Why You're Afraid to Share (And What It's Costing You) | Leslie John

Leslie John drops a finding that stops most people cold: couples married an average of 12 years guessed what their partner was thinking and feeling correctly only 20% of the time. That gap between how well you think you know someone and how well you actually know them is where relationships quietly break down. It's the same dynamic playing out in friendships, at work, and in families everywhere. You think you're saving people discomfort by holding back, but what you're actually doing is building a wall you can't see. Leslie walks through the science of "disclosure decisions," the hundreds of small choices you make each day about what to say and what to swallow, and what it costs you over time when the scales tip too far toward silence. Learning to share with the right people, at the right moments, with the right context isn't just good communication. It's how you build the kind of relationships that actually hold. The Greatness Playbook: The Communication Mastery Edition Leslie’s book Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing In this episode you will: Discover why undersharing, not oversharing, is quietly destroying your closest relationships and what the research says about the real cost of silence. Understand how "mind reading expectations" create a hidden trap in romantic relationships and learn the simple shift that breaks the cycle before resentment builds. Learn the one question that can open any conversation with a guarded partner and why leading with your own vulnerability is more powerful than finding the perfect words. Recognize how the things you leave unsaid pile up into a weight that erodes your self-respect over time and what it takes to start speaking your truth again. Apply the science of the feedback sandwich, including what the research actually found about which part matters most, so you can deliver hard truths in a way people can actually hear. For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1893 For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960 More SOG episodes we think you’ll love: Lewis Howes & Martha Higareda Matthew Hussey Stephen Chandler Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Have you ever walked away from a conversation wondering if you shared too much? Or have you stayed silent in conversations to not share because you're afraid of what your partner or your friend might think of you? If you've ever wondered what you should share to your boss, your coworker, or your intimate partner to make sure you have the best relationship, this conversation is for you.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  In long-term relationships, why do they fall apart? Well, there was a study that looked at people who have loved each other for years and years and years. They brought the couples into the lab and they got each person to try to guess what their spouse was thinking and feeling. And they were wrong 80% of the time.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  Really? She's a Harvard Business School professor, award-winning researcher and author, who has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, where she teaches the art and science of communication. Leslie, thank you so much for being here.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Another thing that really compounds the issue here is a concept called mind-reading expectations. It's really insidious because those of us who have mind-reading expectations, we implicitly believe that our partners should just know how we feel. They should just know that we had a bad day and that we're upset just by like the way we look or something. When they don't respond, then we get upset. When if we had just said something, "I had a shitty day, I'm exhausted, can I have a hug?" Right?

• 1:23Lewis Howes?

  What happens to a person inside of them when they decide not to share what's really going on? When those things start to pile up?

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Well, okay, so the first...

• 1:36Lewis Howes?

  I'm excited because you've been studying the art of undersharing and oversharing, and the power of why we should be more vulnerable in our sharing and share more versus being silent. And when we are silent in relationships, in... Relationships with people in our lives, it actually can hurt us. And I'm curious, why does it hurt us being silent in relationships, undersharing, or not being vulnerable?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05Lewis Howes?

  Versus oversharing in relationships?

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Right, right, right. So there is such a thing as oversharing, like TMI is alive and well. But again and again, I've found that the greater issue is undersharing. We worry way too much about TMI and we don't worry enough about TLI, too little information. And where this, so relationships is where this, it plays out in all domains of life, but in relationships.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  One of the things we see, it's really sneaky because when you say like, share more, open up, we're like, yeah, yeah, share, open up. It sounds great, right? But as I wrote the book, the, the, writing the book itself for me was amazing therapy. Um, I love my therapist, but like, it was, it, it, it changed me. Um, and one of the ways it really changed me was what I learned about in relationships. So,

• 3:04Speaker 01

  in long-term relationships, why do they fall apart? Well, they, it's not usually some dramatic affair. I mean, that can happen and it's horrible, but they, more often they break down because of a slow distancing. It's kind of like you start off, you know, the old analogy, you've got your two boats and you're like a degree off. And so at the beginning and then, and then if you never course correct, you just end up, you do nothing.

• 3:33Lewis Howes?

  Is this in friendships, coworker relationships, or intimate relationships?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  It is, I mean, all relationships, but I would say particularly romantic relationships. And here's the reason. So.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  What happens is when we are in a long-term romantic relationship, we do know the person better with time, right? The longer you've been with someone, the more you know their values, their traits. The problem, though, is that our confidence that we know them outmatches, outpaces our actual knowledge. And that's where the problem begins, right? Because if you think you know your partner better than you actually do, then you assume you know, you stop asking, you do the same, you assume that you know you, you stop sharing. And that's, of course, where the problem begins. Because if you stop sharing, uh, you just stop learning about each other. And then, then you get all these kind of little, little spats that emerge and...

• 4:28Lewis Howes?

  So you need to keep oversharing the longer you're in a relationship?

• 4:32Speaker 01

  You need to keep asking, keep answering. And, and here to make it more concrete,

• 4:38Speaker 01

  when there was a study that looked at people who have been, loved each other for years and years and years. So like, the average, the average length of marriage was like 12 years. And what they did was they brought the couples into the lab and they got each person to try to guess what the other person was, what their spouse was thinking and feeling. And they were wrong 80% of the time.

• 5:04Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:05Speaker 01

  These are people who have loved each other for 12 years. Like, neither of, neither of my marriages has last, has been that long yet, you know? And like, and, and they just, and, but they, they thought they knew, right? And so, another thing that really compounds the issue here is a concept called mind-reading expectations, which is, as it sounds, I mean, it sounds crazy. It's like, of course you can't read my mind. When you say it out loud like that, however, it's really insidious because those of us who have mind-reading expectations, we implicitly believe that our partners should just know how we feel. They should just know that we had a bad day and that we're upset just by like the way we look or something. And so then what, because our partner can't read our mind, when they don't respond, then we get upset.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  And then, then we do the stonewalling, right? So then it's just this compounding of errors. When if we had just said something, I had a shitty day, I'm exhausted, can I have a hug? Right? We express our needs. And so, the people that, the people have a high mind-reading expectations. It's actually a trait, interestingly, it's pretty stable. Some are high, some are low, I'm high.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  So the, the, um, the people who have the, they, it's associated with lower relationship quality, lower length of relationships, but there's hope because self-awareness, right? There's actually a scale. I have one on my website that you can assess yourself. I am very high on it, but once I learned that and there are questions like, my partner should just know what I'm thinking. My partner should respond without me having to say anything. And once those items were presented to me so starkly, and I filled it out, it said, you have very high mind reading expectations. I changed a lot. I realized I need to say, what feels like over communicating is just communicating.

• 6:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  And, and, and my marriage is like, it was already good. Second marriage, I had a starter marriage. So the second one is like not making the same mistakes and, um, and it's just gotten so much richer.

• 7:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Okay. So you've been married twice.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 7:05Lewis Howes?

  You're still married.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:07Lewis Howes?

  But how long were you married for the first marriage?

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Five years.

• 7:10Lewis Howes?

  Okay. And how old were you when you got married?

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Twenty-eight.

• 7:13Lewis Howes?

  Twenty-eight, five years. So divorced around thirty-three, I guess, right? Um, why did that marriage end based on the research you've done in your book?

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 7:25Lewis Howes?

  Now that you have wisdom, I'm sure it's a collection of things. This isn't a therapy session, but why do you feel like based on this conversation and this research?

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:33Lewis Howes?

  What would you have done differently? Even if it was still the wrong match or there wasn't the right fit or whatever. I mean, maybe some of this stuff happened, but what would you have done differently before getting married to see if it was the right thing?

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Definitely. I mean, looking back, well, number one is I was too young, twenty-eight. I did not have the emotional understanding of myself that I do now. A lot of people do when they're that age, but I did not. Emotions, I love my family. You're like, you're starting a sentence to buff them up. I did have a happy childhood, but we did not talk about feelings or emotions. And so I, I, I'd never. I remember when I was going through divorce, the divorce in my thirties and my therapist said, how do you feel? And I started listing cognitions, like thoughts. And he's like, those aren't feelings. And like, well, okay, I'm sad. He's like, can you be more specific? Finally, he handed me this thing called

• 8:26Speaker 01

  an emotions wheel, which helps you. It's in my book. It helps you realize the multiplicity of emotions and it helps you understand yourself better. So, so, so that's kind of where like, why I say I was, I was too young emotionally.

• 8:39Lewis Howes?

  So you didn't feel emotions? Or you blocked the emotions?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  I thought that was a joke. Sorry. I did feel emotions. Everybody has emotions.

• 8:45Lewis Howes?

