LEWIS HOWES: Sure, sure. Those are great. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Esther, for being an incredible gift to humanity and helping so many people through hurt, pain, confusion, heartache, create healing within themselves and in their hearts, and mend certain relationships, especially the relationships with themselves. I want to acknowledge you for the consistent work you’ve been doing for decades in helping humanity.

ESTHER PEREL: Oohh. God. To have a full life. To have a full life. Whatever it means. I mean, full. Just to feel like-you [inaudible]. If you [inaudible] life in which you feel [inaudible], to me anyway, then feel like I have greatness. But I could answer this ten different ways. It’s a great word because you can apply greatness to everything. Today, at this particular minute, that’s what came out.

LEWIS HOWES: There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this one. Again, share this with your friends. Take a screenshot right now, post it on Instagram story, post it on your page, on Twitter or Facebook. The link is lewishowes/548. The full video is over there, the interview, it’s powerful. Go watch it. Check out the resources. If you want to get a copy of her book, all you need to do is get two copies of my book, The Mask of Masculinity, and upload your receipt at lewishowes/esther. I’m going to ship you a physical copy of her book as well. Make sure to follow through the instructions on that page. I think the first 150 people so if you’re able to go to that page and it still works for you, then we’ll ship you a book. Again, lewishowes/esther. Go get my book right now and we’ll send you a copy of hers.

For me, it means fun and interesting things and creativity and enough money to do what I want and a robust group of friends and a great relationship with my son and with my husband

A big shoutout to our sponsor, DesignCrowd. For all you looking to get your message out there, I highly recommend using DesignCrowd. I’ve used them for so much of our own branding, courses, and logos. You name it, we’ve tested it with them, and we’ve gotten great results. You get a $100 VIP special offer for our listeners when you go to designcrowd/greatness. Go there right now, test out your first project, get $100 VIP offer at designcrowd/greatness.

Continue each day listening to that thing in your heart that beats, that gets excited about something. Keep leaning into that thing. You’re here for a reason, it’s your duty to figure out what that reason is every single day. Continue to live with gratitude, continue to grow, and continue to give back. I love you so very much, thank you so much for being here and be a part of this mission of inspiring greatness in the world. You know what time it is, it’s time to go out there and do something great.

For those who don’t know who Esther Perel is, she was recognized as one of the most insightful and provocative voices on personal and professional relationships in the complex science behind human interaction. She’s also the bestselling author of “Mating In Captivity” which was translated into 25 languages. She is a practicing psychotherapist, celebrated speaker, and her critically acclaimed viral Ted Talk have collectively reached over 10 million views. I think it’s almost 20 million views now. She’s a podcast host of the show Where Should We Begin? Where you can listen in on real client sessions actually going through the challenges in their life. It’s powerful. Also her clients in platform include companies such as Nike, Tony Robbins, [inaudible], Founders Forum, and so much more. Including the Summit of Greatness. And she’s a frequent guest on shows like Oprah, The Today Show, Dr. Oz, The Colbert Report.

Again, before we dive in to this episode, you can go get a copy of Esther’s book for free. All you need to do is go to lewishowes/esther to claim this deal. When you get two copies of The Mask of Masculinity, I’m going to physically buy you a copy and ship you a copy of Esther’s book. Full price on me. That’s how powerful this book is, I want you to get it. Again, all you need to do is get two copies of my book. You’re going to upload your receipt at lewishowes/esther and we’re going to ship your her book. It’s going to be a game changer. Go do it right now while you’re listening, and let’s make it happen.

When you love, what is your experience about exclusivity?

ESTHER PEREL: That’s right. Of course, that today requires you to ask, “What must be shared and what is private?” What is the extent between privacy, secrecy, and transparency? Then the second element is a certain kind of emotional involvement, to one degree or another. Even if it’s hit and run, there’s still is an emotional involvement. It takes effort to make something mean nothing. The quality of that involvement with the person, with the sex, with the feelings, that. And then the third one which is really the most important one is that it’s a sexual alchemy. The element of sexual alchemy is not sex. We know that most affairs are way less about sex and a lot more about desire.

ESTHER PEREL: Look, it happens more and more primarily because women are closing the infidelity gender gap. Women, for the first time, have also the possibility to choose who they want to be with. They have [inaudible] for divorce, they do not risk being excommunicated from church, and they have some probably, in many quarters at least some form of economic independence that allows them to take care of themselves.

Infidelity is a conversation like you talk about intimacy, like you talk about other relationships. I mean, if you grow in a business experience and you’re with a new partner, you probably would say, “What have been your experiences with other co-founders? What have been your other experiences with business partners? Have you had good experiences? Is this experience sitting on the top of a bad divorce from before? In general, whoever you choose next is always chosen by default in relation to the one that preceded. Anyway, so, it is right there. And then you say, ‘listen. This is not because I’m thinking about it or because I want to do it. It’s because I actually want to get to know you and I want you to get to know me.” That is a conversation, too.

ESTHER PEREL: So it depends how long is the past. In the midst of this, this experience happened. You, my woman, or my partner, male or female partner went out. And then, you kind of want to know, how did this happen? What happened to us? Where were we at? Is this related to the relationship?