The Inner Wealth Podcast

Ep238. Part Seven – The Love Language Lie: How Misusing Them Creates More Pain Than Connection (with Angie.)

• Mike Kitko

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In this episode of the Unbreakable series, Mike and Angie explore how couples often misuse the Five Love Languages—turning them into expectations instead of tools for understanding. They reframe love languages as something to observe, not demand, placing responsibility for emotional experience back on the individual.

Through their own relationship journey, they show how people-pleasing, control, and unspoken expectations create resentment, and how their dynamic changed when they stopped requiring each other to meet emotional needs and began recognizing the love already present. The conversation returns to personal power, self-regulation, and interpretation as the foundation of a resilient relationship.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  1. Love Languages Were Meant to Create Awareness, Not Obligation
    When they are used as rulebooks instead of insights, they become tools for scorekeeping rather than connection.
  2. Misusing Love Languages Turns Needs Into Demands
    Expecting your partner to constantly perform your preferred language creates pressure, resentment, and emotional distance.
  3. A Dysregulated Nervous System Cannot Receive Love in Any Language
    If safety is absent internally, no expression of love will feel like enough — regardless of how well it matches your “type.”
  4. Connection Is Built Through Presence, Not Performance
    Real intimacy comes from two regulated people showing up authentically, not from mechanically delivering acts to satisfy a framework.
  5. Love Languages Work Best When They Are Freely Given, Not Forced
    They deepen relationships when they arise naturally from care, but cause pain when used as metrics to measure whether someone loves you “correctly.”

NOTABLE QUOTES

  • “No one can give you a feeling. No one can give you an emotion.” 
  • “Your thoughts create your emotions.” 
  • “We choose what we feel.” 
  • “If you only fall in love with the first version of somebody, then you're going to be really disappointed when they become the 15th version.” 
  • “Step from the asker to the observer, and you'll be surprised how much people show you love.” 

CALL TO ACTION

If this conversation resonates, it’s pointing to the deeper work—learning how to regulate internally instead of expecting life or relationships to regulate you.

Experience: Unbreakable Boot Camp (March 6–7) just outside St. Louis — where we move beyond theory and train the nervous system through live guided work so you can remain steady regardless of what life brings. Get more details here!

👥 Message Mik

Welcome And Series Context

SPEAKER_00

Do you ever wake up feeling like there's something missing in your life? Do you ever feel the need to escape your business? Are you running your life or is your life running yourself? I'm my GitHub, and I'll help you design and create a life so authentic and aligned with who you really are, you'll get excited just to wake up. I'll help you create real wealth, success, and freedom from the inside out. Welcome to the Inner Wealth Podcast, where we learn and choose to live inspired each and every day. I hope you're ready to have some fun today. Welcome back to Unbreakable, our 10-part series on our collapse, our rebirth, and our reinvention, and how we put everything back together. It's not perfect. Our relationship and our lives are not perfect, but they're a whole lot more meaningful and peaceful and loving and supportive and encouraging than it's ever been. And that was out of like absolute chaos. We're gonna have some fun today because today is Angie's favorite topic. Now, I'll say that Angie leads our women's call in our mastermind. And not every not every woman likes this. Okay. Not every woman loves what Angie's getting ready to and talk, what we're gonna talk about, but what Angie's gonna be able to talk about. And I'll shut my mouth for a little bit and let her explain. What are we gonna talk about today?

SPEAKER_02

We're gonna talk about the uh what I what I believe again, allegedly, supposedly for entertainment purposes only.

SPEAKER_00

For entertainment, that's it, that's good.

SPEAKER_02

This is strictly personal opinion. Um I think that the uh the seven love languages, I think that it is it it's there's a fatal flaw hidden buried deep within it. And I feel like I found it and I've exposed it and I talk about it. Um and you know what? I totally forgot that before we got on, I wanted to actually pull up one of those those articles that I talk about that every year around Valentine's Day, I start to see circulated. So I'll try to pull from memory what I recall from it because every year it just makes me so mad. And I do want to preface this by saying I really don't know how to talk about this topic without being mean.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, a little bit mean.