  But you couldn't, you couldn't communicate.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  I couldn't communicate. I didn't understand my emotions. I didn't honor my emotions. I didn't validate them. If I was feeling something uncomfortable, I'd be like, I just dismiss and not even engage with them. Um, I didn't have an emotional vocabulary. I didn't know the differences between like disappointment, frustration, anger, sadness. Like it was all like bad, good, right? Like I'm a recovering emotional literate. And, and so that, that didn't help matters. I mean, so I guess the main reason is me in that like these, I would never, he's a wonderful person, but I never, I never should have married him. Um, and I think that

• 9:28Speaker 01

  part of this emotional understanding of oneself, like I'm a huge EQ is like where it's at. IQ is great, but says Harvard professor truly like EQ is, if I could choose one or the other, hands down, I would choose EQ and I wouldn't have said that 10 years ago.

• 9:45Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Um, so.

• 9:47Lewis Howes?

  It's so interesting because most of my childhood, I probably had the lowest IQ of everyone.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  But the highest EQ.

• 9:52Lewis Howes?

  Well, I learned through suffering and feeling like I was so stupid. And I was in the bottom of my class all through like elementary school, high school, college, I was in the bottom because they would great, they would rank us.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  And so I would always see myself in the bottom four. So it just reconfirmed, oh, I'm stupid.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:10Lewis Howes?

  I don't, you know, I can't figure this out. No matter how hard I tried, it was like, I'm not gonna be smart. But then what I would do is I would just observe people all day long. And study people's behaviors. And watch, why are they reacting that way? And I would just sit there and people watch all day in school, all day out of school. I would just sit there and, you know, not like a creeper, but I would just be like observing people all day long.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  And I was constantly reflecting on why did they respond this way?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  And when I asked this question, why did they do this with their face? Why did they lean in? Why do they? And so I became a really good observer and a really good listener. And so it's interesting because it's talking about the power of oversharing and revealing yourself. But I became a really good listener and like just kept following up with, tell me more, tell me more. Why this? Why that? And by doing that, I was able to build great relationships with people and understand where people were coming from. And I think when you understand more where people are coming from, they feel connected. And when you feel connected, you feel safe, you like people more, you want to hang out with them more. And you create opportunities with each other, whether it be in friendship or work or whatever it might be.

• 11:18Lewis Howes?

  And so it's probably why I got into this show because I'm asking questions.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  So let me ask you this. Do you ever find, did you find, do you find this pattern of?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  To be honest, people liking, seeming to like you more than you like them? Like people wanting to hang out with you more than?

• 11:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes, this season of life for sure. I mean, for many years, when I didn't have friends and when I didn't have, you know, a business, when I was kind of getting into the the working force or the business world.

• 11:52Lewis Howes?

  In order to create opportunities for yourself, you need to know lots of people. You know, if you're starting a business, you need to get customers and clients. You need to put yourself out there. And meet everyone essentially that you can and, and offer services and help and, you know, free things to people to get in the door. Then once you get clients or you have a business or whatever it might be, uh, I realized like I was giving too much to too many people. And I had no energy for me.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:19Lewis Howes?

  And I didn't feel like I was receiving in return from enough people. So I became an over giver, overshare, over people pleaser.

• 12:28Lewis Howes?

  Because I wanted everyone to like me.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:29Lewis Howes?

  And I wanted to feel safe emotionally.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:32Lewis Howes?

  And then it took the last like seven years, like a swing of me learning how to create better boundaries, learning how to heal deeper, to not feel like I need everyone to like me.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  Constantly give to everyone.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  That's so important realization.

• 12:44Lewis Howes?

  And by doing that, by creating these boundaries, it kind of, you know, as I've reclaimed that energy.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 12:51Lewis Howes?

  And I've put it into the people that I care about the most. And it doesn't mean I don't speak to people if they reach out.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 12:57Lewis Howes?

  But it's like, I learned to say no a lot more than when I was, you know, my twenties and early thirties.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Because one of the ways that I think of that saying no is what are you saying yes to? Like when I say no to meeting with a new doctoral student at five o'clock at night, I'm saying yes to playing with my kids at five o'clock.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Right? And so once I thought about, it's like so empowering thinking about that. The reason I asked that question about the potential asymmetry of liking or connectedness is that you naturally, I mean, you do this now for your job, but from a young age, it sounds like you were really curious and you were asking questions. And when you ask people questions, they get to disclose to you. And when people reveal to you, people love revealing. Like it turns out, I know some people might be like, what? I don't like revealing. You do like revealing in certain contexts. I will tell you data. But, um, you know, you're expressing interest in them and you're giving them attention and they get to share and revealing, um, not, I'm not talking about like tricky conversation stuff, but revealing your hopes and dreams, your preferences. It actually activates the pleasure centers

• 13:58Speaker 01

  of the brain. So it literally is enjoyable and, and that fosters trust. And so, um, it, uh, I was thinking of a, um, a funny, a funny situation where, um, one of the ways, things that this can kind of go wrong, where we see asymmetries of sharing. So a very healthy sharing to build relationships, friendships, colleague ships, romantic relationships is the dance of reciprocity. I reveal something, you, you reciprocate, maybe raise the ante of it. And it is this beautiful unfolding, um, gradual escalation together.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Sometimes it goes awry for various reasons. One of the funny ways it can go awry, well funny because I'm going to tell a story at my expense, you're welcome, is when you, so if someone reveals a lot to you and you don't reveal to them, you sometimes one can feel like they, let me say it differently, parasocial relationships, these are so brutal for this. So Jerry Seinfeld, I love Jerry Seinfeld, I've watched every episode of Seinfeld. I feel like we, like he knows me because we mistake the fact that I know a lot about him from, well, his, his professional perspective, and he doesn't, but he doesn't know anything about me, but I feel like we're friends. And so one time when I was at

• 15:18Speaker 01

  a theater with my husband, I, at the intermission, I saw Jerry, first names, and his wife. And I just impulsively walked up to him, like, hey Jerry, like, we're old friends.

• 15:31Lewis Howes?

  You have no clue who you are.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's like, and, and he obviously, I was like, oh my God, I immediately regret this decision because then I've suddenly took his perspective that, oh wow, like this is some crazy stranger lady, it must happen to him all the time. And so he has a thing, what he does is, he says, good to see you, good to see you. And he just keeps walking like as fast as you could walk without a calling it running. And so there's kind of some wonky things that can happen sometimes. But what I wanted to, the, when we were talking about, you had started with the like, getting married, what happened, and I think it speaks to this important point about emotional intelligence and how, like you, growing up, you really understood people because you observed and you're curious and you got better communication skills.

• 16:18Lewis Howes?

  I think I understood people because I felt very deeply. And I didn't have any friends and I felt very... Incapable of of being smart based on my results in school.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 16:31Lewis Howes?

  So since I felt deeply and I I allowed myself to be in a suffering state internally constantly.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Yes, oh.

• 16:39Lewis Howes?

  Like, what's wrong with me? Why am I here? What's the point of this life? Kind of like this ruminating thought and feeling of like, I sucked, I'm bad, I'm wrong. I'll never be as good as anyone in my class, let alone in the world.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:50Lewis Howes?

  What's the point of being alive? This type of rumination.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:54Lewis Howes?

  And I think because of that, I eventually got the courage to say, okay, let me, let me reflect on why do I feeling this? And let me try to learn.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:05Lewis Howes?

  If I can't learn in school, let me find ways to learn outside of school. And that's human dynamics, human behavior. And why do people think and feel and act and speak and walk and talk the way they do?

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Fascinating.

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  Let me just watch them in a reserve.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  And try to learn from human dynamics and behavior.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:21Lewis Howes?

  And so as a, I guess as a Harvard Business Professor, what I'm hearing you say is that you think EQ is way more valuable than IQ.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Completely.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  But most people in the world are trying to become smarter at something and accomplish more degrees and more credibility. When that's not the answer.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  I know. I'm not doing much for our sales of our degrees. I know, but we have like increasingly courses that are like, the courses that are really popular for the executives are leadership, communication. But it's so frustrating because the MBAs, like the the lowest ranked course is often the leadership course. And then they come as alumni and they're like, I wish I paid attention because everything is psychology, everything is communication.

• 18:01Lewis Howes?

  Now, here's a question for you. Do you feel like people should get married if they have a low EQ?

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that question. Love, love.

• 18:11Lewis Howes?

  If you have a high, if you're really smart and intelligent, you have a high IQ, but you have a low EQ. Should you get married?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  This is tricky because I do think you need to understand yourself to get married. You need to understand what you want. Um, and that is.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  EQE, right?

• 18:27Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  But I also think that, so I-

• 18:32Lewis Howes?

  Because you essentially said you had high IQ but low EQ.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Right, right, and I should not have gotten married.

• 18:36Lewis Howes?

  Before getting married, because you didn't know yourself emotionally.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Correct, correct.

• 18:39Lewis Howes?

