Sex With Emily - Confidence, Communication & Sex w/ Lisa Bilyeu

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Housewife turned billion-dollar co-founder Lisa Bilyeu is the picture of confidence: she’s got a thriving business, a partner she adores, and basically, is a literal boss. But she also overcame illness, insecurity, and massive relationship challenges to get where she is today. In her book Radical Confidence, Lisa shares the lessons that changed her life, and helped her become the hero of her own story. On today’s show, I ask her about keeping the sexual spark alive in a long term relationship, the “purgatory of the mundane,” and how to have a growth mindset with your partner. In this episode, you’ll learn: Radical confidence is built by taking action, even when you’re scared. How to escape the “purgatory of the mundane” by making small changes and stop waiting for the perfect moment. All about validating yourself—don’t rely on others for approval, celebrate your own wins. Show Notes: WIN FREE VIBRATORS! Bellesa and I are giving away *free toys* to everyone – sign up here: bboutique.co/vibe/emilymorse-podcast More Lisa Bilyeu: Instagram | Youtube | Twitter | Book: Radical Confidence | Impact Theory Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Try the LELO SORAYA WAVE today! (Use code "EMILY10" for an additional 10% OFF at checkout, exclusions may apply) Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides.  SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you’ll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website  Let’s get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let’s text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com

It's like, okay, you were bullied as a kid Lisa, so you're worried about being rejected today. Okay, yes, that's great. So now let's just take that for reality. I'm worried about this fear over here that's holding me back, but what's my goal? To get on a date. So now what's actually more important? Going on a date and reaching your goal or letting your insecurity take over.

You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. Housewife turned billion dollar co-founder Lisa Bilyeu is the picture of confidence. She's got a thriving business, a partner she adores and basically is a literal boss. But she also overcame illness, insecurity and massive relationship challenges to get to where she is today. In her book, Radical Confidence, Lisa shares the lessons that changed her life and helped

her become the hero of her own story. On today's show, I ask you about keeping the sexual spark alive in a long-term relationship, the purgatory of the mundane and how and How to Have a Growth Mindset with Your Partner. Please rate and review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show. It helps get the show out to more people and it just takes you a few seconds to do it. You can just do it right now. Look at your phone, look at your app that you're listening to this on and review us. We so appreciate it. You can also find me on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Orax, and Facebook. all the places.

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That's code EMILY at popstarlabs.com slash Emily. Check it out and let me know how it goes. Lisa Billi was the co-founder of the billion dollar company, Quest Nutrition and co-founder and president of Impact Theory. She's the host of Women of Impact, a show featuring women who have overcome incredible hardship to achieve massive success. She's the author of the book Radical Confidence, 10 No BS Lessons on Becoming the Hero of Your

Own Life. Lisa's mission is to empower all women to become the heroes of their own lives. Find more of Lisa on Instagram and Twitter at LisaBillyu. Lisa, Billyu, look at you. You have become a true confidence guru. I feel like I've known you for a few years now, but I just keep seeing you just leveling up and we're seeing that. We're going to learn a lot from your book as we're going to get into it.

But I want to know a little bit about the... Now I'm seeing the after Lisa the after Lisa who's has this toolkit tell me a little about the before Lisa. All right so I'm going to tell you about the before Lisa but I am going to put a little asterisk because a massive part of the before Lisa still lives in today's Lisa. That is so sweet and I really wish what you just said was actually true but it's not girl I don't always feel confident and that was the thing that is literally why I wrote this book because people's like oh my gosh you're so confident at least tell me that like what do you do and I'm like dude you have no idea what goes on in my head like you need to listen to how mean this voice is in my head every single

day and she's still there so it's like what you see I think is that I show up what you see is that I don't let the fact that I feel badly about myself and that I might not be equipped to handle whatever I'm about to do, I may not have the skill set yet, but I still do it anyway. And that was really why I started to write the book because I'm like, it is a big deceit and it is hurting people if they look at me and think of me as being unanimously confident. Because what I think is the beauty comes in the fact that so often I'm scared shitless. When I came up with this book, I was like, who the

hell is going to buy a book from me? I don't know what I'm going to say. That actually came out of my mouth when the offer first came to me. And so recognizing that I don't always feel good about myself, recognizing that I have this very negative voice that wants to hold me back is very important. And now the book and what I talk about is how do I keep moving forward? How do I achieve these goals? How do I work towards this freaking big audacious dream of mine every single day when I'm petrified? Going to my childhood, I didn't even have this mindset that I'm talking about now. So here's really the key, I think, is that for eight years, I stayed at home supporting my husband, thinking that I needed the confidence to make a change, thinking that I'll have

the life I want when this happens. I'll do this when my husband's happy, when I have the money, when I have the finances, when I have the confidence. And the question is, how the hell did I get there in the first place? How did I get stuck for eight years and now be the person who is like, I move forward no matter what. So the person that I was when I first started was the person that I thought I had the dreams, I knew what I wanted, but I had the mindset that my parents, over time, growing up, kept telling me, slowly, slowly, these small subliminal messages being a young, orthodox girl, that eventually I

would end up staying at home, supporting my husband and having children. So growing up, even though I had all these big dreams, I was subtly like dripped on by the messaging from my dad, where he didn't want me to study film. And then he gave up arguing with me and he's like, well, you're going to be a stay at home wife anyway, so it doesn't matter what you study. Things like that. Getting patted on the head when I said, I want to go to Hollywood and make it in movies.

And you actually go, you get patted on the head and someone's like, ah, these are big dreams for a little girl like you. Those messaging is exactly what ended up leading me, I believe, to the life where I met the man in my dreams, I had these big dreams with anxious goals, and yet I slipped into being a supportive wife, feeling like I couldn't own who I was, and over the period of eight years,

losing my hopes and dreams all along the way, never feeling like I had the confidence to speak up or deserve to have a different or better life. First of all, so many people can relate to growing up with a message, you are supposed to get married, have kids, there's no choice. Everyone's telling you that around you,

but to actually break out of that is a challenge for so many. I think that's so inspiring because I hear from people all the time who are like, they can't even differentiate between what they want and what their parents wanted or their grandparents. And I love that in your book, Radical Confidence, you spend a lot of time unpacking that. Like it's like the voice of your grandmother. What does she do? Yeah, my yaya. Yeah, yaya. You know, she's talking back at you. But I think there's so many great tools that people can say, oh, I have that voice too,

whether it's around, you know, for many people it's around marriage or kids or what you're going to do with your life so you're able to break through. Something that helped you break through, and I love this term, Lisa, I think this is going to stick everywhere, is the purgatory of the mundane. Now that was when you were a housewife for eight years and you're thinking like, what is happening? I think so many of us can relate to that. So can you talk about being in that place?

Yeah, thank you. I love the purgatory of the mundane. So the thing that I didn't realize was each day, it's not that bad today. How are you? Fine. How's life? Yes, I'm all right. You kind of just shrug it off, right? And so that's what I did day in and day out. Now, before I kind of go really deep, I do really want your audience to hear. I used the example of where

I was stuck. My stuckness was being in a role as a stay athome wife that didn't fill me up. So if someone right now, let's say, is working their butt off and all they wanna do is be at home and support their family, that's my message, right? What are you doing? Does it align with who you want to be? So for me, it was the stay-at-home wife. I don't wanna be that.

And I didn't think I would be there for long. I was like, oh, it's for the greater good, for the greater good of me and my husband, for our goals, we're gonna make enough money so we can make movies. That was kind of like the dream when we first started. So every day I was like, I can handle this. It's just for 12 months, 18 months, not a big deal. So every day what I was doing is self-soothing. So self-soothing is today, oh my God, I don't want to ask the question, am I happy? I don't wanna ask the question, am I satisfied? Because I worry about the answer.

