how did you go into our relationship differently because when we met I think we were both really clear about what we wanted in terms of support in achieving our goals it was like two weeks ago I want to say that we were talking about it and we correlated pretty much every High performer in the company with having immense support if not encouragement not even just support but encouragement from their significant other or they don't have one or have one that is aloof meaning they're just not interfering with their career and so that creates an environment in which they are a top performer or at least the way I see it is I care less about the fact that it affects their job here I care more about the fact that it affects their life and their goals and I think what it led to like a bigger discussion for us was just like how many people that we know that they chose the wrong person and because they chose the wrong person their life has not turned out how they wanted it to yeah I think um when I was thinking more about it after we because we talked like a whole evening on just this one topic and in the morning yeah it was like which is actually a pretty meaty discussion for us to do like a two-day topic on it I was thinking about it more and I think there's like four levels of spouse or significant other interference or support in someone's life so on the most negative you have somebody who's actively trying to sabotage uh the person's job so they're like anytime the person's frustrated they lean into the frustration so they're like yeah they do suck you know what they shouldn't work you that hard you shouldn't have to do these things right lots of shoulds um and I think an alternative version of that negative is the competitive spouse who wants to beat their spouse and like if the spouse gets ahead then they see that as a bad thing and I think that happens more often in unmarried Partnerships than married but I still think it happens in both because it's they don't see it as one pot it's still like two separate bank accounts or two separate scoreboards rather than like our Collective scoreboard yeah I think one degree after that you have the neutral the aloof the like you have a job I don't want to hear about it but just as long as it doesn't interfere with what we want to do which I think often times that ends up over time becoming the negative because the more involved the person gets in their career the more they will quote bring work home with them because their work is their life and they just are really interested in it and want to talk to talk to the person they care the most about with it and then I think that the greate after that is you have support like the active support and I think for most people this is like the best that most people will end up getting I think the fourth which is extremely rare um is where the person actively helps the individual and that's where you see like working spouses working relationships where they like actually work together towards the same goal and I think that's still I mean I used to think there's like cheerleader fullback which is like this person's cheering for you and this person's on the field and I equated them but I actually the more I've thought about it the more I think if we're just talking long term then how could you make the argument that somebody who's actually helping you actively rather than just eliminating other things that distract you so one is removing negatives and the other one is like actively adding positives too and I think that can look different for different people meaning like adding positives can be that somebody makes work easier for you by what they do at home you know like the way that they take care of the house the way they take care of the kids you know things like that um and they encourage you to keep do doing work the way you want to do work or it could be like us where it's like you know we're all in on doing the same thing together I think why we were thinking about this more is that like we've seen people who have potential who we've hired who we' brought on the team and through a poor mate selection they have gone from rising stars to stagnant or even declining because it's kind of like this this Contin it's it's kind of like a if you're driving a car uh quickly uh like a tiny steering Direction doesn't change very much when the person's a low or mid-level person but as they move up it's like the car goes faster and each tiny little Veer in Direction makes a bigger change in the person's trajectory and so I think this was just like a theme that we've seen and then we then we tried to like back validate it we were like okay let's look at past companies let's look at past employees let's look at all these different scenarios and it just seemed to be like a 100% correlation it was like we could not find a scenario where we had someone who consistently moved up consistently improved consistently got better and didn't have a spouse that was basically all in with them on their career I don't know if you remember this but when we first got married I remember um someone telling us that a healthy marriage or or partnership more so is how it was positioned uh in a most Partnerships that are what people consider normal when one spouse is down and they're thinking negatively about something they're having a hard time they're struggling the other spouse is here and then they come down here with that spouse and what this person told me that reinforced how we interact is when one of us is down the other one doesn't go down with them like if one of us is feeling negative about something I I actively am like oh I'm not going to feed into that I'm going to remind of the goal I'm going to remind of all the hard work I'm going to remind of what what you want and you do that for me too it's like encouraging it's not like oh no don't talk about that but it's you can do it you're so [ __ ] strong you've got all these things going for you you've worked so hard this is going to pass in a week like all these things and I think what you see is just like over time enough times somebody just pulls you down and pulls you down and pulls you down it feels like they're being empathetic in a way but they're actually just sewing seeds of doubt and they're feeding into like what our brains do which is always go towards the negative what resonated with me is when I heard someone say you have to make it home to the dinner table if you really want to help someone Skyrocket their career you have to make it home to the dinner table and it has to be good news at the dinner table well I'll say two elements so one thing is when you have a spouse or a significant other who's at home and you have that negative day right what happens and I can understand why that significant other will take the next steps I'm about to say which is they both reward the positive behavior they sorry they re W with something different than work uh and they punish talking about work in a negative way and so that creates a two-sided incentive that that makes it really hard for the person who is struggling with work to talk more about it or work more because then the partner Associates work with negative and says don't talk about that or like they're pushing you too hard right so that's them basically punishing them talking about this thing they're trying to get through and then also says hey why don't we take some time and watch Netflix why don't we go out with friends why don't we whatever and so in an attempt to help the partner they end up creating a positive contingency around them not working and a negative contingency around them working which are two separate things but they do them both simultaneously and so when you do that on a consistent basis it ends up this is where we're talking about like what happens over the long term this is those little NASCAR moves where like a little bit like it happens once and then it happens again and then the the car starts steering and so that person who was otherwise a really big contributor all of a sudden doesn't find themselves dedicating discretionary effort and time towards the work or their career because everything they do at home is punished and they have alternatives to work that are given to them by their spouse that are quote reinforcing but where it gets especially tricky is where that spouse or partner then wants this person they want to enjoy the fruits of a really good career but actively are punishing the person for talking about their work and actively distracting them from the work that they do so it makes it even harder for them to succeed so at some point the rubber hits the road and I think most times the rubber doesn't hit the road it just happens in the person's career so the rubber like reality has to sit in at some point either the conversation has to be had where it's like hey this career is really important to me and so I need to be able to talk about this stuff or I need to be able like just work through it out loud and that's just how I process things and I just need you to support me and like that's where you start giving instructions and directions on like when I say this stuff this is what I would like you to do rather than you hear me say something negative and you take that as direction to encourage negativity and then distract me like fundamentally like that's how you translate me coming home upset which long term makes me worse at my job which net on our whole life is not a good thing because then my career will get off track and then we'll both suffer has this ever happened to you yeah yeah I mean um I'm curious cuz like from my perspective obviously like it's more traditional for like a guy to be like I don't want you to work so much because like what how you going to do all this other stuff right so like I'm used to getting that until I met you but I'm curious for you I was like go make money baby but I'm curious for you like what was