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Transcript provided by YouTube. Slightly edited with AI.
What’s up guys? Welcome back to Love Life. Before we get into the episode, I want to tell you about an event I have going on on March 19th called the Love Life Reset. This is a completely free event that I am inviting you to if you want a clean slate in your love life, where you can go out there and find love regardless of what has happened already. It doesn’t matter if you feel like nothing’s been working out for you, if you thought you’d be somewhere different by this point in your life, or if you’re coming back out into the dating world having been in a long-term relationship or even a marriage for a long time and you’re wondering or even scared about what dating is going to be like for you in this new season of your life. The Love Life Reset is for all of us who want a fresh start and it’s happening on March 19th. The event is completely free, as I said, and you can become a part of it very easily in the next 20 seconds by going to love.lifetraining.com. Go do it now before you forget and then come back here and let’s begin the episode.
Introducing Rob Dial
Today I was with Audrey for this episode where we interviewed Rob Dial, host of the Mindset Mentor podcast, author of the book Level Up, and someone who has some extremely interesting perspectives when it comes to vulnerability, the male mind. We asked him about his relationship, what it was like for him being single, what made him make the decision to get married. You can’t listen to this conversation without coming out feeling like you’ll understand more about men, more about the shame that men carry, more about why men don’t open up, the way their history affects their behavior today, and what it takes for someone to commit. I think you’re really, really going to love this. It’s an incredibly open and vulnerable conversation. So without further ado, I present to you Rob Dial.
Well, we are here with Rob Dial from the Mindset Mentor podcast. Rob, thank you for being here.
Introducing Audrey
Hey, thank you for having me in your guys’s house. It’s great to be here. So we just got to do a podcast with you for your show.
Exploring Relationship Dynamics
Yeah, it was amazing, the Mindset Mentor. Everyone go listen to that because it was honestly one of my favorite podcast episodes I’ve ever done. Yeah, it was incredible. I was just observing, but it was really strong, really powerful episode. And that will be up on Rob’s at the Mindset Mentor. Rob is here today with us for the Love Life podcast and we have Audrey in the room with us as well.
Yes, hi everybody. I’m so excited. I told you guys this is the first time I’ve had two people interview me in person, so I’m excited about this. I think it’s going to be fun. And there’s actually so much that we talked about on your podcast just now that I feel like is actually going to be incredibly relevant and powerful for our audience to hear about. So I am also glad Audrey’s here because I feel like she’s going to have a lot of questions that are running through the minds of so many of our audience that you can ask. So I’d love to start by just getting a sense of the narrative of your love life until this point.
Yeah, so I’ll give you context on first off me that’ll make a whole lot more sense in my relationship with Lauren. So, my story kind of like the… we were talking about in my episode with you, like the quote-unquote Heroes Journey, the life that I’ve been on, right? My father was an alcoholic, and my parents got divorced when I was 10 because he was an alcoholic. I always tell people he was the best type of alcoholic father to have. He didn’t beat me, he didn’t touch me, he didn’t yell at me, but he would get drunk and he would fall asleep and he would forget about me, which after going to a therapist years ago found out that that, she was like that’s neglect, and I was like no, no, no, I wasn’t neglected. And she’s like, no, no, you were emotionally neglected. And so then he passed away when I was 15 from his alcoholism. And so what happened was I started getting into relationships, and I was very un-present in relationships. I could see how I showed up incorrectly. And when I got into my relationship with Lauren, both of Lauren’s parents are still together, so she comes from a loving home, both parents being there, she loves her dad, you know, so that was really good to see. But what I ended up finding out is that I always felt like she was going to leave me in some way. Like whenever there’d be like… we never get into big blow-ups or anything like that, but there’d be arguments or I do something wrong and I thought in my head, well, this is the thing that’s going to make her leave me, whatever, even if it was just like something stupid. And I noticed that triggering within myself, and I realized that triggering came from feeling like my father wasn’t there and he left me. Like I always felt as a child, subconsciously and as an adult I’ve come to make it conscious, was that my father loved alcohol more than he loved me, and so I always came second to it. And you know, he would say he would come pick me up, I’d be on the stage waiting for him for an hour with my fishing pole and he never show up, and so I always thought love is going to leave me. And with Lauren, she was very firm in her love and never really moved or swayed or any of that, and for me that felt uncomfortable, I felt like a red flag more than anything else because I was like this isn’t what love is like, every other person that they’ve either cheated on me or they’ve ghosted me or they’ve, you know, just ended up deciding they didn’t want to be with me in some sort of way. And I just thought she’s eventually going to leave me at some point in time. And she never did. She never did. And over time I started to notice my triggering in that and in being able to go, well, if she’s not going to leave me, well, then maybe I can start opening up a little bit more and maybe I can feel safe opening up and showing her another side of me that I’ve never shown anybody else. And as I did and I slowly started doing that, she didn’t leave. And not only did she not leave, she also just kind of grew stronger and more in love with me the more she started to see other sides of me. And so that was the main thing that happened with Lauren and that I think she has been able to help me heal parts of me that I haven’t been able to heal for myself. I was so beautiful and I relate so much to that. I’m curious, how did those patterns show up before Lauren? Yeah, and ’cause I know when I look back on my patterns, they didn’t just hurt me, they were very capable of hurting.
