How to Know They'll Cheat on You - Cheating Expert Reveals Warning Signs!

Neil Strauss
The reason I'm such an expert on cheating is because, well, I cheated, got caught. And I remember talking to Rick Rubin. He's in the books as not. He's the producer. He's like, you did all this for, like, sex.

That wasn't that good anyway. Right, right, right. You know, that wasn't even a great experience. And, like, it wasn't worth it. Yeah.

And so what's wrong with you? And it took a long time with talking to him to recognize something was broken in me. Our next guest is became the world's greatest pickup artist, former New York Times. Rock critic Neil Strauss, one of the. Most renowned and respected pickup artists in the world.

Lewis Howes
Please say hello to Neil Strauss. Please welcome Neil Strauss. Well, you know why you've never been in a relationship? You know why? And she does?

Neil Strauss
Well, because your mom wants to be in a relationship with you. And then, like, as soon as she said it, wow. Like, logically made no sense. My whole body felt the truth of it. Felt it.

Like, it's just. I'll never, I'll literally never. That moment, like exact moment changed my life. When people lie, they think they're protecting the person or something, but they're not. They protect themselves from feeling uncomfortable emotions from that person.

Right. They're like, I can't deal with your emotions, so I'm not gonna tell you what I'm doing in case you have an emotion that I'm uncomfortable with. Wow. Do you have any signs that you can see if someone potentially would be a cheater that you're getting into a relationship with? Totally.

I mean, yes, totally. Wow. Here's a great hack that I haven't heard other people talk about, but it's also affordable, powerful. It will change your life.

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Again, head to Netsuite.com greatness. Welcome back, everyone, to the school of greatness. Very excited about our guests. We have the inspiring Neil Strauss in the house. My man.

Lewis Howes
So good to see you. Good to see you again. I think we met originally about 1314 years ago, and one of the first interactions I had with you was at your house. You were doing an interview show with a number of porn stars. And since I've met you over the last 1314 years, we've had a number of interactions.

You worked on so many high level books, projects, podcasts. You were originally famous, I think, for writing the game. Then you wrote the truth. You now got a podcast that's about russian spies on how women can manipulate men and persuade them to falling in love with them. You've had these wide range of topics and conversations that you've dived into for 2030 years.

And I'm fascinated with your idea on relationships because really, you're a person who understands relationships from all the journalism that you've done, the interviews, the books, the conversations. And the first thing I want to talk about is, again, you went from the game to the truth. One was black, one was white. And I want to talk about cheating first because I think cheating is a hot topic right now in relationships, but also just hookup culture. I think people are in this world of hookup culture with social media.

And I'm curious, do you think someone can be in a monogamous, long term relationship after they've cheated, first off? And also, from all the interviews you've done, do you have any signs that you can see if someone potentially would be a cheater that you're getting into a relationship with? Totally. I mean, yes, totally. So that they're absolutely.

Neil Strauss
They're absolutely signs. Before you say that, by the way, it's just so great seeing you, because when we met all those years ago, I remember you were sort of looking for your place. I remember you were sort of like, okay, I want to transition from sports to sort of, like, doing something that helps other people. And I remember sitting on my couch and talking about that and really seeing, like, how much I really had this great feeling. Like, I knew, like, this is gonna work out for him because you just have this quality.

Besides, greatness is, like, likability. You're a very likable guy, and you communicate yourself with so much heart. I'm like, oh, that's. He's like, gonna be great. And so it's been so fun to watch your career and check in over the years.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. So back to the question. There were two questions.

The first one was, can a relationship recover after cheating? And the second one is, what are signs to spot someone who would cheat? So the first answer is, a relationship can absolutely recover out of cheating, but not by someone promising not to cheat again. Really? Right.

Because what happens is there's a cycle that happens, which is someone.

They get caught. They're not guilty about it until they get caught, usually, right? There's a pain, there's a wound, there's a trauma afterwards. Right. From the other person.

And then the relationship they currently have is then threatened. They go get fearful and desperate of abandonment, and they promise anything to get that safety and security again. Interesting. Once they get the safety and security again, they then rebel against it and cheat again. Really?

Yeah. That's the pattern. Right. How many people would you say, cheat one time in a relationship repair and then cheat again? What do you think that percentage is?

I guess I couldn't tell you the percentage, but they're saying, for me, once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. However, being somebody like the short version of the answer is, you can if you actually do the work to change. Right. So in other words, if someone says, I cheated, that's I really need to look at myself and why I would do that to somebody I supposedly do love and care about and like, you know, in a relationship with or married to or live with or have children with, and I'm really gonna do the work on myself.

And to really understand, first of all, they have to own it entirely, 100%. One important message about cheating is that it's so hard when you're cheating on to think, what did I do? Or what did I do wrong? Or it's my fault, or you have nothing to do with it. There's nothing that is your fault that makes someone else act outside of their integrity.

So we'll talk about the cheating later. But they have to do the work, which is, why do they do it? What was going on? What was the wound? And then actually do the real work to repair that wound and become whole again and then relationship as possible.

Flipside of that. So a partner, tell me this is too much because it's such a broad topic. I love it.

So the cheater can repair and can really repair, but the relationship can still not work out. And this is because the person who was cheated on can experience, does experience what's called betrayal. Trauma. It literally is a trauma. Being cheated on is a trauma and betrayal.

And sadly, even though you're the victim in the situation, it's a trauma, one that it's important to heal from. So a lot of times, how do you have forgiveness? How do you have trust? Again, you can't repair a relationship unless that trust is restored gradually over time. Now, you've had many, I mean, open conversations in your books and on interviews, you know, from the game to the truth.

Lewis Howes
And the truth. You talked about how you were in an open relationships. I think you lived in a house at one point, like, everyone in a relationship with everyone type of thing. Yeah. And you were at that house.

Neil Strauss
It was that same house, whereas everyone, it was like a bunch of people. Lived together and just had open love, essentially. And because I think at one point, you said, this is the way. And then you flipped it to, no. Monogamy and intimacy with one person and commitment.

Lewis Howes
That's the way. And then, you know, it's kind of gone back and forth. Where are you now in terms of relationships, of what is a healthy, loving way to be in the best relationship possible? Yeah, I mean, I think to back it up, I really, when I started writing the book, the truth. I think it's interesting for me.

Neil Strauss
I start writing a book with a question, and the book tells me the answer, right. Not saying because I started or I really thought started writing the book, thinking monogamy isn't natural. Monogamy doesn't work. It's just there are all kinds of evolutionary reasons why that support this. But what I've actually found out, and I think this is 100% true of just about everybody, is that if you are not healthy in one kind of relationship, you won't be healthy in the other kind of relationship.

So I found there's so many couples in, or throuples or whatever you want to call them, in open relationships and polyamorous relationships that still cheat. Really? And I found it happen so often, but cheating might be like, okay, you can, there's some. Just small rules, like, just be protected. Right.

And then not get carried away, you know, or don't do that or this or that, or being honest. So I found that the amount of cheating happens the same almost in all relationships across the board. Yeah. Even in open relationships, people still cheat. Yeah, there's still cheating or betrayal or this.

And again, there are some that are amazingly healthy and great ones I've seen, but. And just like, they're healthy, monogamous relationships. But that said, I believe if you're not healthy in one kind of relationship, you won't be healthy in another kind of relationship. What I found was separate from monogamy, polyamory, you know, ethical, non monogamy, all those things, and just, like, get healthy and secure in yourself, and any kind of relationship will work. Wow.

That said, to have a healthy, like, non monogamous relationship, it takes a lot more work on yourself in terms of communication and emotional maturity and all those sorts of things. Do you know anyone in a 2030 year plus open relationship that have been together themselves, but are in an open relationship, that have a thriving relationship, healthy, conscious relationship together, lots of love, lots of trust, have kids, and have raised healthy, conscious kids as well. Have you seen that? I have seen it. Really?

Yeah, I have seen it. And I think just. I think, in a sense, I think that. Let me start with this. There's actually a study on polyamorous families that showed.

And again, I guess studies can show anything. Right? Right, exactly. I think there's even a study on studies that shows it just confirms the bias that the researcher had at the beginning, especially in psychological studies. But that said that children born in healthy poly families grew up healthier because I think it actually makes sense if you have more loving caregivers, like, how great is that?

Instead mom and dad. Wow, that's interesting. But the answer is the unhealthy version of an open relationship is when one partner wants to explore other partners. The other partner doesn't, but they don't want to lose that partner. So they're like, reluctantly accept it.

