way of being, whatever they're doing.

• 12:35DeVon Franklin?

  Their way of being, their mood. I don't, but here's the reality. No matter how much somebody loves you, they don't, there's, it's impossible for someone outside of us to contribute to our happiness in, in a perfect way, 24/7.

• 12:50Lewis Howes?

  So, is love enough?

• 12:51DeVon Franklin?

  No, no. Is love enough? No. You can love somebody and not stand them.

• 12:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:58DeVon Franklin?

  Right? I love my wife, my wife loves me. We still have to do our work and make the commitment to walk this thing out. Right? Like, we still have to communicate. We still have to understand, like, "Oh, okay, that's your issue," or "that's my issue," right? Like, so, love is great, but love is not enough. And that's the myth. People think like, "Oh, if I fall..."

• 13:22Lewis Howes?

  Love is all you need.

• 13:23DeVon Franklin?

  That's all, that's right. All I need is love. No.

• 13:25Lewis Howes?

  Makes me feel good when I hear that.

• 13:27DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 13:28Lewis Howes?

  But it's not all you need.

• 13:28DeVon Franklin?

  No, you need compatibility. You need compatibility. I need compatibility. Like, when you have compatibility, when, again, you talk about people going in the same direction. It's like, okay, cool. We're committed to going in the same direction. We're committed to the same type of life. We're committed to allowing each other to be our, the full self that we were created to be. That, to me, in addition to love, is what can make a great marriage or make a great relationship. But love alone, it's not enough. There's a lot of people you love you can't stand. There's a lot of people you love that you broke up with. Because you say, you know, I love them, but we're just not compatible. And that love may never go away. But so often, we're romanticizing love in a way

• 14:13DeVon Franklin?

  that it produces so much pain in those who don't have it.

• 14:17Lewis Howes?

  As a movie producer, that produces a lot of movies around faith and love and community and connection,

• 14:26Lewis Howes?

  I'm sure there are some lines in your movies that you produce. You didn't write the scripts.

• 14:30DeVon Franklin?

  No, I didn't write.

• 14:31Lewis Howes?

  You produce the scripts, you produce the movies that have lines like this, that maybe remind people of this way of living. You make me happy. Or whatever the line is, right? I'm sure there's somewhere in one of your movies. As someone who's producing certain movies for entertainment, knowing that sometimes maybe there's a line in here and there that, that's not really true for you or where you're at in relationships. How do you navigate that? I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but just how do you navigate that as a human? Knowing that's coming out in some of the entertainment.

• 15:07DeVon Franklin?

  Right. In the movies that I do, I always try to put in truth. So this point of view is something, you know, the movie that comes to mind that I worked on when I was an executive was Jumping the Broom. And that was a romantic comedy, you know, an upper-class family, working-class family, you know, the son from the working-class family marries the woman, this daughter from the upper-class family in a weekend wedding in Martha's Vineyard. And Laz Alonso and Paula Patton, you know, were in that film. And my wife, Megan, was one of the stars of that film. And we started dating at the time. Premiere, you know, from the premiere, about nine months after production, which was very cool. And in that movie, you know, we intentionally put, I've worked on that to make sure we put real truth

• 15:51DeVon Franklin?

  on the difficulty, right, of like, yeah, you can, two people can love each other, but then what do you do with their families? How do you navigate conflict? How do you navigate an overbearing mother? How do you navigate, you know, parents who have a certain image for what they wanted for their daughter? And who their daughter's marrying doesn't align with the image? And so that movie has a lot of truth in it. And ultimately, you know, we didn't cut corners at all, and that's why the movie was so successful. And I'm getting ready to do another romantic comedy and we're putting more truth in. So for me, I'm always mindful and cognizant of how I feel and think about love. And I try to represent that when I'm doing movies that are on that subject. Because I'm not trying to sell a fantasy, right?

• 16:32DeVon Franklin?

  I want to sell the reality in that, yes, you can win and yes, when you find that partner that you fall in love with.

• 16:37Lewis Howes?

  But there's gonna be challenges.

• 16:38DeVon Franklin?

  There's gonna be challenges.

• 16:40Lewis Howes?

  There may be more challenges of different classes, or different backgrounds, or cultures.

• 16:43DeVon Franklin?

  Absolutely.

• 16:45Lewis Howes?

  I'm a big believer, whether this is true or not, that we, we talk about, we write, we podcast on the things that, we've become experts on the things that we need the most.

• 16:57DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 16:57Lewis Howes?

  So at the School of Greatness, I talk about all subjects. So it means I'm flawed in pretty much every area of life.

• 17:03DeVon Franklin?

  I don't believe it, but I hear you.

• 17:04Lewis Howes?

  And I'm constantly looking for more wisdom to improve, right?

• 17:07DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 17:09Lewis Howes?

  Where do you feel like in the relationship side of things that you, I think I asked you this question last time, a couple of years ago. Where do you feel like you still need the most improvement? In, in relationships for you?

• 17:20DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah, um, so I need the most improvement in a number of areas.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  How long do we have?

• 17:27DeVon Franklin?

  Exactly. Let's just be honest, okay? I have not perfected this thing and I'm working on it every day. And anybody that tells you they perfected it, they gonna lie about everything else. So the, the first area that I'm working on, and, and you may relate to this because of the work that you do. You know, my father passed away when I was nine years old. You know, he passed away from a heart attack when he was thirty six. And that was a very traumatic, you know, experience for me and my brothers. So my older brother's three and a half years older. My younger brother's three and a half years younger. And so, coming out of that, you know, no money. My mother didn't have money for therapy or anything like that. And so, you know, we were in church and we watched movies. Yeah. Right? And so, and then also, I was very active in school.

• 18:11DeVon Franklin?

  And what I began to see is like, oh, okay. If I perform or achieve at a certain level, people would say, oh, Devon, good job. Right? Pat me on the back, right? So, I said, oh, got it. So the more that I serve at church, or the more I achieve at school, or the more that I, you know, do my chores at home, the more approval I would get. Yeah. So what I began to do was I began to seek that out. And I began to become really good at meeting everybody else's need. Ooh. And so, that persona, right, of like, oh, you need something done, give it to Devon. Yeah, yeah. Right? It's like, oh, yeah, I'm your guy. I can do it, da, da, da, right? Because I was finding my value in all of the achievement and all of the approval that came with it.

• 18:56DeVon Franklin?

  In my, in middle school, people started calling me Mr. Perfect. You know, and at first, I was like, oh, this is great. I love that. Oh, wow, Mr. Perfect, right? But then as I got older, it became a trap. Hmm. Why? Because I'm not perfect. No one's perfect. But I had this image that I had to live up to. I had this expectation of myself that, oh, I've got to do everything perfectly. Right? So getting to your question. A lot of pressure. Oh, my goodness, are you kidding me? It's exhausting. It's exhausting. That's why I talk about in the book, I had to kill Mr. Perfect. I said, I gotta, I gotta let go of this persona because, you know, I'm not that, and I need to be who I really am. And so, when you talk about what the area I need to improve on. So, you know, bringing that into marriage, right, like, hey, I'm here to serve,

• 19:39DeVon Franklin?

  and I'm here to be the best husband I can be, and I'm here to give, and I'm here to sacrifice. Oh, that's beautiful. Mm hmm. But when it crosses boundaries. But here's the boundary, though. Yeah. The problem is that no matter how altruistic you or I may want to be in our relationships with our women, if we do not first acknowledge that we have needs. Right. Our altruism is flawed. Hmm, how so? Because we are serving.

• 20:15DeVon Franklin?

  In order to fill the hole in our soul.

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  To get approval.

• 20:20DeVon Franklin?

  To get approval, to, to, there you go.

• 20:22Lewis Howes?

  Get pat on the back.

• 20:23DeVon Franklin?

  There you go. You know, and then also it's like, oh, well, no, I don't have any needs. No, I'm here to meet your need. No, you're human. I'm human. I got needs.

• 20:30Lewis Howes?

  I think I can relate to this big time for most of my life until, up until recently. I would do things in order to receive love and relationships. And I would not do things.

• 20:45Lewis Howes?

  If someone got upset at me, I would not do those things anymore to just try to make them happy so they would continue to love me. Even when it would cross my boundaries or when I didn't agree with something, I would do it to make the other person like me, love me, make, you know, be happy with me. And then I found myself resenting myself the longer that would go on because I was doing things that I didn't believe in or didn't agree with. Or there was a boundary of mine that was crossing my, my line to serve someone else. I think it's, it's learning that balance probably or like navigating and, and learning how to communicate expectations, which is a lot about in your book, which I love. The whole book's about setting clear expectations.

• 21:24Lewis Howes?

  And not going into a relationship with the viewpoint of, well, this is the way a relationship is supposed to look based on society. Like just thinking that the other person knows what you think. And they know, and you know what they think and having that is not going to work.

• 21:40DeVon Franklin?

  It ain't going to work. It ain't going to work.

• 21:42Lewis Howes?

  And after nine years, not to put your marriage on the spot or anything, but after nine years, how important is still communicating expectations nine years into marriage?

• 21:55DeVon Franklin?

  Man, it's the, it's every day, right? Oh, oh, you can't autopilot this thing.

• 22:01Lewis Howes?

  You can't say, this is what I expect one day and then it'd be good for the rest of life?

• 22:05DeVon Franklin?

  Never. It will not work. It won't work. And here's why, you know? I go back to that, that, that our flaws, right? We're, we're all flawed. All of us and all of us have traumas and tragedies and things that we have experienced in our life that we have compartmentalized. And that's why I go back to this earlier thought of like, you know, the myth that marriage is, is, is gonna, you know, it's, it's gonna save you and it's everything. The reason why I think that's a myth is because the more you are with somebody and the more that you love them and they love you. The more those flaws. Fears come out. The fears come out. The trauma because of vulnerability. And you're actually sharing your life with someone.

• 22:48DeVon Franklin?

  And you're allowing someone to see who you are. And there's also certain things you don't know that you've gone through. That have impacted you to the level that they have. It's coming up now. Exactly. And so in a great relationship, it serves as a great mirror. So when you talk about setting expectations, you know, nine years in. It doesn't stop because all of us are changing. And also to that point, you, you, we have to learn to communicate. We have to get our words out. We have to say, okay. You know, hey babe, can I expect this? Can you expect that? Let's get to the middle so that we understand, okay, cool. Here's what I can hold you accountable for. Here's what you can hold me accountable for. Instead of assuming. And that assumption.

• 23:33DeVon Franklin?

  Again, no, no matter how much they love you, no matter how long you've been together. No one can read our minds. No one. No one, no one. And so when you start behaving, and then here's what happens. Dude, you, you, you, we have these unspoken expectations. Unspoken expectations are relationship killers. You have this unspoken expectation. You treat the person as if you have spoken it and they know it. Yeah, and you fault them for it. And then you judge them. You judge them when they don't meet the expectation they may not have been aware of. And then you make a false assumption about their intent for you. They don't care about me. They don't love me. They don't think about me. There you go. And, and. They're selfish, whatever. There you go.

• 24:17DeVon Franklin?

  And so in our head, we become the judge and jury over somebody. Without even telling them. Without even telling them. What they were supposed to do. Exactly. And giving them the opportunity to say yes or no. That's it. That's it because too often in relationships, we're trying to control. And so just because you have an expectation, it does not mean that person is obligated to meet it.

• 24:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:41DeVon Franklin?

  That person has to agree.

• 24:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:43DeVon Franklin?

  That person that you're with is free. The same way you're free. Okay, and if they want to meet that expectation, great. And if they don't, then you can talk about what that means.

• 24:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:52DeVon Franklin?

  Hey, okay, you know, I have a certain expectation. Okay, that's not something you want to meet. All right, let's talk about if we are compatible. Let's talk about if we are going in the same direction.

• 25:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:01DeVon Franklin?

  Very important, instead, we suppress. We allow these feelings to fester. We get mad. We, we then get bitter.

• 25:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:11DeVon Franklin?

  You know, and then we, you know, someone asks us a question, we turn a cold shoulder. You know, it's like, well, why? Because we haven't actually communicated. We haven't actually asked a question. Hey, can I expect this from you? Is this okay? Is this all right? Is it not? Is it cool?

