How to Know They’ll Cheat on You - Cheating Expert Reveals Warning Signs! | Neil Strauss

26:20Interesting. So our wounds happen in relationships and the only way to heal them is through relationships, it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And I was interesting, the other thing for, I think a lot of people will be precious about what they do to help themselves. Like, I'll give you one caveat, but I think anything you do with that has the intention of healing you is not going to hurt. I'll talk about a couple exceptions to that, obviously. But you know what I mean? If someone's going to say, if there's a therapy and it's, I don't know, surrounding you, anything, as long as A, like obviously there's, you know, that the person running it isn't toxic, dangerous, abusive.

27:00And then B, there is a certain segment of, and I'm just a warning, there's a certain segment of self-help improvement courses that are mind-blowing. Phenomenal, amazing. However, they also try to get their members to recruit for them. So if you ever, some people will be mad for me saying this, and it's been forever doing a course, and part of the idea of improving yourself is going to get other people to join the course. You know, get people to join the course if you want it, but if it's sort of a compulsion or part of the education, it's beware. Beware, for sure. What were the three main takeaways you got from sex rehab or intimacy rehab?

27:39Yeah. I mean, I think the big takeaway, and this actually goes back to your second question you asked. I love that we have so many. So it goes back to the second question about how can you identify a cheater ahead of time? So the big takeaway, and I'll never... The big takeaway was understanding the idea of enmeshment, which I didn't understand. What is enmeshment? Do you know what it is, or are you saying that's a thing? No, what is it? Yeah. Okay. So there's generally three types of parenting. there's you know healthy parenting which is the parent takes care of a child's needs right and and uh obviously a parent can take care of all the child's needs because children are so needy and wherever they sort of miss a need or especially consistently miss a need or one time dramatically miss a need that creates the wounds that we're talking about is trauma then we all know about abandonment which is a parent's we actually don't know as much about i think people think abandonment is a parent physically not being there but a man can also be a parent emotionally not being there A parent can literally be present all the time and just emotionally checked out.

28:37And that creates the same kind of abandonment. Abandonment can also be, by the way, if you're really young and a parent passes away, that has nothing to do with you. But when you're that young, it just feels like, why is that parent not there? Even sometimes having surgery, having an operation when you're young or something like that, your parents left you with someone who then cut into you and caused you pain. Like, why weren't you protected? So there's a lot of things that are actually come from, that are out of the parent's control, even come from love or protection that can still land these wounds.

29:11I think it's important. People often think it's blaming the parents, but it's just understanding ourselves. Yeah. That's the second thing you said? Oh, so the second thing. So there is enmeshment. Enmeshment is if abandonment's when the parent doesn't take care of the child's needs. Enmeshment is when the child takes care of the parent's needs. Right? A lot of people can relate to that, I think. Yeah. They had to grow up too fast. The parent was throwing their baggage on them, their problems on them, saying, oh, you're a lifesaver, you're so strong for me, you know, all these different things.

29:47Yeah. And why it's so hard to catch, I don't know why I just got the chills for some reason, because what's so interesting about it is it doesn't feel like trauma, because abandonment is like disempowering. We feel like, why don't I matter? if that parent cared about me they'd be there and they'd not just like divorce and they'd never see me again except for like twice a year like them and why what's wrong with me um but so it's disempowering whereas enmeshment is falsely empowering like look at me i'm taking care of dad look at me i'm taking care of mom look at me dad realizes me look at me mom realizing me look at me i'm special to that like look at me like you know so so you feel you're you're being sort elevated so it doesn't it's harder to recognize this trauma that's why it's lesser known wow and those people by the way this will probably hit like a chord for some people people who are enmeshed and they get into relationships they like tend to date people they can help or save really like projects and then what happens is they date someone they want to help and save because that's how they get their worth and value right because that's how they got from mom or dad Right, exactly.

30:51That's my job. Like, if I don't have a job, then I'm not lovable. Right? And then what happens is that after a while, they can't really help save, change that person. And they start to resent, like they did with their parent, and then push them apart and cheat or act out. Like they feel trapped. Wow. Yeah. Wow, yeah. And they might act out in some other way. It doesn't have to be. Right, right, right. It can be some other addictive, compulsive behavior. Man, that's interesting. There's a big book out there. I can't remember the name of it. I think it's something like adult children of emotionally immature parents or something like that.

31:26I love that too. I don't know if you've seen that, but I see it out there. I got to check it out. But it sounds like, you know, being raised by a parent who was emotionally immature, that you had to grow up and kind of be the parent to your parent. Yeah. And the wounds and the traumas that that causes. Yeah. Of those three, which one did you experience the most growing up? Oh, for sure. Enmeshment. Really? Yeah. That was the big takeaway in rehab when all of a sudden I literally thought as a journalist and a writer, I thought I was the sane person who wrote about the extreme people who were unhealthy.

32:02And because for most of us, our childhood just seems normal because we have nothing to compare it to. That's just normal. That's how it's done. So once I was there, and as we're talking, I saw my child from the outside. I remember the therapist pointed, once you point out the patterns, it was like all of a sudden everything made sense. Really? Yeah. What was that like the first time you were able to see little Neo in front of you? Yeah, I think that, I love that, because you've done the work, we're talking about little Neo. we have a, it's true that just to speak to what you said, we have that inner child that feels that when it recognizes it's unfamiliar, it takes over and gets in the driver's seat and all of a sudden we're not in control of our own lives.

32:50And so, yeah, I remember the first time, I really didn't expect that I was super cynical, like rebellious, you know, like, and then when she pointed out the patterns and said, well, you know why you've never been in a relationship. And I'm like, why? And she goes, well, because your mom wants to be in a relationship with you. And then like, as soon as she said it, like logically made no sense. My whole body felt the truth of it. Like I felt it like just, I'll never, I'll literally never, that moment, like exact moment changed my life. Wow. So you had the aha in that moment. Yeah. But healing didn't happen right away.