That's the unhealthy version. But they don't really want it. But they accept it because they don't want to lose something. Yes. So they just go along with it even though it's against the way they feel.

Lewis Howes
Is that a lack of self worth or a lack of creating boundaries in that person? I think it comes from both sides. I think one side has a narcissism. Right. It's the balance.

Neil Strauss
One side is narcissism and the other side has the opposite insecurity. And together that's how that dynamic works. So I think it's sort of on both sides versus a healthy one is, if you think about it this way, there's three entities in a relation, which is the person, one partner, the other partner, and then the relationship itself. Or if there's more partners, you can do it, but the relationship itself. And if you say, if you're going to choose to explore, I really think that a lot of couples want to explore.

There's just fears attached to that, even just for a night or a weekend. But there's fears attached to that. So I think we should remove those definitions and I'll talk about that in a second. I think everything you do should be healthy for all three entities. So in other words, we're in a relationship.

But, like, I feel trapped, so I want to just go have another experience with someone else. But. And you're going to let me, even though it hurts you? Well, that's not good for you or the relationship. So if you think about what can be good for all three and if it's a yes or a green light, then go.

Lewis Howes
Right, but it's got to be healthy for all three, right? Exactly. If it's not, then you're fracturing a part of the relationship. Yeah. You're fracturing yourself or you're fracturing a relationship or the person you're with.

So it's choosing out of a place of conscious integrity that is best for all three, I guess. Well said. That's good. But if one is against it, then you can't really choose that then. Right.

Neil Strauss
Right. And you have to either accept that or not be in the relationship, I guess. Right. And the other key is a lot of people want to explore outside because they're lacking something in their relationship. And, like, the smartest kind of polyamorous sort of experts that I spoke to said, and I think this is so true, your partner has to have an abundance of you before you to start with.

And then they're on that secure platform. But if you're like, this is starting not to work, maybe we should try some other things. Like, that's gonna go downhill quickly. So why do you think? Cause not all monogamous relationships work out, right.

Lewis Howes
People are not happy after 2030 years, but they're monogamous, I guess. What do you think of the keys of a happy, healthy, monogamous relationship? Yeah. What are each partner doing for themselves and for the relationship? As a note, I think it's the same for all relationships and the way I think about it, because it's funny when you ask the question when you're monogamous, and I think that a relationship should be a constant discussion and it can evolve.

Neil Strauss
Like, imagine you're just working a job and you're like, this job is never going to change. Don't even discuss it changing. This is your job forever. But people grow and people change, and you can have discussions. You know, as an example, when I had that serious radio show, the engineer, I think it was okay to share.

His wife was going through menopause for several years. She said, you know what? I feel bad for you. Like, I don't want to be touched. I want to think physical.

You should go have some experiences and get that need met. And then she thought that was healthy for him. It was good for her because she wants him to be happy and it was good for the relationship. Interesting. So these things can change.

So I think I like the idea of a relationship is just, I love you and I'm committed to you, and let's just see what's the most, what grows from there, and it's the most exciting for us. Yeah. I think each individual focusing on their own happiness and the happiness of their partner and saying, how can we both be happy together? I think that's really key at the. End of the day.

Yeah, yeah. When do you feel like has been the most insecure time of your adult life and the most secure time of your adult life in a relationship and out of a relationship? Can you think about those times? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think that.

I think the most insecure time, the relation. Then again, I'm just being super. I don't think I would talk. I don't think I really talked about this, but I think the most insecure time is probably right after my wife at the time had our first child. And I think I wasn't ready.

I was really ready to be a good parent. All the stuff we know about trauma, healing them like I can, this is the chance to right to the wrongs of the previous generations before us and live. What I talk about, but when I wasn't ready for was how that affected our relationship, really. And so I'd say the most insecure time was when all of a sudden, all of a sudden, for the next couple years, any need. I'd say in my case, it was sort of.

It was all very overwhelming for her, combined with postpartum and the things that are going on with that, that just got sort of completely disconnected. And the relationship or yourself? The relationship. To the degree that I remember. I was doing my podcast about, with the missing persons case.

Lewis Howes
To live and die in LA. Yeah, incredible podcast. I was getting a death threat from someone, and I was trying to tell her about it, and she's like, listen, I have no time for you, but I'm getting. Someone's trying to kill me. She's like, just enough.

Neil Strauss
What I'm like, and because I'm recording everything. This is a podcast. I literally have it on the tape. I didn't put it on the podcast, but I was like, man. I'm like, but by the way, I think it's important to say that she was just overwhelmed in that capacity.

It's not like she was just at capacity. And I think the toughest time for me then was having no space. And so I'm having no space. No space. So I think it's tough, and I think it was something I wish, hopefully for those of you who have children on the way or first or sometime in the future can prepare you for.

It is like, is that. It's a really. It's really hard on the other part. It's hard on both partners, you know, like, it's imagine going through. You're going through postpartum, like your identity's changing, your husband's told doing exactly what he did before, and somehow it just feels.

Even though. Even though you can split the time exactly equally, I just think for the person who carried the baby, it feels like her responsibility. It's such a. I feel like I'd love to see a book I can suggest someone write it for. That's not about parenting, but about relationshiping after having kids.

So that was the most insecure time interesting. When's been the most secure time for you in your adult life? Yeah, the most secure time, same relationship right before the child. Really? Yeah, really.

And this speaks to exactly your first question, by the way. Thank you. I love this conversation because it's like these are things I think about all the time. So it's so interesting to talk about is that the reason I'm such an expert on cheating is because, well, I cheated, got caught, did, went to not just to rehab but really just made it a mission. I'm like whether this relationship works out or not because of what I did I want to be a better person who lives inside my own values system and why would I hurt somebody who I love, who I care about, who I want to get married?

We weren't married at the time and just really it took like a long time but healed so much. We can talk about the steps I. Did or the things I did. Helpful. How long were you in the relationship for?

Lewis Howes
Committed. And again, when was the first time you cheated? Within the relationship? I guess. How long after you were committed?

Neil Strauss
Yeah, we were probably, I want to say it was maybe about like a couple years and then maybe like nine months in or something like that. And it was like I remember talking to. And it's in the books, it's not to like my kind of friend, mentor to Rick. To Rick Rhyme. And he's in the books, it's not.

He's the producer. In the truth. Yeah. In the truth. Yeah.

So he's like, you did all this for like sex. That wasn't that good anyway. Right, right. You know, that wasn't even a great experience and like it wasn't worth it. Yeah.

And so what's wrong with you? And it took a long time talking to him to sort of recognized something was broken in me. What do you think of the main reasons a guy or a girl might cheat? Just to finish the second part of the question. So after I did all the work on myself and this speaks to like the monogamy and I got back in the relationship.

Lewis Howes
So you went to rehab. Yeah. And to kind of heal the wounds or the root cause of why you wanted to cheat or. Yeah. And I think actually rehab is not enough.

Neil Strauss
I literally think rehab should be a year long. But it's hard to sell. It's hard to sell if it's a year long but it takes a long time to rewire those patterns. It does. Built up in a brave over 1718 years of childhood and then reinforced over another ten or 20 years of adult living.

So I probably went to several rehabs. I really made it a project almost like this podcast or a book we do or something. I made it. My healing is the most important project in my life. Wow.

And so I really and tried everything till.

Lewis Howes
What did you learn in, I guess, sex rehab or what's the rehab?

Neil Strauss
Sex addiction rehab or whatever. But a lot of it to me felt like maybe it's just splitting, calling it a nicer word, but it felt like an intimacy disorder. But what I learned there, I'll tell you what I learned there, but just to finish, the point was once I was back in the relationship, like, I felt so I didn't need to look at people on. So, you know, just little things. Like, I felt so happy to be with her.

I felt so committed, same person. I just changed. And then those three things, the relationship, and she changes within that. So side note, if you want to change a relationship, something's wrong. The only thing you have control over is yourself.

If you change yourself, the whole system changes and gets better. Wow. So that's literally like all you have to do to make your relationship better is actually change yourself and stop trying to get someone else to change. Why is it so hard for people to want to look within and change the things about them that might be broken or that need improvement on? Why is it so hard for us to look in the mirror and say, I need to work on me?

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Neil Strauss
It's so easy to look. What I mean, look at all of Twitter. Is people looking what's wrong with the world and everyone else? And then would they do better in that position? Probably not.

They'd be defending their own behavior. So I think it's really hard, and I've worked really hard on it, to say I have no control over anyone else. And before I accuse anyone of anything, like, how am I contributing here? What's my part in it? What am I doing?

