Why Women Lose Desire Faster in Marriage | Esther Perel

Speaker 1 It's time for Black Friday, Dell Technologies' biggest sale of the year.

Speaker 4 Enjoy huge savings on select PCs like the Dell 16 Plus, featuring Intel Core Ultra processors.

Speaker 5 And with built-in advanced features, it's the PC that helps you do more faster.

Speaker 8 Plus, earn Dell rewards and enjoy many other benefits like free shipping, price match guarantee, and expert support.

Speaker 10 They also have huge deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC and make perfect gifts for everyone on your list.

Speaker 4 Shop now at dell.com slash deals.

Speaker 1 Big moves like a new home or car can be life-changing.

Speaker 12 The right support makes all the difference. With State Farm, you can get coverage that fits your goals.

Speaker 11 Talk to an agent to choose the coverage that's right for you.

Speaker 1 File a claim right on the State Farm mobile app, or reach a real person when you need to talk to someone.

Speaker 4 With options to help protect what matters most, you can focus on the good stuff, like enjoying the ride.

Speaker 1 Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Speaker 3 This episode is brought to you by Facebook.

Speaker 6 Facebook is where real connections happen, a place to find your people, rediscover old friends, and build new relationships that actually matter.

Speaker 11 From alumni groups and local events to marketplace and shared memories, Facebook helps bring people closer in meaningful ways.

Speaker 12 It's where nostalgia meets possibility, reminding us that the smallest interactions can spark lasting connections.

Speaker 2 Let's reconnect this holiday season.

Speaker 11 Explore more with Facebook today.

Speaker 16 There's something really interesting about this country in relation to sexuality.

Speaker 16 There is an enormous taboo on sex education rather than the understanding that it is actually the repression that will unleash a kind of sexuality that is often about smut and titillation.

Speaker 14 A psychotherapist, best-selling author.

Speaker 19 One of the most prominent authorities on relationships, Esther Perel.

Speaker 16 I think there's a number of things in a relationship that become the cornerstones of the demise. Indifference and contempt and neglect and violence.
I'm not talking about big violence.

Speaker 16 Microaggressions are plenty.

Speaker 20 So how do we even get to this place?

Speaker 16 After having been so in love and so romantic, right? There's only two relationships that resemble each other.

Speaker 20 Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. I'm very excited about our guest today.
Thank you so much for being here, Esther Perel.

Speaker 15 It's a pleasure.

Speaker 20 You've got an amazing book called Mating in Captivity, Unlocking Erotic Intelligence. And so make sure everyone go and check out this book.

Speaker 20 We'll have it linked up at the end of the show notes as well. I became aware of you before Summit Series.

Speaker 20 I remember hearing about this book and who you were, but I never really dove into your work until Summit Series happened, which is a conference for essentially inspiring entrepreneurs and people looking to take over the world in their own industry.

Speaker 16 I call it the mixture of Ted Davos and Burning Man.

Speaker 20 There you go. Yes, exactly.
That type of people, that type of crowd. And you spoke, you were supposed to speak at like a little tiny restaurant on this cruise ship.

Speaker 20 And I remember going to this and like just the line outside. We couldn't even get in.
So I remember experiencing that, being like, oh, I hope she, you know, talks again.

Speaker 20 And then you talked like four more times. And so I showed up early for like one of the few ones after that.

Speaker 20 And it took like an hour for you to start because there was like thousands of people out waiting to try to get in this one session. And so I said, okay, there's something here.

Speaker 20 This conversation about relationships, sex, desire, love, intimacy,

Speaker 20 erotic intelligence, what you call.

Speaker 20 And there's something here that we're struggling with in our society today, and especially with driven, passionate entrepreneurs who are always up to the next big thing, a next shiny object.

Speaker 20 And so I'm glad that you were able to come in here and be in the studio in LA. And thank you for being here.

Speaker 20 And the first question I want to ask before we actually get into all of these juicy relationship questions is, who was the most influential person growing up for you in your childhood?

Speaker 20 And what was the thing that influenced you about them?

Speaker 15 Oh, the most.

Speaker 16 I never have one for these kinds of questions.

Speaker 20 Well, what's one that maybe comes to mind? Someone who was really influential and a lesson they taught you.

Speaker 16 I will start with the most close person.

Speaker 16 I would say my father.

Speaker 16 Why?

Speaker 16 My father was illiterate.

Speaker 16 My father and my mother, actually, both of them came to Belgium by chance after each of them being four and five years in concentration camps in Poland.

Speaker 16 They both were the sole survivors of their entire family. They came with absolutely nothing.
They were illegal refugees for five years before they even became legalized.

Speaker 16 And my father always was a person who said, it doesn't matter how brilliant they are or how rich they are, what matters the most is how decent they are.

Speaker 16 And when you are in a concentration camp, you get to see the limits of a person's humanity and the stretch and the outreach of a person's humanity and their decency.

Speaker 16 And for some reason that always stayed with me, meaning don't get impressed by all the appearances and by how everything looks. Look at the person.

Speaker 16 And then he said, and a friend is the person who will always do more for themselves as they for the other, sorry, as they will do for themselves. That's your friend.

Speaker 16 And check people out on that basis and he had never read a book he couldn't read and write pretty much he read the newspaper he spoke five languages but poorly and and he was a grand human being and i often often think of him in relation to that especially when i come into the entrepreneurial world which is often a world of inflated selves exactly yeah now what was your what would you say is your biggest fear growing up

Speaker 20 Did you have a big fear or insecurity that was a challenge for you? Yes.

Speaker 16 I grew up in the Flemish part of Belgium,

Speaker 16 and on one hand, I had nothing to fear on the external level, but I think that the history of my parents was such that I always lived with the feeling that everything can disappear from one minute to the next.

Speaker 16 I had no sense that what we have is here to stay. I have never thought in terms of permanence.

Speaker 16 I

Speaker 16 happened to be born in Belgium by the fluke of our fatality.

Speaker 16 I don't really belong to a place. And for a long time, I felt very uprooted by that.

Speaker 16 Now I think it actually became also a resource for me in my life. But at the time, that sense that

Speaker 16 you cannot count on anything to be there tomorrow just because it's there today. Right.

Speaker 16 That sense of fragility and impermanence and the dread. But it wasn't fear, it was dread.

Speaker 20 Do you still have that dread today?

Speaker 16 Yes, yes, I do. I do.
It's not a visible dread.

Speaker 16 But

Speaker 16 yes, I have free-floating anxiety that I can't always pinpoint on certain things.

Speaker 16 But I live with the sense that, you know,

Speaker 16 actually when everything goes really well.

Speaker 20 That's what you're afraid the most? Yes. Because we can all be taken away the next day, right?

Speaker 16 And I, of course, never think that if I go to the doctor, I'm going to come out with a small boo-boo.

Speaker 16 I think that the day I have something, since I've always been really blessedly healthy, that the day I get something, it will be a big boo-boo I mean I have a bit of catastrophic thinking okay how does even though I act completely counterphobe I act like I have no fears yeah but inside there is that little voice that just so how do you how does that work for you how does that support you in your day-to-day work and your relationships by having that dread sense that feeling does it work for you or not

Speaker 16 you know it changed over time huh i think that with age you used to you you take your strengths and your weaknesses and you tweak them you you know, back and forth. But

Speaker 16 I think that it it has always made me

Speaker 16 well, I'll tell you the first thing.

Speaker 16 Because I

Speaker 16 because of the history of my parents, because I in Weniway was kind of a miracle child,

Speaker 16 my brother too, because we were symbols of revival and because it proved to our parents that they still were human in a way, that they could still bring people into the world, I always had a clear sense that my life was not going to be small.

Speaker 16 Sure. My life has to be big.
Big doesn't mean successful and money. Big meant meaningful, rich, layered, you know.

Speaker 20 So not necessarily well-known or famous, but

Speaker 15 feeling full, full, full. Yeah, not dead.

Speaker 16 Not dead. I mean, there's a reason I write about eroticism, right? And that sense that I was not going to be mediocre.

Speaker 16 You know, I'm not content with just the average of something, that it has to be not the best.

Speaker 16 It has to be the right one for me at that moment that may be the beautiful spot or the the right friend to be with or or the right act to take in relation to somebody or to some cause but that sense that my life has to be big

Speaker 16 uh like it you know has been with me since i was young sure sure okay so so tell me why you wrote this book and why you got into i guess this topic in general what made you want to start to thought this you know the funny thing is it's a fluke actually i never wrote about sexuality until about 10, 12 years ago.

Speaker 16 I did write about relationships plenty.

Speaker 16 For the past 30 years, I've been a couples therapist and a relationship expert.

Speaker 16 I work with companies, I work with families and couples on modern relationships. And that always involved looking at how does cultural change affect relationships.

Speaker 16 Migration, education, technology, individualism, consumer society, how do all these things, the shift from communism to democracy, how do big cultural changes affect relationships?

Speaker 16 Always been doing that. Sex was a kind of a side subject.
And then I was basically a little bit looking for a new topic. And I got inspired by the Clinton scandal.
Okay.

Speaker 15 Basically. When was that?

Speaker 16 That was in the late 90s.

Speaker 16 But it moved all the way into the beginning of 2000. I don't remember the exact year, but the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal for me from a cultural point of view was very interesting.

Speaker 16 Why was the United States so tolerant about multiple divorces and so intransigent about infidelity?

Speaker 16 The rest of the world, and I just spoke to 4,000 people in Mexico a couple of months ago, and it was so important to watch this difference. It was the complete contrast to the state.
Sure.