33:26It probably took a little time to kind of process and integrate it. Right. I think, I think the hardest part of healing is having the awareness and still doing the same stupid shit right right because like because man the the it's the awareness is just the first step right once you have have awareness now you have to actually do the work together like i have awareness i have this goal but the awareness doesn't get to the goal why do you you mentioned you know you wanted to kind of write about interview and do journalism among kind of like the weirdest or most extreme types of people. Why do you think you were fascinated with the most extreme personalities in the world for the last 20 years?

34:07Well, you guess from what we just talked about. Just put the puzzle pieces together. I think, see if you just give it a picture. Well, I mean, I think you, I don't know. It sounds like you were trying to learn about extreme personalities because you didn't feel emotionally safe or you didn't feel like you had safety growing up in some way from the relationship you had with your mother, it sounds like. and you were trying to make your life more normal by interviewing or learning about extreme people and their personalities. And who was the extreme person I grew up with? Your mom? Yeah. So, yeah.

34:41So, yeah. And you were trying to make her feel normal by looking at, well, there's got to be more extreme people out there so my mom can't be that extreme. Right. And by the way, at that time, and I think that there's a lot of accuracy to that, I think I didn't see her as extreme because I didn't know any other mom. Exactly. So I think what it is was enmeshment makes a great interview. You enmeshed at all? Well, I don't know. I felt I was the youngest of four. Right. And my brother went to prison when I was eight. So from eight to 12, it was just kind of like scarcity survival feelings, you know, for a number of years because we would go to the prison to visit him on the weekends for visiting hours.

35:23It was just a lot of trauma and sadness and shame. Right. And so I didn't feel like I had the attention towards me because it was my older siblings, my brother. It was just us trying to get through this time of sadness. So by the way, it's interesting you said that because one of the signs of enmeshment is not like, oh, I'm taking care of mom or dad. Sometimes it's like if mom or dad are sad or depressed and that can be. Yeah, they didn't have a loving relationship either. So there was just no love between them. So it was always just kind of insecurity, fear. When are they going to scream at each other?

36:00It was just like uncertainty constantly. One subtle form of a mission was kind of mom or dad, they feel bad. You don't want to bother them with your needs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you feel sorry for a parent, that's usually a good measurement. Interesting. Did you feel sorry for when you're parents are now out of curiosity? Man, I was just like, I felt sorry for myself. Good for you. That's a smart, wise child. I felt like, you know, I'm stupid. I have no friends. I'm not enough. I felt just like very insecure, you know, and I didn't feel the love. I know they loved me and they showed moments of love, but it was hard for me to feel it.

36:33Right. I think, yeah, it sounds like abandonment stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I was dealt with sexual abuse, which you know about that when I was five from a man that I didn't know. So I just had like a lot of uncertainty and like, like when's, what's going to happen next? Right. There'd be screaming in the house. There'd be fighting. There'd be a disconnection feeling between my parents. So I just didn't know what's going to happen all the time. Yeah. It's like hypervigilant. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So it just, yeah, it fractured my personality. Yeah. And it took years to heal. Yeah. So it drove me, probably just like you, it drove me to like, how do I be the best I can be?

37:07And how do I win? And how do I get girls to like me? And how do I make money? And it's like, how do we become significant in society? But it also left me feeling - And like what I wanted and accepted and seen. 100%. Yeah. And love. And safe. And love and safe. But no amount of success, money, girls, or fame made me feel more loved. Yeah, of course. And so about 11 years ago, I started going through my own transformation, healing journey, you know, events, therapies, workshops, meditation retreats, to reclaim the inner child and create safety within myself. And that, you know, has been a 10, 11 year journey of different waves of emotions and healing and then regressing and healing and, you know, ups and downs.

37:50And I finally feel like I'm in a extremely emotionally safe place with myself. I feel like the adult me is on a conscious, healthy journey to take care of the little me inside of me. Yeah. And it's a constant relationship with the two. To be my word to my younger self, to acknowledge my younger self for for carrying me all the way to this moment, right. For loving and accepting myself. But also it's like just really doing the work like you talked about from, you know, I guess, sex rehab, it's like being committed to the daily practices and work where I can align with my vision and values for myself and the effort that I'm putting in consistently.

38:36Yeah. Not trying to be perfect, but being consistent. And that journey gives me peace. The effort gives me harmony. It makes me feel grateful and abundant as opposed to beating myself up or talking negative to myself or saying, oh, you could be doing better. It's like, yes, I want to improve, but not from a negative place. And that's been a beautiful journey. Yeah. And I love that you said, like it really is. I think a lot of people like this pretend like it's, and again, And even some stuff I send may appear that way, but it really is a back and forth thing. Like you're, I mean, I think of healing like the half-life irradiation, like you're cutting it in half and half and half, but it never goes away entirely.

39:18You know? Right, right. And I love, I want to say, this is, I'm going to elaborate this again. It goes back to what we're saying in the green room back there before, is I get excited when I backslide. Really? Why? Meaning that like, I'm like, there's something to learn here. Okay, there's something I got to work on here. Like, so it's easy to beat yourself up when you backslide and go into, you know, reactive mode, shutting down or, you know. Ego. Ego, whatever it is. And it's easy just to be like, all this healing is for nothing. I'm just right back here where I was before. But I had, it's really about how quickly you recover from it.

39:59it's not about it never it's not about never backsliding or never getting a reactive place again it's about how quickly when it happens can you go back and recover to your you know healthy adult functional you know self and then i'll go back and look at it and say okay what was going on what was i'll try to look at it this way what was the stimulus uh that i received right then what was the behavior that I had, then this is the key question. What was the belief that was underneath it that drove the behavior? Because literally so often, like, I grew up with a very critical mom, right? So it explains a lot of self-esteem issues.

