Philosophy for Life
Welcome to the Philosophy for Life podcast, hosted by Darron Brown, where we explore the profound questions and timeless wisdom that shape our existence. Join us on a journey of self-discovery and intellectual exploration as we delve into the depths of philosophy, spirituality, ethics, and the human experience. Through thought-provoking discussions, engaging interviews, and insightful analysis, we seek to unravel the mysteries of life and uncover the underlying truths that guide us. Discover practical insights and philosophical perspectives that can enrich your daily life, challenge your perspectives, and inspire personal growth. Whether you're a curious seeker, a deep thinker, or simply someone passionate about understanding the complexities of our world, Philosophy for Life is your gateway to wisdom and enlightenment. Subscribe now and embark on a transformative quest to gain clarity, find purpose, and embrace the profound beauty of existence.
Find me: https://linktr.ee/darron.r.brown
Philosophy for Life
Redefining Relationships with Raymond Kapokowski
Join me, Deron Brown, as I engage in a riveting conversation with Raymond Kapokowski, a former showbiz star turned relationship coach, who sheds light on the evolution of relationships into partnerships. Discover Raymond's journey as he uncovers the limitations of traditional relationships and advocates for a preventative approach to building healthy partnerships. As societal roles shift, Raymond highlights the importance of equality and shared decision-making, emphasizing that partnerships offer a more sustainable and fulfilling foundation in today's world. This episode challenges outdated norms and underscores the urgent need for redefining what it means to be in a relationship.
We also dive into the complex dynamics of communication and individuality in partnerships. Through our discussion, we explore why communication barriers exist and how past experiences shape our ability to express ourselves. The episode draws parallels between successful partnerships and business relationships, emphasizing mutual support, understanding, and recognizing each other's strengths and weaknesses. Learn how maintaining one's identity while supporting your partner is crucial to fostering a cooperative and thriving environment, ensuring both parties feel valued and understood.
This episode is a profound exploration of personal growth, identity, and the concept of "healthy selfishness" within relationships. Through poignant stories of individuals overcoming challenging upbringings, we reflect on how past experiences shape present identities and inform our quests for meaning and fulfillment. Embrace the importance of self-awareness and aligning your choices with your true self, as well as addressing insecurities that may arise in partnerships. Tune in to uncover how genuine connections, built on mutual respect and a shared vision, can lead to more positive and fulfilling relationships.
Hey. So what's up everybody? This is your host, deron Brown, and this is the podcast Philosophy for Life. I have Raymond Kapokowski here with me today and we're going to discuss relationships. Raymond, why did you decide to build a business off of relationships?
Speaker 2:to build a business off of relationships, Actually okay. So I've tried everything. I've had an amazing life and I've tried everything. I was in show business at nine years old and I've done a whole lot of different things and when I got sober in 84, I found that I really enjoyed helping people. I sponsored a lot of people in AA and CA and NA. I sponsored a whole lot of people and I was pretty good at it. I really liked it, and when I moved from California and moved to Arizona here, I wanted to do something that would continue in that vein. So I learned hypnosis. I thought hypnosis would be a good thing and I could help people out.
Speaker 2:I kept getting a message when I was doing hypnosis that I was taking away people's power to make decisions of their own. And what I mean by that is like if I, if I helped, I didn't do much of like smoking or anything. I was. I was really more like you know, being called into hospitals and and and working with MMA people and and you know it was more. You know I was certified in clinical and sports hypnosis.
Speaker 2:But I kept thinking to myself people that would come to you for something specific would walk away saying that they went to a hypnotherapist and the hypnotherapist helped them do it. And I kept thinking I wanted to do something where people could take credit for themselves. They could say I could help them, I could guide them, and then they could say I did this and I did this for me and I learned about it. So I slowly moved and, it was a natural thing, moved away from hypnosis, more and more talking to people, and eventually I dropped the hypnosis altogether. And more talking to people, and eventually I dropped the hypnosis altogether and became a relationship coach. Uh, and then years, years later, uh, finding out that, um, the relationship part of it wasn't for me either. That's when some big changes happened the relationship part wasn't for you.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? I'm sorry you said you found out the the relationship part wasn't for you. What do you mean? I'm sorry you said you found out the relationship part was not for you.
Speaker 2:What do you mean by that? I think in a lot of ways I was a little impatient. Something kept bothering me, probably for 10 years or so in that area. I'm not good with time, but in that area I just recognized that everybody that came to me wanted to know how to fix what they did. You know they had done everything, that they know how They've worked at it all, they're ready to give it up and all that stuff. And they ended up reaching out for some kind of help to fix what they had done.
Speaker 2:I used to tell people I felt like I was, I felt like my job was pulling the gun out of people's mouths and and I kept saying and and you know, I I don't know if you read about me or anything like that, but I'm, I'm a universal channel and I get messages from the universe and it's what happens.