• 25:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:23DeVon Franklin?

  Right, and so that's why, you know, in the book, I spend so much time talking about communicating expectations, learning to set expectations. Just because they know, just because they love you, doesn't mean they know. And, and, and I have seen so many relationships go by the wayside because there was this idea, this myth that, oh, just because they love me, they're supposed to know what I want.

• 25:43Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 25:44DeVon Franklin?

  They don't know. Everybody has a different upbringing.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 25:47DeVon Franklin?

  They were exposed to love and marriage in different ways. And so what may look like love to somebody may look like death to somebody else.

• 25:54Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 25:55DeVon Franklin?

  So you gotta communicate and find the, the, the happy medium of what you, what works for your relationship.

• 26:02Lewis Howes?

  How do we learn to love ourselves so much that it doesn't matter what our partner does or doesn't do?

• 26:08DeVon Franklin?

  Oh, man. Lord have mercy.

• 26:10Lewis Howes?

  Like, is there a way where you can fall in love with yourself without a sense of ego?

• 26:14DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 26:14Lewis Howes?

  And like, I'm, I'm God, but

• 26:16DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 26:16Lewis Howes?

  love yourself so much that it doesn't matter if your partner meets your expectations, communicated or uncommunicated, whether they're supporting you in the way that you want or not, whether they're proud of you or not? Is there a way that we could do that? Or should we be expecting something out of our relationship in return? You know, either way.

• 26:37DeVon Franklin?

  Bro, listen, listen, man. Um, you know, listen, I, my, my views on this may be a little contrarian. So I'm just gonna speak my truth.

• 26:46Lewis Howes?

  Let's hear it, yeah, yeah.

• 26:48DeVon Franklin?

  Um, one of, so I'll answer the love question in a minute of self, but I want to hit the piece that you just hit, which is the expectation, right?

• 26:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 26:58DeVon Franklin?

  I personally believe that if you give to get in a relationship, you are on thin ice and the sun is coming out. Because.

• 27:15DeVon Franklin?

  Right, right, right. Because again, what happens is you're not free. You're not free. You're not actually giving from your heart because that's what you want to do. You're giving from manipulation.

• 27:31Lewis Howes?

  To get something in return.

• 27:32DeVon Franklin?

  Cause to get something in return. So you're treating that relationship like the stock market. Right? Well, yeah, if I give a certain amount of money to a certain stock or portfolio, I can expect a certain return.

• 27:42Lewis Howes?

  Hopefully it goes up.

• 27:43DeVon Franklin?

  Right, hopefully it goes up, right? But that's the dynamic, you know? But relationship is not, it's not stocks, man. That's somebody's heart. That's somebody's life. And so when you're investing in someone with the hope that they'll do something for you, you're messed up.

• 28:00Lewis Howes?

  What if that person never contributes in the way you contribute, let's say? After years, is it, is it the right relationship still?

• 28:08DeVon Franklin?

  This is great.

• 28:09Lewis Howes?

  Should you let go of the expectation, well, I don't need that in return?

• 28:12DeVon Franklin?

  Great. So here's how I think you answered it, and I want to hit the love part too. So, so I believe everyone should give freely from how they feel and want to feel. And they give to that person because that's what's in their heart to do. Over time, it's not an indictment on that person if that person isn't giving as much. It just may be a revelatory about compatibility. Right, it's like, oh, okay, got it. You know, the person that's giving, right? I'm in a relationship, you're in a relationship because you have needs. You want those needs to be met. Oh, okay, I'm seeing there's an imbalance.

• 28:51Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:51DeVon Franklin?

  Right? Like, I feel great about everything I'm giving, but I also recognize that there's some needs that are not being met.

• 28:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:57DeVon Franklin?

  And maybe there's some compatibility issues we need to talk about.

• 29:00Lewis Howes?

  Or you can communicate about it and see.

• 29:02DeVon Franklin?

  That's right.

• 29:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:02DeVon Franklin?

  That's exactly right. Like, hey, you know, look, I, I have needs. I, I'm in a relationship because I want people to contribute to these needs. Like, I'm gonna be fine no matter what, but I'm in this relationship because I actually love the idea of someone else, you know, contributing to my well-being.

• 29:18Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:19DeVon Franklin?

  So you have to assess it and see if there's compatibility and alignment. Not pointing the finger. Cause so often, we're so ready to point the finger. Oh, this person's not giving as much as me. Oh, it's like, no, no, no. If life is a mirror,

• 29:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 29:36DeVon Franklin?

  what is the mirror reflecting? What is a relationship reflecting? And oftentimes, in my experience, relationships are the greatest teachers.

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  Greatest.

• 29:45DeVon Franklin?

  Of who we are.

• 29:46Lewis Howes?

  Greatest.

• 29:47DeVon Franklin?

  Right? Who we are and who we aren't, okay? Like, like, and, and, and too often, people run from difficult relationships.

• 29:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:55DeVon Franklin?

  I believe that you should, whatever the lesson is you gotta get about you, before you break up.

• 30:00Lewis Howes?

  Heal it within the relationship first.

• 30:02DeVon Franklin?

  There you go. Because then you take that healing to the next relationship.

• 30:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 30:05DeVon Franklin?

  If, if your relationship is revealing your own brokenness and your issues that you gotta deal with, and then you're, you're, you're, you're saying to that other person, oh, it's your fault. That brokenness and that healing that you didn't do, you're taking it wherever you go.

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:18DeVon Franklin?

  That's gonna be the constant. It's gonna repeat.

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  So what should we do?

• 30:22DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 30:23Lewis Howes?

  If we're in a, in a, in a, in an environment of a relationship that is not working, that people are being triggered, and there's arguments, and fights, and frustration, and you're just not able to see eye to eye, you're not facing the same direction. We shouldn't say, it's your fault, I don't deserve this, peace out.

• 30:40DeVon Franklin?

  No, no, no.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  What should we do internally, whether we're with that person long-term, or after three, six, 12 months, we realize this isn't the right fit, but I'm going out in a different way?

• 30:52DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah, so you, we go, it goes back to, to the, the original question in this section, which was, how do you love yourself?

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, ooh.

• 30:59DeVon Franklin?

  So there's a scripture that says that, that the whole Bible. Can be summed up in, you know, love the Lord God, your God with all your heart. And love your neighbor as yourself. What does that mean? This is so interesting. A lot of times- If you don't love yourself, you're gonna love your neighbor with a lot of anger and frustration. But this is why we see a lot of what we're seeing in our world. And because we so focused on the neighbor part, but we don't focus on the self part. Love your neighbor as yourself, right? So how can I love anybody well if I don't love me well? So when we talk about loving somebody, we're, it's so often in relationships or dating,

• 31:44DeVon Franklin?

  we're looking to love someone, we're looking for someone to love us, but do you love you? Loving you, me loving me comes, it starts with appreciating who I am, flaws and all. Going easy on myself. Too often, we are the people that talk to ourselves the worst. Worst, over and over. Over and over. We would never let somebody talk to us as badly as we talk to ourselves. That's not love. Love is like, it's okay, yep, you know you felt, come on, get up, you're good, you're gonna be alright. Alright, what did you learn? What do you gotta do differently? It's a lesson, it's not an indictment. Loving ourself, we come to find out, well, what do we like? What do I like to do?

• 32:27DeVon Franklin?

  What are the things that contribute to my happiness? And let me prioritize those things. When we love ourselves, we really start to appreciate. We start to say, oh man, you know what? I'm gonna be alright, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna be okay. And so often, we don't do that. We're looking for other people to do the work for us that we're not doing ourselves. That's why there's always this imbalance. That's why we can never really find contentment. Why? Because it starts here. Prayer, meditation, working out, eating right, whatever the things that contribute to your happiness, you and I have to make a committee of one to do those things.

• 33:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:06DeVon Franklin?

  Period. Whatever those things are that bring you peace, don't wait until your partner does it. Don't wait until you get in a relationship to focus on it. Do it now.

• 33:16Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:17DeVon Franklin?

  And one of the biggest challenges is that if you are already in a relationship or you're in a marriage and it has become so codependent that you don't do anything unless they give you permission. You know, oh, you don't want to go work out? Okay, I won't go work out today. Oh, you want to cook? Oh, let's cook, right? There's nothing wrong with wanting to do things together. But what are the things that you like to do? Who are you? What's in your heart? So before you point the finger, hey, this is not working and you're the problem, everyone has to do a self-assessment and say, well, okay, well, have I done my work? Am I doing my work? Do I love myself?

• 33:52Lewis Howes?

  What should we assess in that process? What are the things we should be asking ourselves?

• 33:56DeVon Franklin?

  The thing you should be asking yourself when you are assessing who you are, one.

• 34:00Lewis Howes?

  When you're frustrated in the relationship, when you're fighting, you're arguing, you're not seeing out of eye.

• 34:04DeVon Franklin?

  Oh, great, great.

• 34:05Lewis Howes?

  You think they're the problem.

• 34:07DeVon Franklin?

  Oh.

• 34:07Lewis Howes?

  They're not understanding you. What should we ask ourselves?

• 34:10DeVon Franklin?

  Well, first of all, what am I actually frustrated about?

• 34:14Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 34:15DeVon Franklin?

  Right. Let's start there. What am I frustrated about? What are the problems that I am having? Because so often we don't even communicate with our, like, we're not even clear, right, what the problems are. What are the areas of frustration? What are the problems? And then, before you go and try to solve it, you then have to ask, what is my contribution?

• 34:42Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:44DeVon Franklin?

  Because everyone is making a contribution to the very problems that they can't stand in their relationship.

• 34:51Lewis Howes?

  What is my contribution to this problem?

• 34:53DeVon Franklin?

  Correct.

• 34:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:54DeVon Franklin?

  What is my contribution to the problem? Because once we, because it's so easy. It's easy to point the finger.

• 35:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:03DeVon Franklin?

  But it's really hard to point the finger back at ourselves. It's really hard. And so before you start doing, hey, before you start doing this and you're not doing right and you're wrong and you're pointing the finger, whoever you're in the relationship with, you start to do this assessment and say, okay. What's really the problem? What's really, what, what, have I not been communicative enough? Have I not set my expectations? You know, have I been too harsh? Like, you gotta really start doing the assessment of yourself. And then bring that conversation.

• 35:39Lewis Howes?

  And I think also to go even deeper is like, why is this triggering me?

• 35:43DeVon Franklin?

  Exactly.

• 35:44Lewis Howes?

  Like, why is this a problem for me?

• 35:46DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  Like.

• 35:47DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 35:48Lewis Howes?

  Maybe it's not the other person's doing something to me, but the trigger of it is something I haven't healed or addressed from the past.

• 35:54DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 35:55Lewis Howes?

  And that's why I'm triggered.

• 35:56DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 35:56Lewis Howes?

  But they're just being them. And, you know, depending on the situation, but it's like, what's the root of this frustration for me?

• 36:04DeVon Franklin?

  Dude, this is so true, and this is why I talk about this in the book. I talk about how expectations are the secret software that run our life.

• 36:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:13DeVon Franklin?

  And, and what I mean by that is that we don't actually sometimes react to life events. We react to our expectations of events.

• 36:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:21DeVon Franklin?

  So if situations or people exceed our expectation, we're happy. If situations or people don't, we're devastated.

• 36:29Lewis Howes?

  So what should we do? Have no expectations?

• 36:31DeVon Franklin?

  No, you can't do that. Because expectations are like blood pressure. You know, too high, it's not good, too low, it's not good. Because expectation, we need motivation. Expectations are, are hope, right? So we do have to have hope, but we've got to set it properly. Because so often, when our expectation is not set, to your point that you made, we end up reacting based upon an unset expectation. And so it's not that what the person's doing is wrong. It's that we have not set expectations for ourselves. We haven't identified what those triggers are. We haven't identified, oh, wait a minute. Wait a second. They're not the problem. It's how I'm looking at it is the problem. So in order to set expectations, I, I, I have every person that reads the book ask these two questions.

• 37:16DeVon Franklin?

  One, is it realistic or unrealistic?

• 37:20DeVon Franklin?