40:41Yeah, yeah. And so if I get, you know, if Ingrid was my ex-wife and best friend, if she criticizes me i might take it more personally and i might be like you're always criticizing me or something i'm like wait maybe it's a fair maybe what she said was actually just factually accurate so so uh but in my brain i'm like well what what am i what's my belief where does that come from and as soon as you can make it not about the other person then you have a shot of healing and then the other key thing i'll think about afterward is how did i feel after it afterward so you know often when someone's is in a reactive state and some people act in a lot of people act in some people act out some act in um how do i feel afterward which is usually shame exactly and so so try to look at those pieces and then figure out is there a is there a lie is there a lie i'm telling myself that i need to intervene on like you were saying about your childhood i don't matter like you know i don't fit in like i'm all those things you were saying And we're all, when you say them as an adult, they're not true.

41:48They're just lies. And you have to intervene. When you talk about being consistent, that was a great word you said, you have to intervene on the lies. Like right away, as soon as they happen, you have to tell yourself the truth. Yeah. Not an affirmation, because I think some affirmations are another form of lies. It's like a spiritual bypass. Right, right, right. But if you say, as an example, here's a small intervention I'll do, is like, let's say, when I first moved to LA, I started driving. My friends would call me Kirby, because I always hit the curves when I was trying to park so so maybe i'm trying to hit the curve i'm like i'm such an idiot right that's not a that's not true no it's not true and so but the truth is uh um i'm still learning to drive and i made a mistake exactly so you can just you cannot not you don't have an idiot instead of say no i'm a super powerful you know human being and i which is great too but it's nice to just actually correct it with the actual fact yeah i don't know if we answered this yet but i wanted to get back to it i don't I wanted to ask you about if you're entering a relationship, what are the signs that you might be entering a relationship with a potential cheater?

42:51Yeah, so I think a few signs are obviously if they cheated before and haven't healed. But I think it goes back to the parenting. So it goes back to the enmeshment. Like I tend to find, as an example, I was somewhere in the makeup artist's work. I mean, she was talking about she's never had like a relationship, cheats all the time. I'm like, what's your relationship with your dad like? she rolls up her sleeve and it says like daddy's girl on her sleeve. Oh my gosh. And I'm like, I'm like, okay, you, you, because nobody's like your dad. So, you know, and so I think, I think, and I don't want to say like never date someone who's enmeshed, but, but you can actually see that if, if someone is deeply enmeshed by a parent and sometimes people are still taking care of the needs of their parents.

43:40And it's different if your parent is, ill or something like that. But if your parent's just calling you every day for everything. Just a victim. Right. Right. And just relying on you just for their own mental, for their own, just to get through each day. Often what will happen in a relationship after some period of time is they'll start to feel smothered by their relationship and then act out for their freedom. And again, it doesn't have to be sex or cheating, but it doesn't mean, oh, they're going to cheat a hundred percent. but you can say, oh, this is something and just see if they're aware of it and working on it.

44:14But they numb themselves, they do drugs or alcohol to numb the feelings of being stuck or trapped and then they neglect the relationship, they're not present, they're not intimate, vulnerable, whatever it might be. Right, right. They distance themselves some way. Yeah, they have to distance themselves in some way because they're not suffocated. Right. And literally, I remember when I was, they just being with one person and dealing with their neediness and they usually choose someone needy as a partner, right? Right. can be a big deal. I think it's interesting. We talked about cheating and I just think when it comes to cheating, it's someone being, it's afraid to be honest in a sense of that like I realized afterward is you're, it's also you're making your partner, people who cheat often think my partner's not letting me do this.

45:07They don't allow me to do this. so I'm going to take care of myself because they're not letting me. Like they get in this victim child position to their partner. But the truth is you can literally do anything you want and your partner can respond to it how they want to. So you can literally just say like, hey, you know, I met someone today and I would love to go sleep with them. And you can say, cool, you can do that. I don't think I can still be in a relationship afterward, but go enjoy yourself and thanks for letting me know who you are, right? Like I think, I actually think we'd be healthy if you can, and then would you still cheat with that person given that choice?

45:41You know, but you kind of want to, yeah. And then people think, well, I don't want to hurt the person, so I'm not going to tell them what I'm doing. But you're actually, when people lie, and I'm jumping to a thought, but I think it's important, which is when people lie, they think they're protecting the person or something, but they're not. they protect themselves from feeling uncomfortable emotions from that person. They're like, I can't deal with your emotions, so I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing in case you have an emotion that I'm uncomfortable with. Yeah, I think they're probably also hurting themselves the most because they're out of integrity with their commitments or their word to their partner they're with.

46:26And you're not even in a relationship. You're lying in bed next to your partner in this secret world that they don't know about. And that's also an important thing to say is, what is cheating? Cheating to me is acting outside the rules that you have established for your relationship. Meaning that if someone's like, you can't watch pornography, guess what? You watch porn, you didn't sleep with somebody you had an affair, but you broke the rules and that's cheating. You can't take a exchange phone or whatever. First of all, rules should be stated. A lot of times people start dating and they have these assumptions, but you haven't agreed on the rules.

47:04And secondly, you don't have to agree to anything you don't want to. It's a consensual thing. No one's making you not do that. You're choosing to do it because it's important to your partner. Yeah. I think that's beautiful with my fiance, Martha, and I. When we got into a committed relationship, we were dating for a few months, but then we entered a committed relationship. One of the things I requested was to start the relationship in therapy. and I said I've always that's a year to keep her right there because I'd had five or five or six kind of you know year to three year relationships for the last 20 years right since I was in high school or college or whatever and all of them ended in therapy and they didn't end you know typically well I tried to end them well I tried to like make them work and I was the one who was always requesting to do therapy this was the crazy thing I don't know if this is something wrong with me or me choosing a certain type of personality, I would always say, let's do therapy.