Speaker 2:And I kept thinking why don't people ask how to prevent doing it? Why is this always about fixing it when everything fails? They still love each other, they're still trying, they still wish that something could happen. They just don't have a clue about how to do it. And that's all from the way that we were raised and that's all from the idea that we've been handed about what relationships are all about and I came up with this idea or it was given to me, it was handed to me and I came up with this idea where it was given to me. It was handed to me that partnership was different, partnership was really the way to go, and so I started moving away from relationships and started teaching people how to become partners.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you made a good point. You said that people tend to come to you when they to you when there's already an issue in the relationship. Things have been broken. Why not come to you for prevention? Why not try to learn how to have a healthy relationship? Sure, how would you define?
Speaker 2:what's the difference between a relationship and a partnership? Relationships seem to be in a constant state of repair. Relationships, even the healthy ones, have a husband and they have a wife, and by going into a relationship as a husband or a wife, you're already in a divisive kind of situation. She has all the things that she does as a wife and you have all the things that she does as a wife and you have all the things that you do as a husband, and right away that separates us. We're not really partners and we're certainly not equals. So relationships are in a constant state of repair and people in partnerships have the ability together to decide how a relationship will go. I'm not saying that relationships are something you don't want to have a part of. I'm just saying that there's a way to do relationships that's healthy, and partnership is that, as far as I can tell.
Speaker 1:I know exactly what you're saying. Within a relationship we have societal expectations, but we're so far removed from what society was 30, 50, hundreds, thousands of years ago that those types of relationships are no longer valid. They don't work in today's society. So if you do step into that, go ahead, Boy you're hitting it.
Speaker 2:You're hitting it right on the head. It's absolutely you're right. What we know about relationships. It doesn't work anymore. You know men, men are not in the same position. Men can't run the roost and make the money and take care of all this kind of stuff and and and and. The way men were set up to be in relationships is is man. When you do, when you work with people all the time about it, you know it's. It's really sad. You know that that men really never get to be close to to their partner. You know they're told about women are crazy and they told about you can't satisfy me, you can't do it.
Speaker 2:So many things about what we're told about with women are actually beneficial if you know how to do it. You know and and we're, we're separated from them. We're supposed to be. You know the guy and making the money can't do that anymore. It doesn't work nowadays. And women, the same thing Women are. You know it's like women have been setting their power aside to be a wife, to be, you know, the person that takes care of the house and all that stuff, and it's not beneficial. It. It really it. It screams of togetherness.
Speaker 1:Let's, let's do this together, and I think that's what partnership does unconsciously, like I've noticed, like in college or just you know, casually, when you're dating somebody for the first few months, a lot of people run away, and they run away because they feel like their freedom is going to be taken away from this person. The person is going too fast rushing into a relationship and it's it's uh, just relating it to what you just said, it makes sense because when once somebody idolizes you in that way and they put you in that position, you know it's kind of like there's an expectation for you. People don't want to be shackled into any kind of role per se.
Speaker 2:You're right, we're not. We're not taught to understand the value of having somebody in our life. Most of the time when people get together, you know they find each other. You know they find each other. You know they're attracted and they enjoy spending some time together and all of a sudden, this is their person, without really analyzing what it is that you're with and what do you value here and are you going to get your happiness out of this relationship that you're building? That's the part of the relationship that is governed by partnership. So if me and you are going to be partners, I'm going to find out all of these things that I need to know the strengths and the weaknesses and I'm going to build value in this partnership. So that it's important to me.
Speaker 2:My book is called the Universal Guide to a Healthy. I want my. My book is called the Universal Guide to a Healthy, selfish Relationship. Slash Partnership and relationship is crossed out on the book cover. Relationship is there, but, but the focal point is the selfishness. The selfishness is extremely important if it's done in a healthy way. I want to be happy done in a healthy way.
Speaker 2:I want to be happy. Explain why you added selfishness to the title. Because it has to be there In order for me to want to be in a committed relationship. I got to find out what it is that I need to do, so when it comes back to me, it makes me happy. So when I start to work with somebody, the first thing I tell them is like listen, you're here because you don't know how to fix it, so I'm going to tell you.
Speaker 2:The first thing I want you to do is forget about everything that you know about relationships. None of it works, Unless we decide that it works. At this point, let's assume that none of it works. So the first thing I want you to do is I want you to go home and I want you to really clear your direction. I want you to say to yourself I don't care about any of this, I just want to be happy. That's what I want. I want you to say to yourself I don't care about any of this, I just want to be happy. That's what I want.
Speaker 2:I want to be happy, and when a person really feels that, when you can really say that what I want is to be happy, then you can move from that standpoint and you can do other things. So if I want to be happy at work now, everything's changed. If I want to be happy with somebody, everything has changed because I really I want to be happy. So if I want to be happy with, with my honey, with Janet, if I want to be happy with Janet, then it's my responsibility to do everything that I need to do to make sure that Janet is not a pain. Pardon me expression, but Janet's not a pain in my butt. And I was going to say ass, but I don't know if I'm supposed to say it let's keep it real.
Speaker 2:You can say it yeah, okay All right, because when I start to channel it just comes out and I went oh man, I don't know this guy.
