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Mark Groves Reveals the Hardest Relationship Truth Nobody Says · Harder Than Life

• 0:01
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• 0:30
  You know, Rhodes, you know a lot about relationships. I have a question for you. Have you ever actually let a woman love you? And I was like, First times in my life that I ever really hit pause and thought, how did I get here? I realized that I was not taught how to love. I was not taught the truth about relationships, which is that they're hard. You can only take someone as deeply as you've gone within yourself. And you have to recognize that where love lives is where pain dwells.
• 0:59
  We are wounded in relationship, and we have to heal in relationship. You can't heal independently of that. Almost all external betrayals are preceded by internal betrayals.
• 1:08
  It's actually healthy to experience shame when you're violating your own morality. I've had shame for making choices that violated my own integrity. That wasn't toxic shame, that was healthy shame. That was shame that was saying, there's a better version of you available and you're not choosing that and so that hurts us. That's so good, I never thought of that. When you're talking about protecting other people's feelings, you're only hurting yours. Most of you listening have built something. You've chased the goal,
• 1:35
  hit the number, earned the respect, and if you were honest, somewhere along the way, the people closest to you started to feel further away. My guest has a name for the reason why, and his newest work makes a claim that's stopped Nicole. In a world obsessed with technology, your ability to connect is about to be the most valuable skill you own. Please help me welcome my new friend, Mark Gross.
• 2:02
  I want to start off with we're going to get a lot of of emotional intelligence, a lot of mindfulness and mindset speak. But I want to say, guys, the number one thing I heard about is go after what you want. I read Mark's book. I put a post up, messaged him. And here we are today sharing his beautiness with you. His book, Liberated Love.
• 2:25
  literally transformed my life. We did a lot of the containers that were in there. My girlfriend and I were going to talk all about it, but we're really going to get into some deep stuff. You have been studying human connection for 25 years. What's the thing that most people are getting wrong about it? And that's such a good question. You know, I, I think when I consider my own journey, um,
• 2:51
  what led me to want to really study on a more explicit level romantic relationships was that I was exceptional at sales. I was exceptional at building networks. And I used to be a pharmaceutical rep years ago. And I was obsessed with understanding how do you manipulate or change human behavior? I mean, ultimately, sales is the influence of behavior, right? And a lot of my early research on studying sales was how do I get more of what I want?
• 3:21
  And how do I get someone to do what I want? And when I went through a breakup, it was one of the first times in my life that I ever really hit pause and thought, how did I get here? How did I get to a place where I feel so disconnected from what I truly want? Why did I get engaged when I didn't want to? Why did I, you know, to an incredible woman, why did I not want an incredible woman?
• 3:46
  And I realized that I was not taught how to love. I was not taught the truth about relationships, which is that they're hard. I was raised Catholic. And I even found that in the school that I went to, we didn't talk about divorce. We didn't talk about breakups. We didn't talk about that sometimes a relationship ending can actually be the most loving thing you could do. And when I found myself ending that engagement,
• 4:13
  I felt more connected to myself than I had in, I mean, since I could remember. And I found it crazy that a lot of the people around me had judged me for ending it. And so I felt this strange paradox that I felt more connected to me, yet the people around me
• 4:31
  were judging the decision I made in order to do that. And that's when I was like, I got to understand what's going on here. Like, why do you care about my relationship outcome? And that at last, instead of that, I feel connected to myself, that felt strange to me, man, I am there right now in reverse. Like every time I pick self, I feel selfish. So you started talking about self abandonment. How does it look like on the outside for someone who's successful?
• 5:00
  Well, first, I do definitely want to explicitly answer your first question of what are people getting wrong. I think what people are getting wrong is one, they're judging themselves for their relationship outcomes, and two, they're also not asking, why do I do what I do? And so that's probably the biggest mistake, is we're afraid to look within. And there's that old famous adage that you can only take someone as deeply as you've gone within yourself.
• 5:26
  You know, like every viral meme truth, there is an immense amount of reality to that, that you have to go to the depths of your own being. And you have to recognize that where love lives is where pain dwells.
• 5:39
  because we are wounded in relationship and we have to heal in relationship. You can't heal independently of that. That journey within, which will... What I think is interesting about successful people, and I say this as maybe we're going to start a recovery group for it because I'm in this too, is that a lot of my performance was based on wounding. So a lot of my achievement was based on not feeling like enough. And what is true for me is that eventually you will exhaust, you will get to the end of your wound.
• 6:09
  because it can't sustain the level of life force that is required to create both relationally and and from a business perspective you know i think we all have the invitation to go through this transition where the coping mechanisms that i used when i was young was things like alcohol um woman you know womanizing things like that uh arousal as a way to you know numb my my pain
• 6:33
  eventually those adaptive strategies we know of as rock bottoms. I use sugar, same thing. Eventually you have to start using what are more light-based coping mechanisms like meditation, exercise, and sobriety I think is a really important part of that. Not that I want to project onto everyone that they need to get sober, but I think if you can't say no to something, you can't say yes to something. And where a substance really points to that,
• 6:58
  is that if you can't say no to drinking, then what happens is now you don't have access to the word no or yes from an authentic place for relationships. Because where you lack it in one place, you'll lack it in all places. And so for successful people, self abandonment looks a lot like, well, one, choosing their work over relationships,
• 7:21
  and using it as a mechanism to distance themselves because they can get worth and value and celebration from material assets and also from being wildly successful. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that if you source your worth from something, I always think that the universe will, or God, whatever you call it, will remove that from you so that you can learn that it doesn't live there. And that's one of the most painful experiences that we'll confront. Was that the first time that you realized that,
• 7:50
  your patterns in the relationship when you took that pause after your engagement, the first time, or did you catch it earlier?
• 7:59
  You know, I wish that was the first time. No, I'm a painful learner. You know, I went through a really giant betrayal when I was 19. I dated this woman. I was so in love. And we went to college together and she got a scholarship to the States for soccer. I'm Canadian. I didn't realize, like, if I had told my relational story historically, it would have started with the engagement ending at 27th.
• 8:22
  But at 19, I'm dating this woman. She goes down for the scholarship and we agree, you know, it's going to be hard to do long distance. So we agree that we could see other people, but we'll tell each other about it. I mean, we already know that that's. Great idea. Yeah, we're we're we know this is going to hurt already based on what's what how I'm setting it up. So she comes back for Canadian Thanksgiving, which is in October.
