How to Detach From Work Before It Destroys Your Life | Dr. Guy Winch

Summary

The School of Greatness with Lewis Howes

Episode: How to Detach From Work Before It Destroys Your Life | Dr. Guy Winch
Date: January 5, 2026
Guest: Dr. Guy Winch, psychologist, TED speaker, author of Mind Over Grind

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles the profound impact of work-related stress on our relationships, emotional health, and identity. Renowned psychologist Dr. Guy Winch joins Lewis Howes to explore how unchecked work obsession and burnout erode joy, connection, and even love—both with others and ourselves. Drawing from his latest book, Mind Over Grind, Dr. Winch delivers actionable advice for regaining psychological boundaries, restoring emotional balance, and reclaiming life outside the grind.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How Work Stress Spills into Relationships

• Chronic work stress doesn’t just affect the employee—it spills over to partners and family, creating secondary burnout and undermining intimacy and joy at home.
  • “If you are stressed out at work, your partner who might not be working will start to develop symptoms of burnout.” (Dr. Winch, 01:28)
• The concept of ‘autopilot mode’ leaves people numb, missing opportunities to assess whether relationships or life itself are still fulfilling.

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2. Unpacking Why We Stay in Unhealthy Relationships

• Many remain in toxic or unsatisfying relationships due to fear, sunk cost fallacy, or unhealed emotional wounds.
  • “They tell themselves that's the best they can do... it's a sunk cost kind of thing.” (Dr. Winch, 05:05)
• Healing begins by looking inward: “When you've healed the wounds within you, you are more likely to choose more healthy relationship partners and to form healthier relationships.” (03:43)

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3. The Illusion of Work-Life Balance & Identity Loss

• Work-life boundaries often erode—especially if one is passionate about their job—leading to a gradual amputation of other self-aspects.
• Dr. Winch provides a thought experiment: “If tomorrow work were taken away... Who are you then? What's your life about then?” (13:34-13:38)
• The slow encroachment of duty, with joy treated as a ‘nice to have’ instead of essential, leads to pervasive burnout.

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4. Why Burnout Persists Despite Increased Awareness

• Knowledge about burnout and the necessity of work-life balance is at an all-time high—so why is burnout peaking?
• Burnout is not limited to the workplace; it follows us home via rumination and unchecked stress responses.
• “For many... they’re desperate to switch off at the end of the day, and they cannot.” (Dr. Winch, 16:36)

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5. Strategies to Stop Bringing Work Home (Psychological Detachment)

A. Rituals & Transitions

• End your workday when you stop thinking about work—not when you clock out.
  • “Your workday ends when you stop thinking about work.” (22:42)
• Develop a sensory routine to signal the transition: lighting, music, specific clothing, even scent.
  • “Our clothing is very embodied as a cognition... Have different t-shirts and jeans [for work and home].” (24:19-24:21)
• Schedule ‘chill mode’ or relaxation into your calendar so your brain knows to switch gears. (25:40-25:46)

B. Recharging vs. Relaxation

• Passive relaxation alone (binge-watching, doom scrolling) does not recharge; active engagement is essential.
  • “Relaxation is only 50% of the story... What will fill the battery is something active that is recharging for you.” (Dr. Winch, 26:36-27:03)

C. Breaking Rumination

• Rumination is both mentally and physically harmful; it perpetuates stress and prevents proper detachment.
  • “When you're ruminating, you are flooding yourself with cortisol.” (29:17)
• Dr. Winch’s method: shrink the emotion, then pose the underlying problem as a solvable question.
  • Example: “Do I need to address this with my boss? If so, how?” (31:31-32:50)

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6. Work Stress and Romantic Love

• Chronic stress numbs feelings—many who think they’ve “fallen out of love” are often emotionally blocked by work’s pressures.

  • “People can fall out of love when they're really chronically stressed because it's numbing.” (33:23)

• The dynamic is self-perpetuating: the stressed partner is emotionally unavailable; the other becomes distant, compounding the problem.

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7. Reshaping the Narrative Around Stress

• Framing matters: Instead of saying “My job is stressful,” say “My job has stressful elements.”

  • “The first thing you can do... stop telling yourself that your job is very stressful.” (38:07-39:31)

• Seek joy and use micro-moments throughout the day: favorite lunch, a meme, music, or small chats with friends.

• “Stress is entirely psychological... our tolerances and what we're telling ourselves.” (40:28)

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8. Emotional First Aid & Healthy Self-Talk

• Negative self-talk—calling oneself a “loser,” “ugly,” “stupid”—is profoundly damaging, likened to self-abuse.

  • “It's abusive... even worse than when somebody does it to you externally.” (Dr. Winch, 68:28-68:30)

• Replace the critical voice through conscious cognitive retraining.

  • “You are literally doing cognitive retraining... Being on guard 24/7.” (71:58-72:00)

• Don’t bully yourself for the years lost to negative self-talk:

  • “You don't get to beat yourself up for doing something for decades if you're still doing it.” (Dr. Winch, 73:25)

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9. Building Healthy Relationships with Emotional Wounds

• New couples should openly acknowledge their “stuff,” keep honest, regular check-ins, and view challenges through the lens of healing—not blame.
  • “Let's start with that acknowledgement that we have some stuff that might impact us... Let’s keep ongoing dialogue.” (56:10-57:20)
• Therapy from the start can help solidify this foundation. (57:20-58:13)

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10. Creative Ways to Rekindle Relationships

• “Time travel” date: reenact an early memorable date, from clothes to venue, to reignite lost passion and remind each other of first feelings.
  • “Reenact one of the earlier dates... literally try and set [everything] as it was.” (Dr. Winch, 58:29-60:52)

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11. Healthy Arguments, Bias in Friend Advice, and the Role of AI

• For some, arguing by text/email can reduce escalation and create clarity—especially when miscommunication runs high.
  • “Composing the text...immediately brings you down from amygdala activation.” (44:51)
• Be wary of seeking friends’ advice—bias, jealousy, or lack of expertise can skew perceptions. (53:26-54:11)
• AI is more useful as a brainstorming tool for positive gestures or difficult conversations than for “litigating” relationship drama. (47:25-48:58)

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12. Self-Respect and the Power of Inner Dialogue

• Self-respect is maintained or lost based on our own inner voice.
  • “Do not bully yourself. Do not chastise yourself.” (65:25-66:45)
• Your thoughts dictate reality far more than circumstances:
  • “We can control not just how we respond, but how we think, more than we allow ourselves to.” (Dr. Winch, 79:15)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Your workday ends when you stop thinking about work.” (Dr. Guy Winch, 22:42)
• “If you are stressed out at work, your partner...will start to develop symptoms of burnout.” (01:28)
• “People can fall out of love when they’re really chronically stressed because it’s numbing.” (33:23)
• “Relaxation is only 50% of the story...What will fill the battery is something active that is recharging for you.” (26:36-27:03)
• "It's abusive...even worse than when somebody does it to you externally." (68:28-68:30)
• “If you say to yourself, 'I hate my job' and you're not looking for another job, it's a problem.” (42:23)

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Important Timestamps

| Time | Segment/Topic | |-----------|------------------------------------------------| | 01:28 | Work stress ‘infects’ loved ones | | 06:10 | Why relationships “drop out” as we change | | 10:00 | How work undermines home life | | 13:34 | Thought experiment: who are you without work? | | 22:42 | True end of the workday: stopping ruminations | | 24:19 | Rituals for psychological detachment | | 26:36 | Difference between relaxation and recharging | | 29:17 | Dangers of rumination & self-sabotage | | 33:23 | How chronic stress numbs love | | 38:07 | Reframing: 'my job has stressful elements' | | 44:51 | Arguing via text/email: pros and cons | | 56:10 | Relationship game plan for emotional wounds | | 58:29 | “Time travel” to reignite relationship passion | | 68:28 | Self-talk as abuse | | 73:25 | Don’t beat yourself up for the past | | 79:15 | Three truths for thriving amidst uncertainty |

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Three Truths & Definition of Greatness

Dr. Guy Winch’s Final Lessons:

1. “We can control not just how we respond, but how we think.” (79:15)
2. “Our thoughts dictate our reality...and we have more control than we think.”
3. “What matters in life are two things: your relationships and your experiences...your accomplishments themselves matter less.”

