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

16:15Lewis Howes:and you're curious and you got better communication skills i think i understood people because i felt very deeply and i didn't have any friends and i felt very incapable of of being smart based on my results in school. So since I felt deeply and I allowed myself to be in a suffering state internally, constantly, like what's wrong with me? Why am I here? What's the point of this life? This ruminating thought and feeling of like, I sucked, I'm bad, I'm wrong. I'll never be as good as anyone in my class, let alone in the world. What's the point of being alive? This type of rumination. And I think because of that, I eventually got the courage to say, okay, let me reflect on why am I feeling this?

17:03Lewis Howes:And let me try to learn. If I can't learn in school, let me find ways to learn outside of school. And that's human dynamics, human behavior. And why do people think and feel and act and speak and walk and talk the way they do? Let me just watch them in a reserve and try to learn from human dynamics and behavior. And so as a, I guess as a Harvard business professor, what I'm hearing you say is that you think EQ is way more valuable than IQ. Completely. But most people in the world are trying to become smarter at something and accomplish more degrees and more credibility when that's not the answer.

17:36Leslie John:I know. I'm not doing much for our sales of our degrees. I know. But we have increasingly courses that are like, the courses that are really popular for the executives are leadership, communication. But it's so frustrating because the MBAs, the lowest ranked course is often the leadership course. And then they come as alumni and they're like, I wish I paid attention because everything is psychology. Everything is communication.

18:01Lewis Howes:Now, here's a question for you. Do you feel like people should get married if they have a low EQ?

18:08Leslie John:Oh, I love that question. Love, love that question.

18:11Lewis Howes:If you're really smart and intelligent, you have a high IQ, if you have a low EQ, should you get married?

18:16Leslie John:This is tricky because I do think you need to understand yourself to get married. You need to understand what you want. And that is EQE, right?

18:27Lewis Howes:Mm-hmm.

18:28Leslie John:But I also think that, so I -

18:32Lewis Howes:Because you essentially said you had high IQ, but low EQ. Right, right. And I should not have gotten married. I should not have gotten married. Because you didn't know your self-emotion.

18:38Leslie John:Correct, correct.

18:39Lewis Howes:But you probably knew on paper or analytically what you wanted. I want to be married. I want to have safety. I want a home. I want a guy who's got this job or looks a certain way. So analytically and on paper, you knew what you wanted. Yes, yes.

18:52Leslie John:But I think even that's still, that's analytical, but it's also superficial. And I think that asking yourself, like, what are my goals? Do I want children? What are like, where would I like to live? What do I want my days to look like? Those are things that really matter in a relationship that aren't like super deep, touchy feely emotions, understanding yourself in that way. But they're still understand. They're still really important things to understand about yourself and your partner. And I think people I know that people differ a lot in relative strengths than relative dominance of IQ and EQ.

19:28Leslie John:You know, I in academia, I can say this as an academic like IQ reigns supreme to supreme in my view. and really at the expense of EQ in many cases. And tons of my academic friends, they're wonderful people, they're happily married. And so I think it's like you got to find your match, right? And for me, I am a very cuddly, touchy-feely person. And so that was a really important part of me that I hadn't honored and understood.

20:03Lewis Howes:Wait, so, okay, I'm confused now because you had high EQ, low EQ before getting married. Yeah. You were more in your head, but now I'm hearing you say you're a touchy-feely, emotional feeling person.

20:12Leslie John:I am a feeling person for sure.

20:14Lewis Howes:But you weren't back then is what I'm hearing you say.

20:16Leslie John:No, so what I was back then is I wasn't in touch with myself, right? I would dismiss my feelings. I would dismiss my needs. I would say like the things that I wanted in a guy, like I wanted, now I can say it because I'm aware of it. I wanted the like swoon worthy, like just that exciting, the romance. Like I wanted that, but I dismissed it. I like, I shut it down. Why? Well, lots of things about my upbringing and I don't want to drag things in. But so that's what I mean. Does that help make sense?

20:53Lewis Howes:Of course, yeah, yeah.

20:54Leslie John:But I also think it's really interesting. We were talking initially a little bit about being parents. Oh my gosh, I just wouldn't change that for the world. that's so grounding and so amazing. And I, so I think about this a lot. I'm like, my parents did a great job in so many ways. Like, look at, look at where I am. And you feel like my theory is parents, you can't be perfect. You do your best. Every parent screws their kid up in some way. My goal is to not screw my kids up in the same way My parents screwed me up. And so with my kid, but now I might be overcorrecting, but it is informed on data.

21:32Leslie John:So with my children, my boys, I'm very like, how are you feeling? Like I'm trying to get them and they can now they can articulate their emotions. It's insane. They're like, I'm feeling disappointed. I'm feeling frustrated. I'm feeling like more sophisticated than just the basic ones. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is amazing. And so I'm really trying to nurture that so much so that it's interesting because when my mother, my mother is incredibly bright. And she back in the day, you know, she was born in 1949. And back in the day, IQ reigned even more supremely. And she skipped at least two grades.

22:13Leslie John:And she always did amazing in school. She's a pharmacist, super successful in everything. but she struggled in other ways, more subtle ways, which I learned recently, like in the past few years, as I've deepened my relationship with my mother. And I think my theory on that is because imagine this, you're, you're, you're two or three years younger and you're a girl, like teenage, teenage girls are just so harsh. Like that would have been so hard for her when you don't have the like emotional maturity. And so my son, he's just turned five and we've done the opposite. we've held him back a year and be, and my mom's like, why did you do that?

22:50Leslie John:Like she respects it, but she's like, he's really smart. He doesn't. And I'm like, yeah, he's super smart, but the emotional maturity, I want him to be able to deal with difficult feelings, process them. Like, so anyways, I digress.

23:07Lewis Howes:There's something about this. You said earlier about the mind reading expectations, you know, in male, female, intimate relationships, who has higher mind reading expectations of the other?

23:19Leslie John:Ooh. So I would guess that women have higher mind reading expectations.

23:26Lewis Howes:And when someone has a high mind reading expectation.

23:29Leslie John:But not by much.

23:30Lewis Howes:Okay. Well, when someone has a high mind reading expectation of their intimate partner. Yes. Expecting them to know what they think and feel at all times. Yep. Or when they're feeling some emotions they don't like.

23:43Leslie John:Yep.

23:44Lewis Howes:what does that do for the relationship when someone has high mind reading expectations of their partner?