Speaker 16 Has always opted the other way around. You preserve the family at all costs, thanks to women,

Speaker 16 and you make compromises and tolerance for infidelity.

Speaker 15 Really? Yes. All over the world.
All over the world.

Speaker 20 Especially in Europe, it's like every married man seems to have like a mistress. No,

Speaker 15 it's very clear.

Speaker 16 Americans don't cheat one iota less than the French. Say it again.
Americans do not cheat one iota less than the French.

Speaker 16 They just feel more guilty about it.

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 20 The French are just, it's just well known. It's just part of life, right?

Speaker 16 It's not part of life. It is changing a great deal.
And it's clear that most of the time, throughout history, there has been a complete double standard when it comes to infidelity.

Speaker 16 It's a privilege for men, it's almost a sanctioned license with all kinds of theories, revolutionary and biological theories that justify their need to roam. And it's been way too dangerous for women.

Speaker 16 But that doesn't mean that you know you give the woman a car and then you'll see what she will really do. Right.
You know, if you don't trap her into the house, right?

Speaker 15 Right, exactly.

Speaker 16 It's adultery has always existed. But what was interesting for me was how

Speaker 16 people would scream at it here, make it a matter of national political agenda and not blink an eye at multiple divorces, which create the dissolution of the entire family system.

Speaker 16 Why is that so much preferable to the other? That was the original question. And then I began to think a little bit more about, okay, that leads me to think about Americans and sex.

Speaker 16 There's something really interesting about this country in relation to sexuality that fascinates me. I've been working here for almost 30 years at the time.

Speaker 16 And why is it that in the US, sex is the risk factor? And in Europe, being irresponsible is the risk factor. Sex is a natural part of human development.

Speaker 20 Okay? What do you mean by irresponsible?

Speaker 16 Not being protective. Gotcha.
Not being respectful. Gotcha.
Not being consensual.

Speaker 20 Actually, the act of doing it was

Speaker 16 part of normal life.

Speaker 16 We have comprehensive sex education from age four.

Speaker 16 Why is it that here you have no public health policy on adolescent sexuality?

Speaker 16 Why is it that despite that, no campaigns and abstinence campaigns, Americans have earlier onset of sexual activity than the most liberal Dutch, more STDs, and more teen pregnancies than 35

Speaker 16 developing countries combined? Why is that?

Speaker 20 It's because we're not educated early on.

Speaker 16 Because there is an enormous

Speaker 16 taboo on sex education with a kind of sense that if you educate people, they're going to be promiscuous, rather than the understanding that it is actually the repression and the puritanism that will unleash a kind of sexuality that is often about smut and titillation.

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 16 I basically wrote a little article

Speaker 16 in a trade magazine, not even in the general,

Speaker 16 then it got taken into the broad press and it led to this book which is translated in 26 languages and and hence I became

Speaker 16 now suddenly I didn't just look at relationships and culture but I look at the triangle sexuality relationships and culture using sexuality to analyze societal changes cultural changes families relationships and the individual self what are the core reasons or the core things you see over and over that

Speaker 20 either end or make a relationship challenging to be in the longer you're in.

Speaker 20 What are the ones that, what are the challenges that come up over and over that you see?

Speaker 16 So, there's always three questions, right? What's a thriving relationship?

Speaker 15 A thriving one. Yeah.
What can go wrong? Uh-huh.

Speaker 16 And how do you fix it? Okay. So, you started with the middle question.
What goes wrong?

Speaker 16 I think there's a number of things in a relationship that

Speaker 16 become

Speaker 16 the kind of

Speaker 16 cornerstones of the demise. Okay.

Speaker 16 And I'm not going to list them in order, but they all are part of each other.

Speaker 16 Indifference

Speaker 16 and contempt and neglect and violence are probably the four most important. Okay.
I'm not talking about big violence, microaggressions are plenty.

Speaker 16 Indifference, when you start to feel like the other person fundamentally is not really caring about you anymore, or you don't care about them, what they feel, what they think, who they are, what they're about.

Speaker 20 You don't care, you've lost interest.

Speaker 16 But it's more than losing losing of interest. It's also when you are indifferent, you degrade the other person.
They're less important to you. They don't matter.

Speaker 16 And ultimately what we feel in relationships is that we matter. That is the essential reason for connecting to people, is that we are creatures of meaning.
I matter to you. I'm someone.

Speaker 16 You care about me. You want my male you want my well-being.
You're proud of me. You want good for me.
You're benevolent. All of that.
When you are indifferent, the whole thing goes.

Speaker 16 And then you start to this coldness that creeps in, that sense of estrangement, that complete disconnect. That the second one is neglect.

Speaker 16 Neglect, when people just basically take each other for granted. You know, they take more care of their car than of their partner.

Speaker 16 Their dog or their dog, anybody, anything, their yard, anything, anything gets attendance. Anything their business for sure.
Their business for sure.

Speaker 16 You know, everything gets priority, everything gets reviewed, evaluated, attended to, 360s, you name it, you know, new input.

Speaker 16 My God, it's like people have this idea that they put it all in when they were dating, and then once they seal the knot, it's like as if they tie the knot, it's like now they don't have to do squat anymore, and they go into this kind of complete sense of complacency and laziness.

Speaker 16 It's an amazing thing. They think this thing is just going to live on its own.

Speaker 20 Right.

Speaker 16 Like a cactus.

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 16 Violence. Violence, the abuse, the level of disrespect.
I mean, most people talk nicer to anybody else than their partner when a relationship.

Speaker 9 You know that old saying, it's not what you say, it's how you say it.

Speaker 6 I think that goes for how we live, too.

Speaker 11 It's not just what we do, it's the energy, the intention, the presence we bring.

Speaker 9 And that's exactly what the Range Rover Sport brings to the road.

Speaker 11 The Range Rover Sport is built to take on roads anywhere without any unnecessary details.

Speaker 4 It combines a dynamic sporting personality with elegance and agility and delivers an instinctive drive.

Speaker 8 Its assertive stance hints at an equally refined driving performance.

Speaker 9 Defining true modern luxury, the Range Rover Sport features the latest innovations in comfort and convenience.

Speaker 8 The cabin air purification system alongside the active noise cancellation creates a new level of quality, comfort, and control.

Speaker 5 Terrain Response 2 offers seven terrain models to choose from.

Speaker 4 fine tuning the vehicle for any challenging roads ahead.

Speaker 12 A force inside and out, the Range Rover Sport is available with a choice of powerful engines, including a plug-in hybrid with an estimated range of 48 miles.

Speaker 11 Build your Range Rover Sport at rangerover.com/slash US slash sport.

Speaker 22 You ever walk out of the grocery store or fill up your tank and just think, how is everything this expensive?

Speaker 21 Feels like prices are going up everywhere.

Speaker 23 And how great would it be if just once something actually just went down in price?

Speaker 20 Well, at Metro, that's exactly what's happening. They've lowered their prices and are giving you a five-year price guarantee on talk, text, and data.

Speaker 26 One line, now 20% lower.

Speaker 15 Family plans, also lowered.

Speaker 22 Oh, and you also get a free 5G phone, all with no ID required and no activation fees.

Speaker 14 Stop by your neighborhood Metro store.

Speaker 21 Visit metro by t-mobile.com or call to find out about their amazing offers.

Speaker 24 Bring your number, not available if currently at T-Mobile or or with Metro in the past 180 days.

Speaker 23 Guarantee covers monthly price of on-network talk, text, and 5G data for customers activating on an eligible plan. Exclusions apply.

Speaker 21 Details at metro by t-mobile.com.

Speaker 27 This message is brought to you by Apple Card.

Speaker 8 It's a great time to apply for an Apple Card.

Speaker 12 You'll love earning up to 3% unlimited daily cash back on every purchase and no fees, period. Through this special referral offer, when you get a new Apple Card, you can earn bonus daily cash.

Speaker 27 To qualify, you must apply at apple.co/slash get daily cash.

Speaker 28 Apple card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 17.99% to 28.24% based on creditworthiness.
Rates as of October 1st, 2025.

Speaker 28 Offer may not be available elsewhere. Terms and limitations apply.

Speaker 16 Because you can't get away with it.

Speaker 16 Because you can't get away with it. Because if you talk like this at work, you're gone.

Speaker 16 Because if if you talk like this with the police, you're gone. Because if you talk like this on the street, you're being punched.

Speaker 16 But with your partner, you have that sense that they're going to be there anyway. They're just going to take it because it's family.
And family is this kind of thing that doesn't dissolve so easily.

Speaker 16 So you can just lash out at them and talk to them with a tone and a dismissal that is phenomenal. So that kind of violence.
I'm not talking physical violence and all the other big, big things.

Speaker 20 You're talking about aggression or resentment or all of that yeah all of that you know passive aggressiveness all those things yeah all of that and then and then um

Speaker 16 contempt i think is the top one but contempt is the killer of them all because in in the contempt there is a real there's the degradation of the others it's that that complete this you're nothing you're nothing i can kill you with that one gaze that one eyebrow that goes up that

Speaker 16 you know stuff do you who do you think you are what are and that's it you you're done you're done so how do we even get to this place of these these places after having been so in love it's so romantic right is is desire uh

Speaker 16 reflect that or if we're not desiring the person anymore then we start to feel one of those categories or does that not play into look the truth is this there's only two relationships that resemble each other the one you have with your parents or the people who raise you and the one you have with the people you fall in love with.

Speaker 16 People can sit in my office all the time and say, I have this with no one else. I don't have this with anybody at work.
Nobody among my friends ever thinks like that.

Speaker 16 You're the only one who speaks like this or thinks this about me or with whom I do this.