Why People Don’t Care About Their Evolution
I think that’s probably the best way I would have been like, “Oh my God, she’s amazing, she’s gorgeous, she’s awesome,” but she would have not been attracted to me because I just wasn’t, uh, I was, I just don’t feel like I was in this isn’t self-deprecating any sort way. I don’t think that I was worthy of her at that point. I think that she was evolved further than I was and I probably needed more time to evolve to the point where she was.
There’s something about why people don’t care about their evolution that’s really interesting to me because it sounds like when Lauren met you she had a healthy sense of her, you know, self-esteem and what her value was and what she was looking for. But that idea that you wouldn’t have been worthy of where she was in her evolution, I see far too often people not caring where he is in his evolution ’cause they see what he could be, they either see what he could be or they just see that there’s an attraction they don’t want to let go of. Yeah, there’s a connection that they feel to someone or a trauma bond, you know, like it’s really bad and then sometimes it’s good, and he ignores me for hours and then when he texts me I feel elated, right? And so they’re kind of only paying attention to what they feel for someone, as opposed to paying attention to what is their level of evolution, right? And I think there’s a common feeling of, “Well, but if I feel this strongly about them and I’m this excited by the connection and the attraction, then it’s almost like a disregard for where this person is on their journey, right? And their evolution. But I just don’t want to lose it. So what I’m hearing from you is like it doesn’t matter how attracted she would have been to you or how much fun you might have had together, it still would have put you fundamentally out of sync, right, the level of evolution you were at. I mean, I think there’s definitely the possibility in that case of like right person, wrong time. And if you’re so focused on right person, wrong time, you are not going to see right person, right time. And I think that they could be right in front of you or right out.
If you’re spending so much time chasing somebody that is right person, wrong time, um, or could be wrong person, wrong time, there probably is a right person, right time that could be out there that you could find, but you’re spending all of your energy trying to go after somebody who’s running from you. And so I think that, um, I think that if I’m being honest, like, I don’t think like there is like one person that’s made for you. Um, I think it’s one person that you feel safe around, they feel safe around you, and you decide, “Yeah, we’re going to do this together.” Um, and that was actually something like even with Lauren when we first started together, started, uh, dating a couple years in, she’s like, “I feel like if you, I feel like if you left, you’d be okay.” And I would say, “I would be.” And she hated that answer because she’s like, “You hate that answer.” I was like, “I would be.” And she’s like, “Well, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m saying, but that’s not what I want. Like, don’t you want me to choose you versus want you?” Because I felt like at that point in time, I was at a really good place in my life and things were working out and all of that, where I was like, I would be completely fine. It’s not what I want, but I would end up being okay. I wouldn’t be destroyed forever if this didn’t work out. And for her, that brought up them things that she needed to work on, right, which is like, uh, what that she felt like she had to be the only one who wanted.