  How do you know? Comes down to one word. If you, this is how you determine if your expectation is realistic or unrealistic. Control.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean? Are you trying to be in control or?

• 37:31DeVon Franklin?

  If it's within your control to do it, you can expect it. It's a realistic expectation. If it's out of your control, you cannot expect it. So I'll give two examples. Um, you know, your podcast is amazing. It's incredible, one of the most dynamic podcasts in the world.

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 37:46DeVon Franklin?

  No matter how hard you try, you cannot force somebody to go listen to it.

• 37:51Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 37:51DeVon Franklin?

  Can't.

• 37:53Lewis Howes?

  I can hope.

• 37:54DeVon Franklin?

  Hope.

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  I can have a range of what I think people listen to.

• 37:57DeVon Franklin?

  Yes, I can have a target, I can have a goal. But if I put, if you put a, a, an expectation of like, hey, it's gotta be a million by next month.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:09DeVon Franklin?

  I would argue that's unrealistic.

• 38:10Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 38:11DeVon Franklin?

  Because it's out of your control.

• 38:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:13DeVon Franklin?

  What's in your control? I want to produce the best podcasts.

• 38:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:16DeVon Franklin?

  With the best conversations and the best guests with the best marketing and the best publicity. All in your control, realistic to expect. Now, let's apply that to people. You're in a relationship.

• 38:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:31DeVon Franklin?

  You know, I want this person to love me in a certain way. I want this person to, you know, have, have this amount of sex. I want this person to, to go work out. I want this person to go eat. I want this person.

• 38:45Lewis Howes?

  Can't control that.

• 38:46DeVon Franklin?

  You can't control it.

• 38:47Lewis Howes?

  You can communicate it. You can set up the structure for it.

• 38:52DeVon Franklin?

  But you can't control it.

• 38:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:54DeVon Franklin?

  And so often, our expectations with others are unset. Why? Because we're trying to control what we don't. You and I only control ourselves and the remote, wherever the remote, that's it.

• 39:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:05DeVon Franklin?

  I can't control anybody else, ever. And, and too often, we spend so much energy trying to get someone. To behave and live in the way that we want.

• 39:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:19DeVon Franklin?

  Instead of behaving in the way that we want, right? Living the way that we want. And if we live the way that we want, then whoever we're in the relationship with, either that is going to compel them to say, hey, hey, you know what, I like what you're doing. And then you say, hey, I like what you're doing. So let's do that together.

• 39:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:39DeVon Franklin?

  Or it won't. But when we try to get somebody to be what we want them to be and do what we want them to do, that's called manipulation.

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  What happens when we are in a relation, when we are trying to control or manipulate someone else in an intimate relationship? Or they're doing that to us? What happens?

• 39:54DeVon Franklin?

  Um, what happens is, uh, love goes down.

• 39:58Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:59DeVon Franklin?

  Fear rises. Here's what I mean by that.

• 40:04DeVon Franklin?

  You, you, you, you, the fear of if I don't do this, they're gonna leave.

• 40:12DeVon Franklin?

  So that person, you know, everyone has different degrees of self-determination. And so in a relationship, when you've fallen in love and you really care about somebody and they're asking you to do something or be something, that can be a very compelling thing to do, even when it's not who you are. And so the fear of if I don't, will they leave? Okay, so then it becomes a performance-based relationship.

• 40:35Lewis Howes?

  It's not good.

• 40:35DeVon Franklin?

  It's not good. I'm doing this because I don't want them to go. But I know it doesn't bring me joy. So it's no longer is love leading the way.

• 40:45Lewis Howes?

  It's fear.

• 40:46DeVon Franklin?

  It's fear. It's fear. And, and, and I, okay, you know what, I'm gonna do this because this is what they want. And I'm gonna become this. But every moment that I do it, and it's not in my heart, is a moment that my soul gets crushed.

• 40:58Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 40:58DeVon Franklin?

  Every single moment.

• 41:00Lewis Howes?

  This is my life. This is my life up until now, where, you know, not all the time, but

• 41:07DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 41:07Lewis Howes?

  I could see a pattern in my past relationships where I would just do things to make the other person happy, even though I didn't want to do them.

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  Because they were angry or upset or frustrated or whatever. They had some expectation. And I would sense like, man, the love is going down a little bit, a little bit. But I, when I took responsibility and accountability, I was like, but it's not their fault. I'm the one choosing to do these things because I'm afraid that they're gonna be angry at me or that they're gonna leave or they're not gonna love me. So it's my responsibility to stand in my truth.

• 41:40DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 41:40Lewis Howes?

  In those tough, challenging moments when someone's like, you don't support me, you're not doing whatever they're saying.

• 41:46DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 41:46Lewis Howes?

  It's tough to do that.

• 41:48DeVon Franklin?

  Oh.

• 41:49Lewis Howes?

  We're triggered, it's challenging, but I think if someone's gonna leave you by you standing in your truth and being frustrated by you constantly, then that's maybe not the right fit for you.

• 41:59DeVon Franklin?

  Well, not only is it potentially not the right fit, you gotta think about something. You gotta put yourself at the end of your life. And you gotta say.

• 42:07Lewis Howes?

  You posted a quote on Instagram recently about this.

• 42:09DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 42:10Lewis Howes?

  I saw it.

• 42:11DeVon Franklin?

  That's a good quote.

• 42:11Lewis Howes?

  One of the regrets, one of the regrets of dying.

• 42:14DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, that quote. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I really, I use that as a prompt.

• 42:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 42:19DeVon Franklin?

  To get people to think about in your life. But if you do that, so I, so let's say in that, in that dynamic, you become what they want you to be, even though it's not who you really are. You get to the end of your life and can you live with doing what was expected but never what was destined? Can you live?

• 42:41Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, man.

• 42:42DeVon Franklin?

  With doing what was expected but never what was destined? And if the answer to that question is no, then you gotta make some changes.

• 42:53Lewis Howes?

  It's so tough.

• 42:54DeVon Franklin?

  It is.

• 42:55Lewis Howes?

  Why does love trap us?

• 42:58DeVon Franklin?

  Because.

• 42:58Lewis Howes?

  I'm speaking for myself.

• 43:00DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 43:00Lewis Howes?

  Because I don't wanna say the world does this, but I sense a lot of other people do this. When we feel the sense of chemistry and connection and intimacy.

• 43:09DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Lewis Howes?

  And vulnerability and love, whether it's real or not, we sense that feeling of intimacy with someone else. Why does that trap us? And we stay in these things, in general, I'm not speaking for everyone, but we tend to stay in these things much longer than we should. Like you'll hear people say, I knew I should have got divorced seven years ago.

• 43:31DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  It's like they get, they break up or they divorce. I always ask them, when did you know? That you weren't supposed to be with this person?

• 43:37DeVon Franklin?

  Hmm.

• 43:38Lewis Howes?

  Five years ago, 10 years ago, the day I got married. Right? You hear these things and you're like, well, why do we stay?

• 43:45DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  Why is this so hard for us, this trap of love?

• 43:49DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  Why don't we get out of it sooner?

• 43:51DeVon Franklin?

  Right. I mean, there's so many, there's so many reasons. The reason that comes to mind is worth, self-worth.

• 43:58Lewis Howes?

  Eee, we don't believe we're worth, or we're afraid we won't find something as good, or what do you mean?

• 44:03DeVon Franklin?

  What I mean is that it can take a while for you to come into a revelation of what you're worth. And that you are worthy to be happy and pursue happiness on your terms. And come to the revelation that, you know, this dynamic is no longer, you know, making that contribution to my life.

• 44:24Lewis Howes?

  Not that they're bad and wrong.

• 44:25DeVon Franklin?

  There you go. Right, right.

• 44:26Lewis Howes?

  Not that it's all their fault.

• 44:28DeVon Franklin?

  There you go.

• 44:28Lewis Howes?

  It just wasn't the right fit.

• 44:29DeVon Franklin?

  And for me, you know, when you're in that situation, it can take a long time for you to get to the place where you feel enough worth. Where you're ready to say, you know what, I'm going to endure the fear, I'm going to endure the challenges to make that kind of move. So when you talk about love, love cuts to the core of our worth. Because we all need it.

• 44:48Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 44:49DeVon Franklin?

  And when I say love, we all need love. I don't mean just romantic love. I'm just saying, we all need to love and be loved. I think it's just part of our humanity. It's just part of how we were created. It's part of our divinity, right? God is love. We are, God is in us. We love, right? And we serve. And so part of that love is, oh man, I want, so much of it is focused on giving. Because think about, again, think about how we're socialized. Right? Oh, you do the right thing. Oh, mommy, daddy loves you. Oh, you know, oh, I wanna, but it's not like, you know, do you love you?

• 45:21DeVon Franklin?

  Do you know you're worthy? Do you know that you are worth it? Do you love who looks back at you in the mirror? Do you love who looks back at you when you take the selfie? Because at the end of the day, love becomes complicated because we never actually get there with our worth in who we really are. And so we go into the relationship and we haven't really done the work. We kind of feel worthy. We don't quite feel loved. And we bring all of that. That's a recipe for this, you know? And here's the thing, it's okay, right? We're all, love is like a rocky sea, right? You know what I mean? You're like, hey, we're on the boat, man, it's gonna be rocky. It's okay. Because we all have our stuff. So it's not about finding somebody who don't have stuff.

• 46:05DeVon Franklin?

  You want to find somebody who can help you with your stuff. Who's willing to help you with your stuff. So that as you bring things that are difficult, they're like, hey, it's cool, let's work this through. But you both find a healthy way to do it. But one of the reasons why I think people stay in things is because of worth. And you need time to get to a place, and some people never get there. Where you realize what you're worth. Because at the end of the day, I go back to happiness, it's like and peace and joy. You know, this, we only live this life once. You know, I'm a Christian, I believe in heaven, I believe in that. But I've also believed that this is, this earth, this life, this particular existence, we only get it once. So when you really put that in the broad scheme of things, you think, okay,

• 46:49DeVon Franklin?

  am I living right now according to my choice? Am I doing the things that bring me joy, bring me peace? Or am I allowing things in my life that are working against it, no matter what they are? It could be a relationship, it could be a job, it could be a living environment, whatever it is, I have to take control and do this assessment and then make the decision, okay, from a relationship standpoint, if my relationship isn't everything I want, okay, what do I need to do to fix it? But first, I gotta fix me. Yeah. And I gotta work on me. And I gotta love me. And as I love me, it will then help me learn how to love others and make the assessment. Okay, you know what? Maybe this person is gonna be able to walk with me and I walk with them.

• 47:34DeVon Franklin?

  Great. Maybe not. But let me not just point the finger and do the, and do the work. The other thing I wanna hit is, um, we talk about setting expectations. That second part of setting expectations is communication, right? Is it spoken or unspoken? And we talked about this earlier. You've got to actually ask the question. So even in this situation, when you talk about a difficult relationship, this scenario, instead of making the assumption, whatever your area of frustration is, sit down and frame it as a question. You know what? I was expecting that, you know, in this relationship, that, you know, we would sit down and eat every night at seven o'clock. Right, cuz this is what we did with my family. So I just assumed. That's what I just assumed. You would do the same thing.

• 48:19DeVon Franklin?

  Is that your expectation? Is that, is that something I can expect from you? Is, and let them say yes or no. Oh, okay, so for you, like, you don't ever expect to be home at seven. You're going out to dinners. You're going out, yeah, right. Oh, okay, got it. Okay, okay. All right. Okay, great. Wow, now we're actually having a real adult conversation, right? We're having a adult conversation because we're taking accountability. Yeah. And we're communicating. And so when it comes to setting expectations in, in any area of life, you gotta know, is it realistic or unrealistic vis a vis control? And you gotta ask, is it spoken or unspoken vis a vis communication? And when we start to do these tools, you know, it does free us up. Cuz the reason why I wanted to write Live Free is because so often we're not.

• 49:02DeVon Franklin?