  But you probably knew on paper or analytically what you wanted. I want to be married. I want to have safety. I want a home. I want a guy who's got this job or looks a certain way. So analytically and on paper, you knew what you wanted.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. But I think even that's still, that's analytical, but it's also superficial. And I think that asking yourself like, what are my goals? Uh, do I want children? What are, like, where would I like to live? What do I want my days to look like? Those are things that really matter in a relationship that aren't like super deep, touchy-feely emotions, understanding yourself in that way. But they're still understa- there are still really important things to understand about yourself and your partner. And I think people, I know that people differ a lot in relative strengths than relative dominance of IQ and EQ. You know, I, in academia, um, I can say this as an academic, like IQ reigns supreme, too supreme in my view.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Um, and really to, at the expense of EQ in many cases. And tons of my academic friends, they're wonderful people, they're happily married, you know? And I, so I think it's like you got to find your match, right? And for me, I am a very cuddly, touchy-feely person. Um, and so that was a really important part of me that I hadn't honored and understood. Um-

• 20:03Lewis Howes?

  Wait, so, okay, I'm confused now because you had a high EQ, low EQ before getting married.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:08Lewis Howes?

  Which were more in your head, but now I'm hearing you say you're a touchy-feely, emotional, feeling person.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  I am a feeling person for sure.

• 20:14Lewis Howes?

  But you weren't back then, is what I'm hearing.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Um, no, but I, so what I was back then is I was, I wasn't in touch with myself, right? I would dismiss my feelings. I would dismiss my needs. I would say-

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Like the things that I wanted in a guy like I wanted now I can say it because I'm aware of it. I wanted the like swoon worthy like just that exciting, the romance like I wanted that, but I dismissed it. I like I shut it down. Why? Well, lots of things about my upbringing and you know, I don't want to drag things in, but, but so that's what I mean. Does that help make sense?

• 20:53Lewis Howes?

  Of course. Yeah, yeah.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  But I also think it's really interesting. We were talking initially a little bit about being parents. Oh, my gosh, I, I just wouldn't change that for the world. It's so grounding and so amazing. And I, um, so I think about this a lot. I'm like, my parents did a great job in so many ways. Like, look at, look at where I am. Um, and you feel like my theory is parents, you can't be perfect. You do your best. Every parent screws their kid up in some way. My goal is to not screw my kids up in the same way that my parents screwed me up. And so with my kid, but now I might be over correcting, but it is informed on data. So with my children, my boys, I'm very

• 21:36Speaker 01

  like, how are you feeling? Like, I'm trying to get them and, and they can now, they can articulate their emotions. It's insane. They're like, I'm feeling disappointed. I'm feeling frustrated. I'm feel like more sophisticated than just the basic ones. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is amazing. Um, and so I'm really trying to nurture that so much so that it's interesting because when my mother, my mother is incredibly bright and she back in the day, you know, she was born in 1949 and back in the day IQ reigned even more supremely and she skipped at least two grades. And she always did amazing in school. She's a pharmacist, super successful in everything,

• 22:18Speaker 01

  but she struggled in other ways, more subtle ways, which I learned recently, like in the past few years, as I've deepened my relationship with my mother. And I think my theory on that is because, imagine this, you're, you're, you're two or three years younger and you're a girl like teenage, teenage girls are just so harsh. Like, that would have been so hard for her when you don't have the like emotional maturity. And so my son, he's just turned five and we've done the opposite. We've held him back a year and be and my mom's like, why did you do that? Like, she respects it, but she's like, He's really smart. He doesn't. And I'm like, yeah, he's super smart. But the emotional maturity, I want him to be able to

• 23:01Speaker 01

  deal with difficult feelings, process them like, so anyways, I digress.

• 23:07Lewis Howes?

  There's something about this you said earlier about the mind reading expectations.

• 23:12Lewis Howes?

  You know, in male female intimate relationships, who has higher mind reading expectations of the other?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Oh, so I would guess that I would guess that women have higher mind reading expectations.

• 23:26Lewis Howes?

  And when someone has a high mind reading.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  But not by much.

• 23:30Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Well, when someone has a high mind reading expectation of their intimate partner.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:36Lewis Howes?

  Expecting them to know what they think and feel at all times.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:39Lewis Howes?

  Or when they're feeling some emotions they don't like.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:44Lewis Howes?

  What does that do for the relationship when someone has high mind reading expectations of their partner?

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So it's brutal. Um, speaking from experience. So it, it, what it means is that you have unreasonable expectations, right? And then it sets you up for disappointment because if you implicitly, and that's the thing, it's all implicit, like you don't even recognize that you're making these assumptions, which makes them even more insidious. So if you're feeling crappy one day and like you want, you want, you just want your partner to come and give you a cuddly hug. But you don't say that. There's no apparent outside show of it. Then if your partner doesn't do that, you're like, he doesn't love me.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  He's a callous, he's callous jerk. Like what is, and you come up with all, and you're in your head, right? And so what these high mind reading expectations has taught me is to notice this and to be like, Colin, I'm feeling really crappy. I need a hug. And.

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  Not, not saying it in a way like, gosh, why don't you just hug me already?

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 24:50Lewis Howes?

  Cause then he's like, I didn't know.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Right. And then, and then we talk about it. And then I'm like, so for me, if in doubt, cuddles and love. Like I don't need like problem solving. I just very tactile and um.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  And it's interesting because that then opened a conversation with us about how he said, because I had always thought a little bit like, he's kind of aloof. I know he loves me, but he's a little, he's not goo goo, like cuddly wuddly like I am. And he said, you know, the reason why I have, I have a thing, a bit of a complex because, like you, he's a really tall guy and he also was a professional, um, professional soccer player and he, so he was very sensitive about being overbearing to people and, and with personal space and he'd never want it because he's so classy and so like, you know, never wants women especially to feel uncomfortable. So sometimes it can come even with his own wife

• 25:45Speaker 01

  as, as, as like standoffish. And so that was so interesting. I never, like if I hadn't asked, I never would have guessed that because I'm, I'm not, I'm, I'm not like that. So it's really, really important because also when you share, when you say how you feel like it, it is a conversation too. And then, then that you become more intimate because you know each other so well. And study after study has shown that feeling known for who you really are, like warts and all, is such a strong predictor of strong relationships.

• 26:21Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. In fact, um, so suppose, okay, so suppose I have low self-esteem and on the one hand, in one situation, my husband would, if he says, oh, um, you know, you're such a badass goddess. You like, you're so together and confident and you're really great at what you do. Um, another version is, I know you struggle sometimes with self-esteem. Um, and, and not even saying it's okay or anything, but just saying what I am like. That is so much more strongly predictive of a strong relationship than when someone idealizes you because you want to be known. Like, isn't that so much more meaningful that even though if I had low self-esteem, he still loves me.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  He's like, he knows me. It's not like some fake, I'm not an imposter in this relationship. Yeah.

• 27:10Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting. I mean, do you feel like you were vulnerable in previous relationships?

• 27:14Speaker 01

  No, that's the other thing is I, I was not.

• 27:17Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 27:17Speaker 01

  I was not.

• 27:18Lewis Howes?

  So you just kind of held your emotions to the chest?

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:20Lewis Howes?

  You weren't sharing what was on your heart or mind and like?

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:23Lewis Howes?

  What sad things you were going through?

• 27:24Speaker 01

  And I, I think it was for me. So I think when people undershare, there's often two things. One, the bigger issue, which is what I had is lack of emotional awareness of oneself. Like I did not know what I was feeling. I didn't understand myself. Which sounds crazy because it's like even the thought of needing to understand myself, like I am me, I'm the cells in my body. Like, why don't we come with the built in understanding, but we don't. So the core, that's the core issue is not understanding yourself. And then the second is people who really do understand them. This is like my husband. He really understands himself, but he's very reserved. Um, but when someone just doesn't share, you don't know which is which. Um, so in my case.

• 28:04Lewis Howes?

  Until you share, you know more.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

• 28:07Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:09Lewis Howes?

  So when you just start to have a, I guess, an emotional breakthrough where you were like, okay, I'm realizing that this is who I am. I'm being more aware that I have had this upbringing, which is, maybe we don't say we love you enough or ever, or we don't talk about our feelings, or it's just toughen up or don't cry. And you're just like.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Stiff upper lip.

• 28:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, get through it like, ah, just.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Work hard and you got this. Yeah.

• 28:31Lewis Howes?

  Keep going or do better.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:33Lewis Howes?

  I can relate to that in some ways, but it's like, when did you have an emotional breakthrough where you said, oh, again, it doesn't mean my childhood or my parents were bad or wrong. They just stand up the tools to teach me these things. I need to learn how to emotionally evolve.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:46Lewis Howes?

  So that I can have better intimacy relationships with my partner, with my children, with friends.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a series of things. Divorce was amazing.

• 28:59Lewis Howes?

  That'll break you open.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't think enough people get divorced.

• 29:04Lewis Howes?

  I don't think people should get divorced. I think you should go through a process of onboarding your relationship. So you're in alignment with the right values.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  That's the best.

• 29:12Lewis Howes?

  And it doesn't mean it's always gonna work out.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  That's the best.

• 29:15Lewis Howes?