Definition of Greatness:
“A constant curve of self-improvement...to want to master [yourself] and your responses...to become the best version of you that you can be.” (81:47-82:35)

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Conclusion

Dr. Guy Winch makes a compelling case for deliberate psychological separation between work and life, active engagement in joy and recuperation, and the absolute necessity of managing self-talk and emotional wounds—both to prevent burnout and to live more fully. His practical wisdom is a timely guide for anyone wrestling with the encroachment of work stress on relationships and overall happiness.

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For more insights: Find Dr. Guy Winch at guywinch.com & on Instagram. Check out his new book, Mind Over Grind.

Transcript

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[Dr. Guy Winch]

If you are stressed out at work, your partner who might be working will start to develop symptoms of burnout.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Really?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

That's how much the transfer happens. We think we manage it. We really don't. Psychologist and author and host of his own psychology podcast, his TED talk being viewed by over 4 million people, he's.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Been working with individuals couples. Please welcome Dr. Guy Winch.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I've worked with many people who thought they had fallen out of love or whose partner suddenly changed. And I'm like, has your partner who changed or is it you? Is it your work stress that has become so chronic that you can't feel it?

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

How can time travel reignite love or passion in a relationship?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

An exercise that I suggest to couples reenact one of the earlier dates you had in which you realized you started to have feelings for one another. Try and go through that first magical moment. Couples were able to do it, were able to really kind of take it on as a fun project. And even in prepping for it, they were starting to get into the mindset.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Interesting.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Stress is entirely psychological. The messaging is critical, which is super useful because we can actually do it and it seems like a cheat, but it's not a cheat. It's a cheat the other way when we keep using it in a negative way to stress ourselves out.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

What is one psychological way to manage our mind to overcome burnout in life?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Today I'm with the inspiring Guy Winch and he is an internationally renowned psychologist and best selling author. And his talks have been viewed more than 35 million times and his science based books have been translated into 30 plus languages. Today he's here to offer a guide to combating the many stresses modern work imposes on our relationships. Guy, I'm so pumped that you're here.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And it's a thrill to be here again.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

It's exciting, man. I'm excited about this and I have a powerful first question for you. A lot of people are struggling in relationships today and I'm curious, is the biggest reason that people are struggling in their relationships, in their work relationships, romantic relationships, friendships having to do with the person they're in the relationship with or the wound they haven't healed within themselves yet?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, look, the wounds they haven't healed within themselves are probably causing them to make difficult choices in who they're in relationships with. The two are related. In other words, when you've healed the wounds within you, you are more likely to choose more healthy relationship partners and to form healthier relationships. And that includes the romantic, the personal friendships and even work. We don't like to stay in unhealthy relationships when we feel healthy inside.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

That's true. So if we're unhealthy inside or we have wounds inside and we have all these relationships already established with years of history, how do you start either unwinding those unhealthy patterns in those relationships? Do you just eliminate all those relationships, you know, or do you take a look in the mirror and say, oh, I've got work to do in this, in this part of the relationship. How do we start that once we're aware that we are having breakdown in multiple relationships?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, you have to start with looking within yourself and like, so what is it about me that's choosing these kinds of people or these kinds of relationships? What is it about me that's tolerating staying in situations that are not great for me and that I might not even like? A lot of people are in relationships that make them miserable, but they Stay in them.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Why?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Many, many reasons. They tell themselves that that's the best they can do. It's a sunk cost kind of thing. Well, I've already invested all and I don't want to start looking because it's such a difficult marketplace out there, as it were. I mean, it's very, you know, people are very afraid of starting over in that. So let me just stay where I am. And then they find reasons, oh, maybe this is not too terrible today. So I guess it's okay. When might not be terrible today, but it's generally not great. But when you start to work on yourself and when you start to change, two things will happen. You will either start making different choices or you will start changing in such a way that certain people will just drop out because you're not fun for them anymore. They don't get away with their stuff anymore because you're starting to set limits. You're starting to be more assertive, you're starting to set expectations. And so suddenly this is not working for me. I like running roughshod, or I like being the boss of this, or I like things my way entirely.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

People will drop out, they'll start to fade away, or you'll have so much conflict that you'll drop out. You'll be like, ah, this just doesn't work.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It's one or the other. But there is a cleaning house. That often happens when people really start to change.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

What age do people start waking up around seeing if their relationships in their life are working for them or not? Is there a season of life that usually people are like, huh, you know, I'm 25 or I'm 30 now and like, oh, these high school or college friends. Maybe I'm not that same person anymore. Or the relationship I've been in for six or seven years. I'm not who I was when I started that relationship. Is there a season that people usually wake up to recognizing if the relationships are working or not?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So when I was younger, there used to be this thing called like the midlife crisis, which was never a thing. Yes. But they called it a midlife crisis. And it happened around 40, which is also not where midlife is really. But that was when people start to second guess. But it's actually about circumstances. So for example, when there are external stressors that happened on the relationship. We saw it during the pandemic. We saw it after 9, 11. When something big happens in the world that stresses the relationship, it forces a contemplation. It forces you to start to think like Is this working? And it either brings people closer or it pushes them apart.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Really, how does someone create that artificially without having, you know, a war or some pandemic? How do you create that to see if you're with the right person?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

You know, it's interesting. When I used to teach couples therapy, and one of the things, one of the wisdoms of couples therapy is, and family therapy, it's the same thing, because it's a system, is that they will not change unless they're in crisis because they're too comfortable. And change is uncomfortable. But in a crisis, you're already uncomfortable. You're more likely. And so some of the wisdoms, if they're not in crisis, put them in crisis as a therapist, put pressure on them so that the crisis happens and they're forced to examine what are some.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Ways you can put crisis on a relationship.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So not as a therapist, because I'm not suggesting everyone rushes to couple therapists and say, stress us out. We don't that either. That's not the best use of it. But it's to actually self examine. It's actually to have a conversation first with yourself. I mean, first get clarity within you. Is this working for me? Is it not? And it's not a yes or no. It's like, what is working? What isn't? Am I generally happy? We in a society today, we're all part of the thing about the grind is that when we're in the grind, it's work. It's everywhere. Our head is down. We just go from thing to thing to thing. We don't pause to lift our head up and go, wait, is this working for me? Am I happy? Is this where I want to be going? Is this where I want to be? We just keep going in this autopilot. And when we're in autopilot mode, we often fly into the face of the cliff. And so it's just lifting your head and starting to ask yourself the important questions. That alone can start not putting you in crisis, but start alerting you. And then once you start having those conversations with the other people, then you start getting somewhere in terms of, do I have a partner here?

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Your book, Mind over Grind, how to break free when work hijacks your Life. Talks a lot about how to overcome burnout and kind of this stress that you just mentioned, where it's just like, you know, people are on autopilot of just working very hard, that it's hard to have emotional space to have fun and have joy and love and peace and harmony. In your relationships outside of work. It sounds like for a lot of people, if they don't know how to create boundaries or structure or space or time away. Do you feel like work is one of the biggest reasons why people are struggling in intimate relationships if they don't know how to navigate work?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Work has a huge impact on our relationships outside of work as well. And when I was doing research for this book, I was so stunned by some of the research and what it was saying. Like, there's research that shows that if you are stressed out at work, your partner who might not be working will start to develop symptoms of burnout.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Really?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

That's how much the transfer happens, the spillover into your home life. When you are stressed out at work, your partner can lose their sex drive because primarily you're no fun to be around. And I don't mean you personally.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

But, you know, but that's the thing. We think we manage it. We really don't manage it at all. And so this grind is. We just keep going, but without asking ourselves a question. But, yes, it's really impacting our relationship. There's other research that shows that, that when somebody is really stressed and pressured at work, they will not only fall down on their responsibilities at home, with the kids, with their partners, they will actively undermine their partner within the home, unconsciously, not even being aware necessarily that they're doing it.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

What does that look like? They'll undermine their partner at home. What are some ways?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Here's an example. You come home from work, you had a very, very long and stressful day, and the kids run to your partner and say, he can I have another cookie? Can I watch tv? Can I spend another hour on the iPad? And your partner appropriately says, no, okay. And then they'll run to you, hey, can I have a cookie? IPad, hour, et cetera. And you'll be like, yeah, fine, whatever. And it won't even occur to you, like, wait, let me check with them, actually. What are the rules? What is the thing? Because you're checked out so you know you're doing that. We bring home resentment sometimes from work toward home because home doesn't get. Our families don't get how stressed out we are, what we had to go through all day.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Do you think people's lack of work life balance then is causing them to feel stressed at home? Or is work life balance a myth?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Work life balance is not a myth, but I think it exists primarily or needs to, in our own head. The work life balance is how we psychologically think about our work and our personal life, our professional identity and our personal or family identity, those boundaries get confused in our heads. And what happens is that when our work gets very demanding, and by the way, this happens when we are engaged with our work, when we love our work, when we're passionate about our work, we lose the boundaries between that and we start to amputate aspects of ourselves one by one. We start to push them aside, we start to lose them, we start to lose touch with them. And we become two dimensional workers. We become true drones in doing what we're doing and feeling. Oh, but we're happy in what we're doing. But we're not really, because we just neglected entire aspects of our personality, our relationships, of our life outside of work. And it happens gradually, usually. And before we know it, it's just that. Here's a thought experiment I suggest people do. If tomorrow work were taken away, something was erased, and you had no work.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

What would you do?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

No. Who are you?