Speaker 1:It's real, it's real.
Speaker 2:I'd rather you be real and speak like a real human. So, if I want, the idea about selfishness is that I'm going to find out everything that I can find out and be the best partner that I can be, so I get the best partner back. You know, I want to attend to her needs and to her feelings, but I want to do it for me, you know, because if I'm doing it for somebody else and they don't comply with it and they don't come back to me or something like that, and I'm not getting what I want, I could get frustrated and I could leave. But if I'm doing it for me, I'm going to hang in there a whole lot longer, because I'm going to look at somebody and I'm going to say and I'm going to say, well, she said she loves me, she says she wants to be with me, she wants all this kind of stuff, but she's not. She's not, you know, talking to me the right way or she's not acting a certain way. What I need to do, instead of judging that, I need to say, well, if I value this person, if I really care about them, and they say they care about me, then I got to go in there and find out what's stopping them what's going on?
Speaker 2:And I'll give you a good example, something that happens all the time. Example, something that happens all the time. I don't care what kind of situation it is, but it happens. All the time Communication comes up, he doesn't communicate with me. It's usually that way. Sometimes it's the other way. He won't communicate with me. Okay, all right. So does he want to communicate? Well, he says he wants to communicate. Ok, you know. So that that makes sense. Of course he would want to communicate with you. So. So if we say, ok Bill, ok Bill, what we're going to do is we're going to force you to communicate, you're going to have to communicate, and there's going to be a certain time to communicate, a certain way to communicate, and you're going to communicate.
Speaker 2:If we put a person in that position where they communicate, we never find out why they had trouble communicating before. And that's going to come out might be a situation of of not knowing what to say, being afraid of saying something, being afraid of being judged. Maybe it's something in someone's past, a mother saying, saying children are supposed to be seen and not heard. All that kind of stuff could happen. All that kind of stuff could be behind it the inability to communicate. So if I'm trying to have a really good relationship with somebody, building a great relationship with my partner, I'm going to say you're having trouble communicating. Let's find out why Before we try to get you to communicate. Let's find out why you're having trouble. Are you afraid of me? Do we have these issues? Do you have problems with other people talking to you? What is going on here? Let's fix that and then we'll see if we have a problem communicating. Generally, we don't.
Speaker 1:I love what you said at the beginning of that. You said that the person is giving to their partner essentially, and they're not getting what they expect to get back in return. But why not turn the table and say, hey, you know, I'm going to be selfish and I want to see what my partner is giving to me, see what that basically brings to the table. I had a show yesterday and I told the guy he asked me, what would I give somebody? What relationship advice would I give? What is the most important one? I said I would say don't lose your sense of self and relationship.
Speaker 1:I feel like a lot of men and women fall into this category where they're giving so much to a person and they're trying to get this expectation, but that person's never giving to them and then that relationship ends and then you don't know your identity because you're sacrificing so much for this thing to work and it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to work and now you're just like you're lost. But if you were to focus on your own needs from day one, you would have seen those red flags a whole lot sooner and you could have addressed them and had them fixed, or you could have walked away and you don't learn that kind of stuff until it, until it really bites you, and then and then you, you learn about it and, generally speaking, it's too late.
Speaker 2:You know you might be able to apply it to the next one, but if you're not conscious about it, then you're not going to apply it to the next situation. You're just going to repeat it until you learn the lesson. Something that happens inside. When you start to build a partnership, there's a change of focus that happens between two people. I focus on you, you focus on me. So I know what you're going through. I find out about your strengths and your weaknesses, I find out about the experiences that you have, and so I'm here to help my partner navigate through their insecurities, navigate through their fears and all this kind of stuff. I'm trying to help them do that kind of stuff, and the reason that I can do that for them is because they're doing it for me, because that's what a partnership does. You think about this partnership, and probably the best example of this is a successful. You're trying to build a successful business. If somebody came to you, if you had a grocery store, a shoe store, something of that nature and somebody walked in the door and they said, hey, I'd like to be partners with you. You know, you're a good looking guy, you're smart, I want to be your partner. You wouldn't say, oh, okay, come on and be my partner. You wouldn't say that you would go. Well, why in God's name would I want you as a partner? That person would say, well, you know, I bring in this and I'm intuitive and I'm good with social media, I like people a lot and I'm a problem solver and I try to not be selfish. And you would go that doesn't't sound bad, you know, then maybe we could try that kind of thing. And then what you would do is, on a regular basis, you'd come together and you would focus on on the partnership. You would have meetings and you would say what, what do we have to do this week? Or what do we need to do today? What are we? We going to buy All those things and you decide on them together.
Speaker 2:You don't agree all the time, you know, but if it's something that's going to be good, or if the intention for it is to be good for the business, for our partnership, then okay. You know, I don't agree with what you're thinking right now. I don't think it's good for us. But if you feel very strongly about it, okay, how do I back you? And that's a big difference, because learning how to say to your partner if we're going to do this, okay, how do I help you? I'm not going to sit back and wait for you to fail. I'm not going to go. Okay, you want to do it your way, go ahead and do it your way. And yeah, we're going to see, because, I'm right, that's bullshit, that doesn't work. So I'm going to say we're partners, let's try it. You feel strongly about it, let's do that.