  And when I say live free, what I mean is that when you and I live free, when anyone lives free, it means they are not under the mental, physical, or emotional control of anyone or anything. That's what living free is. Living free means, and so when we get into a situation and we start to feel like, oh, this, this person is starting to feel like this person is making me mad or contributing to my discontent. Then I would say to that person, okay, pause for a minute, pause for a second. It's super easy just to turn all your attention to what they're not doing, right? No, no, no, no. How do you want to feel in this situation? What will give you more power in this situation? What will give you more peace? Okay, you know what?

• 49:44DeVon Franklin?

  I'm identifying that there are some things in my relationship that are incompatible.

• 49:48Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:49DeVon Franklin?

  I am going to spend some time observing what those things are. And identifying if there are certain things I can live with.

• 49:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:57DeVon Franklin?

  And what I can't.

• 49:59Lewis Howes?

  Right, and communicating about that.

• 50:00DeVon Franklin?

  And communicating those areas that I can't to see if it's possible we can set our expectations together.

• 50:09Lewis Howes?

  The biggest challenge you'll find is when you communicate those things out of expectation or anger or frustration. The other person's probably not going to be able to receive it. If you're already making someone wrong for what they're doing or not doing, it's very challenging to have an adult conversation.

• 50:25DeVon Franklin?

  Bro, I've been there before.

• 50:27Lewis Howes?

  And this is something, I've done that and I've received it.

• 50:29DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 50:30Lewis Howes?

  And it's, it's challenging to do, but when you come from a place of 100% responsibility, accountability, and figuring, why is this triggering me? Why is this really affecting me?

• 50:42DeVon Franklin?

  Dude.

• 50:42Lewis Howes?

  Then you can come from a calmer place of like, okay, I didn't like this, but I don't need to make you wrong for this in this moment, because we can talk about it, come up with an agreement that then moving forward, we can either live up to or not. And then we can make a decision if this frustrates me.

• 50:58DeVon Franklin?

  Correct. I mean, I have, it's challenging, but it's good work. And for me, you know, I, that's, we talk about flaws, like that's an area that I have been, you know, outside of identifying what my needs are and being okay to admit those needs. One of the flaws, man, is that, you know, I have a really strong sense of right and wrong.

• 51:18Lewis Howes?

  And if someone's not doing that.

• 51:19DeVon Franklin?

  According to me.

• 51:21Lewis Howes?

  That's wrong.

• 51:22DeVon Franklin?

  Right, right, so, so if some may have, right, dude, I'm, I'm like, that's wrong. You know, so when Megan and I have had moments of disagreement, you know, I have at times mishandled it completely. Because I have in my mind made the decision that on that particular thing that she may have done that I didn't like, she's wrong. Yeah, for you. For me. Right. But no, no, no, I didn't, for me came as I evolved and as I grew. Initially, it was like, no, that's wrong. Yeah.

• 51:51DeVon Franklin?

  Wrong in the world, not just wrong for Devon, wrong in the world. So here's the problem with that. The problem is when I make the decision and judge her action as wrong, the moment I bring it up, I bring it up in a way of attack. And anyone, when they feel attacked, it's gonna, they're gonna get defensive. Defensive, you can't do that in a relationship. You can't do it. You can't do it, but, but it happens all the time. It does, man. And dude, what would happen is I would, you know, get on my self-righteous, you know, uh, uh, uh, soapbox. I can't believe we did this. There you go, there you go. What were you thinking? There you go. Judgment, you know. What's she gonna say? Oh, you're right, Devon, I'm a bad person, everything you say is truth. Right, no, dude, listen, I learned the hard way.

• 52:35DeVon Franklin?

  What that did was it pushed her further away. Right. It doesn't mean that the point of what I was bringing up, whatever we were dealing with, didn't have merit. Didn't mean that. It just meant that the way I went about it was wrong. Right. And my intent was not being realized because I came at it from judgment and I'm right and you're wrong and da, da, da, da. So as I bumped my head, I realized, oh, got it. The way I see the world is the way I see the world. Yeah. It's not exactly how the world may be. So when I use how I see the world as the way that she has to see the world, I am the one with the problem. Yeah.

• 53:18DeVon Franklin?

  Because I've got to understand and take into account the two different perspectives. Right. So what I had to learn to do is express it from here.

• 53:27DeVon Franklin?

  My love. Yeah. When this happened, here's how it made me feel.

• 53:32DeVon Franklin?

  Here's, here's, here's was my takeaway. Is that the way, is that the right way to think about it? So instead of doing like this, I had to do like this. Oh, yeah, when that, when, when you said that, I felt this way about that. You know, I, man, is, how, how can we, you know, and that approach, bro? That approach is what then brings the communication.

• 53:54Lewis Howes?

  Right. Then she wants to be contributing in a more supportive way.

• 53:57DeVon Franklin?

  And also just talk it through, right? Cause it's, it's not a pointing the finger. I'm not pointing the finger at her. You know, she's not pointing the finger at me. We're actually talking about, so she'll say, hey, you know, there are certain things that you do that make me feel this way. I was like, oh, okay. Now, here's another hard truth.

• 54:13DeVon Franklin?

  There's some situations, I'm like, I'm not responsible for those feelings.

• 54:15Lewis Howes?

  Right. Doesn't mean you have to change who you are.

• 54:17DeVon Franklin?

  No, I, I, I, I love you. I, I understand what you're saying and you know I love you, period. I understand you feel a certain way about certain things. That's not my responsibility. Right? So the same way that I feel about certain things, you're like, hey, that's not my responsibility, right?

• 54:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:31DeVon Franklin?

  I still gotta go do my work. I still have to go on my journey. And I still have to continue to get to that place of peace and healing and contentment i- inside the journey, if that makes sense.

• 54:41Lewis Howes?

  On a scale of one to 10?

• 54:42DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 54:43Lewis Howes?

  Of jealousy? 10 being extremely jealous hu- human being. One being not jealous at all. Where would you say you lie?

• 54:53DeVon Franklin?

  In, in life or like relationship?

• 54:55Lewis Howes?

  In relationship.

• 54:56DeVon Franklin?

  Oh man, I'm not jealous. I'm, I'm like, it's like a one for me.

• 54:59Lewis Howes?

  Did you ever used to be jealous in relationships?

• 55:01DeVon Franklin?

  Never. And I'll tell you why.

• 55:06DeVon Franklin?

  Cause I love me, okay?

• 55:08Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 55:08DeVon Franklin?

  So I'm like, yo, listen, I ain't jealous of no other dude. I ain't, I'm not. And, and in the reality is, if any woman that I was with found, you know, for whatever, more comfort or, or, you know, it's like, hey, I wanna go over there and experience that person, God bless you. God bless you.

• 55:27Lewis Howes?

  We're not the right fit then.

• 55:27DeVon Franklin?

  Not the right fit.

• 55:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:29DeVon Franklin?

  You know, and, and if I was a jealous person, I couldn't be married to my wife. You know, my wife is one of the most successful, I mean, first of all, she beautiful, but she's also one of the most successful, you know, women, uh, you know, actors in Hollywood. You know, she's an icon. She's known around the world, you know, I mean,

• 55:47Lewis Howes?

  She got men.

• 55:47DeVon Franklin?

  She's got men, you know, I mean, literally, you know, and men all around the world, uh, you know, desire her and would probably do anything for her. And that's who she was before we got married. So if I was the jealous type? Oh, I couldn't, I'd be miserable.

• 56:02Lewis Howes?

  Miserable.

• 56:02DeVon Franklin?

  Miserable, because right now, she's in, you know, New York on a TV show, I'm here in LA.

• 56:06Lewis Howes?

  And you gotta have trust.

• 56:07DeVon Franklin?

  And gotta have trust, right? So if I'm a jealous man, oh, man, I've.

• 56:11Lewis Howes?

  What is jealousy saying about us?

• 56:13DeVon Franklin?

  Insecurity, massive insecurity. I don't feel safe with me, so I don't feel safe with you.

• 56:21Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean, what do you mean, I don't feel safe with me?

• 56:23DeVon Franklin?

  Meaning, if I am secure with who I am, and I feel good being alone, right? I feel safe in my isolation, I feel safe in my loneliness or periods of time when I'm by myself. Then I trust that you're gonna feel safe and you're gonna honor whatever needs to happen. But if I don't feel safe, like, I don't really like being alone much, and I don't really like being by myself, then, then you don't feel. No, what are you doing? What's the problem? What's happening? So, that insecurity and not feeling safe with self, you transfer on to the other person. Because if you're content with your personal time, you tend to be more content when others have personal time independent of you.

• 57:01Lewis Howes?

  You're not worried.

• 57:01DeVon Franklin?

  You're not worried, you know, and then also, one of the things that could happen is that you got burned in the past. You know, someone did you wrong, they violated your trust, and so fear has crept in, and so that fear is driving your jealousy.

• 57:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 57:13DeVon Franklin?

  You know, I'm afraid that what happened before is gonna happen again. And so as a result, I'm transferring that previous pain onto my present situation. And that's always a recipe for disaster, right? Because the person you're dating is not the person you dated.

• 57:28Lewis Howes?

  You can't expect them to repeat the same thing.

• 57:30DeVon Franklin?

  Exactly. Now, but here's the other thing, because life is a mirror, right? And whatever we put out, we get back. If you keep putting that out, if you put it out on the last situation, this person you're dating may not be a cheater at all. But if you don't trust them, and you keep getting mad at them.

• 57:49Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna push them away, they're gonna wanna cheat.

• 57:51DeVon Franklin?

  It, it, it's, it's like, you know, again, everyone still has to be the keeper of their.

• 57:54Lewis Howes?

  I'm not saying it's okay, yeah.

• 57:55DeVon Franklin?

  Right, but that energy that you're putting out is sometimes the energy you get back even from somebody who may not be predisposed to do those sort of things.

• 58:04Lewis Howes?

  Not saying it's your fault that someone breaks their integrity.

• 58:07DeVon Franklin?

  Correct.

• 58:07Lewis Howes?

  But you might have influenced them in a way.

• 58:10DeVon Franklin?

  Correct. And so, the person that's jealous has to, one, get control of that security, and two, get control of that fear. And also, also, say, you know what? Listen, if that person I'm dating is foolish enough.

• 58:27DeVon Franklin?

  To step out on me.

• 58:28Lewis Howes?

  That's on them.

• 58:29DeVon Franklin?

  That is on them.

• 58:30Lewis Howes?

  That's on them.

• 58:31DeVon Franklin?

  Cause they don't even realize what they just did. They don't even realize what, who they're missing out on.

• 58:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 58:36DeVon Franklin?

  Period. End of story.

• 58:38Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 58:38DeVon Franklin?

  So, so on the other side of that jealousy is a, is this idea that's not ideal in your head. That's just not true.

• 58:45Lewis Howes?

  So I feel like maybe until five or six years ago, I was probably in my twenties, I was probably a seven on the jealousy scale.

• 58:55DeVon Franklin?

  Whoa.

• 58:55Lewis Howes?

  Then in my

• 58:58Lewis Howes?

  I was very insecure. I had false confidence, but very insecure.

• 59:00DeVon Franklin?

  Yep.

• 59:01Lewis Howes?

  Maybe I was like a five into a seven in that range. And then in my thirty, early thirties, I was more of a three.

• 59:08DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 59:09Lewis Howes?

  And then when I hit thirty, probably three or thirty-four, I was like a one or a zero. And something switched inside of me where I was like, okay, exactly what you just said. If someone cheats on me or is flirting with someone or whatever, texting someone, that's on them.

• 59:26DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 59:27Lewis Howes?

  It's not on me. And okay, goodbye. Like I love you and I want the best for you.

• 59:31DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 59:32Lewis Howes?

  And I don't know if that just took me time and maturity, but you, it sounds like you had this at birth.

• 59:36DeVon Franklin?

  I don't know if I had it at birth, but jealousy was never my issue.

• 59:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:40DeVon Franklin?

  You know, I was never, I've just never been the jealous, um, the jealous type at all, you know?

• 59:45Lewis Howes?

  What was your biggest issue?

• 59:47DeVon Franklin?

  My biggest issue has been and continues to be vulnerability.

• 59:52Lewis Howes?

  Being vulnerable.

• 59:53DeVon Franklin?

  Very, very hard. Very hard. Expressing what I feel.

• 59:56Lewis Howes?