23:49Leslie John:Yeah, exactly. So it's brutal. Um, speaking from experience. So it, it, what it means is that you have unreasonable expectations, right? And then it sets you up for disappointment because if you implicitly, and that's the thing, it's all implicit. Like you don't even recognize that you're making these assumptions, which makes them even more insidious. So if you're feeling crappy one day and like you want, you want, you just want your partner to come and give you a cuddly hug, but you don't say that there's no apparent outside show of it. Then if your partner doesn't do that, you're like, he doesn't love me.

24:30Leslie John:He's a callous, he's callous jerk. Like what is, and you come up with all in your, in your head. Right. And so what these high mind reading expectations has taught me is to notice this and to be like colin i'm feeling really crappy i need a hug and i'm not not saying in the way like gosh why don't you just hug me

24:49Lewis Howes:already yeah yeah exactly i'm like i didn't know right and then and then we talk about it and then

24:53Leslie John:i'm like so for me if in doubt cuddles and love like i don't need like problem solving i just very tactile and um and it's interesting because that then opened a conversation with us about how he said because i had always thought a little bit like he's kind of aloof i know he loves me but he's a little he he's not google like cuddly wuddly like i am and he said you know the reason why i have i have a thing a bit of a complex because like you he's a really tall guy and he also was professional um professional soccer player and he so he was very sensitive about being overbearing to people and and with personal space and he'd never want it because he's so classy and so like you know never wants women especially to feel uncomfortable so sometimes it can come even with his own wife as as as like standoffish and so that was so interesting i never like if i hadn't asked i never would have guessed that because i'm i'm not i'm i'm not like that so it's really really important because also when you share, when you say how you feel, it is a conversation too.

26:02Leslie John:And then you become more intimate because you know each other so well. And study after study has shown that feeling known for who you really are, like warts and all, is such a strong predictor of strong relationships really yeah in fact um so suppose okay so suppose i have low self-esteem and on the one hand in one situation my husband would if he says oh um you know you're such a badass goddess you like you're so together and confident and you're really great at what you do um another version is i know you struggle sometimes with self-esteem um and and not even saying it's okay or anything, but just saying what I am like, that is so much more strongly predictive of a strong relationship than when someone idealizes you because you want to be known.

27:00Leslie John:Like, isn't that so much more meaningful that even though if I had low self-esteem, he still loves me. He's like, he knows me. It's not like some fake, I'm not an imposter in this relationship. Right. Yeah.

27:10Lewis Howes:That's interesting. I mean, do you feel like you were vulnerable in previous relationships?

27:14Leslie John:No, that's the other thing is I was not. Really? I was not.

27:18Lewis Howes:So you just kind of held your emotions to the chest. You weren't sharing what was on your heart or mind and like what sad things you were going through.

27:24Leslie John:And I think it was for me. So I think when people undershare, there's often two things. One, the bigger issue, which is what I had, is lack of emotional awareness of oneself. Like I did not know what I was feeling. I didn't understand myself, which sounds crazy because it's like even the thought of needing to understand myself like I am me I'm the cells in my body like why don't we come with the built-in understanding but we don't so the core that's the core issue is not understanding yourself and then the second is people who really do understand this is like my husband he really understands himself but he's very reserved um but when someone just doesn't share you don't know which is which um so in my case until you share you know more yeah yeah yeah interesting yeah so when you just start to have a i guess an emotional

28:11Lewis Howes:breakthrough where you were like okay i'm realizing that this is who i am i'm being more aware that i have had this upbringing which is maybe we don't say we love you enough or ever or we don't talk about our feelings or it's just toughen up or don't cry and you're just like stiff upper lip

28:27Leslie John:yeah get through it like ah just work hard you got this yeah keep going or do better yeah i can

28:33Lewis Howes:relate to that in some ways, but it's like, when did you have an emotional breakthrough where you said, oh, again, it doesn't mean my childhood or my parents were bad or wrong. They just stand up the tools to teach me these things. I need to learn how to emotionally evolve so that I can have better intimacy relationships with my partner, with my children, with friends.

28:53Leslie John:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a series of things. Divorce was amazing.

28:59Lewis Howes:That'll break you open.

29:00Leslie John:I mean, I don't think enough people get divorced.

29:04Lewis Howes:I don't think people should get divorced. I think you should go through a process of onboarding your relationship so you're in alignment with the right values.

29:12Leslie John:That's the best.

29:12Lewis Howes:And it doesn't mean it's always going to work out.

29:14Leslie John:That's the best.

29:15Lewis Howes:But doing that before saying, let's just get married. A hundred percent.

29:19Leslie John:The state of the world, unfortunately, we are not psychologically enlightened enough, myself included, to be making. So in that, I just think that people are in marriages that they shouldn't be in.

29:30Lewis Howes:They shouldn't be, yeah.

29:30Leslie John:But obviously, I'm biased. Sure, sure. So like I'm at the point now where I'm super grateful to my ex-husband because I never would have met Colin. I know. But yeah, I mean, one of the divorce is a big thing, which prompted a lot of self-reflection. I had a great therapist who was really helpful, but it made me start to, you know, unpack why, what it was, why I married this person, what went wrong. But then also -

29:58Lewis Howes:Do academics go through therapy?

30:01Leslie John:Secretly? But if you're so smart, you have such IQ. No, but EQ, we're the ones that need it, right?

30:09Lewis Howes:I'm not. You said it, not me.

30:10Leslie John:We are the ones. Oh, my God. Therapy is the greatest thing ever. That and exercise for well-being, I think. But you have to get the right therapist, right? Of course, yeah. But then there was, I think, I had some really close friends who helped me in processing what I wanted. And then I also, the huge thing, I mean, this is all just all developing. It's all an emotional, it's all a journey. But I learned something that really, really helped me, really just occurred as I was writing the book. because I, cut me off if I'm rambling. Go ahead. Okay. So before I got married to my first husband, the month before I had second thoughts.