like how did you handle that and how did you go into our relationship differently because when we met it was so clear to me I think we were both really clear about what we wanted in terms of support in achieving our goals well I'll say that I'll say I had two two relationship prior that had uh two of the scenarios I talked about so one was the competitor where it's like both of us were trying to compete with like who was going to achieve more um and so that was kind of like very subverse very like passive like passive aggressive which then I think longterm ends up creating more space between you and then you're both kind of driving these separate Lanes but not because of the benefit of the whole you're just driving you're basically growing apart the so I I've gone through that and I didn't like it and so then the uh a different scenario was um actually more akin to what I was describing earlier which is why I feel like I have more like you know emotion around it which is um where you have someone who's really well-intentioned and wants to help but wants to help by getting you to not work and not talk about work and so that like the way that looked was like you know I'm like hey these are all the things that are stressing me out and it's like okay enough talk about work for you um let's talk about my day and so so and I was like man I I don't I don't really care um about your day um I'm still not done processing my day right now uh and so it end the thing is is like if work is the thing that means the most to me in my life then it's like I no longer can talk about the thing that I care about most that's tough when I'm talking to the person that I care about most so then going into our relationship after you got out of those two relationships yeah what did you decide um well for me it was like and I probably have better words for this now than I did then but it was like I decided that my relationship with my goals was my most important relationship and so I was like I'm just not willing to sacrifice my relationship with without for anyone and so that became one of my non-negotiables going in whereas before it wasn't a non-ego it wasn't even a discussion because I just didn't to be fair I just didn't have that much experience with it overall or at least the goals that I had of like studying hard or things like that were I guess more commonplace but I was just like this is the thing that matters most to me right now and so like you can get on this train or you cannot but like this Train's Le was that hard for you at first no I didn't think so I mean I mean at the beginning of our relationship it's funny cuz like I can't picture you yeah I know even tolerating that I know and I am just I've never been that person so I can't but I see it happen all the time you know was I mean it was a decision right it was like this I mean it was you know it's like you you learn through experience you're like okay I thought this wouldn't matter I thought that the traditional setup uh would work and I think maybe for some people it does but for me I was like this is my life this is like these goals mean a lot to me and if I were to play out the alternative scenarios of like I have a meaningful relationship but I don't achieve any of my goals or I achieve my goals and I don't have a meaningful relationship I would rather have the goals but I think that there's a way where I could have the goals and the relationship as long as the relationship is aligned with my goal goals and so then you can have both but I think a lot of people are afraid and because they feel like the false Choice exists and there is no alternative they just choose well I'd rather not be alone which I can understand but I think that I had been I had never felt more alone than when I was in a relationship where I felt internal conflict between what I cared about most and who I cared about most I think we both probably defined goals the same way which is like the reason that the goals mean more than the person is because the goals are actually your relationship with yourself so it really isn't a what I care about most and who I care about most it's that you it's like it feels selfish to say but it's like you have to care about you more than you care about the relationship and it's I think it's very much the you have to put your air mask on before helping others you know it's the the ethical workaround that people have seem to seem to sleep well with in society but like if you feel unfulfilled in what you do with the vast majority of your life most people will spend more more time working than doing anything else in their lives which is really just the relationship that you have with what you do on your own that's tough to sacrifice all of that just to not be alone but the thing is is like I think that's a false answer it's like you are alone because you're not able to be you and so then you start having a split life where you're one person at work which is who you really are and then you have one person that you have to act like at home you can't talk about the same topics you can't think the same things now some people are like well I want to leave work at work which is fine it's just that's not how I work I think it's also interesting cuz like when I was thinking about it when you talk about like goals I think most people when they hear us say that they think oh it's like work monetary goals but I think there's so many different things it can be because we've seen it where it's not just that a spouse conflicts with a a I would say like a monetary goal but like a spouse conflicts with personal goals like Health like other relation like so many other things that somebody's looking to achieve I mean I would say health probably one of the first on yeah let's stay in and eat Cheetos and you're like hey I'm trying to like no it's like hey like let's let's have some fun it's like well that means that any time that because when you say a statement like that it also means that anytime that I'm actually trying to pursue my goals you are implying the opposite that it is not fun and I'm like I don't I reject the premise the reason I think this is so important is that when I look at my life and what I've achieved who was in my corner had the largest influence on that like I look at what I was able to achieve on my own versus with someone who was actively working against me and I don't think that was deliberate by any stretch of the imagination but just if we look at what happens as a result of this person not intention not desire not good will but just when this person is in my life it is less likely that I achieve my goals just simply saying like that I was less likely to achieve my goals I had I struggled with business uh in the early days and then when I went on my own I did much much better uh just working like basically if I removed interference I simply did much better and then when you came on my life not only did I remove interference but I now had support I had like before a bad day gets worse because the person feeds into the bad day and distracts and says hey we have these other you know things that are also important which if that's what that person wants that's fine it just might not mean that I'm the person for them which obviously I wasn't once we were aligned it's like you get your negatives become neutral and your positives become super positives and I think I mean the difference I mean everybody in the world looks at the monetary change but I look at the in you my my personal change of who I was able to become as a result of having the support and I think the business growth was just a consequence of personal growth I think why it's so important is also because you become like the people you spend the most time with yeah Y and so when I look at myself and getting into the relationship with you I'm like I'm going to become more like him in some ways now I would say that the more intelligent somebody is the more deliberate they can be because I know some really intelligent people who are with people who are maybe not so intelligent they're very deliberate about not you know assimilating anything from that person but I think like we've both learned a lot from each other and what scares me is to think what would you learn from a person if they are not someone that you aspire to be like if people pick their spouses like who do I want to become like they would pick very different spouses I mean I think it's it's it's such an interesting topic to me because growing up watching you know my parents got divorced and then they they dated all these different people watching that and even just how much they changed and their personalities changed based on the person that they were with I immediately was like oh you become like these people that you date and if they have big areas that you do not [ __ ] with you might if you're not careful you absorb those areas and so I think it's been really interesting because I think one thing that we've actually I'll just say I think we've done well is we try to take the best from each other and then wherever I think because we're kind of like things that I like I tend to stress more and so I've learned a lot of acceptance from you right and then you tend to want to move really fast and you've learned patience from me and so I would say like wherever each of us were like weaker which I would say like in general not weak but like weaker we've learned from each other and so it's also been like very compliment ment because there's no like big out points that either one of us have like absorbed if anything it's like a net positive for both yeah and I think you know for me I've learned kindness from you I would say that I was much less empathetic in general less no yes less than that I know um it's been a slow path um uh but now I learned a lot of kindness from you and I think that just to a degree you've also gotten some teeth from me no for real like I think that