48:00Let's try to find a way to make this work. And the people that I was choosing to be in relationships with never wanted therapy. They resisted it. It was almost had to beg them for like six months to a year to be like, something's not working. I'm trying to improve. I'm trying to do what you want me to do. It's still not working. Can we go to therapy? And they didn't want to go. And so we would finally go and then it would end, right? And it wouldn't end well. They weren't happy that we went to therapy. And I never understood. So I was like, I'm not entering another relationship. I'm happy to be single for as long as it takes.

48:32And I'm not entering another relationship unless the person is willing to work on themselves and create agreements in therapy together in a conscious way from the start. And Martha right away was like, yeah, man, let's do this. Yeah. And for the right person, that's like such a value add. It's amazing. So when you talk about rules, we created agreements early on. Like every time we did a session, we're like, okay, we're experiencing a little discomfort here or friction here. Can we create an agreement around this so that we both know where we're at? And just make sure we're going in the right direction.

49:05Otherwise, let's get out of this thing early. It's like, why wait two years and just have all these chemicals connecting and not talk about our values, our vision, our lifestyle, kind of our agreements and make sure we're aligned? And so it has created a lot more peace and harmony in the relationship by creating that. And it doesn't mean everything's perfect every moment, but it's creating more safety. One thing I love, I always have so many thoughts on what you said, but one thing I love, someone said, and I haven't been able to do it, I think it's a way better way to, they said we have intentions, not rules.

49:39Yes. I think intentions. Our agreements, yeah, yeah. Yeah, what's one of your agreements? One of the agreements was like, I don't know, within the first year. and it's like little things could turn into big things, right? You know, it's like a little thing where like, oh, maybe it's not that big of a deal, but it can be if it happens every other month. For sure. One of them was like, within the first year, you know, she would want to talk about something challenging at night. Like we get into bed, I'm ready to fall asleep. I'm exhausted. You know, it's 10, 11, 12 o 'clock or whatever. I'm like winding down mentally, emotionally, physically.

50:13And then she wants to start a conversation. and it's not like a light conversation. It's like something that takes time and energy and presence from me. And a couple of times has happened where it's like, all right, we're up until 3am, 4am talking about these things. And I want to be there to support her, right? It's not that I don't want to talk about these things, but I, I'm like, listen, this doesn't work for me anymore. Having these conversations like after 10pm do not work because I want to show up fully for you and I can't show up fully to be present. So I have to wake myself back up. I have to turn the lights on i have to sit up at like 1 a.m and try to like look you in the eyes be you know open body position be pleasant with you like open my heart when i'm like falling asleep right so the agreement was no challenging conversations when we're in bed like we talk about what we're grateful for we talk about like lighter things so that we can go to sleep yeah and we can talk about them tomorrow and everything's going to be okay.

51:11And so we created that agreement in therapy together and it has created so much peace for both of us. Yeah, and I think it's really understanding too. People have different processing styles. She might want to process everything right away in the moment and maybe accepting that you waiting a little bit to your present is going to help her process it better versus getting re-wounded by you not being present. And then we're both exhausted the next day and we're resentful the next day. We didn't solve this thing. Right. So it's like, let's just talk about it over dinner. Like, let's talk about it when we're both awake, when we're both like still have energy.

51:42And if not, then we'll wait till the next day. We'll talk about that. There's one little tool I love that I use, like, I call them, I guess, check-ins. I don't know. So I realized that sometimes in a relationship, you can start, stop, you can sort of just grow distant without meaning to by not talking about certain things, especially things that might be uncomfortable with each other. So I started doing this every other night. It was in bed, but earlier. Sure, sure, sure. with, and I kind of recommend this, it's great for relationships. Here's how it works, is one person shares everything uninterrupted of what's going on for them.

52:23Then afterward, the other person can share everything of what's going on for them. And the deal is you just listen, don't interrupt the other person, and you also don't defend yourself, right? If they're like, you know, I was frustrated. And sometimes you hear everything versus reacting right away, you'll see that it's not about you. Like one big key, when like, this is like the hardest thing for people to do, but the most important thing to do, whether work or relationships, it's so hard is just not to defend yourself. Very hard. As soon as you defend yourself, someone shuts down from telling you their truth.

52:59It's very challenging. And even if they're wrong, if I'm like, listen, Lewis, when I walked in here, you were so disrespectful to me. Like I walked in and you like, you were busy doing other stuff and I haven't seen you in so long. Let's just say it's that And we know that's not what happened. You were nothing but awesome. When I walked in, you can say like, so what was your experience of that? Like what was it like for you? Did that hurt? Was that hard for you? Without ever validating that reality as being yours. And so you can just let them say everything about it, well, how they felt. And once they feel emptied and complete, you can say, I'd love to share what my experience of you was when you walked in.

53:31And I just want to share my reality with you. Right, right. And so you could actually, it's like, it's the most beautiful thing to really hear someone out when you don't disagree and uh you never need to agree with them or say it's right but what is right is those were their thoughts and feelings those are facts that they were their thoughts or feelings whether a camera would have seen those same actions and yeah but it's how they were feeling it's their interpretation yeah yeah i love i love relationships i literally think some people think they're healthy till they get into a relationship right and it's like so i think like once you're in a relationship going to therapy, doing that work is like, it's two people growing together is beautiful.