Nice Guy Conditioning And History

SPEAKER_02

It's just it's one that it just I see and I see this more from from women than I do from men, because I think that this it goes back to we talk in our mastermind, we have a book study, we we do a lot of of book reading, and no more Mr. Nice Guy, because the the theory of that book is that men were raised to after what tell help me with this because it was post-war.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, when the father's agrarian society when we move from an agrarian society to an industrialized society, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That when so when the dads went off to war, the dads were no longer there to help these boys learn how to be men, and the they learned how to, and the mothers were treating their sons as their as their as the replacement for the dads, and so therefore they were putting their emotional restrictions and needs and wants onto the son. So boys ended up growing up men as people pleasers, and learning that their entire job was to be be to have their self, that everything rides on women's emotions and feelings and and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_00

So and then men started boys started becoming men who weren't really capable of being a man because they had never had a man to teach him, a healthy man to teach him how to be a healthy man. And the women started teaching the men how to be women. Yes, yes, that means to seek approval and to validate men, and to validate and self-sacrifice and self-worth is based upon right, right. And it's it's like to to make sure that the women all around them were happy and that they were okay, and that it wasn't about the man being a man and protecting and providing, it was about a man being a people pleaser and about serving the emotional needs and benefits of everybody else. And that's I don't know if you know it, but men aren't really good at that. So um we are gonna get we are gonna get into this so that and that started with the industrialization of the United States somewhere or of the world, somewhere in the like the late 19th century. So we're talking about 18, you know, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s. That's when we would, you know, our industrial economy really came online, and where men used to take boys out in the field to to plant and to harvest, and he spent a lot of time with his dad. At this point, now now dad went to the went to went to the factory and worked, you know, 10, 12 hours a day. And it there was no there was no healthy role model.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and yeah. And side note, uh, just fun fact about Mike, he is a history buff. So that's why I that's why I deflected to you to describe that because I'm like, I read the book, I absorbed the book, but to explain it, you're just so much better with your societies and years and wars. And anyway, just a little fun fact.

Kindness Versus Niceness

SPEAKER_00

And it and it comes back to, you know, in in the book No More Mr. Nice Guy, and it's not just for men. That book is not just for men, it's a book about people pleasing. And I was a I was a self-sacrificial martyr-filled people pleaser. Like I was just, I was always scanning the environment of my home. Um, my father used to go to work, you know, and work in a work in a factory, uh, work, work at a steel plant. And my mother was raising me, and and she had raised boys, and and it all it it it we were all people pleasers. And my father was a people pleaser too, and there was no healthy role model, uh, masculine role model for us to learn from. And um, you know, little little by little we started giving away our our uh the benefits of our life. Uh we started suppressing our needs for the needs of others, especially the women around us. And I've done it with Angie and my daughters, and I still I still had that sense of people pleasing where I'm scanning the environment, trying to make sure everybody's taken care of.

SPEAKER_02

Yep, but I have to I I've caught you on that a couple of times recently, and I'm like, notch business.

SPEAKER_00

And and and No More Mr. Nice Guy is really about the difference between being kind and being nice, and being kind is being true to you and the lifting up and inspiring everybody else, and being nice is about seeking approval, seeking validation, and and making sure everybody's needs are taken care of, right? And it just leads to a life of sacrifice.

Cultural Scripts And “Happy Wife”

Using Love Languages Without Manipulation

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And now before we get into it, I do want to throw in that that in defense of the the women that I see who are living from this this what we're this um dependency on the love or on their men to provide the love languages for them. We've been programmed as a society now that women are we're uh we're the nags. It is happy, happy wife, happy life. Oh fuck. Yeah, yeah, happy wife, happy life, all that that that nonsense that we're talking, you we see this is how you're supposed to be a wife. You're supposed to be a bitch, you're supposed to demand he bring you flowers, supposed to demand, demand, demand, demand, demand, right? So again, that's programmed into us. That's not so it's not their fault. Nobody's doing everybody's doing the best that they can. Um, so I I I feel for those people that that are still living in that.

