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People think that relationships and being discontent in them is about the other person. I am here to tell you it is about you. What is most important to have self respect is that you maintain a relationship that increases or maintains the respect you have for yourself. How do you create an unshakable business? I crossed $100 million in net worth by the age of 28. Now I'm growing acquisition.com into a billion dollar portfolio. In this podcast, I share the lessons I've learned in scaling big businesses and helping our portfolio companies do the same. Buckle up and let's build. Have you ever been laying in bed at night and looked across the bed to the person next to you and thought to yourself, is this really who I'm supposed to be with? Well, there's a lot of people who are asking themselves that question and trying to figure out, should I stay or should I go? And that's why I made this for you. There's a lot of content on the Internet that talks about being in a toxic relationship. Today, I'd like to offer you a new frame that comes from a place of empowerment rather than blame. You see, another person cannot be toxic. However, remaining in a relationship that makes you eventually hate yourself can certainly feel that way sometimes. So today, here's what I want to do. First, I want to talk about the cycle of doom or the three Fs. And the next thing I want to do is I want to give you a new frame, which I call the self respect frame. I think what this frame is going to do is it's either going to help you save your relationship or get a new, better one. So I had a couple of friends and they met, I want to say, six years ago. And about two years into their relationship, they both started calling and texting me, complaining about each other. And it was interesting because the beginning of the relationship, I felt like we could always hang out. The three of us were really good friends. And then it turned into this. Like, one of them started reaching out and telling me how. He was like, hey, like, I don't know if it's working with her. Like, we start fighting more. I was like, well, it's normal when you first get into a relationship with somebody that you're going to have friction because relationships are not perfect. They take a lot of work. There's a lot of communication skills. You have to have to make one work. And especially they had moved in together, so I was like, hey, moving in with somebody, it's like a whole nother ball game because you start to Notice all these things about this person that maybe you don't like and you have to learn what are non negotiables versus things that you just want to get used to. And then I thought, okay, it's probably normal they've moved into each other. Well, then, you know, the girl, she starts calling me, and she's like, I just hate the way he's treating me. He's always blaming me for everything. He never appreciates me. You know, he's not taking me on as many dates anymore. It's like we used to go on these romantic dates, and he used to take me out to these nice dinners. I used to get dressed up, and now it's like I barely get a good morning text. And I was like, yeah, understood. And what happened was, over time, they had one fight, and then a couple months later, another, and then a couple months later, another. And. And very quickly, it started escalating where they would be having a fight. And when it got to the peak, they were fighting every two weeks. So the cycle went from every six to eight weeks they're having a fight to every four weeks to every two weeks. And the cycle was the same. It's what I call the three Fs. The three Fs are you fight, you, you forget. And that was the exact cycle they went through. Right? And I always knew it was happening because I would get texts from both of them just talking about each other. I, as a person who doesn't agree with talking badly of your spouse to somebody else, would just say, I understand. I hear you. What do you think you can do? Just trying to move them towards action. I'd be getting the text from both of them, and then they would talk about how they're gonna break up. And then I wouldn't get a text from either of them for, like, five days. So I knew that meant was they got back together and they were embarrassed that they ever complained about each other to me. And so this cycle went on for about a year until finally the husband, in multiple conversations that he had, like, worked up the courage to understand that that relationship wasn't for him. And I think what's really interesting is why he realized that relationship wasn't for him. And part of it, I think, was a lot of what we talked about and what I kind of. How I consoled him as a friend. And the frame that I gave him was, I think one of the first questions I asked him was, is this relationship helping you achieve your goals? And I think a lot of people don't really think about that when they enter a relationship, and instead they're thinking, oh, like, I like this person. I love this person. I like having sex with this person. But they're not thinking, is this person helping me achieve their goals? And all I could see was that the two of them in a relationship together, no one person. It's not like I'm saying either of them are bad. I say they're neutral, right? I'm not saying any person is inherently good or bad. They're neutral parties alone. But when they were together, it did not result in either of them driving their lives forward, right? Instead, what it resulted in is both of them