Speaker 15 No,

Speaker 16 you're the only one. And now we go back in history.
And I'm sorry to be the psychologist, but that's really...

Speaker 16 It is the place where we often learned about closeness, trust, loyalty, commitment, sharing, taking, receiving, asking, all these essential verbs of relationships. We learn that at home.

Speaker 20 We also learn jealousy and all that.

Speaker 16 Possessiveness, vengeance, you name them. The beauty, the not beauty.

Speaker 20 Yeah, we saw it all as children, right? We saw the fights, we saw the love, we saw the, you know, we saw the coldness, the lack of intimacy, the intimacy, yes.

Speaker 16 And we bring that with us, and we often promise ourselves, I'll never be this one, I'll never be this way, I'll never talk like this.

Speaker 16 I'll, you know, and we find ourselves often much closer to the apple.

Speaker 20 and then resenting ourselves

Speaker 20 we resent ourselves. We're like, How did we do that?

Speaker 15 Well, why did we get to this place?

Speaker 16 And then we feel ashamed about it. And since we don't like to feel ashamed about it, we hide it.
And one of the ways we hide it is we blame the partner. That's just one of the ways.

Speaker 16 We are very resourceful in not owning our shit.

Speaker 20 Right, exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 15 Wow. Okay.

Speaker 20 And where does sex play in all this? And desire?

Speaker 16 So, I mean, one of the fascinating things for me in looking at sexuality is that it's probably

Speaker 16 one of the dimensions of relationship that has changed the most in a very, very short amount of time. For most of history and in still the majority of the world, sex is for procreation.

Speaker 16 Sex is a marital duty on the part of the woman. Nobody cares particularly if she likes it and how she feels and if she wants it.

Speaker 16 And men have the privilege to go and find sex elsewhere. In a very short amount of time, we're talking 60 years.

Speaker 16 We have contraception, which is the liberation of women for the first time to free sex from reproduction, from mortality, from death in pregnancy and in childbirth, sorry, all of that.

Speaker 16 And for the first time, sexuality moves from just biology and a condition to a part of our identity and a lifestyle. In 60 years.
In 60 years.

Speaker 16 The women's movement, which goes after the abuses of power.

Speaker 16 The gay movement, which introduces the concept of identity to sexuality, the fact that sex is for connection and pleasure, the fact that for the first time we have sex before marriage, and many times, a lot, we used to marry and have sex for the first time, now we marry and we stopped having sex with others.

Speaker 16 Okay, monogamy used to be one person for life, now monogamy is one person at a time. And people go around telling you, I'm monogamous in all my relationships, and it makes perfect sense to say

Speaker 16 all of that in a very short amount of time. The fact that I choose you to marry or to live together doesn't matter.

Speaker 16 Commitment, because I'm attracted to you, because you give me butterflies in my stomach. And the fact that I think that if I don't have these butterflies anymore, maybe I don't love you anymore.

Speaker 16 And the fact that sexuality in long-term relationships is rooted in one thing only, desire. I feel like it.
I want to. Not I have to, not we want many kids.

Speaker 16 After two kids, the only reason to continue doing it with you is because we feel like it's fine. And hopefully it's pleasurable, we connect, it feels good, it rounds up

Speaker 15 the whole thing.

Speaker 16 That's it. And hopefully it's at the same time and for each other.
Because plenty of desire continues, but it's not always at home.

Speaker 15 Right, exactly.

Speaker 16 So this is an amazing revolution.

Speaker 15 Sex that is really.

Speaker 20 Losing all of us.

Speaker 16 And how do we sustain it? So that's why I became fascinated in the nature of erotic desire and how do we sustain desire?

Speaker 16 Because it is the first time ever that we have a grand experiment of the humankind where we want sex with one person in the long haul that is fun and connected and intimate and playful and we live twice as long.

Speaker 15 Go figure. Right, exactly.

Speaker 20 For 60 years, you're going to be with them or whatever it is.

Speaker 16 It's an amazing idea.

Speaker 24 So how do we navigate this?

Speaker 20 If we're going to choose one partner and be with them until we're both gone, how do we navigate the challenge of keeping the desire continuously?

Speaker 15 I think the first thing. Both men and women.

Speaker 20 Because the woman probably sees other men who are attracted to her and vice versa. So it's like, how do both parties do this?

Speaker 16 Look, we know that women get bored with monogamy much sooner than men.

Speaker 15 Wow. This is a factor.

Speaker 15 That's research. Okay.
That's not just fact.

Speaker 16 That is men's desire in long-term relationship goes down gradually. He actually is much more able to remain interested.

Speaker 16 And maybe just because he's interested in the experience itself, and he has a partner there. Women's desire post-marriage.

Speaker 15 Really?

Speaker 16 Wow.

Speaker 16 And it's always been translated as, well, that's because women care less about sex, rather than it's because women care less about the sex that they can have in their committed relationships, which is often not interesting enough for them.

Speaker 16 And it often has to do with the fact that the story, the character, the plot

Speaker 16 is not seductive. The romance, which is an essential ingredient of turn-on for the woman, often disappears in the long-term relationship.

Speaker 16 It's like when people look at each other at the end of the day, and you want to fool around? You want to do it? You're up for it tonight?

Speaker 16 Now, this is really not, this is not very much of a turn-on for most women.

Speaker 16 And the idea that foreplay often starts at the end of the previous orgasm, you know, and not five minutes before the real thing, which for her is not the real thing.

Speaker 16 The whole, the real thing is everything else around.

Speaker 15 So the game. Yes.

Speaker 15 It's creating a game. It's a seduction.

Speaker 16 It's a plot. It's a coming close.
It's a tease.

Speaker 16 It's what animals call pacing. It's that I come to you, but I don't overwhelm you.
I come just a little bit so that you can come a little bit toward me. And then I don't immediately answer.

Speaker 16 I actually go back a little bit too. Have you ever seen animals? They do this kind of pacing.
And it is an essential, playful ingredient of seduction and excitement.

Speaker 16 So women's desire plummets, but we interpret it as women are less interested in sex, rather than women are interested in probably just about the same kind of things that many men are.

Speaker 16 But women have always known what to choose above what turns them on, which was what gives them stability and security in their security, family, someone to protect, be there, right?

Speaker 16 So, what people do, look, this is, we want one partner today to give us everything that involves stability and security, and everything that involves playfulness and mystery.

Speaker 16 Okay, that's the grand idea.

Speaker 16 Okay, I want to be cozy with you, and I want to have an edge, and I want you to surprise me, and I want you to be familiar. And I want you to give me continuity, and I want you to give me novelty.

Speaker 16 That's it. As if it's a right, and no Victoria's secret is going to solve that, yeah.

Speaker 15 Right?

Speaker 16 So, then that becomes what is desire. Desire is to own the wanting.

Speaker 16 If you ask people a question that goes like this: I turn myself off when

Speaker 16 I turn myself off by,

Speaker 16 Not you turn me off when, and what turns me off is.

Speaker 16 You're going to hear I turn myself off when I do emails, when I spend too much time on the phone, when I overeat, when I don't exercise, when I have

Speaker 16 bad days at work, when I don't feel confident, when I numb myself, when I feel dead, when I don't feel thriving, when I'm not alive. You will really hear that it has very little to do with sex.

Speaker 16 And when you ask people, I turn myself on when or by,

Speaker 16 I awaken my desires.

Speaker 16 Not you turn me on when and what turns me on is, which is i.e. you're responsible for my wanting.

Speaker 16 What people will talk to you about is when I'm in nature, when I'm connected with my friends, when I get to do my sports, when I play music, when I listen to music, it's through stuff that gives me pleasure, that is alive, that is vibrant, that is vital, that is erotic in the full sense of the word as a life force.

Speaker 16 And from that place, people remain interested in having sex with somebody else for the long haul. Not because they've scratched their arms for two seconds.
Right, right, right.

Speaker 16 It's, I feel good about myself.

Speaker 16 The biggest turn-on is confidence. Right.
Confidence. You ask people, when do you find yourself most drawn to your partner?

Speaker 16 Every description has to do with when they're in their element, when they're on stage,

Speaker 16 when they're doing their sport,

Speaker 16 when they are radiant, when they are are in their studio, on the piano, on the horse, you name it, it's when they are in their element, i.e.,

Speaker 16 they don't need me to take care of them.

Speaker 20 They're not depressed and down and lonely and sad.

Speaker 16 They're not needy. They don't need me because desire is about wanting you.
Love is also about needing you.

Speaker 16 Caretaking is a very powerful experience in love and it is a very powerful anti-aphrodisiac.

Speaker 20 So how do you experience love and desire at the same time?

Speaker 16 You calibrate it.

Speaker 20 So sometimes you're...

Speaker 16 It's the same as when you walk. You have to move from one foot to the other.
A balance is not about staying on one side. A balance is the ability to see, right now, we don't need caretaking.

Speaker 16 We can be mischievous. We can be naughty.
We can be playful. We can break our own rules.
We can stay home and not go to work at eight o'clock.

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 16 And now we are in a playful zone. Now we are feeling that we are bringing our own little transgressions home.
We are alive. We're not just being dutiful, responsible, good citizens.
Right. It's that.

Speaker 16 It's very small.

Speaker 16 You know, when I always think when I go and I see people at lunch and you see them talking and they're well dressed and they're awake and all I see who is here with their partner?

Speaker 16 Because

Speaker 16 you can see them, they're engaged, they're giving the best of themselves. That's erotic.

Speaker 16 No, the majority are not there with their partner. They're there with their friends, with their colleagues.
Their partner is gonna get the leftover when they come home at night. Sorry, you know what?