  But doing that before saying, let's just get married.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. The state of the world, unfortunately, we are not psychologically enlightened enough, myself included, to be making. So in that, I just think that people are in marriages that they shouldn't be in. But obviously, I'm biased. So like, I'm at the point now where I'm super grateful to my ex-husband because I never would have met Colin. I know. But yeah, I mean, one of the divorces is a big thing, which prompted a lot of self-reflection. I had a great therapist who was really helpful, but it made me start to, you know, unpack why, what it was, why I married this person, what went wrong. But then also-

• 29:58Lewis Howes?

  Do academics go through therapy?

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Secretly?

• 30:04Lewis Howes?

  But if you're so smart, you have such IQ-

• 30:06Speaker 01

  No, but EQ, we're the ones that need it, right?

• 30:09Lewis Howes?

  I'm not. You said it. Not me.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  We are the one, like, oh, my God, therapy is the greatest thing ever. That and exercise, like, for well-being, I think. But you have to get the right therapist, right?

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  But then there was, I think, like, there was, like, I had some really close friends who helped me in processing what I wanted. And then I also, the huge thing, I mean, this is all just all developing. It's all an emotional, it's all a journey. But I learned something that really, really helped me, really just occurred as I was writing the book. Because I, I, cut me off if I'm rambling.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  Go ahead.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Okay. So before I got married to my first husband, the month before, I had second thoughts. And I had second thoughts because I-

• 31:20Speaker 01

  I was like attracted to other men, like super attracted to other men. And I thought, I mean, I know like, yeah, that people are attracted to people, but like, it was like, I wanted to act on it. And I'm like, this is not, this doesn't feel right. And so I called my mom and I, I said, I expressed the concern and

• 31:43Lewis Howes?

  That was courageous and oversharing that.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, but that's how lost I was. I'm like, I don't know what to do. Uh, that I, then I actually said this to my mom. Um, we're, we're pretty close, but uh, this was a big deal. So

• 31:57Lewis Howes?

  To tell her that you want to act on, you know, being with other men before your marriage.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  I told her that. Yeah. I, right. Which is kind of a big deal to say to your mom. Um, so she said, huh, you know, it's interesting because before I married your father,

• 32:15Speaker 01

  I had second thoughts too.

• 32:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  And, um,

• 32:21Lewis Howes?

  In your mind, are you thinking your parents should have stayed married?

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Well, so no. So then I'm like, whoa. And then she said, but you know, she said, uh, the reason I had second, like you, I really enjoyed my flirtation. This is how she totally how she'd say it. I really enjoyed my flirtations with other men. Um, but I'm so glad I married your father.

• 32:43Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Because look at how happy we are. Look at the lives we've built and, and I really do believe they're truly happy. Um, I wouldn't be happy in that marriage, but they are very happy. And, and she said, you know, the like, physical stuff, that the like, really, I can only think of it in my words. So that's why I'm like, she wouldn't say the way I would say like, I'll rip your the physical stuff, it wanes. Um, what you, what you have, what we have is like the mature, long lasting love. And so then I was like, oh yeah, I have the mature love. And so I went ahead with it and I got married and then, um, yeah, I spare you the details, but it was not a good marriage. We got divorced and then

• 33:30Speaker 01

  once I

• 33:31Lewis Howes?

  When did you know it weren't meant to be together in the marriage? Like right after getting married?

• 33:36Speaker 01

  No, I was, it was a joyous day and like the first year, but then after the first year I, it was like, this is

• 33:42Lewis Howes?

  Like life settled in and you're like, this is not it.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  But it would go in waves, right? Cause it's hard. It's a hard thing. Divorce is the kind of thing that's crazy painful in the moment. Like even if it's totally the right call, it's so hard to do because it's so painful, even when it's right.

• 33:58Lewis Howes?

  You guys have kids together?

• 33:59Speaker 01

  You perpetually know.

• 34:00Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  But that was also a thing where like I never, that was revealing to me that.

• 34:04Lewis Howes?

  Didn't want to.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Right, right. Okay. So then I, okay. So then I'm divorced and then I get this email few years after I'm divorced. My brother adds me to an email chain and he says last, check, check out what's at the bottom. And so it was between my parents because my brother does their finances and at, but at the very bottom, so they had added my brother on and they'd forgotten that at the very bottom of the email, it's a convo between my mom and my dad about my mom going to her lover's house. I know. And I'm like,

• 34:40Lewis Howes?

  Whoa.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  I'm like filled with rage because.

• 34:44Lewis Howes?

  They lied to you about it.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Exact, because I immediately went back to that conversation. I'm like,

• 34:49Lewis Howes?

  You lied.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  You undershared. If you, it would have been better for you to have said nothing than for you to have told me half the story. Like, how dare, like, I would never have married that man if you had, if you had told me that the way you compensate is by this, which works for you. And like, I'm not mad. Like, I'm hap, like, it's, it's, it's consent. It's all fine. Like, whatever. Lots of different relationships. But I know for me, that is not, I, I crave like monogamy. And, and so I just felt so misled. I was so angry about it, but I never said it to her. I just kind of lived in like.

• 35:25Lewis Howes?

  Have you told her now?

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Well, so then I'm writing the, I'm literally writing the book and I'm like.

• 35:30Lewis Howes?

  That's a big betrayal in a sense.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  I think, exactly. And I always felt, you know, and over the years, like, so I held on to this for like 10 years. And so over the years.

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  You never spoke to her for 10 years about it? You saw and you didn't address it?

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Right. I know. See, like, avoided. But then like I was, the, the rage kind of went away and then I got remarried and.

• 35:48Lewis Howes?

  You still had like this resentment problem.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  And I, but I kind of like, and so then.

• 35:52Lewis Howes?

  You're good at stuffing your emotions.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Too good. Working on it. And so then I'm literally writing the book and.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  The book I wanted from chapter three, a story of someone who like there was undersharing and they didn't realize at the moment. And then if they'd only known and like, it's the kind of story that's hard to find, right?

• 36:13Lewis Howes?

  You're like this.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  And then I was then in like I

• 36:16Lewis Howes?

  Deep in my suffering of my soul that I've stuffed down.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  There's something there.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  It's always in the middle of the night. I woke up and I'm like, oh my God, I have stuffed this down. I've never talked to my mother about this. She doesn't know that I know this and that I feel this way and that I felt such, I didn't feel such intense rage anymore. But I'm like, how can I write this book? Like, I don't know if I'm putting the story in the book. That was a whole other series of conversations.

• 36:38Lewis Howes?

  But I need to address this myself.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  But I need to address this myself. Like this book is completely hypoc- if I believe what I'm writing, I gotta do this.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  So I did it. I had the convo with her.

• 36:48Lewis Howes?

  And you called her or face to face?

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Face to face.

• 36:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Big glass of scotch. Um, I know you're like

• 36:55Lewis Howes?

  To mask your emotions.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  I don't say that. In extreme situations, like I am human.

• 37:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Um, and so

• 37:03Lewis Howes?

  Still weren't really to really face it.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  You didn't got that out. Took some creatine.

• 37:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  And, and I said

• 37:12Lewis Howes?

  You sat down face to face. Did you say, hey, I have something I want to tell you. Let's meet? Did you just meet and say, okay, now?

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Well, I think it was like, no, I was now, I don't think I gave her warning.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So you just met up?

• 37:24Speaker 01

  How do you, I'm going to ruminate. So I just was like, let's just do it.

• 37:27Lewis Howes?

  You met up and then how did it?

• 37:28Speaker 01

  We were relaxed. The kids were in bed.

• 37:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And then what? You said, hey, listen, 10 years ago, I saw you.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  How dare you know? I said to her, I did think about how I was going to open it. And I said, um, what, do you remember that phone call before I married?

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Uh, my first marriage? And she said, yes. And she like this, this knowing, but it wasn't, it wasn't defensive. It was like a knowing warmth. She's like, yes.

• 37:57Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  And I've always wondered whether I said the right thing.

• 38:00Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  And I'm like, oh my.

• 38:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  And, and then she, um, you know, I told her how I felt. And then she's like, wow. And she said, you know, I can totally appreciate that. But at the time, I actually did not think I was omitting anything. And this is part of

• 38:19Lewis Howes?

  She didn't think she was omitting.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  She did not. And this is part of the point. So often, the thought of sharing something doesn't even occur to us. She didn't even think of it was relevant, right?

• 38:28Lewis Howes?

  Had she known, they're like, oh, yeah, you can get married and have a lover later in life.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  We are giving her a lot of benefit of the doubt, but, but, um, I, I, it was just like so like curative to, to talk to her about it and to tell her how I felt. And then I realized like, you know, but like, mom, what were you supposed to do? It's the month before your, my wedding, like you were in a tricky situation too. And like, so, and then I realized it's as much my own, like, well, I'm the one that didn't honor what I really want in a mate. Like, you know, so I can't.

• 39:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's not all her fault.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:01Lewis Howes?

  One thing that she could have said would have changed everything.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then like

• 39:04Lewis Howes?

  It's not on her to make the decision.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  You've got to make the decision. You're 28 also. It's not like you're 17.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Exactly. I'm a grown ass woman. Yeah.

• 39:12Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. So you can't put it on her.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly.

