so hey guys listen we're all trying to get more productive and the question is how do you find a way to get an edge i'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth a growth-based environment that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster and that's why I love Growth Day growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Brashard has created that I'm a big fan of write this down growthday.com/ed so if you want to be more productive by the way he's asked me i post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start he's got about $5,000$10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app also some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis it's like having the Avengers of Personal Development and Business in one app and I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis and I do so go over there and get signed up you're going to get a free tuitionfree voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well so you get a free event out of it also so go to growthday.com/ed that's growthday.com/ed are you someone who tries to drive while distracted by your phone someone who props it on the steering wheel or peaks down at it for a glance or just scrolls and scrolls if so you could be the next person to get into a thunder bender get a ticket veer off the road or even cause a crash that kills you or someone else enough already put the phone away or pay paid for by Nitsa you know our needs in my opinion have a much greater impact on the ways that we give and receive love in relationships and what happens is each unique attachment style has different needs what's healthy is if I'm okay and you're not okay of course I could support you and stuff but it's but it's it's okay codependency is when you're not okay that makes me not okay if I'm not okay you should not be okay too you know what I'm saying and I barely eat my way into college and then once I was out of the house I was getting straight A's and I was like "Oh I'm not an idiot." It's just that I was in this place that I couldn't study because everybody was screaming and yelling and it was bad environment and so if we don't understand our own attachment which is really our internal template for how people are treating us which then affects our own behaviors in our relationships we will continue to think the world is just cruel let's let's step back just for a second and cuz there's Tell us what attachment style is is we'll get into the four types in a minute and then also where it comes from i was really struck about this one parent thing that you talk about so what is an attachment style in general and where does it come from and then we'll talk about what the ones are perfect so so our attachment style is basically the subconscious set of rules that we've learned about how to give and receive love and really what to expect in relationships and I often give people the analogy that if you have a different attachment style than somebody else it's like sitting down to play a board game and you have the rules for Monopoly and I have the rules for Scrabble like even if we want to have fun and play the game we're just going to have unnecessary friction and confusion because we have different rules so our attachment style which first of all every single person has one is the set of rules that we've had for love so when we have different rules it creates a lot of problems and challenges but also three of the four styles are insecurely attached and that makes for some difficult strategies and and points of communication so there's a lot that we can really improve there and become securely attached and that will help create a lot of transformation isn't there the theory or your theory is that it comes from some sort of dynamic with one of your parents primarily am I right about that am I getting that exactly correct so so basically you learn how to give and receive love through your parents as a whole like those are our first subconscious programs we develop in regards to what love looks like how our needs are met how our emotions should be treated how we should be spoken to in relationships all of that is modeled to us at a very young age and the three ways we really pick up programming um from a very young age are what we see repetitively or what's modeled to us what we hear repeatedly and what our firsthand experiences are so those relationships we have with our caregivers as children really form that strong foundation for exactly how we expect love and relationships to go in our adult life see I I told you off camera i think the reason your work is so profound and this conversation today will be everybody is self-awareness is such a powerful tool to have in your life and by the way my favorite people that I like to have around me I think have a heightened self-awareness they've done some work on that but the reason this works contextually what we're about to cover everybody is you're really going to begin to understand yourself so well and why you feel or don't feel loved when you're in a relationship and it could be an intimate relationship or a friendship and and then also how to give it to the right person at the same time so that they can feel it i've often said on the show not often I've said a couple times that I think I'm and this is a confession that was I don't know painful to admit but in my case I think I'm pretty good at giving love to other people you know I I think in my life I've been pretty good to my friends and family but I have struggled to allow myself the gift of feeling it and um I want to more and I think the last few years that's improved to some extent but she nodded when I said that do you hear that often or do you relate to that i knew the moment you shared about your childhood so so as I had mentioned to you off camera I had seen some of your videos before doing speaker training and actually one ones I listened to was a beautiful story about having a parent who was an alcoholic and basically that's most likely to create a fearful avoidant attachment style and fearful avoidance are renowned this is actually what I was as well before doing the work fearful avoidance are renowned for being very loving very giving show up 10 out of 10 for people in times of crisis emergency really good at rolling with the punches very resilient but also actually have a hard time truly being vulnerable about the things that are deeply vulnerable to them specifically relying on people letting people in deeply um feeling like they can really trust that somebody will always be there for them and so it's like you overgive and underreceive and that's very fearful avoidance as soon as you said that I was like that probably would be part for the course so that's why I nodded no and you're right i started to read your work i'm like yep that one's me and by the way one thing she as we're going to go through it now too that I love is this isn't necessarily a static thing either and so just it's so great so let's let's take our time on this because I think just this right here if someone could understand themselves or others is an invaluable lesson that will actually could alter the direction of your life and the bliss that you feel in your life the joy the love that you feel so what are the four attachment styles and take your time on each one and if you want to um describe the behaviors that go with them cuz that's what helped me the style and then the behaviors I think is uh I think everybody right now if you're driving you're going to want to probably go back and listen to this again because you're going to you're going to want to write this down okay perfect so the first of four is our securely attached style and this is the one that we ideally want to become because as you've just mentioned our attachment style it's not like a personality disorder or a diagnosis it's basically just a set of programs that you have about love so this is something we can change now the securely attached child gets a lot of what we call approach oriented behaviors in childhood and approach oriented behaviors psychologically means that when a child cries or expresses emotion caregivers go towards that child and they are very attuned very present they are able to try to soo the child and now that sounds like it might be a small thing but it actually has a massive impact because what a child learns growing up in this kind of environment is it's safe to express emotion it's safe to rely on other people my needs are worthy of being met and listened to and I can really trust other individuals to look out for me to take care of me so securely attached individuals grow up to essentially have really healthy modeling and skills for relationships and as a result statistically they report being in the longest lasting relationships but I'm sure we can both agree that that's not what we would call a thriving relationship per se securely attached individuals also report being happiest in their relationships they report actually feeling really happy and fulfilled by the romantic partner so that's our securely attached style there are three insecurely attached styles at one end of the continuum in a sense there's the anxious attachment style now the anxious individual grows up with a lot of inconsistency in childhood but often loving and fairly present caregivers when they are with that parent okay so generally what you'll see is an anxious attachment style may have love and and very caring parents but perhaps they work a lot so it's like love is there love is taken away love is there love is taken away now neuroplastically we get conditioned through repetition and emotion so this will fire and wire these deeprooted fears of okay love keeps getting taken away am I going to be abandoned does this happen with divorced parents too where you go to one loving parent to another loving parent or would that be different that would be an exact example so I'm just giving one example but that could be one it could also be that we have a very loving parent but another parent who's much more inconsistent or a little bit withdrawn so the juxiposition of love there love not really there in the same way all of those things would create the consistency of inconsistency which is that overarching theme that will create an anxious attachment style so anxious attachment styles then grow up to have these big core wounds in relationships they fear being abandoned alone rejected disliked excluded and they basically cope with these fears by trying to maintain proximity so your anxious attacher is often the person who will call repeatedly text many many times move very fast in relationships really derive a lot of their sense of self-esteem and self-confidence through their relationships rather than through a relationship with self and they often will get caught people pleasing a lot sometimes be boundaryless in relationships and of course unfortunately a lot of these things become self-fulfilling prophecies so because they hold on so tightly they often accidentally push people away and exactly what they're afraid of usually comes to fruition i can hear uh millions of people nodding their heads right now thinking about themselves starting to explain yourself to you didn't if you were in that category everybody okay please keep going i I just think this is just so good thank you and and at the other end of the continuum is the dismissive avoidant attachment style so they're very much the opposite of the anxious in many different ways the dismiss of avoidance overarching theme from childhood is childhood emotional neglect now I think when a lot of us think of neglect we think of like the child's left in the corner there's no food on the table often times I would say 95% plus of the time it's very covert neglect it's things like having you know parents in the household there's structure there's stability food's on the table kids are at school on time but if you express an emotion go