Speaker 16 Forget the night date. Meet at lunch when you actually have energy.
You know, when you and in the middle of the day like that, when you're awake, when you have something to offer.

Speaker 16 It's a very small thing, but they don't do it. They don't do it.
And you say, why not? Why not? Why don't you stay an hour extra at home in the morning and not just because when you have a headache?

Speaker 16 And just say, this matters to me. All in all, you know, committed sex is premeditated sex.
It's not just going to happen. Because whatever is going to just happen already has.

Speaker 16 So you're going to make it happen. Because you say, we matter.
We're important. Let's do this.
Let's spend. It doesn't mean if you're going to make love or have sex.

Speaker 16 It just means we're going to take this hour and there's nothing else that matters in this moment. But just you and I to be together, to check in.
And then we'll see what unfolds.

Speaker 16 That's the erotic space in which sex may happen.

Speaker 15 Probably will.

Speaker 16 doesn't have to, but it is the place from which it is much more likely to emerge. But people don't do that, they do the responsibility.
That's the love, right?

Speaker 16 The citizen, the commitment, the caretaking, the burdens, the safe.

Speaker 16 And then they say, I'm bored. I would be too.

Speaker 20 Oh, exactly. There's no mystery.
There's no risk-taking, right? Exactly.

Speaker 16 There's no risk-taking. That's the word.
If you want desire, it's risk. And the risk is an emotional risk.
It's not about sexy risks.

Speaker 16 It's really a risk on the emotional front: is that I bring something else to you

Speaker 16 differently from

Speaker 16 differently from the way I typically present myself. Sure, you know,

Speaker 16 how can I do this? Something what can I do today that will be different from the ways that I've done it until now? How can I do something that I think would actually improve our relationship?

Speaker 16 Me,

Speaker 16 right? Not something that I want or that you want, but that I think would be actually good for us, that third entity, the us,

Speaker 16 right? And you check every time, you know, how often do you just go on the tried and trodden? As in, you know, it works. Sex that just works for most people is really not interesting enough.
Right.

Speaker 16 So because what does it mean it works generally?

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 20 What about the people listening who are saying, man, that sounds like a lot of work that every day you have to change to do something different and unique and be.

Speaker 16 Not every day. Not every day.
Not every day. But what you can do every day is just a quick check with yourself.
You know, is there something that I should notice?

Speaker 16 Is there something that I can be thankful for? Is there a little note that I could write? Is there, you know, just a way that I can show up.

Speaker 16 It's small. It's really small.

Speaker 16 Here's the thing.

Speaker 16 There is work and then there is the creative work.

Speaker 16 You know, I'm talking about a level that is creative and that elevates you and that actually gives you you feel you feel taller. You just feel like you're engaged, you feel awake, rather than

Speaker 16 this. This is the other seated position.
It's comfortable, it's great, but nothing happens here.

Speaker 15 Sure. This

Speaker 16 is alert. Here's the essential word is curiosity.
When you're curious, you lean forward and you watch, you're open to the mysteries of life.

Speaker 16 This is please don't bother me with anything because I don't want any stimulation. I've had my share.
I've been, you know. And this is the position that most people have at home.

Speaker 16 So when people say it's too much work,

Speaker 16 I basically say, look,

Speaker 16 if I was to say this in your business, would you say this is too much work?

Speaker 16 Or you would say, that's very good advice. This is high-rate consulting fees.

Speaker 16 It's like, excuse me,

Speaker 16 but you don't think for a minute that your business would thrive if you let it languish like that.

Speaker 16 Never. You have a reward system, you have incentives, bonuses, bonuses, but there is no incentivized system in the private domain.
So people just think, why bother?

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 16 And that's the difference: is that the ones who have good relationships are the ones who created their own internal

Speaker 16 incentivized system.

Speaker 20 What are some of those incentive systems that you've seen over time that really work or effective for long-term relationships?

Speaker 12 The School of Greatness is brought to you in partnership with Airbnb.

Speaker 11 Fall always feels like the perfect time to travel, a chance to explore, reset, and spend time with family before the year wraps up.

Speaker 8 And Martha and I both travel often, especially with her family in Mexico and mine spread across the U.S., so we're always on the go a lot.

Speaker 12 And some of the best parts of traveling come from discovering new places, trying local foods, and experiencing different cultures.

Speaker 1 But when people are away, their homes often just sit empty.

Speaker 11 Hosting on Airbnb can be a practical way to make use of that space and share what makes your community special with travelers passing through.

Speaker 3 From our experience, hosting has always been easy and straightforward.

Speaker 1 And whether you're on the road often or only once in a while, it can be a simple way to earn a little extra while you're away.

Speaker 12 Your home might be worth more than you think.

Speaker 5 Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host.

Speaker 12 The School of Greatness is sponsored by Capital One.

Speaker 1 Nowadays, most people subscribe to everything, music, TV, even dog food, and it rocks until you have to manage it all, which is where Capital One comes in.

Speaker 7 Capital One credit card card holders can easily track, block, or cancel recurring charges right from the Capital One mobile app at no additional cost.

Speaker 4 With one sign-in, you can manage all your subscriptions all in one place. Learn more at capital1.com/slash subscriptions.

Speaker 5 Terms and conditions apply.

Speaker 16 I would say the first thing is almost one of the first things that our parents teach you. Please and thank you.

Speaker 16 Do you know how many people stop thanking their partners? Thank you. Thank you for doing this for me.
Thank you for picking up the shirts. Thank you for, you know, making you feel appreciated.

Speaker 16 Yes, appreciation. Appreciation is huge.

Speaker 16 Gratitude, acknowledgement of the presence of the other in your life. Not did you do this? Did you call? Did you pick up? Do this, you know, half the time.

Speaker 15 Expectations.

Speaker 16 Expectations. Of course, you know, expectations is often a resentment in the make.

Speaker 16 With the expectation comes the fear of it's not good.

Speaker 16 Thank person, first of all. And because it also makes it feel like this is not a given.
Nobody owes you squat. You're not owed anything.
You're not that important. You're actually quite replaceable.

Speaker 16 Right.

Speaker 16 And with the divorce rate that we have,

Speaker 20 what's the rate at right now?

Speaker 16 About 50 on first and 65 on second.

Speaker 20 65 on second. Wow.

Speaker 15 It's not good. Right.

Speaker 16 It's really, you know, it costs a lot of money. It's not good for the health.

Speaker 16 I mean, it's just like, you know it's not good for the jobs it's it's just it it's like okay now you could say maybe people should marry but it doesn't matter if it's marriage legally or the idea is that

Speaker 16 we can do better we can do better in general i really think that the quality of our lives depends on the quality of our relationships i mean nobody's got a right you know uh

Speaker 16 You worked 60, 70, 80, 90 hours a week. And, you know, no, they're going to say he was there for people when when they needed to.
He was there at every game. He was there at the party.

Speaker 16 He's the guy who, when you were in his presence, he had charisma, not because he could stand in front of a huge crowd, but he had charisma because when I was in his presence, he made me feel special.

Speaker 16 It's a different charisma. So appreciation.

Speaker 16 Gratitude, thank you.

Speaker 16 Little things to go out of your way rather than just to do the minimum. A lot of people start to do the bare minimum just so that they can't be scolded.

Speaker 16 Go an extra thing.

Speaker 16 On occasion, just do something for the other person just because it matters to them, even if you couldn't care less.

Speaker 16 Rather than

Speaker 16 it's not important to me,

Speaker 16 I don't need this, or I don't care about this.

Speaker 16 Give each other a lot of individual space. Not everything needs to be shared.
People have different passions, different interests, different friends, and they need those separate spaces to exist.

Speaker 16 Admiration, I think, is huge.

Speaker 16 because admiration is also that you kind of really see the otherness of the other person.

Speaker 16 Don't try to make your partner into one person for everything.

Speaker 16 There is no such a person.

Speaker 16 Find multiple sources of connection, of intimacy, of friendship, so that you can have a group of people support you and don't have one person who has to be there for you for everything, especially when you're in the dumpster.

Speaker 20 We used to have a village of people that do that, and now we just expect one person to be the village, right?

Speaker 16 Yes, yes, yes. One person for the whole village.

Speaker 16 That is a unique.

Speaker 16 And then we're upset when they don't fulfill the mandate. And that's the more important.
Like, I can't talk to you. You're not supportive of me.
You're not excited for me.

Speaker 16 Excuse me. Find other people.

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 20 I can't be everything for you. No.

Speaker 15 Exactly.

Speaker 20 Can we talk about

Speaker 20 what marriage was about early, when it started? Do you know the history of marriage and how it's evolved and where it's at now and kind of like how we look at it in society?

Speaker 16 So as I won't go back millions of years because the it is a long history and we were actually much more polygamous and much more polyamorous and all of that.

Speaker 16 But the the the model from which we come is basically this. Marriage used to be an economic enterprise.
It was a mercantile arrangement.

Speaker 16 Men depended on women's fidelity for patrimony and lineage so that I can know who are my children and who gets the cows when I die.

Speaker 20 When was this?

Speaker 16 What time for this is pretty much till it still is in most parts of the world, by the way, and I would say it's probably

Speaker 15 um

Speaker 16 we're gonna go about

Speaker 16 fifty, sixty years back.

Speaker 15 Okay. That's it? Okay.

Speaker 15 That's it.

Speaker 16 People didn't choose who they married.

Speaker 16 Pe you know, uh

Speaker 16 people didn't choose who they married. Arranged marriage is the norm still in many parts of the world.
Certainly you didn't marry because you fell in love.