How am I engaging? And how am I trying to control for my own safety all these types of things. It's so hard to, I mean, grow up and have a perfect set of values that you're integrity with all the time, especially if you've got trauma wounds, psychological breaks from childhood that you never addressed. It's hard to carry those wounds into your adult life and then say, okay, here are my values. I'm going to stick to them at all times.

Lewis Howes
I'm not gonna lean into temptation. I'm not gonna sway away from my commitments. I'm gonna honor my word. It's really challenging unless you do the. Healing work, and you can't do it alone, because the hard, I think the other reason it's hard is you can't see yourself.

Neil Strauss
So there's nobody thinks they're a bad person. Nobody actually thinks they're a bad person. But some people do really, really bad things and justify it. They justify it by getting to a story of, well, they had it coming. They did this to me.

That was wrong. And who even knows that those are factual? So, like, it's important to have someone qualified see you from the outside thing and point it out. And you need to be open to it. I have a hack for that.

That's good. Cause the other problem is healing is expensive. We have this expensive, and health insurance usually doesn't cover it. It's really broken, our whole mental health model. And it takes time.

Lewis Howes
Healing doesn't happen overnight or a weekend or two weeks in rehab. It happens. You might have aha. Moments during those times, but then it takes months, if not years, to rewire your brain, to integrate the lessons, to process, to transform into a healthy version of yourself. And so here's a, like, here's a great hack that I haven't heard other people talk about, but it's also affordable, powerful.

Neil Strauss
It will change your life. That sounds like you can just clip that out for me. But here's a great hack, which is, and I did this, and it really helped a lot, which is I got a group of men in my community who were in the same place. Maybe they were just married, just had children wherever they're at. And we decided to form sort of a therapy group.

And if you get a bunch of guys together who are broken in their own ways to form a therapy group, that's not going to go well. And then we hired a therapist to. Help all of you, right? To help all of you. And so when you think about it, even going to individual therapy can be expensive for some people, but it's 5610 of you hiring one therapist.

You can all split that and afford it or pay as you want. We've been meeting every Monday night for what's now. Like, I want to say, it's eight years now. Wow. Same group of guys.

And so when I walk in and I say, hey, you know, I'm having this issue with my relationship or with work or something, I don't even have to finish the story. They're all like, Neil, that's you again. You're doing that same thing you did that time and that time. But the reason why it's powerful going back to us not being able to see ourselves is if I'm sitting with a one on one therapist or even just a friend and they have a critique or something to point out, I can just disagree. But if it's eight guys or eight people you respect, now, you're the jerk of the situation.

And all eight of them have this point. You can be like, I don't agree, but they probably got something there. Interesting. So you can do that almost every week for like eight years. Yeah.

And I literally don't make any major decisions without discussing them. Wow. Yeah. That's powerful. I really, I mean, I'm such a believer in either group therapy, one on one therapy, therapeutic experiences, week long retreats to help you kind of reset, relook at yourself, reevaluate your values, where you're at in your life, and just try to get you on track to a better version of you.

Lewis Howes
So I think it's really beautiful you're doing that. And I think in general, a lot of men don't have one friend that they can open up to and talk about their insecurities, their problems, their challenges. And it feels suffocating when you don't feel like you have the ability to just share or express your feelings. So the fact that you're creating that commitment for yourself and other men is a beautiful thing. And they'll say things that they maybe can't share with their partners or even with their best friends because there's that cone of trust in there.

Wow. Yeah, it's really, it's really, I love it. So I really recommend that. And also, there's something. Our wounds happened in relationships.

Neil Strauss
Right. The relationship with our parents. They're relational, and so we can heal them in healthy, trusting relationships as well. Interesting. So our wounds happen in relationships and the only way to heal them is through relationships, it sounds like.

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. And I was interesting. The other thing for, I think a lot of people be precious about what they do to help themselves. Like, I'll give you one caveat, but I think anything you do with that has the intention of healing you is not going to hurt.

I'll talk about a couple exceptions to that, obviously. But you know what I mean? If someone's going to say, if there's a therapy and it's, I don't know, surrounding you, anything as long as, a. Like, obviously there's. There's a, you know, that the person running it isn't toxic, dangerous, abusive.

And then b, there is a certain segment of. Just a warning. There's a certain segment of self help improvement, of course. Is there? Mind blowing.

Phenomenal, amazing. However, they also try to get their members to recruit for them. So if you're ever somebody mad for me saying this, and it's been forever doing a course, and part of the idea of improving yourself is going to get other people to join the course, get people to join courses if you want it. But if it's sort of a compulsion or part of the education, it's beware, beware, for sure. What were the three main takeaways you got from sex rehab or intimacy rehab?

Yeah, I mean, I think the big takeaway, and this actually goes back to your second question you asked. I love that we have so many. So that goes by the second question, but how can you identify a cheater ahead of time? So the big takeaway, and I'll never. The big takeaway was understanding the idea of enmeshment, which I didn't understand.

Lewis Howes
What is enmeshment? Do you know what it is? Or are you saying it's a thing? No. What is it?

Yeah. Okay. There's generally three types of parenting. There's healthy parenting, which is a parent takes care of a child's needs, and obviously a parent can take care of all the child's needs because children are so needy. And wherever they sort of miss a need, or if especially consistently miss a need, or one time dramatically miss a need, that creates the wounds that we're talking about as trauma, then we all know about abandonment, which is parents we actually don't know as much about.

Neil Strauss
I think people think abandonment is a parent physically not being there, but animal can also be a parent emotionally not being there. Right. A parent can literally be present all the time and just emotionally checked out, and that creates the same kind of abandonment. Abandonment can also be. By the way, if you're really young and a parent passes away, that has nothing to do with you.

But when you're that young and a little bit, it feels like, why is that parent not there? Even sometimes having surgery, have an operation? When you're young or something like that, your parents left you with someone who then cut into you and caused you pain. Like, why weren't you protected? So there are a lot of things that are actually come from, that are out of the parents control and come from love or protection that can still land these wounds.

I think it's important. People often think it's blaming the parents, but it's just understanding ourselves. Yeah. That's the second thing you said. Oh.

So is enmeshment. And enmeshment is if abandonment's when a parent doesn't take care of the child needs. Enmeshment is when the child takes care of the parent's needs. Right. A lot of people can relate to that, I think.

Yeah. Like, they had to grow up too fast. The parent was throwing their baggage on them, their problems on them, saying, oh, you're a lifesaver. You're so strong for me. You know, all these different things.

Yeah. And so. And why it's so hard to catch. I don't know why. I just got the chills for some reason.

Cause what's so interesting about it is it doesn't feel like trauma. Cause abandonment is, like, disempowering. We feel like, why don't I matter? If that parent cared about me, they'd be there or they'd not. Just, like, divorce and then never see me again, except for, like, twice a year.

Like, what's wrong with me? But. So it's disempowering, whereas enmeshment is falsely empowering. Like, look at me. I'm taking care of dad.

Look at me. I'm taking care of mom. Look at me. Dad realizing. Look at me.

Mom realizing me. Look at me. I'm special. Look at me. Like, you know, so you feel you're being sort of elevated.

So it doesn't. It's harder to recognize as trauma, and that's why it's lesser known. Wow. And those people, by the way, this will probably hit, like, a chord for some people. People who are enmeshed and they get into relationships.

They, like, tend to date people they can help or save, like, projects. And then what happens is they date someone they want to help and save because that's how they get their worth and value. Right. Because that's how they got it from mom or dad. Right, exactly.

That's my job. Like, if I don't have a job, then I'm not lovable. Right. And then what happens is that after a while, they can't really help save, change that person, and they start to resent like they did with their parent and then push them apart and cheat or act out like they feel trapped. Wow.

Yeah. Wow. And they might act out in some other way. It doesn't have to be. Right?

Lewis Howes
Right. It can be some other addictive behavior. Man, that's interesting. There's a big book out there. I can't remember the name of it.

I think it's something like adult children of emotionally immature parents or something like that. I love that, too. I don't know if you've seen that, but I see it out there. I gotta check it out. But it sounds like, you know, being raised by a parent who was emotionally immature, that you had to grow up and kind of be the parent to your parent and the wounds and the traumas that causes.

Of those three, which one did you experience the most growing up? Oh, for sure. Enmeshment. That's why I was. Yeah, that's why I was.

Neil Strauss
That was. That was the big takeaway in rehab when all of a sudden, I literally thought as a. I was a journalist and a writer, I thought I was the same person who wrote about the, you know, extreme people who were unhealthy. And because for most of us, our childhood just seems normal because we have nothing to compare it to. That's just normal.