there were too many times like that I saw like in the early days of us like even just dating you had these relationships friend or otherwise that like you needed to be willing to cut and people that took advantage of you uh that you needed to be able to be like no like basically more standing up for you it's interesting because I feel like we both had those to a degree it's actually true it's I think it's the main specific domain specific and I think that it's that we listened to each other when we said like hey this person's not good for you because we knew that we were aligned in that I was helping you achieve your goals and you were helping me achieve my goals yeah that's true and I think that that's the interesting part about it is like there's so many times where somebody says quit the job cut the friend do all and the you can't even trust it because they don't they're not aligned with your goals yeah and if somebody's not aligned with your goals and they have separate goals then when they give you advice or they speak things to you about whatever your goals are they're completely unaligned I think that's the only like that's the major advantage we have is just that we have the same goal our paths there and how we want to develop ourselves within that greater goal are different but we have that same Big Goal we're going towards so it's like if you win faster I win faster so we just know that we're aligned in that sense and I think that's something that a lot of people miss out on because they don't get aligned on are we trying to go the same place yeah I think both of us have done a good job of protecting one another and also like at times being like you didn't pick the [ __ ] up you know there's been like a few times where you've been like this is not a big deal and I'll be like okay I believe you you know what I mean it's interesting you say that I believe you rather than like Okay I accept that but it's like I believe you it's it's actually a little bit different yeah I think it's like just thinking about the the times where it's there's been times I think for both of us that we've been like we got this like we don't need to we don't need to divulge into this this is not a problem this is not and I just I feel like it is reduce the amount of drama for both of us in our lives and personally I think to such a degree that when I see these relationships where people are misaligned it's almost like people want to capitalize on creating drama out of challenging situations for each other because it helps interfere with the other person's goal which is good for this person because they don't want them to to achieve their goals because then it means something for them that's bad they lose more of this person's time they lose more of their interest they become further Grown Apart so it's like they're constantly trying to prevent this person from achieving their goals and so it's like they they say or not right conscious of it or not that's what's crazy is that I think everyone listens to like toxic people it's like I don't think anybody most people in general like I would not say are toxic it's that they're misaligned but then you call them toxic because they're misaligned so it's just Twisted it's like you can have the nicest person in the world but if they're completely misaligned with you it's just still not going to help you yeah I mean I think the biggest filter that I've used for friendships and you know significant other obviously is does having this person in my life increase the likelihood that to hit my goals and I've just used that as my 100% razor for all relationships friends or otherwise and that also means that you can have somebody who you don't necessarily want to be friends with for a very long time but if they increase the likelihood that you get your goals then there are things that you can learn from from them and I think that's been really valuable for me and I think also there's a temporal component so like I mean we talk about Seasons a lot right and I think that a spouse who's not in the no or a significant other who's not in the no extrapolates everything to Forever like whatever happens now is what it's going to be like forever and then therefore I can't deal with it seen a lot of that recently uhhuh it's interesting actually right and so yeah and because of that I need you to not do these things that are going to help Propel you towards your goals because I can't endure a season right and it's typically because that person's never even seen the person go through a season so if you go from being you know basically I'll use it like a simple me business owner example it's like well if you've if you're starting a business then and you've been in a relationship with a person for a year or two then it's like they've only seen that one thing and they don't even know what a season looks like and I think seasons do last longer so seasons are sometimes 3 years 5 years and some people aren't willing to deal with that which I think is fine it's just that if you are being influenced by that person then be sure that that's the trade you want to make it's interesting when I was listening to um cuz some trains only take off once twet uh was it Jensen mhm um and it's funny because like he's one of the most successful people in this world and I mean he talked about it he was like I have unwavering support and not even just support but encouragement for everyone around me he's like and I do not think that anybody can achieve outlandish goals without that it is a requirement not a luxury and when he said that I was like man it's a requirement to have people like this around you and that really made me think about like we have people come to us all the time and say I have these goals and what's hard for me is when they want help with every single thing besides the things that they don't want to look at which are who are you surrounding yourself with in and outside of work I don't want to touch what people do outside of work but it has more influence I mean there's so many studies on this who you're with outside of work has more influence on your work than inside of work it's so difficult because it's like how do you tow the line between I genuinely want to help people I want them to achieve their goals whether they be here or somewhere else I also have my own I know in their perspective they're like well Lea obviously wants me to work harder and be here and all it's like I don't actually give a [ __ ] like in general I want you to be the best human you can be but I also have I want you to work harder for sure but it's it's been such an interesting line to toe because I can see so plain as day when it's interfering with someone's goals even when it doesn't seem it's not Insidious it never is it's never it's not because the easy ones are the ones that are just like yeah you should break up with that person they're hitting you you know what I mean or or whatever but it's always the difficult ones and it's it's just interesting to see that and we were talking about this and so when when we when we got thinking about the the word requirements right like this is a requirement for Success this is a requirement for the next level and maybe this spouse can support you up to this level of your career but will not be able to support you for the next level so it's in some ways it's like that spouse I think you know there's some Michelle Obama quote or something like that but basically it's like um she does some quip that if she had dated a different guy that guy would have become president whatever it is oh interesting in so far to say that her sport was so meaningful that that's you know one of the things that got Obama elected but I think that there's there's elements of Truth to that concept which is there are some there are some significant others and some significant spouses that may only be able to be with you for this season and then that's a tough it's a tough reality that you'll have to face which is either they need to change or you do which often means you have to change your goals which means you change yourself or they have to change what they're willing to tolerate or what they're willing to accept or you just find other people and I think a lot of people really don't like that yeah but when we were talking about this with regards to teammates we even were like tossing around the idea of like maybe we should be interviewing spouses because it has such a I mean it has a perfect correlation we could not find a single person that became not only started well but then continued to rise and what was interesting is there were some people who we who started who had higher potential when they came into our companies but then slowly faded or fizzled or got distracted or you know like just it was clear that things they their priorities changed right um and in every one of those situations there was a spouse who was pulling them out and on the other hand we had people who I would say have had mediocre potential but then we just kept seeing them just like improve and get better and then we'd finally meet the spouse and be like oh this makes complete sense because you know in a guy situation you know the wife's like whatever he needs so that he can do a good job I'm here to support so like I've got the home front down if he needs to work weekends or he has to work late I get it like you know you guys have a job to do and he he loves his job and he loves this work he finds it really meaningful and I just want to support him in that because I love seeing him get his dreams you know his dreams come true like that like when you have that at home it's it's really hard to fail too I mean I think of like you know yeah mean and how like unwavering huh yeah is the opposite yes but that's my reality right which and Ricky would literally do anything he wore the gym launch swag he wore the Hat he ran races in the gym launch swag and he came when