Speaker 16 You married somebody who was a good person with whom to have a family with, And if love grew, that was wonderful, but it was not the beginning element of a relationship.

Speaker 16 Desire certainly was not what sex was about in marriage. So, this is the traditional model.

Speaker 16 That doesn't mean that there was no good sex and intimate like, that doesn't mean there was no passion, and that doesn't mean there was no love, but that was not what the institution of marriage was meant for.

Speaker 16 Marriage that becomes a romantic arrangement.

Speaker 16 I will begin that at the end of the 19th century. It's about 150 years old.
But it needs contraception,

Speaker 16 it needs feminism, it needs a lot of things to become what we want today, which is a relationship that is rooted in intimacy.

Speaker 16 Intimacy, which until not too long ago was basically we live together, we share the vicissitudes of everyday life, we raise the kids, we work the land. Intimacy now is into me see.

Speaker 16 I share with you my inner life. That required individualism.
Before individualism, we didn't have the concept self. That's the beginning of the 20th century, late 19th, beginning 20th.

Speaker 16 So it's a lot of things go together, you know. The rise of individualism, the move away from religion as the center, the person becomes the center, hence, my individual happiness becomes central.

Speaker 16 Now I move away from the community.

Speaker 16 I choose you. And as I choose you, now you become responsible to alleviate my existential aloneness.
You know, that's why you become my village. Right.
Because I've left the village

Speaker 16 and

Speaker 16 you're going to make me feel that I matter because I'm not dictate, I'm not judged by my actions. I'm judged by my personality.
It's very different.

Speaker 16 I'm not, do you understand? It's a a whole new thing.

Speaker 16 It's like who I am, not what I do as I in as in do I show up in church, am I an upstanding citizen, you know, do am do am I doing right by my parents? It's personality, it's a whole new thing. Right.

Speaker 16 So trust, affection, intimacy, desire become the four pillars

Speaker 16 within modern relationships. That is a whole new model.
Affairs used to be actually adultery for most of history was the space where people went to look for true love

Speaker 16 because

Speaker 16 marriage was

Speaker 16 arranged and economic. Now that we brought love into marriage,

Speaker 16 adultery destroys it.

Speaker 16 So, what did we do? We brought love into marriage. We brought sex to love.
We connected happiness to relational, to emotional and sexual satisfaction.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 we also want a passionate marriage, which for most of history has been a contradiction in terms. Passion has always existed, but somewhere else.
Right.

Speaker 20 In the affair or in whatever.

Speaker 15 Yes, wherever. Wow.
Wherever.

Speaker 20 How are we supposed to navigate all this? I mean.

Speaker 16 Actually, I think it's exciting. Okay.
I really do, because nobody, in effect, wants to go backwards. No, absolutely not.
Nobody wants to go back where you are stuck. This is it.

Speaker 16 You have one chance for life. And the only thing you have going is that you die younger.

Speaker 20 Right, exactly.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 16 You actually have the opportunity to do it again, to try a different story, to be a different person, to be a better partner, and to be a better parent for that matter.

Speaker 16 And i think that that is something that we've never had is the opportunity to rewrite that story we always had one job for life and one relationship for life i think one of the you know of course we therefore didn't have to decide five times what do i want to do right exactly we have give been given a unique opportunity i can have more than one career or more than one job more than one identity in this world and I can have a whole new family, and I can have a whole new love that I can start at 60, 40, 50, 60, and have another 20 years with somebody, and actually do it better this time.

Speaker 16 I think that is actually one of the greatest gifts we've been given.

Speaker 20 How long have you been married?

Speaker 16 30-something.

Speaker 20 30-something years, okay.

Speaker 20 And how has your work, two kids, and how has your work

Speaker 20 and the constant conversation you're in about this work supported or not supported your relationship with your husband.

Speaker 16 You know, there was a comment that I once made a few years back, and

Speaker 16 it's become a line in one of my TED talks. So, you know, where I said most of the people today are going to have two or three relationships in their adults.

Speaker 20 Marriages or just relationships?

Speaker 16 Committed relationships. Marriages, committed.
I could say marriages, but let's say in Europe so many of us don't marry. So I would say committed relationships.

Speaker 16 Most of us are going to have two or three committed relationships in our lifetime due to divorce, due to death, various things. Some of us are going to do it with the same person.

Speaker 16 I have had probably three marriages to the same man. Wow.

Speaker 16 Not because we divorced or anything, but because over 30 years we have had to redefine ourselves to restructure everything that you do in companies, you know, to change our brand.

Speaker 20 What works for five years is not going to work for the next.

Speaker 16 That's right. What works when we are just two is not the same as what works when we are four.

Speaker 16 What works when we are in our twenties isn't the same as when we are in our fifties. What works when we have this type of career is not the same as now.

Speaker 16 You know, um, and I think that the very principles that you apply to companies today, flexibility, fluidity, the ability to reinvent itself, to redefine itself, to manage tradition and innovation, is really what has to enter into all modern love.

Speaker 16 That's what coupled them is about. Those who can do it do it with each other, and the other ones do it by finding a new person.

Speaker 20 So, what's the ideal relationship moving forward in our

Speaker 16 it's this?

Speaker 16 It's you sit every once in a while and you say, How are we doing?

Speaker 16 What are the strengths between us?

Speaker 16 I actually think people should have

Speaker 16 different commitment ceremonies in the course of a marriage. Really?

Speaker 16 Yes, I think that every few years or every year they should have a little summit or they should have a little, whatever they want to call it, they could have a ceremony.

Speaker 16 Where are we at? Checking in. How are we doing? What has been good in our life? What could we do better? What could we do differently? Are we doing right by our children?

Speaker 16 Are we giving, you know, are we meeting some of our important needs at this point? What has changed for us? We've just been sick. We've just lost a parent.
We've just lost a child.

Speaker 16 What's changing in our life?

Speaker 16 And to actually address this head-on, what the problem is in modern couples is that most of the big topics are addressed when there is a crisis rather than when actually things are good.

Speaker 20 When you're calm. When you're calm.

Speaker 16 Of course, you have less incentive to change when things are good,

Speaker 16 but you have less creativity to change when things are bad. Same for companies, same for couples.

Speaker 15 Wow.

Speaker 16 So I think retreats for couples are unique, actually,

Speaker 16 because couples are often isolated units.

Speaker 16 they talk to nobody sometimes women will talk to women men will talk to no one and when a group of couple come together in a group it is powerful it is so normalizing to know what's happening at the neighbors that you never know and that you can always imagine is different from yours it's so powerful to hear your partner like you can never hear them because somebody else just said the same thing but just with a different word or just with a little bit more distance so that you're not instantly reactive and defensive

Speaker 16 I think that that conversation between couples, the same way that you bring entrepreneurs together to a mastermind to talk about their company.

Speaker 20 You hear something in a different way that it finally lands with you and you can take action towards it.

Speaker 16 Yes, I think that if we could actually bring the entrepreneurs and their partners, it would be an incredible thing. I do a lot of it with YPO, with DO, with all these areas.
I see it each time.

Speaker 16 And not to separate the partners from the others.

Speaker 16 No, actually have the people in the room, you know, have a fishbowl where the entrepreneurs talk about what their life says and then have a fishbowl on the other side where the next inner circle is where the partners talk about what it's like to live with the entrepreneur and have each of them listen to the other.

Speaker 16 It's been one of the richest conversations I've had in that space. Wow.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 20 What's your thoughts on divorce?

Speaker 20 You know, as you said over 50% are divorced the first time, then over 65 the second time do you believe that um or do you think it's you know that people should experience divorce they should go through that or do they think do you think that they're being lazy or do you think that they're just not committed to it enough or that they haven't tried all the different things to become better themselves and to see the good in their partner

Speaker 7 The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads.

Speaker 7 LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, including 130 million decision makers. That's why LinkedIn has the highest B2B ROAS of all online ad networks.

Speaker 7 Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash Lewis.
That's linkedin.com slash L-E-W-I-S. Terms and conditions apply.

Speaker 13 This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Speaker 19 As the seasons change, the shorter days can sometimes cause you to isolate yourself without even realizing.

Speaker 17 This season, BetterHelp encourages you to reach out, check in on friends, reconnect with loved ones, and remind them that you're there.

Speaker 18 And don't forget about connecting with yourself and your emotions during this time too.

Speaker 14 Sometimes reconnecting with yourself and others takes a little courage, like calling that person you haven't talked to in a while or setting up your first therapy appointment, but it's all worth it in my opinion.

Speaker 30 It might even leave you wondering, why didn't I do this sooner?

Speaker 26 With over 30,000 fully licensed therapists, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms.

Speaker 30 They'll do the initial matchwork for you so you can focus on your goals with your growth.

Speaker 14 This month, don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step.

Speaker 14 And our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/slash greatness. That's betterhelp.com/slash greatness.

Speaker 16 I would start differently. I would say.

Speaker 20 Is that a bad question?

Speaker 15 No, no, no, no, not at all.

Speaker 16 But I would say differently. I would think that the first thing that has to happen with divorce

Speaker 16 is to take away the concept of failure. As long as we still think that it is marriage for life, till death do us apart, when de facto, for the majority of couples today, it's till love dies.

Speaker 16 Not till death do us apart.

Speaker 20 That's when we divorce, we break up, when love dies.

Speaker 16 And then we think it's a failure. I think that a relationship that has lasted for 15, 20, 25 years sometimes, that's not a failure.
So you're a long time. It's a good success.

Speaker 16 And they may have done certain things poorly and other things very well.