SPEAKER_00

So we are going to talk about the five love languages today, and we are going to uh we're all we're not gonna focus on as much the love languages because that's not the important part. It's how to utilize them because they they are an effective indicator, and it's it's really important to understand. I love understanding her love language. I under I love understanding my love language. So this is not dispelling all the love languages, it's deploying them in a way that's going to be beneficial to that is meant to be beneficial to both parties, not just one. All right. But it comes at the expense of the what this is this is the part that that humanity or or society has struggled with. This requires each individual to satisfy their own needs and scratch their own love language. Yes.

SPEAKER_02

That's this could have been, yeah.

The Five Languages Revisited

SPEAKER_00

Yep. So that's my power of recall over the love languages. I always usually leave one out, but with the five love languages, we're gonna talk about um the the love, the language of giving or the love language of uh of gifts, of touch and like physical sensation, physical contact, words of affirmation, quality time. Yep, and then I told you always acts of service. Acts of service acts of service. It's my love language. I left it out.

SPEAKER_02

Well that in physical touch, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So you yeah, and yeah, so yeah, acts of service. That's the fifth one. So those are the five, those are the five. And I think you know, the way that that it's taught is you learn your partner's love language and then you learn how to submit to that love language, right? And and that may be great for some people. Some people, if if and we've talked about this on previous podcasts, I I'm um I'm a gifts, active service person, right? And if you know, I like surprises, I like the I I like the the the scene from freaking pretty women, here's your dress, put it on, here's the date night, whatever. Um, and things like that. But some people, and there are some men out there who they love to do that shit.

SPEAKER_00

Like that is that's the two two people together where they're they both share the same love language.

SPEAKER_02

But that's gotta be heavy.

SPEAKER_00

It's gonna it's gonna be it's gonna be awesome.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I wonder if there's how much growth is in that. Who knows? But in terms of stepping into your own power, and yeah, um, but yeah, I'm sure there are people out there and they're probably they're probably scratching each other and speaking each other's love language constantly, and and this isn't this is a non-issue for them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, I get what I learned as being in conversations and social media and reading things and and like filtering it through my own lens is that, and I remember having this talk with someone with an I might have been Kara a while back, our our my my sister, our assistant, Kara Dossi, um, when I realized that to me, the power of the love languages came when I was able to see and I I know your love language, and now being able to observe how you show your love using your love languages rather than, but for years we did try and demand each other before I even knew what the hell they even were, I feel like we did that. We tried to demand the other person adhere to this is what I need. And when I realized, wow, he's showing love by by touch and acts of service, right? And when I was able to observe that and take it from that place. So to me, that's the that's the powers when instead of oh, this person isn't uh giving me gifts, this person isn't giving me words of affirmation, when you can say, Oh, well, their love language is physical touch. And so, okay, great, their love language is that. So, can you turn that around and say, Oh, wow, I see how they're showing their love by acts of service. Yeah, it may not be optimal for you, but that's where it's that's where this is a relationship, not a manipulationship.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that there you go. I love that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

Gifts, Time, And Friendship Stories

SPEAKER_00

You you use it, you use it as you use the love languages and to sum up what you just said, and I think you did a great job on it. That the way society has deployed the love languages is do my love language for me. Yes. And what we're suggesting and what's worked for us is understanding the other person's love language in Angie's love language, one of her love languages is quality time. And when she plans uh she's planning museum time on Friday, when she when she plans that, that is her her speaking her love language to me. Yes. And now I get to play with that. I get to play in that love language because she's inviting me into the place where she feels most loved. When, you know, another one of your love languages is gifts. And I I'm just I just don't have that. I my mind doesn't work. Like, what can I buy, Angie? And what kind of what can I give? But we've got people like Alexis, like Alexis loves giving gifts. Like, like it is her love language. It's obvious because she pours gifts onto you, but you're like, well, Alexis, you don't, but you could be like Alexis does it, why can't you? Right, right. So because we're speaking different love languages, and you you tend to give the love language that you possess.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Oh, bring bringing Alexis up. That's that's a that's a great uh that's a great story for me to tell. Because this goes to this isn't just in for in intimate relationships, this is close friendships and everything. So Alexis, being one of my best friends, she is. She's a she's a great gift giver. And she's an extravagant gift giver. Like when she gives gifts, she gives gifts.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, she does.