That's how it's done. Right. So once I was there, and as we're talking, I saw my child from the outside. I remember the therapist once, you pointed out the patterns, like, it was like all of a sudden everything made sense. Really?

Yeah. What was that like the first time you were able to see little neo in front of you? Yeah, I think that. I think that. I love that because you've done the work.

We're talking about little me. We have. It's true that just to speak to what you said, we have that inner child that feels that when it recognizes something familiar, takes over and gets in the driver's seat, and all of a sudden, we're not in control of our own lives. And so I remember the first time, I really didn't expect that. I was super cynical, like rebellious, you know, like.

And then when she pointed out the patterns and said, well, you know why? You've never been in a relationship? And I'm like, no, why? And she goes well, because your mom wants to be in a relationship with you. And then, like, as soon as she said it, wow.

Like, logically made no sense. My whole body felt the truth of it. Like, I felt it, like, just, I'll never, I'll literally never. That moment, like exact moment changed my life. Wow.

Lewis Howes
So you had the aha in that moment. Yeah. But healing didn't happen right away. It probably took a little time to kind of process and integrate it. Right.

Neil Strauss
I think, I think the hardest part of healing is having the awareness and still doing the same. Stupid. Because, man, it's, awareness is just the first step. Right. Once you have awareness, now you have to actually do the work together.

Like, I have awareness, I have this goal, but the awareness doesn't get to the goal.

Lewis Howes
Why do you mention, you know, you wanted to kind of write about, interview and do journalism on kind of like the weirdest or most extreme types of people? Why do you think you were fascinated with the most extreme personalities in the. World for the last, well, you guess from what you just, for what we just talked about, just put the puzzle pieces together, I think. See, if you just give it a quick. Well, I mean, I think you, I don't know.

It sounds like you were trying to learn about extreme personalities because you didn't feel emotionally safe or you didn't feel like you had safety growing up in some way. From the relationship you had with your mother, it sounds like, and you were trying to make your life more normal by interviewing or learning about extreme people and their personalities. And who is the extreme person? I grew up with your mom. Yeah.

Neil Strauss
So, so, yeah, so, so thinking, yeah. And you're trying to make her feel normal by looking at, well, there's got to be more extreme people out there, so my mom can't be that extreme. Right. It's, and by the way, I didn't at that time, and I think that there's a lot of accuracy to that. I think.

I didn't, um, I didn't, I didn't see her as extreme because I didn't know any other mom. Exactly. So, so I think what it is was enmeshment makes a great inner. Were you enmeshed at all and all? I felt I was the youngest of four.

Right. And my brother went to prison when I was eight. So from eight to twelve, it was just kind of like scarcity, survival feelings for a number of years because we would go to the prison to visit him on the weekends for visiting hours. It was just a lot of trauma and sadness and shame. And so I didn't feel like I had the attention towards me because it was my older siblings, my brother, it was just us trying to get through this time of sadness.

So. By the way, it's interesting you said that, because one of the signs of enmeshment is not like, oh, I'm taking care of mom sometimes or dad sometimes. It's like if mom or dad are sad or depressed, and that can be. Yeah. They didn't have a loving relationship either.

Right. So there was just no love between them. So it was always just kind of insecurity, fear. When are they going to scream at each other? It was just like uncertainty constantly.

One subtle form of mission was kind of mom or dad, they feel bad. You don't want to bother them with your knees, like. So if you feel sorry for a parent, that's usually a good measurement. Interesting. Did you feel sorry for one of your parents or.

Now, out of curiosity, man, I was. Just like, I felt sorry for myself. That's a smart child, you know, I'm stupid, I have no friends, I'm not enough. I felt just like very insecure, you know, and I didn't feel the love. I know they loved me and they showed moments of love, but it was hard for me to feel it.

Right. I think, yeah, it sounds like abandonment stuff. Yeah, yeah. And I was dealt with sexual abuse, which, you know about that when I was five from a man that I didn't know. So I just had like, a lot of uncertainty and like, like, when's what's gonna happen next, right.

Lewis Howes
There'd be screaming in the house, there'd be fighting, there'd be a disconnection feeling between my parents, so just didn't know what's gonna happen all the time. Yeah. So, like hypervigilant. Yes, yes. Yeah.

So it just. Yeah, it fractured my personality. Yeah. And it took years to heal. Yeah.

So it drove me probably just like you. It drove me to like, how do I be the best I can be and how do I win and how do I get girls to like me and how do I make money? It's like, how do we become significant. Yeah. In society.

Neil Strauss
But it also, like, wanted and accepted and seen hundred percent. Yeah. And love. Safe and loved and safe. But no amount of success, money, girls or fame made me feel more loved.

Yeah, of course. And so about eleven years ago, I started going through my own transformation healing journey. You know, events, therapies, workshops, meditation retreats to reclaim the inner child and create safety within myself and that, you know, it's been a 1011 year journey of different waves of emotions and healing and then regressing and healing and, you know, ups and downs. And I finally feel like I'm in a extremely emotionally safe place with myself. I feel like the adult me is on a conscious, healthy journey to take care of the little me inside of me.

Yeah. And it's a constant relationship with the two. To be my word to my younger self, to acknowledge my younger self for carrying me all the way to this moment, for loving and accepting myself. But also it's like just really doing the work like you talked about from, you know, I guess, sex rehab. It's like being committed to the daily practices and work where I can align with my vision and values for myself and the effort that I'm putting in consistently, not trying to be perfect, but being consistent.

Lewis Howes
And that journey gives me peace, the effort gives me harmony, it makes me feel grateful and abundant as opposed to beating myself up or talking negative to myself or saying, oh, you could be doing better. It's like, yes, I want to improve, but not from a negative place. And that's been a beautiful journey. Yeah. And I love that you said, it really is.

Neil Strauss
I think a lot of people like this, pretend like it's. And again, even some stuff I send maybe appear that way, but it really is a back and forth thing. Like you're. I mean, I think of healing like the half life of radiation, like you're cutting in half and half and half, but it never goes away entirely. And I love, I want to say this is, I'm going to elaborate this, and it goes back to what we're saying in the green room back there before, is I get excited when I backslide.

Really? Why? Meaning that, like, I'm like, there's something to learn here. Okay, there's something I gotta work on here. Like, so it's easy to beat yourself up when you backslide and go into reactive mode, shutting down or, you know, ego or whatever it is.

And it's easy just to be like, all this healing's from nothing. I'm just right back here where I was before and how. But I had. It's really about how quickly you recover from it. It's not about never backsliding or never getting in a reactive place again.

It's about how quickly, when it happens, can you go back and recover to your healthy, adult, functional self? And then I'll go back and look at it and say, okay, what was going on? I'll try to look at it this way. What was the stimulus that I received then? What was the behavior that I had then?

This is the key question. What was the belief that was underneath it that drove the behavior? Because literally, so often, like, I grew up with a very critical mom, right? So it explains a lot of self esteem issues. And so if I get, you know, if Ingrid was my ex wife and best friend, if she criticizes me, I might take it more personally, and I might be like, you're always criticizing me or something.

I'm like, wait, maybe it's a fair. Maybe what she said was actually just factually accurate. But in my brain, I'm like, well, what's my belief? Where does that come from? And as soon as you can make it not about the other person, then you have a shot of healing.

And then the other key thing I'll think about afterward is, how did I feel after it afterward. So, you know, often when someone is in a reactive state, some people act in. A lot of people act in, some people act out, some act in. How do I feel afterwards? Usually?

Shame. Exactly. And so try to look at those pieces and then figure out, is there a lie? Is there a lie I'm telling myself that I need to intervene on? Like you were saying about your childhood.

I don't matter. Like, you know, I don't fit in. Like, I'm. All those things you were saying were all.

When you say them as adult, they're not true. They're just lies. And you have to intervene. When you talk about being consistent, that was a great word. You said, you have to intervene on the lies right away, as soon as they happen.

You have to tell yourself the truth, not an affirmation. Because I think some affirmations are in other forms of lies. It's like a spiritual bypass. Right, right, right. But if you say, as an example, here's a small intervention I'll do is like, let's say when I first moved to LA and started driving, my friends would call me Kirby because I always hit the curb, is when I was trying to park.

So maybe I'm driving and I hit the curb, I'm like, I'm such an idiot, right? That's not true. I hope that's not true. But the truth is I'm still learning to drive, and I made a mistake. So you don't have an idiot.