Speaker 2:And and then, how do I back you? How do I have your back? How do I make it so that there's a chance that this would work? That goes with like going to family things, your family dinners with on Christmas or something I hate going to family dinner on Christmas. All right, so how do I have to back you? You know what can we do? How can we alter focus so that we can keep you out of these problem issues? You know that I'm there, I got your back. You know that. I know what triggers you have, and so these triggers, we're going to address these triggers today, before we go out there tomorrow we're going to do all this kind of stuff and maybe alter your focus from being with a family that you don't like to you being there for me because they're my family.
Speaker 1:You know, for somebody to have a relationship like that, you really have to be mature and have a lot of self-awareness. I don't care what age you are. A lot of people are very immature and bitter.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing. I'm laughing because you just hit one of my joys. I have a secret joy. It's probably not a good one, but I have a joy For some reason.
Speaker 2:The majority, for a period of time, the majority of people that I was working with were doctors, mostly surgeons and lawyers I mean like really smart guys, you know, but very, very focused, and they need to be on their game and they need to be in control and they need to be right all the time, like especially with a surgeon. You know, a surgeon can't sort of like, you know, judge, be insecure about an operation or something like that. They got to be on, insecure about an operation or something like that. They got to be on so that they they carry that through their relationships and their relationships are generally pretty rough, you know, and and so the biggest joy I get is when I have to tell them hey, dude, time to grow up.
Speaker 2:You know, you might, you might know everything that there is to know about brain surgery and everything, but you don't know yeah, you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground about how to care for this person that supposedly loves you and has got your back. You don't know how to do that. So it is. It's you hit it right on the head. It's. It's about being an adult. We don't have any examples. We don't have any examples. Our parents, you know, our parents, everybody just wings things. Sometimes, I think that people tell you your parents, tell you stuff about how to live life and what to do about it, and then they hope they're right, because maybe if it works for you they'll try it.
Speaker 1:They're right, because maybe if it works for you, they'll try it. No, you're right, most people are winging it at life and winging it, yes, winging it at life. I think I'll stop with that one. But I want to say we just don't have the systems. We don't have the mentors, we don't see it on the media at all. We don't see the right relationship images on the media. All we see is drama on TV, which is TV. That's what you're supposed to see. We don't have the mentorship or the community or any kind of culture that actually teaches you how to have these healthy relationships. I honestly think that most people were taught in America to be individuals, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a, it's a big thing. It's a big thing because we're we don't know. We don't know how valuable it is to be connected with somebody. You know how, how sweet that is.
Speaker 1:Oh, go ahead, finish that.
Speaker 2:And man, it's, it's not just about your, your, your person, that person that you're with. This is this is about. This is about much bigger stuff, Cause if I'm, if I'm walking out in the street there and I'm and I'm being pissed off about this, or being confronted by this kind of thing, and I'm not happy on the outside, I'm going to bring that home, you know. So I need to find out how am I supposed to treat other human beings, other situations, every area of life? I'm supposed to figure that kind of stuff out because I want to be happy. You know I want to treat people well. I want to. I want to confront, you know, my issues with people and you know all this I want to. I want to do all that kind of stuff because, ultimately, I want to be happy and I don't want, I don't want those things to be bothering me when I'm trying to have a good, positive relationship with somebody. You know, I want to have that positivity in the world.
Speaker 1:I completely understand what you're saying. I went through my own spiritual transformation, unknowingly at around 24. It took me about almost a decade, but I started reading spirituality books by accident. It was a book called the Way of the Superior man by David Data, and then there was another book called the Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav, and I read these books and then I didn't take it too serious.
Speaker 1:Like you know, when you read a book you're just going through it, but then it's like one statement in the book that makes your body shake, like you're like whoa. You know like I felt. I felt that statement and reading these books made me very conscious of how my mind was thinking. You know how my mind actually worked, how my emotions worked. So I was watching my actions a lot more and it took. It took time because at least I had a teacher, I had a reference, because I still made mistakes, but I had a reference for it. I was like whoa. You know like this stuff makes sense. So I say this for somebody to really make the decisions that you were recommending, like, hey, I want to have a happy life, I want to be good to people. There's really. It's not a matter of just taking action. It's a matter of, like really studying yourself, your spirit, you know, knowing, knowing your faults and being willing enough to take care of the address, those issues.
Speaker 2:It is yeah, and it's it is. It is recognizing that probably everything that you've been taught was taught to you by somebody else, and then then figuring out, you know, could they be, could they possibly be right, or did I just accept what it is that they said you know? Could they possibly be right, or did I just accept what it is that they said you know? And if I just simply accept what they said, then you know, then it's really not mine. So you know, it's interesting because a lot of stuff is changing right now.