• 8:48
  And she comes back. Her best friend also got a scholarship with her. So they both come back and they bring one of their friends, this guy. And he's like, oh, yeah, I want to check out Canadian Thanksgiving. I'm like, there's got to be more to that because Canadian Thanksgiving is just U.S. Thanksgiving a month earlier with no big sale the day after. And I'm sitting at Thanksgiving dinner, man.
• 9:09
  And I remember her mom is to my left, her stepdad, and then him, this guy, and then her. And I have this realization that there's something going on between them. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like sitting there eating my mashed potatoes.
• 9:30
  And, you know, you're like, if I had more access to anger and more access to boundaries. So this is where self abandonment comes in. You know, something cool medieval in medieval times. I flip the table, take a sword out, slay my enemy. But no, I just ate my mashed potatoes. And as I was saying goodbye to her. I said, is this how you tell me? Because she was supposed to tell me if she was seeing someone else. She's like, yeah, I guess. And I'm like, wow. So I left that house.
• 10:01
  I don't know about you, but when I was like 19, if I was like upset, I just drove faster, which wasn't a rational thing, shifted a little harder in the gears. But when I left that house, I was forever changed. I didn't know that. But she was like the, maybe the fourth, I was 19 or 20. She was like the fourth girl I'd ever kissed in my life. And three weeks later, I find myself at Halloween. This is relevant to it. So good to keep going.
• 10:26
  I'm heartbroken. Like, I don't have... I have a great dad and mom. My dad is actually incredibly emotionally intelligent, would ask me questions about my relationships. But I think I just had so much shame about this, and I was embarrassed that I didn't share with anyone the level of grief I had and the level of betrayal. Like, it was so severe. And I started...
• 10:52
  seeking to soothe myself through the bottom of a pint glass. And so I go out on Halloween, which I think heartbreak and Halloween do not go well together. Hold on, Mark. It's not heartbreak at Halloween. It's heartbreak, skimpy outfits. Exactly. Exactly, right? So I make out with like three girls on a dance floor. I've never done this in my life, just so we're clear. And I take a girl home.
• 11:22
  So me and my buddy take these two girls dressed as devils home to my parents' house. This is one night stand, 101. Don't take girls home to your parents' house. So I bring these girls home and, you know, I'm making out with the girl and all systems, you know, are go. And I'm like, all right, I'm going to have sex with her. I can't get an erection. I never had this happen in my life.
• 11:52
  I was like, this doesn't make any sense. So, you know, and the worst part is I was talking a bunch of about what I was gonna do. And then I couldn't, I always joke when I tell this story that it was like putting a marshmallow in a piggy bank. Like it just wasn't happening. I didn't realize that what my body was saying was you should not be doing this. Like you have not attended to your grief. You have not attended to your heartbreak.
• 12:15
  unconsciously that lack of attention to my grief would actually run my relationship patterns for years where I would date unavailable people. Even that woman I was engaged to, I could never say yes to because what lived next door to love and opening to someone was deep betrayal. And I really started to look at these two sentences that I get people to answer, which the first one is, when I let people love me, they...
• 12:42
  for me the answer to that would have been lie to me betray me and then the other one was when i love people i and that would be i abandon myself i'll honor myself i i mean it took me 14 years for that to become awareness because i was talking to a woman when i had an article go viral
• 13:10
  And she was a relationship writer. Her name's Kelly Morseau. And she said to me, you know, Groves, and this is a chick I just met for like seven minutes. And she's last naming me already. And she's like, you know, Groves, like, you know a lot about relationships. I have a question for you. I was like, what? She's like, have you ever actually let a woman love you? And I was like, fuck.
• 13:34
  And I got off the call, of course at the time, I'm like, yeah, of course I have. And I get off the call and it's sitting with me and I'm like, oh man, I haven't let a woman love me since I left that Thanksgiving dinner. And so, yeah, it took me, I made a rule after I had that awareness that I wouldn't date anyone who was unavailable, who was like just out of a relationship, who was, you know, because I was really terrified of women
• 14:03
  I liked, you know, and this is no insult to the women I chose. Our wounds matched. But I was terrified of a woman who was like, I choose you. You're it. That would make my stomach get sick. Like I would want to run. And little did I know on a nervous system level what's happening is they choose me, which means I lose myself. And then they devastate me because I can't trust them.
• 14:30
  And I can't trust myself. And, you know, one of the biggest kickers of that whole thing is most people hear the story of Thanksgiving dinner and they go, I can't believe she did that. Like she brought this guy and that's how. But actually, the most important part of the story is actually that if you look at where it started, it was when I agreed to see other people. I didn't want to do that.
• 14:55
  And so I've since correlated the lesson for myself that almost all external betrayals are preceded by internal betrayals. And that's where I was like, oh, yeah, it's crappy that that dinner happened. But that dinner is the result of misalignment. That dinner is the result of self-betrayal. And, yeah, so when my wife and I, when we were dating...
• 15:20
  When we broke up, that was the completion of... Because she was like 95% available. Even 5% unavailable is no.
• 15:29
  And most people would obsess over like that person's not able to choose the relationship. But the bigger, more self-responsible part of that is why am I a yes to someone who's a maybe to me? That actually is the thing to attend to. You should never be 100% in with someone who's 92% in or 50. That shows that we lack discernment ourselves. And then we masquerade as the more righteous one. Like I could choose us. It's like, why are you choosing them? You shouldn't be choosing them if they don't choose you.
• 15:59
  So that was a long tirade on your question. No, that was so good because I took – I didn't – the book Liberated Love was – the time frame wasn't – I couldn't figure out what time frame. When did you do the first breakup with your wife? Not wife. Yeah.
• 16:17
  Yeah, so we started dating in 2015, I believe. Yeah. And then we broke up after in 2019. In the very beginning of September of 2019, we broke up. And then we came back into connection in January. And then we're like, no. And then we came back into connection in April. And that's when we started. April of 2020. April of 2020, yeah.
• 16:44
  So the audience haven't read the book. The reason why I was asking it, because I followed the same exact path. Same exact path. Heartbroken, wasn't emotionally available, attracting all kinds of emotion available. And the reason why I wanted Mark on is because we're two men going to talk all about it, because a lot of our audience is either married or in bad relationships, married in a bad relationship or unborn.