in the other room come back when you're done crying or don't be a crybaby or that's embarrassing don't cry in front of other people hold it together and the constant messaging which creates that programming that repetition and emotion that fires and wires those neural pathways that constant programming or messaging the child receives is your emotions they're dysfunctional they're defective we don't really want them here because a child is wired for attunement all of us biologically are wired for attunement and closeness a child doesn't know how to make sense of that experience and they don't go "Oh my parents emotionally unavailable cuz they can't conceive of that yet so they go there must be something wrong with me this part of me must be defective and shameful and wrong at the core because it just constantly gets rejected." So they cope or adapt to that kind of experience by going okay I am literally going to just keep myself very distant from people emotionally never open up never allow myself to get seen or feel too much or feel anything too real now as adults the dismissive avoidant ends up often being in a relationship things are good early on and as things as as soon as things feel too serious they often drop out leave very abruptly sometimes you know blindside somebody and their big core fears in relationships are I'm defective something's wrong with me at my core so they're very sensitive to criticism even though they're very stoic and most people would never know and they also feel afraid of being unsafe emotionally if they're too open afraid of being weak disrespected um not capable if they're they're vulnerable they have a lot of these deep wounds and so they often are individuals who struggle a lot with commitment with settling into relationships and with wanting to really let people in and allow themselves to be seen much at all so good i'm just thinking of somebody that I know very well right now so what's great about the way you describe the attachment styles is that everybody right now is either so far thought of themselves or a very close friend they know that fit one of these attachment styles i just want to say one thing too before we get to the the last one or the next one i uh I know that the nature of your work everybody listening to this is sort of romantic relationships but I have to tell you all when I read this I actually have thought about friendships that I've had i actually think about business and leading people and understanding the way in which they respond or won't respond um I think the application of her work is is very very broad and understanding human beings and how to affect them and how to connect with them or understanding why you're not connecting with somebody so but anyway continue please and to your point I couldn't agree more this is because our relationships it's a primarily first a relationship to ourselves so that goes with us everywhere but you'll see these patterns popping up absolutely in the workplace with friendships family everything so so the last attachment style this is what I was and and I'm sure this is probably what you are from the sound of it or were but basically the last attachment style is called fearful avoidant and sometimes it's referred to as disorganized attachment style basically um often the example I actually give for what will form a disorganized attachment style would be an example of somebody having a parent who's who's an addict or an alcoholic it can also be things like having a really bad divorce and being parentified that was a lot of my experience parents went through this sort of 15-year divorce i was always in the middle of it at a young age lots of chaos lots of really big fights happening my my whole childhood but basically what this is creating in terms of programming is I never know what I'm going to get sometimes I have these positive experiences with love where sometimes love is safe and it's okay and I yearn for it and and so I I care about love and I want to connect but other times love is scary unpredictable has moments of cruelty perhaps and so what happens with the fearful avoidant in their childhood is they learn to have these basically extreme competing associations about love that are on opposite ends of the spectrum i want love and it can be really scary love can be beautiful sometimes terrifying others and so what happens for a fearful avoidant attachment style is growing up in an environment that's really unstable unpredictable chaotic they basically learn I have this anxious side and they share in the feelings of the anxious attachment style they can fear abandonment they can fear being rejected or not good enough but they also share in the avoidance side they fear being too close being trapped helpless powerless in the wrong situation and so fearful avoidance basically are very hot and cold in relationships they're kind of pinballing back and forth and for me as an example I grew up feeling like I wanted to be close to people i would be very loving and generous and giving and then when people would get too close I would be like "Get back." And often times the fearful avoidant flip-flops back and forth then a lot of this is because of those deep innerwired programs from childhood of okay love is good but love is also scary and it can create a lot of that sort of internal pushpull and confusion which of course often shows up in external relationships as a result it's so great i have you know everybody we're talking a lot about childhood year and the more and more I've been doing the work I do the last 25 or 30 years the more I realize like the vast majority of the work we're all doing is connected to our childhood like just the vast majority of our work is those I don't know those years where you know from infancy to 10 12 15 years old and beyond even to teenage years and I think the more you dive into that work the more you are going to be an effective parent an effective human an effective friend effective business person you say in the book um 95% of your thoughts and behaviors originate in your subconscious mind and so basically our lives are sort of on this auto kind of pilot program and then you also talk about the subconscious reality lens i'm just curious as to what that term I think I know but I not everyone's read the book so what does that mean and why does it matter that we have an appreciation or understanding of that yeah it's a great question so we all see reality through a filter of our past right so I often give the example that somebody could have the exact same external experience we could take for example an anxious attachment style and a dismissive who's the more avoidant one and they could both be dating let's say somebody who doesn't call them back well the anxious attachment style because we see through the filter of our past programming it's really the lens that we see and interact with the world through they're probably going to make it mean I'm about to be abandoned because that's their past experience those are the conclusions the mind will jump to whereas a dismissive avoidant attachment style they're probably going to make it mean I'm free i don't have to talk on the phone because they often fear too much vulnerability too much closeness so you know we never really have these objective points of view we're all living through this subjective worldview that's first being conditioned by and wired in by our pre-existing programs from childhood now one thing that's really important to recognize is that our mind is also wired from a survivalistic perspective to hang on to negative things much more than positive things m if you are walking through a forest tomorrow and you see a bear and you run away and you you are safe but tomorrow the the following day you have to go back through the same path you don't think "Oh yesterday I saw such a pretty tree next to the bear and there was such a pretty flower on the floor." You remember the bear and its teeth so we're wired to hang on to more negative experiences especially when they impact us emotionally because we think that by holding on we then have a better chance to protect ourselves from them which is why we hold on to our negative experiences from childhood and then to keep ourselves safe although it doesn't happen emotionally we constantly repro them back out onto our external world we'll jump to those conclusions we'll assume those same patterns will happen with other people in relationships and that's often the actual place that we end up sabotaging relationships from if we have unresolved childhood attachment challenges from a younger age i think you also um repeat those patterns to stay consistent with yourself in other words if I don't consistently do this I'm somehow not being the me that I'm familiar with and that's a scary change in and of itself do you agree with that there's a lot of research to back this i actually talk about this all the time i couldn't agree more our subconscious mind works very hard to maintain its comfort zone because to your to your point it says well what's familiar is safe and thus I'm more likely to survive and and something that's so interesting is you'll see when people meet each other so our conscious mind takes up to about 40 to 60 bits per second of data and our subconscious and unconscious collectively take up to a billion bits per second of data so we may meet somebody and be like you know we're picking up all this web of information about their micro expressions their body language their tone of how long they maintain eye contact for and people are often choosing people who will mirror back to them their childhood as well because that's what's most familiar so if you look at an anxious attachment style they're so externally focused they're so people pleasing everybody else they're dismissing and avoiding themselves so guess who we often choose people who mirror back to us the relationship to self first because that's what's most familiar and thus most safe and so anxious attachment styles will often choose emotionally unavailable people hence that cycle will continue for their likelihood of being abandoned outstanding i'm thinking of one of the other applications I want to ask you about so cuz I obviously you're in a a romantic or intimate relationship with somebody one of the things I was thinking about this reading this yesterday one of the main questions I get and I bet you get too is people that are in relationships together um trying to they'll say "How do I get my spouse my boyfriend or my girlfriend to support my dream or this change I want to make?" And I started reading these different attachment styles and I'm like "Boy if you could really have an understanding of the attachment style of your partner that would certainly help you understand how to help them support your dream help them support this business you want to start." Do you agree with that like if you've got an abandonment issue and somebody says "I'm going to start a business or start to pursue a dream." I have to think part of their thinking is if you if you're successful you're going to leave me if we just stay the way that we are you'll never leave me and so one of their their real fears is well if you start to win and change and grow you're you're going to leave me and so if I knew that I would think if I was in a relationship with that person I would want to be overly reassuring that I'm going to stay that I'm going to be here that we're going to build this dream together that I'm doing this for us do you do you see what I'm saying do you agree with that 100% so a big part of what we focus on actually in this work and and people will hear it in the book too is is again to your point it's that each attachment cell not only has these core fears but they also have these core needs and if you imagine you know if you've ever heard of the the work of Dr gary Chapman Dr gary Chapman talks about the five love languages and he says okay they