Speaker 16 I think a lot of people who divorce don't have the chance to actually appreciate how many good things they had in their relationship and

Speaker 16 to do

Speaker 16 what I like to call, you know, a la Guinette Puerto, the conscious uncoupling.

Speaker 16 Meaning.

Speaker 20 Oh, you have Catherine Woodward Thomas. Do you know her? Yeah,

Speaker 16 goodbye. Yeah, this is what I really am thankful for that we had together.
This is what I take with me from what we had together. This is what I wish for you as we move forward.

Speaker 16 This is how I hope our children will remember us.

Speaker 16 That is a very different departure.

Speaker 16 And when you do that departure, you also have a very different continuity in your next relationships later than carrying bitterness and victimization and resentment and all of that. So I think that

Speaker 16 many people, something ends, you know, but they moved in together. They helped each other through school.
They helped each other in the beginning of their careers.

Speaker 16 They helped each other when their parents were sick. They helped each other when their parents died.
They helped each other with raising children. This is a lot of what marriage is about.

Speaker 16 They've had good marriages for all second purposes. And maybe other things have come in.
And they were not necessarily always that nice to each other. And maybe they hurt each other.

Speaker 16 And maybe they abandoned each other, maybe they betrayed each other. Lots of other things come in, too.

Speaker 16 But this stuff all disappears because of the negative that then sits on it, making it look like their marriage didn't work out. It failed.
Why? It failed because it ended.

Speaker 16 The only time it's successful is when they meet in the funeral home?

Speaker 15 Interesting.

Speaker 20 So, you think we should redefine or look at it differently?

Speaker 16 Yes. I think that marriage has to be disentangled from the concept of

Speaker 16 divorce

Speaker 16 a marriage failed is the wrong conclusion it's not right and it takes away from people decades of enormous endeavors and constructive stuff it's not because a company closed that a company failed right right closed all the time yeah okay interesting so are you are you saying that you know, since

Speaker 20 we're evolving and growing and having different needs and desires and things like that, that we should expect, you know, to start a family and then get divorced.

Speaker 20 And how is that going to affect our children's lives going forward?

Speaker 20 Should we be expecting more of that and be okay with just, well, now I've got a new partner and a new stepmom or a stepdad, and this is how we have multiple families now.

Speaker 20 How is that going to be moving forward?

Speaker 16 Listen, when there was no divorce,

Speaker 16 basically, the ones who took the brunt of it were the women.

Speaker 16 The supposed stability of the family basically rested because the woman stayed put, made sure that the children had the kind of

Speaker 16 possibility, they certainly would. So I think that we definitely have a model today that is more focused on the adults.
When you divorce, it's for the well-being of the adult.

Speaker 16 It's not for unless there's real egregious

Speaker 16 issues in the family. It's not for the benefit of the children.
it's for the benefit of the adult. A divorce is not the end of the family, it's the reorganization of the family.

Speaker 16 It's the end of the couple, but it's not the end of the family.

Speaker 16 And if the couple can disentangle with more integrity and more respect and more real thoughts about the children, not manipulation about for the good of the children, then the family can actually reorganize better.

Speaker 16 And this is where it's going to go. So we can bemoan it, but the fact is we better think about a better way of doing it so that the children, the children of today,

Speaker 16 look, the millennials of today, 50% of them are either the children of the divorced or the disillusioned.

Speaker 15 Yeah. Okay.
Parents or divorce, yeah.

Speaker 16 And half of them, half of you, men, grew up with single mothers.

Speaker 16 So you've come out with a very different kind of emotional intelligence. Right.

Speaker 16 Because you actually were speaking to those mothers at the table the whole time.

Speaker 16 And they engaged you in conversations in ways that that often did not take place if the father would have been at the table.

Speaker 16 So you come I I think it's a very, very beautiful new generation of men actually that emerges out of this, that has that that we don't think of it.

Speaker 16 They were at the table with mom and when mom said, How was your day? she was not content with just it was good or it was all right. She said, What? So you had another question and another question

Speaker 16 and and you've developed a a a kind of an emotional literacy that most boomers don't have a clue about.

Speaker 15 Men.

Speaker 15 Sure.

Speaker 16 That the millennial man really has available.

Speaker 20 Interesting.

Speaker 16 You understand? I don't think you've ever thought of that.

Speaker 15 Yeah, that's great. That's great.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 16 You see it. I mean, watch yourself at the table at breakfast.
You know, there was a whole

Speaker 16 that conversation did not happen when dad was at the table. Not that there was no conversation, it was a different conversation.

Speaker 16 So

Speaker 16 I think families are reorganizing.

Speaker 15 And how

Speaker 15 Yes. Yes.
It's not failures.

Speaker 20 It's not bad.

Speaker 15 It's not wrong.

Speaker 16 We have blended families. We have single-parent families.
We have gay families. We have accordion families.
We have long-distance families.

Speaker 16 We have the fastest-growing model of couples in America today is the LAT, living apart together.

Speaker 16 That is the fastest growing and it's a boomer model. It's the people after 55.

Speaker 16 Okay, who are in relationships but don't live with their partner.

Speaker 20 Interesting.

Speaker 15 Why?

Speaker 16 Because they often have their own families, because they have their own living arrangement, because one of them is still working, one of them is already preparing and downsizing.

Speaker 16 Lots of different reasons for why they prefer to have the benefits of the connection and of the relationship

Speaker 15 and their own space.

Speaker 16 Interesting. Or because they want to stay closer to their children or grandchildren while the other person has their grandchildren elsewhere.
It's millions, millions.

Speaker 16 Because the question of the lat is what will happen when they get older.

Speaker 16 Do you have the same commitment to a person who is aging and getting sick when you have not lived with them and you have maintained so much of your own life?

Speaker 16 Because I meet you in my 50s. I have a whole life and I'm not willing to let go of that life.

Speaker 16 I'm willing to be with you and create a relationship

Speaker 16 and connectings, but I don't want to let go of my, I have a whole world of my own, you know?

Speaker 16 So that's the LAT model. And we don't know what the LAT model will do for public health.

Speaker 16 We know that men, you know, live better in older age when there is somebody next to them. They don't take good care of themselves.

Speaker 15 Yeah, of course.

Speaker 20 Should we expect,

Speaker 20 you know,

Speaker 20 moving forward in relationships with our time

Speaker 20 that

Speaker 20 monogamy is something that we're going to be able to do or with the there's always something better option and that it's more available now than ever, especially with social media, online dating, there's distractions constantly.

Speaker 16 uh yeah you don't have to leave your house anymore exactly you can pretty much cheat on your partner while lying next to them in bed exactly but we are by definition already doing serial non-monogamy you know most of us don't come to marriage monogamous we've come to marriage after years of nomadism sexual nomadism so Monogamy is a concept that has already been redefined throughout.

Speaker 16 You asked me before about how has marriage changed, but monogamy had nothing to do with love for most of history. Monogamy became about love with romanticism.

Speaker 16 It's the sacred ideal of the romantic ideal because the sacred cow because monogamy means I'm everything, I'm it, I'm the one, I'm chosen, I'm unique, I'm every and if you are interested in someone else, it means I'm not enough

Speaker 16 versus monogamy, which was basically for patrimony and for children.

Speaker 20 You know, so how should we navigate this moving forward?

Speaker 15 I think

Speaker 16 look, if I had talked to you you 70 years ago about premarital sex and virginity was a precondition, you would have looked at me like this is a taboo, this is impossible.

Speaker 16 Today, premarital sex in the West, it's like nobody blinks an eye. Okay, it would have been inconceivable.

Speaker 16 Okay, if I had talked to you about going from families of eight children to families of one child, you would have looked at me inconceivable.

Speaker 16 If I had told you that we were going to be conceiving so many children through assisted reproduction, inconceivable.

Speaker 16 So today when you say open relationships or non-monogamous relationships or periodically non-monogamous or monogamy, shall I dance savage, or, you know, or polyamorous,

Speaker 16 people will say, can't work, impossible, you know. The fact is monogamy is the new frontier.

Speaker 16 But you can have it as negotiated through divorce.

Speaker 16 or through what most people have always done, which is proclaimed monogamy and clandestine adultery. Or you can do it through a model of transparency in which people have consensual non-monogamy.

Speaker 16 This is it. This is the options.

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 20 What do you think is going to be working the most?

Speaker 16 It's going to be a little bit of everything. There are some people who really

Speaker 16 need

Speaker 16 stable, committed, monogamous relationships. They don't want open doors.
And there are other people for which open doors probably should be the model from the start. That's kind of who they are.

Speaker 16 That's their curiosity. That's the way they live their life.
And it's not because they're less committed or less loving.

Speaker 16 It's because their sexuality is organized in a certain way and it lives together with a certain arrangement. And all of that is going to be redefined as we go along.

Speaker 16 It's de facto what's going to happen. It will be the next frontier.
But if you see it on the level of marriage, people say, you know, if you say, okay, let's look on the, you know,

Speaker 16 you have to look at it from the place of before marriage.

Speaker 16 You know, a Swedish philosopher said, today,

Speaker 16 monogamy only exists in reality.

Speaker 16 It doesn't exist in your memories, and it doesn't exist in your fantasies.

Speaker 16 So, this is not because I advocate it. It's just,

Speaker 16 first of all, there's nothing to advocate. It's very simple that by definition, we have multiple sex partners before marriage.
We are not monogamous anymore in the traditional sense of the word.

Speaker 16 The world has been in flux and we don't really know where it's going.

Speaker 16 We don't. What we know is that people still seek to connect, people want to love, people want somebody who loves them and how that will play itself out is the mysteries of life.