So what I need to do is I need to distract myself. And I think so many of us do this. We have these little distractions every day that we lean into to help us overcome an emotion. For me, I didn't wanna assess that I wasn't living the life that actually that I wanted. And so I was filling my day with going to Costco and seeing like, how much can I get for as cheap as I can possibly get? My weight, my relationship with food, I would weigh myself every single morning. It was a distraction. These little things

that I was doing every day. And so I call it the purgatory mundane because my life, it never hit rock bottom. How many people, have you interviewed or you met incredibly successful and they're like, it all started because I had nowhere else to go. I hit rock bottom, my life was something major happened and I realized I've got nothing else to lose. And that is what propels a lot of people. But what about, to me, the hundreds of millions of us, they're fricking stuck in this place where we haven't hit a muck bottom. And because we haven't hit a muck bottom, we tell ourselves, who are you to complain? And this is where, can we talk about gratitude? So this is where I go,

where gratitude can be beautiful, right? When you're having a life where, let's say in COVID, I'm stuck at home, it's really tough, use gratitude as a way to propel you to think about the great things, right? It's like, look, instead of focusing on what is bad, let's change our perspective and let's look at how amazing things are. It's wonderful. It's a great strategy in order to take you from going from a victim to them being in charge of your own life saying, okay Well, how can I think differently? But here's what I did go. I used that to dismiss

my unhappiness I Use gratitude every I move over my head. I have a husband where everything's fine Who on earth do I think I am to complain about this area of my life? When I'm so grateful to have a husband that loves me and look how many people don't have that. I'm so bored out of my life, but how on earth can I complain when I have a roof over my head? So many other people don't have a roof over their head, Lisa. And so the gratitude piece helped me initially and then kept me there. And because I didn't hit rock bottom,

I kept being in the purgatory. I think a lot of us do that. We're like, well, I could be on the street. I could be... There's so many ways that whenever we get into our negative self-talk or feel down on ourselves, we think about that. But I love this twist and it's so we can overdo it. Like that's just another way to distract yourself on what you actually want.

So how about this applying some of these tools? Like how did the radical confidence help get you out of there? Like what would be the first step? So I think for me, my journey was that I realized after eight years that the when may never come. So I was waiting for when we had enough money to make movies, when my husband is happy, when we're financially stable, right? Like I was always waiting for the when. It was either I'm going to wait to have kids until we have the time. And when I started to realize after eight years, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results. And so it got to the point where I realized actually

what was happening was the opposite. We were getting more and more unhappy. We were starting to chase an empty dream that didn't feel like it was ever going to actually happen. And so now it's like, okay, are we loving the journey? Because the success may never come. And the journey we realized was miserable. I said to Tom, my husband, I don't care. Let's stop chasing money.

I need you to go in and quit your job. Let's rethink our lives. Because right now it is not filling us up. And we thought we had a path, we thought we had to go and it's only leading to more unhappiness. Now that ended up starting a whole cascade of what ended up being that him and his business partners started Quest Nutrition. Now, at this point, I had the mindset and the belief that I was a great supportive stay at home wife. And that was the identity I had adopted over the last eight years. And so when Tom said, All right, babe, we're going to start a new company. Now this is going to be predicated on passion. We're all really excited. But we still have

to work and do our day job. And we'll start this company on the side. Do you mind just helping out? Now this is my journey where the helping out ended up being like, oh I can do that. The identity being the good Greek wife steps in, of course I can support you babe, of course I can do that. So what I did is every day I would help. I'll ship a couple of bars here, do a couple of things over here and I just thought it was no big deal. Now what we didn't expect was the company would grow at 57,000%. And so in that growth, I went from shipping bars to my living room floor on day one to two years later, I had my own facility, 10,000 square foot of just shipping, 40,000 employees underneath me. And we were shipping out $80 million of inventory. So it was insane. So the catalyst was me breaking the habit

of the everyday mundanity of life, being forced into a situation that at the time, I didn't think I had a choice. So our house was up for collateral. So if Quest didn't succeed, we would have lost our house. So that puts it into very simple terms that every day when I thought I was handling something, I had no idea what I was doing, but the imposter syndrome of who the hell am I to walk into a room full of guys who have been in business for 10 years and how here I am, I've just been a boss of my two dogs for eight years, like the imposter syndrome of course came out. So what did I do every time

that happened? I was like, well, Lisa, you can let the fear overtake, you know, which leads to you losing your house because you're not acting, or you can absolutely move forward even though you're scared. Now telling someone to move forward even though you're scared sometimes doesn't help. I hear you're telling me I need to, I hear you're telling me why I need to, but the fear and the voice inside me is so overpowering, it's so freaking strong that I can't move forward. That's what radical confidence is and when I look back at it and it's like, what is the things that I did? How did I show up every day? Even though I was freaking petri-pup, go to the point where I need people to actually understand. We hit shipping out, I was freaking petri- well, go to the point where I need people to actually understand,

we were shipping out, I was printing labels, and then it was like we just grew so quickly. So okay, I have to learn this new shipping software. I had to write down step one, plug in the computer. Step two, switch it on. Step three, click this. If this doesn't open, you need to reboot your computer. That's how much I didn't know what I was doing. And yet every time I even sat in front of the computer and I was like, Oh my God, I have no idea what I'm doing. What the hell am I doing sitting here pretending like I know? I gave myself the option, Lisa, you can lose your house or you can face your fear and learn. You had such high stakes too of losing your house. What I love in your book is these tools,

how to deal with imposter syndrome and the negative voices. And it was a very interesting perspective I loved. You had some great strategies in there for dealing with them that I hadn't thought of before. And I'm like, this is so great for no matter what you're dealing with, whether you have your house on the line or you just need to get up and go on a date, or it's your first time having sex with somebody

and your negative voice is telling you like I can't do this this person's had eight more lovers than I have why would they want to date me I mean this is this is negative self-talk and I think you have some great strategies if you could talk about that. Oh my god a hundred percent I freaking love this girl so number one definitely start with a goal right. A goal. Yeah you need to know what the goal is. Okay.

You just need to know. You know dating and sex. So let's say, okay, let's say I want to go on a date and I want to, in fact, give me a real world example. What are the questions you get asked about? Funny you should ask. We're just going to skip around here because I have some questions that I really wanted you to help me answer.

Oh yeah. This is John, 23 in New York. He's having a problem, regaining confidence in social skills. So Dr. Embley, you want to start off by saying, I love the podcast. Thank you so much for sharing your wealth of knowledge. Here's a story. Graduated college in May of 2020, had a long-term relationship that ended in July, been single for a while. He says, I want to start dating again, but I feel like I've lost my confidence and social skills. How do I get back to being the social

person I used to be around people with dating? Any help or advice would be appreciated. Love it. Okay, great. This is perfect. So I want to go out and date. Let's just like condense it slightly because sometimes it becomes overwhelming. Like I want to go out and date and I want confidence. It's like, oh, there's so much. Okay, let's narrow it down. That's the first thing is like take a deep breath and go, what is the actual goal? Because it's kind of like saying, someone saying, I wanna create impact. Okay, that's amazing, but that leaves you nowhere to go. Like there's so much types of impact. Do you wanna impact someone on a global scale?

Do you wanna impact one person? Do you wanna impact through writing a book? Do you wanna impact through doing a podcast? There's so many, right? So even with this question, it's like, let's actually narrow it down. Okay, let's take the first date. I want to have the confidence to go on a date. To now, it's like it doesn't become overwhelming. It's like, but I need to be confident here. I need to be confident in bed. But what if it ends up

leading? So no, no, no. Take a deep breath. I need that one thing. Okay, have a north star. So I want everyone right now to think about what that north star is, be very succinct and be very, very actionable so you know, did I do it yes or no? Right? The date, did I go on that date? Exactly. Saturday night is my date night. Yes. Okay.