Instead of say, no, I'm a super powerful human being, which is great, too, but it's nice to just actually correct it with the actual fact. Yeah. I don't know if we answered this. Yet, but I know I wanted to. Ask you about if you're entering a relationship, what are the signs that you might be entering a relationship with a potential cheater?

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Neil Strauss
But I think it goes back to the parenting. So it goes back to the enmeshment. Like I tend to find as an example. I was somewhere in the makeup artist working when she was talking about shes never had like a relationship. Cheats all the time.

Im like, whats your relationship with your dad? Like? She rolls up her sleeve and it says like daddy's girl on her sleeve. Oh my gosh. And im like, im like, okay, because nobody's like your dad.

So, you know. And so I think, and I don't want to say, like, never date someone who's enmeshed, but you can actually see that if someone is deeply enmeshed by a parent, and sometimes people are still taking care of the needs of their parents, and it's different if your parent is ill or something like that, but if your parents just calling you every day for everything, just a victim. Right, right. And just relying on you just for their own mental. For their own, just to get through each day, often what will happen in a relationship after some period of time is they'll start to feel smothered by their relationship and then act out for their freedom.

And again, it doesn't have to be sex or cheating, but it doesn't mean, oh, they're going to cheat 100%. But you can say, oh, this is something, and just see if they're aware of it and working on it. Or they numb themselves. They do drugs or alcohol to numb the feelings of being stuck or trapped, and then they neglect the relationship. They're not present, they're not intimate and vulnerable, whatever it might be.

Lewis Howes
They distance themselves some way. Yeah, they have to distance themselves in some way because they're not suffocated. And literally, I remember when I was just being with one person and dealing with their neediness, and they usually choose someone needy as a partner. Right, right. Can be a big deal.

Neil Strauss
I think it's interesting when we've talked about cheating, and I just think when it comes to cheating, it's someone being. It's afraid to be honest in a sense that, like, I realized afterward is it's also you're making your partner. People who cheat off and think, my partner's not letting me do this. They don't allow me to do this. So I'm gonna.

I'm gonna take care of myself because they're not letting me. Like, they get in this victim child position to their partner. But the truth is you can literally do anything you want, and your partner can respond to it how they want to. So you can literally just say, like, hey, you know, I met someone today and I would love to go sleep with them. And you can say, cool, you can do that.

I don't think I can still be in a relationship afterward, but go enjoy yourself. And thanks for letting me know who you are. Right. Like, I think, I actually think we'd be healthy.

And then would you still cheat with that person, given that choice? But you kind of want to. Yeah. And then people think, well, I don't want to hurt the person, so I'm not going to tell them what I'm doing, but you're actually.

When people lie, and I'm jumping to a thought, but I think it's important, which is when people lie, they think they're protecting the person or something, but they're not. They protect themselves from feeling uncomfortable emotions from that person. Right. They're like, I can't deal with your emotions, so I'm not gonna tell you what I'm doing in case you have an emotion that I'm uncomfortable with. Yeah.

Lewis Howes
I think they're probably also hurting themselves the most because they're out of integrity with their commitments or their word to their partner. Their wish. Totally. Yeah. And you're lying.

Neil Strauss
You're not even in a relationship. You're lying in bed next to your partner in this secret world that they don't know about. And that's also important thing to say is what is cheating? Cheating to me is break acting outside the rules that you have established for your relationship. Meaning that if someone's like, you can't watch pornography, guess what?

You watch porn. You didn't sleep with somebody that would affair, but that's. You broke the rules, and that's cheating. You can't take, exchange phone or whatever. First of all, rules should be stated.

A lot of times people start dating and they have these assumptions, but you haven't agreed on the rules. And secondly is you don't have to agree to anything you don't want to. It's a consensual thing. No one's making you not do that. You're choosing to do it because it's important to your partner.

Lewis Howes
Yeah. I think that's beautiful. With my fiance, Martha and I, when we got into a committed relationship, we were dating for a few months, but then we entered a committed relationship. One of the things I requested was to start the relationship in therapy. And I said, I've always.

Neil Strauss
You're the keeper right there. Because I'd had five. I'd had five or five or six kind of, you know, year to three year relationships for the last 20 years. Right. Since I was in high school or college or whatever.

Lewis Howes
And all of them ended in therapy. Right. And they didn't end, you know, typically. Well, I tried to end them well, I tried to, like, make them work. And I was the one who was always requesting to do therapy.

This was the crazy thing. I don't know if this is something wrong with me or me choosing a certain type of personality. I would always say, let's do therapy. Let's try to find a way to make this work. And the people that I was choosing to be in relationships with never wanted therapy.

Then they resisted. It was. Almost had to beg them for, like, six months to a year to be like, something's not working. I'm trying to improve. I'm trying to do what you want me to do.

It's still not working. Can we go to therapy? And they didn't want to go, and so we would finally go, and then it would end, right? And it wouldn't end well. They weren't happy that we went to therapy, and I never understood.

So I was like, I'm not entering another relationship. I'm happy to be single for as long as it takes, and I'm not entering another relationship unless the person is willing to work on themselves and create agreements in therapy together in a conscious way from the start. And Martha right away was like, yeah, man, let's do this. Yeah. For the right person, that's like, such a value add.

It's amazing. So when you talk about rules, we created agreements early on. Like, every time we did a session, we're like, okay, we're experiencing a little discomfort here or friction here. Can we create an agreement around this so that we both know where we're at and just make sure we're going in the right direction? Otherwise, let's get out of this thing early.

You know, it's like, why wait two years and just have all these chemicals connecting and not talk about our values, our vision, our lifestyle, kind of our agreements, and make sure we're aligned? And so it has created a lot more peace and harmony in the relationship by creating that. And it doesn't mean everything's perfect every moment, but it's creating more safety. One thing I love a lot of things, I have so many thoughts about what you said, but one thing I love, someone said, and I haven't been able to do it, I think I liked, I think it's a way better way to. They said, we have intentions, not rules.

Those are agreements. Yeah, yeah. What's one of your agreements? One of the agreements was like, I don't know, within the first year, and it's like, little things could turn into big things. Right.

You know, it's like a little thing where, like, oh, maybe it's not that big of a deal, but it can be if it happens every other month, for sure. One of them was like, within the first year, you know, she would want to talk about something challenging at night. Like, we get into bed, I'm ready to fall asleep, I'm exhausted. You know, it's 10, 11, 12:00 whatever. I'm, like, winding down mentally, emotionally, physically.

And then she wants to start a conversation, and it's not like, a light conversation. It's, like, something that takes time and energy and presence for me. And a couple times this happened where it's like, all right, we're up until 03:00 a.m. 04:00 a.m. Talking about these things, and I want to be there to support her.

Neil Strauss
Right. It's not that I don't want to talk about these things, but I I'm like, listen, this doesn't work for me anymore. Having these conversations, like, after 10:00 p.m. Do not work, because I want to show up fully for you, and I can't show up fully to be present. So I have to wake myself back up.

Lewis Howes
I have to turn the lights on. I have to sit up at, like, 01:00 a.m. And try to, like, look you in the eyes, be, you know, open body position, be present with you, like, open my heart when I'm, like, falling asleep. Right. So the agreement was no challenging conversations.

When we're in bed, like, we talk about what we're grateful for. We talk about lighter things so that we can go to sleep and we can talk about them tomorrow, and everything's gonna be okay. Yeah. And so we created that agreement in therapy together, and it has created so much peace. It's for both of us.

Neil Strauss
Yeah. I think it's really understanding, too. People have different processing styles. She might want to process everything right away exactly in the moment. And maybe accepting that you waiting a little bit to your present is gonna help her process it better versus getting rewounded by you not being present.

Journey. And then we're both exhausted the next day and more resentful the next day. We didn't solve this thing. So it's like, let's just talk about it over dinner. Let's talk about it when we're both awake, when we're both still of energy.

Lewis Howes
And if not, then we'll wait till the next day. We'll talk about it then. There's one little tool I love that I use. Like, I call them, I guess, check ins. I don't know.

Neil Strauss
So I realized that sometimes in a relationship, you can start, stop, you can sort of just grow distant without meaning to by not talking about certain things, especially things that might be uncomfortable with each other. So I started doing this every other night. It was in bed, but earlier, and I kind of recommend this. It's great for relationships. Here's how it works is one person shares everything uninterrupted of what's going on for them.

Then afterward, the other person can share everything of what's going on for them. And the deal is you just listen, don't interrupt the other person, and you also don't defend yourself. Right. If they're like, you know, I was frustrated. And sometimes when you hear everything versus reacting right away, you'll see that it's not about you.