31:14Leslie John:and I had second thoughts because I I was like attracted to other men like super attracted to other men and I thought I mean I know like yeah that people are attracted to people but like it was like I wanted to act on it and I'm like this is not this doesn't feel right and so I called my mom and I I said

31:41Lewis Howes:I expressed the concern and that was courageous and oversharing that yeah it was but that's how

31:47Leslie John:lost I was I'm like I don't know what to do uh that I that I actually said this to my mom um we're we're pretty close but uh this was a big deal so I tell her that you I want to act on you know being with other men before your marriage I told her that yeah I right which is kind of a big deal to say to your mom um so she said huh you know it's interesting because before i married

32:12Lewis Howes:your father i had second thoughts too wow and um in your mind are you thinking your parents should

32:23Leslie John:have stayed married well so no so then i'm like whoa and then she said but you know she said uh The reason I had a second, like you, I really enjoyed my flirtation. This is totally how she'd say it. I really enjoyed my flirtations with other men. But I'm so glad I married your father. There you go. Because look at how happy we are. Look at the lives we've built. And I really do believe they're truly happy. I wouldn't be happy in that marriage, but they are very happy. and and she said you know they're like physical stuff that they're like really i can only think of it in my words so that's why i'm like she wouldn't say the way i would say like i'll rip your bit um the physical stuff it wanes um what you what you have what we have is like the mature long lasting love and so then i was like oh yeah i have the mature love and so i went ahead with it and i got married and then um yeah i spare you the details but it was not a good marriage we got divorced and then once i when did you know we weren't meant to be together in the marriage like right after i mean no i was it was a joyous day and like the first year but then after the

33:40Lewis Howes:first year i it was like this is like life settled in you're not this is not it but it would go in

33:48Leslie John:waves, right? Because it's hard. It's a hard thing. Divorce is the kind of thing that's crazy painful in the moment. Like even if it's totally the right call, it's so hard to do because it's so painful even when it's right. So you perpetually know. But that was also a thing where like I never, that was revealing to me that. Right, right. Okay. So then I, okay, so then I'm divorced and then I get this email a few years after I'm divorced. My brother adds me to an email chain and he says last check check out what's at the bottom i and so it was between my parents because my brother does their finances and at but at the very bottom so they had added my brother on and they'd forgotten that at the very bottom of the email it's a convo between my mom and my dad about my mom going to her lover's house i know and i'm like whoa i'm like filled with rage because they lied to you about it exactly because i immediately went back to that conversation i'm like you're lying you undershared if you it would have been better for you to have said nothing than for you to have told me half the story like how dare like i would never have married that man if you had if you had told me that the way you compensate is by this which works for you and like i'm not mad like i'm happy like it's it's it's consent it's all fine like whatever lots of different relationship but i know for me that is not i i crave like monogamy and and so i just felt so misled i was so angry about it but i never said it to her i just kind of lived in like have you told her now well so then i'm writing the i'm literally writing the book and i'm like that's a big betrayal in a sense i think exactly and i always felt you know and over the years like so i held on to this for like 10 years and so over the years you never spoke to her for 10 years about it you saw and you didn't address it right i know see like avoided um but then like i was the the rage kind of went away and then i got remarried and you still had like this resentment and i but i kind of like and so good at stuffing your emotions yeah yeah too good working on it and so then i'm literally writing the book and the book i wanted from chapter three a story of someone who like there was undersharing and they didn't realize at the moment and then if they'd only known and like it's the kind of story that's hard to find right you're like this and then i was then in like i the middle of the night my soul that i've stuffed down totally something there it's always in the middle of the night i woke up and i'm like oh my god i have stuffed this down i've never talked to my mother about this she doesn't know that i know this and that i feel this way and that i felt such i didn't feel such intense rage anymore but i'm like how can i write this book like i don't know if i'm putting the story in the book that was a whole other series of conversations i need to address this myself but i need to address this myself like this book is completely hypocrite if i believe what i'm writing i gotta do this yeah so i did it i had the convo with her and i call her or face to face face to face wow big glass of scotch um i know you're like ask your emotions in extreme situations like i am human yeah of course um and so weren't really to really face it you can cut that out took some creatine um and and i said sat down face with did

37:12Lewis Howes:you say hey i have something i want to tell you let's meet did you just meet and say okay now well i think it was like no i was not i don't think i gave her warning yeah so you just met

37:24Leslie John:up how do you and then she'll ruminate so i just was like let's just do it you met up and then how did we were relaxed the kids were in bed yeah and then you said hey listen 10 years ago i saw how dare you know i said to her i did think about how i was going to open it and i said um what do you remember that phone call before i married my first marriage and she said yes and she like this this knowing but it wasn't it wasn't defensive

37:54Lewis Howes:it was like a knowing warmth she's like yes oh and i've always wondered whether i said the right

37:59Leslie John:thing oh my god and i'm like oh my wow and and then she um you know i told her how i felt and then she's like wow and she said you know i can have totally appreciate that but at the time i actually did not think i was omitting anything and this is part of she did not and this is part of the point so often the thought of sharing something doesn't even occur to us she didn't even think of it was relevant right like had she known they're like oh yeah you can get married and have a lover later we are giving her a lot of benefit of the doubt but but um i i it was just like so like curative to to talk to her about it and to tell her how I felt and then I realized like you know but like mom what were you supposed to do it's the month before your my wedding like you were in a tricky situation too and like so and then I realized it's as much my own like well I'm the one that didn't honor what I really want in a mate like you know so I can't yeah it's

39:00Lewis Howes:not all her fault yeah one thing that she could have said would have changed everything yeah but

39:04Leslie John:But then like -

39:05Lewis Howes:It's not on her to make the decision.

39:06Leslie John:Right, right.

39:07Lewis Howes:You've got to make the decision. You're 28 also. It's not like you're 17.

39:10Leslie John:Exactly. I'm a grown ass woman. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

39:12Lewis Howes:So you can't put it on her.

39:13Leslie John:Exactly. Exactly.

39:14Lewis Howes:Even if she said, you know, we have a great relationship and we have some fun on the side, you probably still would have gotten married.

39:20Leslie John:I know. I say I wouldn't have, but I probably would have convinced myself because it's like the, it's so hard to call it off then, right? So yeah.

39:29Lewis Howes:So I'm curious. Jason, what happens to your self-respect or anyone's self-respect when we don't express our truth to someone else? When we don't -

39:38Leslie John:Oh, I love that.

39:39Lewis Howes:Because you didn't share for a decade how you felt.

39:42Leslie John:Yeah, I love that.

39:43Lewis Howes:What happens to your self-respect in that 10-year season of stuffing the emotion?

39:49Leslie John:Right. I mean, I think that the stuffing of the emotion, right, it doesn't, it's not honoring yourself. It's in disservice to yourself. It's this theme of like not, like it's like avoiding yourself and not coming to terms with tricky things. And it's hard coming to terms with tricky things. But on the other end, like I had that like Guinness Book of World Records most awkward conversation with my mom. And like we are closer than ever. Like we had this amazing convo after that made like during this whole thing. It was like two hour conversation. And things that I had felt alone in, I suddenly didn't feel alone in.