So that's, it's a binary. It's yes or no. I'm going to say, all right, for the next month, I'm going to work on myself. And now you're going, okay, cool. You've got one date. You've set a time. And now it's a, did I move towards it, yes or no?

And now what you do, let's say you've got the month, now it becomes, what are the small little stepping stones you can do to just go on a date? I'm not even, hear what I'm saying, I'm not even saying I need you to feel that you're best, the most amazing person on that date, I didn't say that. I just said, you just need to go on this date. So how do we get there? First of all, it needs to be one, open to

the fact that you need to maybe ask someone on a date. Great. You write down these steps, even what it looks like. Write down the steps. So maybe right now, the person who wants to go on the date, maybe gets offered a lot. They get asked on the date and they just don't have the confidence to say yes. That's what I need them to do right now is say, how can I say yes? I'm not telling you to go on a date yet. The first step is how can I say yes? So I want someone right now to think about how are they going to say yes to the

next date? What does that actually look like? So maybe right now, if someone's on a dating app, maybe it's, you know what, I'm not even going to look at their profile. Because right now it's not even about making an amazing connection. It's not about feelings confident with yourself. I remember I haven't said any of that. It is just how are you going to say yes? And the reason why I'm saying this, girl, is confidence comes from competence, which means right now they're going to need to go on maybe 20 different dates of people they don't actually find attractive to build the competence,

to get confident enough so that when they're on dates with someone, that they start to feel the butterflies, they've done the groundwork. I love that we talk to this throughout the book about competence equals confidence. You don't just get, you're not just wake up one day. If you're still waiting for a day to hit you, that you're like, today I'm the most confident ever, you have to do the steps. And that might be 20 weird dates that you didn't let everyone, it doesn't matter. But your goal is to get more confident, but it's not just going to happen. It's by competence means you practiced, you did things, you went out there, you failed. Exactly. So making sure that you've set goal number one, then maybe the next person that

asked you on a date, you're not going to see it as a romantic thing. Or maybe you tell them because the idea of it like is maybe uncomfortable. I'll leave that to the individual. But this is how I think like the steps put in the next step. What's the next step going to be? I'm just going to reserve the time and day. Remember, I didn't say go on going to be? I'm just going to reserve the time and day. Remember, I didn't say go on and the date. I'm just going to reserve the time and day. Okay, can you actually do that? Maybe, oh, you know what, I can actually do that.

Maybe you must bail right before the date. I'm not even saying you have to commit. It's all fine, just commit to it. It becomes the, okay, now I've just said yes. Now what you're doing is you're building the skillset to say yes to a date and the skill set to book a date. I haven't said confidence in any of that yet. Now the next step is I just need to go to the date. Great. All right. Now this is where you let all the negative voice seep in. They come in fast. They're doing show up and I hate it. We'll we're gonna be late, we're gonna wear it right. Oh, slow down. Alright, let's take one of

those because this is the negative voice. Alright, tell me the first one. Okay, the first one is like they're gonna see me and walk out. Okay, they're gonna see me and walk out. Let's say that's actually the first fear. So what I do, and I talk about in the book, is I take this bitch in my head and I make her my best friend. Now as my best friend, me and you are such freaking good homies, I need people to know that if you asked me the truth about something, about let's say something you were doing, and I was like, I actually have some constructive feedback.

As your friend, you would rely on me to be truthful to you, right? I do, and you have been. Okay, now if I lied to you, I'm not a truthful friend. But it doesn't mean that my feedback isn't going to sting a little, right? Because you want me to love everything you do. I want you to love everything I do. But at the end of the day, as my friend, I've asked you to be truthful to me. So that's how, if we can switch the voice in the head to be like there's a voice,

but what if they had your best interest at heart? So now that voice that you just said, they're going to walk out. They're not going to like my looks. Okay, great. So what is that voice, the friendly voice saying? You're worried about being rejected. Let me just sit with that and let me just process that. Can you actually control someone else? No matter how much you do, no matter how much you do, can you control anyone else? Can you control whether someone's attracted to you? No, it's never about you really, it's really not. Yeah. Now go, how do you put your

best foot forward? Don't freaking slum it. Like right, if this was really a concern of mine, where I go to a date and I'm like I'm actually worried about being rejected, okay this is really sore spot, why is this a sore spot? I got rejected when I was a kid and it really hurt and it's one of my triggers. Okay great, I'm just giving myself the grace to speak right now, right? To give myself the allowance to hear my voice, to hear what's worrying. It's like, okay you were bullied as a kid Lisa so you're worried about being rejected today. Okay yes, that's great. So now let's just take that for reality. I'm worried about this fear over here that's holding me back, but what's my goal?

To get on a date. So now, what's actually more important? Going on a date and reaching your goal or letting your insecurity take over? The fear is the ego, the fear is saying, oh my god, don't embarrass yourself. So what's more important? My ego or my goal? And so with now people ask like there's literally no judgment Like I want people to ask themselves this question without actually bringing judgment to it because then it's like well look I really want to go on a date. It's really like Think what that right thinking in a year thinking in five years. How will you feel if you don't go on a date? Does that sit well with you? Yes or no exactly. It's gonna keep going I guess they're purgatory the mundane of not dating their fears in their ego is

totally holding them back yes so now if you can say that with no judgment give yourself grace say great so me saying yes to someone the next person I ask me just booking the date me not even necessarily thinking of it as a romantic thing me just going and turning up are all steps in order for you to get better at being the person that can go on dates even if you get rejected because you can't control how they respond. But now I'm not going to say it's easy. Rejection will still sting. Going on that date and being excited and having that person reject you, everything I'm saying doesn't make that any easier. Now it happens.

So now what are you going to do if it happens? That's part of your radical confidence tool belt. I'm going on this date. Think about how you're going to show up. Think about what you're going to ask. What you're going to say. Exactly. What you're going to say.

Like really think about it. Put in the time and energy. And so right now, if you go on a date and you're worried about getting rejected, what are the things that you can do that aren't going to bring you to your knees if you get rejected? Maybe, let me just throw out a couple of things that come to me in real time. Maybe before you go on the date, you reach out to three of your friends and you say, hey, I really need you to write words of encouragement right now so that if I go on this date and this person rejects me I need to know that I'm not rejected by the people

that I care about. You can even say to them text me three things you love about me. Love it even better. Have it right there. Yeah and now what you're doing is you're not saying oh my god if I get rejected I'm gonna fall to my knees and never be able to get up. What you're saying is, hey, I've done all the steps. I'm going in here with the best intentions. But if this happens, I've got a game plan to help me pull me out of it so I don't stay on my knees. And now what happens is, the more you do that, girl,

the more you rinse and repeat, the better, going to the point that we said earlier, the more competent you'll become so that when you get rejected, you do the groundwork, that over time you realize it's not about you. And now that hurt, that feeling, that sting that you got from going the very first time to now, it just gets, like it gets shorter, right? The sting that happened when you got rejected on that first day it took you a month to get over but you know what now it only took you a week give your that's confident it's true that is that is success because it does and then the longer you wait to go on a date you just be like oh i see that's what happened but no you just keep going then you set

up another date another date and what i love too in your book, why you explain a little bit about, because we're talking about the negative voices that hold you back and I think some people are really aware of them. You mentioned this for a second but you just make it your friend and you're like, what are you saying here? And you kind of like flip the messages or you're like, you have to be able to listen to it because there is some validation now. You also make the distinction about sometimes we say, well, you should just have more self-love

and it gets not true. Like, I'm worried I'm going to fail. But maybe that some of it is true. So can you talk about like making it your friend like you flip it or like actually listening to it, but you kind of bring her under your arm. You're like, you're my you're my BFF. You're my homie, as you'd say, right? Yeah.