are um words of affirmation physical touch quality time acts of service and gifts now I would make a very strong argument that our needs are much more impactful than love languages because for me I for example have a huge um quality time need or love language but if I sit down and I watch Netflix with somebody for an hour that's going to be way different than having like a deep conversation with somebody because that meets the need for emotional connection for authenticity and so you know our needs in my opinion have a much greater impact on the ways that we give and receive love in relationships and what happens is each unique attachment style has different needs so you know anxious attachment cells they need exactly like you said they need more reassurance they need more validation encouragement certainty consistency dismissive avoidance they need more freedom autonomy independence but they also actually really need empathy support and acceptance as well as appreciation about small things and fearful avoidance tend to need a lot of depth they need novelty exploration they need growth um they also want you know this this intimate connection and closeness but they also want their freedom and independence cuz they sort of share in both sides of that attachment continuum so I always tell people like if if we had like a prescription for relationships it would be know each other's needs in relationships and then when we go through these big life changes or transformation like you're building something you're creating something rather than somebody having to be like "Oh no I want to stay familiar and safe and accidentally sabotaging the relationship as a result or having these protest behaviors or ways of acting out." It's like well if you know your partner's needs when we go through big change just pour into each other's needs during those times and it will strengthen the relationship and also ensure that you're growing together rather than growing apart so good i was thinking I'm thinking about a lot of different things but one of them is you know when you're understanding these attachment styles your own and that of your partner helps you understand where resistance can be coming from cuz often times what's what's the resistance that I'm getting from them why don't they want me to start this business why are why is it they don't want me to go do this and now you might have a deeper understanding of of the reasoning behind you know not only their behaviors but if you understand their behaviors and their needs you understand where this resistance coming from i wrote a term down just because I didn't understand if it was different than what I was reading so I this is just for my edification what is integrated attachment theory so integrated attachment theory is the science of how we can actually change to become securely attached we're not stuck with our attachment style so it's actually the study of these these five major places that we can do the work at a subconscious level so that we can become secure and have like the the strengths that came out of having an insecure attachment style because there are strengths we become resilient resourceful more empathetic more compassionate in a lot of ways but also have wired in those healthy patterns of secure attachment can you elaborate on what some of those places are yes so the first one is we have to reprogram core fears so we all have these core fears like we talk we've talked about the abandonment or the fear of being trapped or defective or criticized and so we can actually we're not born with those fears we can recondition them through leveraging the science of neuroplasticity so repetition and emotion fires and wires new ideas and it's not through something like affirmations i'll sort of go down a rabbit hole here just for but a lot of people will try to do affirmations so let's say somebody for example has a core fear i'm not good enough mhm you're not going to really help yourself by saying "I'm good enough i'm good enough i'm good enough." I think it's a little bit futile and the reason is because your conscious mind speaks language if I say to you Ed whatever you do do not think of a chocolate chip cookie right how did that go so so what happens is your conscious mind hears do not but your subconscious actually speaks in emotion and in images so nobody's waking up intentionally having these core fears nobody's saying "Oh I'm going to tell myself I'm not good enough 47 times today and hope that I feel good." What's actually happening is these are subconscious pre-existing programs so we have to speak to the subconscious mind to solve for them so what I give people is an original tool to recondition these core fears that really are the big saboturs of our relationships i'll be abandoned i'm not good enough i'll be alone forever these huge things that wreak havoc on our life and relationships is we start by number one identifying the core fear and its opposite very simple i'm not good enough i am good enough number two we need 10 pieces of memory of times we did feel good enough and the reason we have memory and the reason we pick 10 is because we need repetition for firing and wiring and memory is just container for emotions and images if somebody recounts their favorite childhood memory maybe it's them playing on the playground what do you see the images of the slide as you tell the story you smile your body language shifts and changes so now we're using our conscious mind to speak to our subconscious mind step three we record it for 20 and listen back to it for 21 days cuz it takes about 21 days to fire and wire these new strong neural pathways and as long as we have like 10 pieces of proof for how we feel good enough or why we're worthy of connection instead of abandonment or we're lovable instead of unlovable or whatever the core wound is that we're targeting 10 pieces of evidence listen back for 21 days we will actually rewire these ideas that we've carried about ourselves in relationships for very long periods of time so that's the first one so is reprogramming these core fears and I'm sure anybody listening if they're like "Oh 21 days it feels like a lot." I would really encourage anybody listening to think of how many times that core fear has actually sabotaged your relationships and it will always be more work not to do the work it's it's a lot to have to live like that yeah you built those neuropathways probably doing it for 21 years you can spend 21 days trying to undo it exactly exactly and it only takes like 5 minutes as a morning routine or something it's very simple so so the second one is we need to learn our own needs and so you know I mentioned those earlier you know for some people they need the reassurance the validation the certainty for other people they need the autonomy the acknowledgement the independence so when we can go back and and actually see what our our needs are according to our attachment style we actually first have to learn to meet them ourselves there's there's a great quote from Dr gabber Mate and he says trauma are the things that happen that shouldn't have happened okay so let's say verbal abuse for example which would maybe cause somebody to feel I am not good enough and we have those core fears but it's also the things that didn't happen that should have happened so this could be if somebody gets neglected growing up we're wired for attunement so we will have these deeply unmet needs that come from trauma whether it's small T trauma or big T trauma and because of the subconscious comfort zone because we want to keep that subconscious comfort zone alive in the relationship to self we keep those needs unmet in our own lives first wow it's good yeah so you'll see like dismissive avoidance they're neglected and what do they do they grow up and they neglect their own emotions and so you know we see this time and time again for each person so our step two is after we reprogram core fears number two we learn to meet our own needs in doing this if we can show up and meet a need that's deeply unmet every day for 21 days we actually will change that within ourselves and then what will happen is we will be attracted to the right people who will mirror that back to us because our point of familiarity our own subconscious comfort zone has now shifted so we don't keep attracting that those old patterns those old people who will keep you know that self-fulfilling prophecy alive so that's really step two identify your deeply unmet needs meet them in relationship to self for 21 days step three very simple a little nervous system regulation because every insecure attachment style is often sitting too much in fight or flight or parasympathetic nervous system mode so a little breath work in the evening or a little meditation on a daily basis just something for 20 minutes a day to help recondition our body so it follows our our subconscious mind into feeling like it is safe to be in our body it is safe to be more present with ourselves and again it tends to come full circle in giving to ourselves those deeply unmet needs now those first three steps I like to think of as being in relationship to self okay I'm doing the work on me first i'm removing my core fears i'm meeting my own needs i'm regulating my nervous system the second ones are out into relationship with others because healthy interdependency means I'm a master of the relationship to myself and I am a master at being able to relate to rely on and be vulnerable with others it's not one or the other okay and so our second two steps are communicating our needs to others and allowing ourselves to receive them and having healthy boundaries so we can show and share our true selves with other people i often say to people when it comes to boundaries you know when people don't set boundaries they're like "No boundaries are off they're they're going to they're like a separation instead of a joining." But a boundary is you sharing the nos in your life you know you're not connecting fully or truthfully by just sharing all the things you do like or that are great you also have to say "Hey I don't like when this happens hey I don't like these things." Because that's you sharing without your mask and so if we can do these five major things and really connect in a real honest way with ourselves first and then with others that's how we move the needle from insecure to securely attached in a fairly short period of time and it will transform the relationship we have to ourselves and the relationships in all aspects of our lives this is so good um a basic question you cover it in the book by the way thank you for this it's just I love real work that really makes a difference and really changes people we're going to get into relationship stuff not just I mean a lot of it's going to be boyfriend girlfriend significant other whatever you want to call it but it's also the one with you yeah that's the most important okay so let's and the hardest so you this thing self versus self like uppercase versus lowercase let's just start there for a second what does that mean oh man um I you know I I'll start with um uh the book before this was called I used to be a miserable and uh true story and in my 20s uh I was exchanging my truth for membership a lot i grew up in LA and so I didn't have a relationship with self i was living very outside in instead of inside out and uh it's really good that I wasn't successful then because I would have been you know the douchebag with it would have been very predictable story i've got addiction in my blood um me too but but yeah I I I had no relationship with self no sense of self and so uh very approval seeking and um especially when it came to relationships and women um doing whatever I could to get the dopamine to get the you know whatever it is the sex the love the approval uh and it wasn't until 35 um went through a divorce and uh at that point I had nothing i lost my uh friends