54:08Well, the thing I, I think I, you know, I don't, I would, I recommend it to everyone, but I know not everyone's going to do this because it's like completely opposite of what people would want to do is start a relationship in therapy. But I've, for me, my highest currency is inner peace and harmony. Yeah. And to have and be harmonious and to create peace inside of me means having uncomfortable conversations consistently. It doesn't mean like never having challenging conversations. It means being willing to go there and having the courage to communicate and listen. It doesn't feel that good. But communicating it gives me more peace.

54:46And the consistency of it is supportive for us. But I respect her so much more because I know she wants to continue to evolve and grow. It doesn't mean we have to do it every week or every month even. And it's just, we're committed to each individually growing. And for me, I value that a lot. Yeah. And it creates more peace in the relationship. Great. I mean, doing it ahead of time before there are problems. Exactly. As you said, like with all your relationships, most people, the time you're in therapy dealing with a problem, it's almost... It's challenging. It's challenging. It's hard to make it work, right?

55:16Yeah. By the way, I love what you said. It was interesting. I just had a thought on what you were saying earlier, which is I dated these people who wouldn't go to therapy. And then you said later, because I wasn't doing what they wanted me to do. I think the key of why, tell me if this fits. And then I would stay with them and try to change myself to make them happy. Because I think the idea was like, for them, tell me if this is right, I don't know if them, but for them, control was safety. Probably, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They wanted to control me. Yes. And so if they can't bring a therapist in the mix who might ruin their control over you 100 i think that's 100 because when we do that it's funny because when we go to therapy the therapist and i always say you choose the therapist right like you choose who you like i will go anyone right because i'm willing to open up and reveal and talk about anything and the therapist would be like okay yeah you shouldn't be doing that to the you know the previous partners i had like this is like a better way of going about it and here's how you can look at it but also they would criticize me for what i needed to work on and i was like cool tell me more What do I need to do?

56:20But the other people didn't want to look themselves in the mirror based on what the therapists were sharing. And I don't blame these women. I accept them for who they are. And I just chose out of a wound these types of personalities. And so, again, it's not me blaming anyone and saying, oh, they didn't want to go to therapy or whatever. It's me looking within and having to say, why did I repeat this pattern consistently? Yeah. And why did I stay in this pattern? Why was I unwilling to heal from certain traumas or what, why did it take me so long? And so. I don't think you're being blaming or victim to me about it.

56:54No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just looking myself in the mirror and saying, okay, I chose a lot of my relationships I chose out of, uh, you know, chemical reactions over actually communicating values, vision and lifestyle. Or, or maybe being lost in your family. You're like, and basically just someone tell me what to do and how to be. Yeah. Maybe you're, I'm just throwing this out there, but look at your whole, your whole like life is like, let me be around parental figures who can tell me, who can be healthy parents and tell me good things. And some of you are choosing someone to, to give you some of the structure.

57:26I know. Even if it's unsafe, it's still like someone trying to control or something. So anyway. And also, yeah. And then like, how can I be better? How can I be better for you? How can I, you know, and then eventually you're like, you realize that it's actually not about you. It's not. Yeah. I think it's so interesting. There are a lot of partners who, just like you were saying about self-esteem, right? I'm trying to get it from work, career, achievements. Some people are like that. So you try to get your self-esteem. Some people try to get their self-esteem from the outside world, just as some people try to get their safety from their relationship partner.

58:05and then they're like if you didn't then the relationship partner starts like like okay i do this this and that to make you feel safe and i didn't call you that thing you're not safe and all of a sudden like it just that's the most it can be a real toxic dynamic 100 and then you really eventually realize and it breaks up when the other partner realizes oh nothing i'll do will make you feel safe nothing nothing yeah no matter how much i change who i am and change my behaviors they're never going to feel like it's enough yeah it's exhausting right it sucks the life out of you. Yes. And I repeated that so many times.

58:34He's like, why did it take me so long to learn this lesson? But I think the lesson is going to keep coming to you until you're willing to make a change and heal. And the ironic thing is that's often when people cheat because they're like, oh, I feel like the life's getting sucked out of me. I just want to be somewhere where I just feel free and I know I can connect with myself again. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I think I really think like, I really think that, um, that like just relationships are so hard and our culture does not raise us to have that right. We just see movies and TV shows and Instagram, all these things where we're just told how it's supposed to be and we develop this fantasy and we don't get any tools.

59:13I know. Well, I'm glad you're teaching these tools right now. I want to pivot a little bit. I know we can talk about this. This is fascinating. It's a great, such a good subject. But I want to use part of the subject we've talked about into this next topic, which is, I think one of the most interesting things about you, I don't think anyone in the world has the experiences you have in terms of interviewing, diving into the world of, and researching the world's most extreme personalities from at the top of their game, I guess, from, you know, musicians, porn stars, FBI spies, Russian spies, and everywhere in between, you've dived into these worlds of unique personalities that have learned a unique set of skills around charisma, persuasion, manipulation, lies, creating fake personalities, and literally transforming themselves to get anything they want from anyone else.

1:00:20And you have a new podcast that I'm so excited about. It's called To Die For, where you essentially immerse yourself in a number of conversations with a female Russian spy who learned how to make men fall in love with them so that they could get information and ultimately hurt them in big ways. And I'm curious, what have you learned from all these different personalities about manipulation, persuasion, influence that they used for evil that we could actually start to use for good? Yeah. Let's think about that for a second. Because, first of all, I would guess that a spy thinks they're using it for good.

1:01:04So if you take the case of the woman in the podcast, the Russian spy, she was kind of brainwashed to believe you're serving your country. You know, these are bad people. and by doing this you're doing using this for good so I don't think you're doing a service for your country right so it wasn't until later when she gets out of the country and sees all the horrible things and is sort of they do that she realizes that she's willing to talk about it now because it wasn't good she was brainwashed and what was the what was some of the things that this woman that you have on this podcast series did I'm trying to think I'm allowed to say them yet let's see okay because it's but But let's just say she was trained to seduce men for their secrets or sometimes their lives, right?