• 39:14Lewis Howes?

  Even if she said, uh, you know, we have a great relationship and we have some fun on the side. You probably still would have gotten married.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  I, I know. I say I wouldn't have, but I probably would have convinced myself because it's like the, it's so hard to call it off then, right? So, yeah.

• 39:29Lewis Howes?

  So I'm curious, then what happens to your self-respect or anyone's self-respect? When we don't express our truth to someone else, when we don't?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that.

• 39:39Lewis Howes?

  Cause you didn't share for a decade.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:41Lewis Howes?

  How you felt.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that.

• 39:43Lewis Howes?

  What happened to your self-respect?

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:45Lewis Howes?

  In that 10 year season?

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:48Lewis Howes?

  Of stuffing the emotion.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, I think that the stuffing of the emotion, right, it doesn't, it, it's not honoring yourself. It's a disservice to yourself. It's this theme of like not, like, it's like avoiding yourself and not coming to terms with tricky things. And it's hard coming to terms with tricky things, but on the other end, like I had that like Guinness Book of World Records, most awkward conversation with my mom and like, we are closer than ever. Like, we had this amazing convo after that made, like during this whole thing, it was like two hour conversation. We, and, and, and things that I had felt alone in, I suddenly didn't feel alone in. For example, we, we talked about love and what she thinks love is and what I, like, it was fascinating.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  And, and, and I said, you know, mom, I, when I had Oliver, our firstborn, when they put him on my chest, I didn't feel like goo goo gaga love towards him. I felt duty and responsibility and I felt curiosity like, this is an alien human that just came out. Like it was very cognitive.

• 40:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  But I've always felt, I had always felt a little ashamed of that because I'm like, so many moms are like the, a different way. They're like, oh my God, my, I need to nurture it, which is great, but I didn't feel that way. And she said, I felt the same way. I didn't, you know, it came after. Once I, now I'm like super goo goo gaga mom. I kiss their feet. I kiss their bombs. I'm obsessed. But it came after for me. And so it was just a wonderful conversation of, and, and that's what happens when you open up. You're less alone. Um, but on the self-respect issue, I also think that when you say hard things to other people. So for example, a great, a great case here would be giving difficult feedback to someone, right?

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Um, as an entrepreneur, as like you often have to give difficult feedback to people, I would imagine.

• 41:39Lewis Howes?

  Is it important to give difficult feedback to people in your life?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Yes. A hundred percent. It's a gift. It's a gift. Because

• 41:46Lewis Howes?

  What if people can't receive?

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Right. Well, that's where being a good feedback giver is.

• 41:52Lewis Howes?

  Even if you give it and you're like walking on your tippy toes, you're like, you know, and you say five compliments first, but this one thing.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  And they're just like heartbroken. Like,

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:00Lewis Howes?

  You could still try to give it the best way, calmest way, empowering them, lifting them up.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:06Lewis Howes?

  Sandwich, one little note of like what they need and then add something else and still people may not be able to receive it.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  True. Um, I guess I'm a big believer in the skill of delivering feedback.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Um, sure, there are people that are so defensive and so insecure. Um, and so in a hard place in life that they just can't take it. But that's also part of the feedback giver's role is like, is this the right time for this person? And you have to be patient.

• 42:36Lewis Howes?

  Yes. And if you wait and never

• 42:38Speaker 01

  It's too late. No, no, I know. It's great.

• 42:40Lewis Howes?

  It could be a month later and like, oh, let's wait till a better time. There may not be a better time. Like you've got to share.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 42:46Lewis Howes?

  And get them to share.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Right. And I think that, so some of the ways, what you said about respect, I think is really wonderful because I think that's a great way to frame difficult feedback. I know we've heard of this feedback sandwich. You said it.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  I've actually done research on the feedback sandwich because I viewed it with contempt because I'm like, this is BS, like the sandwich, just because by the time you get to the middle, if you put compliments everywhere, people are going to forget. So I actually, with my bestie Allison Brooks, a colleague, we did studies on this where we are, we are varying the order of feedback to see if the sandwich, because we were, it was like I viewed it with contempt, we're like, screw this.

• 43:25Lewis Howes?

  So what, so what is the best way to give feedback based on your research?

• 43:28Speaker 01

  The sandwich works.

• 43:29Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 43:30Speaker 01

  We were like tail between our legs. The most important thing, it's the end doesn't matter. The end actually, positive at the end, isn't so important. It's starting with the positive and, but that can mean a lot of things. I love the respect because you can say, look, I respect you, I owe it to you. You deserve my, the honest truth here, right? Like, that's a great frame.

• 43:51Lewis Howes?

  Because I respect you.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 43:53Lewis Howes?

  I don't give you continual feedback.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  I'm being.

• 43:55Lewis Howes?

  That I don't care.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  I'm not being kind. Kindness is, is.

• 43:59Lewis Howes?

  Wanted to see you grow, wanted to see you.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. And I am, so I'm the official bad guy at HBS because, I know, I don't look like a bad guy, I don't think so, but, um, but so I am the chair of the academic performance committee. So whenever MBAs get enough bad grades, for whatever reason, they come before my committee and they have to kind of make an appeal to continue on.

• 44:18Lewis Howes?

  Office constantly. Well, first off, I would have never even gotten into Harvard, but I would have been there, I would have been in your office constantly.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Um, and so I have evolved in the way I handle these meetings because, so the people, they're upset, they're like, why did I, why am I having to leave or why am I having to take exercise or whatever? And my initial approach in these meetings, they ask a question and I answer it and I'm like, here's why. But that's such a terrible, like it puts it on a like defend and here's why you, nah. And now, and it never went over well. And now what I do is the first 20 minutes of the meeting. I don't say anything. I let them talk. And if they try to ask me why, I just ask them back. Like, they need to talk. They need to tell me how they feel. They don't know they need to do this, but they need to be heard. So I hear them.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  And then, after I've heard them, I also learn more about them and I learn more about how I may actually be able to help them. And then it's super constructive because we get into like what we can actually do. Um, and so I think that sometimes when we give difficult feedback, we think we need to be more active. But like, just, just listening, there's so much value in people just, they need to, they need to get it out to you. Even if you already know what they're going to say, the action of them telling you is incredibly important.

• 45:34Lewis Howes?

  So interesting because I essentially have one, I don't know if it's a rule, but before me and my wife got in a committed relationship as we're dating, not, not marriage, but when we're kind of dating, I said, listen, I'm willing to, you know, I'm willing to commit and go all in. It was like a big decision to like get in another relationship after I'd had many relationships that were challenging. I'd done a lot of healing work. And I was like, listen, I'm willing to commit and go all in with the intention of getting married in the future, with the intention of having kids in the future, creating a family, not just date to date.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:10Lewis Howes?

  But I was like, okay, we're starting to learn each other's values. I'm understanding your values. These are my values. This is what I want for my future. So it was with that context in mind, okay, let's do this, knowing that that is our intention. Not just, we like each other, let's date to date.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:27Lewis Howes?

  I said, I have one condition. Only one. I said, I will never get mad at you for anything. Never get mad at you. If you do, if you do whatever you're going to do, you act who you are. I feel like I know you enough now with the time that we've been dating for a while ago. I won't get mad. I might get frustrated or like annoyed, but I'm not going to get mad at you. I'm not going to yell at you. I'm never going to raise my voice. Cause I'm going to choose to accept you for who you are. I may not like things you do, but I would choose to accept you and create agreements around these things.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:57Lewis Howes?

  And I only have one condition. The condition is you cannot get mad at me if you're upset with me about something. You have to bring me first. Come to me and talk about at least one thing you appreciate about me first. Then we can talk all day long about something that's bothering you.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Disarming, isn't it?

• 47:15Lewis Howes?

  If something is upsetting you or bothering you that you want to talk about, I will listen to you for hours.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:20Lewis Howes?

  I will speak to you and disarm it.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:23Lewis Howes?

  But you just have to, because my whole life is going to be committed to finding ways to improve your life. And if you come to me by one thing that you're upset about.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:35Lewis Howes?

  And you don't just acknowledge at least the good I've been doing for the last three months.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 47:39Lewis Howes?

  Of like how I continue to add value and how I show up and how I'm present, how I listen and how I

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  take us out and do experiences and provide and protect. If you just come to me with the one thing that's bothering you and you don't acknowledge at least one good thing.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:52Lewis Howes?

  I'm going to be, then I'm going to be upset. That's the only time I'll be angry.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:56Lewis Howes?

  And I said, can we agree on this?

• 47:58Speaker 01

  What did she say?

• 47:59Lewis Howes?

  She said, yeah. She didn't understand it at first because like, what if I just wasn't upset about something? I go, that doesn't work for me. And if that's the case, then I'm not the right guy for you. If all you have to do is just say, I really appreciate this. And there's something that's been on my heart that I want to talk about.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  I said, maybe I'm messed up because I'm having that request, but it's going to make me a better.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  You're human.

• 48:19Lewis Howes?