How do we do that with like a maybe you can give an example of a specific voice. Yeah, that you because I just think this is a really big one and it ties into fear and ego. Yeah, 100%. I was just like highlighting. I think I even took some stuff in here. No, because I just think it's really useful. The negative voice, everyone kept saying, right? Okay, it's holding me back.

Everyone's telling me to be nice to myself, love yourself. Okay, great. Everyone's telling me this, this is what you need to do, Lisa. I'm very tactful. So it's like, okay, someone said this, great, let me give it a shot. And what ended up happening was I was getting so much of that messaging and because I wasn't able to. All the time, right?

Yeah, all the time. Be kind, self-loving, because I couldn't. I tried, I really did try, like I gave it my all and I was like, it's actually not, I'm unable to do it right now and right now the fact that I'm able to do it actually makes me feel worse about myself, which really what it does now and right now the fact that I'm able to do it actually makes me feel worse about myself which really what it does is just turns up the volume on the freaking negative voice in your head because now you've given her another reason to talk negatively to you, right? It's like oh you can't even get me to shut up. So I was like I'm so goal-oriented how on earth

this thing I can't avoid how can I turn it from my kryptonite to my superpower? earth, this thing I can't avoid, how can I turn it from my kryptonite to my superpower? Saying those phrases, kryptonite to superpower, makes me think differently. Okay, great. It's really crippling. This voice right now, for instance, I wanted to start my own podcast. You said, give me you an example. So I wanted to start my own podcast. I was like, it's just going to be over Zoom. It's going to be audio only. My husband's like, babe, we have an entire studio. We've got six cameras and we have a team. Why the hell aren't you filming? And I realized it's because I was fearful. And so right now, this voice in my head

that I was trying to say to shut up wouldn't be quiet. So to the point of it is now getting in my way of my goal. It is getting in the way of me impacting because I do think content is the way to be able to create impact on a global scale. So I understand my why, I know that I need to get in front of the camera, but I'm too freaking scared. All right, this voice is stopping me. How the hell

do I use it as my superpower? Let me rethink this. Okay, she's a bitch. I want to shut her up. I want to like punch her in the face. And it's like, what's the opposite of that? Instead of punching her in the face, okay, the opposite is giving her a cuddle. Great. What would that look like? Okay, I'm giving her a cuddle, which means if you're giving someone a cuddle, you actually want to hear from them. Okay, great, I wanna hear from them. So how do I do that without feeling badly? Okay, maybe think of it as your friend, right? So I reframed it.

So it's making it your friend and listening. So I reframed it and I said, okay, doesn't want me to get in front of the camera. I finally pushed myself, just get in front of the camera, just do it Lisa, press record. So again, in front of the camera and that's when the voice was even louder because I wasn't great.

You were talking about your first show that you felt like I wasn't great. I wasn't really prepared. Yeah. So I was like, okay, I managed to get in front of the camera. But to my point about the first date that I said to you, what happened to- You might not be great in the first date either. Yes. So what do you do in those moments that allows you to keep propelling forward? Because you know your why. So I knew, okay, right now, I went in front of the camera, I managed to get the confidence or the radical confidence to get in front of the camera.

And now I've totally bombed. And now the voice is even louder. How do I reframe that? So that's where I like, okay, listen to her. What is she saying? Because maybe there is truth in it. So she's now saying, Lisa, you had no idea how to open the interview. And I'm like, let me see if she's right. That was the part of it. That was the key part is listening to the voice and saying, with love and kind of bringing it under your arm and saying, maybe there's some truth to it. And it's okay, because now we can have a plan to overcome that negative thing.

Like my opening wasn't that strong. Yeah. And that was the thing. And I looked and I was like, let me see if she's right. And I was like, oh, she is right. And that's where I go to be in the ego. The reason why the voice is speaking is because it doesn't want you to be embarrassed. Like, I think she's trying to protect me, which is why it's your BFF, right? She wants you to do good. She's trying to protect you. Which is why she's telling you this. Because she's like, I don't want you to be embarrassed.

I know what it feels like to be embarrassed, Lisa. Remember that one time? Remember how that felt? I'm here to remind you, that sucks. Don't you ever get there again. It's the ego protecting you. So if it's protecting you to go, okay, right now in the protection, you're stopping me from doing what I really want to do.

So instead of stopping me, how can I use you as the fuel? How can I use you to propel me forward? So if you're telling me I'm really bad at my intros, let me just see if maybe you may be right, because maybe there's something I can learn. Now if you can go, can I learn from this error? Can I learn from this catastrophic mistake? Can I learn from this catastrophic mistake? Can I learn from this really bad date? Now you can go, instead of feeling badly about myself, what can I learn?

Maybe you showed up on that day and all you did is talk and you didn't ask one question about them. And the voice is saying, it's not all about you. It's practical advice because I could see someone going on this really bad first date and saying like, see, it was terrible. They didn't like me. They didn't text me back. This happened to me yesterday.

I was with my dog park friend because I go to the dog park a lot with my dog and she would say, yeah, I was going to start dating again. I went on a date and now I went out and we were swiping for a few days. Then we met up and now I have a heart for him and I think I'm just going to take a break from dating. I'm like after one date, first off we'll never know what would happen. Maybe he went back with his ex, maybe he, who knows what? Maybe he reminded him too much of his ex.

We'll never know what that person's thinking and like just maybe think of how he'll just quickly like take one thing that doesn't go right and they just go back to their purgatory. We'll be right back, but first I have to tell you about Lalo. It's cuffing season, the time of year where people seek

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sexwithemily.com slash smartsx. Check it out now and take those steps to change your sex life for the better. It works. Oh my God. Okay. I love this. Can I give you one thing in real time that I actually just thought of what I would do in that situation if I was that person? I would recognize, oh my God, this is a pattern. No judgment, but this is how I normally do it. Actually, I've noticed this about myself. So being self-aware is actually beautiful before you even go on the date, in fact. So say, you know what? Yeah, I am that person that when I don't, if I go on a date and I don't really like them, to be honest, it never even bothers me that they don't text me back

after three or four days, but I've noticed when I really like someone, after a day I start to get anxious. Beautiful! Don't judge yourself, just write that down. Now that you know yourself, come up with the rules. You do it before your emotions get taken in. So what I would do is like, I know myself well enough. I know by after date two, I'm going to be the one that's probably texting them, hey, is it okay? And that's where I keep going wrong. Amazing. Now I know. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to write down Lisa promises herself. I would do something like that. Promise is a big word for me. so I'm using words that would trigger me on purpose whatever words like people want to use yep whatever that thing is that they can attach themselves to and then I would write a rule list like literally I would say no matter what you

don't text them for five days that may be terrible and maybe like you don't want to play games but maybe that's the thing maybe like I don't want to play games, but maybe that's the thing. Maybe you're like, I don't want to play games. So after day three, if they haven't reached out, I'm going to text them once. And this is what I'm going to text them. Hey, I had such a great evening. Now remember, I'm writing this without having even gone on the date. Hey, I had such a great evening. It'd be great to meet up again if you're interested. Whatever.

You write all of this down before your emotions are tied up in it. So now when it happens, when you've gone on that date and your mind starts spiraling of all the things, you go back to your cheat sheet and you go back and say, I know myself well, I know my feelings really want to, but this is why I wrote the cheat sheet as my guide to stick to. And what I'm gonna to do is I've made a promise. Oh my God, it says Lisa made a promise to herself. So I'm going to keep it. And I'm going to maybe, maybe I'm a little obsessive and maybe I'm going to hold onto this cheat sheet with my life. That's fine. But have something that allows you to act not on emotion, because we all know that emotions ebb and flow and that

sometimes we can't necessarily trust them to be our North Star of how we should act. So you're talking about having all the barriers and having the toolkit in place, having your list so you know where to go if your mind starts spiraling. Let's say you keep going about self-aware. What if you're the person that doesn't keep going back to it because it actually hurts you to go if your mind starts spiraling. Let's see you keep going right about self-aware. What if you're the person that doesn't keep going back to it because it actually hurts you to go back to it? No judgment. Now you know yourself. So what you're gonna do before you go on this date, you're gonna set an alarm in your phone and you're gonna go, okay I'm going on a date on Saturday. I know myself. I may not refer back to the she, I may probably start feeling these feelings

after 24 hours, especially if I like them. All right, I know this about myself. I'm not going to judge myself for it. I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I'm not going to compare myself to others. I'm just going to accept that this is who I am. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to set an alarm on my phone 12 hours after I've gone on that first date.