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Oh, what's your identity?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah, who are you then? What's your light about then?

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Interesting.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And for many people, they blink at me and they go. Because there's not much that's interesting.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

What, what should people try to be if there was no work?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It's not about inventing something. It's about who did you used to be? What aspects of yourself are not coming to the fore, are not getting any oxygen.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

What? What? You know, because people sometimes, you know, in the book, I talk about this one guy, he was a lawyer and he was so uptight and he was so rigid and so like, you know, like, he was like, you would sit like that. He was so. And it turned out that in college he did improv.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

He used to do improv.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah. And spoiler alert, that happens later. But, but, but I was like, there was not a shred of that. No joy.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

No joy.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I had never seen his teeth. Never seen his teeth. And so I'm like, oh my God. That's how deeply buried that had become.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And clearly it was a part of him.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Why do you think people lose so much of their joy? Is it tied to work stress or pressures of life or societal things? Why is that? Because we have so much joy. Well, not everyone. You know, some people have a lot of pain and suffering growing up, but most people have joy and play in their life growing up. And then work, they lose play. Now I get you have to have results and you've got to make money and you got to create profits on all these different things. But why did they lose that? Is it all related to work?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

First of all, Joy is considered a nice to have. Not a must have for a lot of people, but for a lot of people, it's truly a reality of our time, of the current workplace, the current economy. They are working two jobs or they're working a very demanding job, then coming home, taking care of their kids. They have very, very little time for themselves. There's very little time to breathe. There's very little time to even take their temperature and ask themselves what do they feel like doing? But they just don't have that autonomy. They don't have that space to even question it. And so they just. There's so much they have to get done that they completely lose sight of that. Like, if something can go well, Joy will have to go, yes, I liked doing that, but I don't have time to do that anymore. But again, it creeps up on you so that you at some point end up with just duty all day. You're in duty mode, whether it's as a parent, whether it's as a worker, whether it's as caretaker, whatever.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

The thing is, it's exhausting. Right?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, that's why burnout is peaking. I mean, the interesting thing about stress and burnout is that awareness of stress and burnout has gone up. The awareness of the importance of work life balance has gone up. And yet at the same time the awareness has gone up. Stress and burnout are peaking at all times. Highs.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Really?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yes.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Why is that?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Because they're not contained to the workplace. Because that stuff spills over into our life outside of work. And the ways I gave examples about, in terms of our relationships in other ways such that you can't just. It's not about, oh, let's do something at work to make things a little bit easier. You have to manage your mind. You have to manage the psychology of your mind. Because for many of us, for example, who have either demanding jobs or again, we're passionate about our work, they're desperate to switch off at the end of the day and they cannot.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Because they have more responsibilities at home?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

No, because they're ruminating about work, because they're obsessing about it. Because they can't let go of that really annoying thing that happened or that really dismissive thing that somebody said or that somebody didn't show up for them when they had showed up for that person over and over again. And it was so hurtful and disappointing. They can't let it go. Really.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

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[Dr. Guy Winch]

Look, our unconscious mind thinks work is the most important thing in our life because factually, it's where we spend most of our time. It's what pays our bills. It's what fulfills our needs. Just looking at it factually like that must be the most important thing. So anything that happens there is considered very important, number one. Number two, interpersonal slights really stick with us wherever they happen. When somebody's rude, dismissive, uncivilized, let alone when you're being bullied or harassed, it is very difficult to let that go. So we obsess about it, we ruminate about it, and it's those are intrusive Thoughts, Those are not voluntary thoughts. That's not something we decide. I'm gonna go home and obsess about how my co worker, you know, was rude to me in the meeting for the all the evening. It's not something we do, but it's something we want to do, but it's something that happens to us. And then we're sitting there and we're checked out and we're trying to be present, but our mind keeps getting dragged back into this bombardment of intrusive thoughts. And we don't have the mechanism, we don't know how to switch that off. I talk about how to switch that off in the book, but it's something we need to do in a very deliberate way.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

What is one psychological way to manage our mind to overcome burnout in life?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So just to explain something about burnout, when we are at work all day and we are in a stressful work environment. Again, stressful, not necessarily because it's toxic or certainly if it is, just because it's demanding, it's pressured. We are in fight or flight. Our bodies and our minds are in a battlefield. And our mind doesn't really distinguish well between whether the battlefield's happening in the boardroom or actually in a battlefield. So we are in fight or flight when we come home. That is when we need to give our systems a break from fight or flight. You can't be activated all the time because that's when wear and tear will happen. Exhaustion and burnout. So when people come home and they're still thinking about work, they're extending that fight of light until they go to bed, and then they're never getting a break from it. So one thing that people can do, and it's a really. It's a trivial thing, sounds like, but it's a critical thing, is you need to detach psychologically from work at some point after work. You maybe can't do it, you know, at 7 or at 8, but at some point it's gotta be because your work day, by the way, it doesn't end when you leave work. Your workday doesn't end when you shut your laptop. Your workday ends when you stop thinking about work.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Interesting.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And unless you stop thinking about work, you're still at work. So you have to detach psychologically from work.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

What's the best way you've studied or seen people do and how they can break their mind from thinking about work once they're away from work.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So there are two things. First of all, I believe that you have to Have a ritual to transition from your workday to your personal time, family time, even if it's family time and parenting duties and caretaking duties, whatever the thing is, but that you're in a different mode because you don't have to be in fight or flight for that. You do often at work. So there needs to be a ritual. And the point of a ritual is it's repetitive, and it trains your brain that when you start doing it, your brain learns over time. We are about to change our mindset. We're about to relax. We do that with kids when we're putting them to bed. Right. An hour before they go to bed, we bring the lights down, we slow things down, we move the toys away. We prepare them to kind of settle down. We need to settle down as well. And so you want a transition that will help your brain learn that now it's time to the shift from work mode. And that should include as many of the senses as possible, because that's a deeper resonance within the brain. So sound. So music, very evocative. Have your playlist that helps you relax at the end of the day that you can listen to. Our clothing is very embodied as a cognition for us to suit off and.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Put something else on. Or you. Work clothes, right?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yes. Now, I am pretty casual in my job, and I know people who work in T shirts and jeans, but have the T shirts and jeans that you wear at work and have different T shirts and jeans that you don't wear at work that you wear at home, because your mind will learn to associate. When I put those on, then I'm in a relaxed mode. So there's, you know, there's the site that light, you know, change the lighting when you get home in any way. It doesn't really matter in which direction, but just something that symbolizes for you. Now, this is about home. Use scent if you can, you know, use all the senses that you can to really. And use the same ritual. It has to be repetitive so that when you start doing it, that's the end of your day. Here's one other thing that you can do. And again, this is gonna sound stupid, but our brain takes some things, unfortunately, seriously. One thing our brain takes really seriously is calendars. And most people, when you look at their calendar, it's all booked up with different colors all through the day. And then the evening comes, and it's just white space. And so your brain is not told what to be doing in the white space. Write family time. Write veg out. Write something that tells your Brain. My task now is to do something that's relaxing, that's recharging, that kind of thing.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Chill mode, Chill mode.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Write chill mode. But write something so your brain knows that's my task now.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Give your brain a task, even if it's to do nothing.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yes.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Interesting.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Do Nothing is a great title.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah. Do nothing for the next five hours. What would you say are the common coping strategies that people believe are helping them overcome burnout but are actually hurting them?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Some of the things people think to do, and this is very, very common, is they come home and you said, do nothing, veg out. And they were like, I am going to slouch down on the couch and binge this series or doom scroll for three or four hours. I feel drained, so I'm just gonna relax. And here's the thing about that. You will wake up tired the next morning no matter how much you relax.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Really?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yes. Because relaxation is only 50% of the story. Our brain confuses physical and mental exhaustion. It doesn't distinguish well. So you are mentally tired. Some people have very physically demanding jobs. Most don't. Most are sitting with a screen all day. So when you get home, you're not physically exhausted, you're mentally drained.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And then relaxing won't drain you further, but it won't recharge you. It won't fill the battery. What will fill the battery is something active that is recharging for you. So I'm sure that, just to use you an example, you know, when you get home at the end of the day and you haven't had a chance to work out, you're athletic, you're an athlete. You know, if you go and you go to a practice session with handball or you do something, you might feel like, that is the last thing I feel like doing right now. But if you force yourself to do it when you get back, you are gonna feel more energized then before you left, even though you expended a bunch of energy to do it. If somebody's creative, if they're a painter, getting up and painting for half an hour or doing something creative, if they're an organizer, organizing, if they're extrovert going and socializing and forcing themselves to get up, even though they feel drained, really, they will come back feeling more energized. They will sleep better because relaxing is 50%. Recharging is 50%. And the biggest mistake we make for burnout is, well, we're tired, so we're just going to relax. And the other problem with that is that Our brain is just like, you just spent the entire day looking at a screen.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Now you're going to look at the screen for a few hours.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So, sorry, what's the difference? Like, you know, where's the. You know, how are you preventing? Like, it's just the same thing, even if you're watching something different. So the idea is like, do something recharging and that's very individual for. For you.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