40:28Leslie John:For example, we talked about love and what she thinks love is and what I like. It was fascinating. And I said, you know, mom, I when I had Oliver, our firstborn, when they put him on my chest, I didn't feel like goo goo ga ga love towards him. I felt duty and responsibility and I felt curiosity like, this is an alien human that just came up. Like it was very cognitive. But I've always felt I had always felt a little ashamed of that because I'm like, so many moms are like a different way. They're like, oh, my God, I need to nurture it, which is great. But I didn't feel that way. And she said, I felt the same way.

41:07Leslie John:I didn't, you know, it came after once I now I'm like super goo goo ga ga mama. I kiss their feet. I kiss their bombs. I'm obsessed. But it came after for me. And so it was just a wonderful conversation of, and that's what happens when you open up, you're less alone. But on the self-respect issue, I also think that when you say hard things to other people, so for example, a great case here would be giving difficult feedback to someone, right?

41:33Lewis Howes:Yes.

41:34Leslie John:As an entrepreneur, as like you often have to give difficult feedback to people, I would imagine.

41:39Lewis Howes:Is it important to give difficult feedback to people in your life?

41:43Leslie John:Yes, 100%. Why? It's a gift. It's a gift.

41:46Lewis Howes:because what if people can't receive right well that's where being a good feedback giver even if you give it and you're like walking your tippy toes you're like you know and you say five compliments first but just one thing right and they're just like heartbroken like yeah you could still try to give it the best way calmest way empowering them lifting them up yeah sandwich one little note of like what they need and then add something else and still people may not be

42:10Leslie John:receive it true um i guess i'm a big believer in the skill of delivering feedback um sure there are people that are so defensive and so insecure um and so in a hard place in life that they just can't take it but that's also part of the feedback givers role is like is this the right time for

42:33Lewis Howes:this person and you have to be patient um yes and if you wait to never express no no i know it's

42:40Leslie John:great.

42:40Lewis Howes:It could be a month later, like, oh, let's wait till a better time. There might not be a better time. You've got to share and get them to share. Right.

42:48Leslie John:And I think that, so some of the ways that what you said about respect, I think is really wonderful because I think that's a great way to frame difficult feedback. I know we've heard of this feedback sandwich. You said it. I've actually done research on the feedback sandwich because I viewed it with contempt. because I'm like, this is BS, like the sandwich. Just because by the time you get to the middle, if you put compliments everywhere, people are going to forget. So I actually, with my bestie, Alison Brooks, and a colleague, we did studies on this where we are varying the order of feedback to see if the sandwich, because we were, it was like I viewed it with contempt.

43:24Leslie John:We're like, screw the sandwich.

43:25Lewis Howes:So what is the best way to give feedback based on your research?

43:28Leslie John:The sandwich works. Really? We were like tail between our legs. The most important thing, it's the end doesn't matter. The end actually, positive at the end, isn't so important. It's starting with the positive. But that can mean a lot of things. I love the respect because you can say, look, I respect you. I owe it to you. You deserve the honest truth here. That's a great frame.

43:52Lewis Howes:I'm giving you feedback because I respect you. Exactly. I don't give you continual feedback that I don't care.

43:56Leslie John:I'm not being kind. Kindness is - Wanting to see you grow.

44:00Lewis Howes:Wanting to see you improve.

44:01Leslie John:100%. So I'm the official bad guy at HBS because I know I don't look like a bad guy. I don't think so. But so I am the chair of the academic performance committee. So whenever MBAs get enough bad grades, for whatever reason, they come before my committee and they have to kind of make an appeal to continue on.

44:19Lewis Howes:So I'd have been in your office constantly. Well, first off, I would have never gotten into Harvard, but I would have been in your office constantly.

44:25Leslie John:And so I have evolved in the way I handle these meetings because Because so the people, they're upset. They're like, why did I, why am I having to leave? Or why am I having to take X course or whatever? And my initial approach in these meetings, they ask a question and I answer it. And I'm like, here's why. But that's such a terrible, like it puts it on a like defend and here's why you, and now, and it never went over well. And now what I do is the first 20 minutes of the meeting, I don't say anything. I let them talk. And if they try to ask me why, I just ask them back. Like they need to talk.

45:01Leslie John:They need to tell me how they feel. They don't know they need to do this, but they need to be heard. So I hear them. And then after I've heard them, I also learn more about them and I learn more about how I may actually be able to help them. And then it's super constructive because we get into like what we can actually do. And so I think that sometimes when we give difficult feedback, we think we need to be more active, but like just, just listening, there's so much value in people. Just they need to, they need to get it out to you. Even if you already know what they're going to say, the action of them telling you is incredibly important.

45:34Lewis Howes:So interesting because I essentially have one, I don't know if it's rule, but before me and my wife got in a committed relationship as we're dating, not, not marriage, but when we were kind of dating, I said, listen, I'm willing to commit and go all in. It was like a big decision to get in another relationship after I'd had many relationships that were challenging. I'd done a lot of healing work. And I was like, listen, I'm willing to commit and go all in with the intention of getting married in the future, with the intention of having kids in the future, creating a family, not just date to date.

46:10Lewis Howes:But I was like, okay, we're starting to learn each other's values. I'm understanding your values. These are my values. This is what I want for my future. So it was with that context in mind. Okay, let's do this knowing that that is our intention. Not just we like each other. Let's date to date. I said, I have one condition. Only one. I said, I will never get mad at you for anything. Never get mad at you. If you do, if you do whatever you're going to do, you act who you are. I feel like I know you enough now the time that we've been dating for a while ago i won't get mad i might get frustrated or like annoyed but i'm not going to get mad at you i'm not going to yell at you i'm never going to raise my voice because i'm going to choose to accept you for who you are i may not like things you do but i would choose to accept you and create agreements around these things yeah and i only have one condition the condition is you cannot get mad at me if you're upset with me about something you have to bring me first come to me and talk about at least one thing you appreciate about me about me first then we can talk all day long yeah about something that's bothering disarming isn't it something is upsetting you or bothering you that you want to talk about i will listen to you for hours yeah i will speak to you and disarm it yeah but you just have to because my whole life is going to be committed to finding ways to improve your life and if you come to me by one thing that you're upset about yeah and you don't just acknowledge at least the good i've been doing for the last three months of like how I continue to add value and how I show up and how I'm present and how I listen and how I take us out and do experiences and provide and protect.

47:47Lewis Howes:If you just come to me with the one thing that's bothering you and you don't acknowledge at least one good thing, then I'm going to be upset. That's the only time I'll be angry. And I said, can we agree on this?