  It's going to make me a better partner. Because you have to understand, in my mind, all day, I'm thinking about how to make your life better. And I'm acting in accordance and I'm committing my life to you.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:29Lewis Howes?

  I'm eliminating every other option in the world to focus on you.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:33Lewis Howes?

  And to create a life that we envisioned together.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:36Lewis Howes?

  And all I ask in return is you don't get angry, upset, or raise your voice at me. Just talk to me. You can be upset.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:43Lewis Howes?

  But just tell me one thing you appreciate first, so that I feel seen for the constant effort that I'm putting in.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 48:51Lewis Howes?

  Versus just, I don't like you did this. I don't like you did this. Why'd you do this? Like, no, that doesn't work for me.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:57Lewis Howes?

  If you need to do that, find another guy.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  And all the best.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:03Lewis Howes?

  And I'll be single and that's okay.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:05Lewis Howes?

  You know, it doesn't mean it's right or wrong. It was my request.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  And I think it's because I had in most of my previous relationships, not all of them, but most of them. I felt under attack constantly for who I was.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  And under appreciated.

• 49:20Lewis Howes?

  Under appreciated, but it's more like just under attack. You know, it's like, why are you doing this? Or why is that? Or why is this? They, I didn't feel understood. And then therefore there was a frustration. Maybe it was a mind reading expectation or whatever it is. Or they wanted me to be a different person. They expected me, once we were together, not going to be a different person, as opposed to this is who I am, accept me.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Warts and all.

• 49:42Lewis Howes?

  Or don't be with me. And that's okay. And I lacked the courage to get out of those relationships. So I just, I changed.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  And then you weren't you then.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  I wasn't happy and they still weren't happy. So no matter how much I changed, they still weren't happy. So I was like, I'm never going to change for you.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Right. Which sounds harsh, but it's real.

• 50:00Lewis Howes?

  But I'm going to improve, I'm going to grow, I'm going to be constantly evolving, I'm going to constantly be healing.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  You will change because we all change, but you're not going to change to your specifications. Yeah.

• 50:08Lewis Howes?

  So accept me, I will fully accept you.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:11Lewis Howes?

  If something bothers me, I'll just talk to you about it.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  So I'm curious, did your wife have any conditions?

• 50:19Lewis Howes?

  No, I mean, besides like, if we're going to be exclusively dating, the intention is we're going to be getting married. And we're, we're getting kids, we're older, we're thirty eight when we met.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 50:28Lewis Howes?

  She was like, I can't waste my time being in a relationship. And so it wasn't more like conditions, it was more like agreements.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:36Lewis Howes?

  And I think I was so clear. We also started the relationship in therapy. I said, I'm not getting a committed relationship unless we start in therapy.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 50:44Lewis Howes?

  She was like, I'm in.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 50:46Lewis Howes?

  So for me, I was like, I don't want to go two years and then it's just like, we're exhausted, or it doesn't work out, or the first year is good, and then.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  I'm a huge fan of like proactive therapy. Everybody can use therapy. Once you're having problems, it's like too late.

• 50:59Lewis Howes?

  No, start with, get, not get all the problems all the way, but like, start with. Healing individually and creating agreements together.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 51:08Lewis Howes?

  To create less issues in the future. It doesn't mean we don't have things we need to overcome together.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 51:14Lewis Howes?

  But I feel like we have this

• 51:17Lewis Howes?

  ability to communicate.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Based on our values and our vision and our lifestyle and understanding each other. So anyways, I got off here, but.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Beautiful.

• 51:25Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious, when a person, what happens to a person inside of them? When they decide not to share what's really going on, they they hide back their feelings, like you held back your feelings for ten years to your mom.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  I know.

• 51:39Lewis Howes?

  If you don't really say how you feel to your partner, what is happening inside of them when this, when those things start to pile up? And I know you have like this.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:49Lewis Howes?

  Demonstration, maybe you can.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. Um, well, okay, so the first.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  I think if we were to to pack, unpack this, the big picture plight of the book is I would like to make visible something that is usually invisible to us. And that's the dozens, hundreds, thousands of disclosure decisions we make every single day.

• 52:17Lewis Howes?

  What's a disclosure decision? What does that mean?

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Right. So I'm going to walk you through day in the life of disclosure decision making. Okay? And sometimes we decide to reveal a thing, to say the thing. But oftentimes we don't. So let's, my point, though, that we'll get to, spoiler alert, is that

• 52:39Speaker 01

  even not saying, even the things we don't say are still a choice.

• 52:43Lewis Howes?

  Duh.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Okay, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna go day in the life, let me get my sharpie, I like a sharpie, sharpie, said like a Canadian, okay? And wanna hold that?

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Okay, so.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Um, okay, here's a day in the life. You wake up in the morning and alarm goes on, you roll over to your spouse. You say, we'll start off cuddly and nice. I love you, dear. So you say that, put that in that one. I love you.

• 53:15Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  And then, and then you're like, oh, I feel like I slept so badly. You just think it.

• 53:26Lewis Howes?

  You don't say it.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  You don't say it.

• 53:28Lewis Howes?

  It goes in the unsaid jar.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, how many times have you got like, you don't want to be whiny. You want to be a buzzkill right from day one. Okay. Oh yeah. Hold them off. Okay. Perfect. Um, all right. So then you go to the, you, you get, you both get up with your spouse. You're in the bathroom. You look at yourself in the mirror and you say, you kind of feel a little disappointed. Because you think, I look

• 53:51Speaker 01

  okay. That's unsaid.

• 53:54Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  And then you say, you think to yourself, I really, I feel

• 54:04Speaker 01

  older than I thought I would at this age.

• 54:07Lewis Howes?

  You think it.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  You think it.

• 54:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  Brushing your teeth. You go down, go down to the kitchen. Kids are mauling about. hubby's making lunch for the kids. hubby says, um, what should I give the kids for snack? And you say, just, just pick something. Just pick something.

• 54:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Not another decision for mama.

• 54:29Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Then you, you know, he's like, what? I'm just trying to make lunch. What are you talking about? What you didn't say is, um, I am on edge today because I haven't slept. I'm really nervous about my work today. I may be, okay, it's a lot of thoughts.

• 54:50Lewis Howes?

  This is unsaid.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Unsaid.

• 54:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  I may be, because of this, I may be a little snappy. It's not you.

• 54:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  Um, that's why I'm snapping. It's not really about the snatch.

• 55:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Um, and, and, and I could use a hug.

• 55:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  So you don't say any of that. You just, you just

• 55:11Lewis Howes?

  Expecting them to understand.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And now he's, now he's pissed because he's like, look at this. She's so such an ungrateful shithead. Like I'm doing this. She could just answer a question. And it's never about that, the, the, the stupid snack, right? It's these things. Okay. So then I'm digressing. Okay. So then you, you get in the car. You drive your kids, you get in the car to drive your kids to school. Your dad calls. He says, oh, I'm driving. I'm on the way to the doctor's office. And what you think is, whoa, 70 year old dad, driving? Has some dementia issues, possibly shouldn't be driving. I'm worried about him. What you say is, hey, let's, uh, let's talk later when, when you're on the car. Dad.

• 55:53Lewis Howes?

  So you said that. Yeah.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you said that. So then you, you get to work. Your assistant says, hey, how you doing? You say, great.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  What you don't say is.

• 56:07Lewis Howes?

  I'm overwhelmed. I'm stressed. Yeah.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  I'm overwhelmed. I'm stressed. So on and on and on the day goes, right? We're mounting up. And, and so you can see that I could go on and on. I won't. But like, we don't need statistics to know that there was a heck of a lot more going into the unsaid.

• 56:25Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Than into the said, and we could even like be huge nerds and look at what these are. And a lot of them are feelings, right? Um, a lot of the things that we don't share are our feelings. And, um, the thing is like this day, this is, this is a pretty banal day. It's not an unusual day. And yet there are so many more things that go unsaid that could be said. I'm not saying that all of these should go in there, not by any means. Um, there's good reasons why we don't share. We, we, we, um, we are busy. We're being polite. We may be being strategic. There's lots of reasons, good reasons to not share.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  But the problem is when we go through life, we default to, we don't even think about sharing, right? Those, I feel old, like. You don't think of sharing that to your spouse. And imagine if you did, they may say, I do too. But you know, but our children, like look at our children, part of being old is enjoying our children. And you know, you could, you can talk to, then you can, you feel less alone. If you tell your boss that, after your boss compliments you after a big, a big presentation that you were anxious about, you say, great, thanks for the compliment. What you don't say is, you know, I was actually feeling pretty anxious before. And I'm really proud of how I did that. And that was so enjoyable. I'd love more opportunities. And then they understand, then it's like career success, right?

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Like you can see how exuberant I am about this concept. Like, of course, there are times like the assistant, you're not going to dump to your assistant that you're overwhelmed. You don't know what to prioritize. Of course not. But um, it's a real problem, I think, that we don't even consider the possibility of sharing more.

• 58:08Lewis Howes?