  Why is it challenging for you to express exactly how you feel in a vulnerable, non frustrated way?

• 1:00:03DeVon Franklin?

  I'll tell you why. Because I go back to, you know.

• 1:00:06Lewis Howes?

  Mr. Perfect?

• 1:00:07DeVon Franklin?

  Mr. Perfect, for sure. I mean, that, that area of time, that period of time, you know, that, that wound, you know, losing my father, uh, you know, I, this is devastating. I mean, you know, it was, it was, and I talk about this in the book. You know, when my father, um, so my father was an alcoholic. He was in and out of the house, um, pretty much my whole life. And so, um, when we would see him, most of the time, my memories of him were, you know, him being drunk. So, he was like, I think, when we were, and I was like, man, maybe five years old, he left. And, you know, was just out, like, for him, alcohol was like somebody being on, like hardcore drugs.

• 1:00:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:49DeVon Franklin?

  And so, he was intermittent for, from between five and nine when he passed away. Right before he passed away, he'd gotten clean, he got a job, he had a place. We went and saw him, you know, we were like, hey, he's like, hey, you know, he worked at this restaurant. Remember, we went to the restaurant multiple times. On a Sunday night, we got the word that he had a heart attack. He went to the hospital. That Monday, after school, me and my brothers and my mom, we go to the hospital. We see him, you know, he's up in the bed, just like this, having a conversation. You know, and he said, listen, I'm so sorry for what I've done to you all. He said, I'm, I want to get back in your life, I want to get my family back.

• 1:01:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:01:25DeVon Franklin?

  I'm coming back to church. That's what he said.

• 1:01:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:01:28DeVon Franklin?

  We were like, wow, okay, maybe dad has changed. The next day, we're getting ready to go to, to the hospital. The phone rings. Mother picks up, hear this screech, this yell. You know, I'm nine years old, and I was literally sitting on the couch, reading the Shel Silverstein book, Where the Sidewalk Ends, because we were reading that for, for class. My mom yells, and we knew what that meant. She's crying profusely, she rushes, she gets us in the car, we go to the hospital. One of my aunts is there, she is with us in the waiting room. My mom goes away for a long time, and then finally she comes and she says to me and my brothers, I want you to come with me.

• 1:02:12DeVon Franklin?

  Didn't know where we were going. We go, what I now realize was the morgue. And there's my father. Laid out on a cold, you know, steel slab. And she said, kiss your father goodbye.

• 1:02:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:27DeVon Franklin?

  So we walk over, man, and I'm telling you, you don't, you don't know what cold is until you, it's the cold of the dead body. So I remember to this day kissing him on his forehead. And in that moment, I'm like, what the heck is this? I don't, I don't, I don't know. I don't know how to, I, I'm feeling stuff I don't even know how to deal with, so I'm just gonna shut that down.

• 1:02:51Lewis Howes?

  All the emotions.

• 1:02:52DeVon Franklin?

  I'm shutting it down. I can't survive like this. I'm shutting it down. So, you know, hey, I'll lean into Mr. Perfect and all these things. And so as I, and so as that achievement started, you know, I mean, from that age, you know, I'm just gonna drive, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put all my, my focus on succeeding and I'm gonna get straight A's and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna be on student council and I'm gonna play basketball and I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna work my way out of so how I never have to focus on how I feel, never have to do it. So as I did that, you know, again, in the, in the public is like, oh, successful, you know, successful at school, successful at college, all this. But where I failed the most was in my personal relationships. Because I couldn't express how I felt.

• 1:03:38DeVon Franklin?

  Okay, Devon, you're taking me out on a date, but how do you feel? No, I'm good, I'm good. No, no. What's going on? Like, how do you really feel? Like, you know, like, what, what are you thinking? Oh, no, I'm thinking great. No. That vulnerability, man. It was like a lock. And, and, and as I've been married, you know, I've had to, even to this day, work on expressing the things that are hard to express and not want to talk about a problem. You know, it's easy to talk about problems. Oh, I don't like this. That's easy. But like, oh, this makes me feel really good. I really like when you do that. You know, I really love this. Here's what I really feel about it. I'm really afraid about that.

• 1:04:16Lewis Howes?

  You don't say those things as frequently as you'd like.

• 1:04:18DeVon Franklin?

  I don't say those things as frequently as I want to. And I, and I realize the, the, especially, you know, with us being in the position that we are to be able, we've been blessed to be able to help people. The, the only way that we can continue to grow in that help. is to grow here.

• 1:04:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:33DeVon Franklin?

  And to grow on that vulnerability. You know, and that's something, man, that I I work on because i- in some instances, man, it feels very uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable like ah like it's it's it's easy. I can I can stand up in a stadium. Full of twenty thousand people and speak mu- much easier. Then sometimes one on one. Me telling, you know, my wife how I feel about certain things.

• 1:04:57Lewis Howes?

  Man, that's powerful. Powerful uh reflection and something that I've learned personally over the last. I was a lot of that until eight years ago. And man, the moment I started to be vulnerable, it felt like I was gonna die. It felt like.

• 1:05:14DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 1:05:15Lewis Howes?

  Dying.

• 1:05:16DeVon Franklin?

  Doesn't it?

• 1:05:16Lewis Howes?

  Felt like.

• 1:05:17DeVon Franklin?

  Oh, God.

• 1:05:18Lewis Howes?

  It felt like I wanted to, I don't know, run away. Every time that I was about to be vulnerable, I was like, the world is gonna make fun of me. No one's gonna love me if I show this vulnerability. People are gonna laugh at me. My business is gonna suffer. All these things.

• 1:05:32DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:33Lewis Howes?

  And it's been an eight year practice of being vulnerable consistently. In every episode, any any moment that brings vulnerability.

• 1:05:42DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:43Lewis Howes?

  Not shying away, but leaning into it. I'll tell you what, it gets easier. It gets easier. I I've mastered it, but it gets easier.

• 1:05:50DeVon Franklin?

  Love that.

• 1:05:51Lewis Howes?

  And I just remember the first time talking about some dark stuff. I was like, I wanna die right now. I wanna I wanna die. Like, it felt like so uncomfortable.

• 1:05:59DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Lewis Howes?

  But I was like, I I don't want anyone to look at me the rest of my life.

• 1:06:03DeVon Franklin?

  Wow, dude, I know that feeling.

• 1:06:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:06:06DeVon Franklin?

  Dude, I know the feeling.

• 1:06:07Lewis Howes?

  Especially with someone you're intimate with and you love, you feel like you wanna run away.

• 1:06:11DeVon Franklin?

  You know, I mean, you know, definitely, it's it's gotten easier, but I'm not at that at the point, at the Lewis Howes point yet.

• 1:06:17Lewis Howes?

  I I would give you, I would give you.

• 1:06:19DeVon Franklin?

  I wanna get there.

• 1:06:19Lewis Howes?

  I'll give you a challenge.

• 1:06:20DeVon Franklin?

  Please, I'll take it.

• 1:06:21Lewis Howes?

  I'll give you a challenge.

• 1:06:22DeVon Franklin?

  Give me the challenge.

• 1:06:23Lewis Howes?

  And I know you're the busiest time of the year, probably, right now.

• 1:06:26DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 1:06:26Lewis Howes?

  Launching movies, launching a book, you're, you know, all these opportunities.

• 1:06:31Lewis Howes?

  I would take 10 minutes a day for the next 30 days with your wife or someone in your life, someone you care about. It doesn't have to be your wife every day, but someone in your life, a conversation where you open up and express your feelings in a very vulnerable way. And you say, I'm dropping full guard. It's gonna be 10 minutes, you know, then you can move on. But you do 10 minutes a day with someone where you do real talk. Phones are aside. You say, you know what, whatever it is, I'm really afraid of this. I want to tell you how I feel about this. I want to share with you something I've never shared before with anyone. Whatever it might be, and figuring out who it is to share what thing.

• 1:07:08DeVon Franklin?

  Sure.

• 1:07:08Lewis Howes?

  You know, you don't have to share your deepest, deepest secret to a friend or something, but to your wife, to friends, family. 10 minutes a day for 30 days. I'd love to see.

• 1:07:18DeVon Franklin?

  The vulnerability challenge.

• 1:07:19Lewis Howes?

  I would love to see what you create from it because it's gonna be extremely uncomfortable.

• 1:07:24DeVon Franklin?

  Ooh, man.

• 1:07:25Lewis Howes?

  But as you know, when you're leaning into that uncomfortable, uncomfortable moments, like on the other side of it, you're gonna feel a lot more natural in discomfort.

• 1:07:31DeVon Franklin?

  No, I love it. I mean, first of all, you know, you know a great challenge when it's like, I'm like, yo, that's challenging.

• 1:07:37Lewis Howes?

  You're like, I don't want to do that. That means I shouldn't do it.

• 1:07:40DeVon Franklin?

  Exactly. I'm like, oh, bro, that's, man, that's deep.

• 1:07:44Lewis Howes?

  If you literally scheduled on the calendar 10 minutes a day.

• 1:07:47DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah, 10 minutes, like, yo.

• 1:07:48Lewis Howes?

  With each person you wanted to talk to. And maybe it's your wife every day, or maybe it's a friend or whatever. It could be a colleague, a business partner.

• 1:07:54DeVon Franklin?

  Wow, that's good.

• 1:07:54Lewis Howes?

  I think it'd be powerful. For anyone at home listening or watching, I challenge you and if you're down for the challenge, think about it.

• 1:08:01DeVon Franklin?

  I'm down, man.

• 1:08:02Lewis Howes?

  You down?

• 1:08:03DeVon Franklin?

  I'm down to do it.

• 1:08:04Lewis Howes?

  Cause I'm gonna text you in 30 days. I'm gonna text you in a week, every week for 30 days.

• 1:08:08DeVon Franklin?

  I'll let you know when I'm starting. I'll be like, alright, bro, here's day one of 30 days. Here we go.

• 1:08:12Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Alright, perfect. Cause I'm gonna hold you accountable when you're ready.

• 1:08:15DeVon Franklin?

  Hold me accountable. Cause that is so hard, but I'm, I'm open to it, man. I'm open to it. Cause that's, honestly, that's why I wrote this book. It's about living free.

• 1:08:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:24DeVon Franklin?

  I want to live free. I don't, I don't want my vulnerability or lack thereof to control me.

• 1:08:30Lewis Howes?

  Here's a question for you. You've been married, when did you get married? What, what month?

• 1:08:34DeVon Franklin?

  June. June.

• 1:08:35Lewis Howes?

  So it's almost 10 years.

• 1:08:36DeVon Franklin?

  Almost 10 years.

• 1:08:36Lewis Howes?

  Or is it nine years now?

• 1:08:37DeVon Franklin?

  10 years in 2012.

• 1:08:38Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so it's nine years.

• 1:08:39DeVon Franklin?

  10 years in 2022.

• 1:08:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, gotcha. So it's almost 10 years. And how young are you?

• 1:08:47DeVon Franklin?

  I'm forty-three.

• 1:08:47Lewis Howes?

  Forty-three. So let's imagine fifty-four, which would be ten, uh, twenty years.

• 1:08:53DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:53Lewis Howes?

  If all goes planned that way.

• 1:08:56DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Lewis Howes?

  Let's say you're twenty years married and you're fifty-four.

• 1:09:02Lewis Howes?

  What would fifty-four-year-old Devon say to forty-four-year-old Devon about what he was proud of you for doing?

• 1:09:11DeVon Franklin?

  Oh.

• 1:09:13Lewis Howes?

  And what you should let go of for the next decade?

• 1:09:17DeVon Franklin?

  Oh, wow. That's deep, man.

• 1:09:19Lewis Howes?

  Proud of you for taking on.

• 1:09:21DeVon Franklin?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:22Lewis Howes?

  Which helped you get to that fifty-four-year-old state, which is wherever you're gonna be. And the thing that wish you would let go of now, so you can get there faster.

• 1:09:31DeVon Franklin?

  Hmm, okay. So, the, the proud of would be, you know, I think, just taking on this work, you know, like, taking on the work of, you know, not running from your problems, you know, figuring out who you are, you know, committing to that path, doing the work, you know, learning to love yourself, like, you know, you've, taking on that, you know, now, you know, that ten years from now, I think that my fifty-four-year-old self would be like, man, that's really been great.