Speaker 2:I, you know, I'm 74. I grew up in the 60s. I'm one of the people that in the very early 60s, you know, did LSD 25. And so I had that experience and it changed everything about me dramatically.
Speaker 2:I had a very rough childhood and and you know and I can go into that if you, if you'd want to, but I'll tell you a little bit about that but everything started to change during during that time in the sixties, and and I started to I started to recognize that that I really wasn't thinking things out. You know, I really wasn't. I was accepting and I was doing and I was acting out and all this kind of stuff, without me saying is this something that I wanted to do and uh, it was this for me and I and and it's happening again. I know that, um it, there's a lot of people out there experimenting with, uh, with different stuff and and, um, you know, I I don't have an opinion about it. I don't think it's good or bad. It's up to it's up to the individual, but it helped me so how was your childhood rough?
Speaker 2:uh, it started out pre-birth. I, um, I was uh, uh, well, I was given up for adoption. Uh, I met my mother when I was 40. Uh, she, she said that, um, she said that she tried to kill me. She told me that she was a lesbian and that she was an alcoholic and she didn't know what day I was born because she was drunk during delivery and she said sorry about that. She said that she was drunk during the delivery. She said that during, during her pregnancy, she would punch herself in the stomach and get drunk and land on her stomach trying to kill me. And it didn't work.
Speaker 2:Um, I was adopted by a really nice family. My mother was uh, was very sick and uh, and I was very, very needy and uh, and so they found out that I could sing and so, uh, what I really needed was somebody to take me in and love me at home. But I ended up in show business at nine years old. I was the youngest person ever to sing for the Lyric Opera Company. I did La Boheme when I was nine. I sang for the Metropolitan Opera Company when I was 11. I did Lohengrin. I was Gottfried. In that I danced with the Philadelphia Ballet Company. I did tons and tons of shows and and uh, and then when I left, when I left that area show business, I went into music and you know, and I had, I had a lot of fun. I mean, I had a whole lot of fun. I, I, I recorded a cameo parkway with the four tops across the hallway from me. I ended up in Takaiki, abandoned Takaiki. We did warm up for miles. You know all this stuff.
Speaker 2:I started doing drugs at 11. And I was pretty much a mess and I found out. This is something that I wanted to tell people too. It took years of things being really fantastic. I mean, I just had a fun life All over the place. I had a great life all over the place. I had a great life.
Speaker 2:But the truth is, is the underlining feeling about my life always was if I dance, will you keep me, if I sing, will you love me? You know, it was always about doing this kind of stuff Because my, I like doing it and I was good at it. But if you had ever asked me, did I want to do it? I don't know if I would have said yes, you know, I don't know. I mean, yeah, I was a kid. So, yeah, I guess I would have said yes, but for the most part of it it wouldn't have been like.
Speaker 2:If you asked me today what do I want to do? I want to help people, and no doubt about that. You know that's what I want to do, you know. But I can't say that that that's how I felt before. You know, I guess say that's that's what I did and that's when I traveled around and I had a great time and I had a lot of fun touring on, touring bands and you know, and I I got, I opened up everything. I was good. I had a woodworking company.
Speaker 2:Beetlejuice is coming out. I did several pieces of the sets for Beetlejuice, for the original one. I did some cool stuff. Did I want to do? It? Was my heart in it? It was fun, but I don't know that my heart was in it and I can do. I can tell you that, in comparison to the way I feel today, now, of course, I'm a lot more mature, you know, and I like people, you know. So you know it's important to take time and find out, no matter what, what is it that? What's your life purpose? What is it that you want to do you know? What do you? What do you believe in?
Speaker 1:I get what you're saying and in yesterday's show I was telling the guy that, um, financially I'm doing pretty well. Um, I'm living better than my anyone in my family has lived you know the past generations. Um, I'm doing good for myself. But I said I'm not as confident as I was when I was a kid. I said my younger self was powerful, like I grew up in a pretty violent area. Where'd you grow up? Grew up in east palo alto, california, so in the bay area, closest, okay, and um, it was murder capital early, early 90s and my teachers they didn't really once I once I give you, I give you a run for your money, though I was from camden, camden, new jersey oh, I've heard.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't want to compete with anything. I'm so far removed from that lifestyle you know, I don't even want to get into that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, just like growing up, teachers, my teachers once I stopped being like a cute, once I transitioned from being cute to being like maturing physically. My teachers kind of saw me as just an athlete. So they would tell you oh, you're stupid, they wouldn't even teach me. They would sit us in the corner and they wouldn't even I sat at a table called Menace of Society. So most of my childhood outside of sports I was kind of just ridiculed for the most part. But my younger self was so confident, so sure of himself, knew who he was, that nothing, nobody told me, could faze me. When I was young, people tried, but I had no problem speaking up for myself.