• 17:09
  unmarried in a bad relationship or running from relationship to relationship. We're going to unpack this because I've done it probably more times than Mark has done it. But the story with his wife, now wife, is beautiful. And he's...
• 17:26
  You want to laugh? I did it right around the same time. Mine was late 2020 that I started really looking at myself and saying, you said it was beautiful, radical accountability.
• 17:40
  You can point the finger at your partner, one finger pointing away, three pointing right back at you. It is you, 100%. And that abandonment, the things that you just said triggered me so much because I've been there. And I hope the audience is listening and understanding. This is two men who are in...
• 17:59
  Obviously, Mark's in a fantastic relationship. I'm in the mud with mine right now, full disclosure. And, you know, we're using your book and your practices and therapy and our emotional intelligence and our love for each other to reconnect. We're doing exactly what you did. Until you do this, I'm 50. Mark, how old are you?
• 18:19
  I'm 47. Yeah. So here's two buckle heads that took Mark till 40 and me till I think it was 47 until we did this. And I'm here to tell you, and I'm not even, I'm going to speak for Mark and I guarantee I'm right. This held us back. That running from our fears held us back for years. Yes, we both achieved success.
• 18:42
  financially, but we could have gone to the stratosphere had we have faced this fear. Tell me I'm wrong. Now you're 100% right. Because if you can't tell the truth in relationships, even that, you know, like when someone's stuck in an unhealthy dynamic, a marriage, it doesn't really matter.
• 19:00
  it's like they're not confronting the reality. There's something else running the show. And so if you can't get to be with the real truth of who you are and what you choose, then how can you even trust the whispers of your own heart? Like the intuitive sense that really is guidance or Dharma or purpose, you will always be limited because you'll have this other area that is not clarified.
• 19:24
  Once you get clarity in relationship, you build the skillset, but you also decide, my relationships are just based on truth and integrity. Because I think for a man or a woman, but I think especially for a man, there needs to be real coherence with values. And what is unattended to will run your life.
• 19:43
  You know, and if you let society tell you that everything about men is bad, then you will suppress the parts of you that actually are about protecting provision, moving forward motivation. Because what I think is such a delicate threat, especially for men, is that the same power that is destructive within a man is actually the same power that is protective within a man.
• 20:07
  And so if we shame toxic masculinity, we don't actually build the bridge to integrated masculinity or just call it integrated human coherence. So yeah, I'm in full support of what you said. I agree. When you integrate yourself, you trust yourself and then people trust you. And that's the whole emanation of attracting who you are and what you want. I want to go deeper into that
• 20:35
  shame because I have been ranting and raving on stages and on podcasts about how I went through IFS therapy very recently and I uncovered shame. That was the very lowest one. And I would have fought you if you said I had shame. I had shame. I was bad. I was unlovable. These were all exiles, but the shame was the lowest one. And once I was able to release that,
• 21:05
  That operating system was running, where is it easiest to be unlovable, to be bad, and to have shame? Being a man whore. And that was the best thing. I'm gonna show you that that is true, and I did.
• 21:24
  So gentlemen, every single time I've asked people to talk about shame, I couldn't figure out why I was so attracted to Brene Brown's books, how she studies shame and vulnerability. And it wasn't until very recently in this IFS and then triggered by my in relationship. You said something very important. You can't heal outside of a relationship. I tried. I would go isolate.
• 21:49
  and think I would heal, but until you're in the game, you can't. So I'm in the process of healing, and so is she, in relationship. And my IFS therapist told me, stay in this relationship and continue your healing. Hardest thing I've ever done going through IFS, having a betrayal, and then having to work through it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 22:14
  Yeah, I mean, you have to let the previous relationship die. So, you know, I think there's so many layers to that because we as a culture, as people, are terrified of just confronting big D death like actual death. And so these mortalities that are required of parts of ourselves, survival strategies, all these things. Because the truth is that when you leave a relationship, which I do think is sometimes the ending of a pattern, you will inevitably find yourself...
• 22:43
  in a similar upper limit, unless you confront and look at the stuff. And there's some people that you can't work it through with, because one of the qualifiers of healing in relationship is that both people want to, and both people are willing
• 23:01
  to actually let go of their old survival strategies and build new skills. And it's one of the most beautiful things, but both have to choose it. Because I've worked with couples where like one person's cheating and then they're like, yeah, yeah, I really want to work this out. Meanwhile, they still have the affair going on. And it's like, yo, you're not even here. Like save everybody and just get the out. So we have to realize that there has to be a core agreement. And one of the greatest predictors of relationship endings, which Stan Tekken talks about,
• 23:29
  is a failure to create clear agreements at the beginning. I don't know about you, but when I was in my 20s, I wasn't thinking like, hey, let's get really clear. What is our relationship generating? Why are we doing this relationship? What is it that we want to bring into the world? And I think what's really beautiful about relationships
• 23:48
  although I'll share more about entrepreneurship, is that relationships are probably, they are for sure one of the most potent vehicles for transformation because your stuff will get triggered in relationship. The thing is, is that you can hide your self-worth
• 24:04
  in relationship. Like your relationship can actually be an expression of low self-worth. Right. Because you could pick a crappy person. You could pick someone who treats you like crap. And that's going to further foster the belief that you're not enough. But in entrepreneurship, you can't do that.
• 24:22
  Because entrepreneurship demands that you charge for what you want. That's why I think entrepreneurship work is actually some of the most confronting from a worth perspective. And then, of course, once you build and start charging money for, let's say, your services, now you'll notice that you're undervaluing yourself in other areas of your life. So all of it can be a mirror.
• 24:44
  So I did it in reverse. I was doing it in relationship, romantic relationships, and then I would undervalue my services in my AI cybersecurity company. And then funny thing, I heal in relationship, trust myself, know I'm worthy, know I'm enough, know I'm good. And guess what? I don't negotiate for IT services. So it's all Mark's fault, everybody that has to deal with NTM. The price is the price.