• 1:10:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:04DeVon Franklin?

  I think the thing that he would say that I need to let go of, right, is like,

• 1:10:12DeVon Franklin?

  how do you put it, man? Um, there's still a lot of, um, at times, you know, I'm, I'm ambitious. And, and that angst.

• 1:10:22Lewis Howes?

  That wanting more, that creating more.

• 1:10:24DeVon Franklin?

  Ugh, you know.

• 1:10:25Lewis Howes?

  Me too, man. I wanna build. Let's go.

• 1:10:27DeVon Franklin?

  Build, let's go. You know, like, come on, every day, ah, you know. And so I think that, that he would say, you know, if you would have let that, nothing wrong with having ambition.

• 1:10:41DeVon Franklin?

  But doing it more from this standpoint, you know, stop doing this. Let it come to you.

• 1:10:47Lewis Howes?

  Stop forcing.

• 1:10:48DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah, and and and they're not not it's it's not it's not always just the forcing, but it's but it's also the if this doesn't happen, then then then that won't happen.

• 1:10:57Lewis Howes?

  Goes back to expectations.

• 1:10:58DeVon Franklin?

  There you go.

• 1:10:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:59DeVon Franklin?

  And if that don't happen, then this is what that means.

• 1:11:01Lewis Howes?

  And I'm not worth it.

• 1:11:02DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 1:11:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03DeVon Franklin?

  Which is not true. So he would say, you know, I wish you would let go of that sooner. Because the sooner you let go of all that angst about who you are and your ambition, the more things are just gonna open up for you. You know, because because again, that programming of Mr. Perfect and I gotta do it. It's something I'm killing him, you know, but that programming is still there.

• 1:11:26Lewis Howes?

  It lingers every day.

• 1:11:27DeVon Franklin?

  It lingers, man. So I I think that that my, you know, 10 year old, you know, 54 year old self would say, you know, that's the area that you needed to have let go of sooner. Because that's an area that still trips me up right now.

• 1:11:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And when do you feel the most loved?

• 1:11:43DeVon Franklin?

  Man, that's a great question.

• 1:11:49DeVon Franklin?

  I feel the most loved when people just do random, just small acts of consideration. I that's when I feel most loved. I feel most loved, not like when, you know, it's it's the times when you would express love. But those moments when, you know, it's just a random day and there's just little things that let you know, hey, man, I'm I see you. Man, dude, I just want you, I just did this to for you.

• 1:12:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:12:13DeVon Franklin?

  You know, because I know you're working hard, you know, I just want you to know, hey, I'm I'm thinking about you. Whatever, whoever, however it comes. Those are moments when I feel the most loved, like, wow, that's deep, man.

• 1:12:25Lewis Howes?

  When's the moment you felt the most loved that you're allowed to share in your marriage and in your relationship?

• 1:12:33DeVon Franklin?

  Wow, that's a great question. Man, Louis, you come up with questions, boy. Man. I'm like, dang, bro.

• 1:12:42Lewis Howes?

  Not the school of average, man.

• 1:12:43DeVon Franklin?

  Man, no, no, no, shoot, it should be called the school of vulnerability.

• 1:12:48Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 1:12:50DeVon Franklin?

  Forget greatness, man.

• 1:12:52Lewis Howes?

  Greatness is vulnerability.

• 1:12:53DeVon Franklin?

  This is true, there you go.

• 1:12:54Lewis Howes?

  It's part of it. You can't be great, I don't think, without tapping into that as well.

• 1:12:58DeVon Franklin?

  Being fully vulnerable. The air, one of the times I felt the most loved, you know, would probably be, you know, I just go back to when you said it, I mean, there have been other times, but the time that comes up the most is when, you know, we first got married. You know, and, you know, I just, I just remember that it wasn't like a specific gesture. You know, it was just like, oh, wow, you know, like, I'm the middle child. I was the last kid, I was the last of my brothers to get married. And so I, I did have some doubts around, you know, love and if that was gonna happen for me. And, you know, and when Megan and I started dating, you know, it really was just like,

• 1:13:40DeVon Franklin?

  oh, okay, like, oh, wow, okay, you know, I can just be who I am and that's enough. You know, I don't have to perform, you know, and so I think that that feeling of love is something that has resonated till today, where it's just a general like, hey, I accept you for who you are, you know, and that acceptance, you know. So it's not like, oh, you know, she bought me this and she did that. It's a general acceptance of like, you, who you are, right now, is enough.

• 1:14:09Lewis Howes?

  That's, yeah, that'd make anyone feel loved, I feel like.

• 1:14:12DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:13Lewis Howes?

  Being accepted for who you are.

• 1:14:14DeVon Franklin?

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:15Lewis Howes?

  Not being wrong or made, made wrong for who you are.

• 1:14:18DeVon Franklin?

  Right, right.

• 1:14:20Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like, speaking of weddings, do you feel like weddings set us up for failure in marriage?

• 1:14:26DeVon Franklin?

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:26Lewis Howes?

  The performance, the everyone comes, the celebration, this is the greatest day, the the hype of it, the year build up, and then you go into day to day life, you never recreate that.

• 1:14:40DeVon Franklin?

  It, it, I don't, I don't, whoever, I mean, I feel like.

• 1:14:44Lewis Howes?

  Let's spend as much money as we can on one night.

• 1:14:48DeVon Franklin?

  What?

• 1:14:48Lewis Howes?

  And then always think about that.

• 1:14:51DeVon Franklin?

  Always think about it, look at the pictures, and then that's it.

• 1:14:53Lewis Howes?

  And be like, oh, but he's not doing this for me, or she's not doing this.

• 1:14:56DeVon Franklin?

  Right, right, and I'm like, whoever created the weddings, man, they, it was like, you know.

• 1:15:01Lewis Howes?

  It's a great night.

• 1:15:02DeVon Franklin?

  It's a great night, it's a great night, yes, so I talk about this in the book, that, that, I talk about a portion of it, I say that most people don't realize that wedding vows are expectation agreements. So, so you're, you're setting the tone for what can be expected, you know, through richer or poorer, through sickness and hell, you know, till death do us part, right? So you're saying, you don't even realize, oh, so this is what this person can expect from me, but I, but you, we don't actually then negotiate the finer points of what that means.

• 1:15:33Lewis Howes?

  Just like, I can do whatever I want to do.

• 1:15:35DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 1:15:35Lewis Howes?

  And you gotta live with it.

• 1:15:36DeVon Franklin?

  There you go, it's like, no, no, no, wait a minute, hold on a second, is that not, was that what I was agreeing to?

• 1:15:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:15:40DeVon Franklin?

  Right, but the wedding itself is a performance. And, and, and don't get me wrong, like, I think that there's a version of how it could be done, like, in all honesty, I would advise people get married, you know, privately, and then celebrate, right, like, you know, say, hey, we're gonna, we've done this, we did it, we, you know, privately, personally, and then we're.

• 1:16:00Lewis Howes?

  Bring families together.

• 1:16:01DeVon Franklin?

  Bring families together to have a good time, but that wedding day.

• 1:16:04Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 1:16:05DeVon Franklin?

  Creates so much expectation in a fantasy.

• 1:16:08Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 1:16:09DeVon Franklin?

  That, that sometimes, if, if you don't, if you don't literally, like, that fantasy can be a cloud that hangs over the whole marriage. Right, because it's like, oh, man, you know, everybody looked perfect and beautiful and amazing, and then you get into day to day, and you're like, it ain't nothing like that. So you can put it in its proper context, I, you know, but I think, again, the fantasy, and we talk, we started talking about the myth, right, the myth of marriage, so much of it's romanticized through the wedding. You know, through the ceremony.

• 1:16:41Lewis Howes?

  And this is gonna be like this forever.

• 1:16:43DeVon Franklin?

  This is gonna be like forever and everyone's gonna, you know, be so happy. And that's the other thing that's so crazy is that so many people wanna rush singles into that.

• 1:16:53Lewis Howes?

  No, man.

• 1:16:54DeVon Franklin?

  And it's like, no, what are you, what are you, why are you rushing, why are you pressuring someone into this? Like, no, take as much time as you need before you make the decision to get married. Because you then have to be accountable to somebody else. And that accountability and that sharing of your life comes with expectation. It comes with compromise, it comes with sacrifice.

• 1:17:17Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:17:17DeVon Franklin?

  And those are things to not rush into. You wanna make sure if you're single that you are going into marriage on your terms. Not because your family's pressuring you, not because your friends are already married, those are terrible reasons.

• 1:17:30Lewis Howes?

  Not because she or he is pressuring you to get married.

• 1:17:31DeVon Franklin?

  That's right. That's not because they're pressuring you to get married.

• 1:17:33Lewis Howes?

  Or else they're gonna be angry at you.

• 1:17:34DeVon Franklin?

  There you go.

• 1:17:35Lewis Howes?

  Don't do that.

• 1:17:35DeVon Franklin?

  No, you're doing it because it's what you wanna do. Because you are living free and you are choosing this as the next evolution of your life.

• 1:17:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. It's tough though when everyone's pressuring you, right?

• 1:17:48DeVon Franklin?

  It is, but you know what? You got, again, this is, this is, this is, this is how you think about pressure and that type of pressure. So.

• 1:17:56DeVon Franklin?

  You go shopping, right? Everybody go shopping, you go shopping. And you're trying a lot of stuff, you know, you were, people were like, oh, try that on, try that on, it looks great, it looks great, it looks great. Right? And everybody said, oh yeah, get that, get that, get that, get that. And they go ahead and they're like, okay, yeah, so I should, I should wear that, I should get this, okay, great, yeah, wonderful. So all these clothes that you have just tried on, now they're at the register. And then all those people leave the store. And there you are.

• 1:18:20Lewis Howes?

  Do I really want these things?

• 1:18:22DeVon Franklin?

  But you're gonna have to pay the bill.

• 1:18:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. You gotta pay the bill and do I want this thing right now?

• 1:18:26DeVon Franklin?

  So, so everybody that pressured you to try all this on, they're gone.

• 1:18:30Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:18:31DeVon Franklin?

  They're gone, they went on to their lives.

• 1:18:33Lewis Howes?

  You gotta pay the debts.

• 1:18:34DeVon Franklin?

  You gotta pay the debt.

• 1:18:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:18:35DeVon Franklin?

  You gotta deal with the, you gotta deal with what you just bought. So when you think about marriage, if you're getting that kind of pressure, you gotta ask yourself.

• 1:18:46DeVon Franklin?

  At the end of the day, I'm gonna be responsible for this. And if I acquiesce to the pressure, whoever is pressuring me, they're gonna go live their life. And you are gonna be stuck dealing with the repercussions of a decision that you did not exercise full control over.

• 1:19:04Lewis Howes?

  Is there, how many people do you think have marriage remorse? Like buyer's remorse? How many, how many marriage, married couples have that like a day or a week later like, oh, I really didn't want this?

• 1:19:16DeVon Franklin?

  Um, I, I think it's more than people know. You know, because, because it could, we go back to expectations.

• 1:19:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:22DeVon Franklin?

  There's this expectation that marriage itself is going to make you happier.

• 1:19:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes, it's not.

• 1:19:28DeVon Franklin?

  It's not. It doesn't. It doesn't. If anything, marriages reveal how much more work you need to do.

• 1:19:34Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:19:35DeVon Franklin?

  So unless you are ready to do that work and you're ready to take it on, sometimes marriages can actually inflame dissatisfaction. Because you, you have to then face you. That's one benefit of marriage is that you have to face yourself. You, you, sometimes we run our whole life and then we finally get into marriage and it's like, oh, so this is where I, this is who I am. This is what I'm about. And so you've gotta be willing to do that work.

• 1:20:02Lewis Howes?

  When you got married, what was the one or two things that you realized, oh, this is who I am, or this is what I'm still facing?

• 1:20:09DeVon Franklin?

  Um.

• 1:20:09Lewis Howes?

  That I get to work on, that you were like, maybe you're running from, or you didn't even think it was there?