47:58Leslie John:What did she say?

47:59Lewis Howes:She said, yeah, she didn't understand it at first. Cause she's like, what if I just am upset about something? I go, that doesn't work for me. And if that's the case, that I'm not the right guy for you. If all you have to do is just say, I really appreciate this. And there's something that's been on my heart that I want to talk about. I said, maybe I'm messed up because I'm having that request, but it's going to make me a better partner. It's going to make me a better partner. Because you have to understand in my mind all day, I'm thinking about how to make your life better. And I'm acting in accordance and I'm committing my life to you.

48:29Lewis Howes:I'm eliminating every other option in the world to focus on you. and to create a life that we envision together. And all I ask in return is you don't get angry, upset or raise your voice at me. Just talk to me. You can be upset, but just tell me one thing you appreciate first so that I feel seen for the constant effort that I'm putting in versus just, I don't like you did this. I don't like you did this. Why'd you do this? Like, no, that doesn't work for me. If you need to do that, find another guy. And all the best.

49:02Leslie John:yeah yeah i'll be single and that's okay yeah you know it doesn't mean it's right or wrong yeah it was my request yeah yeah totally and i think it's because i had in most of my previous

49:12Lewis Howes:relationships not all of them but most of them i felt like under attack constantly for who i was and under underappreciated underappreciated but it's more like just under attack you know it's like why are you doing this or why is that or why is this they i didn't feel understood and then as a mind reading expectation or whatever it is, or they wanted me to be a different person. They expected me once we were together, not going to be a different person, as opposed to this is who I am, accept me. Warts and all. Or don't be with me, and that's okay. And I like the courage to get out of those relationships.

49:47Lewis Howes:Yeah, that's hard. I changed to make them happy.

49:50Leslie John:And then you weren't you then.

49:51Lewis Howes:I wasn't happy and they still weren't happy. So no matter how much I changed, they still weren't happy. So I was like, I'm never going to change for you.

49:57Leslie John:Right.

49:58Lewis Howes:Never.

49:58Leslie John:Which sounds harsh. Sounds harsh. But it's real. It's honest.

50:01Lewis Howes:I'm gonna grow, I'm gonna be constantly evolving, I'm gonna be constantly healing. You will change, because we all change,

50:05Leslie John:but you're not gonna change to your specifications.

50:08Lewis Howes:Yeah, so accept me, I will fully accept you. Yeah. If something bothers me, I'll just talk to you about it.

50:13Leslie John:So I'm curious, did your wife have any conditions?

50:18Lewis Howes:No, I mean, besides like, if we're gonna be exclusively dating, the intention is we're gonna be getting married, and we're getting kids, we're older, we're 38 when we met. Exactly, yeah, same. She was like, I can't waste my time. being in a relationship. And so it wasn't more like conditions. It was more like agreements. Yeah. And I think I was so clear. We also started the relationship in therapy. I said, I'm not getting a community relationship unless we start in therapy. Love it. She was like, I'm in.

50:45Leslie John:Amazing.

50:46Lewis Howes:So for me, I was like, I don't want to go two years and then it's just like we're exhausted or it doesn't work out or the first year is good. And then - Yeah.

50:52Leslie John:I'm a huge fan of like proactive therapy. Everybody can use therapy. Once you're having problems, it's like too late.

50:59Lewis Howes:No, start with, not get all the problems all the way, but start with healing individually and creating agreements together to create less issues in the future. It doesn't mean we don't have things we need to overcome together. Right, right. But I feel like we have this ability to communicate based on our values and our vision and our lifestyle and understanding each other. So anyways, I got off here. Beautiful. I'm curious, what happens to a person inside of them when they decide not to share what's really going on? They hide back their feelings. You held back your feelings for 10 years to your mom.

51:39Lewis Howes:I know. If you don't really say how you feel to your partner, what is happening inside of them when those things start to pile up? And I know you have this demonstration. Maybe you can share it here. Yeah, sure.

51:51Leslie John:Well, okay. So the first, I think if we were to unpack this, the big picture plight of the book is I would like to make visible something that is usually invisible to us. What's that? And that's the dozens, hundreds, thousands of disclosure decisions we make every single day.

52:17Lewis Howes:What's a disclosure decision? What does that mean? Right.

52:20Leslie John:So I'm going to walk you through day in the life of disclosure decision making. Okay. And sometimes we decide to reveal a thing to say the thing, but oftentimes we don't. So let's, my point though, that we'll get to spoiler alert is that

52:39Leslie John:even not saying even the things we don't say are still a choice.

52:44Lewis Howes:Yeah.

52:44Leslie John:Okay. So what we're going to do is we're going to go day in the life. Let me get my Sharpie. I like a Sherry B. Sherry B said like a Canadian. Okay. And want to hold that? Okay. So,

52:57Leslie John:okay. Here's a day in the life. You wake up in the morning and alarm goes on. You roll over to your spouse. You say, we'll start off cuddly and nice. I love you, dear. So you say that, put that in that one and then you're like oh I feel like s*** I slept so badly you just think it

53:26Lewis Howes:you don't say it

53:28Leslie John:you don't want to be whiny you don't want to be a buzz kill right from day one hold them both you both get up with your spouse you're in the bathroom you look at yourself in the mirror and you say, you kind of feel a little disappointed because you think, I look okay. That's unsaid.

53:54Lewis Howes:Okay.

53:55Leslie John:And then you say, you think to yourself, I really, I feel older than I thought I would at this age.

54:07Lewis Howes:You think it.

54:08Leslie John:You think it. Okay. Brushing your teeth. you go down going to the kitchen kids are mulling about hubby's making lunch for the kids hubby says um what should i give the kids for snack and you say just just pick something just pick something not another decision for mama sure sure um then you you know he's like what? I'm just trying to make lunch. What are you talking about? What you didn't say is I am on edge today because I haven't slept. I'm really nervous about my work today. I may be okay.

54:49Lewis Howes:This is unsaid.

54:51Leslie John:Unsaid. I may be because of this I may be a little snappy. It's not you.

54:57Lewis Howes:Right.