slowing down each other's lives. And actually, instead of getting fat to their. Instead of getting to their goals faster, they were deterring each other from reaching their goals. They were steering each other off track and slowing each other down. And so I asked him, I said, how much of your life have you wasted on this relationship for the last two years? How much of your life and of the time you could have put towards your goals has been stolen by the drama of this relationship? And I think a lot of people don't ask themselves those questions. And a lot of people, the reason that it's so hard to understand when to leave a relationship is because you've never established rules to begin with. So you're thinking, well, it'd be great if you're giving me a framework, if I knew ahead of time, but now I'm in this. Well, the framework's gonna apply to whether you're starting a relationship or whether you're in one right now. And you didn't establish a framework to start, but the first frame I'd like to give you is that your relationship should give you back time. When I married my husband, one of the first things we said was how much time we got back. Because being married and being in a relationship actually allowed us to have more confidence. We were both healthier, we made more money together, we had more friends together, we got better at everything together. And so we actually got time back in our lives, right? And why is that? Well, when you're single, you're dating, you're doing all these other things, and we helped each other achieve our goals faster. So we actually gave each other time back. Whereas most relationships steal your most important resource, time when they're not right for you. Here's the thing. Most people talk about how they hate their boyfriend, they hate their girlfriend, they hate their spouse, they hate their ex. I want to change the frame for this, which Is you stay in a relationship that makes you hate yourself. What we need to do is there's so much content out there. Talking about people are toxic. I hate this person. They're a narcissist. They're this. All that does is steal your power. You've already let the relationship steal your time. Don't also let it steal your power or your ability to change. So here's what happens when people go through the 3F cycle is that what happens is over time, each person in the relationship does the absolute minimum required to maintain the relationship. So what happens is the reason that you feel like you're confused if you should leave or not is you have lots of positive reinforcement and also lots of negative. When you have a ton of positive and not much negative, you don't even think about leaving. You're like, of course I'm with this person. I love them. It's an amazing relationship. When you have equal amounts of positive and negative, that's when you feel confused, stuck, annoyed, irritated. This person's toxic, but I can't leave. It's when you feel those ways. And so what I want to explain is that what happens a lot of times in relationships when people are not upfront about their non negotiables, not upfront about what they need and their partner isn't either, is that you do a lot in the beginning to get the relationship. So let's imagine you take the girl on dates. You know, she's constantly wearing the lingerie. You're doing all these things that you don't normally do. And then what happens over time is that slowly it might be one partner or the other starts to do less and less. And so what happens over time is that if you continue so partner A does less for partner B, right? Over time, first you're taking her on dates, then you're taking, then you're just calling her, then you're just going to Chipotle, then you're just doing nothing and staying at home. Then you're just never dressing up for her. Then you're just. And all of a sudden, she barely gets a good morning text. Okay, so is this your fault? Is this the guy's fault? I would argue no, because what did the girl do the whole time? When he stopped doing all those things, she stayed. She maintained the relationship. She, with her actions, showed him that it's okay. She trained him to treat her worse. And so if you think about it, everything that you tolerate with your partner, you train them is acceptable in the relationship. And so when people Say, this person's toxic. This is. You have actually trained that person. You have reinforced the toxicity, the hate, the mistreatment. And I'm talking not about extreme cases. I'm just talking about, like, basic, hey, he doesn't do what I want him to do. Hey, she doesn't do what I want her to do. Hey, she doesn't treat me as well as she used to. Hey, he doesn't treat me as I want him to. It's because people say a lot of words in relationships. We should talk about this. We should talk about our feelings. We should talk about how this makes me feel. Okay, well, what you've trained him is that he doesn't take you on a date. You complain about it. He says these words, you stop complaining for a few weeks, long enough that you forget about the fact that he hasn't taken you a date until a month later you are reminded again. And then you bring it up again. He says these words, you say, okay, and then you maintain the relationship. Words don't mean anything. Action is everything. And so you train people how to treat you with your actions, not your words. That's why a lot of times when people tell me, they're like, oh, we just gotta talk it out. I'm like, no. The question is, what outcome do you want to have happen? If you're having a