Speaker 1:I feel like at this age I don't feel as free as I was when I was younger. I don't even feel like I'm my real self anymore, even though I'm presentable. Take care of myself. My body's in shape. How old are you? Do you mind? I'm 36. 36? Okay, yeah, you're above. I know something's missing and I feel like I'm getting closer to attaining it because I'm starting to not give a fuck about certain things that I used to. I don't care as much as I. It's a feeling. You know I can't say exactly what the things are, I don't care about, but it's a feeling.
Speaker 1:And as that feeling starts to resonate with me more, I feel parts of my younger self coming back to life, coming back to life.
Speaker 2:You know, we it's, it's interesting, but, um, a lot of times people, people get inundated with all the stuff that's going on in the world and and somehow thinking that that's all important and it's not. You know, it makes it very difficult for for us to wake up in the morning and be who we are. You know, and and I think that that might, you know, segment it wake up and wake up tomorrow and say and say tell yourself who you are, tell yourself what you're doing, you know, and, and that stuff will, that will take precedence eventually. It's. It's a thing about you know, embedding that in in who you are. You know I'm, I'm five thirty six. You know I, I'm a man. You know, I don't know if you're in a relationship or something.
Speaker 1:I think I, I heard that you're in a relationship um, literally just ended a relationship, just ended one, just yeah no, we didn't.
Speaker 2:We didn't like her.
Speaker 1:Anyway, it's okay you wouldn't like her, you wouldn't like her. It literally just ended like two days ago oh, okay yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So those are the kinds of things you know. You just end something and you know. And it's not about I say I help people out because I'm an interesting partnership coach, because I don't give a damn if people are working out together or not. I care that they're happy, you know. And sometimes when people break up and they're like you know something, it happened a couple of days ago. You know, we have a tendency to think about that person in the aspect of you know, did I lose something? Did I do If it's over and you know that it's over you look at the situation and you go. You know, what could I do in a situation? How could I perform next?
Speaker 1:time in a situation. Yes, I was just basically saying what? What could I have done to help the situation be better?
Speaker 2:to to some degree. That's. That's the a right statement, you know? Uh, to some degree. To some degree it's. It's about how could I see what's coming down the road and would I have been able to stop it or would I have wanted to?
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's important to look at somebody and say this person is not for me. It's up to the other person to decide whether they like you or not. That's their thing. It's up to person to decide whether they like you or not. That's their thing. It's up to you to decide whether you like them. And that's the first thing. And I think that that's one of the biggest things that I run into, especially with young people, is that for the most part, people get together and they're trying to impress each other as if them being liked by that person means so much. And it doesn't. It's like so what they like me. But I got to look at this situation and go do I like them? If I like them, okay. And if I really like them they don't like me, okay, it's over with. But if I do like them, okay, let's see where this goes. But not, oh goody, they like me and they're going to give me their time and all that kind of stuff, so I got to go with it. It's a recipe for disaster, and that happens constantly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying. You said something um at the beginning of your statement around. If I did do this differently, would it have been better? Would it have worked? And I do know.
Speaker 1:Looking back into my relationship, I do know the moment where it shifted. You know this this was she used to. She was in love with me. She was a cook. I would pick her up, she would have like lunch made for me for like the week, and you know she was always excited. But there was a moment where she threatened to leave the relationship because she said I was too busy. I'm ignoring her, but she was really just spazzing out.
Speaker 1:It was after about eight months and then I, instead, what I had did when she sent me a text, was like I can't do this anymore. You know I can't be in this relationship because of X, y, z. What I just told you and what I had did is I tried to save the relationship from failing. I tried to tell her like hey, you know I'm here for you know I don't want things to end Like what are you talking about? Like saved it.
Speaker 1:But really, what I should have did was I should have told her like look at you know I enjoyed my time with you. You know I like you. I would like things to keep moving forward, but if you want to end things, go ahead and go your way. That's what I should have did. It was so small. It was so small. After that, after the decision I had made, I noticed the following months. I started getting tested a little bit more, a little bit more subtly in other types of ways. I was like oh so I basically made it seem like, no matter what she did, I would not leave. That's what it came up like, and it created a pattern.
Speaker 2:See, and that stuff changes. If you get the book or anything and read this, you recognize that some of that stuff changes. Anything and read this, you recognize that some of that stuff changes because if you know what it is that you value, if you look at somebody and you say, well, if she goes, she goes, I don't care, you know that generally ends up that you know that could be connected to a fear of commitment that could be prioritizing, you know, your life versus versus hers, which inside a partnership there is no. There is no one against the other one. It's it's always like you know, you do this and I do that, so we're going to work together to help each other do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:If you are feeling neglected, if you're feeling some kind of way about this, let's see what we can do. Let's see what we can do about it. Maybe sometimes it is addressing the feeling, not just saying to somebody hey, I'm, I'm here for you. It's addressing the feeling about why, why I'm here for you. If we're going to be partners, I want you to know what you mean to me. I want you to know that, how I value you and how and how. What we're going to do here is is do this thing, protect the partnership, and then I'm going to go about my work. Now in a partnership, if you're very, very busy and she feels loved and she feels cared for and she feels important, then what she's going to do is is she's got all that stuff locked down. She's going to be able to say hey, are you okay? You know, do you need more time? She's going to be able to focus on you because her needs are taken care of. She's fine.