• 1:20:14DeVon Franklin?

  You know,

• 1:20:17DeVon Franklin?

  it's like, again, I, I think, I think when I got married, part of it was

• 1:20:25DeVon Franklin?

  having too much consideration for the public. And I don't necessarily mean, you know, because we're in the public eye, I don't mean like the general public. I'm just saying like the public of our families and other people. You know, I did, I think that I, when I was thinking of marriage, I, I was having a consideration about, oh, okay, we live this way, or we do these certain things, thinking about how that would be perceived.

• 1:20:51Lewis Howes?

  Man, that's a lot of pressure, isn't it?

• 1:20:52DeVon Franklin?

  Totally. But then, so as I got into it, it was like, oh, no, and it got nothing to do with anything public. This is all personal. The, the, the marriage, the, the quality of the marriage has everything to do with what happens between us and how we do that. Period. End of story. Everything that happens out there will only be, uh, uh, an outgrowth of what happens here. So kind of breaking that, that, for me mentally, even thinking about others, family, anyone else, giving that consideration. No, let me give consideration to her, let her give consideration to me and let's give consideration for the union. The other thing that was eye-opening,

• 1:21:28DeVon Franklin?

  and this, this may sound really kind of trivial.

• 1:21:32DeVon Franklin?

  It it brought me to a revelation that I'm an individual. You know, like, oh, yeah, I'm married, but I'm still me. I'm still me, I'm still me, and I still have to do the things that that that that make me happy.

• 1:21:51Lewis Howes?

  That fill you up.

• 1:21:51DeVon Franklin?

  That fill me up, you know, and that was that was because again, I'm going into marriage thinking like, oh, yeah, we're gonna do this together, we're gonna do that together. We're gonna do this together, you know, and and and as some of those things that I thought we were gonna do together didn't happen.

• 1:22:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:05DeVon Franklin?

  And still don't happen.

• 1:22:06Lewis Howes?

  Those things or you don't like those things.

• 1:22:07DeVon Franklin?

  Exactly. Then I I was left to reconcile, like, oh, I'm still an individual. Okay, right, so so, okay, so we can't do those things together.

• 1:22:20DeVon Franklin?

  Does that mean I don't do those things? But I want to do those things. So coming to a revelation that I'm still an individual, even inside a marriage. It was a big revelation, it was like, oh, and it came with some pain. You know, it came with some like frustration because I I was like, oh, okay, right, okay, I guess I still have to, you know, live life. Right, I still gotta go on my journey, you know, and okay, if there's certain things that she doesn't want to do with me, you know, and there's certain things that I don't want to do with her, that I have to be okay with her still doing those things.

• 1:22:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:54DeVon Franklin?

  And she needs to still be okay with me doing that these days. And that, ma'am, that was that was tough, that was tough, because again, the idea is like, oh, you know, you you found your partner and, you know, we're gonna do everything together and we're gonna go, and it's like, not always.

• 1:23:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:08DeVon Franklin?

  But does that make it less than? Does that mean that there's less love? No, what I've learned is that love expands when our capacity to accept each other expands.

• 1:23:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, gosh, that's huge.

• 1:23:22DeVon Franklin?

  It is so easy to love someone when they fit your narrow definition of what they should do. It's easy. Somebody does everything you want, I I love you.

• 1:23:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, you're perfect, you do everything I want.

• 1:23:35DeVon Franklin?

  There you go, but can you love them? The more they don't, can you appreciate them for becoming their full self? That to me is love. The more I can accept somebody for who they are, the more I can really say I love them. Because if we accept somebody for who they are, we're also accepting things that they do that we can't stand. Let's just be honest.

• 1:24:03DeVon Franklin?

  Right? And again, it goes back to living free. If I live free, I gotta give everybody else a chance to live free. Especially in a relationship. And that's where people get it mixed up. Even if someone is married to you, you don't control them. They don't control you. They have to have the freedom to experience life and become who they are, obviously within the confines of their commitment. And you have to have the experience to to live life and and experience that freedom, obviously, in the confines of their commitment. With your agreements and everything, yeah. Correct. You know, this idea, you know, it's like singleness is taught like, okay, when you get married, two halves become whole. And that's like, but that psychologically, it's like, no. Two holes. Become three. Right.

• 1:24:45DeVon Franklin?

  You know, you're you're bringing your whole self and there's a new entity, but that but you're still yourself. And so you have to service the entity and you have to also still service yourself. And that love grows the more you say, okay, you know what? I accept. I accept. I accept. I accept. When you talk about, you know, God is love. God loves us through all of our imperfection. Through all of our craziness, all of our, you know, madness, all of our up and down. There's no like, oh, at point, God no longer loves. No, I love you. Period. So when we practice that kind of love, right? That's when we really. Cause, cause going back to something we talked about earlier.

• 1:25:32DeVon Franklin?

  If anybody really wants to heal in their life, if anybody really wants to go to the next level, practice this type of love.

• 1:25:41Lewis Howes?

  Acceptance.

• 1:25:42DeVon Franklin?

  Yes, even if I'm, even if it's time to let somebody go.

• 1:25:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:25:45DeVon Franklin?

  I'm gonna do it in love.

• 1:25:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:48DeVon Franklin?

  Because I've realized that, you know, this doesn't work, and here's why, because I'm doing this and I'm going here, and that's okay.

• 1:25:56DeVon Franklin?

  You've actually given me a great gift, because maybe I would have never done this work if I wasn't with you for this period of time.

• 1:26:02Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 1:26:02DeVon Franklin?

  And maybe, you know, you, you took me as far as I could go, and I've taken you as far as you can go. Right? And maybe there's another situation for both of us.

• 1:26:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:26:12DeVon Franklin?

  But I'm going to let you go, or I'm gonna move on in love. I'm not moving on in hate, I'm not moving on in anger, I'm not moving on in bitterness. It's love. Right? Because I love you so much, I don't want to contribute to your life in a negative way any longer. And I love me so much that I don't want you to contribute to my life in a negative way any longer. But I'm doing it from a place of love. If you really want to go to the next level, man, it's all about that.

• 1:26:38Lewis Howes?

  That is, it's true, man. I have a few final questions for you.

• 1:26:42DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:26:44Lewis Howes?

  Let's say there's a, someone watching or listening who's single right now. A lot of people, it seems like, are single in the world that want to find someone. And they get caught in the trap of, oh, this makes me feel good, and this person looks good on paper, or I could see a, a future for us. But they haven't gone through the mess with that person yet. They're on the first date, first couple of months, everything's fine. What would you say are three questions that you should ask the person you're dating? To see if they're even potentially going to be the right fit long-term. Three, three questions where you would get the information, if they were 100% honest with the answers.

• 1:27:21DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 1:27:22Lewis Howes?

  You would get the information you need if this is a potential good workout.

• 1:27:26DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 1:27:26Lewis Howes?

  Worth investing in.

• 1:27:29DeVon Franklin?

  Where are you going?

• 1:27:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:32DeVon Franklin?

  What do you see?

• 1:27:35DeVon Franklin?

  Like, so where are you going in life? Like, I just, what are you, what are you, where are you, what are you going? Like, what's your, what's your destination? Like, what are you pursuing? What's your purpose? That's the number one question. Where are you going? Because, because here's, here's the thing. Too often in, in dating and singles, the first instinct is about me. I wanna know, is this person right for me? How do you determine that? Instead of asking a selfish question, you wanna know where they're going. It's like an Uber, right? You put in the destination, cuz you know where you wanna go. Yeah. You would never get in an Uber that's going a place you don't wanna go. So the first thing you do when you get an Uber, they say, you say, "Hey, are you the right person?" "Okay, yes." "Okay, great, so now I know I'm gonna go where I need to go,

• 1:28:19DeVon Franklin?

  cuz I've, cuz I've checked that to begin with." Too often, we're so worried, like, "Does the person like me? Do they care about me?" Before you even worry about that- Are they going the right place? Are they going in the same direction? You know, what do they value? So number one, what, where, where are they going? Two, you gotta ask the question, what do you see? So what is that about? You wanna get into their head. What is their vision for their life? How do you perceive the world? Or what do you see for your life? What do you see for your life? What do you see for your life? Do you see yourself married? Do you see yourself with kids? Do you see yourself living in this city? Or do you see yourself moving to another city? What do you see? And then the third question is, what do you think about me?

• 1:29:02DeVon Franklin?

  Interesting. Because those first two questions, when you hear those answers, you may not even ever need to ask the third. Right. Because you could decide, oh, you know what? This person's going in a direction that I don't wanna go. They're seeing stuff I don't see. I don't need to ask what they think about me. I've actually learned that maybe this is not the right person for me. Okay, cool. But the third question, the reason why I reserve that to ask yourself last is because you need to have these other ones first. And then you need to ask that person when you say, "Hey, what do you think about me?" That's a vulnerable question. But you need to know.

• 1:29:42DeVon Franklin?

  And just, man, in the dating situation, people can hide. It's so easy when you get infatuated with somebody to hide, right? And you don't ever want to ask, you know, what do you really think? Because you're afraid if you ask that question, you know, the whole thing is up.

• 1:29:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, because they can say, well, you're a lot of fun, but I don't really see this long term.

• 1:30:01DeVon Franklin?

  You need to know that. As soon as you start to have feelings for this person, you need to know that question.

• 1:30:06Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 1:30:07DeVon Franklin?

  Because then, as a person who lives free, you then can make the decision if you want to continue.

• 1:30:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:30:14DeVon Franklin?

  So if you decide to continue, this person says, hey, you know what? I only see this as a physical thing. If you have that information early, then if you're as an adult, you can make the decision. Okay, you know what? Fine. This person sees this only physical. Fine, I will keep going. Or you know what? No, I don't want to do that. But don't be afraid to ask the question.

• 1:30:31Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 1:30:32DeVon Franklin?

  Don't be afraid. Where are you going? What do you see? What do you think about me? If you ask, if someone's single right now, ask those three questions, it's going to change your dating life right now. Because there are people right now that are watching this. They're dating someone who is manipulating them and they don't even know it.

• 1:30:51Lewis Howes?

  Because they haven't asked the questions.

• 1:30:53DeVon Franklin?

  Because they haven't asked the questions. And the person they're dating, it's so easy to show up and say, oh, I love you and think about you. But no, no, what are they really thinking about what's really going on?

• 1:31:04Lewis Howes?

  And you're living in the expectation world. If you're not asking the questions and communicating, you're having expectation. Oh, they're hanging out with me because they want to be with me long term. That's not true.

• 1:31:13DeVon Franklin?

  It's not true unless you ask the question.

• 1:31:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:31:16DeVon Franklin?

  And listen, listen. And listen, I've been married nine years. Before that, I was single for a long time. As men.

• 1:31:28DeVon Franklin?

  As men. Right. In general. Come on. As if any woman watching this, you better ask these men these questions. Seriously, and if you're a man, you gotta ask your woman some questions. Because it's so easy to get into a situation. And if then if they don't ask, then you don't tell. Right. So you could be with somebody for months and you're thinking one thing. And they say, hey, well, if they didn't ask me if we were, if we're exclusive, then. It's not on me. It's not on me. Yeah, it's not my fault. Not my fault. I'm just having fun, hanging out. Having fun. Or just dating. Just dating. Yeah. Right, so, so any man, any woman listening to this, you gotta start taking control of your life. And asking the hard questions, why? Because it's either cry now or cry later.

• 1:32:13DeVon Franklin?

  Or years of pain. Yes. And frustration. Because, which, man, not, not only, not only years of pain. But there's certain pain is with you for a lifetime.

• 1:32:25DeVon Franklin?

  You could have, in, in a few months, you know, asked some questions, got some clarity and made some decisions. But if those questions were never asked. And you're in that situation for years. And it never was gonna work. You could live with that pain for the rest of your life. That's what's at stake, man. And so I would encourage anyone, you know, start taking this seriously and ask the questions and. Whatever someone says. Is a reflection of them, not you. Don't take it personally. Don't take it personally. Yeah. Period. I mean, you know, I, I talk about this in the book, there was a.

• 1:33:07DeVon Franklin?