1:01:53Depending what they need. And literally, again, according to her, like, was in this training thing where she taught, was taught, there's a great... So she was trained on how to manipulate men. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the keys is this, and I was reading about actually, like, a lot of men are called... caught in these love traps or honey traps the love trap is longer the love trap some people are literally some people and this is this is like historical fact there were like the uh so that it's such a crazy world so that the men are called often called romeos uh and and and the women uh or and the women are called swallows here they it's called red sparrow but the real world is swallow in russian but swallow has different connotations is uh so they probably changed to Sparrow.

1:02:46But there were women who were, often if they were, this one woman who worked in an embassy or several people who, usually they'll get someone lower level who was secretary in this Romeo from Russia or East Germany, I think at least at that time, seduced her. And she literally was in a relationship with him. And he was saying he was working on a world peace project. Never knew he was a spy and she was getting data to help him find world peace. to help him create his world peace project and literally is just feeding it all back to the Russians. Then as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed, well, guess what?

1:03:22That guy, that relationship ended. And later she's being looked at as a traitor. Wow. So men were doing this, but then there's women doing this as well. Yeah, there's women doing it. Yeah, and there's all kinds of different forms of it. What was the training like for this woman that you interviewed in this podcast? What is training camp on seduction and manipulation and getting men to fall in love with you, what does that look like? The training, what's interesting is that the key part of the training is that he has to approach you. So the man has to approach you. So you have to get the man to approach you.

1:03:57And I was reading other sort of cases. There's one, and again, men can be kind of not so sparse when it comes to, she has a great line. And she's like, yeah, like men's biggest weakness is sex. And so there's one case in the podcast about this Israeli nuclear technician who defects to spill the secrets of the program. And then he's in London talking to reporters. He's at a newsstand getting a cigarette or whatever. He meets, there's a woman that he's attracted to. He starts talking to her. So he thinks he picked her up, you know. And so the first thing they'll teach you is how to sort of get someone.

1:04:41It started for her, she says, that she was, it started with posture, clothing, makeup. She was actually from, she's from Kazakhstan. So she, yeah, I think Kazakhstan, she really strict upbringing and never even, you know, wore makeup. Wow. Never had a boyfriend, never even kissed anyone before. And so really a lot of it was, while it sounds sexy, so much is really, you know, abusive, abusive, abusive power. And like, it was a horrible, you know, it really is, that was, it's dramatic for everybody, this kind of line of work. Wow. So they put her through a training camp on essentially how to get men to approach her without her saying anything to them.

1:05:28Yeah, everything. Literally, like, they teach her about poisons. Poisons? Yeah. oh my god how to poison someone yeah like like for example and i'm an expert on this but but coca-cola like sodas like coke is a good thing because it has such a strong taste that it covers up other things and water is tough um you know so rum and coke is a great concealment so uh then the other thing is uh also they tell her how to like to be sexual stuff so if you're the best he's ever been with you start to want more yeah i still want more it's like a drug that's that's what she says in the podcast. She says, she says it's like a drug.

1:06:06You give a little bit and you take it away. You give a little bit and you take it away until they're addicted to it. And then they reveal all their secrets. Yeah, and there's two ways. Yeah, you can do it sort of overtly, covertly, you know, different ways to get the information. Sometimes it's not about revealing their secrets. Sometimes it's about trapping them, in other words, like if they are married or acting outside of, sometimes it's about trapping them. Black male. It's so sophisticated. and I don't know if this is just your listeners, but I'm just a bit so sophisticated that let's just say you're, and it's very funny, it's really widespread.

1:06:43The transcriber of my podcast is transcribing it. The interview, she gets the first interview. She's like, oh, you know, I used to work on like a secret program and they warned everybody about these women that if you're somewhere traveling and you meet someone who's out of your league, they probably are. Right, right, right, yeah. So this is how kind of, once they got somebody on the hook, so let's just say they have some blackmail material, they call it compromise, blackmail material. They would just say, hey, we just need to do this for us. And it might be a real harmless, a harmless thing. We just need to get this piece of information.

1:07:18Like this doesn't hurt this security mic safety. It gets rid of this thing. You give them the harmless piece of information. Then they really have you because now it's one thing to be caught having sex with someone. And now you've actually betrayed your country for this tiny piece of information. And now we really have you. Oh, man. Yeah. This is crazy. It's crazy. There's like a world out there that I never knew about. How do men know if women are truly falling for them or are trying to manipulate them? Yeah. Now we've gone from cheating to are they Russian agents? Yeah. Or maybe they're just more narcissistic.

1:07:53They want to get money from them or they want to get, you know, fancy dates from them. It's like wanting them for their personality and who they are versus wanting them because of what they have. Yeah. That's a great, great, great question. And let's match that with there are some men and some people who are just so insecure that they think their only value is giving something. If I'm not paying, buying, giving, I'm not lovable as I am. Right. So like we take the first step is like, do you feel that you're lovable as you are? And if you don't, you're really ripe for manipulation. And the second thing is, if you don't comply with the request, are they still going to love you or care about you?

1:08:39So how do you know if they're actually manipulating you or if they care about you, based on how they respond to your actions? Let's see. The question is, how do you know if someone's just kind of using you or with you? I mean, I think the things are that, I mean, first of all, they're always telltale signs. And by the way, I would also say the other ones, how do you know if someone's using you just for sex also? And I think the sex, money dynamic across the board is, are they willing to spend time with you without any of that? Right? No. Like, there's so many, it's like you have to be secure enough within yourself or at least rude enough for yourself that you can see that, oh, okay, unless they're, when all of a sudden you're jumping through hoops, when A, maybe that person won't get, doesn't want to see you if there's not a sex possibility involved, right?