And the alarm is going to say, I love you, refer back to this sheet. Whatever word you need. Well, I love it, because it also gives you a built-in sort of a net that can hold yourself. Because after the date, you're like, well, my next step after this date is I don't have to think about it now. I've got 12 hours.

Maybe until this alarm goes off, or it just kind of helps you think, I've got a plan for this, I've got a plan for this. Because our emotions are not predictable our emotions are not really are they're not gonna there to help us they're actually there to hurt us and I love that we talk about like the negative self-talk is your ego which really is your friend trying to protect you in a way and so now you've broken this down right you can see how this is literally guys what I talk about in my

book so when you see me sitting here confident in front of the camera or you know listening on the podcast like everything you hear me sitting here confident in front of the camera or, you know, listening on the podcast, like everything you hear me say, I was the person that was petrified to sit in front of the camera. I was the one petrified to do interviews. And how the hell do I go from the person that was petrified to being here today, easily with confidence, being able to talk about this stuff. It was because I did everything I'm just saying. It wasn't because I had a magic spell. It wasn't because I convinced myself. It wasn't because

I have some magic spark that other people don't. It was that. I did the self-awareness piece. I did the assessment piece. I did the plan in place piece. You prepared. You were talking about all these tools that you had in place. Like you were saying after the first show that you're like I made sure I had the intro written here I practiced the intro next time so I didn't falter on the intro and I had my closing and I had I had papers and notes in front of you and all the structure in place to make sure that it didn't happen again. Exactly. I'm sure it was great. If we all went back it was fine. No, no, no, it was bad. And here's the thing, but it's actually important for me to say so you go back and watch it the very first words out of my mouth is I introduce the guest and then I'm

like oh shit I didn't even say who I was you actually hear me on the camera say oh my god I didn't even say my own name so I actually don't mind that like it's the beauty of showing the truth of my evolution and that's what I'm trying to say for people at home so going back to everything we just encompassed is that right now you can see how I would say, even if I'm the person that's petrified to go on that date to your question that you even asked. This is literally how I go, cool, what's the goal? Narrow the goal down so it doesn't seem overwhelming. Create a game plan, have a backup for your game plan, do a self-assessment, know thyself, put all these actions into place and then make a commitment that you're going to do

something on X date and it doesn't have to be perfect. So if it's a YouTube channel, people really want to do their own stuff, great, put in a date and say in a week, in seven days, I am going to have pressed record on my iPhone. I didn't say post it, as a press record. So having these little baby steps so that you know how to approach it and then thinking about once you've gone on that first date, knowing how you're the type of person that responds in a certain way with no judgment, writing those things down and then having a game plan that then allows you to have a go-to cheat sheet so that you don't let your emotions get in the way and get in

the way of that dream goal of building your confidence to go on dates. That's good because it feels so insurmountable so what I love about that is that and you have this all in the book, radical confidence, is this you have the step in the book, radical confidence is this, you have the step-by-step plans. Like you show how you actually break these things apart, which I found to be just so useful for, you could use it whether it's in the boardroom or the bedroom.

Yeah, right. Well, if you wanna break it down. So I also love your chapter of validation is for parking. So can you unpack real quick, like what validation is, why it's so important to give it to ourselves, and that and that sort of take it from others. I like your perspective of why do we seek it from others and how do we actually give it to ourselves,

which is what really matters. So validation to me really is a, maybe we can even use a different word, like how do you feel about yourself? Do you feel good? And where do you get that from? Do you feel good when other people give you the compliments and pat you on the back and tell you how great you feel good? And where do you get that from? Like, do you feel good when other people give you the compliments and pat you in the back and tell you how great you're doing?

Yeah, probably a lot of us do. And that's actually okay. The problem is, is where now you don't feel good about yourself if no one gives you that validation, or you don't feel good about yourself if someone's actually saying all the things that you're not good at or that you're doing wrong. You're going to hear me say this a lot. Give yourself grace to just take inventory because that's where I always wanna start.

It feels good to me when this person does this and when they don't, I actually don't feel good about myself. Like this is just an inventory of where you get validation from currently. And then another inventory of what you do every day to give yourself validation. Maybe right now that list is empty. That's okay. Just take an inventory. So now that you've got your inventory, now I'm all about a game plan, stepping stones.

So what is the one thing I'm going to do today that is just me? Because you have to build up your internal validation. It's all muscles, isn't it? It's all building up these internal muscles. And then giving yourself grace to be certain days you're going to fail. And it's like sometimes, even with everything I'm saying, I've written a freaking book, and sometimes I still find myself looking externally for validation. And sometimes when I notice, I'm like, oh, it's all good. They see you're back here again. Don't sweat it, girl. You've got your game plan. Now jump back in. So I don't pride myself on being perfect.

I don't pride myself on being a one and done. And that is because I'm actually not perfect because I'm never a one and done. And so going back to how do I take something that actually doesn't serve me and flip it. It's like I used to want perfection. I used to feel badly about myself. And now I'm like, how can I reframe this? I'm not the person that seeks perfection. I can feel good about that.

So now I say out loud. Going back to the validation piece, where do you get external validation from? And now how do you start building your own? Because I wouldn't even start with push out other people's validation. I would actually start saying, build the skill set within yourself first,

and then start looking at the external and how you make sure you don't tie your value and worth to that. So what are you going to do today to make yourself proud of yourself? Like what would actually be? So in fact, here you go. I'm going to give it to you. Give it to me. Before we started, we were doing an audio check. Our sound guy said, hey, Emily, what did you eat for breakfast? And you said out loud, I had the smoothie that I actually made myself and immediately I was like, Oh my God, you made a smoothie yourself? Because we've been friends for so long. I know

you don't cook. You don't do any of that. And you're like, I did, it's two days, but I did it. And I was like, in this moment, girl, hell yes. You feel proud of yourself. You did it for two days. So where are you building validation? You said, you know what, I want to make a smoothie myself. And for two days. So where are you building validation? You said, you know what, I want to make a smoothie myself. And for two days, you did it. Now here's the thing, you may not do it tomorrow. Right now. But right now.

It's a lot of cleanup. But right now, the validation piece is, you said you were going to do it and you did it. So I want people right now to go, what is the thing that I can start with? It all is stepping stones. Don't jump in. What is that thing you're going to promise yourself that you're going to do today? That at the end of the day, you can pat yourself on the back.

That's what I'm looking for. Because every day there are things. Every day, girl. I used to compare myself, my body, to other people, to external, right? Like, oh my god, she's so beautiful. She has six pack abs, being a quest, starting quest. It was very much the fitness space, right? So it's like, oh my god, she looks stunning, she's has six pack abs, being a quest, starting quest, it was very much the fitness space, right?

So it's like, oh my gosh, she looks stunning, she's blah, blah, blah, and now I feel worse about myself. That was external, right? Like, if I happen to have better abs than someone else, I feel better about myself. If someone else has better abs than me, I feel worse about myself. So kind of getting the validate, or in fact, getting validation from other people telling me how good I look, right? All of that is very real.