he could to like any company thing and he be like love you guys you know like just like all he did was try and support her so much that now he works here and they work together because he even when times were hard he would message me and be like she needs a little extra encouragement today like how like and I know she' get so pissed off when she would find out that he would message me but I was like we're both trying to help her achieve her goals and that is like I I think about like why she's always been able to continuously improve and impress me with like how much she can take on and it's because there's just it's like if you were to test him he's like no this is what's best for her she's growing she's investing in herself we we're going to figure it out and like they're such a great team and how they work towards that and then she does that for him too but it always really impressed me me you know I think that's like when we see Maggie and Kale like how they were able to take on gym launch just like unwavering support in both directions and the thing is I think people think when you work in the same business that it's like oh you you get the luxury of like having the same schedules and the same this it's like we so often it's complete opposite so it's like of you'll be like hey I'm not going to make it for dinner I'm like cool I got do this speaking thing you want me to make you oatmeal so when you get home you got this thing do you want to you know what I mean or I'm like hey I can't you know have lunch together do this cuz like I'm handling this thing over it's like yep got it like I want to hit on the the Megan K because I think it's really interesting so and I think when when and if they listen to this they they won't take this they'll take it the right way okay I mean kale came in as a Frontline sales rep Maggie came in as a Frontline customer service and both of them over years worked their way up to the top two positions in that company and so I see that as when we talk about potential versus actual they came in with few experiential skills but because both of them reinforced working hard and doing a good job and did this with new a newborn kid and a young child and you know the gym that they had in the beginning which they eventually you know sold and then continued to go more all in on this like that is The Virtuous cycle of having a supportive spouse who gets what they they they see themselves as a unit so they think of and I think I think this is probably one of the bigger meta things between couples is that unless you see the unit as one it becomes very difficult to be supportive and I also think that there was a high degree of trust between the spouses and us so like with Yas for example it's like I think Ricky knows that we just want to like we just want to like we're never years we just want to help like in whatever way we can we just want to help um and I think there's trust there and so if if we were like hey Ricky I think she needs to work seven days straight and she can't see the kids which we would we would not ask that but I'm just saying like in a like that's my hypothetical extreme he'd be like if they're asking for this they understand the cost and they still think it's worth it for her and so there's a level of trust there and I think that that takes time to build and whatnot but um and obviously it takes character and and uh track record to show that you have consistently delivered on the promises that you've made um but I think that's how you create lifers in terms of like it's really just like families being involved in the success of a company um and building a team more than just individuals yeah that makes a lot of sense and I think the piece on the unit too it's like I even think about the verbiage we use with each other it's like we're always like thank God there's two of us all the time literally like all the time and I don't see it like when it's so interesting when people like like do you feel competitive and I'm like we're yeah what like I'm like I I enable so that he can win you enable so I can win we know what we're both focused on and how we win together it's such an interesting question because it's like I even think people even sometimes closer to us are like oh well it's like people don't know how close we really are you know how in sync we are yeah that one's so interesting because I've heard you been on a podcast they like do you ever feel competitive with Alex it's like it it's like almost a demonstration of how little you understand our relationship like I create the environment for him to be competitive with other people right we are very competitive against other people yeah it's like it's like being on the football team and you're like watching somebody it just makes no sense like if you're captain of the cheerleading team you for some reason don't want the quarterback to score the winning touchdown because you want to look better than the quarterback does that day but if the team wins everyone wins yeah it is yeah so interesting and I I'm trying to think of like I don't even know what creates because there are people that can be married or working together but they don't have that level of all in they're not a team they're not all in yeah I don't know where that comes from the only thing I can think is just us eating [ __ ] for two years but I do think that um and this is me being a little PR marriage um I do think that things feel different when you get married cuz I remember when we got married even and for us it was it wasn't a we didn't have a wedding we just signed paperwork and we were officially married we worked that morning and then we worked the next day um but I think there was a huge backdoor anxiety you know or like worry of like that one potential of like are they really in and then I think at that point you can really just say like this is us like this is our family this is our unit this is this is how this benefits the whole and then the decisions sh and my opinion should get made from there and I think a lot of couples just never even get there even when they are married cuz I mean marriage is still just like a legal contract but at least for me I intended to not get married again um and so I was like all right well we're all in we will make this work as long as we're both Orient towards growing I think that's actually the key which is like we both said like I don't want to have to be married twice I want to be Allin cuz we're both like I don't want to have to this to be dear God no I mean the the drama the ups and downs of people that have to get divorced and do all this stuff it's just like a waste of life and so it's like I think we both went the fundamental belief that if we need to change we will to make it work and I think we have both adapted to each other in many ways that has also made us each better in our own and I think we always look at it as like you know like this will make me better as well if it wouldn't then that would be like okay if I would have to change it's going to make me worse as a person and it's not align with my values sure but like in what instance has that ever occurred never it's always makes us better yeah I think the the big one was the the goal and Mission alignment because if that I think that like under what because I think like you know what under what context would we not be together right it would be if one of our goals if we didn't want the same thing fundamentally and I think that's really just what it comes down to and I think a lot of people don't pick their spouses based on what their shared goals are I mean some people don't even talk about their goals before they get married which I find ridiculous a lot that was like our first date I was like yeah first date I was like this is what I want to do would you like to come with me yeah but I think that that's not it's because most people don't know their goals yeah yeah you know what I mean yeah and I think even now like we're able to articulate our goals so much better than we were in the beginning we just knew we were like trying to [ __ ] go places you know what I mean and like I'll do whatever it takes yeah hunger but it's been like and if the if the goal shifted it was more like it got clearer more than it changed yeah it was blurry but it was like in the beginning it was directional it was like I want to go this way and we'll figure it out as we go but it's if one day you were like I don't want to to build these things I don't want to build hospitals and build cities and do this you know all this like see what two people can do in one lifetime I would it would be very hard for me because it would be asking me to not be me yeah and I don't know if I would be able to do that I wouldn't expect you to no and I think that I'm saying I think fundamentally because because we've both shared that goal the whole time we've it it's we've never I've never felt like I've I mean we get probably I'm sure lots of flack from the internet for this but like I've never felt like I've had to make sacrifices for you MH like I haven't had to compromise my goals which is another way of saying like I haven't had to compromise myself in order to be in our relationship yeah I think I was really nervous in the beginning and then over time you only continually reinforced to me that I could be myself because it was so many years of conditioning to hide what I really wanted and I think that's actually like what you've taught me a lot is just like complete self-acceptance a lot of it has been like me just sharing things with you of like how I really feel or like somebody say like the dark side or like dark desires and things that I want that feel in contrast with what maybe Society projects on what I should want and you've always just been like incredibly accepting every time even like when I was like dude I don't want to make dinner every night I don't want to do all this stuff and like I was