discussion with somebody, what do you want to have happen? Your boyfriend no longer takes you on dates. You want him to say, oh, gosh, I'm so busy. Oh, I'm this of this I love you, blah, blah, blah. Like, is that what you want? Or do you want him to take you on more dates? What is the committed action we're going to take from this conversation? And it doesn't need to be a long conversation in that instance. It's just, hey, you used to take me on more dates. I would really like if we went on one date a week. Is that something we can commit to? That's it. But instead we blow it up to this huge thing. And so that's the first piece is that what happens over time is that most people that are in relationships that they deem as toxic or that they don't like, it's that the partners have trained each other. Usually it's both of them have trained each other to do the minimum required to maintain the relationship. And the reason for that is because a lot of people confuse talking about something with taking committed action to change it. Talking about something does not mean that you have changed the situation. It's a temporary Relief or a temporary source of reinforcement that then distracts you from the reality that no behavior has changed. So what's the solution to all of this? The solution is we need a new frame to view relationships through. And I would argue that we need a frame for people that demands we take responsibility for our actions and that we leave with more respect for ourselves than we had to begin with. A lot of traditional advice about relationships makes it leaves people feeling disempowered, it leaves people blaming others, it leaves people having less responsibility. And ultimately it actually degrades people's confidence because they're thinking about it through the wrong lens. They're constantly looking at what's wrong with that person. Well, here's the news. That guy that doesn't take you on any dates, there's a girl that doesn't give a about going on a date. She'd be great for him. On the other hand, that girl that never dresses up and never wears lingerie, there's a guy who doesn't give a about lingerie. He just wants to see her naked. And so the reality is it's not that any one person is toxic, bad, a bad boyfriend, a bad girlfriend. It's that you are not a match. And a lot of the times we're sitting there playing the blame game when the reality is is that you just didn't take the time to be methodical about the person you're in a relationship with. Most people don't think about a relationship even as much as they think about taking a new job. Think about it. You go on a date with somebody, you have sex with them, you think they're hot, and then you just like kind of just gradually become boyfriend, girlfriend, and then one day you just like gradually get married. Most people take more time to think about their career than they do the person that they're going to live with. Every day think about it, they write a resume, they think about where am I going to apply, what are my strengths and weaknesses, what do I want in an organization? But you're not even gonna think about the person that is literally in your life every single day that you sleep next to. Most people put more effort into their resume than they do the relationship. And so I want to reverse that so that we have a frame to go into relationships with. So here's the frame that I propose. I would like us to view relationships through a frame of self respect. People think that relationships and being discontent in them is about the other person. I am here to tell you, it is about you. What is Most important to have self respect is that you maintain a relationship that increases or maintains the respect you have for yourself. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to follow along and if you're in a relationship right now and you're trying to figure out if you want to stay or go, I want you to write down these questions I'm about to give you because these questions will help you determine does my self respect and increase or decrease in this relationship? It is not about the person, is about how you feel at the end of the day. What is most important is when you are at the end of the day by yourself alone, how do you feel about yourself? And is this relationship making you feel better or worse? The first question I would pose is that under what conditions do you gain, maintain and lose respect for yourself? If you cannot conceptualize that question, I'll ask you this one. What relationships do I have right now that being in those relationships makes me like myself more? Easy question. What relationships do I have right now that make me like myself less? You can all think of that friend who maybe you've been friends with for a while, but they started to act kind of. Maybe they quit their job, they're kind of bumming around, they're not really going anywhere. Do you feel better or worse being a friend to them? The same goes for your significant other. Do you like yourself more or less being in the relationship with this person? If you sit outside of yourself and you look at that relationship, do you respect that woman or man more or less for being with that other person? Hey guys, a quick break to tell you that if you'd like to see more content from me that isn't just listening to my voice, you can go on and check out my YouTube channel as well. Just search Leila Hormozi and you'll see me in my face. Thanks again for listening and let's get back to the show. For example, my marriage makes me respect myself