And I used to be there, and I realized that's what got me into an unhealthy relationship with food. That was what got me into an unhealthy relationship with my body, because it was like someone else is giving you the pat on the back, someone else is telling you how amazing you look. You're comparing yourself to others, and now the validation comes from what they look like,

not what you're bringing to the table. So I realized that was really bad from my mindset. So what I did is I was like but I love working out. How can I use the love of that to empower me to give myself the pat on the back? And so I said Lisa you're your own competition. Now what would that look like? Okay great today Lisa you did five push-ups. Can you do tomorrow six? Like that's it. And now what I'll do is the next day, I'm like, Lisa, you're going to do six. And now let's say I'm trying to do six push-ups and I don't hit it. And all I do is five. What I'm doing is immediately after, I'm like, I'm so proud of you, you gave it a shot. Instead of of I can't believe you didn't, you're lazy. But now it's me against me so I'm removing the external influence because

that's the important part is removing the external influence to be able to give you a signal either way. It's so tricky though Lisa to be able to turn around and it's so deeply ingrained to go I can't believe you didn't do that six push-up. How hard was it? And that's why. So what you're saying is that it's just you against you. Correct. What is a thing that's external? Bring it internal. So let's say my body, how I feel about myself, I'm looking at other people, I'm judging myself based on who I'm looking at, not actually on how I feel and what I've accomplished. And so I need to go, how do I take this external thing that I'm looking at and turn it internal?

So that was the first thing. Take this about myself. Then what are the challenges I'm going to do to give myself the validation? Because let me tell you, sitting on my ass and just saying, yeah, Lacey, you got this. No, I don't believe I deserve me to give myself a pound on the back for that. So what am I going to bring that I feel like I can validate and feel good about myself? Today I'm going to try six. And now to your point about what if you don't do the six people beat yourself up? I'm going to repeat to myself, I'm the type of person that shows up and tries to do

better. So now, and if you need that as a mantra, put it on a post-it note at the gym while you're doing it as the reminder, then do it. So that when you've gone to do those six push-ups and you've only been able to do five again, you turn around, you see the Post-it that says, I'm the kind of person that just tried to do six. And now you're cultivating the mindset of giving yourself the validation of the person that tried.

And it's not external, it's internal. It's very tricky, but it takes assessment. And that's where it's like, that's why I say- Very analytical. You have to like, for many people who are stuck in their emotions and they're limiting beliefs, your tools really help them sort of get out of it. It's very practical.

Yeah, because I get it. I understand why. the beliefs we've had, the way we were brought up. If you're someone that literally imagined, like I think of myself as like the 14 year old girl that didn't believe in herself, that looked in the mirror, didn't think I was, you know, brought any value. I want to talk about that though for a minute, because you've been so open about your body struggles and body image and how you felt and what you've been through with that. And I think that's so brave.

So thank you so much for kind of talking about that in your book because I know that's really not easy. And so I'd love to hear more about that and how it sort of has helped you, kind of how you've moved past it. But how have you learned to like heal your relationship, not only with food, but with your body and how you think, because I think also we definitely get questions from people like, I feel so bad in my body that I can't imagine being naked with somebody else. And it can just hold us back when really, again, it goes back to confidence and some really deep healing you've had to do. Can you talk

about that? Yeah, actually, the biggest part of where I struggled the most with my confidence is really where my health deteriorated. At 14, I didn't believe in myself. I was teased for my looks, so I definitely had very low self-esteem. I was the person that just tried to fit in. So I definitely struggled with that. And so I think that building my mindset in other areas of my life of how I feel about myself, how I feel about myself in business, how I feel about myself in business, how I feel about myself in a relationship, then has that knock-on effect to then like take it into

the bedroom and take it into my relationship with my husband. But it all starts with the internal work. And so I had slowly built it up through time, through these strategies I'm saying. But even when I thought, I've got this, right? Like, I'm confident in bed. I've been with my husband for a long time now. I know everything he likes. He knows everything I like. I know I can turn on the dime, right? Like, you get confident over time.

I've been with my husband for a long time. And then my health deteriorates. And my health literally, as you know, like it went from one day I was fine, the next day, you know day I drunk a bottle of champagne or a whole bottle, but I had a sip of that champagne and a lifelong health struggle that was kind of teetering ended up totally spilling over. And so from that moment, for over a year, I could barely eat anything. Like I was on like four different ingredients that I could eat, four, lamb, salt, coconut oil,

and chicken. I was losing so much weight. So I was 20 pounds lighter than I was now. My hair was falling out. My nails are brittle. And so this happened after I built my confidence. It happened after we'd built Quest Nutrition. It was announced as a billion dollar company.

So I need to put it into perspective for everybody of how something can absolutely knock you off your, you know, your, your, the way you feel about yourself and everything that you've built up and how something can really come along like that. And so in those moments where I was like, I couldn't stand out for longer than five minutes at a time. So I ended up like it was a very long journey. I'm still on it. But just people like what the hell happened? Yeah, it was like I had SIBO. I had Candida.

I had Parasite because I couldn't battle it because I had all these other things. I had gluten intolerance. I mean, it was like a whole spiral of craziness. But that's why I couldn't stand out for longer than five minutes at a time. I couldn't wear a bra. And so you can imagine, do you think I feel sexy? Do you think I want to have sex with my husband? I was crestfallen.

I prided myself on being like the hot wife. I loved it. I loved the fact that my husband can keep his hands off me. I loved the fact that my husband would every so often just randomly grab me and throw me on the bed. You know, like that's freaking sexy. And here he's the most loving man on the planet. So he would be like, baby, you're okay, what can I do? Like, you know, do you need to go to the toilet? Right? Like that's how it went from sexy. Like, that's not hard. Right. Here's

a thing. I couldn't even touch me. I wouldince. My stomach hurts so much. So now how the hell do you come back from that? And so this became a really big struggle for me. And it was like, I felt guilty, right? Because now here I am, a very sexual being, not being able to be sexual. And so number one was I had to sit with my husband and I just had to tell him how I was feeling with no judgment. And it was like, I just need you to give me space so I can say how I feel. And so that became a babe, I don't feel sexy.

I realized I got a lot of my confidence by feeling sexy. And because he was like, oh, you don't have to worry about me, babe. Like just sit like, and I was like, but this is a meeting. This is a I feel sexy. And he's like, okay, so you know, how can I help you? What are the things? So it started to be like, well, maybe right now, I just need to give myself grace that maybe for the next six months, this is a new identity I have to transition into.

Because I had the identity of being the hot, sexy wife. And so now, how do I give myself grace to slowly say, this isn't where you are now Lisa, how do you focus on getting better and does the emotion of the guilt and everything serve you getting better? And so it was like, no, even if, but this face, even though you know the guilt doesn't help, you can't help it. So I would be very honest with my husband. I feel really guilty. I need to talk to you about this. I need to have open communication with you about this and I need to have a very

transparent conversation because here's the thing, I'm the one that's sick, but it affects both of us. It's affecting both of our relationship. It's affecting our marriage. And so I don't ever want to be that person that was like, I'm sick, so you have to deal with it. I need you to be open and tell me how you're feeling. He's like, babe, how, like, I'm not going to come to you and say, Hey, I'm not sexually satisfied. Like, he's like, you're sick. I need to support you. And I said, yes, but I need to actually hear because maybe it's like, well, babe, what if you watched porn and I was next to you? And I was cheering you on. Right, exactly. So you guys kind of innovated.

You kept talking about it all along the way, which I think you and Tommy, you also have your relationship theory, we've talked a lot about. And it's very similar tactics to this. You guys actually break it all down using boundaries and conversations and rules and all the ways that you guys can really learn to connect better. What I love is you guys talk a lot about the growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. And you've been on my show before. People will link this.

People can listen to the last shows. But you have talked a lot about, first off, maybe you can quickly define what the growth mindset versus fixed mindset for people who aren't aware of it and how you apply that to your successful relationship. Yeah, thank you. So as a quick umbrella is a fixed mindset is you believe that you are born the way you are and that your brain and your skill sets are what they are and you can never change or fix them.