And so I think that it’s, I think that that some people are thinking about the person who is out there that’s kind of like giving them the unrequited love or texting them every once in a while thinking, “Well, this is my person. I need to keep going after them.” When in reality, it might be that there’s 8 billion people in the world, there could be 10,000 your persons. And you might be chasing after the wrong person, wrong time, you might be chasing after the right person at the wrong time. But if there’s more of them out there and more people that are at your level of growth and of development, then why don’t you go try to find that person versus trying to chase the person who clearly isn’t showing you the effort that you want? It’s also like if you chase after this person, you wrangle them in, you get them in your net, and you pull them in, um, and that’s how they are. They’re showing you how they are and maybe they do evolve and maybe they do change, but maybe they don’t, you know? And what if you did get married to them because you’re now at the age where you need to or where you should or, you know, you feel like you need to have babies sometime soon? How would you feel if they showed up that way for your children, right? Like, what if that pattern doesn’t change? I don’t think people project into the future enough. They think right now, what’s right now in front of me. And so I think if they project in the future, it’s like maybe that pattern evolves, but maybe that pattern stays there forever. Is that how you want them to be with you in 20 years? Is that how you want them to be with your children when they’re teaching them how to be a human and an adult? And the stakes will only keep getting higher. Oh, way higher, yeah, right? It just layer off the layer of your lives becoming enmeshed and one, and you know, you now having the infrastructure of your life rely on this person in some way and then kids and then it’s like you’re just compounding an original kind of sin in the relationship that just, whatever it is you’re feeling now if it never changes is not going to get easier. It’s likely to get way, way harder, right? The more you feel like your life is entangled. That’s such a good point. You know, I think as well, we so many of us are taught that we need to earn love, and you know, you spoke about your dad, right? And in a way, you felt like you had to earn his love. Not consciously, right? But it was, you know, I’m not I don’t receive his love if I’m just myself. I have to jump through hoops and, you know, navigate through obstacles and, you know, quieten parts of myself and not express certain needs in order to get that attention. And, you know, there was something, and I want to come back to the point I’m making.
Finding Silence and Self-Awareness
In my opinion, I think more people need more silence. They just need to sit back and just be with themselves a little bit more to start to understand themselves. I was on Jay Shetty’s podcast the other day, and the last question asked was if there was a law that you had to put in for the entire world, what would it be? I said that every person would need a five-minute self-awareness practice every morning, whatever that looks like. Because I think every problem in the world would eventually be solved if everyone was aware of themselves and how they interact with themselves and how they interact with the rest of the world.
To repattern yourself, it’s APR. Awareness is the first thing. I need to become aware of these things within myself. As I become aware of them, I need to become aware when it pops up. Usually, what happens is we have automatic thoughts we don’t notice. It’s subconscious. But what we notice is our body. I don’t feel good, I feel anxious, I feel stressed right now. Okay, what was I just thinking about? And we can go back and go to the awareness of, “Oh, like, and to the people-pleasing is a great example.”
I noticed myself starting to give in on my boundaries, right? And people-pleasing, you can go back to like what was the original benefit of people-pleasing? A lady that was at an event I did yesterday and the only way that she got her mother’s love was by being exactly what her mom wanted her to be and telling her like she was. She wanted to play basketball, and her mom was like, “Be a cheerleader, don’t play basketball.” And that’s how she got her mom’s up, so she became a people-pleaser because that’s all about children care about: “Do I have my mom’s love? Do I have my dad’s love?” And sometimes we become chameleons to be able to get their love from them. And so in the case of people-pleasing, it’s like okay, I’m noticing I’m aware in this moment that I’m people-pleasing.
The P side of it is just practice. I need to have a practice that when I notice myself in a pattern, I already know exactly what I’m going to do. And then I need to have repetition. I do it over and over and over again. So for me, like, I’ll give you an example in my life, I hated years ago that I was like, “I love people, but there’s a really shitty judgmental side of me that exists.” And I was like, “I don’t want to be judgmental. Like, I love people.” And I was in a grocery store one time and there was a guy that had this huge Bluetooth in, like, it was like, you know, like he was making cold calls in the deli section. It was huge, yeah, like Britney Spears mic, right? It was all the way right here. And my immediate thought was, like, judgmental on this guy. And the point is when you decide the practice, don’t develop it in the moment because when your emotions are high, your logic is low.
It’s super simple. The situation that comes up for me is like whenever I’m in our local coffee shop, yeah, I mean, anywhere really, but like if there’s just someone sat near me playing a video out loud, yeah, or in the bathroom, you know, like they play it or just when just like you’re in a public place and you’re playing a video super loud out loud on your phone like as if the rest of us want to hear this, that brings I like I have to really like sense myself because I’m just like the lack of conscientiousness, first because Matthew is literally like the most conscientious person you will ever meet.