really worried I was like oh my gosh like this is but I was like it's not aligned with my goals like me cooking dinner every night to be a good wife I value myself here leading people making people's lives better that lights me up making lasagna does not and you were like I don't even give a [ __ ] yeah I said if you want to make dinner I will be happy that you made dinner if you want to make money I will be happy that you made money I I think the question that people need to ask themselves is does this person make it easier or harder to achieve my goals and it doesn't mean that they're actively trying to sabotage you and it doesn't mean they're a bad person no it doesn't mean any of that it's just like it's that simple of a question also I think the the proxy to that is like do I respect myself more or less being in a relationship with this person that's something that I prompted to you know a friend of mine months ago when they were trying to navigate a really tough relationship and I was like do you I watch you lose respect for yourself every day that you're in a relationship because this person is actually you're trying to go towards your goals and they're actively dragging you away it was somewhat active sabotage and then it's like not only are you not going towards your goals but you're actually degrading your sense of self I think it's also the um like what traits about this person do I admire number one because whatever they have um is going to rub off on me and then if I see myself with a blend of my traits and theirs does that new person is that new person more or less likely to achieve my current goals and so like I know that I need to be more patient and so you having patience is like yeah if I had some of that rub off I me that'd be a good thing hey if I was a little more empathetic that would probably rub off that' probably be a good thing that probably increase the likelihood that hit my goals um and I think a lot of people have really mid like significant others just really like BL like just a human great congrats they're like this person did not leave when I was there it's like well that's cool actually interesting like cuz we even met somebody who said like I met this girl on a date and she just never left yeah and that why they were with them they got married they like yeah she like brought her bags and then we just like first date kept dating I was like did you ever paus to think that this is the right person for you yeah she just hung around again it's like does this like I I love the The Sword of Gryffindor from Harry Potter I say it again but it had enchantment on it which was uh it only drinks in that which makes it stronger and I think it's like you're going to you are that metal you are that sword and you're going to be putting yourself into a bath with this other person but you may not only taking that which makes you stronger you may just take in everything and that may end up making you weaker and when I say weaker I mean less likely to achieve the things that you want or become the person that you want to become and I I think it's just I think it's very hard for people because every is just so afraid of being alone and I think maybe the first step is being okay with being alone being like I I would rather be with just me than be with someone who makes me less like me in order to be with them I mean I remember well before we met I'd been alone for like almost two years I got out of bad relationship and I was like what am I doing I don't want to recreate that again you know and I think being alone was it's just never and even so like even now if I'm like I like we both actually really like alone time yeah which I think is really important in terms of like there's we don't have like high requirements you know what I mean everything's such a bonus which I think is actually what I really like is things that when I was young were told like you need you have needs you have emotional needs you have these the thing was all a [ __ ] lie and I think it's actually really unhealthy if you have to put quote needs upon a partner and I think I've become such a better person and a better spouse for looking at things as like bonuses like if we get to spend an afternoon together on Sunday afternoon bonus but if you tell me that you have to work or I tell you that I have to work fine I'm not going to be upset about it I'm going to go do stuff for myself yeah right like a lot of people don't know how to be busy basically a lot of people have nothing going on in their lives yeah fair and so they require their spouse or significant other for attention affection approval dance monkey they need them yeah they're like hey I'm bored entertain me and some people literally say that which I find ridiculous but I think a really good limit test is what is this person entering my life change about my behavior and so thinking okay when I am on my own I work out like this I eat like this I work like this I go to sleep at this time these are the social things that I find meaningful or interesting now when this person enters my life how many of those things that when I had nothing interfering with me change in their expression do I work less do I work out less do I eat differently do I spend my time differently well if that occurs then all of those changes will certainly change the outputs of your life and are those changes the outputs changes to the outputs what you want and I think most people if they really looked at themselves in the mirror be like no yeah I think there something really interesting that I I want to actually prompt you for which was if you remember the person who when you decided that you think thought so we broke up let's rewind we were dating we'd been working together for like eight months and then we broke up this was the breakup for anyone watching um Alex was not talking to me much and so I went into his office we were working together and I said do you want to break up and you said yes and then we broke up there was no drama there was no fight and then I was like I'm still going to go launch this gym I think you said do you want me to leave I don't remember I think that's I I thought it was do you want to break up either way MH maybe either way sure then it was like okay well we're still going to work together I want to day after that yeah I want to go launch this gym and then during that time we still worked together but we we talked at the end of the day and I would call you and tell you like what was going on at the facility what happened and what was the conversation that you had during that time because I always thought that was such a great way for like if somebody's watching this and they don't know how to know if somebody's right for them that somebody could use as a measurement tool so I'll say two things that were kind of the most significant from that so one is how Leila handled the exit gave me such great insight to her character which was like it would be really normal it I I would say 95 not even 99 times out of 100 if I've been in a relationship where someone had left what they were doing to come with me and then you know we break up for whatever reason they would probably just be like screw this guy and everything associated with him but I mean I've always said like used to tall when things were crumbling around me the reason that for me when you as I recall it said do you want me to leave the answer is yes because I was so overwhelmed I had no bandwidth for anything I was dealing with uh the DUI thing I was dealing with the the the fraudulent partner I had two other partners that were asking for me to do things in N like three or four different businesses at the same time I had nothing like I had no bandwidth I had zero attention and so it was more like I just can't right now like I don't even the idea of a relationship is so low on my priorities list right now that when she left it just it just it was just basically less guilt around not doing what I was quote supposed to be doing or thought I should be doing um and so it gave me some attention back so I could create room and so the first thing was how you behaved on the exit was so classy and so filled with character and all the traits that I would deem admirable you still showed loyalty when I basically didn't show you any um and then you showed me respect when I probably wasn't respectable in that moment I wasn't worthy of respect given how much my life was in shambles at that moment um and I think that was probably big thing number one of like proa the other was that I saw a coach for 90 minutes every day during the time that you were gone for probably like 5 weeks something like that and during those 90 minutes every day he would start with what's top of mind like what's on your mind what's taking your attention and so he would just slowly would just start stripping away like okay let's deal with this let's deal with this let's deal with this just I kept working through this list and when it came to okay so what are you going to do about this girl um because we're still talking every day right um only about work though yeah which was amazing uh what do we do now yeah I know nothing's changed um and so he said well look at your stats and I was like what do you mean he was like look at your stats he's like when she's in your life he's like do you work out more or do you work out less and I was like well she works out so when she goes to the gym I'm like all right I I'll go and if I want to go she goes so it's like we both if one of us goes the other one goes and so I work out more because every time she wants to go and I don't want to go I still go he's like okay he's like what about food he's like like are you eating healthy or are you not eating I like well she preps food and she eats healthy and so whatever she makes U it's I'll eat right uh and so yeah I'm actually you know I'm eating better I'm eating a little healthier and he was like okay