A growth mindset says, hey, I may not know it now. I actually may be terrible at it now, but you know what? My belief system allows me to say that I can learn it if I try. And it's the idea of saying I can't or I can. Right? It's the language we use. It's like someone saying that's impossible versus I don't know a way yet. Some people may not even realize they have a fixed mindset and that's actually okay. And just say, oh, okay, so getting to my goal, having the life I want, having the relationship I want or anything

like that just means I need to start thinking in a different way. Okay, I can start thinking in a different way is a sign that you are now developing a growth mindset because you believe you can start thinking in a different way. So that's kind of the difference between a growth and a fixed mindset. So now in a relationship, that belief system is, let's say a fixed mindset would be, I must always be a stay at home supportive wife for my husband to love me. Right? That's being very fixed.

Or it's saying, I can be whoever I want, and I'm going to work with my partner to figure out how we stay happily married through these transitions. Because I know a lot of couples find that as the problem. Some couples have like, hey, I really wanna change, I really wanna grow, I really wanna do this, and the partner doesn't get it. My partner doesn't understand. And now because I'm changing, we're now splitting apart.

And so I say when it comes to that sort of thing, where it's like, okay, what am I going to do in my relationship that allows me to have a growth mindset? It's saying that this has come up in our relationship and we can figure it out together. Can you give a recent example of something that maybe you and Tom have worked through in your relationship that using this, that's a little bit different? What I find with most couples is that they're together, the longer they're together, if they don't have a growth mindset, they haven't done work on themselves, they haven't been in therapy, they haven't...

They're just sort of having the same arguments over and over again. And then they just accept, well, my partner's always going to want to have more sex than I do or my partner's always going to not listen to me after I tell them all these things. They won't remember things at the end of the day. Or I know you guys have a great example about the weekends, how you guys have chosen to spend time together on the weekends. it's never going to be the same and we just give up. I love your stories about how you and Tom have actually like gotten into the things,

had these conversations. I think some people will be like, I could never do that, but you actually do it and it's here we are. Yeah, thank you. A lot of my assessments in my relationship with my husband is I looked at other couples growing up and even friends that I have and I'm like, oh, that didn't sit well with me. Why do they do that? And then Tom and I talk about it.

And so it became the amount of guys specifically that I've heard say a happy wife is a happy life, that breaks my heart because it's like, but babe, I want you to be happy too. Like I don't just want your happiness to come from my happiness. Like I thought that about him as well. I know, I was going to say you're like happy, that's how you were raised though. Yeah, and it doesn't serve you. It doesn't bring happiness to the relationship. So if you can take a step back and say, okay, my goal in my relationship is for both of

us to be happy so that we can bring happiness together. And that's what makes a beautiful relationship. If you can actually sit with your partner and just agree to that, that's step one. Like, I want to be happy and I want you to be happy. Do you agree? Yes. Okay, great. Now you both agree. What does that actually look like? Now, a lot of us care so much about the other person that we adapt to what they want. Well, I know my husband really likes soccer, so like we're just going to watch soccer, even though I hate it. Right? Now what happens is You don't mind doing that the first year you may not even mind doing that the first couple honey moon phase

You'll do anything right you do that after 20 years What happens now is you're resentful? You know I'm fucking sitting here watching the bloody soccer again And I don't get to go shopping and now what you're doing making slight comments You're making slight comments at your partner about the soccer game. You're making, and it's like, well, hang on a minute, 20 years ago, you were okay with it, you're not the one that's spoken up and now you're making slight comments and they're feeling badly about it.

So how do we avoid it? And so it's the game, the selfish desire game, which means, babe, I don't want you to think about me. I don't want you to even take me into your considerations. We have an entire Saturday right now. What does your selfish desire look like? And he may say, babe, I want to play video games for the first four hours,

then I wanna have sex for the next five hours, and then, you know, maybe we'll cuddle for 10 minutes. He's not thinking about me, remember? This was just about him. And did he just walk by? He did, he did at the perfect moment. My husband literally just- Time went by at the perfect moment.

We're still filming. Hi, Tom. Yeah, we're still filming. Hi, baby. Hi, so good to see you. So literally he just walked by and I saw him call. I was like, okay.

I know he's like, sex for five hours. Here we go, what's up, Mrs. Lawrence again. I was like, I'm putting that in my calendar. Yeah, hard. No, no, we were still recording. It was just perfect timing. So funny. So yeah, he literally just walked away like, sex for five hours. But that's what you do, right? Because here's the thing.

He's like, note taking. I want you to have the space and freedom to say exactly what you want in life. And I want to be able to have the space and freedom to say exactly what I want in life. And now together, we're going to see. So you each state your own selfish desire. Yes, exactly. And then you, yeah. So he's just stated his selfish desire.

It was basically split the day between gaming and sex. And I'm the one that's like, all right, babe, I want to have breakfast together. And then I want to, I want you to give me back massage for 30 minutes. And then I actually want to watch a comedy, the most romantic romantic comedy and then I want to take a dip in the pool and then I want to cuddle and then maybe if we have time, yeah, let's have sex. In fact, I wouldn't say that. I'll say, and then we'll have sex. My day looks very different to his. Now imagine he just kept giving me what I wanted. He's going to be a resemble because all he's doing is sacrificing for me. And all I'm doing is taking. And that doesn't sit well with me. A relationship is give and take. And so in those moments where we have these discussions, we have this every Saturday morning,

every Saturday. And in fact, I asked him that last Saturday because we have this discussion every Saturday morning. And he's like, same as last week. And so it was like, well, now we've actually optimized our days where we both have the most, the dream Saturday. But we got to the point where we did that. And how did we get there was because we assessed. So now the key here is now what you do is you've both said what you want. And now you sit together and say, how do we make a happy medium? Or maybe that isn't what you do this week.

Maybe you got all the things you wanted last week. So maybe you make a deal with them. You're like, you know what, babe, last week you did my day exactly and you didn't complain and you were so wonderful. So this week we're gonna do yours. Or maybe you make an agreement and you're like, oh my God, my day is so amazing. I actually want this day.

And in exchange, I'm gonna give you your day. So this Saturday, we're gonna do mine and next Saturday We're gonna do yours. Do you like that? Oh my god. Yes, and now there's no resentment Now you both get what you want or maybe you come to an agreement and it's a half-half or maybe it's hey I Tom may say babe. I don't want to watch that freaking romantic comedy But instead what if you help your friend, what's the romantic comedy with your friend, Emily, when you guys do that, I'm actually gonna go play video games, because I wanted to play four hours of video games. I'm gonna go play video games while you watch your movie.

And then this thing that we said that we wanted to do here, where we both wanted to have a romantic meal, and I wanted sex for four hours, and you want sex for 30 minutes, what if we still have the romantic meal? And then we get together and we get together and we see where the day takes us and look, there's no pressure, I'm not gonna have you do, what is it that you do where it's like sometimes you're just sitting there for like four hours and staring at them and like tantric sex. Yeah, tantric sex, thank you, that's the one.

So maybe I'm just like, and like we're not gonna do tantric sex today, right? But instead we're going to put on porn and we're gonna do an hour. It's average, if you went four, you went 30 minutes, like you can kind of average that out too, like so you both get your needs back. It's so practical.

Yes, and I don't want people to think it's like I'm sitting there with a timer. Like I just wanna make, like the point is, hearing what your partner wants and then feeling heard. Like I can't even remember who was. So like the number one relationship rule is that a woman wants is to be heard. Yeah, heard and seen. I think we all do, right? Yeah. And then we think we don't even know how. So I think this is such a great tool. I want everyone to play this right now for your partner.