Lewis Howes
Right. Like, one big key when, like, this is, like, the hardest thing for people to do, but the most important thing to do, whether work or relationships, it's so hard is just not to defend yourself. Very hard. As soon as you defend yourself, someone shuts down from telling you their truth. It's very challenging.

Neil Strauss
And even if they're wrong, if I'm like, listen, Louis, when I walked in here, you were so disrespectful to me. Like, I walked in and you, like, you were busy doing other stuff, and I haven't seen you in so long. Let's just say it's that. And we know that's not what happened. You're nothing but awesome.

When I walked in, you can say, like, so what was your experience of that? Like, what was it like for you? Did that hurt? Was that hard for you without ever validating that reality as being yours? And so you can just let them say everything about it.

Well, how they felt. And once they feel emptied and complete, you can say, I'd love to share what my experience of you was when you wanted, and I just want to share my reality with you, and so you could actually. It's like, it's the most beautiful thing to really hear someone out when you don't disagree. And you never need to agree with them or say it's right. But what is right is those were their thoughts and feelings.

Those are facts that they were their thoughts or feelings, whether a camera would have seen those same actions or not. Yeah, but it's how they were feeling. It's their interpretation. Yeah. Yeah.

I love relationships. I literally think so. People think they're healthy till they get into a relationship. Right. And it's like, so I think, like, once you're in a relationship, going to therapy, doing that work is like, it's two people growing together is beautiful.

Lewis Howes
Well, the thing I think I, you know, I don't. I would. I recommend it to everyone, but I know not everyone's going to do this, because it's, like, completely opposite of what people would want to do is start a relationship in therapy. But I've. For me, my highest currency is inner peace and harmony.

Neil Strauss
Yeah. And to have and be harmonious and to create peace inside of me is. Means having uncomfortable conversations consistently. Yeah. Doesn't mean, like, never having challenging conversations.

Lewis Howes
It means being willing to go there and having the courage to communicate and listen when you. That doesn't feel that good. Yeah. But communicating it gives me more peace. And the consistency of it is supportive for us both.

Even I respect her so much more because I know she wants to continue to evolve and grow. Yeah. It doesn't mean we have to do it every week or every month, even. It's just we're committed to each individually growing. And for me, I value that a lot.

Neil Strauss
Yeah. And it creates more peace in the relationship. Great. I mean, doing it ahead of time before there are problems. But as you said, like, with all your relationships, most people, the time you're in therapy, dealing with a problem, it's almost challenging.

Lewis Howes
It's hard to make it work. Right. By the way, I love what you said, which is interesting. I just had a thought on what you were saying earlier, which is dated these people who wouldn't go to therapy, and then you said later, because I wasn't doing what they wanted me to do. I think the key of why tell me if this is.

And then I would stay with them and try to change myself to make them happy. Because I think the idea was, like, for them, tell me if this is right. I don't know them. But for them, control was safety, probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They wanted to control me. Yes. And so if they can't bring a therapist in the mix who might ruin their control over you 100%, I think that's what happens. 100%. Because when we do that, it's funny, because when we go to therapy, therapist, and I always say, you choose the therapist, you choose who you like, I will go to anyone because I'm willing to open up and reveal and talk about anything.

And the therapist would be like, okay, yeah, you shouldn't be doing that to the previous partners I had. This is a better way of going about it, and here's how you can look at it. But also, they would criticize me for what I needed to work on, and I was like, cool, tell me more. What do I need to do? You know?

But the other people didn't want to look themselves in the mirror based on what the therapists were sharing. And I don't blame these women. You know, I accept them for who they are. And I just chose out of a wound these types of personalities. And so, again, it's not me blaming anyone and saying, oh, they didn't want to go to therapy or whatever.

It's me looking within and having to say, why did I repeat this pattern consistently? Consistently, and why did I stay in this pattern? Why was I unwilling to heal from certain traumas or why did it take me so long? And so I don't think you're being. Blamey or victimy about it.

Neil Strauss
No, no. Yeah, yeah. It's just looking myself in the mirror and saying, okay, I chose a lot of my relationships. I chose out of chemical reactions over actually communicating values, vision and lifestyle. Or maybe being lost in your family, you're like, and just someone tells what to do and how to be.

Maybe I'm just throwing this out there, but look at your whole, like, life is like, let me be around parental figures who can tell me, who can be healthy parents and tell me good things. And some of you are choosing someone to give you some of the structure. I know. Even if it's unsafe, it's still like someone trying to control or something. So, yeah.

Anyway, and also, yeah, and then, like, how can I be better? How can I be better for you? How can I, you know? And then eventually, like, you realize that it's actually not about you. It's not.

Lewis Howes
Yeah. I think it's so interesting. So many. There are a lot of partners who just like you were saying about self esteem, right? I'm trying to get it from, you know, work, career, achievements.

Neil Strauss
Some people are like that with that. They're trying. So you try to get your self esteem. I'm just trying to think. Some people try to get their self esteem from the outside world, just as some people try to get their safety from their relationship partner, and then they're like, if you didn't, then the relationship partner starts like, okay, I have to do this, this and that to make you feel safe.

And I didn't tell you that thing, or you're not safe. And all of a sudden, that's the most. It can be a real toxic dynamic. 100%. And then you really eventually realize and it breaks up when the other partner realizes, oh, nothing I'll do will make you feel safe.

Lewis Howes
Nothing. Nothing. Yeah. No matter how much I change who I am and change my behaviors, they're never gonna feel like it's enough. Yeah.

And it's exhausting. It sucks the life out of you. Yes. And I repeated that so many times, it's like, why did that take me so long to learn this lesson, but I think the lesson's gonna keep coming to you until you're willing to make a change and heal. And the ironic thing is that's often when people cheat.

Neil Strauss
Cause they're like, I feel like the life's getting sucked out of me and I just wanna be somewhere where I just feel free and. Exactly. Can connect with myself again. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I think.

I really think, like, I really think that, that, like, just relationships are so hard, and our culture does not raise us to have that. Right. We just see movies and tv shows and instagram all these things where we're just told how they're supposed to be, and we develop this fantasy and we don't get any tools. I know. Well, I'm glad you're teaching these tools right now.

Lewis Howes
I want to pivot a little bit. I know we can talk about, this is fascinating. It's such a good subject. Such a good subject. But I want to use part of the subject we've talked about into this next topic, which is, I think, one of the most interesting things about you.

I don't think anyone in the world has the experiences you have in terms of interviewing, diving into the world of and researching the world's most extreme personalities from at the top of their game, I guess from, you know, musicians, porn stars, FBI spies, russian spies, and everywhere in between. You've dived into these worlds of unique personalities that have learned a unique set of skills around charisma, persuasion, manipulation, lies, creating fake personalities and literally transforming themselves to get anything they want from anyone else. And you have a new podcast that I'm so excited about. It's called to die for, where you essentially immerse yourself in a number of conversations with a female russian spy who learned how to make men fall in love with them so that they could get information and ultimately hurt them in big ways. And I'm curious, what have you learned from all these different personalities about manipulation, persuasion, influence that they used for evil that we could actually start to use for good?

Neil Strauss
Yeah, well, let's think about that for a second, because first of all, I would guess that a spy thinks they're using it for good. So if you take the case of the woman in the podcast, the russian spy, she was kind of brainwashed to believe you're serving your country. These are bad people, and by doing this, you're using this for good. So I don't think doing a service for your country. Right.

So it wasn't until later, when she gets out of the country and sees all the horrible things and is sort of. They do that. She realizes that she's willing to talk about it now. Cause it wasn't good and she was brainwashed. And what were some of the things that this woman that you have on this podcast series did?

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Neil Strauss
Depending what the, what, what they need. And literally, again, according to her, like, was in this training thing where she taught. Was taught. There's a great. So she was trained on how to manipulate men.

Yeah. Yeah. And there, there's. And one of the keys is this. And I was reading about actually, like, a lot of men are caught in these love traps or honey traps.

The love trap is longer the love trap. Some people are literally some people. And this is, like, historical fact. They were like, such a crazy world. So the men are often called romeos, and the women are called swallows.

Here they call it Red Sparrow, but the real word is swallow in Russian. But swallow has different connotations. So they probably changed a spas to Sparrow. But there were women who were often, if they worked, this one woman who worked in an embassy, or several people who get someone lower level who was secretary in this Romeo from Russia or East Germany, I think, at least at that time, seduced her. And she literally was in a relationship with him.

And he was saying he was working on a world peace project. Never knew he was a spy. And she was giving data to help him find world peace. Wow. To help him create his world peace project.