So you can't just lay down and vag and you can do both.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah, but if that's all you're doing right, then. No, then you're going to be tired.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

You talk about, you know, in one of your previous books, you talked about emotional first aid, which is something I loved. You also talk about how to heal a broken heart. Are there any new emotional tools that you've learned in the last few years that have been really helpful for people that you work with?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So one of them is about this rumination stuff. I spoke about it in my book, Emotional First Aid, but I've developed my ideas a little bit further.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

How bad is ruminating for someone's mind?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Oh, well, it's bad for their body as much as for their mind. Because when you're ruminating, you are flooding yourself with cortisol. You are literally putting yourself into stress when you're home and you start to think about how annoying your boss was when they did this and they said that. And you'll feel it. You'll start to. It'll start to feel like, ugh. That feeling of stress, wherever you tend to feel it, in your shoulders, your stomach, you know, whatever your typical stress manifestation is, you will feel that. And so you are literally putting yourself into fight or flight. You're putting yourself into stress. And rumination, by definition, is an unproductive form of self reflection. In other words, we're not trying to figure it out. We're just, you know, we're just thinking about it. So annoying when they said that. And then we do this thing where we have a fantasy conversation with our boss that we'll never have, in which we tell them off. We have mic drop moments. I wish I want to go in and I would say this to him. Then I want to give him the finger and I want to throw this at them. And they're like, you're not going to do that. But even in fact, now, it might feel satisfying in the moment, but you're actually getting yourself really worked up in that scenario. And people can go through those variations for hours, literally hours spent on that kind of stuff. Now, what we ruminate about and what causes the rumination is not so much the incident, but the emotion that it evokes. And so then we start rumination surfing because that was so unfair that happened at work, which reminds me of the other thing that was unfair that happened three years ago, which reminds me of the unfair thing that happened five weeks ago that now you're remembering. And like, life is so unfair and suddenly it's this downwards rabbit hole, the spiral, that just makes you feel so upset. And again, it feels compelling. It feels like you're thinking about something important, but you're not thinking it through. You're just replaying the crappy parts of it. So what you have to do to break out of that is A, understand that it's being fueled by the emotion. And then B, you have to do two things. Shrink the emotion and convert it into a problem that can be solved.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

How does someone convert rumination into something that can be solved?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Okay, so for example, your boss said something really annoying shot you down in a meeting. Whatever it is, the problem is as follows. And there are many different problems you can pose. Do I need to do something about that? Do I need to address it with the boss directly? Do I need to understand why they shot me down? Is there something I can learn about the fact that I was suggesting something that they tend to not like, et cetera, et cetera? Were they just in a bad mood? And I can let it go because that was unusual for them. If it's something I need to address, how do I address it? How can I learn what to say in the meeting that they will actually endorse rather than let me decide to pay attention to what their boss is going to. When people are speaking, I'll keep my eye on the boss at the next meeting, see what they're nodding, and try and conclude from that. What are the kinds of things they'd like to hear versus not, et cetera. Once you have a plan, it eases the stress. You can stop ruminating because you have a plan, you figured it out. But unless you pose it as a question of what do I need to do, if anything, and if I need to do something, how do I address it? And if I need to address it, what's the most effective way to do it? Once you start asking those questions, you're figuring something out, then you're literally trying to get to solutions. You're cutting through all the angst along the way.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

There just seems to be a lot of work stress in the. In societal, I guess Conversations a lot. People are stressed. People are getting laid off work, the economy, the uncertainty of the economy in the future, rising prices everywhere. If someone's in love, in a relationship romantically, but they go through years of work stress, is it possible they could fall out of love romantically because of work stress? And the second part, Is it the boss and the work environment's fault, or is it their fault?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Okay, part one. Yes. People can fall out of love when they're really chronically stressed because it's numbing.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So it's not that they're falling out out of love per se, it's that they're not feeling much. It's numbing.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

You're just dealing with the pressures. You don't have time to think or feel about other things. There's something that's useful about that because if you were actually feeling how depressing your situation were, you might not be able to function. So, you know. So to numb yourself in order to get through it has its advantages. But that can, again, spill over outside of work, and suddenly you become numb to many things. And that can be. Including your partner. I've worked with many people who thought they had fallen out of love or whose partner suddenly changed and became really annoying or really this or that. And I'm like, has your partner who changed or is it you? Like, is it your work stress that has become so chronic that you can't feel it? Interesting. And then when they do get a break, when they do kind of use these tools to kind of lower the stress, then they start to just reconnect to the feelings. But also it's dynamic because if you're the partner and this person is standoffish, you know, they come home at the end of the day, and when you go up to give them a hug, they're stiff because they're still in work mode. At some point, you're not gonna be a fan either. And then it starts setting up a difficult dynamic between two people.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Interesting, right? Gosh. So work is the enemy, huh?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So again, a lot of this is happening in our head. Work is difficult. I wanna be clear. Work is difficult, but it's how we manage it that's responsible for a large chunk of what we're doing to ourselves. Because we're not creating that separation, because we're not creating the boundaries, because we're not nourishing ourselves in the way that we need to to be able to manage that. Now, there's a lot work can do to make things easier for us, like exhibiting caring like There's a study that shows that when there's layoffs about to happen, and unfortunately, you know how these things work, layoffs are announced, but they're six months ahead in advance. So let's tell everyone that they're, you.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Know, someone's getting laid off.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah, in six months. Get to work, people. You know, it's like, it's so difficult. And so, you know, it's so. Now the research is that if you're a personal manager who doesn't have any more information than you do, who can't control necessarily the budget, so doesn't necessarily know who's getting laid off, if they exhibit caring, if they just say, hey, I know how difficult this is, how are you doing? That reduces stress by a huge percentage. Just caring. Everyone's empowered to do that. Every manager, every team leader is empowered. Every co worker is empowered to exhibit caring. And it has a huge impact in a great way.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

If someone has fallen out of love from work stress or just pressures of life, what would you say are a few steps that they could try to reactivate those feelings and emotions to fall back in love with their partner?

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[Dr. Guy Winch]

Hmm.

[Amazon One Medical Announcer]

I'm starting to think that they'd be. I don't think my call is important at all.