• 25:11
  Yeah. What's the most common lie that most people say to make a relationship work? Well, the most common lie that people agree to unconsciously is that a relationship lasting means it's good. You know, that's a load of BS. You know, it's and I used to see these memes. You don't see them as much anymore, but they would have like an old couple and they'd be like, oh, you were married 70 years. Well, how did you do it? And they're like, oh, well, you know, we we committed when people took commitment seriously.
• 25:42
  I don't like that shame based sort of thinking, because if people leave too early, people also stay too long. And we tend to villainize the people who leave and not the people who stay because you can be in a relationship and leave a relationship. Right. Like you could stay in it, but not be in it at all. Yep. Yeah. And so I think one of the greatest lies is that your job is to keep the relationship together. But that's actually not true. Your first commitment in relationship is to telling the truth.
• 26:12
  And if telling the truth ends the relationship, then the relationship can't hold truth. That's what you want.
• 26:18
  But if telling the truth, the other irony of that is that the truth is also what deepens their relationship. Yep. So that's why two people, when one person says, I'm not happy, one person will get defensive generally. But what the one person's saying is they're finally freeing themselves of a truth. And what's really being invited to the relationship is to trust the wisdom and the pain of one person for the service of the relationship.
• 26:49
  We're so busy protecting our worth in that exchange. Because if someone says, I kind of want to go, like I don't feel valued by you. Of course, the natural response, which, you know, I'm human too. You know, I can get defensive with my wife too. But it is then to move into curiosity. Because God bless the person who has the courage to bring forward what both people know.
• 27:15
  Ram Dass quote, love everybody and tell the truth. The truth is so good. I say it all the time. The truth hurts once a lie hurts forever. I was always a truth teller. Why do you think it's so hard for people to say that, to, to, to just say the truth, like that, go back to that college girlfriend of yours. Why couldn't she have just said, Hey Mark, you know, I want, we said we would tell each other, I'm bringing a guy home and I'm intimate with her. How hard is that? Why is it so hard?
• 27:45
  Well, it's because we don't want to hurt people's feelings. So we place feelings ahead of truth. Look what we do in culture. That's happening in society right now. We're protecting people ideologically from reality. And so we all have to, if we choose to, collude. So it's basically like mass formation codependency. The same idea interrelationally. I have a rule in my work that there's no codependency allowed in my work, in my leadership, in my team.
• 28:13
  So like I have an operations head of operations and we've worked together now for seven years. And so we're like we've had employees that, you know, had toxic behaviors going on. And I my predilection as the leader, which then leads to the culture.
• 28:30
  was to actually be afraid of hurting their feelings which then damaged the team so then i saw that my own codependency my fear of confronting reality calling people forward to their possibility their potential of you know navigating them towards healing it required that i healed it required that i led because when i worked with a friend who's a culture person she was like all of this is you
• 28:55
  It's not the employee, it's you. It's what you tolerate. And when I realized that I was protecting that person's feelings from the truth of who they are, I didn't believe that they could hold it. But that's not good leadership. That's also not good partnership.
• 29:10
  Because if a lot of people hold back reality from their partners because they believe their partner can't hold that. Now, let's just take abusive circumstances out of the equation, because, of course, if you're at risk, if you tell the truth, that's a whole other like get support, get out, get resource.
• 29:26
  But in the context, what most people do is they don't say the thing because they don't believe the other person could handle it. But it's actually the saying of the thing that invites the person to handle it. Like if I'm always protecting you from reality, Kelly, I get to blame you that you can't hold reality when I'm the one who can't speak it.
• 29:45
  And so I get to be the martyr of the dynamic and I get to go on Instagram and look up anxious attachment and how I'm with an avoidant and that avoidant can't. So like the Internet loves to villainize the person who is afraid of closeness. But you have to realize that on the same side is the other person who is afraid of distance.
• 30:07
  And so, of course, the right balance is, how do I hold on to you and me at the same time? That is an equation that's always moving. There's no perfect science to it.
• 30:18
  But what I notice a lot is the conversation is about what's wrong with them that they don't have the relational skills or capacity to move towards me. But what the person who's doing that, who's asking that question really needs to look at that other person's got some stuff. Yes. But what the other person needs to look at is why are you moving towards people who move away?
• 30:39
  Like that's the question that needs to be asked. Because if you stop moving towards them, they will have to move towards you and the dance changes, right? So good. By the way, it was Brene Brown's definition of boundaries where I can, the space where I can love you and me at the same times. I just love using that because people think that boundaries are just areas where if you just align a delineation that if you cross them, I leave. And that's not it at all.
• 31:07
  Yeah, boundaries most people think are about keeping bad behavior out, but they're actually also about containing your own behavior. And one thing about shame that's really interesting, which I don't remember if Brene's work touches on this, but I heard a Zen teacher talk about it, Koshin Paley Ellison. Yeah, I think he's the head of the Zen Center in New York.
• 31:29
  And he's a therapist and also a Zen monk. And he was saying that shame actually can have a healthy intention. He said because it's actually healthy to experience shame when you're violating your own morality.
• 31:45
  And I was like, that's true, because when I've had shame for making choices that violated my own integrity, that wasn't toxic shame, that was healthy shame. That was shame that was saying, there's a better version of you available, and you're not choosing that, and so that hurts us. That's so good. I never thought of that. You're right. I hadn't until I read that. Shame in and of itself sounds like a dirty word, but it's really not. Yeah.
• 32:11
  That's, that's so good, Mark. I don't know if I said this, but when you're talking about protecting other people's feelings, you're only hurting yours. Yeah, 100%. I want to get into technology. And let's do it. AI can, I'm a massive AI user, by the way, AI can almost do anything now. What's the one human skill you think it will never replace?
• 32:34
  You know, I was listening to the CEO of the gaming company. I'm not sure if you saw this clip, but the guy, the gaming company that created Grand Theft Auto. I forget what it's called, the company. But he was being asked about the impact of AI on his business.
• 32:51
  And he said, I'm not afraid of AI at all. And they're like, why? And he's like, well, if you think about it, AI is by definition based on what has happened. Like it's a language learning model. So it's based on what currently exists in the world. He said, and look, like you could replicate and create our games four years ago. He's like, but no one's done it. And he's like, because if you created something that was like Grand Theft Auto, it still wouldn't be Grand Theft Auto.