had no money I was broke i just got went on Craigslist found a roommate and I was like man what what do I what do I do from here and I thought okay I want to start uh living a different life um because I have nothing to lose because I have nothing uh what what would it be to actually now start to live inside out instead of outside in what would it look like to maneuver more in my solid self so when people say self the S for me stands for solid and what I mean by that is uh we all have a pseudo self we all have a solid self and I got them tattooed on my my my uh these are these are all kind of like bookmarks of of uh they're dogeared pages of my life my tattoos and um if you've seen the movie uh Fight Club because I think it best explains this at the end we realize uh disclaimer I'm going to have to give away the ending to do my point but uh at the end we realize it's one person right so there's Edward Norton and there's Brad Pitt and Edward Norton doesn't have a sense of self right he's kind of like uh you've seen the movie right in the beginning he's just buying IKEA furniture and just like not sleeping going to movies and all that uh meetings and uh that's your his pseudo self and then he collides with himself which is Brad Pitt and at first there's resistance get away from me I don't want to have anything to do with you and then through that collision he starts uh finding him sol his solid self and then because of that he finds a movement he you know he's injected with passion he becomes a leader he gets the girl like all these things happen the whole character arc Yes and I think we all have the uh Edward Norton inside of us and we all have the the Tyler Deran I think was his name yeah so good and so the self the self to me is the solid self it's the uh what what Marty Bowen uh in my in therapy school calls well maybe people call it the authentic self you know um but I I call it the solid self do you think that Let me ask you about that that outside in inside out is outside in meaning you're trying to get external stuff to give you a feeling yes so okay yes um you're living uh based on things that are outside of self instead of living from a place of um value character you know uh stuff that isn't on the outside but is that is internal if you don't have that so by the way I told you guys here we go we're 3 minutes in and it's already freaking great stuff but if you are an outside in living person does that mean you're probably going to have pretty hollow empty relationships can you actually have a effective loving relationship if you don't even know who you are oh that's I think the relationship would be lopsided because I think what you're bringing to the table is the cardboard cutout instead of like the human three-dimensional right and I think uh um most of my life I was that cardboard cutout um if if you are pulling from your pseudo self which is the false version of you and by the way no one solid I mean you know I hope not Jesus Buddha maybe but like as humans uh depending on who you're around like if you're around your boss you may be a little more pseudo if you're with your kids you're going to be solid if you're with you know friend different friends and stuff but generally speaking uh if you pull more from your solid self what you're bringing to the table is uniquely you bringing your potential you're bringing who you are you're bringing the acceptance of your story so a lot of pseudo self people rip out chapters and they um they're kind of false advertising and they pick out the good parts of their story and present themselves in a way that uh is attractive i certainly still do that sometimes i think I think I'm loving this i So you do believe that it's a because I think some people listening to this are like "Shoot I still do do that." You're saying everyone still does it a little bit it's to the extent or the propensity you have to do when most of your days most of your weeks you're pulling from your pseudo self um that you're at your lowest frequency that you're not bringing much to the table okay and so in that relationship you're you're kind of a shell um you may be fancy you may be funny you may be good in bed or whatever um but your potential is low because uh your humanness isn't there and you know and what makes you unique is the solid self how do you do that so by the way you came to becoming a therapist late in life like you said right i'm a late bloomer man i um at 35 I did my first squat i looked like a pigeon i was a guy that you know biceps and then um No you know what I'm talking about no legs right uh beach workout found CrossFit at 35 after divorce um and I was a screenwriter a failed screenwriter and um put my wife at the time on a pedestal so I revolved around her so when the marriage ended I had no life uh which is great because then you start it's a black light right it's like God says this is what you have you know and uh so I found fitness and uh I I found CrossFit and I was like what is this this is back this is 12 13 years ago when they were like flipping tires and alleyways and stuff and uh I was really interested in it and then I kind of got obsessed with it and it was always about challenging myself because it was timed and uh was functional movement things I've never done before and uh that became kind of my daily ritual so I wouldn't fall into depression so your your way out of your way out of that which for a lot of people is too was physiology literally moving yeah that was one way in it was that and motorcycles okay um one of the things that that I tell people is uh with clients they ask you know okay so you got the pseudo and solid i need to to connect to my solid self and the solid self is usually the whisper the pseudo self is the thundering voice right that's been um programming advertising right the shoods you know followers social media it's very loud the solid voice is usually uh the quiet whisper because we ignore we don't listen to our solid self we don't listen to our truth because we're we're scared to you know so stay there you say this in your book and in your content that you need to listen to the quiet whisper yeah more so yeah what does that look like when you do it is it just getting alone and and turning out the noise cuz this is profound what you're about to say this is profound right i think um I think it's in the stillness you know um when we talk about our truth our intuition I think it's in our stillness because we're so not used to listening to the quiet voice that we have to practice it until that voice then becomes louder and we trust that voice i think our relationship with self is like any relationship in that it's built you know and and you know when people say self-love um I kind of I kind of feel like it's a bumper sticker because it's it's it's like thrown around a lot like gratitude right and and I get it it's it's of course self- loveve but um self-like I think that's harder man because we love pe we love family members that we don't really like or we'd be friends with because but they're family so we love them it's a choice but liking someone's not a choice right like if if if I want you to like me that's earned man you know I could say I love you as a brother or as a another human yes i don't know you yes but then liking is earned and so when you apply that to self now enter the journey and so when someone says "Oh yeah love yourself." That's like what over the weekend what what do I need to do to do that that's like a choice okay I do love myself i choose to you know I'm alive i'm feeding myself i love myself in that way um but if someone says like yourself then it's like I So that's where I started do I like myself what does that look like and then I fell into fitness and uh bought a motorcycle and spent a lot of time alone your brother like uh you're helping millions of people right now and the way you articulate this I have to tell you something interesting i love when I'm with a vulnerable person I become more vulnerable right yeah yeah that's why I loved my show and I think about the same age I started to evaluate that oh wow about 35 i'm 51 now i'm by the way huge work in progress on these things as well but as I started to get to know me even I don't So it didn't start with liking me it started like actually getting to know me um I found that my external relationships really dramatically became deeper and by the way over time once I got to know me I'm like I kind of do like me what was the catalyst for you so for me it was divorce what was it for you success extra success meaning okay I I did exactly what you were saying i'll get another more money more accolades more people know me more followers more this more successful friends more notoriety more invites to cool parties more jets more this more that and I'm like and I still am not happy and this is a game I'm playing that is like by the way I've gotten really good at this game i got different than you in the sense that I got good at that game but it didn't produce what I thought it would produce so you had success early so by the time you were 35 you were I was I had Yeah I had had some wealth by the time I was 35 and came from none of it but I'll tell you what happened i remember one day I'm literally brushing my teeth i caught a glimpse of myself brushing my teeth and I realized in this moment I'm like I never even look at me like I might get ready to make sure I think I look good right but I'm never alone with me where I just like look at me who is this man well you're busy being successful i was busy being my pseudo self right right all the time right by the way a pretty nice pseudo self a kind person i was a giving person i wasn't a mean person i've always you know I think I've been pretty good human but I didn't know me right and I remember just looking at me going who like I don't know that guy i don't even spend any time looking at me never mind being with me or talking with me or enjoying me and it started it scared me i'm like I probably only have one more of these blocks i don't have great genetics so I'm halfway that's when I was 35 like I'm halfway probably for me genetically now now I think maybe hopefully it goes longer than that but it's like man I don't want to get out of this life with never knowing me never liking me and then really how deep are these relationships do I have if I don't even know who I'm bringing to the relationship and so your work man like really resonates with me deeply and I think a lot of people listen be surprised to hear two dudes about our age you know kind of I'm 49 yeah we're I'm a couple years older than you right like well if I was in Korea I'd 50 cuz they count the the time in your mom's stomach do they really that's why I don't live in Korea that's why I stay in LA that's the reason oh okay so you're a year younger yeah the other thing you said a minute ago I want to go there is you were talking about how you put your first wife on a pedestal you have something you said bro that in your work that I just went "Oh my gosh." Which you said that we are taught listen to this everyone you ready to go for like a moment which you're going to get a lot with John you said we are taught that love looks like codependency imshment codependency so what is that what what do you mean i used to believe that um if you go down I go down with you if I go down you go down with me because it's romantic and also you know Disney movies romcoms and that feels it just feels like love right we're all all for we're all in this together okay and now I believe if you go down I'll give you my hand but not my life do you know what I'm saying we are two different people and the image uh and I remember this so well a lot of people just heard that one no no I don't want that i want that thing that I see in the movie well because it shoots more dopamine and it's sexier you know uh the the image that I see for a healthy relationship i thought it was a yogurt ad but