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[AT&T Business Wireless Announcer]

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[Dr. Guy Winch]

AT&T business Wireless Connecting changes everything. You just have to lower. You have to lower the stress. Right? I mean, when you're treading water and the water's up to here, you need to lower the water first. I mean, you need to get more breathing room. Yes, and there's a bunch they can do to get more breathing room because again, a lot of that stress is spent on ruminating. Stress is very psychological. Right. Like people say to me sometimes, like, what do I do about the fact that my job is just very, very Stressful.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

But does it have to be stressful? Can you change the way? Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Let's say the job is typically. Is. Is comparatively stressful.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

The first thing you can do about that is stop telling yourself that your job is very stressful, because what that.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Means is reinforcing it, right?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah, it's reinforcing it, but there are many moments in which it's not. It's many moments in which it is. And there are many moments in which there's a lunch break in which it's not stressful. There are a few meetings which aren't terrible, but you're telling yourself that those two are stressful and terrible. So you're keeping yourself on alert, and you're likely to perceive any negative thing that happens there as. See, that's stressful, too. And that's. So you're poisoning yourself into perceiving things that are more ambiguous or not that stressful as stressful. So don't say, my job is very stressful. Say my job has stressful elements. I use firefighters as an example because I work with a bunch of firefighters. And is their job very stressful? They run into burning buildings.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Those moments are very stressful.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Those moments are very stressful.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

There's a lot of downtime where they're just hanging out and just kind of relaxing.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And they always say to me, like, no, my job isn't very stressful. There are moments that are. But we are in the firehouse most of the time.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah. Playing the.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And then it's stressful. Yeah. If it's my turn to cook, it's stressful because people hate my cooking, you know, like that kind of thing. But it's like. It's a great lesson I took from them, like. Yeah. If they can describe their job as intermittently stressful, then that's true of most of us.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And that framing alone makes a big difference.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

The framing of it is. Yeah. It's finding ways to almost play a game in your mind when you go to work. Right. It's like, how can I make today fun, even though usually it's stressful? How can I crack a little joke with a coworker in between a stressful moment? How can I shake it off in the bathroom and just kind of relax? How can I listen to some music that brings me a little joy throughout the day? How can I do something? How can I prepare my favorite meal for lunch so I know I have something to look forward to?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Perfect. Yes.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Every couple hours, there's going to be joyful moments throughout my day. How can I send a funny meme to a friend? Whatever it is, like, how can I do something where my day becomes more enjoyable, where you can actually enjoy work rather than just be overwhelmed and stressed by it. And again, it doesn't mean there's not gonna be stressful moments and pressure filled moments and responsibilities. But how can you reframe the way you think and act every day?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Work and life absolutely find one thing to look forward to during the day and it could be what you just said is a great example. I prepared my favorite meal for lunch, so at least I'll get 15 minutes to have that. And I look forward to that. As long as you say that to yourself and you frame that to yourself, it's amazing because people will think, well, that doesn't change anything. It does. Stress is entirely psychological. It is entirely our tolerances and what we're telling ourselves. The messaging is critical, which A is super useful because we can actually do it and it seems like a cheat, but it's not a cheat, it's a cheat the other way. When we keep using it in the negative way to stress ourselves out, we can reclaim that and use it to decrease our stress.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

What is the difference between two people who are going to the same work environment where one person doesn't seem like a lot phases them even though there's pressure filled, stressful moments and the other person is always on alert and overwhelmed and overstressed? What is the difference between those two people in a similar environment?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, it's the mindset. Because the overly stressed person has come, you know, anticipating the worst, expecting a very difficult day, knowing now, by the way, if you have a very difficult meeting coming up, then you should prepare for it. You should like raise your defenses and be like, take a deep breath and like, okay, I know this is going to be difficult. You know what I can do? I'm going to sit through it and then I'm going to text my friend to say, hey, can I call you for five minutes afterwards just to be able to complain about like, oh, you know, like I can do something like that. But they're setting themselves up to experience all of it, the stressful, because they're like, oh, I hate this, I hate my job. If you say to yourself, I hate my job and you are not looking for another job, it's a problem. Yeah, because you're just making yourself miserable.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Don't stay there. Either change the way you feel about it or don't stay there or say.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I hate certain aspects of my job. I Don't mind others. Like, just be more tempered, be more realistic.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes. What is the biggest challenge that you face personally with your psychological mind? The way you think. After four decades of studying the mind in psychology, what is your biggest struggle still?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

The biggest struggle I have is that I can't get away with much.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah, you're like, dang it, I know.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

When I'm doing something incorrectly. I know where I should be doing something else. I know. Like, really, we're having a pity party now, you know, that's not like, I can't shut the voice up in the back of my mind that now once in a while I'll be like, I'm gonna feel bad for myself for an hour. I'm giving myself the hour.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Sure, sure.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

But it's because, look, emotional health in general and having the right mindset, you know, this is actually really effortful. It's so much easier to just go with the misery. You know, that's the default. That's just, let me just give in to it. Let me just, like, you know, succumb to it. It's actually really difficult to have to go, no, I know that's not the right thing to do. I know I can get myself out of this mood if I just do A, B and C. So come on, do A, B and C. You know, or when I get home and I, like tired, and then I want to be just like, I just want to veg out. No, do something. Recharging, even if it's 15 minutes, do something.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Because you know the science, you know the research.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And if I haven't experienced it yet, then I constantly come across situations in life where I work with someone who had this three years ago, and I remember exactly what I said to them. Don't be a hypocrite.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

So that's my take is taking away with this stuff.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah, that's hilarious. I have a practical question for you. Around relationships. Is it bad for a couple to argue over text or email versus arguing or communicating in person?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

There are some couples who are very explosive, number one and two, who miscommunicate or mishear. Usually those things go together and they're.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Just not very productive when they speak in person.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

When they do it in person, it escalates really, really quickly. Or like, wait, did you say this? No, I didn't say that. Yes, you did. It's that kind of stuff. You know, people, when they come to couples therapy, it's remarkable to have two people in the same room. We had an argument last night. One person says, One story, the other person's telling you a different story. Now, it's not different perspectives. They truly misremember. One of them does, or both of them do what was said. You know, so for some people, when you're doing it over text or over email, two things happen. Number one, you have to compose the text or the email. So that is immediately bringing you down from the kind of amygdala activation kind of thing into a little more of a calmer mindset, because you have to sit and write it. You can, and it gives you the opportunity to read what you're hopefully writing and to amend it. And it's a written record, so you can't say you didn't say that. Yes, I did say that. Well, now we kind of know who said what. What a lot of people do today, by the way, is they'll put it into an AI and say, was this as hostile as I think, or do they really mean this? Really? Yeah. People said to me all the time, I put all the text into AI and they. And AI thought I was right, that that's a hostile thing. And I'm like, if you tell AI, like, is there hostility here? AI will say to you, yeah, yeah, I'll find it, sure. But that doesn't mean there necessarily was anyway. But, you know, I mean, by the time we, you know, this comes out, AI will have developed and we never know. But, but, but the point is, like, for some people, it's more effective actually to do it. And I know people who naturally do that. They literally will sit in a different room and they'll be arguing like crazy over text. And a. It can be useful because the kids are like, my parents never argue because they're doing it over text.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Wow.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

You know, interesting.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

But you could also be explosive and mean over text as well. But then you have a record of what you said and you're like, oh, it does.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It does. I'm a jerk. I'm the jerk.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Look at that.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah, yeah, kind of.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

You can't delete that.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

No, that's right. And it does kind of prevent you from, like, I can't just say I said it out of anger because I wrote it and then I pressed send. So it's not.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Still do that.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, a lot of people say, like, oh, if I could have taken the words back when they came out of my mouth. You can. You just don't present. Exactly.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

But you mentioned AI is AI. Do you think AI is helpful or hurtful in intimate relationships? The use of AI people using AI in some certain ways or just AI in general, reviewing text messages and conversations, asking AI for help from romantic stuff, like, is this helpful or hurtful?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Look, I don't know what you hear. I hear a lot of different things. I rarely hear. I asked AI to find the most romantic date I can for my partner. I told AI everything about my partner and asked, what can I do to delight them for their birthday or for anniversary or for Valentine's Day? Like, I. I'm sure some people use it for that, which would be terrific. But most people are litigating on AI.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Really?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