more. Why? Because of the way that we treat each other. Because the way that we make each other's lives better. Because of the fact that my husband empowers me and wants me to achieve my dreams and all of my ambitions and do everything as big as possible. He constantly wants me growing. Of course I gain more respect for myself. Why else do I gain respect for myself? Because I do the same for him. And so within our relationship, I feel I am a better version of myself. And my self respect grows. It grows not just because of how he treats me, but because of how I treat him. The second question to pose to you, Do I respect myself more or less for remaining in this relationship? The person that you're with, it is not about them because the reality is, is that that person that you're with that you may be losing respect when you're in a relationship with them, there's somebody else out there who has different conditions under which they respect themselves. And though you may lose respect by being in a relationship with this person, they gain respect for themselves. I'll give you an example. Say there's a guy and he's with a girl and she's beautiful, but he loses respect for himself because she's not very intelligent, she doesn't contribute much to the household, she kind of just sits around and looks pretty. And he over time loses respect for himself because for him he gains respect. If he has a woman of high intelligence who he can have conversations with. Well, there's also a guy out there who all he would like to gain self respect is a woman who looks pretty and is on his arm at all the banquets and the galas he goes to, etc. That same woman, it's not about her. She doesn't need to change. She just needs somebody who gains respect when they are with her. That's all. There's nothing wrong with her. Just like there's nothing wrong with the person you're with. There's nothing wrong with you. The third question I want to pose to you, and we're going to break this one down, is does this person increase or decrease my stats? Essentially, this is a way to quantify if a person makes your life better or worse. What we'd like to do is objectively measure if they actually make your life better or worse. And here's the thing, there's a caveat here. You must have supporting evidence that they have increased or decreased your stats. Okay, so let's go through some of these stats. The first one is health. Easy one. Have you become healthier or less healthy since entering a relationship with this person? Why? What evidence supports that you have gotten healthier or less healthy? That could mean that you got fatter or it could mean you got in better shape. It could mean that you're eating better or it can mean that you're eating worse. Whatever it means to you, has this pace person in the relationship? Has being in the relationship made it easier or harder to achieve your health goals? Have they made your health better or worse? And again, I say have they? But what I mean is, has being in the relationship made Your health better or worse? The second one, wealth. Has being in the relationship made it easier or harder to achieve your wealth goals? Third one is happiness. Has being in that relationship made it easier or harder for you to be happy? The fourth one we're going to go with is career. Has being with that person made it easier or harder to achieve your career goals? Last two relationships. Has this person made it easier or harder for you to have good relationships with other people outside of them? And then the last one would be caveat. It's a different one. Social standing. Is this relationship making it easier or harder for me to achieve my social goals? So when I say social goals, how does that differ from relationships? Relationships I would consider as like, friendships outside of a marriage or outside of a relationship. Like, have they been a supporter of the relationships you want? Have they been like, hey, I don't know about relationships you don't want. Have they made it a priority to ensure that they support what you want out of other relationships in your life and do they support you doing that or do they make it harder for you? And how does that differ from social standing? Is that social standing is essentially status in society. And so people may say that this sounds shallow, but I think that it is reality, which is a lot of people factor in social standing and how their significant other or the person in the relationship with or just the relationship optics increase or decrease their social standing. If you're in a relationship with somebody and you're constantly fighting and everybody knows, does that increase or decrease your social standing? Probably decreases it. People probably lose respect for both of you if they constantly know that you're fighting and complaining about each other. Career. If you have a separate career from the person that you're in a relationship with, the question is, are they supporting you in a way that makes it easier or harder to achieve those career goals? Are they constantly cheering you on or are they constantly telling you that what you're trying to do is impossible? Are they supporting the fact that you have to sacrifice time in the relationship to achieve those goals? Are they constantly nagging you and saying, I wish you would spend more time with me? Is that person lubricating your ability to achieve your goals or are they adding friction? Now, here's the thing. Every person has different preferences as to what's important to them. So you could go through