54:59Leslie John:That's why I'm snapping. It's not really about a snatch. yeah yeah um and and and i could use a hug right so you don't say any of that you just you're just expecting them to understand yeah and now he's now he's pissed because he's like look at this she's so what such a great shithead like i'm doing this she could just answer a question and it's never about that the the the stupid snack right it's these things okay so then i'm digressing okay so then you you get in the car you drive your kids you get in the car to drive your kids to school your dad calls he says oh i'm driving i'm on the way to the doctor's office and what you think is whoa 70 year old dad driving has some dementia issues possibly shouldn't be driving i'm worried about him behind what you say is hey let's uh let's talk later when when you're on the car dad so you said that yeah yeah so you said that so then you you get to work your assistant says hey how you doing you say great what you don't say is i'm overwhelmed i'm stressed i'm overwhelmed i'm stressed so on and on and on the day goes right we're mounting up and and so you can see that i could go on and on i won't but like you don't need statistics to know that there was a heck of a lot more going into the unsaid than into the said.

56:27Leslie John:And we could even like be huge nerds and look at what these are. And a lot of them are feelings, right? A lot of the things that we don't share are our feelings. And the thing is like this day, this is a pretty banal day. It's not an unusual day. And yet there's so many more things that go unsaid that could be said. I'm not saying that all of these should go in there, not by any means. There's good reasons why we don't share. We are busy, we're being polite, we may be being strategic. There's lots of good reasons to not share. But the problem is when we go through life, we default to, we don't even think about sharing, right?

57:14Those, I feel old, like you don't think of sharing that to your

57:18Leslie John:spouse. And imagine if you did, they may say, I do too, but, you know, but our children, like look at our children, part of being old is enjoying our children. And, you know, you could, you can talk to you, then you can, you feel less alone. If you tell your boss that after your boss compliments you after a big, a big presentation that you were anxious about, you say, great, thanks for the compliment. What you don't say is, you know, I was actually feeling pretty anxious before and I'm really proud of how I did that. And that was so enjoyable. I'd love more opportunities. And then they understand, then it's like career success, right?

57:51Leslie John:Like you can see how exuberant I am about this concept. Like, of course there are times like the assistant, you're not gonna dump to your assistant that you're overwhelmed, you don't know what to prioritize. Of course not. But it's a real problem, I think, that we don't even consider the possibility of sharing more.

58:08Lewis Howes:But isn't there a flip side to this where people have tried to overshare and maybe it hurt them by they really were vulnerable? I know as a man growing up. I remember one time in a relationship, I shared how I was feeling and my girlfriend said, you look weak to me. And she said, I know I'm not. That's a her problem. She's like, I know I'm not supposed to think this.

58:29Leslie John:Oh, good for her. Well, it's great she shared that then. I take it back, the cattiness.

58:33Lewis Howes:But she was like, she couldn't receive the emotions that I had. It's not like I was like wallowing on the ground emotionally, but I was like being emotional, I was having a moment.

58:41Leslie John:Yeah.

58:42Lewis Howes:And I was showing some emotion and she's just like, I know I'm supposed to. yeah like be okay with this yeah but i'm not yeah i think a lot of men have experienced that where they have tried to be vulnerable yeah they've tried to maybe they even cried in front of their girlfriend at one point whatever reason they felt a little shift they felt a change they felt an energetic a communicational change it was like huh do i really feel safe around this person this man, if he's weak, even if it's just for a moment, can I trust him? So when is oversharing actually hurt you? When does it hurt you with your boss where you just say, this is actually how I'm feeling.

59:21Lewis Howes:I'm really insecure and scared and nervous. And then he's like, well, can I trust you?

59:26Leslie John:Do I respect you? In that example, there's a key distinction. The example I was giving was after the talk, right? You do not want to say this to your boss, someone who has higher status than you before the talk. You do not want to say - They're like, all right, you're not giving the

59:42Lewis Howes:talk. You're not going to say - I got you to do this. Right.

59:44Leslie John:And in fact, sometimes if the boss came in for the talk and was like, how are you feeling? You'd say like, great, I'm pumped. I'm excited. Sometimes - So it's almost like you're lying. Well, so it's what you choose to share because anxiety and excitement are together. It's selective, right? And we're allowed to be selective we should be selective we're not we shouldn't say everything on our mind and in fact if you say you're anxious then you can it can cause you to be more anxious right like saying

1:00:11Lewis Howes:is believing is right so so what i'm hearing you say then revealing uh and the underrated power of

1:00:19Leslie John:oversharing is all based on context oh context is so important yeah and in fact the people that i think are the best at doing this at knowing the line between TMI and TLI, which is constantly moving, are people who have what I call a lot of disclosure flexibility. Those are the people who go way open, super vulnerable, and vacillate between that and complete guardedness, because different situations call for entirely different things. I would also say in your example, I mean, there was so many thought bubbles as you were talking about that. It was a really rich one. But sometimes the answer to oversharing or feeling like you overshared is actually to ask questions and share more, right?

1:01:06Leslie John:To say, oh, that makes me feel really hurt that you've reacted that way. Because to me, masculinity is being confident with all of the emotions. I will always protect you, right? Like, or saying like, tell me more. What is your, what makes you feel insecure? Like, right? So it should prompt more understanding. And maybe the answers won't be good. Maybe you, and then that's informative too, because you've learned that you're not on the same page and this person is good for you, whatever. Yeah, it wasn't the right thing for me,

1:01:33Lewis Howes:but it was just like, I know a lot of men, I wrote a book about, you know, called The Mask of Masculinity eight years ago, I guess it was now. And it was about unpacking my own kind of -

1:01:45Leslie John:Amazing.

1:01:45Lewis Howes:uh inability to be vulnerable because i felt like i had to fit in in society around men friend group with men around intimacy and relationships with women around how i'm supposed to be as the youngest son whatever it might be so it was like the mask that i wore to protect myself emotionally psychologically in the world and the mask that men have worn i know to try to fit in and belong women have had to wear masks as well different of a different nature and and one of the studies that really struck me as I was writing the book as a boy mom is a study where with preschoolers,

1:02:20Leslie John:they measured their galvanic skin response. So that's how sweaty your palms are, which is a measure of how anxious you feel. And they also videotaped their faces, how much they expressed, how much they revealed about what they were feeling as the children were watching like scary movies. And what they found was that the people who the children who expressed more were physiologically calmer. So they weren't their palms weren't as sweaty. So expression literally was was calming for them bottling up on the other side, which you had touched on earlier. It's extremely bad for our for our well being in many different ways.

1:02:58Leslie John:It's really stressful. And then the kicker for me was that by the age of like second grade, the boys had became less expressive over time because they've they learned that keeping it in being stoic. That's the masculine, right? It's so... I'm curious what for you, this mask that you felt you had, did you have certain turning points of like that really, really were step functions in the mask going away?