Speaker 16 But the fundamental human need for love, for connection, for passion, for transcendence will never change.

Speaker 16 The expressions, the forms, the institutions in which we will seek those fundamental human aspirations will continuously transform. That's really how I see the evolution taking place.

Speaker 15 Sure.

Speaker 15 What do you think of what I'm saying?

Speaker 20 Oh, man, it's just so, you know, it's confusing because you hear so many different options that work, that don't work. You see people that love each other, that go through breakup and divorce.

Speaker 20 And then you see the pain and the struggle and the emotional toll that it takes on some people then you see people who are in you know committed monogamous relationships who feel guilty because they want to be able to explore but they they can't because they've made this choice and they've committed to it monogamy is a practice

Speaker 16 we are not by nature biologically evolutionary monogamous it's a practice it's a choice and it's a choice

Speaker 16 no yeah and it's a choice then and it's and monogamy is a continuum are you you know you have mind you have fantasy you have memory you have a lot of things at what point do we become non-monogamous where does non-monogamy start and all of these concepts are fluid concepts today there is just no way to define it like that right so

Speaker 16 we make our choices

Speaker 16 and we make compromises and we sometimes don't just do what we want and we often need to think about the consequences of our actions.

Speaker 16 And we need to think about the larger picture and something that may be perfectly desirable for tonight may not be worth it for the next weeks and the next years.

Speaker 16 And I think that

Speaker 16 in the era of self-fulfillment and the right to happiness, we don't have more desires today than the previous generations. We just feel more entitled to fulfill our desires.

Speaker 16 And we feel that we have a right to be happy, my personal happiness. The switch, the greatest switch, is from a social organization in which I think about the well-being of others.

Speaker 16 Collectivist thinking thinks about the well-being of others and I sacrifice my own individual needs for the well-being of others.

Speaker 16 To the other side of the continuum is I have a right to pursue my individual needs and the others will have to adapt to it.

Speaker 16 And I think that we are a little bit on the extreme end of the other side at this point.

Speaker 16 We really take ourselves a little very seriously and sometimes at the detriment of other people to whom we do have an obligation and a commitment to, not just our partners, of

Speaker 15 the world.

Speaker 20 So where should we be somewhere in the middle, you think?

Speaker 16 Or what's in an examined state.

Speaker 16 I don't know that it's always in the middle, but in an examined state, in a state that doesn't just say what I like, what I feel, the fact that I have options doesn't mean I have to exercise all these options.

Speaker 16 The problem of consumer life is that we don't know anymore to make choices. Same with the cereals in the supermarket.
Why would it be better with love? So

Speaker 16 I could get better. I could get better.
I'm like, you know, I'm a victim of FOMO. You know,

Speaker 16 how do I know this is the best? No, you don't.

Speaker 16 When do I find the best? No, you don't. You don't find your partner.
You choose your partner. It's very different.

Speaker 16 You know, if you think you're going to find somebody who is the person who's going to make you stop looking, it doesn't work this way.

Speaker 16 No, it doesn't. Because at some point, your inner rumblings will start up again and then you will say, oh, problem is nothing.

Speaker 16 You know, it's like you just say, this is it. This is where I decide to put my roots in this moment, you know, and

Speaker 16 I'm going to try to deepen them. I think we are all living with paradoxes of choice.

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 16 you know,

Speaker 16 from which phone I get, but we cannot commodify a partner and just kind of beta test the partner and beta test the relationship and check out to see is it good enough or can I find better L you yes you can the fact is you could find other I'm not sure it would be better but you definitely can find other and there are lots of people you can love and there's only a few you can make a life with and they're not always the same

Speaker 16 there are a lot of people you can have love stories with right and have beauty, but they're not the person you would make a life with.

Speaker 20 How do you know when it's the person you can make a life with?

Speaker 16 I think values enter into there a lot more. I mean, you can have magnificent love stories with people you would never live with.

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 16 They're just too different from you. They have not the same values as you.
They have not.

Speaker 16 One wants a child, one does not. One wants to travel, the other does not.
One wants career. The other.

Speaker 16 Very major, different classes,

Speaker 16 different

Speaker 16 Weltanschauung, as they used to say in German, you know, visions of the world.

Speaker 16 But you can love them. You can have a beautiful love story with that person and be transported in your experience with them.

Speaker 16 But you know that that's not the person with whom you're going to build a home, a future, a trajectory. maybe a family if you want that.

Speaker 16 That that's not the person with whom. And for that, you need more of shared vision, shared mission, shared values, stuff that is not just in the domain of feelings, but also in the domain of beliefs.

Speaker 16 It's different.

Speaker 16 Views about money, views about independence and separateness versus connection, views about

Speaker 16 emotional expressiveness, views about power.

Speaker 20 Wouldn't you say that those differences that we have also attract us to other people? That we have some of those differences.

Speaker 20 Maybe we don't share the same values or beliefs, but it's also different, unique, interesting. And so it also brings us together or do you think it's not enough?

Speaker 30 Cold mornings, holiday plans.

Speaker 18 This is when you just want your wardrobe to be simple.

Speaker 19 Stuff that looks sharp, feels good, and things you'll actually wear.

Speaker 14 That's where Quince comes in.

Speaker 12 And the bonus, Quince pieces make great gifts too.

Speaker 14 This season's lineup is simple, but smart and easy with Quince.

Speaker 19 Think $50 cashmere sweaters that feel like an everyday luxury and wool coats that are equal parts stylish and durable.

Speaker 26 And it's not just their clothes, Quince also makes it easy to level up your home.

Speaker 30 Martha and I have the European linen duvet cover set, and honestly, it's become one of our favorite things.

Speaker 19 It's unbelievably soft, looks great, and just makes our whole bedroom feel more relaxed and elevated.

Speaker 14 Give and get Timeless Holiday Staples that last this season with Quince.

Speaker 7 Go to quince.com/slash Lewis for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

Speaker 2 Now available in Canada, too.

Speaker 3 too that's quince.com slash l ewis free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash lewis the holidays can be chaotic flights get delayed houses full of guests wrapping paper everywhere burnt pies in the oven and we don't always get the sleep we're hoping for what if the best gift you gave or got this year was just a full night's rest you really can't go wrong with a gift from coop sleep goods they even hook you up with a free pillow consultation with a sleep expert and a 100-night free trial.

Speaker 32 Plus, Coop is offering up to 60% off this Black Friday, a premium sleep upgrade at the best value of the year.

Speaker 26 And when I took Coop's sleep quiz, it told me the Cool Plus adjustable pillow was my match.

Speaker 29 And they were right.

Speaker 18 I can't stand overheating when I sleep. And this one's got gel-infused memory foam that's made to be 50% more breathable.

Speaker 13 Coop gets it. Give the gift of rest.

Speaker 19 Or finally, gift yourself better sleep. Visit coopsleepgoods.com/slash greatness to shop the Black Friday Cyber Monday sale for a limited time.

Speaker 14 Save up to 60% off during Coop's best sale of the year. That's COOP SleepGoods.com/slash greatness.

Speaker 16 I think that what attracts you originally is often what becomes the source of conflict later.

Speaker 16 The very thing that is so attractive because it's different is also the very thing that becomes difficult because it's different. Interesting.

Speaker 16 So of course it's a mix and match, you know, but what makes

Speaker 16 thriving relationships is not only feelings.

Speaker 16 It's a mix of feelings, actions, beliefs,

Speaker 16 touches, physicality. It's a it's a a a more all-encompassing thing.
A beautiful love story can be just about feelings. So and you can l love more people than those that you can make a life with.

Speaker 16 That doesn't mean you make a life with people you don't love, but it means that there is a whole other set of ingredients

Speaker 16 that enter into the making of a life, which is the creation of a world. It's a little different.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 in that world,

Speaker 16 you often can be on the side of, you know, There's a lot of sentences today that I never heard 20 years ago in copper therapy. This is a raw deal.
I'm not getting my needs met.

Speaker 16 Where is my return on investment?

Speaker 16 Excuse me.

Speaker 16 Excuse me, somebody owes you?

Speaker 15 It's like, wow,

Speaker 16 I am in a relationship for what it's going to give me.

Speaker 16 That is an important piece. Now, don't misunderstand me.
But I'm also in a relationship for why.

Speaker 16 for what I'm going to give to this person, for what I'm going to give, if I want children, to these children, not just for what they're going to bring to me.

Speaker 16 It's like the level of narcissism has to be shrunken a tiny bit on occasion.

Speaker 20 Right, exactly.

Speaker 16 It's just like, you know, I mean, I'm part of that same, you know, landscape, but on occasion, I think it's like

Speaker 16 you calibrate it. On occasion, some of us need to really learn to think more about ourselves.
And some of us really need to think more about others.

Speaker 16 Some Some of us live with the fear that we're going to be abandoned. And some of us live more with the fear that we're going to lose ourselves.

Speaker 16 Some of us are better takers and need to learn to give.

Speaker 16 And some of us are consummate givers and we need to learn to take.

Speaker 16 And often we find a partner who is exactly the missing link. And that can be beautiful complementarity if we actually get to use the other person to become more whole, to learn from them.

Speaker 16 And we need both. You need to be able to think about yourself and to know what you want and all of that.
But you also need to be able to remember that others exist near you, your family, your friends,

Speaker 16 your loved ones.

Speaker 16 And that's what will make the difference the day you die and who will show up at your funeral, basically.

Speaker 20 I love this conversation. I have four questions questions for you left.

Speaker 20 I feel like I could ask a lot more, and I want everyone to make sure they pick up the book, Maybe in Captivity. We'll have it linked up here at the end.