plus he's like what about what about work does she support you with your work and I was like I mean yeah literally she actually does the work with me and I will literally take people when I'm busy so that I can stay you know like she'll she basically protects my space and he like okay um does she spend money do you make more now just objectively than you did before and I was like yeah way more he was like huh so you're healthier you work out more you make more money you have somebody who's not training not even neutral but adding to your financial goals and uh is helping you focus on because another part of this was I had all these different businesses she's like is she in favor of you having all this stuff or is she in favor of you focusing on one thing and I was like she just says focus on this one thing that's working he was like hm so she's good decision-making and I was like yeah so she helps you make good decisions and so basically we just went colum by colum and everything was up and he was like maybe something to consider and so when Lea came back I basically just told her this exact same thing and I was like when I am with you I am better and so I would like to be better and so I would like to be with you and so I think fundamentally that was one of the main decision points in our relationship and when she went there also as a side note so she showed me Lo she showed me respect but also you crushed it so it wasn't just like that you went through the motions when you went and did that launch when I wasn't there you set the alltime record and I think that was so telling for me about the type of person you were because like I was always used to being the guy who had to put hit you know the team on you know his back or whatever to win the game and it was just nice to have somebody else who could also when the game was on the line [ __ ] crush and so I was like man if there's two of us who can win when the game's on the line then every time I I wasn't going to win if you win then it just increases the likehood we both win and so I think for all those reasons it became a logical decision to be with you and I think there's a I think there's a lot of wisdom in this this one part which is if you stay together if you are together because of your emotions you will want to not be together when your emotions change and emotions change all the time but logic rarely does and so if it logically makes sense for you to be together then when you're emotional the logic will still be there it still makes sense for us to be together and I think that's what allow has at least for me allowed me to have very little second guessing concern it's just been like no this makes sense like there's this makes complete sense there's no I I have very little air there's very little movement in that for me yeah I think it's I think it was harder in the beginning and it gets easier over time yeah like I think in the beginning we put in a lot of work if I think about it I think that we've gotten to like I don't know if like reap the reward of that over time like it feels like it actually gets easier with time it was a bet in the beginning yeah because it was so different from what either of us ever knew totally but it just and I think the first three years were really tough first three but like now it just feels like just momentum you know what I mean like our partnership how we work together how we understand each other all those things take years to figure out and I have a question for you okay so when you were away and then you came back why did you decide to get back in the relationship I think I just really understood where you were coming from when we when we broke up like I saw how things were when you were like yeah I want you to leave or break up or whatever I was like yeah that makes sense um I didn't take it personally it wasn't personal and I saw glimpses of you when you were not so stressed and inundated with all these decisions and I really liked who that person was and I felt like that we could really make each other better and so I think that was part of it is like I didn't cons I didn't take it personally and I wasn't humiliated embarrassed angered like I wasn't angry about it I didn't hold it against you in any way so like the event itself of breaking up like was not a thing for me I think that if I rewind when I met you I had had a list of all the character traits that I wanted in a person as well as like non-negotiables and I remember that youi broke all of those things I was just checking DUI broke that happened after yeah Catch 22 to be clear I wasn't broke when L I became broke did that to myself yeah and so I think that I grounded myself in that logic and I saw that I you represented a lot of things that I had deficiencies in I think that like complete self-acceptance I don't know if you remember this you know what I'm going to say go for it like it was like our second date or something barely knew each other and like you walked out of your room butt ass naked I remember this and you were on the phone I was like is he going to come on like what is going on and then I literally remember you were like what and I was like why are and you were like I like walking around naked and I it's it's like such a little thing but it was like wow I judge myself so much that I don't even want to walk around naked to see myself because of how critical I am and I was like wow that's like so freeing it must feel so freeing to be able to do that and also do it in front of somebody and not care what they're going to think or say and you just like so many things the second was you know like I think you told me on like our second date like the worst things that you'd ever done you're basically these are the worst things about myself the worst things I've ever done and I don't want any secrets and I recognize that I again judged myself so harshly for so many things that I've done in the past that it like crippled me with insecurity and they weren't even things that were a big deal but they were a big deal because I kept them to myself and so I think that along the way before that incident happened like I just recognized I had so much I could learn from you and I thought that you would make me better because I recognized like those were things that I lacked myself and I believed that if I partnered with somebody who had those things and I did recognize as well the things that maybe you were looking for that I had it felt like a mutual exchange like we got to take the best of each other and it would make both of us better and honestly I grounded myself in the logic the whole time which was just like this makes sense to me and I think that I had read a lot about lasting relationships and how the relationships that made made the most sense logically are the ones that last longest and all my relationships prior to that had been easy in the beginning harder later on this had been harder in the beginning and it has continued to get easier as time has gone on like now it feels like riding a bicycle it's just like I understand you you understand me we know how to work together it only gets better over time and so it's really panned out I think the exchange thing is really interesting because um I don't think I ever felt like I had an exchange the person that I was that I was dating what do you mean like I never felt like I never even felt transactional at all um with the exception of you oh and I mean this was a almost like an ongoing joke for the first like year of our relationship I kept telling uh saying to Lea like I don't know if you're just like trying to absorb all the things that I know and then you're just going to leave with all of my skills like it just I felt like she would just like non-stop be like can you teach me how to do this can you show me how to do this like and I I mean I did have a lot of skills um and uh I was like yeah like you know like you don't need to worry about too much about that like I'll I'll I'll keep running the ads like you don't need to worry how how that works cuz I was so afraid that she would actually like thought I was slippery yeah this is my own insecurity I thought that she would like if I if I taught her everything I knew that she would have no more use for me and so I mean and probably on some level that's my own insecurity for always wanting to be useful for everyone like always having skills to exchange but um but anyways know when we uh but I also learned a ton from you and I I think we talked about exchange a lot in the early days of our relationship Mutual exchange and I I just think that I don't think that that's common yeah like how are we going to add value to each other's lives yeah what are you going to learn from me what am I going to learn from you I think it's interesting because like when I think when I hear somebody say like should I just accept the fact that this person's not supportive I think it's just a trade-off which is like you can keep them in your life but you will lose respect for yourself and you will likely also sacrifice these other things that you want and so it's like you could keep them in your life at what cost and are you willing to pay the price of that and some people are and I think a lot of people aren't but I think I always relate it back to like if being in a relationship with this person I lose respect for myself then All Is Lost and I've been in relationships where I realized that I I was losing respect for myself every day because they made me a worse person and it didn't matter like their intention or how great they were and many different ways or how nice they were or anything the fact that their influence was something that I had to fight or try and deflect in order to achieve my goals I had one an internal conflict which was like I say I want these things but I'm not willing to do what it takes because I'm not willing to get this person out of my life and I under all you know