And literally was just feeding it all back to the. All back to the Russians. Then as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed. Well, guess what? That guy, that relationship ended, and later, she's being looked at as a traitor.

Lewis Howes
Wow. So men were doing this, but then there's women doing this as well. Yeah. There's women doing. Yeah.

Neil Strauss
And there's all kinds of different forms of it. What was the training like for this woman that you interviewed in this podcast? Like, what is training camp on seduction and manipulation and getting men to fall in love with you. What does that look like, the training? What's interesting is that key part of the training is that he has to approach you.

Lewis Howes
See, the man has to approach you. So you have to get the man to approach you. And I was reading other sort of cases. There's one. And again, men can be kind of not so sparse when it comes to.

Neil Strauss
She has a great line. She's like, yeah. Like men's biggest weaknesses, sex. And so there's one case in the podcast about this israeli nuclear technician who defects to spill the secrets of the program. And then he's in London talking to reporters.

He's at a newsstand getting a cigarette or whatever. He meets. There's a woman there he's attracted to. He starts talking to her. So he thinks he picked her up, you know?

And so the first thing they'll teach you is how to sort of get someone. It started for her. She says that she was, it started with posture, clothing, makeup. She was actually from, she's from Kazakhstan, so she. Yeah, I think Kazakhstan.

She. Really strict upbringing and never even, you know, wore makeup. Wow. Never had a boyfriend. Never even kissed anyone before.

And so really a lot of it was, while it sounds sexy, so much is really, you know, abusive, abusive abuse of power. And, like, it was a horrible, you know, it really is. That was, it's traumatic for everybody, this kind of line of work. Wow. But so they put it through a.

Lewis Howes
Training camp on essentially how to get men to approach her without her saying anything to them. Yeah. Everything. Literally. Like, they teach about poisons.

Neil Strauss
They literally. And they also poisons. Yeah. Oh, my God. How to poison someone.

Yeah. Like, for example, and I'm an expert on this, but Coca Cola, like sodas, like coke is a good thing because it has such a strong taste that it covers up. Oh, my gosh. Water is tough, you know, so rum and coke is a great concealment. So then the other thing is also they taught her how to like, to be sexual stuff.

So if you're the best he's ever been with you, I still want more. Yeah, I still want more. It's like a drug that's literally what. She says in the podcast. She says, she says, like a drug, you give a little bit and you take it away.

You give a little bit, you take it away till they're addicted to it. And then they reveal all their secrets. Yeah, and there's. There's two ways. Yeah.

There's. You can just sort of overtly, covertly, you know, different, different ways to get the information. Sometimes not about revealing their secrets. Sometimes it's about trapping them. In other words, like if they are married or acting outside of.

Sometimes it's about trap them or blackmail or. Yeah, it's so sophisticated. And I don't know if this is just your listeners, but I'm just. It's so sophisticated that let's just say you're. And it's very funny.

It's really widespread. The transcriber of my podcast is transcribing it. The interview, she gets the first interview, she's like, oh, you know, I used to work on, like, a secret program, and they warned everybody about these women that if you're somewhere traveling and you meet someone who's out of your league, they probably are.

So this is how kind of, once they got somebody on the hook. So let's just say they have some blackmail material. They call it comprehensive material. They would just say, hey, we just need to do this for us. And it might be a real harmless.

A harmless thing. We just need to get this piece of information. Like, this doesn't hurt. This security mic safety. It gets rid of this thing.

You give them the harmless piece of information, then they really have you. Because now it's one thing to be caught having sex with someone. Now you've actually betrayed your country with this tiny piece of information. And now we really have you. Oh, man.

Yeah. This is crazy. It's crazy. There's, like a world out there that I never knew about. How do men know if women are truly following for them or are trying to manipulate them?

Yeah, now we've gone from cheating to, are they russian agents? Or maybe they're just more narcissistic. They want to get money from them, or they want to get, you know, fancy dates from them. It's like wanting them for their personality and who they are versus wanting them because of what they have. Yeah, that's a great, great, great question.

And let's match that with, there's some men and some people who are just so insecure, they think their only value is giving something. If I'm not paying, fine, giving. I'm not lovable as I am. So, like, we take the first step is like, do you feel that you're lovable as you are? And if you don't, you're really right for manipulation.

And the second thing is, if you don't comply with the request, are they still going to love you or care about you?

Lewis Howes
So how do you know if they're actually manipulating you or if they care about you based on how they respond to your actions? Or, let's see, how do you, so how. The question is, how do you know if someone's just kind of using you or with you? I mean, I think the things are that, I mean, first of all, they're always telltale signs. And by the way, I would also say the other ones, I know if someone's using you just for sex also, and I think the sex money dynamic across the board is, are they willing to spend time with you without any of that.

Neil Strauss
Right? Like, there's so many. It's like you have to be secure enough within yourself, or at least rude enough for yourself that you can see that. Oh, okay. Unless they're.

When all of a sudden you're jumping through hoops, when a maybe that person won't get, doesn't want to see you if there's not a sex possibility involved. Right? Like, oh, we'll see each other on Saturday night instead instead of meeting for lunch. Junior work. Like, okay, they probably urged in that.

Or on the other side is like, okay, they're not gonna do this unless I roll out all these luxuries. Otherwise they don't wanna go for dinner or something. But that said, I do think that I like to operate on a position of trust with everybody. Meaning, like, even if they're enmeshed, you know, even if all these other things we're talking about, like, I really wanna give someone 100% trust because if you don't, you're already hurting the potential for what it can be. And just be aware if there are warning signs and just be like, hey, I'd be discerning.

Yeah, yeah, be discerning. So, like, I think being really, really open and then not being afraid to see the warning signs and take a step back or discuss it. Wow. Yeah. But I think it all starts.

I think it all starts from being secure within yourself. Yes. I think that it's important. I don't know why people know this intuitively. They know it emotionally, that we're wired when we're children, right?

If our parents caregivers leave us, well, we die when we're just infants. So some people think that as adults, if the person we love leaves us, we're gonna die. And some people, you know, do catastrophic things to themselves or others because of that, you know? But the fact is you're literally going to be okay and you're going to find love again and just wreck having that security to be like, I want to find something great or probably better. And again, if somebody cheats on me, like, thank you.

You showed me who you are. Like, now I get to move on. Like, I wish you told me sooner, but. So there's a great line that one of the therapists, in the truth, said that the only people who can be abandoned are, you know, children and dependent elders. Everyone else, the only person who can abandon you is yourself.

Lewis Howes
That's strong. It seems like people want love and intimacy more than ever, but people are afraid of commitment more than ever. Why do you think that people are afraid to commit? Yeah, I think it's part of that paradox of choice, right? Like, I've noticed that.

Neil Strauss
I've noticed that too. That we live in this. People have that mind. And I think endless possibilities or choices. Can I do better?

And now it's so easy to meet. Like, literally, like, you're single, you download three apps, and now you've got 50 options, right? And it's so easy to be like, well, I'm gonna trade this. I'm gonna trade, I can get better. I can do better, or, that thing's not right, I don't have to fix it.

I can just throw it out and start all over again. And that's why. That's why on these apps, when you're hiring for a job, right. It's really hard if you're going off, if you do a posting, because a lot of people come to you, been looking for jobs forever, or just leaving jobs out for a few months because they're not hireable. The same is true in the dating apps, which is a lot of undatable people are circulating endlessly there with other undatable people.

Yes. Yeah. And not to put it be hard on that. And by the way, many people had love and got married and amazing things, and just as many people have gotten amazing jobs through job searches, but it's tougher and there's less time to interview people. Wow, this is fascinating stuff, man.

Yeah, it's such interesting. It's really interesting. So it's funny. We got back to relationships. It all gets back to relationships.

Lewis Howes
I've only got about ten minutes left with you. I've got a whole other section on creativity that we'll have to do another episode on. But I want to ask you from this podcast that you're launching. When we put this out, it'll be out that week. It's called to die for, and it's really powerful.

Eight episodes that from this series of interviewing this former russian spy who manipulated men who did harmful things to men who got secrets from men. All these different things. What were the three biggest takeaways you learned from interviewing her about the human mind? Yeah. So, in other words.

Neil Strauss
Yeah. I think the three biggest takeaways is one is she had this technique called circles of hell. I thought, what was that? I know. So circles of hell was basically that what really gets us hooked and be aware of this in your own life when you fall for it is the push pull.

If I give someone, she would control people by punishment reward. So we really go crazy with punishment reward, which is you're acting nice. You get to come close and hang out with me and get. Then you're. Now, I don't like how you're acting, so I'm gonna punish you, make you.