  But isn't there a flip side to this where people have tried to overshare and maybe it hurt them by they, they really were vulnerable. I know as

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  Man growing up. I remember one time in a relationship, I, I shared how I was feeling and my girlfriend said, you look weak to me. And she said, I know, I know I'm not

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Her problem.

• 58:27Lewis Howes?

  She's like, I know I'm not supposed to think this.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  Oh, good for her. Well, it's great. She shared that then. I take it back, the cattiness.

• 58:32Lewis Howes?

  But it's like, but she was like, she couldn't receive the emotions that I had. It's not like I was like wallowing on the ground emotion. If I was like being emotional, I was having a moment.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:42Lewis Howes?

  And I was showing some emotion. And she's just like, I know I'm supposed to.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:47Lewis Howes?

  Like be okay with this.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:49Lewis Howes?

  But I'm not.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:50Lewis Howes?

  And I think a lot of men have experienced that where they have tried to be vulnerable.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:54Lewis Howes?

  They've tried to maybe they even cried in front of their girlfriend at one point. Whatever reason, they felt a little shift. They felt the change. They felt an energetic, a communicational change. It was like, huh, do I really feel safe around this person, this man, if he's weak? Even if it's just for a moment, can I trust him? So when is oversharing actually hurt you?

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:18Lewis Howes?

  When does it hurt you with your boss? Where you just say, this is actually how I'm feeling. I'm really insecure and scared and nervous.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:23Lewis Howes?

  And then he's like, well, can I trust you?

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Right, for sure. And, and

• 59:27Lewis Howes?

  Do I respect you?

• 59:28Speaker 01

  In that example, there's a key distinction. The example I was giving was after the talk, right? You do not want to say this to your boss, someone who has higher status than you, before the talk. You do not want to say-

• 59:40Lewis Howes?

  Instead of like, "Oh, you're not giving the talk."

• 59:42Speaker 01

  You're not gonna say-

• 59:43Lewis Howes?

  "I gotta do this."

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Right. And in fact, sometimes, if the boss came in for the talk and was like, "How you feeling?" You'd say like, "Great, I'm pumped, I'm excited." Sometimes if you-

• 59:52Lewis Howes?

  It's almost like you're lying.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Well, so it's what you choose to share, because anxiety and excitement are together. It's selective, right? And we're allowed to be selective. We should be selective. We're not, we shouldn't say everything on our mind. And in fact, if you say you're anxious, then you can, it can cause you to be more anxious, right? Like, saying is believing, is, right?

• 1:00:13Lewis Howes?

  So what I'm hearing you say then, revealing, and the underrated power of oversharing is all based on context.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Oh, context is so important. Yeah. And in fact, the people that I think are the best at doing this, at knowing the line between TMI and TLI, which is constantly moving, are people who have what I call a lot of disclosure flexibility. Those are the people who go way open, super vulnerable, and vacillate between that and complete guardedness, because different situations call for entirely different things. I would also say in your example, I mean, there were so many thought bubbles as you were talking about that. It was a really rich one. But sometimes, the answer to oversharing, or feeling like you overshared, is actually to ask questions and share more, right?

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  To say, "Oh, that makes me feel really hurt that you've reacted that way." Because to me, masculinity is being confident with all of the emotions. "I will always protect you," right? Like, or saying like, "Tell me more. What is your, what makes you feel insecure?" Like, right? So it should prompt more understanding. And maybe the answers won't be good, maybe you, and then that's informative too, because you've learned that you're not on the same page and this person is right for you.

• 1:01:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it wasn't the right fit for you, but it was, it was just like, I know a lot of men, I wrote a book about, you know, called The Mask of Masculinity. Eight years ago, I guess it was now, and it was about unpacking my own kind of.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:01:46Lewis Howes?

  Uh, inability to be vulnerable because I felt like I had to fit in in society around men, friend groups with men, around intimacy and relationships with women, around how I was supposed to be as the youngest son, whatever it might be. So it was like the mask that I wore to protect myself emotionally, psychologically in the world, and the mask that men have worn to try to fit in and belong. Now, women have had to wear masks as well.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Different, of a different nature.

• 1:02:12Lewis Howes?

  Different stuff.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  And, and, and one of the studies that really struck me as I was writing the book as a boy mom is a study where with preschoolers, they um, measured their galvanic skin response. So that's how sweaty your palms are, which is a measure of how anxious you feel. And they also videotaped their faces, how much they expressed, how much they revealed about what they were feeling as the children were watching like scary movies. And um, what they found was that the people who, the children who expressed more were physiologically calmer. So they, they weren't, their palms weren't as sweaty. So expression literally was, was calming for them, bottling up on the other side, which you had touched on

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  earlier. Um, it's, it's extremely bad for our, for our wellbeing in many different ways. It's really stressful. And then the, the kicker for me was that by the age of um, like second grade, the boys had, became less expressive over time because they've, they, they learned that keeping it in, being stoic, that's, that's the masculine, right? It's, it's so, um, I'm curious what for you, this mask that you felt you had, did you have certain turning points of like, that really, really were step functions in the mask going away?

• 1:03:32Lewis Howes?

  And taking them off?

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, right around, right around thirteen years ago, at twenty-nine to thirty years old, I. I had accomplished what I thought I was supposed to accomplish, you know, in my twenties by building a business and making millions of dollars and, you know, having attractive girlfriends and having status and having followers and all these things. But I felt more empty, more alone, more unsure and insecure of myself. But others thought I was like figuring it out.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:04Lewis Howes?

  And I had these kind of like three different breakdowns in relationships. That, you know, a business partnership, a girlfriend that was kind of like off and on and emotional and breakup and get back together. And then a friendship that was like all happening with the same season, like a few months, like all these relationships were broke, breaking down.

• 1:04:25Lewis Howes?

  And I was originally like, what is wrong with each one of these people? But I was the common denominator. So I had a moment to reflect and I was just like, oh man, there's something wrong with me. Cause I'm at the root. I'm the common denominator of all these broken relationships. I can't point the finger at everyone. Something is happening where I don't have the emotional skills or I don't have the tools. I'm not creating boundaries or I'm out of alignment with something. And that became, you know, a journey of going through as much emotional intelligence, training, workshops, therapies, coaching for the last 13 years as possible.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:04Lewis Howes?

  And that's when I launched the show.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:06Lewis Howes?

  I launched the show 13 years ago because I was like, okay, I've accomplished success, but I don't have greatness in my life. Like I've accomplished things, but I don't feel great. I don't feel good. So what's wrong with me?

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:18Lewis Howes?

  Let me go ask the experts. Let me humble myself.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:22Lewis Howes?

  And stop being a cocky 20 something year old thinking I've got it figured out.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:26Lewis Howes?

  And let me humble myself and bring in the true leaders of the world, people with wisdom, experience, research, like yourself and say, teach me.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 1:05:36Lewis Howes?

  And through learning, let me share with others and try to help others who are going through a simpler struggle around personal challenges, finance, health, relationships, whatever it might be. So the last 13 years has been a, a dynamic of me being the, you know, the guinea pig of struggle and saying, all right, I'm going to try to be the best version of myself that I can be. I'm going to try to draw my wisest version of my future self to me now.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  And being like a lifelong learner, I think is a really healthy mindset, right?

• 1:06:04Lewis Howes?

  Constantly.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:05Lewis Howes?

  And even at 40, I'll be 43 in a couple of months. And even though I feel like, man, I have a ton of wisdom from the last 13 years or my whole life so far, but it's like, man, I have so much more deeper that I can go to where I can impact people in a greater capacity, individually, group settings, mass audience settings, that there's so much more that I can uncover within myself. And yet I can keep it extremely simple at the same time. I don't have to like, keep going deeper and deeper always. It's like, I can integrate the wisdom and then just impact and serve, serve my dreams and my highest calling, and serve the people around me the best of my ability. And it doesn't mean I'm always going

• 1:06:49Lewis Howes?

  to be perfect and I'll fall from grace and I'll, you know, fall back into old childhood patterns at times.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  But you'll recognize.

• 1:06:55Lewis Howes?

  Noticing it, catching it, and replacing it with a wiser version of myself. And I think that's what doing this show and, and reading books and doing interviews continually reminds me of the things I already know. Usually I don't learn all these like new things that I've never heard of. It's more of like, oh, this research is backing what I know. So let me go farther into this, you know? So that's a lot of what it is. But I think the idea of, there's a couple of things that I'm hearing from you so far that could benefit people. One, if you're expecting someone to know what you're thinking or feeling, just because you're feeling it, you're going to have a bad or challenging relationship and you're going to be frustrated in that relationship. If you're expecting someone to read your mind, even if you show

• 1:07:39Lewis Howes?

  them a little of like disgust in the moment of like, I've got some frustration in my life, they should just know. That is like, and one of the things that my wife Martha has done really well, she knows that I can't be a mind reader. And I'm like, if something is on going on, tell me right away. Don't wait till later in the day. Don't wait till midnight when we're in the middle of the bed about to sleep. Like, tell me earlier.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, being a good elicitor is important too. Yeah.