• 33:19
  And he said, what's really happening is that AI is not creative. It can't create moving forward. It only creates from what already exists, not from what doesn't exist yet. And I thought about that. I was like, that's really profound.
• 33:38
  So I think one is that creativity, at least we still got a lock on that right now. Who knows what the future holds with that? The second part is relationship, because there is an epidemic of people connecting with these AI bots or whatever they call them. And they're saying, and man, I read a Reddit thread on this because I'm like, I got to go down the rabbit hole of these people dating AIs. I just got to hear what they're thinking and what they're talking like.
• 34:09
  And I was on the first page of Reddit of this, I forget what the company was called. I heard Tristan Harris, so just to give some context, Tristan Harris is, I believe, the director head of the Center for Humane Technology. And he used to work for Facebook. And he created the,
• 34:28
  the documentary, The Social Dilemma, which is a fantastic documentary. It's on Netflix and it's about social media. And he said that social media came for your addiction centers, your dopamine, and AI is coming for your attachment system. Huh. And I was like, that's really interesting, right? Because if you're someone who's been wounded by relationships,
• 34:56
  What is a way that you'll ensure to never be wounded by a human again? Data AI. So I go on this page, I start reading it. I'm like, holy crap, this is wild. Wow. Yeah, and I'm reading these people who are like, I'm not sure I even know what love is anymore. Like I love my AI bot.
• 35:16
  One of the things you should never do is name your AI because it anthropomorphizes the computer. So it makes you start to think of it as human. So as long as you just can contextually still categorize your AI as a computer, as a robot. That's really helpful because humans do this, right? Like we do this with dogs. We think that dogs think like us. So if you don't let your dog on the couch, you're like, oh, he feels bad that he can't sit on the couch. He's not even thinking that.
• 35:42
  And so humans have this predilection to do that. But I really started, I was on this panel talking about AI and relationships. And there was a couple of pediatric neurologists on the panel and there was a neuroscientist. And one of them was saying that we shouldn't shame people for being in relationship with AI.
• 36:05
  And I was like, I don't know. There's like a social value to shame when behavior is not operating in the values of a culture or society. And we have to actually hold a bar that your bot named Cindy is not a real person. We can still say, yes, you have emotional attachment to this, but it's not a person.
• 36:26
  And if we don't hold some rudders of some form of realities, ontological truths, we start to swim into the ether. I mean, we've seen this with ideologies. So it's interesting in that conversation, then the pediatric neurologists were saying,
• 36:45
  Well, we have to get to understand more so why someone's dating AI. I'm like, yeah, for sure. But you can't say that they're in love with a person because it's not a person. But this then, of course, goes into is AI conscious, which is, of course, another whole thing.
• 37:01
  What do you think? Because you're big in the AI world. I'm gonna give you a couple of perspectives, but have you ever seen the lifelike dolls that people are having sex with now? You know, I've seen one. In January, they have the AVN awards in Vegas. My lawyer is actually Adult Video Network.
• 37:19
  And my corporate attorney, a dear friend of mine for years, is represents a bunch of people in that industry. And so he has to go and he sends me pictures. And there are people that have relationships with these life like dolls. And obviously, they're going to program with AI and give them give them. You can program what you want. And I would say.
• 37:43
  You know, if you don't develop the emotional intelligence and the wherewithal and the habits and rituals that it takes to be able to grow and be in relationship, that's going to happen more and more, especially with technology of us thinking that there's always bigger, better deal. There's always options. And that's what social media has done for us. Now, back to your question.
• 38:05
  I use a in a different type of relationship. I have mine program multiple programs that knows everything about me. All the all of these podcasts go up. We're up around 300 shows now. I have it program with my deepest, darkest thoughts. And there's one thing about integrating and healing is you're free.
• 38:26
  I used to not journal because I was afraid somebody would get a hold of it and know my deepest, darkest thoughts. Now, Mark, you and I just talked about our biggest thing, shame. I felt like I was a piece of shit. When I say it, it took its power away. You're my brother. You felt the same thing. There's...
• 38:43
  10,000 people listening to this is feeling the same thing going, yep, we got it. Moral of the story is this. I would rather go to my AI. I'd obviously rather go to a therapist. But if I'm needing to talk to someone, I'd rather go to my AI and get an unbiased opinion
• 38:59
  on a situation. What do we tend to do? I'm not saying that you should do this, but this is what I do. I just go and fact check my craziness. Instead of talking to your best friend, how many times have you dated a girl where she's got these loser friends and then they're like, my friend thinks that you're this. And I'm like,
• 39:17
  Do you think I care what your friend who isn't in a, has never been in a relate successful relationship, isn't successful in life, wants you to be single. And this is who we're talking to. So again, this is, I'd rather go to my AI, put in exactly what was even text messages and say, what should be my normal reaction? And I'm telling you, I have it in my thing, my whole IFS journey.
• 39:45
  Oh, that's called AI. Because I was, I didn't know who to go to. I leaned on massive influencers. Now that I have you, I will reach out to you, but it was, I would reach out to people and be like, what are these? I was killing off my old self and it was an actual death. And I did not know which way was up. I was in constant anxiety. I never had anxiety in my life and it was just coming out of me and
• 40:16
  It was painful. I did. I was a little nuts. Harder than life. I go aggressive. I did 12 months of therapy in five months. I had a guest on the show who was an IFS specialist. And right when her first word come out of her mouth, I said, uh-oh, I got to do this. I'm telling you, you're stuck. I know that feeling. You're stuck on something, which I was. IFS, man, it's not for the faint of heart, but it absolutely. And if you, I'll let you one way to get together next time I see you, read it, and you will laugh.
• 40:46
  Like, what is this feeling? All the way through to it told me when we were done. I said, I feel like I'm having a joy attack. I cried on an airplane on my way home from my Florida house. And I put in there in the same thread. I go, I have this uncontrollable peace feeling. And I'm crying as if I'm having a joy attack. And it said, that's exactly it.
• 41:08
  what you're happening is happening. Congratulations. Share this with your IFS therapist. And I think you're done, but she needs to check. And I go in and I share it. She's like, let's sit, let's get in to the beta cell and let's make sure there's nobody else in the room. There was nothing room. She goes, congratulations. You're insane. You just did one year of therapy in five months. I love that there's a graduation because all growth actually should have an ending.