even if I've been with this person for years I knew that they weren't the person that was going to help me get to where I wanted to go and then I had this internal conflict of like what do I do because I love this person I care for this person I don't think they're a bad person I also feel like if I have them in my life I can't achieve my goals that conflict enough was enough for me to Exit multiple relationships because I recognized it distracted me from everything it distracted me from the relationship it dist Ed me from my goals and it distracted me from even just like being alone with myself and my thoughts and so in a lot of ways I didn't think it was worth the drama I say drama is a distraction drama whatever that it creates in your mind and in your life and so even if you maintain it I think the fact that you know it it interferes with the things that you want creates enough drama that I'm just like I'm out I I don't have a tolerance for that I think for me it was um I've always had a greater fear of not living up to my potential than I have of being alone mhm and so for me that is the greater motivator and I think a lot of people have a greater fear of being alone than not living up to their potential yeah I do think that's the root of it I mean it's just what do you fear most and that's from away from you could flip it to towards whatever I'd rather have a meaningful uh relationship than achieve my goals or become the ultimate version of myself said said in a positive tone um but I think if you let's say you're listening to this or you're watching this and you're like no I do think I would rather become the ultimate version of me and I don't think this person um is the person I think um trying to break down what feels like a big event into like breaking up with somebody into its constituent Parts makes it a lot easier to do and so it's like I don't want to break up with so and so it's like well what it means is like and I I I overly simplify things on purpose to try and make them less intimidating so it's like I have to vibrate my vocal cords in the direction of this person and then after I do that after a certain period of time that person will leave and then I will have to call a moving company in order to remove that person's belongings from my vinity we'll have to determine what happens with the animals we will have to determine yeah right and then like and I will and like again once because the thing is once you make that big break then it's like I I don't care like animals are not you know what I mean they're not going to help me become the ultimate version of myself or whatever right no I'm just saying like Logistics no totally yeah yeah um or I have to move to a different city now it's like okay well then I have to book a flight and I have to rent someplace and so what we have now are expenses not problems I think that there's a lot of conditioning and I think this is something that I've actually seen a couple people that we know do it really well where like it has to be a very bad thing right but if you're breaking up with somebody in order to get into a relationship with yourself and with your goals why would you not be happy about that yes you're going to feel loss which can cause you to feel sad but you also fill that hole with something that you were you had sacrificed the entire time and so I think there's so much stigma around it I should feel sad for a certain period of time when I was with this person for a period of time yeah and people feed into it too of like oh my go half the amount of time they've in a relationship exactly it [ __ ] and I think you know before I met you I was in relationship and then I went to a therapist and she was probably like the only good therapist I've ever seen and I remember I said like you know I just feel really sad because I'm not with this person anymore and she said well when did you break up and I was like well you know s weeks ago whatever it's almost been two months I was like but I heard it takes half the time that you're with somebody to get over somebody she was like I think that's stupid and I was like stupid and I remember she was like I think takes as long as you want it to Lea I was like okay so what does that mean she's like how about Thursday and I was like what she's like yeah how about by Thursday you're over it and I was like what does that mean she's like we stop talking about it and you move on and it was so funny because it's like my relationship prior to that one I would say like I had dwell on the breakup and it had been like a whole mess of a thing for months and it like distracted me for moving off my life it I didn't feel any better about myself for it I certainly wasn't happy and this this time it was like I actually maintain a fairly positive view of the relationship because the way it ended was not so traumatic I just moved on with my life and I think so many people they use words like heartbreak I am heartbroken yeah sure I I feel like a part of me has died it's like no your heart has not broken nothing has died you are no longer in a relationship with somebody and the reality is you're going to find somebody else and [ __ ] forget about them in 5 years so said said in terms of of behaviorism um you have a contingency of positive reinforcement that has been removed from your life yeah replace so what happens is you simply like getting over someone is simply how quickly can you replace the source of positive reinforcement that's literally it and so I think that for my life I've I've been maybe this isn't shocking to people um shockingly resilient to breakups like to the point of people being like you must be a sociopath but I think that I've just always had this big bucket of positive reinforcement that I get from my work that basically whatever hole is there I can fill it with the thing that I want to do with all my time anyways and so it's like oh cool I have this empty hole and I'll just pour the stuff that I love doing anyways into that hole and then I'm like basically I have the same amount of positive reinforcement on life it just switch sources and this is where some you know there's old adages like you know the way to get over somebody is to is to find somebody else right and some people hate that idea but I actually think it's fundamentally it's just true some people have social you know societal Norms it's like why is it that at 6 months it's okay to start dating somebody else it's like well you have to process it's like what does processing even mean it's simp like you have to be good you have to be good on your own which I agree with but I think that just means that you have to know how to find positive reinforcement stimuli in your life on your own so that you can't so you are not beholden to someone because if I require this person's positive reinforcement in order to exist then it's codependency in my in my my view of the world um and so I think so I just walked somebody in our company through this but I wanted to give him warning flags I said so this is what's going to happen you're going to have this conversation you're going to figure out the logistics of you know moving you know separating belongings whatever I was like and then what's going to happen is the first week you know you're going to have all this time that you didn't know you had and I was like and I I would encourage you to fill it with the work that you find the most meaningful and with some the habits that you wanted to do when you were in the relationship but you couldn't do for logistical constraints or whatever like they didn't want to work out you want to work out whatever it's like so fill it with that stuff now in a few weeks after that what you'll start feeling is again a longing for that person and that is again a reminder of the positive reinforcement that used to have the issue is that negatives Fade with time positives remain and so by the way this is just Why in general like when you train with reward versus punishment reward sticks punishment doesn't and so that's why when you drink and you have a hangover the next day you're like I'll never drink again and the next weekend you're drinking because the punishment of drinking has faded in terms of its importance to you but the positive reward associated with drinking hasn't and so that's why you keep going back and so the bad relationships are a lot like drinking where you then start yearning for the the drunken high of seeing that person again and the positive things because obviously you got in a relationship for a reason there's some positives they gave you but you forget and as soon as you get back into it or you talk if anybody's ever gotten back into a relationship or like kind of started down the path again then they like oh my God I forgot all these things this person this person's crazy I forgot all these mood swing or whatever it was right um then you're reminded of The Hangover you're reminded of the punishment and so then I told the individual said write down all of the bad things all of the reasons that you're choosing to do this and I like again when you have those read it again to remind yourself of the punishment that you were choosing to do away with and when I say punishment I say that in the very like literal behavioral sense I'm not saying the was like hitting them or anything like that I'm just saying like there's just aversive consequences to being in the relationship they couldn't do some of the things they wanted to do and they had to give up some of the things they they did so what do you think about changing a spouse or partner in order to like you're like okay well I'm not sure I'm on the fence like me there's elements of this person that I like there's elements of this person that I don't like so for example in the beginning you said you had seen glimpses of a version of me that you that you liked but obviously had some other behaviors that um I drank too too much too often