Catching The Victim Voice

SPEAKER_02

And I am not, that gives me a lot of anxiety trying to plan it and figure it out. And oh my gosh, how do I top this gift? This is what she gave me. And because one of my love languages is quality time. So for her last birthday, like my last birthday, she got me some extravagant gift card to a spa or something. And I'm like, oh dear God, how am I gonna, how am I gonna reciprocate that? And as I continue to develop looking at other people's love languages and how they display them versus demanding them, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna have this talk with her, and here's what I'm going to. And I expressed to her that, hey, I'm going to plan an experience. I'm gonna plan an experience with you, and and then talked about the talked about this whole process with her. And she was like, oh, very cool. So we went to a really nice, fancy dinner and spent hours together, and we sat and it was a yeah, and and that that and I was it made me, it was so calming and so refreshing because it's like there was no stress, there was no feeling of I and you can you can also use them like Kara.

Choosing Feelings And Sovereignty

SPEAKER_00

Angie brought up Kara's name. They go, they go about once a quarter, they go on a spa retreat day, right? Or spa day or something like that. Maybe not that not frequently anymore. But but the point being is is every once in a while they plan a day and they go out and they get pampered and they spend time together and they relax together and they bond together. And and that is that fills Kara's cup. She loves that. Nanji, I remember when we first hired Kara and I always had this money thing, you know, whatever, but because I I'm motivated by money, but not everybody's motivated by money. So to me, it's like in business, the the lore or the way to create loyalty is more money. That that's how you create loyalty with me in corporate. Um, the point being is Kara's not driven that way. Yep. And all their money's nice to Kara. Uh the the quality time, the connection, the bonding, those things, the that the pampering, those things are like that's he would much prefer day drinking in the spa. That's love you, cara. Love you, Kara. And it's fun seeing her day drink too. She's a lot of fun. But we we got the work through a lot of this stuff, but we got it, we got it really wrong for a long time. And that's what created so much pain in our in our relationship, in our marriage. And we, when I say I said up front, our marriage isn't perfect and our life isn't perfect, because every once in a while, the little victim voice pops up. Every once in a while, the little victim voice pops up and says, Well, that you know, uh, they don't love me or or they're not doing XYZ for me. And then we get to like step back and we get to go back and we get to understand, okay, the voice is there, but it's not it's not a real voice, right? The the the commitment isn't threatened. It's just right now we're feeling a little needy. Right now we're feeling like we don't like like we're not we're not loved in the way we want to be loved, and and then we get to understand. But you know, I'll I'll make some food. This is just a for instance, I'll make food, and like our daughter, Katie, is you know, she lives with us again after college, and I'll make a meal and I'll I'll go to the grocery store, I'll ask everybody what they want, I'll go to the grocery store, I'll buy all the ingredients. I love cooking, absolutely love cooking. It's one of my favorite things to do in the world. And then I'll serve the meal, and then after the meal, I'll pick up the plates and I'll start to clean the dishes, and everybody's like gets up to start helping. And I was like, no, sit down, girl, sit down, right? And I'll start cleaning up. And they may see it as as Mike is just picking up my plate and just cooking food. But the through this, through our experience, the correct way is Mike just picked up my plate. He is literally showing me love right now. He is showing me that he loves me. And that's that's how we use it. Whenever that little victim voice comes up, we get to we get to hit the reset and go back into what are they really saying to me? Yeah, right. Step from step from the the the asker to the observer, and and you'll be surprised how much people show you love, but you might not feel it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely.

“You Should Just Know” Is Toxic

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we're all unique, right? Five five love languages. Let's go over this again. Acts of service, quality time, touch, words of affirmation, and gifts, right?