someone uh DM' me said "No that was actually a Viagra ad." And I was like "Okay." But it was two people in a uh they're like in their 80s on like on the Grand Canyon you know um in separate bathtubs facing outward and the only thing that was connecting them was their hand outside of the bathtub and I remember coming across that in a magazine and thinking "Oh this is what a healthy relationship looks like." Because what I would imagine is two people in a hot tub on top of each other facing each other you know and yes that's sexy and that produces a lot of dopamine and that's kind of uh I think we've been brainwashed to believe in the one happily ever after and all that you believe the one is BS i do i I believe in the one in front of you um I think I think uh when you when when uh and and you've been married for so long so I don't know how you feel about this but 25 years yeah and I think today that that like doubles it means more today those of you right um but but when you're when you're um programmed to believe that that there is the one i think the danger in that is who whoever you're dating you're going to uh bust out your checklist and this if this person is the one and the one for the rest of your life man they better be perfect and everything better check off and the sex must be mind-blowing and all and that's not we're human you know and relationships are hard and so it puts a lot of pressure and a blacklight on the relationship now if the one is just the one in front of you now you're more present and you're not thinking if there's someone else in the world that is better for you or suited for you you know what I'm saying yes the the one is always the one that you're looking at well I actually think when you have a belief that there's just the one that when you meet them that potentially you come across as desperate or needy because there's this one human now right and I think sometimes people that are in the dating circles don't realize that they have an energy they're giving off that once they think this person is the one if you have that belief system potentially there are multiple ones that will be right for you right there aren't not everyone is right for you but that when you do have this belief this is the only walking human being on earth that will satisfy the things that I need in my life how can you not come across as somewhat desperate when you're going to do everything you can to get this person or make this relationship work right and then by the way I think in that I want you to talk about it because you're the therapist not me but that probably fosters codependency oh yeah absolutely i mean I am I need you yes yes there's a dependency and that's also when you go from solid to pseudo you know what I'm saying why why do you have to go from solid to pseudo because you're not bringing uh your authentic self you're bringing a self that is lined with desperation that is now putting this person you know high up that is now going back to the uh the hot tub with two people on top of each other instead of in their own separate bathtubs and then also if you believe that this person is the one that you're supposed to be with for the rest of your life what if it doesn't work out what if she leaves like you know you just explained where Most people find such misery bro yeah cuz they think they had them well also then you also get controlling you also get jealous you know all these other things you know the shadow sides come out if you believe this is the one person for you in this world but I think some people listening let's go there cuz you know what they're thinking okay they're thinking "Yeah but then how deep's the connection if I don't go down with you?" And when you say go down I assume you mean like maybe they've you know become a drug addict or an alcoholic even you're like I'm supposed to ride this out with you forever as you ruin your life and mine right so there is I you know I often think sometimes that with my children you have kids that's unconditional love there's really nothing my kids can do that's going to stop this relationship with me my daughter killed somebody i hate to say this but I'm probably helping her bury the body somewhere no I mean parents Right right but other relationships there are conditions uh there should be there should be conditions right like hey if you repeatedly do these things to me that's a condition that's broken and I think sometimes people go to this the one thing or this codependency thing whereas there are no conditions right and and then if there are no conditions if there are no boundaries you're putting an awful lot of pressure on that other human being not to push the limits of them don't you think yeah yeah uh Vanessa my partner uh says it in this book and I think we wrote it together she she says it really good about codependency that's a whole her whole thing is um she describes it as if I'm so basically if what's healthy is if I'm okay and you're not okay it of course I could support you and stuff but it's but it's it's okay codependency is when you're not okay that makes me not okay if I'm not okay you should not be okay too you know what I'm saying very good and that's like the whole like I'll give you my hand but not my It doesn't mean that if you see your partner going through a winter or a depression that you just oh that's not me it's not that of course you you helping your support but at what point do you um you can't lose self or your life because you know cuz then they're taking you hostage whether they want to or know it or not this self thing is so profound bro because one I think a lot of us come into a relationship by the way and again I'm being transparent i think till I was about 35 years old by the way I'm still a work in progress on it yeah but if you don't know who you are what are you bringing to a relationship and then also this loss of self when we enter a relationship is a really dangerous thing one I don't think that you're bringing the vibrational frequency the energy the interesting things about you if you die in order to be one in a relationship and it's an interesting thing I wanted to explore with you because I've watched relationships end of friends of mine that were very loving they were two wonderful people that got together they formed a bond there's us now which I think is powerful but at some point that us eroded me and I meaning that they they were no longer an individual right right they they they meshed they meshed and ironically that lack of individuality that lack of expression of who one is became less attractive to the other person over time it's called false advertising because you know it's funny because when you're single uh you're working on yourself you're going to the gym you're doing all these things and uh you're really doing everything to to connect to you and then you get into a relationship and over time you know then it's the sweats and the you know people kind of like let let go of uh taking care of themselves and all that and I think we have a responsibility when we're in a relationship to continue the relationship with ourselves or else it is false advertising because when I met you you were this type of person and now like we never go out you you don't you know you don't court me anymore more which should be continuous right you're not fanning the flames you don't write all the stuff that you were doing when we started is now gone because things have gotten too comfortable you know and so that's when it gets murky and that's when people start getting curious about other people i think you're exactly right brother what about this idea of Thank you for being so good at this cuz I think this is I don't know if I'm good but you're outstanding and you're you're the way you express it is unique and it's why you're sitting here thanks um and like I know when I'm in a good one of these I know when I'm in something and I'm like "Hey this is this is special." You talk about different attachment styles can you talk about that a little yeah and I'll just go through three there's more um secure attachment is and attachment styles stem from from childhood and of course starting with our parents but um there's anxious attachment and that is uh when you are holding on to the person's leg instead of their hand right that's like me uh I need the person to uh tell me that I'm beautiful and that they're they're not leaving and they love me and all that kind of stuff right lots of lots of texts and connection there's avoidant and that's more like my partner who uh goes runs the other way is is is uh not is avoidant with intimacy and hard conversations and vulnerability we we are not that much anymore because we've done a lot of work i was going to say that would be pretty difficult you you're one there's you know different extremes of that um but if we were to classify that's where I come from that's where she comes from and then there's secure and secure is again when you have your own sense of self interdependence when you are your own person you have your own opinions you can say no you can say to your boyfriend how you want him to go down on you you can express yourself you can say no I don't want tacos today I want pizza and I know I know it sounds very very simple um but in relationships we don't do that we actually start loving the Because we think what love looks like is loving the other person more than us more than us and because that's what a good husband looks like i'm going to always put her ahead of She wants pizza she's getting pizza that's what That's what a man looks like it's like is it or are you exchanging your truth for love or for validation are you exchanging something that you know what I'm saying yes so now if that's the case are you giving or taking because if you want something back from the person you're taking you're not giving oh my gosh giving would be like "Hey I love you but today I want pizza." Is that what you mean by choosing ourselves or is that a little bit different uh yeah I think I think that also is uh choosing yourself meaning um stand on your truth and put action behind uh what loving liking yourself looks like and I think some people are good at that when they're single but I think when they get into a relationship when love enters the picture right especially if it's toxic right especially if someone is um needy or codependent or controlling or all of that um the wheels fall off and it happens over time you know it's like the the boiling frog right yes it's a slow drip that can still drown you it's not like people don't fall into toxic relationships when when on the date they sense all these red flags and they're like "Okay I'm going to invest in this person anyway." Usually it's overtime five six years in and now they wake up one day and they're like "I don't even know who I am." Yes i don't know who a lot of women um and mostly women than than men from from my experience with working with clients wake up uh mostly in their 30s and uh been with people for you know 5 10 years and this happens and they're like I have no sense of I'm just here i'm existing i'm not living and uh just having sex because it's obligation and they don't know what to do and they've really lost like who they are okay so like 5 million people just are going "Oh my gosh you just described me right?" Yeah now what do I do yeah right so what would be a what's a you're going right where I want to go so Well it's it's it's kind of like I think where I started you know um it's the hero's journey man it's the um call to to you know the hero's journey right the call to adventure and slaying your dragons uh I think it's starting going back full circle to pseudo over solid what is your solid self and can you start listening to that solid self and it comes in micro moments it's not like these big decisions like you know life-changing i mean it can be but it it can be something as like hey you know what today I'm