1:03:32Lewis Howes:And taking them off? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, right around 13 years ago, 29 to 30 years old, I accomplished what I thought I was supposed to accomplish in my 20s by building a business and making millions of dollars and having attractive girlfriends and having status and having followers and all these things. But I felt more empty, more alone, more unsure and insecure of myself. But others thought I was figuring it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had these kind of like three different breakdowns in relationships that, you know, a business partnership, a girlfriend that was kind of like off and on and emotional and break up and get back together.

1:04:17Lewis Howes:And then a friendship that was like all happening with the same season, like a few months, like all these relationships were broken, breaking down. And I was originally like, what is wrong with each one of these people? But I was the common denominator. So I had a moment to reflect and I was just like, oh man, there's something wrong with me because I'm at the root. I'm the common denominator of all these broken relationships. I can't point the finger at everyone. Something is happening where I don't have the emotional skills or I don't have the tools or I'm not creating boundaries or I'm out of alignment with something.

1:04:51Lewis Howes:And that became a journey of going through as much emotional intelligence training, workshops, therapies, coaching for the last 13 years as possible. And that's when I launched the show. I launched the show 13 years ago because I was like, okay, I've accomplished success, but I don't have greatness in my life. I've accomplished things, but I don't feel great. I don't feel good. So what's wrong with me? Let me go ask the experts. Let me humble myself and stop being a cocky 20 something year old thinking I've got to figure it out. And let me humble myself and bring in the true leaders of the world, people with wisdom, experience research like yourself and say, teach me.

1:05:35Lewis Howes:And through learning, let me share with others and try to help others who are going through a simpler struggle around personal challenges, finance, health, relationships, whatever it might be. So the last 13 years has been a dynamic of me being the guinea pig of struggle and saying, all right, I'm going to try to be the best version of myself that I can be. I'm going to try to draw my wisest version of my future self to me now.

1:06:00Leslie John:And being like a lifelong learner, I think is a really healthy mindset, right?

1:06:04Lewis Howes:Constantly.

1:06:04Leslie John:Yeah.

1:06:05Lewis Howes:And even at 40, I'll be 43 in a couple months. And even though I feel like, man, I have a ton of wisdom from the last 13 years or my whole life so far, but it's like, man, I have so much more deeper that I can go to where I can impact people in a greater capacity. Individually, group settings, mass audience settings, there's so much more that I can uncover within myself. and yet I can keep it extremely simple at the same time. I don't have to like keep going deeper and deeper always. It's like I can integrate the wisdom and then just impact and serve. Serve my dreams and my highest calling and serve the people around me the best of my ability.

1:06:48Lewis Howes:And it doesn't mean I'm always going to be perfect and I'll fall from grace and I'll fall back into old childhood patterns at times.

1:06:54Leslie John:But you'll recognize it.

1:06:55Lewis Howes:Noticing it, catching it and replacing it with a wiser version of myself. And I think that's what doing this show and reading books and doing interviews continually reminds me of the things I already know. Usually I don't learn all these new things that I've never heard of. It's more of like, oh, this research is backing what I know. So let me go farther into this.

1:07:17Leslie John:So that's a lot of what it is.

1:07:19Lewis Howes:But I think the idea of, there's a couple of things that I'm hearing from you so far that could benefit people. One, if you're expecting someone to know what you're thinking or feeling, just because you're feeling it, you're going to have a bad or challenging relationship. And you're going to be frustrated in that relationship. If you're expecting someone to read your mind, even if you show them a little of like disgust in the moment of like, I've got some frustration in my life, they should just know. That is like, and one of the things that my wife, Martha has done really well, she knows that I can't be a mind reader.

1:07:52Lewis Howes:And I'm like, if something is all going on, tell me right away. Don't wait till later in the day. Don't wait till midnight when we're in the middle of the bed about to sleep. Like tell me earlier. Yeah.

1:08:01Leslie John:Being a good elicitor is important

1:08:03Lewis Howes:too. Yeah.

1:08:04Leslie John:Yeah.

1:08:04Lewis Howes:Let me serve you better.

1:08:07Leslie John:Yeah.

1:08:07Lewis Howes:You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Just communicate a little bit and I can serve you higher.

1:08:12Leslie John:Yeah. Yeah.

1:08:13Lewis Howes:But if we're waiting till 1am to like let dump something on me.

1:08:16Leslie John:Yeah.

1:08:17Lewis Howes:When I am not have the brain function, it's going to be exhausting for both of us.

1:08:21Leslie John:Yeah.

1:08:21Lewis Howes:So trying to be a mind reader is an impossible job. Yeah. So communicate more, even just communicate a little bit.

1:08:28Leslie John:Yeah.

1:08:28Lewis Howes:We'll go a long way. Yeah. And this power of oversharing with context.

1:08:34Leslie John:Yes.

1:08:34Lewis Howes:Knowing.

1:08:35Leslie John:Context is huge.

1:08:35Lewis Howes:Who you're speaking to.

1:08:37Leslie John:Right.

1:08:37Lewis Howes:When the timing is. Right. Is what I'm hearing is also important.

1:08:41Leslie John:And I think there's also things that we tend to undershare. And I would say the number one thing we tend to undershare are feelings. And for lots of reasons. But if I, to try to like people who are skeptical, the feelings, feelings, feelings, like I'm a skeptic, I was born skeptical. um so there's been studies of that have looked at what people regret in life and one of the studies uh was led by a colleague of mine at cornell tom gillovich who's as brilliant as he is warm and he discovered he looked at what are the things that people regret in life do they regret the things they do or do they regret the things they did not do and it turns out that it's something like 76 percent of regrets on average are things you didn't do really and so unsaid undersharing things you didn't do and then okay so clincher on top of that then there's um i encountered this um a book by a palliative care nurse by the name of brawny where she wrote a book i've had her on the show oh my gosh amazing five regrets yes no okay so four out of five of them are things you didn't do number three i wish i had shared my feelings more wow right like if that doesn't convince you and you can think about it like so i was just talking to the um my dear hairstylist and she she we were talking about this she said you know we had a pta meeting which is like pretty functional.

1:10:20Leslie John:And I decided, because I'd read your book, I decided I was going to share, it wasn't going very well this meeting. And so I decided to share my feelings. I decided to say, I feel frustrated. And she said it was a complete game changer. And one of the reasons, and suddenly people were like, I feel frustrated too. And how do we, so they, it was relatable. Everyone was feeling the same thing or invariance of it. So it makes it so much more compelling then. Um, another example, which I didn't do this strategically, but showing feelings, showing feelings is so much more compelling. You become more persuasive when you do something with feeling, when you show the feeling.