SPEAKER_02

Did you say accept?

SPEAKER_00

Did we say accept for I said I said words of affirmation and then gifts? Acts of service, okay.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, quality time, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's okay. Acts of service, quality time, words of affirmation, uh gifts and physical touch and physical touch. Those are the five-level languages.

SPEAKER_02

And it's also, I think it it's it's beneficial when you are showing love through your love language that you recognize it yourself that, oh, right now I am showing my friend, spouse, kids, who whomever, love right now, like and recognize it with yourself. I think that helps the the victim voice, right? Like, okay, they they can't provide, they can't live up to this love language. But look, I'm showing my love language right now. So, and once you write and recognizing it, once you're I was able to recognize those things in you.

Seasons Of Touch And Connection

SPEAKER_00

And I think it's important, you know, when our mastermind called this morning, we I reinforced that no one can give you a feeling. No one can give you an emotion, all right? So when we say I'm feeling unloved or I'm not feeling loved right now, we we have to we get to understand that we're not a victim of that. We choose what we feel, and we can choose what we feel. Your thoughts create your emotions. So if you think a different thought, you'll feel a different emotion, right? So we can elevate our thoughts to elevate our emotions because what happens here controls what's happening down here. So if somebody's feeling unloved, it's because they're thinking unloved and they're feeling unloved, and that can shift at any time. And that's called personal power, that's called personal authority, that's called personal sovereignty. It's not letting circumstances outside dictate what's happening inside, and it creates a higher level of being, right? Now I can let her be her, knowing that she can't control the emotions in my body. So she does her acts of service or her love languages, she she uses them on me. If I feel unloved, it's because I'm choosing to feel unloved, because that's how she shows me love. But the nice guy world that we live in says that I'm not feeling this thing that I want to feel. You need to do something different, right? Or I'm feeling unsafe. You need to make me feel safe. I'm feeling unseen. You need to make me see feel seen.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and a lot of times it goes even more, it gets more dialed in than that. I'm feeling this, you need to do this for me to feel this.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You see what does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00

You want you wanna you want not you, yeah, but the in that situation in that scenario, you want to be, you want to dictate the cause and the effect.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

And if either the cause is imperfect or the effect's not perfect, it's the other person's fault.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

So and I I never put that together. I never put that together. That's manipulation ship. I'm gonna I'm gonna dictate terms of how I'm gonna feel loved, and I'm gonna dictate to you the cause and the effect. You need to do X, you need to do A B C so I can feel X, Y, Z. And if either of them aren't perfect, I'm gonna blame you and expect you to do better.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I how can you win with with having that with within a relationship?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. What do you think about what do you think about the idea? And I see this a lot on on social media and on reels. Well, you should just know. You should just know what I want. I shouldn't have to tell you. If I have to tell you, I don't want it.

SPEAKER_02

If I have to tell you, I don't want if I have to ask for it, I don't want it. Yeah, I think as stupid as fuck. I said I don't know how to talk about these things without being mean, it feels like it's that's it's when that's manipulative. That's manipulative toxic behavior, and and so many people think that are living and they're living, it's an unconscious way of being. It's not sure, it's certainly not conscious. And I think it a lot of that comes from past trauma, from past relationships, which you just carry forward. But you can't you can't read my mind. Nobody, nobody can. Nobody can read your nobody can read anybody's mind, and to expect that is it's another manipulation ship.

SPEAKER_00

8.22 billion people in the world were all wired differently. How can we possibly predict what somebody could might might need from you at any given time? Now, if you ask, yeah, pretty damn good chance of having your having your wants and needs.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's like we we go to cyborgs every every night, right? And then maybe one night I went to Prosno last week when we before we went to the theater.

SPEAKER_00

That was bullshit.

SPEAKER_01

And things are gonna start changing around here.

SPEAKER_02

But if I would have gotten all dressed up for the theater and thought, oh wow, I'm dressed up, I'm wearing my fancy shoes. Like I really want to go somewhere nicer tonight than God, sorry, cybirds, we love you, but I'm definitely not showing up in my red bottoms. Um, yeah, but let me just sit here and hope he figures it out. No, I'd like to go somewhere nicer tonight. Right. And that's what we did. That's just it's communication. It's communication one-on-one.