Speaker 20 The first one is: what are you most grateful for recently in your life?

Speaker 16 Recently in my life,

Speaker 16 I had a kind of a medical scare, so I'm actually very grateful that it turned out to be nothing.

Speaker 20 A small boo-boo, not a big one.

Speaker 16 It was a big boo-boo. I thought it was a big boo-boo, but it ended up being a small one.
So

Speaker 16 that's actually probably the first one that comes to me.

Speaker 16 I have,

Speaker 16 you know, I spent most of my career in the professional academic world. And in the last two, three years,

Speaker 16 I've really crossed over to the mainstream.

Speaker 16 And that has entered me into TED and Aspen and the entrepreneur space and Summit and

Speaker 16 Cudad. I mean, it's worldwide.
And

Speaker 16 I think that it's been a wonderful

Speaker 16 taking what I've done in the four walls of my office to a larger platform and being actually a psychologist, not just in the therapeutic space, but in the larger cultural space in the world.

Speaker 16 That's been a great thing. Going digital.

Speaker 16 The idea that I can actually

Speaker 16 help people and give people an elevated conversation about relationships and that embraces the complexity and that meets them where they're at through my online courses and through this whole new platform.

Speaker 16 That's been a trip. It's been a fantastic, creative journey for me.
It's been just one year.

Speaker 16 So, I'm very grateful for that because it's been fun, creative, new, very different for a therapist actually

Speaker 16 to move into kind of thought leader, if you want, and being part of a more global conversation. Sure.
Great.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 16 that's, I'm actually

Speaker 16 in many ways I'm much happier today because I've become more,

Speaker 16 if I miss something,

Speaker 15 I no longer think, oh, shit, I will never get it.

Speaker 16 It's like I used to want, you know, I'm like, okay, it's all right. I don't have to have gone to three things in a way.

Speaker 15 Right, exactly. Full.

Speaker 16 To go back to the beginning of our conversation, I feel that today is full even if I haven't binged.

Speaker 20 Okay,

Speaker 16 I used to need to binge for the day to be full. I no longer feel like that.

Speaker 15 I like that.

Speaker 20 Good things to be grateful for.

Speaker 20 A second question is: if someone's looking to get into find a partner, a long-term partner, a committed relationship for a marriage, what's one piece of advice you would say to go enter into that relationship to find that relationship?

Speaker 20 If you can give one piece of advice,

Speaker 16 yes.

Speaker 16 Ask yourself, what do I want to give to someone?

Speaker 16 Don't just ask yourself, who do I want to meet and what characteristics do I want in that person and make a list of all the things that the other person needs to have?

Speaker 16 Think in the reverse. What do you want to bring to somebody? What do you want to bring in?

Speaker 16 What's the love that you want to put out into the world? The love, the caring, the benevolence, you know, over for another person.

Speaker 16 I think that that's probably much better than the checklist that most people go dating.

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 16 Here's what you need to be for me for me to then be interested in you.

Speaker 16 You know, be compelling to someone else rather than ask, wait for them to dazzle you so that you can swipe in one direction or another.

Speaker 15 Right. Okay.
You know?

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 that probably would be the first thing I would say. And

Speaker 15 that's it.

Speaker 16 That would be the most important one. And don't think just like is this the best.
You're not buying a product. No, it's not the best.
Just decide in advance. But neither are you.

Speaker 16 You're just the one that you say, this is it. Because often, you know, you pick somebody because you're ready.

Speaker 16 But there were plenty of others you met before that could have been fantastic partners for you. Just you were not there in your life.
You were not ready for that commitment, that decision.

Speaker 16 So you were ready to have beautiful experiences, relationships, lovers, you know, and you love these people, but you were in your 20s.

Speaker 16 What did you know about life, you know, about wanting to build something? Now you're 33 and you say, okay, now I want to do it. So it's the timing.

Speaker 16 It's your maturity that makes you make the choice, not only the person that you are being dazzled by. So that would be when you go dating.

Speaker 15 I like that.

Speaker 20 Question number three.

Speaker 20 It's your last day here on earth and your book is gone. It's been deleted from from history.

Speaker 20 Everything you've ever created has been gone. For some reason, it just got deleted.
And you're on bed, and you know, everyone you love is there.

Speaker 20 And they give you a piece of paper and they say, Will you write down the three things that you know to be true about your experience in this world?

Speaker 20 The three truths about what you learned. And this is the last thing that will, this is the only thing we'll ever know or have left about you.
What do you think you'd write down about the three truths?

Speaker 15 So, I,

Speaker 16 you know, I am a connector, and an enormous amount of people in my life know each other through me

Speaker 16 worldwide. It's always been something I love to do, maybe because I had no family and I was one child of two people, you know, sole survivors.
I

Speaker 16 think just recreating a tribe was something that came very natural to me. And I would write,

Speaker 16 I have touched a lot of people

Speaker 16 who have oh, and I will continue to live on in their memories because so many of them are now interconnected. Interesting.

Speaker 16 I have created a lot of beautiful events that were fun, celebratory, abundant, where a lot of people came together.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 I have had a great relationship with the men that I've lived with, at least for now, for the 30 years, 35 years of my life.

Speaker 16 And I've raised two boys who, if I was a woman interested in men, I would have wanted to date them. There you go.

Speaker 20 I love it. I love it.

Speaker 20 Before I ask the final question, Esther, I just want to say that I acknowledge you for being here and the continuous commitment to the work you do to supporting so many people in the world about navigating relationships and understanding how to have full, rich, meaningful experiences in relationships.

Speaker 20 I think the work you're doing is so powerful, especially today, more now than ever. And I just want to acknowledge you for the gift that you bring to so many people.
So, thank you.

Speaker 16 Thank you.

Speaker 20 Final questions. What I ask everyone at the end is: what's your definition of greatness?

Speaker 15 Oh,

Speaker 16 I went to a company recently and they asked me that question.

Speaker 15 I think

Speaker 16 irreverence

Speaker 16 is a big part of it. There's going to be a few words.
Integrity, but that's often a irreverence, not to take

Speaker 16 the accepted

Speaker 16 as the given. I don't think that that's because that's what we do or that's how we think, that that definition means that it's right or it's true.

Speaker 16 So I am a person who questions, I topple sacred cows, I open up possibilities, I'm rather non-judgmental.

Speaker 16 And I like to shed a whole new light on something that people think they've already heard a lot about and to rethink or kind of challenge the conversation.

Speaker 16 Those words go into creativity.

Speaker 16 But greatness is that. Greatness is

Speaker 16 when you poked at something.

Speaker 16 When you started out, it existed like that. And when you ended, it became something completely different.

Speaker 16 And I think mating actually, you know, mating or the courses in general, I am counterintuitive. I have, you know, I think people come in.
I'll just give it to you like that. People have a story.

Speaker 16 Every person who comes to therapy or every company who comes to me to consult, they have a story. They describe themselves a certain way.

Speaker 16 Greatness is when they can come in with one story and leave with a completely different one.

Speaker 20 I love that. It's a perfect head dig.
Esther Perel, thank you so much for being here. Where can we find you online? Where can we we connect with you? What's the best place to go?

Speaker 16 All right. So it's www.esterparell.com.
You opt in with me. I connect with you.
I communicate with you. We're in conversation.
I never harass, but I inspire. I'm on Facebook.
I'm on Twitter.

Speaker 16 I'm on Instagram.

Speaker 16 And I'm about actually to release the third online course called Rekindling Desire that is really, once you've read me, what can you do? How do you bring this home?

Speaker 16 How do you bring this to your relationships, committed ones or not, and to yourself? And that's really where these online courses now are. It's like

Speaker 16 it's me on, it's not the podcast yet,

Speaker 16 which we will talk about, but it is me speaking to you about how you take all of these ideas and make them personal and transform them into actions that will change your life.

Speaker 20 I love it, Esther Perel. Thanks so much for coming on.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 15 It's a pleasure.

Speaker 25 I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy.

Speaker 25 And if you are looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy.

Speaker 24 I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward.

Speaker 33 I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on on your journey towards greatness.

Speaker 33 Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

Speaker 33 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.

Speaker 33 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.

Speaker 33 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 of no one has told you lately that you are loved you are worthy and you matter and now it's time to go out there and do something

Speaker 33 great

Speaker 17 He's Kenny Main, the funny guy from ESPN.

Speaker 34 Formerly. He's Cooper Manning, the more intelligent and handsome of the Manning brothers.

Speaker 35 And he's Brian Baumgartner.

Speaker 31 But to me, he'll always be Kevin from the office.

Speaker 17 Yeah, you and everybody else.

Speaker 35 Together, we're the hosts of the new comedy golf podcast, We Need a Fourth.

Speaker 34 From Smartless Media and SiriusXM.

Speaker 6 It's like a cold beer after a round.

Speaker 2 You hear the strangest and most bizarre golf stories from our friends, athletes, celebrities, and comedians.

Speaker 34 It's all about how much we love golf and how much we hate golf. New episodes are out every week.
Listen now and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Could just be anywhere, just on a couch.

Speaker 34 Doesn't matter.

Speaker 34 Clorox toilet wand, it's all in one. Clorox toilet wand, it's all in one.
Hey, what does all in one mean? The catty, the wand, the preloaded pad. There's a cleaner in there,

Speaker 34 inside the bag.

Speaker 16 So Clorox toilet wand is all I need to clean a toilet?

Speaker 15 You don't need a bottle of solution

Speaker 15 to get into this toilet revolution. Clorox clean feels good.

Speaker 16 Use as directed.