That. Oh, yeah, the litigating, you know, like, they're putting in all of this, like, who's right, who's wrong? Aren't they terrible? Are they not? It's for that. And for a lot of people who are not in the relationship but want to be in the relationship, it's, well, do they love me? Do they really care? Oh, yeah, here's the texts. And, you know, like, but are they into me then or are they not because I can't make it out. And so they're, like, asking for relationship advice. Again, AI right now is still prone to tell us what we want to hear, and we're not very shy about indicating what it is we want to hear. So it's not the most real, necessarily thing. It'll give you a nice sanitized version of what you might want to hear. But AI can be terribly useful if you're actually using it to generate ideas. Like some people will use it for, like, I need to talk to my partner about something sensitive. What's the best way to phrase that? How do I bring it up in a way that's not hurtful? Or here's what I'm thinking of saying, can that be offensive in any way? And if so, what can I do in a way that wouldn't be offensive? Yes, that's a great use.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Why is it so hard for people to start a relationship and tell the person they're into just getting started in a relationship that they're actually interested in them, that what their intentions are, that they like them, that they want to create more with them? Why is that hard for so many people to just say how they feel about the person they're starting to date or see, instead of questioning, does this person like me? Or should I say this now? Why is that so hard for people?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And look, it's tricky because there's some people that if you say to them, hey, I like you, they will. For some people, it will make them like you less. Because if they have any kind of self esteem issues, then you saying you like them and you don't know about their self esteem issues at the beginning. You saying you like them makes them have an unconscious reactions to. Well, really already, I don't know what's wrong with them. You know, like something, maybe they're not the right person. Then perhaps. Do you think those things work out like wounded.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Do you want that relationship?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

True. But. But they still think that, you know, they want that. It makes you emotionally vulnerable, you know, for sure. Because now you're saying like. And, and my issue with it is that if you're starting to date someone and you like them, you really have to acknowledge that you don't know them well.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Of course.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

At all. So saying I like you without qualifying it.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

True.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Saying like, hey, I'm really just getting to know you, but so I like spending time with you. So far. Oh, I've enjoyed our first few dates.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So far.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah. I know nothing about you. Yeah. Except for three days of hanging out.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

But I think it's fair to say, you know, I still don't know you, but so far I like it. You know, like that seems more, you know, balanced.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes. Than I love you. You're amazing. Or yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

But here's another issue that I come across. People because of social media today are learning incorrectly a lot of issues about dating. So somebody showed me a text that they sent someone that their friend said, so this person had a date with someone. It was two dates. And after that second date, they said, hey, I really enjoyed the date. I really like you. And then that person took a other person took a step back. And when they. But they took a step back now, they pursued and they did get to see that person again. So they asked them at some point, why did you take a step back? And that person said, because I showed the text to my friends and they all were like, oh my God, they're love bombing you.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Red flag.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

They're love bombing.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Wow.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I liked you. I enjoyed our dates. I really hope we can get to see each other again. Was considered love bombing, which does seem.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

I get it all.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It's not remotely but like they learned the term on social media so they misapplied it. And then now that's a warning sign. So people are also misinterpreting.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Man, that's crazy. What do you want them to say? Just nothing. No engagement. Or just say, see you next time. What are you supposed to say?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Hey, I had a fun time. When can I see you? Again.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah, that's it. You can't say I like you.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

You can, but. But this is when you get a weird reaction to that. Understand it's not you. It is not you.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Should people be asking their friends about everything the person did or didn't do after the dates and asking them to interpret when they're actually not love experts?

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[Dr. Guy Winch]

AT&T business Wireless Connecting changes everything. It's not only that they're not a love expert, they have biases.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Right. Are they happy in their relationships and they're really happy for you to have one, or are they unhappy in theirs and therefore maybe not be entirely happy for you to find love in yours? Or do they have some jealousy issues they do not really express, but they're there. Or do they are there in a miserable point, a jaded point, in their dating life or in their relationship life where they're just like thinking all relationships are like, you know, everyone has biases.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And you have to account for the biases of the people you seek counsel from at any stage when it comes to relationships because they will bring those biases to the advice.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

And when someone is getting into a relationship and let's say they have unhealed emotional wounds, they haven't faced any of their emotional wounds at all and they're getting into a relationship. What could you expect that relationship to happen once they get into it?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Based on what those wounds are, they're going to be some issues that come up because it's not going to be smooth sailing. I mean, you know, this relationships take a lot of work and they take a lot of honesty and they. And first of all with yourself and they take a lot of mutual guidance. Right. You're building something together. If you have certain emotional wounds, then you are not building something necessarily in the Right direction or correctly or what you think is correct might not be, or what you saw at home from your own childhood, from your own experiences might not be a great model. And so like, it'll tilt things in a certain way. Now, it's never too late to get a handle on those. It's never too late to understand what your emotional wounds are and how they might be impacting your relationship and your feelings about the other person, you know, and what you tend to assume like, oh, this, this is my love language. A lot of people, you know, love language is like, you know, just avoid my wounds. And that's not a love language.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

That's, you know, that's don't do anything to annoy me. Yeah, that's not a love language. If two people get into a relationship who have unresolved wounds or traumas and you could have give them a game plan on how to have a healthy long term relationship, what would be the actions they would both need to take to start healing those wounds, assessing them, integrating the healing journey, what would that look like? Because most people come into a relationship wounded, we probably all have certain wounds. Even if you've done some work on yourself, you probably still have something lingering or something comes to the surface eventually again. So what would be a good game plan together?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

If. If. And I say if because I don't. A lot of couples who do this, if they could start by acknowledging to themselves and to one another, acknowledging overtly, hey, I have not been great in relationships in the past. I have some stuff, you have some stuff, we both have some stuff. But there's potential here. Let's start with that acknowledgement that we have some stuff that might impact us along the way. And let's keep an ongoing dialogue about how things are going, what feels good, what doesn't, where our stuff might be rearing its head and what we can do about it. Let's keep a spotlight on that. Not every second because that's exhausting, but like, let's intermittently do check ins, let's intermittent and let's be open to that kind of feedback. Not that you're bad, I'm bad, you did something wrong, I did something wrong, this is our stuff manifesting. You could just use this neutral term of this is our stuff, these are our wounds manifesting. How do we manage them in this context?

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

That's a good idea. I think acknowledging from the beginning. I think I told you this last interview that when I started dating Martha, I said I want to commit to therapy in the beginning of our Relationship where I can personally grow, you can personally grow, and we can grow together with whatever stuff we have going on.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

And try to create more alignment, more agreements from the start, rather than a year or two in frustration comes about now. We have to kind of resolve something together and create agreements later. Let's start with it now. For me, that was the best thing that I probably ever done in the relationship. Just by it just made us appreciate one another also of like, hey, we're in this together. We both got to figure stuff out, and we got to figure it out together. That has been really supportive of our relationship. And again, it doesn't make anything perfect or whatever, but it makes it smoother.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Right.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

And it makes the challenging times easier to manage.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Right. And when something comes up, you don't have to start with this whole preamble about, look, there's something I need to bring up. It's just like, there's an openness to it.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Absolutely. Yeah. How can time travel reignite love or passion in a relationship?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So a lot of times people will say to me, like, we've been together for a while. It's not that the passion is gone, but it's like we're both a little fatigued with a relationship with each other. And sometimes an exercise that I suggest to couples, which is a difficult one, it's a production lift, but if you can do it, it's remarkably effective. And that is like reenact, not just necessarily your first date, but one of the earlier dates you had in which you realized you were starting to have feelings for one another. And by reenact, I mean reenact. Go back to the bar or to the club. Find the same kind of clothes that you wore. You know, go to and if the restaurant doesn't exist, find a similar one. Like, literally try and set that it was Christmas and they were this and they were there. Go to the place, do the thing, like, and do this long setup of when you're in the moment of, you know, because you're coming to, you know, to a date. So, you know, start separately, try and get into the mindset of how you felt at the time. Like, wow, I. You know, this is a fourth date or our tenth date, and I kind of really like her, but da da, da, da. Or I really liked him, but da da da. And then try and get it. And then literally go through that date really, again, it really helps you kind of remember how exciting it was at the beginning, how, you know, how, like, this. This new love that was starting to kind of, you know, appear and start, you know, the infatuation that was starting to kind of. Those are the really fun moments of dating, right? The initial infatuation. And you want to make them linger and they don't linger that long, but you want to try and make them do that, but try and recapture that uncertainty of it. You didn't know that you're going to end up together. You didn't know that it's all going to work out. So have the uncertainty. I don't know. I mean, I really hope this is the one, but I don't know. And then try and go through that first magical moment. And in prepping for it, it might take a lot of prep based on where it was, who it was, who was there, but couples were able to do it, were able to really kind of take it on as a fun project. And even in prepping for it, they were starting to get into the mindset.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Interesting. What have you seen by people who have recreated their kind of first date moment?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