1:09:31Like, oh, we'll see each other on Saturday night instead, instead of meeting for lunch, junior work, like, okay, they probably are interested in that. Or on the other side is like, okay, they're not going to do this unless I roll out all these luxuries. Otherwise they don't want to go for dinner or something. But that said, And I do think that I like to operate on a position of trust with everybody. Meaning like even if they're enmeshed, you know, even if all these other things we're talking about, like I really want to give someone 100 % trust. Because if you don't, you're already hurting the potential for what it can be.

1:10:05And just be aware of their warning signs and just be like, hey, I don't know. Be discerning, yeah. Yeah, be discerning. So like, I think being really, really open and then not being afraid to see the warning signs and take a step back or discuss it. Wow. Yeah, but I think it all starts. I think it all starts from being secure within yourself. Yes. I think that it's important. I don't know why people know this intuitively, but they know it emotionally that we're wired when we're children, right? If our parents, caregivers leave us, well, we die when we're just infants. So some people think that as adults.

1:10:40If the person we love leaves us, we're gonna die. And some people, you know, do catastrophic things to themselves or others because of that, you know. But the fact is you're literally gonna be okay, and you're gonna find love again. And just having that security to be like, I'm gonna find someone great or probably better. Right. And again, if somebody cheats on me, like, thank you, you showed me who you are. Like, now I get to move on. Like, I wish you told me sooner. But so there's a great line that one of the therapists in The Truth said, that the only people who are going to be abandoned are, you know, children and dependent elders.

1:11:20Everyone else, the only person who can abandon you is yourself. That's strong. It seems like people want love and intimacy more than ever, but people are afraid of commitment more than ever. Why do you think that people are afraid to commit? Yeah, I think it's part of that paradox of choice, right? Like I've noticed that too, that we live in this, people have that mind and I think - And those possibilities or choices. Can I do better? And now it's so easy to meet, like literally, like you're single, you download three apps and now you've got 50 options, right? And it's so easy to be like, well, I'm going to trade this, I'm going to trade that, I can get better, I can do better and that thing's not right.

1:12:02I don't have to fix it. I can just throw it out and start all over again. And that's why on these apps, when you're hiring for a job, right, it's really hard if you're going off, if you do a posting, because a lot of people come to you and looking for jobs forever. And we're just leaving jobs after a few months because they're not hireable. The same is true in the dating apps, which is a lot of undateable people are circulating endlessly there. With other undateable people. Yes. Yeah. And not to put it be hard on that. And by the way, many people have had love and gotten married and amazing things.

1:12:34and just as many people have gotten amazing jobs through job searches, but it's tougher and there's less time to interview people. Wow. This is fascinating stuff, man. Yeah, it's such interesting. It's really interesting. So it's funny, we got back to relationships. It all gets back to relationships. I've only got about 10 minutes left with you. I've got a whole nother section like creativity that we'll have to do another episode on. But I want to ask you, from this podcast that you're launching, when we put this out, it'll be out that week. it's called To Die For and it's really powerful eight episodes from this series of interviewing this former Russian spy who manipulated men who did harmful things to men who got secrets from men all these different things what were the three biggest takeaways you learned from interviewing her about the human mind?

1:13:27Yeah so in other words yeah I think the three I think the three biggest takeaways is one is she had this technique called circles of hell. What was that? I know. So circles of hell was basically that what really gets us hooked and be aware of this in your own life when you fall for it is the push-pull. If I give someone, she would control people by punishment reward. So we really go crazy with punishment reward, which is you're acting nice, you get to come close and hang out with me and get the end of your, now I don't like how you're acting, so I'm going to punish you and make you distance. Until you beg or forgiveness or whatever, yeah.

1:14:07And we've seen people in relationships who fall on that and also in really toxic ways. So we would have a very toxic partner, but all of a sudden that person's all nice and loving and they go back to them. I've experienced that in the past, yeah. Yeah. And so just beware if you're sort of in, so that was one. I needed to listen to this podcast like 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah. Because I would have heard the signs. Yeah. It's funny too, I also think, listen to your friends when you're in relationships. Oh, man. Yeah. Sometimes the friends, I have so many friends, I've had friends in those relationships where I'm like, I can't say anything to them until later.

1:14:36Like, why didn't you tell me earlier? Like, I tried, but you shut me out of your life when I tried, so I stopped. It's tough. Okay, circles of hell. Circles of hell is one. Second one is, let's see, second awesome technique from her. It's funny, a lot of the stuff overlapped with the game, right? But she... But from the female point of view. From the female point of view. And besides sex, men's other biggest weaknesses? Flattery. Compliments, flattery, how you look so good in that. Right. They get addicted to how they feel about themselves when they're with you. Wow. Right? Flattery. Yeah. So it's like, it's so nice to be around that, but like sometimes it can be like a manipulation.

1:15:23I remember. Yeah, it's very seductive and manipulating. Yeah, let's see. So flattery, circles of hell, let me think there was so much stuff a lot of this stuff came from NLP she did like a lot of she did a lot of do you know what anchoring is NLP so basically she's talking to you and having you talk about a peak positive experience she tried to touch you somewhere touch you on your shoulder your arm yeah she tried to choose a place where maybe people normally don't touch so like your neck really would be a good one I can go forth bonus one she's like you know when the men are the most vulnerable yeah in bed yeah and that one certain point in bed she's like at that point you can do anything she's like you could kill it's pretty intense I can't even believe she's like you can kill them or you can if you whisper something or tell them something it really implants in their brain in that point at the most vulnerable sexual moment yeah

1:16:21it's unbelievable but I think it's none of this makes me be any less trusting in the world, but also, so I think none of this stuff, I think we should still have trust, but I think we should also see warning signs and run. Absolutely. Yeah. This is fascinating. So the new podcast is called To Die For. You can find it anywhere on, on podcasts. Um, where else can we connect with you personally? You, I mean, I don't know if everyone knows this, but we had, uh, Rick Rubin on and you helped co-write the book with him, which has been, I think on the New York Times bestseller list for what a year and a half now or something every year yeah it's crazy how this has taken off and it's such great writing so congrats on the work together because I know you played a big part in that collaboration but how can we connect with you and support you besides listening to this podcast um thank you by the way it's a great question I don't know I just love I I think I just I just love I love what I do like I love telling I love learn I love having these discussions and I'm learning the stuff about the human mind whether it's creativity from Rick or like, you know, men's vulnerabilities from the Russian spy or, you know, again, talking to you about your past.