Speaker 2:We addressed all these insecurities. We addressed all this stuff. We addressed all these insecurities. We addressed all this stuff. We pointed out the values to each other. And you know, if we need to do something, so many times, you know it's like okay, I got asked to. I don't know if I should do that part now.
Speaker 2:So many times in relationships, people just need to have assurances. They have to know what your intentions are, and so, so that they feel secure about things. Uh, we are not taught how to do that with women at all. We're taught. We're taught how to. You know, I'm sorry, babe, everything is okay. I don't even understand why you, you think that I'm not here for you. I, you know, I'm sorry, babe, everything is okay. I don't even understand why you think that I'm not here for you. You know I love you, you know I care about you. You buy him flowers, you get him all this kind of stuff, and the woman turns around and she says she goes. You say are you okay? And she says, yeah, I'm okay, but she's not okay. You know she's not okay because the problem, the issue points to the problem.
Speaker 2:The issue seems to be you're spending too much time at work. That seems to. Maybe that's the issue, but the issue is pointing to a much deeper problem and that deeper problem is do you love me? Am I lovable? Am anybody going to stay with me? Is anybody going to care enough about me to do all this stuff? That is what's being triggered and that gets triggered with everything that gets triggered with. You know, I went out. If somebody's got that in their mind, if they don't feel connected or they're insecure about something, you can say well, you know something, I was going to pick you up for lunch but I grabbed the sandwich out there and I'm fine. Boom, you don't love me. The sandwich part of it might bring out the issue. She may say, oh, it's okay, I get that and understand that, but she's still going to feel it's still going to be a trigger to something much deeper and that insecurity is still going to be there has to be handled.
Speaker 2:You know, I got I got asked to speak at a for a woman's conference one time and uh, I'm sorry I jumped in on you, but this is sort of cool and it's sort of interesting. The uh, I got asked to speak for this woman's seminar and she said the woman who asked me, she knows me and she knows what I'm like and stuff like that. And she said you know, I really don't want to ask you what you're going to speak about, but you have any idea what you're going to speak about, because I just get up there and I wing it and I said I want to talk about why women never let anything go. And she said are you sure she goes? There's going to be like 500 women there. Are you sure you want to talk about that? I said yeah, because women need to know that the issues that they fight over, the issues that break their hearts, the issues that they get over and get through, the issues that get swept under the rug are pointing to the problem.
Speaker 2:They're never the problem. The issues are never the problem. They're never the problem. The issues are never the problem. The issues are always an opportunity to find out what's going on on a deeper level and what is it that we really have to address. So it's always about getting down to. What are you carrying with you? You know you could.
Speaker 2:If somebody says, if somebody says I'll pull you at three o'clock and they don't call, that doesn't give you insecurity. That brings out an existing insecurity. It's just not a one-shot deal. That insecurity is there. Those fears are there. You know all those problems and everything. All those doubts that you have, they're there. Those fears are there. All those problems and everything. All those doubts that you have, they're there. They're just sitting back waiting for an opportunity to be dealt with and instead all we're taught about is saying we're sorry and it'll never happen again. This stuff gets pushed back in a box. It doesn't get dealt with In a partnership.
Speaker 2:If you know how to deal with it, then you would sit back in a day or two and you need to have time, and that's all explained in the book. But taking time in between an issue happening and talking about it is very important. Otherwise it'll be connected to the issue. I hope I'm not completely out there, but you would come to somebody and you say, hey, the other day you know I don't even know what the hell we were talking about, but I know that you were feeling pretty insecure, I guess. So I would like to tell you, you know what I see in you.
Speaker 2:I would like to tell you you know that I understand everybody's insecure, but you're fantastic, you're incredibly smart, you've got a huge heart, you're caring with people, you're always open, you treat me really well and all these kinds of things that will address an insecurity that is not connected to anything, but just basically an insecurity that people carry around. We all have them. So you do that kind of stuff because I want to tell my honey how fantastic she is, how great she is. It makes her feel good that I know about her, that I know how dedicated in her work she is. I mean, she's driven like nobody I've ever seen. She devoted to what she does. She's really, really amazing and all these kinds. And I want to tell her that I know all those kinds of things because it makes her feel good and I want to tell her all those kinds of things because it benefits me. Right back to me.
Speaker 1:Lovely, lovely. Before we go, could you explain what is healthy selfness? I think you spoke about it a little bit at the beginning, but could you go into detail about that?
Speaker 2:About healthy selfishness. Yes, oh, okay, yeah, we had mentioned that a little bit. Healthy, healthy selfishness is, uh is really about, uh, about altering Well, the, the healthy, the healthy selfish part of it is that before, when we were taught about being selfish, uh, we did it. We did it in a way that it benefited us only and that that kind of benefiting us didn't take other people's needs into consideration. It didn't. It didn't. It didn't say I wanted what I wanted, and to hell with you. You know I was going to get what I wanted, and hell with you, that kind of thing. I mean.