With some couples, it's interesting because they had to go back, let's say 20 years in fashion.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So they had to go to like vintage stores to kind of find the thing, you know.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

It's like an adventure though, right? It's like a.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It was an adventure. But some of them chose to keep that clothing and to wear the clothing every once in a while because it reminded them or to bring souvenirs back that they didn't think to take at the time or to have reminders around to kind of remind them of that exciting kind of time.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

In terms of the emotional first aid strategies, what would you say is the most effective science backed tool that you've either developed or learned that can help people reclaim, I guess, autonomy over their thoughts and emotions that are keeping them stuck in life in general.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So to me, when people are stuck in life, it's because they're dealing with some kind of sense of failure. They're feeling unsuccessful in some kind of way. Something's not working and they have some kind of story about it. And that story is what's getting them stuck really. Because the story is like, I can't do this or this doesn't work out for me, or if it's the workplace, well, the boss doesn't like me, so I can't get ahead. You know, there's some kind of story and they're stuck in the wound of it. They're stuck in the feeling mad of it. Now, I believe, and this might seem very mechanistic and cold in some way. But I believe that in like limits to how long you get to feel bad about certain things in life, like failures or like unsuccesses. And based on the level of that, give yourself an hour if it's small, a day if it's bigger, a week if it's very big. But beyond that, if you're just feeling bad or demoralized or helpless, you're not getting anywhere. So I believe, and I do that with myself. It's one of the annoying things that I force myself to do, which I really.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

You're like, I can't ruminate for days, I only do an hour.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

But the point is, when it happens, I then determine how long I gave myself because otherwise I can keep stretching it. Just one more day. No, this is worthy of this much. And then after that there has to be a pivot and the pivot has to be an analysis that is self critical free. Because what really sabotages us is when we start looking at what's not working. And I'm an idiot, I'm so stupid. Why am I a loser? All that stuff, it has zero value. It's not motivating, it's not enhancing our self esteem, and it's certainly not helping our confidence. It's literally just like, oh, you know, it's choking us. So it has to be a critical free analysis. And the critical free analysis is what's not working for me. Where are the obstacles? And then you name each obstacle. For example, boss doesn't like me, so I can't get promoted. You name each obstacle and then for each one, you start brainstorming. How do you get around that obstacle? Boss doesn't like me. It's two things. How do I change to another boss or how do I get the boss to like me? Because you can change the boss's opinion. So who does the boss like? Why do they like them? Da da da da.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

What are they doing?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

You know, if, okay, the boss is like misogynist, he doesn't like me because I'm a woman, great, then I might need to change because I'm not gonna be given the same opportunity here. So then I really need to shift my strategies. But then I'm starting to think about what are my options. The minute you're starting to think how to get around an obstacle, then you're already out of paralysis. You're already not stuck, you're already not demoralized. And we all know that, yeah, failure is the best teacher, et cetera. What people get stuck is they don't know how to implement that because they start to look at the failure and that just makes them feel crappy, so they stop. As opposed to like, no, you're feeling crappy because you're beating yourself up as you're doing it. Approach it like a detective. Don't have feelings about it. Just analyze.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

I mean, it sounds like we're talking about getting self respect. How important is having self respect in all relationships? And what are the fastest ways that you see people losing their own self respect?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, one of the fastest ways people lose their self respect is by having this internal voice of a bully. I'm not saying harsh. I'm saying bully.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

They are the bully to themselves.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

They are a major bully to themselves for so many people.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

How bad is that for self respect?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, if somebody outside were, you know, if somebody else were like, constantly in your head because that bullying goes on a lot. Like, I know people who literally will call themselves loser 30 times a day. Wow. Can you imagine if you had somebody following you around in life going, loser, loser, loser, loser. You'd be like, this is torturous. But we do it to ourselves. And many people do it. Now they say to me, like, well, I'm trying to motivate myself. I'm like, are you, though? Because would that be motivating for anyone else if you did it to them? Well, no, but I'm like, there's no no, but, you know, like, well, I'm trying to be a coach. I'm like, that coach will get fired right away because a coach is trying to increase the confidence of their players. Set a high expectation, tell them they can do it, not tell them they can't. You know, if you're like, oh, nothing works for me. You know, like, I just. Things never break my way. Those kinds of thoughts, then things never break your way. What's the point of trying?

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

It almost sounds like what we say to ourselves and how we say it to ourselves is one of the most important things we'll ever do.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It is the most important thing, really. Because, look, I'm all for, hold yourself responsible, hold yourself accountable. Set a high bar, set a high expectation, but do not bully yourself. Do not chastise yourself. Do not name, call yourself. Do not focus on. I know so many people who walk around going, well, I'm ugly. And I'm like, how is that possibly useful to you? And I don't care what you look like. You should never be saying I'm ugly. Find something you like about yourself and go, I have beautiful eyes. The rest is not great.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

What have you seen psychologically? When someone says, I have negative self talk all day long, or I say I'm ugly or I'm whatever, not attractive, or I'm a dummy, I'm a loser, Whatever these are. How badly does that hurt someone emotionally when they speak poorly to themselves? Like, what is the science or the research or the stats around that? Do we have any of that?

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[Host (Lewis Howes)]

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[Dr. Guy Winch]

Choose to show up.

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[Dr. Guy Winch]

It's abusive.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Really.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It's the same. I mean, it's even worse than when somebody does it to you externally. Because when somebody does it to you externally, you can go like, you know what? Screw them. But when you're doing it to yourself, you don't go, well, screw me. Right? And so it's really toxic. It's absolutely damaging, and it's chronic for lots of people. And they come up with justifications about why that's a useful thing or why they deserve it. Oh, but I deserve it. Like, do you know, because you're that terrible a person and. Well, I am terrible. Again, you have to drill down to, like, what makes you so terrible, other than the fact that you're suffering, other than the fact that you're really wounded, other than the fact that you're really hurt. Whose voice have you internalized that treated you this badly that you're continuing their work for them? Wow. Like, it's terrible. It's absolutely terrible. And that's something that. And it's a difficult habit to change because it's habitual. And it's a running commentary, a running commentary of your entire life. But you have to get annoyed at it. You have to see it as abusive. You have to see it as some kind of part of you that's bullying yourself. You have to give it a face, you have to give it a name. You have to give it something that causes you. And you have to develop an antipathy for it. You have to develop a disdain for it, but you have to develop an anger toward it.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

But it's still part of You. So you're putting an anger towards a part of you that's been doing this thing, Right.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Is it a part of you? It's something you've internalized. It's something that you've developed. But is cancer a part of you?

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Maybe it's not holistically a part of you. It's attached to you.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It came from you. It's in you, but it's not a part of you. It's a part that should be.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

It's not the healed version of you.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It's a part that should be removed.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I think of it as a cancer. It's something you should remove.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Interesting. And when we can start to do that with that voice in our head that's putting us down, so many things unlock afterwards, right? What is possible for people when they stop allowing the negative voice to take over their mind and their life, and they remove it from themselves, and they start using a more empowering voice. What happens for them after that?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So if you've tied your legs together, right? When the sack races, we used to do as kids, if you're in a sack and you're trying to move through life, you're not gonna get very far. But when you step out of that. And again, stepping out of a sack is a much easier proposition than what we're talking about. But when you free yourself up from those shackles, from that abuse, then people are stunned because suddenly there are possibilities. Suddenly it's almost like a little scary because, oh, I don't have excuses right now. I don't. Because sometimes it's excuses. It's like, oh, I'm terrible. I'll never. Because now I don't have to try. I don't have to fail. I don't have to be disappointed. But you're miserable. So what's worse? Not trying. You know what I mean? But suddenly there's a freedom. There's an anxiety that comes with that freedom, but there's a sense of freedom there. There's a sense of relief that comes when you really start to, like, develop. And by the way, when you develop. When I'm saying develop an intolerance for it, that is a lot of mental discipline. That mental discipline. You are literally doing cognitive retraining. You are trained. That's like, you know, if you want to build a muscle in the gym, you got to go to the gym every day. You got to go a lot, and you got to work out a lot.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

This is 24 7.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

This is 247 being on God. And you'll Miss it at first and it'll be there at first, but just as soon as you catch it. Like, no, that's not true. That's not a voice I want in my head. It is not useful for me. It is damaging. It is abusive. I don't want to live with a bully. Why am I living with a bully?