I’m pretty conscientious and then I met you and I was like oh you’re like next level conscientious, like I look like just a yeah, an inconsiderate obnoxious creature next to you. I think that’s my like I don’t know how conscientious I am is like always a good thing. Yeah, I think it’s that comes from a deep sense of you know growing up around a sense of like things can go wrong and growing up around a sense of conflict or danger where I’m like afraid that if you know if someone gets upset or if something gets upset that things could go really wrong, yeah everything needs to be good all across, yeah so it’s like me trying to keep I think it’s a verion trying to keep the peace, yeah, I know I think it’s and I hope you don’t mind me saying we can get rid of it if you do but I think there is also a kind of like need to uh control and I don’t mean that in a bad way but control your environment, make sure that everything is the way that you feel comfortable with and from the same thing and it’s almost like somebody coming in who feels more unpredictable in their behavior triggers you and makes you just mad because it’s almost like that’s why you love Japan so much, I mean, I love Japan so much too but wildly everyone’s so quiet and so polite and yeah, and it’s the thing about it is like we don’t have to change aspects of our so if somebody if he could keep that if he wants so he doesn’t have to change it you know and it’s like if we decide yeah if we decide something’s there and we want it to change like then we can say I need to become aware of it in the moment and I need to have a practice to get myself out of it M and I think that that’s what’s really important and just continue do it over and over and over again.
Navigating Early Dating Phases
I’m always trying to think back to what our audience wants to hear about a lot of our audience some people in relationships some people in marriages but we have a lot of people who are in those early dating phases who are looking for love and I’m just wondering you know when you speak like that I’m thinking of like our patterns in dating that have us gravitate towards unhealthy people sometimes even toxic people on the worst end of it abusive people um or even just emotionally unavailable people who are aloof or whatever it might be and some people even just take themselves out of the game completely and they don’t even bother to date anymore because they’ve had so much disappointment and so I know it’s a it’s a hard question to answer given that it’s such there’s such a spectrum of different experiences but when it comes to early dating and rewiring your patterns and love how would you apply what you’re saying to that?
The interesting thing, the thing I always go back to is pay attention to how your body feels. And all too often we’re on Instagram or on Netflix, we’re so in our head, we’re thinking about what’s coming up next, we’re thinking about the past, our brain is almost always in the future or it’s in the past, it’s very rarely ever here. And the thing that’s always here and always giving you signals is your body. And your body always responds to what your brain’s thinking.
When faced with a partner’s statement that could be perceived as threatening, it’s crucial to approach it with understanding. Rob’s candidness about his relationship dynamics, including his wife’s autonomy and self-assurance, might unsettle some. However, it’s essential to recognize the underlying message: his choice to stay is based on abundance, not scarcity.
Reframing Insecurity
For those feeling threatened by such statements, reframing the narrative is key. Instead of viewing it as a potential exit strategy, consider it as a reaffirmation of choice. Rob’s commitment stems from a place of strength, not obligation. Therefore, it’s an affirmation of the relationship’s solidity, rather than a harbinger of instability.
Open Communication
Communication is paramount. Expressing concerns and insecurities openly and honestly can foster understanding and dispel misconceptions. Rob’s transparency about his relationship dynamics highlights the importance of open dialogue in navigating complex emotions.
Embracing Autonomy
Embrace autonomy within the relationship. Recognize that both partners have individual agency and choices. Rob’s acknowledgment of his wife’s independence underscores the value of mutual respect and autonomy in a healthy relationship.
Seeking Clarity
When faced with uncertainty, seek clarity. Rather than succumbing to fear, engage in open conversations to address concerns and seek reassurance. Rob’s example emphasizes the significance of seeking understanding and clarity to foster emotional security within the relationship.
Navigating Triggers and Cultivating Compassion
Yeah, great question. I mean, it’s… you teed it up perfectly, which is what I was saying behind the scenes. I’m choosing you, not… I need you, any of that type of stuff. And so, yeah, it definitely triggered her in some ways, you know, where she was… she got triggered by that. We should have another… when we do another episode, we should actually bring her in. You could ask her these questions. For us, by the way, for everyone wondering what happened, did Audrey pass out mid-episode? We kicked her out. Yeah, she… she, uh, she had to leave halfway through the podcast for a personal engagement. So, um, she would have loved to have been here for the rest. Everyone’s like, “Wait, hold on, wasn’t Audrey there? What happened to her?” Like just gaslighting people, “What do you mean Audrey was on the podcast? It was always me. You’re going crazy.” Man, I think it’s a really good question. I think that my overall view of the entire game of life that we’re playing, like, so I’ll give you a couple things.