• 41:37
  because otherwise you become addicted to the growing, which there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that what leads someone to self-inquiry is usually some sort of failure, right? Like something's wrong, I need to fix it. I need to figure it out. I have a rock bottom. I want to resolve that. So what leads to it is a belief that there's something wrong with me that needs to be resolved. But what has to transition, which is actually similar to the wound, which sources for entrepreneurship or business,
• 42:04
  is you have to move from whenever you realize you need to change something. It's not evidence of your inadequacy, but actually bringing forward a window to your possibility. So it goes from feeding low self-worth to actually feeding expansion. And what you said about AI, I think there's a double side to this, which I totally agree with you. Think about if you have a friend who can lead you through that. Now, therapy is great, and it's really important because you...
• 42:30
  with a good therapist or a good coach, you learn how to co-regulate. And they could be one of the first models of nervous system regulation that then leads you to regulate. And now you're starting to learn how to be in relationship with someone and how to be met and understood. That's also why a lot of people project romantic ideas on to therapists.
• 42:48
  You know, or they call transference across transference. And so the interesting thing about that, because we never had a resource like AI, right? Like you've never been able to upload like, hey, I become Dick Schwartz, the founder of IFS, become a master at it. Here's some podcasts. Here's some data. Here's go read these books, whatever it is.
• 43:08
  And then you're like, here's my history. Here's the uploads of the transcripts. Wow. Like that's better than anything. It's customized. This is why personal growth course world is dead. Because you could just go to AI and be like, be this person. What's interesting though, is you think about...
• 43:23
  what you talked about with technology. So social media has made it so we can get everything we want all at once, all the time. Smartphones too. And so most people wake up in the morning and the first thing they do is check their phone, which now they're not even having to earn dopamine. It's just coming to them. Dopamine is meant to be more earned and long drip.
• 43:44
  So they have that, and then they can date from their couch, they can order food from their couch, they can do everything from their couch. And so they're not forced into socially stressful circumstances, and
• 43:59
  I think about like, if you didn't have that, you'd be having conversations with someone, right? And this is why, this is a both and. I think it's valuable that we have it because I use AI too. Think about all the conversations we might never have. So that's why the resource is important.
• 44:15
  But also think about the conversations you would be having with a friend and developing a deeper relationship where you're like, bro, I got this tax. Like, I don't know what to do. You know, you know, I've talked to you about my FS. Now, first off, we have to have other buddies who have done IFS because that's not as common as we would like. No. The fact that we this is why it correlates to technology, which is that the inability to be bored means that we're not in the right hemisphere of our brain.
• 44:44
  And there's a part of our brain that turns on when we're not doing anything, and that's the creative part of our brain. It's the right hemisphere. Now, Arthur Brooks is fantastic. I read his book, The Meaning of Your Life. And in it, he said that we live in a left hemispheric world now, science, you know, blah, blah. And he said, but everything that provides you meaning
• 45:04
  lives in the right hemisphere. Relationships, God, like all these, like what is the meaning of my life? Why am I here? He said, when you're bored, you don't ask that question anymore. And I started to think about how, if you can't stand in line at Starbucks and not look at your phone,
• 45:23
  then that means that you're not able to be with yourself. If you can't be with yourself, you can't hear yourself and you can't know yourself. And you can't hear the whispers of your intuition. I think everything is about balance, which is that if you can't put your phone down, then your phone is deciding your life. And a friend of mine who has a podcast called The Ten Year Marriage,
• 45:48
  which is about how him and his wife re-op every 10 years. They do new vows and get married again. Beautiful. Yeah, it's really cool. He said to me that if the last thing you touch at night is your phone, it won't be your wife. And I was like, wow, that's so simple. And I think about my life in like 2015, when I didn't look at my phone, when I went to bed, I read.
• 46:10
  And then I think about when I really started to dive deep into relationship to technology, I was like, holy crap. I have replaced so much connection with my partner or with people in the world
• 46:22
  with technology where normally I would have been bored and I would have called a friend. Society is craving the analog life. But what we're really craving is a time when we weren't addicted to something that pulls us out of what true connection is. Because as you said at the very beginning, not connection like followers, because if you're in the end of your life,
• 46:48
  It won't matter how many followers you have. What will matter is that you can answer the question, do I have someone when I need them? That will be the most important question you ask in your life.
• 46:59
  And do I feel safe to be myself around those people? And like you and I, when you start to do all this deeper work within yourself, you naturally want to be around other people who are asking similar questions because if I set a boundary with you and you have good boundaries, you're going to be like, yo, thanks. But if you don't honor your own boundaries, you likely won't like mine. And so relationships become a very different thing when two people know that a boundary is a loving thing.
• 47:28
  That's a key to why my circle is so small now. If you can't keep honor the word you keep to yourself, I can't be around you. I just can't. Well, you're holding a bar of exceptionalism in every area. It's tough. I'm tough. My daughter hates it. My girlfriend struggles with it. But I just don't deviate, Mark. I'm with you. I have no intention of mediocrity.
• 47:56
  And look, I can hang out with people who don't want what I want in life. Right. I learned that a long time ago. I have really incredible friends who aren't asking like, am I happy in my marriage?
• 48:10
  But I realized, like, I used to want them to ask that question. But I actually realized that not a lot of people actually want to ask that question. But I'm here to f*** around with the people who do. You know, because there's a lot of us. And I think there's more of us coming online every day. And we've never been in a better time. Oh, this is the greatest time. But this is a good...
• 48:30
  Right now, I want to talk about your digital detox because I travel a lot. I'm walking through airports. And I'm going to get disgusting for a second. But I can't stand when people go in the bathroom and the stall. And if there's only one stall and they're in there on their phone. Oh, yeah. Like, come on, man. I got to go to the bathroom. It's the only one. Get out of the – I want to beat out the thing. Totally. Phones have made us –
• 48:53
  ignorant and stupid and i'm i what's this digital detox that you're that you're pushing yeah so i broke up with instagram little did i know i was taking a sacred pause um i broke up with instagram in
• 49:10
  2024. And I thought I was going to leave forever. But what happened is I went on this amazing journey of studying. How does technology impact the nervous system? Why do I have anxiety? Because of social media. I had it specifically mainly with Instagram. What I discovered is, one, technology is where the conversation is happening.