• 1:08:04Lewis Howes?

  Let me serve you better. You know what I mean?

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Lewis Howes?

  Just communicate a little bit and I can serve you higher. But if we're waiting till 1 a.m. to like, let some dump something on me, when I am not have the brain function, it's going to be exhausting for both of us. So trying to be a mind reader is an impossible job. So communicate more, even just communicate a little bit would go a long way. And this power of Oversharing with context.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:34Lewis Howes?

  Knowing.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Context is huge.

• 1:08:35Lewis Howes?

  Who you're speaking to.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:37Lewis Howes?

  When the timing is.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:40Lewis Howes?

  Is what I'm hearing is also important.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  And I think um, there's also things that we tend to undershare. And I would say the number one thing we tend to undershare are feelings.

• 1:08:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  And for lots of reasons, but if I to try to like people who are skeptical, the feelings, feelings and feelings. Like I'm a skeptic, I was born skeptical. Um, so there's been studies of that have looked at what people regret in life. And one of the studies was led by a colleague of mine at Cornell, Tom Gilovich, who's as brilliant as he is warm. And he discovered, he looked at what are the things that people regret in life? Do they regret the things they do? Or do they regret the things they did not do?

• 1:09:33Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  And it turns out that it's something like seventy six percent of regrets on average are things you didn't do.

• 1:09:39Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  And so unsaid, undersharing, things you didn't do. And then, okay, so clincher on top of that. Then there's, um, I encountered this, um, a book by a palliative care nurse by the name of Bronnie Ware. She wrote a book.

• 1:09:53Lewis Howes?

  I've had her on the show.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, amazing.

• 1:09:56Lewis Howes?

  Five regrets.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Yes. Now, okay, so four out of five of them are things you didn't do.

• 1:10:00Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  Number three, I wish I had shared my feelings more.

• 1:10:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  Right? Like, if that doesn't convince you. And you can think about it like, so I was just talking to the, um, my dear hairstylist and she, she, we were talking about this. She said, you know, we had a PTA meeting, which is like good, pretty functional. Um, and I decided, because I'd read your book, I decided I was gonna share. It wasn't going very well this meeting. And so I decided to share my feelings. I decided to say, I feel frustrated. And she said it was a complete game changer. And one of the re, and suddenly people were like, I feel frustrated too. And how do we, so they, they, it was relatable. Everyone was feeling the same thing or invariance of it. So it, it, it makes it so much more compelling then. Um, another example, which I didn't do this strategically, but.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Showing feelings, showing feelings is so much more compelling. You become more persuasive when you do something with feeling, when you show the feeling. And one example, this was fairly early on when I was dating my husband, my second, my now husband. And we were at this beautiful resort in the Caribbean and there was, I'm a terrible sleeper. I hate that, but I'm just a really, really bad sleeper. And it was, you know, the first night in paradise and it was like, I didn't sleep at all. There was like a party above us. It was hell. Well. It was not good. And, and so then the next morning, so he, he's a little non-confrontational.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  I'm, I can be confrontational when I care a lot. And so I'm like, this is, this is not right. The money we paid. So I go to the front desk and I start saying, and then I couldn't contain my feelings. So I, they were like, no, no, nothing we can do. And then I started crying, not strategically, because I really like, I was trying to not cry. But then that they shifted entirely and they put us in the most beautiful ocean, like on the water ocean cottage. Like, I know it feels like, I wasn't trying to be manipulative, but the lesson to me was like, I don't need to be so ashamed of crying, like crying in the right time and place. It can be a high risk maneuver, but it also is really compelling information.

• 1:12:13Lewis Howes?

  Cause you really care.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:15Lewis Howes?

  It's not just you're frustrated and upset.

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:18Lewis Howes?

  It's like you really were sad.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  It's a true signal, right? It's, it's, it's easy to just complain, but this is a costly signal.

• 1:12:24Lewis Howes?

  So they hear people complain all the time, probably.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Right. And they're like, oh, no, no, she really means it. So, but yeah, so sharing your feelings is something that we, we, we chronically undershare. Yeah.

• 1:12:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And there's a price to not sharing your true feelings.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  Exactly. There are missed opportunities. There's friendships that never blossom. There's romances that never spark. There's colleagues that never quite trust you.

• 1:12:50Lewis Howes?

  What's one question you could ask your intimate partner that would get them to share what they truly feel? If they've been blocking or hiding those emotions for a long time?

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Hmm. That's a great question.

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  I think what I would do, I mean, there's lots of things one could do, but there is a very powerful human tendency, I might even say instinct, I don't use that term lightly, but it, you can actually very, make a very, quite compelling evolutionary case to this. There's an instinct to reciprocate. And so if you, if your partner's more reserved, like my husband, he's a recovering undershare.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  But I'm an overshare. I've had my moments of like, so we balance each other out, but reciprocity. So if you, if you really, instead of like, trying to get the right question, if you share something proactively, you say, I feel, you know, the day we got married, I felt so happy, but I also felt, you know, uncertainty about the future and what our family life and where we'd live. Like if you share something vulnerable, then that's so natural, especially when you're in a loving relationship, reciprocation is like, it feels weird not to do it. And so that's, that's, instead of trying to get the perfect question, that's something I might try.

• 1:14:02Lewis Howes?

  Lead with vulnerability, lead with sharing, lead with something, that's powerful.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:06Lewis Howes?

  Well, I want people to check out your book. It's called Revealing the Underrated Power of Oversharing. And again, I just really believe like, relationships is the key to having a happy life. And powerful relationships come from the ability to communicate how you feel, obviously in the right context. And it doesn't mean you cry all day long if you're sad, but it's like learning how to communicate and connecting and learning how to receive someone's oversharing is what, where the fruit of life is, because it's all about relationships. And if you struggle in relationships, you're going to struggle in your life.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Lewis Howes?

  And this is going to allow you to create more tools to having a powerful relationship. Uh, so the book's called, Revealing the Underrated Power of Oversharing. And people can check your website out, proflesliejohn.com, or the same on Instagram and LinkedIn and social media, proflesliejohn over there as well. I've got a couple of final questions for you. Um.

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  Lightning round.

• 1:15:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. This is called the three truths. So a hypothetical scenario, imagine you get to live as long as you want. And you get to do all the work that you love and all the research you love. And you get to have the experiences you imagine with your, your family and your kids and all these different things. But for whatever reason, on your last day, you have to take all of your work with you. And we don't have access to your books, your interviews, your content anymore. But you get to leave behind one final message. And I call it the three truths. What would be those three things, those three messages, three truths you would leave behind? From all the work and the research and the life lessons that you have.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  I would say.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  One. Is that? We.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  Live in fear of TMI.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  Which we should not. Because the bigger problem is TLI, too little information. Um.

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  The second is that silence is a choice.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  And once you start thinking about silence as a choice, it will really. Open up. Your space because you will realize. How much you can share because you'll realize how much you leave unsaid. Um, and third, I would say. Revealing wisely is a skill and it's a skill that we can all get better at. And like any skill, it requires practice and iteration. So. I would encourage people to try to stretch themselves a little bit more and, and, and that's also. On a meta level, what I've, what I'm doing in the book, right? Like, how can you write a book about revealing and not reveal?

• 1:16:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  So. You know, hopefully I got it mostly right, but it's a, it's, you have to forgive yourself if you, that's part of learning and experimentation.

• 1:17:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's an ongoing dance.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:05Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Well, Leslie, I appreciate and acknowledge you for. One, revealing during this, because I think academics can sometimes hold back.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  And we get gnarled in the science.

• 1:17:14Lewis Howes?

  It's all research and science and it's not going into non-personal life as well. So I really acknowledge you for kind of revealing that about your mom and kind of having this like underlying resentment for a decade plus. But then.

• 1:17:28Lewis Howes?

  This work making you face it and it's created a stronger relationship with your mom, it sounds like.

• 1:17:33Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:17:34Lewis Howes?

  Um, and so I acknowledge you for doing the healing work for yourself while you're trying to create research and academic.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  And raise two crazy boys.

• 1:17:41Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. But that's, it's hard to do if you're a recovering non-sharer.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I also realized as I was writing it that I call myself an overshare, but then I thought it's more performative oversharing. Like I like telling self-deprecating funny stories about myself, but when it really comes to sharing deep feelings.

• 1:17:59Lewis Howes?

  Do you?

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Do I?

• 1:18:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Well, we keep working on it.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:18:02Lewis Howes?

  This is the starting point.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  I'm a lifelong education case.

• 1:18:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes, exactly. Uh, final question, Leslie, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  Uh, um, hmm. It's feeling so comfortable in your own skin and knowing yourself so much that you can get the things in life that you care about and that your, your loved ones care about.

• 1:18:27Lewis Howes?

  There you go, Leslie. Thanks for being here. Appreciate you.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 1:18:30Lewis Howes?

  Time for. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 1:19:15Lewis Howes?

  And now it's time to go out there and do something great.