Speaker 2:People will address that as well. You know you're building up bad karma and you know, yeah, maybe, so Maybe you're doing that. But the other side of that is that there's loneliness connected in grabbing what I want for me, and to hell with you, for me and to hell with you. There's a separation that happens with people that makes them feel there's a distance there. There's all this stuff. I'm alone and I don't give a shit about you.
Speaker 2:I'm taking what I want, and healthy selfishness is me taking care of you because it benefits me, me taking care of you because it benefits me. You know, I want to be nice to you. I want to listen to you, I want to care about what it is that's happening with you, because I want you to be happy and I want you to feel great and I want you to be the best person that you can be, because if you're going to be around me, you know that's what I want. I want a good partnership and I want good friends and I want to be good with the world and take care of people, because it makes me feel good. You know it makes me feel good to be honest, to be honest with people, to be honest with myself. You know I want to do that. You know I want to reach out and help people out, because it makes it makes them feel good and and then they're happy and if I run into them on the streets, they're happy and everything's cool and it benefits me.
Speaker 1:Why do you? Why do you think relationships are failing today, or what? Why do you think relationships are failing today?
Speaker 2:I think they're failing today because of the divisive nature of relationships. I think that they're failing because people think that negativity is a problem. People think that when something bad happens, we can't get over it.
Speaker 1:Infidelity big one.
Speaker 2:That's what they think. Big, big, big one. Infidelity is not what people think. You know there's two sides of infidelity that people are not sure about. They don't understand. Everybody thinks that infidelity the person that got cheated on is the one that's like. You know, that person is the one that we all have to go and coddle and then we have to give the finger to the other person.
Speaker 2:The other person, generally speaking, somebody that cheats, is in a pretty bad position for a long time. Maybe they're not connected, maybe they don't even notice it, but they're alone. There's got a lot of problems. They've been handling this for a whole long time. Maybe they're not connected, maybe they don't even notice it, but they're alone. There's got a lot of problems. They've been handling this for a whole long time. They're not getting the things that they need. Maybe they feel trapped in a relationship. Maybe they're not getting anything from the other person. A lot of times it's like, you know, when, when a woman had a baby and the guy feels like he's the third wheel now and you know she's giving all of her attention to the baby and all that stuff they're not connected and the guy goes out and he bangs some girl, you know and stuff. So there's like a lot of situation there.
Speaker 2:Now I don't condone it, but I understand it. You know, it's understandable that this would happen. So there is a big, big issue that's happening when somebody cheats that we have to look at. And the opportunity there is that, if we learn how to address the cheating in a positive way, if we take negativity and we find out how what did you need, what did I need? How could we have prevented it? Why do we want to prevent it? What do we mean to each other? What did we put at risk? We learn all those kinds of things and then, for some crazy reason, cheating becomes. You know, we would have never been this close if you hadn't cheated. We would never have worked this hard to be together and to understand how to protect each other and how to protect what we want. If that didn't happen, it was horrible, it hurt like hell. But you know something truth of the matter is we've never gotten this close if that didn't happen oh, that's heavy huh that's a tough, that's heavy, that's tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, it is, but you should see. You should see when I'm working with people and you should see when the light goes on. And sometimes it's in the first session and they go. I didn't know that, I didn't know, I didn't think I had a part in it. I thought he was, you know, he was being a dick and he went out and you know, and all this stuff. He was being a dick and he went out, and all this stuff. And so it's odd that at this time, people are ready to start to hear this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:I've never read a word of this. I haven't read a single word about partnership. I haven't watched it any place, I haven't done anything. It's 100% been handed to me by some kind of universal connection. Sometimes in sessions, I feel like I get pushed out of the way and I hear myself talking and I go damn, that was good. You know, that was really good. I got to try to remember that one, you know, and that's how it. That's how it goes. And I think that it's happening right now because I think that people are ready.
Speaker 1:Raymond, any closing statement.
Speaker 2:Any clothing statement. Yeah, here's a good, here's a how about this? For a mantra. Wrote this out a long time ago and it works. The mantra is I have no idea what's going on, but I know I'll be okay. Yeah, and if you do that, you like that. I needed that. I mean, yeah, I, I have no idea what's going on, but I know I'll be okay. And that allows you. That opens up so much freedom in that statement and so much positivity in who you are and just recognizing that life's going to throw stuff at you. It's really going to throw stuff at you. So don't be a victim. A victim is somebody who has one choice In any situation. Find a second choice and that will give you power. Well, oh heavy heavy.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that's good, that's good shit thank you for that man.
Speaker 1:I needed that.
Speaker 2:I needed that man hey, listen, uh, it's I. I can't believe it's over already. I had such a good time with you. Your people ought to know, your listeners ought to know what a great job you did, because what you do is not easy. It ain't easy. So I really do appreciate you, man, I really do. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for the support. And I thank you for being on the show. All right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Have a good one. Take care we'll catch you later. Bye.