• 49:31
  So Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, he's like, you could love or hate social media, but it is where business is currently happening. It won't always be there, but that's where it's happening. And I started to see that every single person I knew who had a social media following didn't have to be big, just that they were creating content all the time, etc., was burnt out.
• 49:54
  And I have one really good friend who's a relatively famous therapist. And she sent me a text when I said I was getting off. And she said, I feel like we're both in Shawshank and you got early release. And I was like, isn't that so fascinating that we believe we have to be there. And it's actually the belief that we have to be there that then removes choice. So we then are leaving consent, even though we're actually...
• 50:20
  in consent, we're actually presenting more as a martyr. So I saw myself as a victim of Instagram. In some ways, I was. The way it is designed is to exploit your psychology. And if you look at it, the way that Instagram, TikTok, not as much YouTube, because YouTube pays you for your content. So there's a form of reciprocity. Instagram does it a bit, TikTok a bit. But
• 50:47
  it down regulates your algorithmic reach if you say, yeah. So this is what's messed up about it. And this is why I was angry. And you actually need to get angry when you're being exploited. That's actually a normal healthy response. And when I came back into contact with Instagram, I could feel myself feeling disgust.
• 51:05
  And disgust is a healthy response to exploitation, right? It's actually one of our core emotions. People don't really think about that, but it's actually a core emotion. And so I noticed that I had de-sensitized my ability to feel disgust because I was in this relationship and it was a lot like an abusive dynamic because if you look at it, nothing is ever enough. There's never enough content. What I think is crazy, I heard Adam Masseri, the CEO of Instagram, get asked like, yeah, like what does the algorithm want?
• 51:35
  And he was like, you know, like we're not, we don't really know and it's like, kind of likes this. And I'm like, bro, you're in the belly of the beast. You can't tell me what it wants. You can't tell me what will crush. That's a load of . Because part of the dynamic is if I keep telling you it's a mystery,
• 51:53
  you keep having to iterate differently. And if you keep iterating differently, I get to learn how to exploit attention and make more money. So essentially what is happening is, it's just getting squeezed tighter and tighter. And so it went from, you know, long form videos, just videos, and then it went to short form videos, and then it went to under 90 seconds, and then, you know, 12 second videos do well. But what the algorithm is so perfect at is giving you exactly what you want, not what you consciously want, but you want,
• 52:23
  And it will give it to you just a little difference so it activates novelty. And you have to think that there is not a single other industry that is designed to exploit a specific biological process in your brain. Everything about it is about continuing to turn that up and up. Now, people are starting...
• 52:44
  And what I felt in 23, 22, but took me till 2024 to leave, you know, kind of like a canary in a coal mine. It's like what I started to feel people are feeling. And that's probably because I started in 2014. And so everybody is a victim to how it works. But where we have to really access is that we're consenting to the relationship dynamics. This is really a hard sort of thin line in the conversation of relationship, which is
• 53:15
  Let's say it's a financially abusive relationship dynamic. So one person is using money to control the other person. If I was just saying, you're consenting to that dynamic, I would get called a victim blamer, right?
• 53:31
  And there would, because there's no value in me just saying that first, what I have to do is access their brain so that they're not getting defensive and shutting down their prefrontal cortex. So they will listen to me. So I have to be more strategic and everybody. This is true about all conversations. And so what I would say is you are a victim of financial abuse. That's true. But there is a mathematician within you who is saying leaving doesn't make sense.
• 54:00
  just like an abusive relationship dynamic. Leaving doesn't make sense, it's not safe, I'm not resourced enough. That's true.
• 54:08
  But if you left, you would get harmed. So I always bring people back to the truth that they're still choosing to be there, which is actually the best choice they're making at that time. So there's no shame. But they have to be able to access the consent part so they can leave. Because if you don't believe you're choosing something, you can't not choose it. This is why relationship to technology is actually so imperative. Because when you're picking your phone up, even unconsciously,
• 54:35
  you have to realize that someone else is deciding where your attention goes. And so you have to take it back. So when I think about the digital detox, it is specifically designed to implement real simple steps so that you can begin in a way that doesn't overwhelm you and you'll be compliant, begin to actually change your relationship to dopamine and your brain and technology, where you can learn to keep technology
• 55:02
  and actually regain access to yourself. And that was the journey I went on and that was the journey I studied because what I saw was that never in human history
• 55:14
  Your nervous system does a thing called neuroception, which is essentially constantly assessing relationships for safety. And that's what some would also call your attachment system. It's like, is this relationship safe? Am I safe? That's happening all the time. If you and I were having this podcast conversation, and let's say we said something that was like political, and then we go to bed, but it's live. There's no recording. We do this live. It's just a conversation.
• 55:39
  When we go to bed, you and I might think about that conversation, but it doesn't exist anymore. Right. So we might have someone who's upset, but they were in the room and we could talk to them and whatever. But for the first time in human history, a version of you is at social risk when you sleep. Your nervous system was not designed to survey for your social safety 24 hours a day. And guess what that creates in people? Anxiety. Wow. Never thought of that.
• 56:10
  Man, I got so many questions on that. We're getting up against it and I still got rapid fire. Was it you that I heard this? I think I heard you on a podcast. I might have to give you credit and you can take it or deny it. I'll take it. I take a week off per year from my phone.
• 56:27
  Was that you that gave me this idea? I heard you on a podcast say, set your phone down and go for a walk. And then you said, if you can do it, do it for 24 hours. And then I did it for a week. I do it between Christmas and New Year's. And I'm with my family and I'm present. It is the best thing in the world. I am telling you, it takes me about three days to,
• 56:49
  to detox and then I feel great and I don't want it back. It's hard to get it back, right? I know. But you know what, Mark? You don't realize how much stuff your Netflix, and I, you know, me, I'm a no-nonsense guy. I had to go to my computer to log into Netflix. I had to go find my gym.
• 57:08
  token to get me in the gym because everything is on this stupid device. So the, the, the algorithm you asked, what does it do? It's meant to keep you on the device. Your phone is meant to keep you on it. We are the product, anything that is free. You're the product. A hundred percent. Take this Mark. You I I'm telling you, I don't know whose podcast it was on. It might've been at my last, I can't remember, but.
• 57:36
  Taking that week off is the best. I've done it three years in a row now, and it's the best thing in the world.