not going to go to work i'm going to go to the beach it's a quiet whisper but then there's this giant should yeah but you're this and you're that and and that means you're a lazy piece of whatever and so can you give yourself love compassion understanding and today can you execute what you want the quiet whisper and actually go to the beach can you give that yourself without the shame without the And it's going to be really hard most people can't you you start there and then you build and then you build and you get to a place where you start then able to set boundaries to make choices and it's also more attractive right and then you're the people around you are like I'll have what she's having yes man she's kind but she's assertive and you know what also happens i'll have her no really like what ends up happening is this becomes a magnetic attractive being again or maybe for the first time i I so totally agree with you and it and it it could be actually standing up for what you want like I actually want tacos tonight sounds so trivial but it's in the mundane or actually honey you're going to watch the kids and I am going to the gym and actually stand for yourself and do something caring and loving for yourself right and coming from a not place not a place of controlling or getting back at anyone it's coming from your truth and it's a coming from a place of self-love you know what is you got these terms man what is repetition compulsion repetition i don't I think my partner wrote that one okay so that must be from your partner you were talking i think what it was is that you I think I want to go there with it because I think it was like repetitiously falling into a pattern in a relationship where like you have a compulsion to continue to serve them in a way that maybe doesn't serve you anymore so actually I I'll I'll make my own term of it let's just say I'm right for I love it i think you're right but I think that happens intimacy wise too where like there's something that and this we're going really deep here but like there's something intimately that your partner really loves that you don't enjoy that you don't like but you repetitiously do it out of some compulsion to serve them or maybe some verbal thing you do or a particular behavior you have maybe it's not even in an intimate way but you it doesn't serve you it doesn't make you feel good about you there's a way they speak to you or you speak to them but it makes them feel good so you have this compulsion to continue to do it that's my version of it yes uh my so we all went out to dinner the other night me and like four other therapists uh my partner's a therapist our friends are therapists and we were talking and I don't know how we got on this topic but we're talking about how um women can go down on a guy and actually um oh as as a way to avoid sex and I was like wait a minute i said but that's so intimate um and they're like it might be for men when men are going down on women but for women they're they're saying that these are all women they're saying it's not it could be it's easy it's not intimate and it could be a great way to get out of sex and it blew my mind and I was thinking and they're like "Yeah." And we've been doing it for years and I was thinking so that's kind of an example of a pattern that could happen right if you don't want to be intimate where that's kind of how you take care and it shouldn't be happening because it's misleading and also you shouldn't be doing it if you don't want to right um but something like that over the years the pattern of that is damaging right yeah and that's we're just talking about just everyday stuff you know yeah yeah that's super interesting and it shocked me because I was think I was thinking oh and then I started playing back all my relationships and were think was thinking um how many of them were just doing it because they didn't want to have sex with me you look back I thought they wanted to do it did you know that Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the United States with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers they have all the plants your yard needs like fruit trees privacy trees flowering 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of direction right now your well-being is really worth it so visit betterhelp.com/edhow to get 10% off your first month that's betterhelp hp.comedshow you have two parents the good parent who you speak highly of is who This is the good one by the way and so as I understand it your the good one your dad has been married five times is that right is it five well you know there's a little factual fudging here and there but yeah a few times is he really married to someone that much younger than him is that actually a true story you ever date someone younger than him younger yeah and I I fudge a little yeah everybody does in that yeah it's for it's for comedic uh purposes but the but the gist of it is Yes your dad was a player oh I mean well yeah let I'll give you the stats so um parents are Hungarian immigrants they escape from communism 1969 they get married at 19 and 20 and leave their country at that young age can you even imagine being like I'm up i'm I'm out let's escape escape communism bro they go to Canada uh they have me in Canada and then we moved to the US in 1980 by then their marriage has just dissolved cuz my mother is mentally ill she's a borderline but back then nobody called it anything we didn't know it and she later became schizophrenic and my father um is is an alcoholic obviously to deal with his you know they had horrendous upbringings it's not their faults right uh they divorce and then it's me alone ping-ponged between my mentally ill mother or my alcohol alcoholic sex addict father wow right but you know but you know it cuz did your parents stay together i'm not sure what's worse well mine was redemptive because my mom was well adjusted my mom was there and was solid the reason I probably connected with you is I picture your dad maybe not all that much unlike my dad and then I'm thinking though if I didn't have my mom and then you having a probably even more disconnected mother and I'm I literally I'll be honest with you i'm watching your show i want to make sure I do a great interview with you today cuz I actually feel like this can care for you from watching you which is a comedy special i've never laughed harder either but when you were speaking and doing your show I was picturing you as a little girl i was actually picturing it with your mom and how like scary that might have been sometimes seeing her not be functional and normal and losing her temper and stuff like that what can you tell us a little bit what it was actually like now that you're off stage what's the real It's uh God like I'm still in therapy you know just to just to let people know like I' I've been in uh therapy for 12 years and then I feel like just now I'm getting into the actual trauma work where you feel the feelings of terror that you had as a child and I had terror and and fear because there was no there's no safe place when you're like that right so my mother would become I remember one time she made these lunches for me that I didn't like it was like Hungarian lunch you know like like salami with butter and I I take it to school and I'm like I don't want to eat this you know everyone's making fun of me cuz I'm a foreigner and so I hide the sandwiches in the bottom of my book bag cuz I don't I can't throw them out cuz I feel too guilty about throwing them out i'll get in trouble and I can't tell her that I don't like the sandwiches can't tell her cuz she'll get mad so I I hide a bunch eventually I have a stockpile of like 14 or 15 my hands are sweating telling a story and I hid them in my closet well eventually the stench of 14 or 15 salami and butter sandwiches caught up and she found them and it was a rage and it was like you know everything my anger and then and then she kicks me out and that's the beginning of like kicking me out to go live with my father and my dad's house wasn't a lot better so that you know because of alcohol and girls and party and all that jazz so it's basically like I'm betrayed everywhere I go i look and I don't have a safe place and it's uh it's scary and terrifying what's your day-to-day like then are you always scared always do you have were you not a confident kid the reason I ask people you know why I'm asking you this people millions of people listening to this will be like "Okay there's a piece of me and her." Yeah i really believe this in life like if you really want to impress everybody just show them how perfect you are if you want to connect with people and help them show them your imperfections for sure and you and I both do a really good job of that and so you're this little girl and I just picture you bouncing from these two dysfunctional people and with no other even siblings to grab on to and say "Okay they love me they'll protect me." Nothing no but you know who I did have along the way were sensible adults teachers that I liked and that I could speak to i had American i say American cuz like you know I'm I'm an alien in the sense you know this too as a child of alcohol of an alcoholic you're an alien because you're different and you know it and you can't tell people at school like what's going on at home because you know that that's a secret you must keep so I would go to my friend's house i lived at my friend's house by the time I was 12 I was out like you know what I'm saying like by the time I'm 12 I have this epiphany that I'm alone m truly alone in an existential like I was a latch key kid so I was physically alone but that I was an adult I was gone so I would I would try to stay at my friends houses and get the but uh but how did I I'll tell you what I did know at that age is that my suffering you know when you're like you know you're suffering but you don't really know as a kid you don't know it's all you know but I knew that there was something inside of me that was resilient there was some magic Do you know what I'm saying like I would watch Pippy Longtocking me too so did I yeah and it was like because of those characters because of the the mythologies and the like whatever it is I was glomming on to stories i would like pretend to be that person like my life isn't this i'm Pippy Long isn't this fun that I I actually turn it into like I'm living with my single dad and he makes me eat on paper plates but I can cut my spaghetti with scissors because I'm Pippy Longtocking like I turned it into a fun thing mhm yep yep you too yeah i think that look stuff's oversaid in personal development everything's happening for me not to me i don't know if I was the first person to say that or the third i'd like to think I was the first but sometimes that stuff's easy to say and and hard to apply but I do think like I I became really resilient because of it i became I really you know like in the business world I've made a lot of money one of the ways I've made a lot of money is like two things both of them because my dad was a drinker one I've learned to be really pre people well and be present with them the reason was I had to figure out when my dad was coming through that front door which one was I getting was I getting the sober one who was going to be okay we're going to have dinner and play basketball or was it the drunk one and you know maybe my mom and sister should go upstairs so I would read this man and that I didn't know Napoleon Hill says and think and grow rich love that book me too it's the second best book ever written on personal phone other than the power of one more which is sitting next to you yeah and but in that book he says on the other side of temporary pain you meet your other self and I met this version of me that wouldn't have existed where I'm really good at reading people and being present with them and then the other thing I'm decent at doing is communicating so are you