1:10:59Leslie John:And one example, this was fairly early on when I was dating my husband, my second, my now husband. And we were at this beautiful resort in the Caribbean. And there was, I'm a terrible sleeper. I hate that. But I'm just a really, really bad sleeper. And it was, you know, the first night in paradise. And it was like, I didn't sleep at all. There was like a party above us. It was hell. Well, it was not good. And so then the next morning, so he's a little non-confrontational. I can be confrontational when I care a lot. and so I'm like this is this is not right I the money we paid so I go to the front desk and I start saying and then I couldn't contain my feelings so I they were like no no nothing we can do and then I started crying not strategically because I really like I was trying to not cry but then that they shifted entirely and they put us in the most beautiful ocean like on the water ocean cottage like I know it feels like I wasn't trying to be manipulative but the lesson to me was like I don't need to be so ashamed of crying, like crying in the right time and place.

1:12:08Leslie John:It can be a high risk maneuver, but it also is really compelling information.

1:12:13Lewis Howes:Because you really care.

1:12:14Leslie John:Right. It's not just you're like frustrated and upset.

1:12:17Lewis Howes:Yeah. It's like you really were sad.

1:12:19Leslie John:It's a true signal, right? It's easy to just complain, but this is a costly signal.

1:12:24Lewis Howes:So I hear people complain all the time probably. Yeah.

1:12:26Leslie John:Right. And they're like, oh no, she really means it. So, but yeah, so sharing your feelings is something that we chronically undershare. Yeah.

1:12:37Lewis Howes:Yeah. And there's a price to not sharing your true feelings. Exactly.

1:12:40Leslie John:There are missed opportunities. There's friendships that never blossom. There's romances that never spark. There's colleagues that never quite trust you.

1:12:49Lewis Howes:What's one question you could ask your intimate partner that would get them to share what they truly feel if they've been blocking or hiding those emotions for a long time? Hmm.

1:12:59Leslie John:That's a great question. Um, I think what I would do, I mean, there's lots of things one could do, but there is a very powerful human tendency. I might even say instinct. I don't use that term lightly, but it, you can actually very, make a very quite compelling evolutionary case to this. There's an instinct to reciprocate. And so if you, if your partner's more reserved, like my husband, um, he's a recovering undershare. Um, but I'm an overshare. I've had my moments of like, so we balance each other out, but reciprocity. So if you, if you really, instead of like trying to get the right question, if you share something proactively, you say, I feel, you know, the day we got married, I felt so happy, but I also felt, you know, uncertainty about the future and what our family life and where we'd live.

1:13:48Leslie John:Like if you share something vulnerable, then that's so natural, especially when you're in a loving relationship, reciprocation is like it feels weird not to do it. And so that's, instead of trying to get the perfect question, that's something I might try.

1:14:02Lewis Howes:Lead with vulnerability, lead with sharing, lead with something. That's powerful. Well, I want people to check out your book. It's called Revealing the Underrated Power of Oversharing. And again, I just really believe like relationships is the key to having a happy life. And powerful relationships come from the ability to communicate how you feel, obviously in the right context. And it doesn't mean you cry all day long if you're sad, but it's like learning how to communicate and connecting and learning how to receive someone's oversharing is where the fruit of life is because it's all about relationships.

1:14:40Lewis Howes:And if you struggle in relationships, you're going to struggle in your life. And this is going to allow you to create more tools to having a powerful relationship. So the book's called Revealing the Underrated power of oversharing. And people can check your website out, proflesleyjohn.com or the same on Instagram and LinkedIn and social media, proflesleyjohn over there as well. I've got a couple final questions for you.

1:15:06Leslie John:Lightning round. Yeah, exactly.

1:15:08Lewis Howes:This is called the three truths. So a hypothetical scenario, imagine you get to live as long as you want and you get to do all the work that you love and all the research you love and you get to have the experiences you imagine with your family and your kids and all these different things. But for whatever reason on your last day, you have to take all of your work with you. And we don't have access to your books, your interviews, your content anymore. But you get to leave behind one final message. And I call it the three truths. What would be those three things, those three messages, three truths you would leave behind from all the work and the research and the life lessons that you have.

1:15:44Leslie John:Okay. I would say one is that we live in fear of TMI, which we should not, because the bigger problem is TLI, too little information.

1:16:10Leslie John:The second is that silence is a choice. And once you start thinking about silence as a choice, it will really open up your space because you will realize how much you can share because you'll realize how much you leave unsaid. and third I would say revealing wisely is a skill and it's a skill that we can all get better at and like any skill it requires practice and iteration so I would encourage people to try to stretch themselves a little bit more and and and that's also on a meta level what I've what I'm doing in the book right like how can you write a book about revealing and not reveal yeah so you know hopefully i got it mostly right but it's a it's you have to forgive yourself if you that's part of learning and experimentation yeah it's an ongoing dance yeah that's cool

1:17:05Lewis Howes:well leslie i appreciate and i acknowledge you for one revealing during this because i think

1:17:11Leslie John:academics can sometimes hold back and we get gnarled it's all research and science and it's

1:17:16Lewis Howes:not going into their own personal life as well so i'll really acknowledge you for kind of revealing that about your mom and kind of having this like underlying resentment for a decade plus, but then this work making you face it and it's created a stronger relationship with your mom, it sounds like.

1:17:33Leslie John:For sure.

1:17:34Lewis Howes:And so I acknowledge you for doing the healing work for yourself while you're trying to create research and academic. And raise two crazy boys. Exactly. But that's, it's hard to do if you're a recovering non-sharer. Yeah. Yeah.

1:17:47Leslie John:I also realized as I was writing it that I call myself an overshare, but then I thought it's more performative oversharing. Like I like telling self-deprecating funny stories about myself, but when it really comes to sharing deep feelings, do I? Yeah.

1:18:00Lewis Howes:Well, we keep working on it. This is the starting point.

1:18:02Leslie John:I'm a lifelong education case. Yes, exactly.

1:18:06Lewis Howes:Final question, Leslie, what's your definition of greatness? Oh, um,

1:18:12Leslie John:hmm. It's feeling so comfortable in your own skin and knowing yourself so much that you can get the things in life that you care about and that your loved ones care about. There you go.

1:18:28Lewis Howes:That's it. Thanks for being here. Appreciate you. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review.

1:19:03Lewis Howes:I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.