Lewis Howes
Distance until you beg or forgiveness or whatever. Yeah. And we've seen people in relationships who fall on that and also in really toxic ways, so we'd have a very toxic partner, but all of a sudden, that person's all nice and loving, and they go back to them and they. I've experienced that in the past. Yeah.

Neil Strauss
Yeah. And so just beware if you're sort of in. So that was one. I needed to listen to this podcast, like, 20 years ago. Yeah.

Yeah. Cause I would have heard the signs. Yeah. It's funny, too. I also think of listening to your friends when you're in relationships.

Sometimes the friends. I have so many friends. I've had friends who have relations where I'm like, I can't say anything to them till later. Why didn't you tell me earlier? I tried, but you shut me out of your life when I tried, so I stopped.

It's tough. Okay. Circles of hell. Circles of hell is 1 second. One is, let's see, second.

Awesome technique from her. It's funny. A lot of the stuff overlapped with the game, right. But from the female point of view. From a female point of view.

And besides sex, men's other biggest weaknesses. Flattery. Compliments. Flattery. Oh, you look so good in that they get addicted.

They get addicted to how they feel about themselves when they're with you. Wow. Right? Flattery. Yeah.

So it's like, it's so nice to be around, but, like, sometimes it can be like a manipulation, remember? Yeah. It's very seductive and manipulating. Yeah. Let's see.

So flattery, circles of hell. Let me think. There was so. There was. There was so much stuff.

A lot of this stuff came from NLP. She did like, a lot of. She just. She did a lot of. Do you know what anchoring is?

NLP. So basically she's talking to you and having you talk about a peak positive experience. She tried to touch you somewhere, touch. You on your shoulder, your arm. Try to choose a place where maybe people normally don't touch, like your neck.

I can go fourth, bonus one, she's like, you know when the men are the most vulnerable? Yeah. In bed. Yeah. And that one certain point in bed that she's like, at that point, you can do anything.

She's like, you could kill. It's pretty intense. I can't even believe she's like, you can kill them, or you can. If you whisper something or tell them something, it really implants in their brain in that point. It's their most vulnerable sexual moment.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's unbelievable. But I think it's. None of this makes me be any less trusting in the world, but also. So I think none of this stuff. I think we should still have trust, but I think we should also see warning signs and run.

Lewis Howes
Absolutely. Yeah. This is fascinating. So the new podcast is called to die for. You can find it anywhere on.

On podcasts. Where else can we connect with you personally? I don't know if everyone knows this, but we had Rick Rubin on, and you helped co write the book with him, which has been, I think, on the New York Times bestseller list for, whatever, a year and a half now or something. Yeah, every year. Yeah.

It's crazy how this has taken off, and it's such great writing. So congrats on the work together, because I know you played a big part in that collaboration, but how can we connect with you and support you besides listening to this podcast? Thank you, by the way. It's a great question. I don't know.

Neil Strauss
I just love. I think I just love. I love what I do. Like, I love telling. I love.

I love having these discussions. I love learning the stuff about the human mind, whether it's creativity from Rick or, like, you know, men's vulnerabilities from the russian spy or, you know, again, talking to you about your past. So I think just like, just means a lot. Just either engage in conversation or. Yeah, reading, listening to the works or whenever.

I love sharing the stories and the information. Wow. Where can we connect with you online. What's the best website and social media? I guess it's whatever one people use, but I would really rather people connect with me through, like, just listening to podcast.

Lewis Howes
Yeah, listen to the podcast. Where can they, if they want to leave a comment about messages? Twitter? Is it Instagram? I try to, like, avoid so hard promoting myself because I hate when people do that.

Neil Strauss
I'm like, but it's good you're assistant. Yeah, probably Instagram. Neal Strauss on Instagram, right? Yeah. Okay, cool.

Yeah. So if you listen to the podcast, you know, share this with a friend. If you thought this was interesting, send it to a friend and then leave a comment of one of Neil's Instagram posts and let him know what you thought about this episode. Of course. But listen to to die for.

Lewis Howes
It's an eight part series. The last one you did, which was to live and die in LA. Is that right? To live and die in LA, like, took over the world. It was fascinating what you did with that.

And I think that was four or five years or five years ago when you had that podcast. So if this is anything like that, and I know you probably even better now, five years later, it is going to blow people's minds. So I'm so excited to listen to it myself when it comes out March 26, make sure to leave a review on there. You know, leave a comment, give it five stars when you listen to it because that'll help get the traction for the podcast as well. But it's to die for on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts, by the way.

Neil Strauss
First, I'm going to make a quick note. First of all, thanks for saying all those things. And I'm giving you an example of, remember what we talked about earlier? When you do something, then you reflect on it later. I grew up in a childhood.

This relate to exactly what you're saying. I just had this great epiphany from what you just did, which is I never spoke up for my own needs. So we were like, what can we do for you? How can we do that? Nothing.

I'm like, nothing, right? And I'm like, oh, me doing that instead of just saying, yeah, I'd love it if you could do this, was actually like a bit of that left over the discomfort of like that. So interesting, right? So no matter where we get, we're still working on ourselves and looking at these things. That's a cool lesson.

So thank you. That's good, man. That's good. Couple final questions for you, Neil.

Lewis Howes
This is called the three truths. And you answered this five years ago when you were on last, I think. But I'm curious where you're at with this question now. Hypothetical question. Imagine you get to live as long as you want to live, but it's your last day on earth.

You're as old as you want to be, but, you know, you're turning off the lights, you're going somewhere else. You're not in this world anymore. And you get to, from this moment until then, create anything you want to create. You get to have the relationships, the life, the art, the work you get to do. It all happens, but for whatever reason, you've got to take it all with you.

So we don't have access to any of the articles, books, podcasts, anything you ever make. It's gone in this hypothetical world, okay? But on the last day, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. And this is all we have to remember your information by. I call it three truths.

What would be those three truths for you? I don't know, man. You know, it's funny, these questions always. So I think. I think I would leash.

Neil Strauss
I think, you know, I guess my thought is, I don't want to. Like, I feel like we learn through stories, and that's why I'm a storyteller. So I probably would find a way to tell a story. I want to leave rhyme to some very short story that you remember in your. That people would remember that somehow helps them with themselves.

But if there are three truths, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I gotta live longer before I find what those truths are. And because I also know that what I said five years ago is not what I say now. Five years from now.

Lewis Howes
And what would you say today? What would be those today? I'd really be like, don't listen to anyone else's truths. Just go find your own, you know? I think we have to.

Neil Strauss
The truths don't work if you don't find them yourself. And so. And I realized that, like, as an example, I read a friend recently. He was like, I just did this experience where I did ayahuasca straight for seven days. It was, like, mind blowing.

It changed my whole life. I'm like, cool. After doing ayahuasca, stray for seven days, doing whatever you just did to your brain. Like, what did. What did you learn?

He goes, man, tell what I learned. Trust, you know, so I could just say, my lesson is trust. But you have to be in that guy's life for 30 years, then take ayahuasca for seven days to really get that lesson. So yeah, go live and experience. Find your own truths.

Lewis Howes
Okay, cool. There is live experience, find your own truths. There's three. I still there you go. I like it.

There you go. Before I ask the final question, Neil, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, even though you don't like acknowledgement, but I want to acknowledge you for the consistent, really, commitment you have to your craft because you have such a wide range of unique talents, from writing and researching and podcasting and interviews and conversations and then shaping stories and narratives to help people or share experiences in a beautiful way. I just want to acknowledge you for the gift you have and consistently showing up. You've written so many books in the last five years for some of the biggest names and talent in the world that co write with. You've written many of your own books.

You've got this journey you're on with the podcast. So I just appreciate you, man. I acknowledge you for the whole journey you're on and how you keep evolving as a human being in life and health and relationships. So I just want to acknowledge you for a moment. Thank you.

Neil Strauss
And I'll give you all my secret information. That was great for you. Very thank you. Thank you. Seriously, final question, what's your definition of greatness?

I think my definition of greatness is like just always improving and striving to better of taking where you are and thinking what? Looking at yourself and saying how can I do better or be better? From whatever your starting point is, I. Hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links.

And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you. Learned over on our social media channels. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to.

Lewis Howes
Make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over@greatness.com. Newsletter and if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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How to Know They'll Cheat on You - Cheating Expert Reveals Warning Signs! - Neil Strauss

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1: Introduction to Neil Strauss

2: Dynamics of Cheating

3: Signs of a Potential Cheater

4: Repairing Relationships

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