and because I had to learn how to talk to my dad when he was in those states so that I could change him just a little bit or even move certain ways I would move little did I know that those two things were forming this version of me that I would use someday to help millions of people and I watch you and I watch your ability to have like insights into human beings behaviors and how they move and operate how they think and then your ability to communicate and I think some of that's got to be part of the blessing of going through what you went through suffering suffering suffering makes you funny it makes you clever it makes you uh resourceful you know everybody I know and like like you um most of the guys I know that are hugely successful didn't graduate from Harvard yeah right me too were crappy at school and had horrible upbringings it's the secret sauce isn't it it is it is but I think for me my father loved comedy and and good humor so I was watching Richard Prior when I was little and Aunt Eddie Murphy and Saturday Night Live and Chichin Chong and this was my education and then the truly tasteless joke books I would memorize those cuz those would be in the bathroom and I would tell those jokes to my father or to my schoolmates at school i would go to school and like third grade and I would repeat these jokes that are you know by today's standards completely verboten right like blonde jokes and Jewish jokes and da da da i didn't even know what what they were but I knew that people laughed and that's how I could get out of stuff and I also I became entertaining to my dad so that I wasn't a burden interesting you you um see if you right now in the middle of this like took a minute went over to YouTube and watched Christina you'd see this like I mean I'm just I'm not saying it's a compliment you just see this very powerful very together very to walk out on a stage any stage and to own it like you do there's a command there's there's something so I don't know if you've done a lot of interviews like this i don't think you have no we don't talk comedians are generally like let's talk about our farts right but comedians are also usually pretty dark people in real life right would you agree with that i think that's one thing most people wouldn't know my friends that are super funny or that do it for a living there's a I guess I'd call it a darkness or a pain or something they're moving away from most of the time in their life is that true well here's the deal the funnier you are the more you've embraced the darkness in my opinion it's the funny the funniest ones are the ones who get who know it's there and don't push it away that's why personally my taste in comedy has always been Bill Hicks or Carlin or these guys i love Greg Geraldo he passed away from drugs but these guys that could really harness the darkness and go there i don't give a about cookie what's the difference between cookies and cookie i don't care yeah shut up tell me the real you know so yes but here's what I would argue is that most people are dark there's everyone has the shadow self and comedians aren't always afraid of going there but your accountant your lawyer your dentist guess what they're dark too probably oh true yeah but but you haven't looked you don't want you don't want to peek m if id have met you at like 12 Oh who would I who would I be meeting oh my god yeah okay you do you though you do you too okay okay okay okay so 12 I started smoking cigarettes already okay started wearing all black you did i was already um school was kind of not interesting i want to hang out smoke cigarettes listen to punk rock i started I want to go to nightclubs by 13 14 I'm in goth nightclubs and like doing Yeah just kind of angry and confused go back a minute i'll tell you me is it really true that you were in bars with your dad when you were a little girl that's actually true that's a true part of your Yeah that that part's true 100% your father would take you out to a bar at six seven eight years old and you would be dancing to White Lines at the bar is there some truth to that yeah it's all true so that part's true and that's why so I actually paid it out of my own money to license that Frankie goes to Hollywood song i want it at the end i It's so I'm so screwed up because I know about all these things i'm like damn she must have paid for that to be at the end cuz that ain't free i thought about that last night i paid so much money cuz Netflix paid for my crazy outfit which was in Fortune and they paid for this New York City it was like huge huge budget and then I was like and I want Frankie goes to Hollywood and they're like it's the perfect ending you guys got to go see this but so that I want to say that's true so I go to So So my dad my dad goes to party and and you know back in the old country you don't there's no babysitters so his dad would take him to the bar I imagine is what h that's that is what happened and so I grew up in bars and nightclubs very early so at third grade I've have actually really fun memories as a kid going to these bars and dancing and dancing to the 80s music which is the best dude like I really lucked out in that regard and I was I have a vivid memory of dancing with sailors and there's literally sailors they're at Fleet Week or whatever and I'm this little girl and that song Mooney Mooney comes on and do you know what the hidden chorus is hey mother ever get get effed and they and here I am everyone yells it yeah and then I was like oh and then I'm chanting it like but it was fun for me and and you thought White Lines was a coloring book i did i had no idea what that it was about cocaine i was so little and but then then I'd go to school the next day and I knew to keep it a secret you knew so there's something you knew i want this sounds really corny but I'm listening to the part of your act and I like I want to hug this little girl i also just picture you at your age and me at that age and what I was doing what are you into at 12 well at 12 I went the other way well first if you met me at 12 yeah if you met me at 12 you would meet a really shy kid really shy really introverted no confidence whatsoever of any type but I was good at baseball and so I kind of went the other way i was more like straight lace never got in trouble um was afraid to become what I was seeing in my house uhhuh i was afraid my dad was still drinking when I was 12 so I kind of became more like an athlete type I guess but I wasn't like one of those athletes where like I was a cocky athlete it was just the only thing I was any good at it was the only thing like it was the one place I went where I was like "Oh I don't completely totally suck here." And no one was bullying me there right might you know I would worry there was worries like I would worry on game days if my dad was going to show up to a game and if he did was he drunk if he was at the game was he going to say or do anything sometimes I felt bad because I'm describing these times and I know my mom listens to my show and she's like "Was it really that bad?" And I'm like "I don't know maybe it is worse when I describe it now because it's all I knew right?" Like it's all I knew and my dad did end up getting sober and so there's like the reason I'm in this like you can change yourself space is I watched my old man do it right so I'm like I watched my hero do it but probably if you met me then I don't even know that I'd be that much different than I am now i think when people meet me now they're like I kind of expected you know I don't know you'd have more I don't know like that front that people have that are successful or whatever i still am like hey I'm working on myself and there's certain environments I'm comfortable in you put me in front of 15,000 people on a stage I'm completely at home and I own it you put me in a cocktail party with like six or eight people and someone's right here and I'm like "Yeah I got to I got to make the go to the rest." Like I'm constantly trying to avoid You said that you Tom's a little that way yeah my husband's an introvert like that too he's not the life of the party i think I'm a lot more fun at a party than he is you think that's from the bar experience seriously like you're used to being social i love party yeah and and it's also cultural like my We're Hungarian so like on Sunday we have a party everybody comes over you're telling dirty jokes you're drinking give me awful you know it's like this this I was never like shy as a kid cuz my mother pushed me into acting when I was four so I was like yeah I was auditioning and already kind of like show business and then I think around 10 or 11 I do like a pilot and then I'm like I don't want to be an actor this is for the birds this is I'm depressive and that's actually what I was going to share with you so by the time I'm 14 upside down this is when I get super depressed because now you know when you're messed in childhood guess what but it comes back in adolescence and now the drum I really So I'm 14 years old i'm goth i'm cutting right i'm cutting up my arms just to feel some release cuz I'm so depressed and I'm sitting in the room in my room just to try to hide from my parents and the reality and I you know you're confused you think you're being dramatic like is this really true is my family this wonky or like I don't know am I am I I must be messed up because you know like I'm the one that's flawed so you by the time I'm 14 I'm convinced it's me and not them and I'm suicidal and life is like I have straight D's i remember like I just decided to stop going to school i just decided I was in I was in ninth grade and I was like I'm not going anymore and then I just stopped going i was like no thank you and I stopped going and then I and then I was I had straight D's I remember and I did I eventually went back and I was failing out of school and then one day I just went nuts in in this in the bathroom stall cutting and I was just like whoa and I just cut i just went crazy and this friend of mine this girl I had been friends with and but we had a falling out whatever like she found me she took me to the office at school oh my god yeah it was so dramatic and then my mom came to get me and she saw my arms and then she started to hit me i remember she beat me and I was like "Oh my god." Yeah and I was like "Just put me in a mental hospital." Like I begged them i'm like "Put me away i I think something's wrong with me put me away." And my mother had worked for a psychiatrist and I think she just worried about putting me in a mental hospital or whatever like that it would stigmatize me or mess me up worse so she kept she was like "No I didn't see a therapist yet." She's like "But do you want to go to Catholic school?" And I was like "Yeah." I mean she showed me this brochure to this old girl's Catholic school mhm and I was like I bet Yeah okay so I went to the nuns and I loved it i I loved it man i had a mohawk at the time like an orange mohawk and I remember the the the this nice head nun the principal goes "Listen sweetie." She didn't call me sweet she goes "It doesn't have to be the color God gave you it just has to be a God-given color." I know so I dyed it brown and I hid my mohawk and I grew it out and I could put my book bag down and nobody would steal it and by the time I had graduated I was like a leader of this retreat and I had I just flourished because of the the boundaries and the it was an all girl school too so there was like "Oh I don't have to be cute i I'm wearing a uniform i can just be a little girl again." and I reverted and I was able to be safe and that saved my life saved your life catholic school saved my life yeah yeah it's pretty amazing to see your face right now you know this is mainly audio i wish everyone could see your face interesting to see you talk about that time um think about your mom there for a second so she loved you i mean she was trying with the limited capacity she had to help her