that list and you'd be like, oh my gosh, they've only increased two areas of my life. But it might be that those two areas are more important to you than all the other Areas combined. And so what I would do is I would go through and I would star the areas that are most important to you. Which of those areas are the absolute most important to you? That part is the most important, is that after you go through and say have they increased or decreased, which ones are the most important to you? I think it's really imperative because a lot of people, if you look at relationships, people say they want this huge array of things, but when you really get down to it, people have like two things that are really important to them and everything else you kind of forget and so not going to expect that every single relationship is going to like increase off the charts all of somebody's stats. That's just unreasonable to think. But what is important is that does being in that relationship make the stats go up in the one or two areas that are really important to you? The bottom line is this. A lot of people stay in relationships that make them hate themselves. It's not the person that makes you hate yourself. It's the fact that you maintain and stay in the relationship and tolerate it. And so the reason I wanted to make this is because people ask me all day, every day should I stay in this relationship or not? And I have no feelings towards somebody's significant other. You know that story I was telling you about my friends? I don't have any feelings specifically towards the man or the woman. I just want them both to be the best version of themselves. And I want that. For anybody that's watching this content, I feel very blessed that I have found somebody that I truly feel like we both make each other better. We both increase each other's self respect because of the relationship that we've created. And so I just ask you that if you're trying to figure out if you stay or you go, which behavior would result in higher self respect. It is not about the person, but it is about maintaining self respect. So I think the interesting thing is a lot of people say, well, hey, you know, my spouse used to work out a lot which made it easy for me to work out and be healthy. And now they don't work out much and now it's really hard for me. To which I would say, do you need to have somebody work out with you every day in order to be healthy? It's not your spouse's responsibility to motivate you and drive you. But I would say that when you look at the frame of self respect, do they support you in the fact that you still want to work out even though they don't or do they try to condemn you to whatever their routine is? And I would argue that what you would like is you would like somebody who's supportive. It doesn't mean that they do the same things as you. Alex and I don't do the same things. There's also seasons where he works out a lot and I don't, and where I work out a lot and he doesn't. And we don't ever try to stop the other or bring them into our season. We just respect that's the season you're in, and I'm going to support you for doing that. When Alex is writing a book all day, every day, every weekend, until dinner, and then is zonked out by the end of the day, I don't try to get Alex to stop writing his book. I try to support him and honestly treasure the time we do have together because I know he's achieving his goals. And I do know also, it's a season. It's not going to be like the rest of our life is that we never see each other. And the only time we do, we're exhausted. It's probably going to be six to eight months. And I'm fine with that because I want to help him achieve his goals. And he's also let me know what his goals are. And so I would say on the other side, if you don't tell your spouse or your significant other what. What your goals are, how can they help you achieve them? And I do think it's important to contextualize this, because a lot of people confuse a season for something to be permanent. And there are absolutely seasons for relationships. It's not like I've been married for 20 years. I've been married for eight. But I can absolutely say that even within each year, there are seasons of our relationship. And I think the important piece about the season is that we vocalize it to each other and we talk about, hey, we're in this kind of season right now. Or like, hey, we're in this kind of season. You know, the other day we were talking about, like, hey, our relationships really improved. Why has it improved? Let's talk about that so we know. Let's double down on the success. Whereas sometimes if we feel like our relationship has gotten off track or we haven't put attention to it, we say, hey, we haven't really been paying attention to our relationship. Did you notice? Yeah, I noticed. Are you okay with it? Yeah. Are you okay with it? Yeah, as long as we're both okay with it. And we're both know that we both have success, something else that we're sacrificing time from other things for, one of which is our relationship. As long as we're on the same page, that's cool. And I think the problem comes in when you have people that don't voice their goals to one another. So you don't know what that person's trying to achieve. And so you can't help them even if you try, because you don't know what they want. And then the second piece is that they're not on the same page because they're not vocalizing what's occurring in the relationship. It's like every month, many people review their business and they talk