  One of the, uh, the only real time I got my heart broke was, you know, this one girl I was dating. And, uh, you know, we, I thought, I thought we were gonna get married, right? And, and let me tell you, it didn't happen and I was devastated, man, I cried and everything. I was like, oh man, I can't believe it. This, this was years and, I mean, you know, decade before Megan and I even met.

• 1:33:27DeVon Franklin?

  And what I realized, and at that time when I, when that hurt, I felt rejected, I felt less than. You know, I struggled like, I'm like, wait a minute. You know, and dealing with Mr. Perfect and vulnerability and I was vulnerable and it didn't work and. I was just like, oh, I don't know how to deal with this. And so for years, I internalized the breakup. That it was an indictment on me, I'm not good enough. I am not good enough. I don't have what it takes. I'm not lovable. All of this I internalized. And it took years for me to realize. That was a reflection of her. And where she wanted to go and what she wanted. Nothing to do with my adequacy or inadequacy.

• 1:34:08DeVon Franklin?

  So if someone is dating and they're afraid of rejection, if they, if that person decides to move on, it's not, they're not being rejected. That person is deciding, I want this and that's where I want to go. Don't internalize it. Don't take it in as if you aren't good enough because it's not true. It's a reflection of what that person is going through, not an indictment on what you are.

• 1:34:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so hard to do, but.

• 1:34:33DeVon Franklin?

  Hard.

• 1:34:33Lewis Howes?

  Set yourself free when you can do it.

• 1:34:35DeVon Franklin?

  You do.

• 1:34:36Lewis Howes?

  You gotta live free.

• 1:34:38DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah, man.

• 1:34:39Lewis Howes?

  Uh, speaking of live free, people gotta check out your book, Live Free, Exceed Your Highest Expectations. And when I went through this, it's really a book about setting expectations with yourself and other people and making sure that there is no expectation that is unsaid.

• 1:34:56DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 1:34:57Lewis Howes?

  You know, because when we have an unsaid expectation, it's gonna hurt you and the other person and the relationship.

• 1:35:02DeVon Franklin?

  Absolutely.

• 1:35:02Lewis Howes?

  Whether it be career, business, family, intimate, whatever it is.

• 1:35:07DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:07Lewis Howes?

  Never expecting something and you break it down, give lots of examples. Had a lot of, a lot of different pages that I really liked. Uh, your expectations must be communicated and I love this quote that you added from Brene Brown. Compassionate people ask for what they need. They're compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.

• 1:35:25DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 1:35:25Lewis Howes?

  And when we have those boundaries, we're not resenting other people.

• 1:35:28DeVon Franklin?

  You got that right.

• 1:35:29Lewis Howes?

  You also say, anything we suppress, we empower, which I think is, you know, we empower that, that thing to continue to like live within us.

• 1:35:37DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 1:35:38Lewis Howes?

  And it takes over our body, our mind, our emotions, everything. We suppress that. That's why. You know, I like to talk about sharing your shame and you don't have to share it publicly.

• 1:35:47DeVon Franklin?

  I love that.

• 1:35:48Lewis Howes?

  But sharing it to a priest or a therapist or a friend that you really trust. Sharing that allow you to set that free.

• 1:35:55DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:55Lewis Howes?

  And be more empowered, not by the shame, but by your purpose and your mission moving forward. So anything we suppress, we empower.

• 1:36:03DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:04Lewis Howes?

  Lot of great stuff in here. I want people to get the book. The pressure to live up to what isn't real. There's a lot of powerful stuff in here that will help you in your life. It'll help you in relationships, but just whether you're a single relationship or not, it'll help you in your life. So make sure you guys get a few copies. My man, Live Free, Devon Franklin. You guys gotta get the book. It's powerful. Couple final questions for you.

• 1:36:27DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:36:29Lewis Howes?

  Before I ask these final questions, people need to follow you on Instagram. I love your Instagram content. You gotta do more of the, um, maybe I just haven't seen it in the last couple of weeks, but you used to do a lot of the kind of praying, right?

• 1:36:41DeVon Franklin?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:42Lewis Howes?

  Selfie prayers.

• 1:36:43DeVon Franklin?

  I do it. I do it. It's been about two weeks, but yeah.

• 1:36:46Lewis Howes?

  I didn't see it recently, but.

• 1:36:47DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:48Lewis Howes?

  Powerful stuff. I love that stuff. Devon Franklin over on Instagram. Devon Franklin Twitter, Devon Franklin Official on Facebook, but everywhere Devon Franklin, check you out. You got a bunch of other books as well.

• 1:36:59DeVon Franklin?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:00Lewis Howes?

  Check out the other books. A lot of good ones on relationships. This is a question. I've been asking people that I really respect and admire.

• 1:37:11DeVon Franklin?

  Okay.

• 1:37:14Lewis Howes?

  So I'm gonna ask you who are in, who are in seeming healthy relationships.

• 1:37:19DeVon Franklin?

  Yes.

• 1:37:20Lewis Howes?

  Can only see from the outside what's actually happening, but which is a whole nother conversation about is there actually an amazing marriage out there that doesn't have challenges? After a decade, I don't know. It doesn't seem like there is, even though someone could put something online, but behind the scenes.

• 1:37:35DeVon Franklin?

  Right.

• 1:37:36Lewis Howes?

  Whole nother conversation. That's the next podcast.

• 1:37:37DeVon Franklin?

  Okay, okay, good.

• 1:37:40Lewis Howes?

  What is the thing, the question I ask is what is the thing about your wife that you love the most?

• 1:37:45DeVon Franklin?

  Oh, okay. It's a good question. That's a very easy question. You know, I love her freedom. You know, she has always been someone, you know, who always has prioritized her freedom in her desire and commitment to be who she is. And to live life, you know, in the way that she sees it and do it on her terms. And, uh, and I love that, you know, because I haven't, I'm not, I haven't always been that, you know, as, as we've been married, I have been shedding and working towards, you know, living freer. Um, but she has always been someone who has done that. And I, I look at that and I admire it, man. I admire that about her, just her ability to live her truth, to be fearless, to, um, be free in that way, you know?

• 1:38:29DeVon Franklin?

  Cause you know, uh, again, I've gotten freer over the years, but when we first got married, especially, you know, I was very like, you know, perfect, everything had to be, you know, like, hey, we gotta get everything in order here, you know? Um, and, and that has some value to it, but, uh, I certainly wasn't free. You know, in terms of living my truth and just being okay with who I am, no matter what people may think about that. Um, but she's always done that and I've always admired that about her.

• 1:38:53Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Yeah. It's good to know. This is a question that you've answered before, but I'm going to ask it again. It's called the, the three truths question.

• 1:39:01DeVon Franklin?

  Okay.

• 1:39:03Lewis Howes?

  And if people want to hear the previous three truths, you have to go back. We'll link up the previous episodes. You can see what

• 1:39:08DeVon Franklin?

  Right. I don't even remember what I said in the last one.

• 1:39:10Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. So this is a hypothetical scenario. Imagine it's your last day on earth, many years away from now. You can live as long as you want to live, but eventually you gotta turn the lights off. And you go to the next place. And for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your written work, audio work, video work with you. So everything you've ever said, this book, any book you ever have, it's gotta go with you to the next place.

• 1:39:32DeVon Franklin?

  Okay.

• 1:39:33Lewis Howes?

  So no one has access to your content anymore.

• 1:39:37Lewis Howes?

  But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true. If you take out a piece of paper and write down your three truths, which would be the biggest, three big lessons you would share with the world that you learned. This is all we would have to remember you by. What would you say are these three truths for you?

• 1:39:51DeVon Franklin?

  I probably would repeat what I wrote in last.

• 1:39:57DeVon Franklin?

  Oh, man.

• 1:40:00DeVon Franklin?

  Here's what I would say. God is love.

• 1:40:07DeVon Franklin?

  Faith works in Jesus' sake.

• 1:40:13DeVon Franklin?

  Those would be the three things.

• 1:40:15Lewis Howes?

  I like it. I'm looking at the previous ones. They're similar, but not the same.

• 1:40:19DeVon Franklin?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:40:19Lewis Howes?

  So if people want to hear the previous three truths, go check that out.

• 1:40:22DeVon Franklin?

  I love it.

• 1:40:23Lewis Howes?

  Uh, Devon, before I ask you the final question, I want to acknowledge you, my man, for always being real with me. I love our friendship, even though we don't get to hang all the time. Every time we come back on, I'm just like, man, I want to spend more quality time with you. I appreciate the, the effort and the energy and the attention, the detail you put into your work, into your words, into your books, into the movies you make. Everything you do is at such a high level. And I really appreciate and acknowledge you for, for being an inspiration and also for being real about relationships and your own personal relationship. I think

• 1:40:58Lewis Howes?

  every relationship's got its own challenges, different seasons of life with challenges. And for you to be open about it, you know, in a respectful way, uh, is, is really inspiring. So I acknowledge you for, for constantly doing the work yourself in marriage, in relationships, and being open about it. I think it inspires the rest of us guys.

• 1:41:17DeVon Franklin?

  Thank you, man. Hey, we in this together.

• 1:41:19Lewis Howes?

  We're in this together, man.

• 1:41:20DeVon Franklin?

  As my uncle used to say, who was, uh, my pastor growing up, he said, "I'm just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread."

• 1:41:27Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, man.

• 1:41:28DeVon Franklin?

  Hey, we all try to pick this thing up.

• 1:41:31Lewis Howes?

  Give me a couple crumbs.

• 1:41:31DeVon Franklin?

  Give me some.

• 1:41:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, give me some loaf. Uh, okay, man. Uh, final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:41:39DeVon Franklin?

  My definition of greatness is

• 1:41:43DeVon Franklin?

  peace and proficiency. What I mean by that is when I think of those who are great, they are incredibly proficient at what they do. And in the midst of that proficiency, they're able to tune out the pressure and find the peace of their purpose and whatever that may be. That when you really see the greatest of the great. They are extremely proficient. And they have that peace in the midst of it. And that's what makes them great and makes all of us say, wow.

• 1:42:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:24DeVon Franklin?

  You know, one of the greatest of all time, obviously Muhammad Ali, who's, you know, inspiration to the world. You look at his proficiency in the ring. But then you look at his peace to say, hey, take the title. I'm not going to compromise who I am. And then the proficiency to get it back.

• 1:42:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:42:44DeVon Franklin?

  And the peace to tune everything out. Everybody said he couldn't do it.

• 1:42:49DeVon Franklin?

  When I look at those who are impacting the world in a great way. I see a combination of both. Because you're, you look at people, you say, how can you be that proficient? And that peaceful?

• 1:43:02DeVon Franklin?

  To me, that's greatness.

• 1:43:04Lewis Howes?

  My man, Devon Franklin. Thanks, brother. My brother, man. Appreciate you. Always powerful, man. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, then make sure to share this with a friend that you think would be inspired by this, someone that you think this would be helpful for them in their life, that would help them improve, give them a nugget, some inspiration, a tool to really improve the quality of their life. This is all about spreading the message of greatness to more people. And you can do that by just texting one or two friends or posting it on social media. Make sure to follow Devon Franklin over on Instagram and everywhere else. He's a great, great guy. I'm always inspired by his content, so check it out if you want to be inspired as well. Tag him on social media on your story when you're listening to this episode. Let him know that you're listening. And make sure to subscribe to the School of Greatness podcast over on Apple, Spotify,

• 1:43:47Lewis Howes?

  and leave us a rating and review on Apple if you want to help us spread the message of greatness to more people. Share in the review section, your biggest takeaway from this episode. And if you want more inspiration and motivation to keep you on track with your goals every single week, then text me and join my texting community list. You can text the word podcast to my cell number, six one four three five zero three nine six zero to get on that list. And I want to leave you with this quote from Brene Brown, one of my favorite guests on the show, who said, owning our story can be hard, but not nearly as difficult as spending. Our lives running from it. Who? It's all about owning who you are, what you've been through. Not feeling guilt and shame, but shining the light on the shame you've experienced

• 1:44:32Lewis Howes?

  so that it no longer haunts you, so that it no longer makes you feel weak and scared and unworthy. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. I'm so grateful for you, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.