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yeah. And I have compassion for people that maybe had their parents were bullying them or they lived with siblings that bullied them and it became part of their narrative. So it's very hard to unwire, I guess, that narrative, especially if you didn't have the tools or the training or the support when you were younger. So you may be in your 20s or 30s or 40s and still living with that because you never had the.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Tools, 50s and 60s. But look, I sometimes say to them, imagine someone you love and imagine you saying that to them all the time. You'd be horrified. You would feel so cruel. That's what you're doing.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Sad. How can someone not beat themselves up for doing it to themselves for decades if they're hearing this for the first time and they know that they say nasty things to themselves, they know that they say, I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm a loser, I'll never amount to anything, whatever it is that's in their mind. And they've been the bullying themselves forever. How can they not beat themselves up even more and say, look at the way the life that I wasted because I did this to myself for decades. How can they let it go and not look?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

You don't get to beat yourself up for doing something for decades if you're still doing it first, stop. And that's not an easy thing. And that'll take you a while to get there. And then hopefully you were successful. We can talk about, oh, that's a shame that I kept doing that for a long time. But if you immediately go to, no, you're right. I'm such an idiot for doing that to myself. You're still doing it. You just found a different angle.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Man. That's probably one of the hardest things for people to do for me. It took me a long time. It's extremely difficult because most of my school days, I just had confirmation of why I was so stupid. Because I would get bad test results and people would make fun of me, and I was just like, I'm an idiot. I'm stupid. And that was the narrative that I would say, right? And it took me years to try to give myself a little more grace and say, no, maybe I'm not good there, but I'm good over here. Let me focus on the good over here and keep compounding that good and find other things that I can improve on and see the growth that I've had. Maybe I'm not where I want to be, but I'm not where I once was. And it's focusing on the improvement, the growth where I am improving, things like that. It took me years.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Look, I'm a relatively intelligent person, and there are things that I am really stupid at. There are very simple things that I will get wrong all the time that are so ridiculous. My family even, like, they just wait for me to do them because they just stand there and start laughing like, oh, my God, you can't do that.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

How are you this smart over here? But over here you're not.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Right? There's, you know, very few people are smart everywhere.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes, Right.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

There's emotional intelligence. There's regular intelligence. There's practical intelligence. You know, like how you manipulate objects in the world, intelligence. So we all have our areas where we're not that strong and our areas that we're strong so we can all find the thing we're not great at or that we're quote unquote and obsess over it. But it doesn't mean we're stupid. That's a generalization. It just means that I'm not great at school. You weren't great at many of the things you are great at, but again, it took you a while to find that balance and to realize the fact that I wasn't great at school doesn't mean that I'm stupid because I'm very good at some other things. And it's true of everyone. We can all find the thing that makes us feel stupid, but we can probably find lots of other things that do not.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Yes.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And so don't generalize and give yourself a label because of the one or two things.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

And just because you're not good at one thing doesn't mean you're a failure in life. And you can just acknowledge, oh, I'm not that good at that. And that's okay.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Right? I'm gonna find the things you are. Emphasize those.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

I don't have to feel bad just because someone else is better than me at something and. And I'm not that good at it yet. You know, it's just like, you don't have to make that your identity. Also. Mind over grind. How to break free when work hijacks your life. I feel like the next four years, as we get into 2030, there is going to be a lot of challenge and stress that could potentially come people's way if they're not prepared for it. I don't want to put this on everyone and say that it's going to happen, but I feel like if people are not emotionally and mentally preparing the way you teach about in this book, the way that you've shared in this interview, and they just keep grinding through life, they just keep just kind of one step in front of the other and I'm just going to grind at work and grind at home, just get through it. Eventually they're going to collapse if they don't learn these strategies now to be able to apply them now. When there are pressure filled moments in life, when pressure comes at them, whether it's work or the environment, or whether it's the economy or whatever, health challenges and family. Like when that pressure squeezes you, if you're not emotionally and mentally prepared to take that pressure, it might break you, it might snap you and it might crumble your relationships, everything. And so I really hope people get this book and I hope they rewatch and re listen to this episode and use some of these tools now. Because when 2020 hit, it broke a lot of people. And I just have a sense that in the next four years there's going to be something we don't know what it is economically, work related, AI, who knows? And I want people to be prepared. And the best way you compare is within your own mind and your emotions and something we've talked about many times in the show, something you've talked about in this book. So I want people to get this book, check it out, it's called Mind Over Grind. And I want to acknowledge you, Guy, for constantly showing up and trying to serve people the best way you can. Because you have been doing this for four decades. You've gone through your own emotional mental challenges in your own childhood, in your life. And you use that pain as part of your purpose to serve people, to give people tools. So hopefully they don't have to go through what you've been through and other people have been through as well. So I want to acknowledge you for your constant devotion to serving people's minds and emotions to feel more joy, love and peace in life. I've asked you these last couple questions before, but I'm going to see where you're at right now before I ask them. People can follow you on Instagram, Guy Winch. They can also go get the book and your website. I believe it's guywinch.com is your website. Yeah. They can go anywhere and get the book Mind Over Grind. Check out your other books as well, which I loved. How to Heal a Broken Heart and Emotional First Aid. Is that the other the title? Yeah. Some great strategies in both of those. But this one is called the Three Truths, which you've answered before, but I'm curious with the wisdom you have now, because your last day, many years away from now, and you could only leave three lessons behind to the world, what would those three truths be for you?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So I think the number one, and it's going to be a different answer than what I said before. But the number one thing this is, I guess, from learning from writing this book, is that we cannot control most of what happens around us. But we can control this. We can control not just how we respond, because that's the thing. Yeah, we can control how you respond, but you can control how you think more than we actually allow ourselves to do. So it's not just how we respond, but how you think. That would be the first one. The second one would be that we really have to look at what our thoughts are dictating in terms of our reality, because our thoughts create perception, our thoughts create stress, our thoughts create. So our thoughts are actually dictating our reality and we have control over them. Not entirely, obviously, but we do. And most people are like, well, I can't control what I'm thinking. You can. And sometimes you can argue about the thoughts that you don't like. For example, we spoke about this idea of the inner critical voice. It's going to appear, but you can argue with it, you can silence it, you can shush it when it shush you. Yeah, when it shows up. So we are more empowered than we think. And the third, which is going to be super trite in a way, but the older you get, the more you see it is that what matters in life are two things. Your relationships and your experiences. And your accomplishments themselves matter less than the experiences they afforded you. Your success. You can make a lot of money, but unless that allowed you to have certain experiences or to cherish and cultivate certain relationships, it's not what you'll remember, you know, on your deathbed kind of thing. So relationships and experiences are where it's at. And relationships and experiences don't depend on success.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

That's true.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And anyone can have them if you prioritize them and realize that's what it's about.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

It's beautiful. And final question, your definition of greatness.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

My definition of greatness is, and this might be similar to what I said last time is constantly learning about you, about the world. It's a constant curve of self improvement. It's a constant curiosity of what do I keep working on, what do I keep improving, what do I keep learning? What new thing is there for me around the corner? That desire to want to get better, to want to perfect, to want to make things. And again, it's a shifting target because life throws all kinds of stuff at you, so you might have to pivot and suddenly work on this rather than that. But whatever the challenges are, to want to master them, to want to master yourself and your responses to them, to want to improve and become the best version of you that you can be, that's greatness.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Appreciate it. Thanks for being here.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Thank you for having me.

[Host (Lewis Howes)]

Amazing. I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy and if you are looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life. But you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to make moneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment. Moving forward. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening. Then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really like love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

[Amazon One Medical Announcer]

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[OnDeck Announcer]

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