1:17:31So I think just like, uh, just means a lot. Just either engaging in conversation or, uh, reading, listening to the works or whenever I love sharing the stories and the information. Wow. Where can we connect with you online? What's the best website and social media? Um, I guess it's whatever one people use, but I would really rather people connect with me through like, just listen to the podcast. Yeah. Listen to the podcast. But where can they, if they want to leave a comment about like messages, Twitter is Instagram. I try to like avoid so hard promoting myself because I hate when people do that.

1:18:01I'm like, but it's good. You're a professional assistant. Yeah. Probably Instagram. Neil Strauss on Instagram, right? Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. So if you listen to the podcast, you know, share this with a friend. If you thought this was interesting, send it to a friend and then leave a comment of one of Neil's Instagram posts and let him know what you thought about this episode, of course. But listen to To Die For. It's an eight part series. The last one you did, which was To Live and Die in L.A. Is that right? To Live and Die in L.A. Like, took over the world. It was fascinating what you did with that.

1:18:32And I think that was four or five years ago when you had that podcast. So if this is anything like that, and I know you're probably even better now five years later, it is going to blow people's minds. So I'm so excited to listen to it myself when it comes out March 26th. Make sure to leave a review on there. You know, leave a comment. Give it five stars when you listen to it because that'll help get the traction for the podcast as well. But it's to die for on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts. By the way, first, I'm going to make a quick note. First of all, thanks for saying all those things.

1:19:06And I'm giving an example of, remember what we talked about earlier when you do something and then you reflect on it later? So I grew up in a childhood. This relates to exactly what you're saying. I just had this great epiphany from what you just did, which is I never spoke up for my own needs. So we were like, what can we do for you? How can we do that? You're like, nothing, nothing. I'm like, nothing, right? And I'm like, oh, me doing that instead of just saying, yeah, I'd love it if you could do this, was actually like a bit of that left over, the discomfort of like that. So interesting, right?

1:19:36So no matter where we get, we're still working at ourselves and looking at these things. But that's a cool lesson. So thank you. That's good, man. That's good. A couple of final questions for you, Neil. This is called The Three Truths. and you answered this five years ago when you were on last, I think, but I'm curious where you're at with this question now. Right. Hypothetical question. Imagine you get to live as long as you want to live. Right. But it's your last day on earth. Right. You're as old as you want to be, but you know you're turning off the lights. You're going somewhere else. You're not in this world anymore.

1:20:07And you get to, from this moment until then, create anything you want to create. You get to have the relationships, the life, the art, the work. You get to do it. It all happens. But for whatever reason, you've got to take it all with you. So we don't have access to any of the articles, books, podcasts, anything you ever make. It's gone. It's hypothetical world. Okay. But on the last day, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. And this is all we have to remember your information by. I call it three truths. What would be those three truths for you? I don't know. You know, it's funny.

1:20:40These questions always say, I think, I think, I think, you know, I guess my thought is that I don't want to like, I feel like we learn through stories. and so I'm a storyteller. So I probably would find a way to tell a story. I'd probably want to leave rhyme to some very short story that you remember here, that people would remember and that somehow helps them with themselves. But if there are three truths, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I got a little longer before I find what those truths are. And because I also know that what I said five years ago is not what I'd say now. I'd say five years from now.

1:21:13What would you say today? What would be those three things? Today I'd be like, don't listen to anyone else's truth. just go find your own uh-huh you know i think we have to the truths don't work if you don't find them yourself and so and and i realized that like as an example i've read a friend recently he's like i just did this experience where i did ayahuasca straight for seven days it was like mind-blowing it changed my whole life am i cool after doing your house straight for seven days and doing whatever you just did your brain like what what did you learn he goes man tell what i learned trust.

1:21:47You know, so I could just say my lesson is trust, but you have to be in that guy's life for 30 years and then take ayahuasca for seven days to really get that lesson. So yeah, go, go live and experience and find your own truths. Okay, cool. There is this live experience, find your own truths. There's three. I still, there you go. I like it. There you go. Before I ask the final question, Neil, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, even though you don't like acknowledgement, but I want to acknowledge you for the consistent, really commitment you have to your craft because you have such a wide range of unique talents from writing and researching and podcasting and interviews and conversations and then shaping stories and narratives to help people or share experiences in a beautiful way.

1:22:29I just want to acknowledge you for the gift you have and consistently showing up. You've written so many books in the last five years for some of the biggest names and talent in the world that you co-write with. You've written many of your own books. You've got this journey you're on with the podcast. So I just appreciate you, man. I acknowledge you for the whole journey you're on and how you keep evolving as a human being in life and health and relationships. So I just want to acknowledge you for a moment. Thank you. And I'll give you all my secret information. That was great. Perfect. Thank you.

1:22:58No, thank you. Seriously. Final question. What's your definition of greatness? I think my definition of greatness is like just always improving and striving better of taking where you are and thinking what, looking at yourself and saying, how can I do better or be better from whatever your starting point is. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast.

1:23:37If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

1:24:12And now it's time to go out there and do something great.