about the stats and numbers. They go up, they go down. But a lot of people don't do that with their relationship. They don't talk above the relationship. They're in it, talking to each other every day. They're not talking about the observations of the relationship itself. And I think that if you're able to talk about the observations of the relationship itself, it makes improving it a lot easier. I think the thing is that in terms of people asking, you know, what if things change in the relationship? That's life and people change. And I think that if I look back at who I was in the beginning of my marriage versus who I am now, a lot has changed. A lot of the things I like have changed, A lot of the way I act has changed, what I do every day has changed. And so the nature of the relationship has changed. And I think that when I looked for a partner, I actually wanted to find somebody who I felt would also be constantly changing and okay with it. And I think that either you have the conversation in the beginning of like, hey, we're going to change, but what we want to try and do is directionally change in the same direction. We don't want one person get worse and one person get better, you know, one person building a completely different life. And I think one thing that's helped us a lot for me and my relationship has been it is easy to change in the same direction if you consume the same information. And so if I'm exposed to the same stressors and challenges as my spouse or significant other, I am likely to come to similar conclusions, acquire the same skills and information, which then means that I'm probably going to remain on the same page as them. And a lot of people, I think, probably don't have enough overlap so that eventually you're changing, but you're Changing in opposite directions constantly. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Like that's fine too. Maybe you move on, you have a different relationship later. But. But if you want to remain together, I do think that it makes sense that you expose yourself to the same challenges and stressors that you can develop skills together. I also think that that builds a lot of camaraderie because you're sharing these experiences. And I think that a lot of relationships, strong ones specifically, are built under pressure and under going through hard times together rather than the good times. I think that the end of the day relationship comes down to expectations. And a lot of people don't express the expectations they have to their partner until those expectations are no longer being met. And so if you're not there yet, I would say if you have expectations that your partner is unaware of, make them aware of what those are. And the way that I look at an expectation is this is what I would like out of a relationship. Is that something that you can commit to? Now, me personally, I actually would rather keep my expectations very low. I like to have high expectations of myself, low expectations of my partner, and honestly of other people. In general, I don't think it's fair to put very high expectations on others. And I also believe that we can have preferences rather than expectations. So I think it's very difficult to put an expectation on somebody in a relationship rather than fundamental ones that would be, I would say, deal breakers, like beyond deal breaking expectations. I think that it is about remaining flexible and remembering that expectations and preferences are different. I can prefer that my husband does something and he can do something different. That doesn't mean I need to be in a bad mood or I need to break up with him or I need to hate him for it just means that we have different preferences. And I think that a lot of the times people conflate their preferences with standards or expectations and it kind of just looks like controlling, like you're trying to mold the person into somebody that they don't want to be. And so for me, I think what's always helped me the most is I just recognize that I have preferences. And I also recognize that things don't always go my way. And that's okay because I think at the end of the day, the few things like you go through that list, the few things that you star, those are the most important things that you stand by. And I think everything else, what, like they don't brush their teeth when they want you want them to? They like sometimes wake you up when they get out of bed, they leave clothes on the floor. Maybe they don't hang out with the kids as much as you want them to. Like, is that really going to be a deal breaker? You know, do you really want to exert that kind of authority over somebody else's life and make them feel like they're being controlled? I think not. I do think that some people, when they are constantly bouncing from relationship to relationship and saying that the other person is the issue, there's either one of two things, in my opinion, which would be either that they do not know how to express their expectations to the person that they're in the relationship with and therefore they just never get what they want, or they never know if that's the right person, then they find out later and have to bounce. They didn't set the proper expectations from the get go. Or it's that they are unaware of their own deficits and how that's affecting the relationship. And so because they're of their lack of awareness, they're never fixing those things which make it very hard for anybody else to be in a relationship with them. So I would say it's one of those two things. Sam.