daughter there right i mean did that ever dawn on you that I mean she did love you right yes yes no obviously too a lot of what I say for comedic it's it's no good if they're shades of gray yeah but I actually think you really feel it like I I I actually think he really Let me tell you what I mean by that i really do feel these things about my dad i feel guilty about feeling them because I know that that that's not wasn't his intent it was his You feel guilty about having negative feelings towards him yeah I do because I love him so much and I know he loved me so much i've got to the other side of it now where I can and this is so good for everyone listening to this who goes through these things but I I don't I I think it's okay that I feel it i feel sometimes weird that other people know I feel it cuz I don't want them to think that about You don't want them to judge him or you both both i don't want to be judged for feeling that way and also like I do know that my dad hurt people hurt people right so I know my dad was operating out of something that happened in his life in his upbringing same with his dad and so on and so on but I I feel weird about the fact that there's this man I love so much but that I these things did happen i do feel this way you know I have both feelings i remember what it's like when I didn't feel good about him and I remember what it feels like when I do and I and in your case your mom was trying but so when you went there when you Catholic school does that when you start to change permanently or do you end up reverting back like Oh okay when do you become you right right so So that's a good question so so also before before I go there I I love what you say about having two simultaneous feelings and I think that's what you learn in therapy um is that I can love and hate my mom at the same time i can love and hate my dad at the same time i can thank my mother for all the wonderful qualities she had she was fashionable she had flare she had timing she was funny she was crazier than too you know what I'm saying like my dad too is this like funny antisocial brooding um independent resilient like brilliant nut does it ever dawn on you and I'll let you keep going that they end up raising I mean because you you're really humble and but does it ever dawn on you that these two people raised a daughter who now I mean let's just be real like you're one of the more I mean you're going to roll your eyes when I say this but you are one of the more influential people on the planet in terms of your show and your reach and your husband and you I don't even feel that way yeah I know you don't do you feel that way no not at all but but it's ridiculous but you are and so these two totally dysfunctional human beings no really raise this single child together right how how right and then you end up I mean this is I'm picturing you cutting yourself and I just want to give you like terrible maniacs and I was by the way I went through the stage where like I was so depressed i don't know if I was so I just I used to think what the heck is life about why am I living this life what is this is this worth it at all that goes into that yeah and I did you have that too yeah man so the darkness so okay so hold on back what you're just saying how did they raise someone i'll I'll tell you why because it makes me sad because my parents are wildly awesome people who had a a bad go of it man could you imagine being born in in communist Hungary it's after World War II so the country's already been ravaged by the Germans war war awful poverty and now the Russians come and destroy your country and it's a nightmare they have nothing so I always think of them as this pure potential that just got destroyed so I know that they they've got the makings oh but had they just had my life damn it i lucked out they had your life so you lucked out being raised by the two of them compared to what they had 100% 100% and here's another lucky thing I had money now we weren't rich i'm not saying I was rich food every day you have to worry about where meals were coming from no not like that we were like middle class and I think back in the '9s there was a middle class right and I hate when people poo poo money it makes me bonkers when they're like money isn't everything now it's not everything but it's awesome yeah and the lack of it is horrible and it sucks being broke right the lack of it's horrible yeah so it changes so it gives you So the fact that I was educated was a huge blessing now I barely eaked my way into college right barely got in man but I did and then once I was out of the house I was getting straight A's and I was like "Oh I'm not an idiot it's just that I was in this place that I couldn't study because everybody was screaming and yelling and it was a bad environment and that's when I found philosophy so I started studying philosophy and that changed my life and that's when I was like "Oh I have I have a brain i'm not just like a screw-up who tried to kill herself in nth grade." And I was always trying to outlive that stigma of being a loser cuz my parents were like "Oh you tried to kill yourself." You know it was like I disappointed everybody in my family my grandmother wouldn't give me money that year for Christmas cuz she thought I was going to spend it on drugs which I wasn't even really on drugs you know what I mean so I was like this this loser in my family so I found philosophy and I was getting A's and I was like you know what screw you man i'm going to be I'm going to I'm going to show you right i'm going to show you i'm a winner and then I got into Oxford for a year and I went to study philosophy at Oxford yeah man what yeah as I'm telling you so I went from like Loserville to like I I don't know what I'm going to be but I'm going to show you mom and dad wow yeah so I study philosophy at Oxford i come back and I'm And then I do that show Road Rules i didn't know you did rules a million years later and then I was like wouldn't it be great if I could make a living just being myself flash forward to podcasting but anyway I had this great boss after college i had this degree in philosophy and I was such a useless degree and he's like he's like "You're the worst employee I've ever had." His name is Chris Abrago shout out to Chris Abrago what's up Chris anna you're the worst employee I've ever had but you're funny go do the Groundlings i was 23 come on and then I went to the Groundlings and I was like this is it i found it it's like when you find your thing you're good at yep he found sports yep and then I'm like all right hey man maybe you know I'm an idiot i'm a loser whatever but this is something I love and once you get obsessed you know how it is it's like when you find your obsession i don't care what it takes bro i'm going to keep coming and do this put me in a Motel 6 yep okay like yeah i'll do You want me to go Afghanistan can I do 15 minutes of stage time in Afghanistan yeah dude i'll go you did that hell yeah i did everything you did well I'm sure you did everything by means but in your case so you find it by the way it's one of the great blessings of life i always feel for people that have not yet found it yeah because it's I feel like of all the things I got cheated out of in life I did find some talents and skills when I was relatively young outside of baseball too that I was like "Okay I like business i like speaking this is stuff I'm pretty good at i feel at home it doesn't feel like a work when I'm doing it." That's the se boom doesn't feel like work when I I always laugh when people call you going to work tonight stand up i'm like that's not It's never work baby i've had day jobs i had 22 of them before I became a stand up they all sucked that's not a job this ain't work man yeah that's how I feel so what about your work because you say how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends so what is the science of attachment i want to get to the root of this before we leave what is the science of attachment and in your words before we leave and take as much time as you want how does that help us make and keep friends the science of attachment yeah so as I sort of sifted through the research on friendship what I found was that our personalities are fundamentally a reflection of our experiences of connection or disconnection whether I am open warm trusting cynical um all of these things are predicted by whether I've had healthy connection in the past but not only that if I've had that healthy connection I cultivate a number of traits that contribute to me continuing to connect right and that's if I have securely attached I've had those healthy relationships I begin to display these healthy behaviors that allow me to continue to attach to other people insecurely attached people they haven't had Oh Ed did you want to ask me a question no I'm profoundly agreeing with you right now keep going please yes um insecurely attached people they haven't had healthy connection in the past they h they carry around this unconscious template for connection either that everybody is going to abandon me or sort of betray me and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy they look out for instances where this is true they do not register instances that are counter to this assumption and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy too Ed because if I think you're going to abandon me when the situation is ambiguous you might be angry for example i think you're rejecting me i reject you i become cold and withdrawn and then you reject me because you feel rejected by me right and so if we don't understand our own attachment which is really our internal template for how people are treating us which then affects our own behaviors in our relationships we will continue to think the world is just cruel people just reject me people can't be trusted and if we understand our own attachment we can be empowered to think there are behaviors I can change so that I can foster deeper connections with others i love you this is exactly why no this is exactly the question I asked you earlier where I think we agree but we word it differently you're so flipping right so my main male relationship was with my dad and my dad was a drinker when I was young and wouldn't show up and and I started to build these belief systems you're talking about that idea that hey maybe you shouldn't have people around you that are different than you until you're ready because you haven't had these healthy other relationships you were using the example with you earlier and you're very right about it because my when I had male relationships in my life I thought well they're all going to lie to me they're all going to eventually leave they're all going to screw me over they're all going to do this or that because the one relationship I had with the most important male that had happened and I had to really learn in my relationships not to project that pattern and dynamic into my new friendships and early in my life you're so right early in my life I lost a lot of friendships because I would jump to the conclusion that that was happening cuz it looked like what it used to look like and so I'd go "Well they're doing it they lied right there they're they're like my dad." Well no they're a human and they fibbed a little bit and they're still a really good person who loves me it doesn't mean all these other things are going to happen and so that's why your work matters so much because you're exactly right about that and it's worth going back the last three minutes there and evaluating what Dr franco just said because we do do that in our patterns in our relationships we do sort of project into them that way and um I totally agree with that and that's why I was nodding i certainly wasn't trying to jump in and interrupt you there because I think that was gold so I think you are too i think your work I just want to tell you thank you for doing the work you do [Music]