blah blah blah um how do you see changing I think I view it the same way that I view somebody in the workplace which is what's their rate of progress and what's my return on my effort going to be you know I think the drinking thing like you acknowledged yourself that that was an issue uh prompted the conversation with me I was fully prepared to like be like I if this happens again like I can't because I have too much of history with this it's just like too you know whatever and you prompted it you immediately stopped progress so I think when I when I think about can you change somebody I think the question is at what cost and then how quickly do they change and if somebody's less intelligent they probably take longer to change and I think that they have to change on their own valtion which is the difficult part because if you're trying to change somebody in a Direction they don't want to go I think that's the fundamental ises are you trying to change them to be somebody they don't want to be I mean the amount of times that people come to me and they say how do I get my wife to be like Lea I want I know it's ridiculous but come on uh and I'm like I was like this you don't understand like it's not like Alex met me and now all of a sudden I wanted all these things like I wanted those things and met him and it worked between us but people don't believe me so the first is that you I do not think that you will succeed in trying to change somebody to be something that they don't want to be it will be very difficult the second piece is if you're going to change somebody the question is how long it's going to take and what price do you pay for that what are what cost do do you incur in the time it's going to take for that person to change and so like the example is like you know the drinking thing it was immediate so it's like obviously you're very smart and you can change quickly if somebody has there's an aversive event that occurs or something occurs they give feedback and it it doesn't happen immediately all right well it's going to take a while and I think the third piece to it is if they are changing how quickly do they change because again it's just like how long are you going to have to wait to resolve the situation where to get it to a point where it's a relationship that is productive rather than destructive and if you have to endure a destructive relationship for three or four more years but you you're in that sweet spot like you're you're 28 you're 30 you're 33 whatever it might be yeah like that's that's kind of your Golden Era so it's like I think I look through it like can I change this person do they want to change if I do invest the time in changing them what is my return on my effort all right is this even work my [ __ ] time or should I just start over from scratch and find somebody else get a version 2.0 like seriously I think about that with employees it's how I think about investing in somebody to stay is is this worth the return on effort or would it be easier to start over with somebody else who is more aligned with the goals that I I also have and already has some of these skills character traits whatever one of the most attractive thing so you had like that moment when I walked out naked or whatever um an equivalent moment for me was I think I've told the story before but um when I would say something funny you would laugh and then be like you're stupid like you do whatever that thing is and I remember I don't know a few months into our relationship I was just like hey just so you know I don't really like that if you could not say that when you're laughing that would mean a lot to me and so from that day and it's been years now you have never done that since and it's just like a mic example of your ability to change quickly and I you know didn't have the same words I have now uh back then but I used to say like you are the most coachable human being I've ever met and so like your ability to respond to feedback quickly and permanently is unmatched and when I saw that I was like wow this is this this like basically if someone is extraordinarily coachable then you can actually overcome a huge deficiency quickly and so that you get a very high return investment because you yourself also get rewarded for for prompting the the change or the suggestion and I think also having the the cander or the relationship where you can give feedback to the other person and this is where I think humility is important and self-awareness where when if if if you were to go to your spouse and say hey when you leave your stuff out it makes me feel like you don't care about this house at all or that you expect me to pick everything up after you if you could not do that it would mean a lot to me and if that person says I had no idea I'll not a problem or says I hate doing that if I do this solution does that solve the problem in either of those situations they're trying to amarate whatever the the the problem is and if they can do that immediately then I see that as a very promising thing it's just that most people can't and so I think a lot of like but I mean for me and I think we we see things really similarly like when we look at teammates that we're trying to bring on I think we more and more have continued to look for people who have very rapid changes in Behavior with feedback which we Define as intelligence um and so if you have a dumb Dum as a significant other and when you give feedback they cannot change whether you whether that's because of ego or because of incompetence makes it very hard to be with somebody because the thing is his conditions are going to change and so you are going to have preferences that shift over time now the stoic you know response is like basically deal but um I would prefer to use as much of my deal with it you know rubber band of resilience on other stuff that is not my spouse yeah and I think this is actually a big the big discussion we were having actually relation to this whole thing was that very competent people people who have high potential are still high potential people when they have a negative or detracting spouse it's just that 50% of their intellectual effort is going into managing the relationship that they have rather than get getting a productive output for that effort it's like they have to spend all of this emotional time and effort into managing their emotions managing not getting angry dealing with this person who when they get home has this big flare or tantrum for the fact that they came home late or they they didn't fulfill some unspoken expectation that they have like that takes a lot to manage and so all of a sudden like how they're you know dealing with their team or their subordinates or their or their supervisors whatever it is starts to falter but it actually doesn't mean that the person in any way is has less potential or less Raw effort or Talent it's just that they're being drained from this other person and a lot of times they're just not even aware of it it's like people who are stup overweight and then they lose weight and it's like you watch this because this attention it was taking their attention I think one of the things that we talk about the most is how much we value our relationship not only just not taking attention and not having drama but giving us attention back you know what I mean and I think that's something we both value a lot I like being left alone a lot and I think if you have that preference it's worth stating and delineating that for your spouse or significant other saying like there's a very big difference between I don't want to be with you and I would rather be with myself and a lot of people take that as like why don't you want to be with me well you're mad at me why are you upset and you're like it has nothing to do with you you are not involved in this equation and I think being able to explain that you've always taken that I mean it's never even been an issue you're like I like being alone too like I like being alone too it works out great yeah it's like if you're alone I'm like great I'll have time for me too like it's it's it's like we I specifically have very little need for quality time like I feel like if you and I saw each other once a week we obviously see each other more than that but if we saw each other once a week I would be like I'm good I'm I I'm a like I don't need a lot um oref I don't need I don't have a high requirement for that and I think that trying to find somebody who has a similar match of needs or requirements also just makes signicantly less compromise occur and I think that that benefits both people if one person's like I want to have quality time all the time you have to call me every day you have to we need to spend three hours every night together that can be tough if you're if you like if you're like I don't need that now because then means that those three hours are basically just a cost for you again there's exchanges is it worth it maybe I don't know but one of the things that I I've repeatedly said of why I think this relationship has worked so well at least for me has been my behavior before and after us being together changed minimally and you more or less accepted the preferences that I had in terms of and and didn't cast judgment on them it wasn't like oh he is this way therefore it is bad it was just like he is this way and that works well because I am this way as well and so it ended up just being a mutual benefit and I think if you're matching up like the you have the basic traits of the person and your your traits and how much they mesh and then for the in between stuff where those things are mismatched is how coachable is that person to to to match the preferences you may have in basically solutioning to figure out things that can be mutually beneficial for both of you like the if I got a vendor to clean my socks up and pick them up because I don't feel like picking them up does that solve the problem