Loving Each New Version

SPEAKER_00

Ask him for what you want and need, right? I again going back to I'm I'm a physical touch. I I I love skin on skin contact. I love I love feeling her warm body. I love feeling the the the the tightness and the closeness of of a of a uh an embrace. Sex with my wife is not just about getting off, it's about connecting and bonding. And that's how I that's how I connect and bond. That's how I feel most connected and bonded to you. That is my love language, right? And it if my wife doesn't do this, but if she ever withheld, all she's doing was withholding my love language.

SPEAKER_02

Well, what what did what what did I say to you last night when we went to bed? When you gave me a kiss.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Uh I'll probably start snoring.

SPEAKER_02

No, you said I'll give you a kiss now, and get uh it's the only time I get kisses anymore. And I said, I said, you're you're welcome. It's up to you. You you you can initiate too during the day.

SPEAKER_00

Well, we're we're we're we're in a we're in a weird spot. Yeah, so there are times in in our marriage, and and look, there are seasons, and this is where I say everything's not perfect, there are seasons and things change, right? And we we just said this on the mastermind call again today. This is what this is really important stuff here for for prolonging your relationship, if that's what really what you want. If you fall in love with, if you only fall in love with the the first version of somebody, then you're going to be really disappointed when they become the 15th version of themselves. Because commitment and longevity in a relationship and in a bond requires commitment to falling in love with each and every version of somebody. And there have been there have been versions of Mike and Angie where we we touched and it was effortless, and you didn't try and I didn't try, and we held hands all the time, and we were always connecting and we were always hugging. Typically, when what I've noticed is when things are going better, we touch a lot more. And when things, when things like business, we had a drop-off in business, a disconnect starts to form, a physical disconnect. And that's what I've noticed. And I've been feeling that lately. And that that was that was probably, you know, it a reflection of what was going on and what I was working through, and probably handled in a in an improper way, and I remember that now. But the point it could wait till right before I go to bed and just you know, spring it on. But the point is, is I get to she's always open for a kiss if I just say, Hey, I want a kiss, or I want I want to have sex, or if I want to hug, right? She she doesn't tell me no. It's just when things get tense inside that body, her default is the withdrawal. And she's like a cat. She's a cat.

SPEAKER_02

I'm a cat.

Ask For What You Want

SPEAKER_00

So that's exactly what cats do, right? When they get scared, they run, right? Dogs get closer. Our dogs, when our dogs get scared, they come up to us and get closer. When our cats get scared, they run away. And she's like a cat.

SPEAKER_02

Like a cat.

SPEAKER_00

So when when things get tense inside that mind and body, and and as she's transforming and as she's growing, I recognize that there's not a whole lot more touch. There's not a, you know, the the opportunities to touch go down, but it's just a season. And at some point that season will change. And and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna become an a hopeless victim in this season because I know the season will change when it's but when it's intended to change.

SPEAKER_02

Well, thank you for loving me, even though I'm a cat.

SPEAKER_00

I love you infinitely. Uh, I never will not love you. All I ask for in return is for you to never not love me. That's all.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So that in that different version's piece, that was something that was that that was kind of a gut punch when we figured that and we learned that too, because I think that for a long time I was feeling like I didn't realize that that I was in love with still in love with that first version. And then as we get older and we change and we shift, and it's gonna continue to go. And we're humans, we're not meant to stay the same. And we're meant to transform, we're meant to create, continue shedding and creating new versions of ourselves. And if you can't continue to fall in love over and over and over and over and over again, it's gonna be a hard ride.

SPEAKER_00

It's gonna be a hard ride, but I'm committed to falling in love with the next version, and I'm also committed to seeing and being open and uh opportunistic on when you show me your love language because that's how you tell me you love me. The want to spend time with me is your love language. That's you telling me you love me. Yeah, and I get to honor that, or reject it and try to get her to make me feel something that she can't make me feel. Cool. Anything else to share about the love languages?