The book originally was going to be called “The Psychology of Taking Action,” and then that doesn’t sound very sexy ’cause people don’t want to just take action, right? So we came up with “Level Up,” because the way that I actually see the world is through the lens of this is like a video game. And I don’t ever play video games now, but when I played video games as a kid, the thing that I always remember about them is that the levels always got harder. And with each before you got to a new level, there was another challenge that would come into… for you to try to battle and to conquer from it, for you to get better. And you get better with every single level that you go through. And so the idea of like leveling up was this, what would your perspective of life change if you saw life is just a big video game? And when something does trigger you, you go, “Okay, hold on. I’m noticing once again, as that guy on the podcast said, my body is shifting, something’s happening in my body. Why is that?” And so no matter what somebody says to you, it has no authority to change the way that you feel. You give it the authority. So it’s kind of like Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote, which is, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
So if you’re feeling a certain way, it’s because you’re consenting to feel that way. So if I say to somebody, “I don’t need you here, but I want you here,” that can be viewed a million different ways. And the way that you view it is the way that you view it. And so if I feel triggered by that, if I’m in her situation, and the way that she could do it is she could take a step back, be like, “Man, I’m feeling really triggered. Why do I feel so triggered in this moment? Does it have to do with him or does it have to do with me?” And most of the time, it has to do with me. And then at that point in time, we need to go back to what I was saying earlier, which is at that point in time, become curious and start asking yourself questions. You know, imagine that you are somebody that’s a journalist, just sitting, trying to answer get all these questions answered. What questions would you want if you could sit down with yourself and say, “Hey, look, Stacy, I just noticed that you got really triggered by this comment that your boyfriend just made. Why do you think that triggered you?” And then just become curious with yourself and answer from two different perspectives, the person asking the question, the interviewer, and the interviewee. And then say, you know, “Is it reminding you of your childhood? Is it reminding you of past relationships? Is it possible that there’s another viewpoint that you could see?” And so what I find is that a lot of people have the same thoughts over and over and over again, and those thoughts turn into beliefs. But beliefs are not reality, and I don’t think people really understand that. Your beliefs are not absolute reality. And so you can think, “I’m not good enough, I’m not good enough, I’m not good enough,” and then you think that so much that that becomes your belief. It doesn’t mean that’s reality. It doesn’t mean that by somebody saying, “I want to be with you, but I don’t have to be with you,” when you take a step back, you say, like, “Why am I triggered in that situation?” Well, what you’re noticing is that that is triggering within you a story that you’re perpetuating your own head about yourself. And then you say, “Okay, well, can I see another viewpoint?” And so with those beliefs, I always want to try to question every thought and every belief that I have. So I always say, like, imagine that you’re on the debate team, right? Like, so back in high school, there was always a debate team, and you have been on the side of not good enough for a really long time. And that triggering is showing you the side that you’re on. Can you, for five minutes, come to the other side and debate yourself and say, “Is it possible that Rob wasn’t saying that you’re not good enough? What could have he have been saying? He could have been saying, ‘I choose to be with you,’ and, okay, is it more important that he chooses to be with me or that he wants to be with me? Let me get curious around that.”
And so we’re so firm in our beliefs and thoughts around ourselves that we need to go to the other side and debate the other side. And try to pull apart, in cognitive behavioral therapy, they say question the validity of the thought. When you have a thought like that, question how valid it is, and what you realize is the more that you start to question it, the less it holds weight, and you realize that your entire belief system is basically a house of cards, and you just gotta give it a good, and the whole thing just crumbles. But most people won’t take themselves out of the house in order to blow it down. And so I think if people would just become more aware and say, it’s not him that said that to me, it’s how I received it that made me feel that way. Yeah, I feel like this question could become like a new tradition when we have a male guest, but we’ll see.
The Rising Tide of Anger and Disillusionment
One of the things that, to be honest, only came to my awareness in the last year or so was what seems to be, I don’t know if it is or not, but what seems to be a growing number of men online who are very angry, very disillusioned, right? Very resentful. I’ve noticed it too, yeah. Yeah, I found it disturbing and a bit scary. And sad. And you know, for a while, I ignored it, because
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I love how you’ve explored communication patterns in relationships here. Your writing not only enlightens but also encourages readers to reflect on their own interactions. Fantastic post!