• 57:42
  Do it people, even if it's just for one day and it's Mark's idea. Well, if people want the digital detox, I can give you guys the link and then they can just download it. It's all the science is referenced in it because there's really cool science about not using your phone but still accessing the internet on your laptop. And it shows that within 14 days, people only, I think it was 56% of people were compliant with not using their smartphone for the 14 days.
• 58:09
  But the people who even did five days, eight days, they still got a benefit. And what it saw was that it reversed up to 10 years of cognitive decline. So that study went pretty viral recently, maybe like five, six months ago, because it showed that just not you could still have access to the Internet. Just don't use your smartphone and it will completely change your life.
• 58:35
  Is that a URL you can tell me or can you send it to us and we'll put it in the show notes? Yeah, I can send the, we could put the study in the show notes. And also I believe it's in the digital detox. Okay. The reference. Guys, I'm telling you, this is a game changer for me. Christmas to New Year's, be present for your family. You get it both ways and it's the best thing in the world. If someone listening feels disconnected from everyone in their life right now, where do they start?
• 59:02
  Oh man, well first, how is the disconnection serving them? What are they protecting themselves from? So they're protecting themselves from being seen, known, maybe rejected. A lot of our pain and suffering comes from our families, right, our families of origin. But if we notice ourselves distancing ourselves from people, of course the healing to that is moving towards people, but one of the best ways to do that would be entering a relationship with the therapist or coach and actually exploring that.
• 59:30
  But the other thing is, as you said at the very beginning about your trip to Zion, is get in nature. Yeah. Like, go join a hiking group. I'm part of a gym. I don't live in Coeur d'Alene, but I'm visiting Coeur d'Alene for a couple months. And I go to this CrossFit High Rocks gym, and I go do three workouts a week. And I know so many people in the community now.
• 59:54
  And so, you know, I think we often distance ourselves from people we don't know how to relate to because we still have old contracts of who we needed to be with them. And so we don't know how to be different. So that's why sometimes moving, sometimes just changing who you hang out with can actually free you. I'm going to add one, and you're by far the expert on the neophyte. I would tell you.
• 1:00:17
  men especially, just go hang with your bro and tell him you just need him to be there. You don't wanna talk. It sounds weak, but it's the most vulnerable, manly thing you can do. I just want your presence. And I'm telling you, it'll heal everything. If you can go for a walk and just say, I wanna be in silence, give your phone up with your boy,
• 1:00:46
  it's the best medicine on the planet. So Ben, they're done that. Last question, my brother. And then we do a quick rapid fire, which one word or one sentence, which is going to be fun. After all of the work you've done, what do you know about love now that you wish you had known at the very beginning? Well, when I think back to the guy who existed before the Thanksgiving dinner, um,
• 1:01:18
  I wish that I had had someone to reflect back to me that what happened was not about me. Like it didn't, it wasn't correlated to my value. I mean, I wish I had known that my sensitivity was a superpower. I wish I had known that I lacked boundaries and I needed to protect and curate my heart just as much as I fought for protecting and curating other people's. And yeah, that would have saved me a lot of heartbreak, I think.
• 1:01:48
  That's beautiful. We all take that personal and it is that person is doing everything they can to survive. And when you take that perspective and you realize it's not about you, that hurt loses its power. But it's easier said than done. Way, way easier. Way easier. Can anybody work with you?
• 1:02:14
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a coaching application. I'm about to launch a men's container for seven months with my friend Brandon Collingsworth, and that's going to be about the initiation. He's a Nike performance coach, a world coach, but he also does a lot of men's work. And so we're doing a container together for men that's about the initiation through
• 1:02:36
  navigating it's both performance-based but also navigating unresolved things with mom dad etc and then going deep through initiation from adolescence to adulthood most of us are were never initiated most of us were never you know if you look at historically through cultures you know men were initiated and made responsible for their village responsible for their families and uh
• 1:03:01
  I think that's desperately needed. So yeah, on my website, there's all the things. People could work with me, and then the men's group is something I'm really excited about.
• 1:03:09
  I can't believe we got all this way and I didn't say this or you didn't say this is, dude, your ceiling in business and in life is directly proportioned to your healing. Guys, this stuff is cool, man. If you find people like Mark and like me and lean into this stuff and go with what they call woo woo, your entire life will get better. I am a big muscular man because I was trying to protect my, I was armored up so nobody could hurt me.
• 1:03:36
  Guess what? Once I got into this thick skull and let everything go, I realized now everything I need and I require, I can supply inside. And what do you know? The podcast is blowing up, the business is blowing up, and I feel whole and I'm at peace and I'm in joy and I'm working in my purpose. Notice I didn't say anything about happy, joy, peace, and purpose.
• 1:04:01
  And you can to work with people, beautiful people like Mark. I don't have anything, anything to offer you other than the podcast. This is all the pay it forward. But I'm telling you, if you've ever read any Mark stuff, it's he's a beautiful soul. This is going to be a long lasting friendship. And if I can do anything in your container for you to be the martyr of what not to do, because I figured out every way to screw up relationship. So did I, yeah.
• 1:04:27
  So last seven quick one word, one sentence things, my friend. Rapid fire questions are text or call. Call. Yes. One word for connection. Reverence. Ooh. The biggest myth about relationships in three words or less. They can't end. A book everybody should read. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
• 1:04:57
  Do you know that's the first personal development book I ever read? Same. Dude, you're my brother from another mother. That's crazy. Besides that, I was giving it to my uncle when I was in the middle of it. My dad had passed away, and it was just insane. But I will tell you, read. This is a shameless plug. Read Mark's book, Liberated Love. So good. Read it with your partner. Thank you.
• 1:05:21
  It's good. I would have it here, but my girlfriend took it with her on a trip. She's ready. A one small habit that changed your relationships. Self-excellence. The last thing that made you feel truly connected. My son. Just being with him. Finish this sentence. The bravest thing you can do in a relationship is. Tell the truth.
• 1:05:52
  Ladies and gentlemen, the beautiful Mark Groves, until next week, be harder than life. I'm not even going to have to tell you to share this. This is an instant classic. Thank you so much for being here, brother. I appreciate it. Right back at you, man. Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Seagull supporters.
• 1:06:11
  Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with. Delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.