Whether it's not about the Saturday, it's about your next vacation, maybe it's even about how the week went down. I fed the kids, you never came home once. I want, you know, like, you know, we had to go see your parents, we never see my parents. Like, I think a lot could come up for this. And if you could just look at it, like, let's throw it up on the wall, all the things we want to do, like even in the next month, if it's not just one day, and figure out where could you guys make compromises so you're both getting your needs met because the resentments

soon turn into contempt. And that's where relationships, it's really hard to get back to a place where you just resent to contempt to where we can't be in the same room together and we'll never get over it. And if couples, I don't care if you've been together for like a week or you've been together for 10 years, this is an exercise that people can do right away early on because you don't even realize how much you're sacrificing because you're like, I want to be a good wife, a good partner, a good person and we don't talk about any of this stuff. Yes, and it feels great at first because they're the ones Oh my god, just so kind of you're so sweet And then what happens is if you keep doing it now it starts to become a habit and now people don't even realize

It's a gift right and so what ends up happening is like years later. You're like, well, you should be doing that You're like, hang on a minute. I started doing it as like be to be nice and now it's a should you know it's like I was just joining you watching soccer because I wanted to bond with you and now like you're having a go on me because I've made a date night with my friends and I'm not watching soccer with you like that's how one of these beautiful gifts turns into an expectation. Feeling appreciated that's the other main thing so many of us don't feel appreciated in relationships Don't feel appreciated in relationships at all. At 1000%. Yeah, constantly keep appreciating. Oh, Lisa, I'm so proud of you.

I think that radical confidence, 10 nobius lessons on becoming the hero of your own life, that this book is such a gift and there are so many great tools with all the roadblocks we're feeling, whether it's in your relationship, whether it's in your sex life, in your business life. There are so many ways that we are just not confident in holding ourselves back. And what I love is it's not just like you read it, you're like, yeah, that feels better that you give practical tools. So it's really well done.

Thank you. And I so am such a freaking fan. You know, I just freaking love you to death. And then B, talking about confidence in the bedroom, talking about confidence with, you know, having sex with a partner and being intimate, is such a big thing of who I am. And part of how I've really been able to show up in business and show up in other things. And so it's such an important work that you do. And that's why like, I just, I want to be your biggest cheerleader, because if this

book can really help anyone find that confidence with their partner in the bedroom, it's so important. I never want people to think or forget about how much this plays a part in every aspect of our lives by being confident in the bedroom. I think what I'm hearing you say too is that through doing it in the business and learning how to manage people and learning how to manage yourself, it impacted your life in the bedroom. You show up because a lot yourself, it impacted your life in the bedroom. Like, you show up because a lot of what's holding us back in the bedroom is that we're

not feeling great about ourselves. We didn't have a great day. We didn't keep promises to ourselves. We didn't validate ourselves, right? I think we've spoken about this before as well, but like our hormones make a difference. There's definitely a time in your cycle that you're going to feel more badass. There's going to be a time in the cycle where you shouldn't be lifting weights and you should be doing soft stretching. There's going to be a time in your cycle where you don't feel great about yourself and giving

yourself the grace that you're not always going to show up super confident in the bedroom, giving yourself the grace that hell, if you just don't eat for a few hours, we get hangry. So to think that you're going to be able to get confidence all the time in the bedroom with sex is I think just not being realistic with ourselves. And the beautiful thing is, is to say, maybe today I'm actually feeling a little vulnerable about my body. And I've been with my husband for 20 years and I still do sometimes. And so like it's all... How do you handle that? The days you're not feeling great about it?

I've learned to not be... Like I used to be the person, whereas like, maybe if you book and relay, where you try to say say quickly before the other person notices. Okay. So for instance, it's like if I'm not feeling great and I'm feeling like my ass feels a bit safe, right? Right. I almost used to be the person that would tell my husband first before I thought he would notice because it was kind of like that safety net.

Can't you see? Right. Like, thank God I can say it first because I know he's thinking it. Like there's that mentality where it's like, oh, babe, I know I don't look great today or I know my ass looks flat today. Right? And he's just like, are you freaking joking? And here's what's part of me.

Number one, part of me is trying to do it and say it almost like, no, no, I do know this is happening. Like, there's that kind of like almost, I didn't want him to think that I don't know, which is a terrible reason. But it all came down to insecurity. Right? So I'm saying it out loud because I'm so freaking insecure about it.

I don't want to worry whether he's really thinking it and just not saying it. So the insecurity in me is saying it out loud. So how do we not do that? So I've been there too. I get like, I know that together. I haven't showered yet. Yes. Yes. I would love to talk about that for a minute too, because it's like, Oh, I haven't showered. I haven been there too. I know I'm not together there. I haven't showered yet.

I would love to talk about that for a minute too because it's like, oh, I haven't showered. I haven't done this. I know. I'm sorry. My hair is a mess. They're not likely they're not thinking that. And that fact is they are thinking that like you've got other problems really I would think because they're attracted to you, to your essence, your energy. They're not noticing that. But how did you learn to not do that? Because that is a practice a lot of us do all the time. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Even if it's work, I spilled on myself or my hair. How do we not do that?

Step one, take inventory. When do you do it? Do you do it with someone more than others? Because maybe you do. Maybe you do it more with a work colleague than you actually do your partner. Why? Because you're actually more insecure

around your work colleague. Take inventory, literally, of who you do it with, when you do it. But with Tom, it was taking inventory. Oh my god I always do it around Tom. I usually do when I'm naked and I usually do it when I'm not feeling great about myself So you'll say oh, I know I look like this. Yeah Okay So and so usually even though not feeling great about yourself doesn't even have anything to do with actually how I look right?

So with Tom I basically just took inventory of when I was doing it and when I do it and I don't feel good about myself, I don't even just mean when I'm naked. I mean like, oh, I felt like I really failed at work this week. I actually let that person down. They told me I let them down. So now I actually feel a bit bad and I'm bringing that feeling into the bedroom.

Like what are those things? What are you identifying? Take inventory and then literally going back to a promise, I'm all about make a promise to myself. I just promised myself every time I go to make a reason bite your tongue, like literally pierce your lips. That's it. Like I just need to roll every time you've taken your inventory, you know when you're naked around your husband, this is what happens. Great. What I'm going to do, pierce my lips. That's it. Just don't say it. The next time what are you going to

do? Say something nice maybe. So the time, what are you going to do? Say something nice maybe. The next time, what are you going to do? Say something amazing, right? And so you see I put the stepping stones in and it all comes to assessment, take inventory, come up with a game plan and then keep practicing. I love it. Five quickie questions we ask all of our guests. Very quickie. Ready? Okay. What's your biggest turn on? Oh, my husband. Biggest turn off? Oh God, not my husband. Biggest turn-off?

Um, oh god, not my husband. That's a terrible answer. That's true. It can work. What makes good sex? Toys. Something you would tell your younger self about sex and relationships. It's amazing. What's the number one thing you wish everyone knew about sex? Oh, what's the, oh shit, everyone got a quick one for this. What's the one, I gotta say toys again. Like it's, dude, life game changer. And if I can just do a little side note, here's another thing, I can't believe I didn't say this, building confidence in the bedroom, have other people and friends around you

that are confident in the bedroom. Because when I met you, I was so prudish and I love you girl. And so it's like you would say things and I'd be like, like, why did I accomplish just said that? But you made me more comfortable about talking about it. Thank you. Love you girl. That's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily and be sure to like subscribe and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with That's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily and be sure to like, subscribe,

and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or a partner. You can find me on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, or X, and Facebook. It's all at Sex with Emily. Oh, and I've been told I give really good email. So sign up on sexwithemily.com, and while you're there,

check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. And if you'd like to ask me about your sex life, dating, or relationships, call my hotline 559-TALK-SEX. That's 559-825-5739 or just go to SexWithEmily.com slash Ask Emily. Was it good for you? Email me, feedback at SexWithEmily.com.