SPEAKER_02

I don't think so. It's there, that's that's really yeah.

When No Becomes A Pattern

SPEAKER_00

This is a pretty short one, but it's pretty succinct. It's a pretty succinct topic, too, right?

SPEAKER_02

I think so. I think so. Absolutely. Um yeah, just just love each other and love each other where you are, yeah. Love each other where they are.

SPEAKER_00

I had a I just thought about this. This this is a not being this is a not being nice way, right? But uh I had a a business mentor. I talk about him a lot. His name is Jim Kelly. And Jim Kelly taught me a lot of business and leadership. And when he hired, when he hired me, and I hired a functional team and leaders, and and the the budget for me and the budget for my functional staff, it was pretty we did pretty well. And one thing, Jim, Jim demanded one thing of us. I don't want to hear you being a victim. And what he would do is he would listen for, well, they're doing this, who's doing that? Oh, you're being a bitch, right? Or when we said, Well, that's not my and I'm not saying we did this, but when somebody said, That's not my responsibility, or or they caused this issue, or there was blame or something like that. Jim, Jim was like, he threw up and if you're watching the podcast, you see I'm I'm throwing up my my my V V sign, V V signs with my fingers, he would just throw up after a while, he would just throw up the V and you knew what that meant. And and what he was saying is, I didn't hire you to be a victim, I hired you to be a leader. Are you going to take responsibility and ownership and accountability? Or do you want me to find somebody else who will?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and we tell we you tell that story often, often in the mastermind.

Tools, Soul Sciences, And Fit

SPEAKER_00

Yep. And and and after Jim started doing that with us, right? With with his group of plant managers, because there was we recognized how much how much victimization there was still, we were still, we're all young, right? I was in my freaking early 30s or something, and we were all we're all kind of in that major age. We we were maturing, and Jim was, you know way more mature than we were. But when he started doing that to the plant managers and the plant managers started doing that to our functional staff, now we're walking around, and the whole organization, as soon as you heard anybody being a victim, it's like whoop, being a little bitch, right? Gonna lead, you're gonna be a victim. And the love languages and things like this where your needs aren't being met and you're not asking for what you want, just flash to be. Yeah, you're you're you're being a little bitch. You you if you want what you want, just ask for what you want and stop being a victim.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I mean, most of us are are it's easy to ask for what we want outside of our relationship, but why would you so it's okay for you to ask for what you want when you're if you're asking for promotion or a raise, etc., but then you're afraid to say, oh, hey, I want to go to XYZ tonight instead of XYZ because you expect someone to read your mind.

SPEAKER_00

And and the way this works is the answer is always yes for us. There are times where I will like I'm going to get sexual, I will ask for for physical intimacy and connection with my wife, and she's not there. And it's not because she doesn't want it, it's because her body is not ready or capable for receiving it at that moment. And when that's the case, she says no. And it's so rare that I honor it, and it's easy to honor it. Now, if it was no every single time, now now there's there's only one my physical my love language is physical intimacy and touch and and and connection. The only person I can get that from in the world withholds that that's a pretty tough, that's a pretty tough hill to climb.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and that's a whole that's yeah, to be very clear. If the person, if your partner, if you're asking for what you need and they're continuously refusing to honor that, then that's just an expired relationship.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you're you're you're on your own really shaky brain.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's that's we're when we talk as we're talking about this, this is from a space of a relationship that is standing on solid, firm foundation. So I think that that's we should I wish we would have mentioned that in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we didn't even think about it.

SPEAKER_02

We we never taught this in the because we're just I mean, we're we're coming at we we only teach from our messiness. Yeah, for sure. So we're teaching from our what what we've learned, what we've done, not you know, we're not therapists, we're not counselors. This is just Mike and Angie's experience, our real life lived experience. That's all we're doing.

SPEAKER_00

And if one person wants to grow and the other one doesn't, or one person wants to commit to this and the other one doesn't, or the one person wants to take ownership and and the other doesn't. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's yeah, that's a whole different yeah, that's a that's not this topic. That is not even part of this.

Teaser: Self Sabotage Next

SPEAKER_00

Therapy. That's that's what it is. You need a therapy.

SPEAKER_02

If your person, if your person keeps saying no to your what to what you asked for, then yeah, go see someone professional, please.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and and and and evaluate your relationship. Yeah, are you are you with the right person? Are you are you committed uh in partnership with somebody who actually wants what you want? Um, and we have at some point we're gonna we're gonna launch an unbreakable high-end retreat container. And the way I framed it is this isn't therapy, this isn't couples therapy. We're not gonna get out there and fix relationships, right? But what we're gonna do is we're gonna take good relationships and make them great. Right. We're gonna take great relationships and make them exceptional. We're not gonna take bad relationships and try to make them good. That's not that's not our arena. So this is this work and the love languages and the things that we're we're sharing. It's for it's for when your relationship isn't in jeopardy of like falling apart, and you're just looking for a way to build it in a more healthy way.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. That's there we go. That's that's that's sorry we didn't throw that at the beginning.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, good. This is our first time doing a podcast episode just on the love languages.

SPEAKER_02

And that was nicer than I thought it was gonna be.

SPEAKER_00

You're okay. You you you got a little, you got a little like you got a little feisty from from time to time, but well, it is year of the fire horse today. Today, yeah, we didn't mention that too.

SPEAKER_02

Happy Lunar New Year.

SPEAKER_00

What we're recording today on on February 17th, and it is officially the Chinese zodiac year of the fire horse.

SPEAKER_02

And I got my fire horse bracelet on.

SPEAKER_00

Last year was last year was the year of the snake and decay and shedding and falling apart. And holy cow, that's that's kind of why things got tense in our in our business and our relationship, and and now we're we're we're looking to uh horse horsey that shit up.

SPEAKER_02

Horsing that shit up.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so let's go. But yeah, um, guys, all of this, I I think I'm I'm I'm interested in um and when I set this thing up, the soul sciences, okay? So love languages is just one thing um to to dabble into, to understand yourself at a deeper level. But the soul sciences, gene keys, human design, mind astrology, the life you were born to live, soul contracts, these are all mechanisms to understand yourself at a deeper level and to get to understand the other person at a deeper level. But what it what they've shown me is they taught me how to be more of me, but also to allow her to be more of her, because I don't know how to be more of her or make her more of her, but she does. Okay, and and that's how we use these things. And now we just parlayed that with the love languages. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been a fun episode.

SPEAKER_02

Just another tool. That's all it is.

SPEAKER_00

Just another tool. How how you use it is critical to if if it'll be effective, yeah, and get get give you the results that you're looking for in a healthy way. In a healthy way, either way, if there's if there's any victim in left in you, it's not it, it's gonna create some resistance. All right. Any last words?

SPEAKER_02

No, nope, nope, cool.

Workshop Invite And Resources

SPEAKER_00

Look, we got uh this is episode seven, so we've got a couple more episodes left. This is part part seven. Um, next week we are gonna talk about self-self-sabotage, all right. So I'll I'll I'll just tease it and tee it up. Um when things get too sometimes when somebody's not used to things being really, really good, when they get really, really good, they find a way to fuck it up. Yep. And sometimes when let's say we want business growth and we have a great marriage and we want business growth, when the business starts to grow, then you'll fuck up the marriage because you can't have all of it. Everything can't be great at once, everything can't be great at once. So and it absolutely can. The question is, are you allowing it and are you conscious of how much we sabotage our joy and our happiness in this world and love? Yeah. All right, it's fun. We'll be back next week, guys. Uh, if you have any it in in all the show notes, I put Angie's email address, I put my email address, reach out to each of us or or to either of us if there's anything we can do or if you want to unpack some of this stuff with us or attend our unbreakable workshop on March 6th and 7th, right outside of St. Louis. Until next week, we'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_02

See ya.

SPEAKER_00

If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to www.innerwealthglobal.com for more tools and resources.