How Your Influences Impact Your Relationship (221)

What you feed your mind follows you home. In today’s episode, Emilia and Alan talk about how your daily influences quietly shape your relationship, your mindset, and the way you show up in love. From social media feeds and shows to friends, books, podcasts, and online noise, every input leaves a mark.

For conscious couples and singles, this episode brings awareness to what is guiding your thoughts, your emotions, your choices, and your connection. Emilia and Alan share why protecting your mind matters if you want deeper intimacy, stronger communication, and a relationship built from the inside out. Listen now, because your brain has a guest list, and not everyone deserves a seat.

Show notes:
(2:01) How daily influences shape relationships
(4:21) Unconscious bias and social influence
(6:23) Choosing better inputs for love
(9:37) Key sources shaping your mind
(13:40) Your circle of concern matters
(17:08) Attention, goals, and better results
(19:03) Building deeper emotional intimacy
(21:47) Outro

______________________

🎁 Book Your First Free Relationship Talk Coaching Session:
https://calendly.com/emiliasmith/30-minute-relationships-talk-coaching?back=1&month=2025-03

📅 Join the next free Relationship Talks Virtual Event #59 on Thursday, May 21st, 2026, at 06:00 pm Eastern Time: "Co-Creating Deep Emotional Intimacy in Your Relationship" -  https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/CSenM60iSpOD_5MJOdc1VQ

____________________________

Follow us on Instagram:
Emilia Smith: @evolvewithemilia
Alan Lazaros: @alazaros88

*Email:* 💬
alan@theweuniversity.com
emilia@theweuniversity.com

Learn more about The Conscious Couples: http://www.theweuniversity.com.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Conscious Couples Podcast. We love connecting with the Conscious Couples community, so please make sure you follow us on Instagram. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, it would mean the world if you subscribed, left us a review, and shared this with someone you love and care about. Until next time, remember, it’s not about you or me; it’s about The We!

Transcript

Emilia Smith

(0:03) Conscious Couples, business partners, and individuals, welcome to the Conscious Couples podcast where we share our life, love story, and relationship expertise to help you consistently cultivate the most magnificent relationship possible.

Alan Lazaros

(0:18) Never again will you feel hopeless and alone in your intimate relationship challenges. (0:23) We'll help you have the courage to be your authentic self, communicate effectively, and constructively resolve conflict.

Emilia Smith

(0:31) Having accumulated thousands of hours coaching, speaking, podcasting, and hosting live events with Conscious Couples all over the world, Alan and I are here to guide you in all things relationships.

Alan Lazaros

(0:45) Thank you again for tuning in to the one place where it's not about you or me, it's about the we. (0:55) Conscious Couples and individuals, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Couples podcast. (1:00) Today we have episode 221, How Your Influences Impact Your Relationship.(1:06) Before we jump into this episode, I want to remind you why we are here. (1:09) We are here to improve our intimate relationship from the inside out. (1:13) If you are not here for that reason, you're in the wrong place.(1:17) Sweetheart, your intention first, ladies first, what is today's episode about for you?

Emilia Smith

(1:22) Yeah, today's episode, my intention for this one is to have us become a little bit more aware about what those influences are and how they're impacting our relationship because all of us, when we get into an intimate relationship, we really don't have a deeper understanding of how much our decisions and most importantly, our influences that we have are impacting our partner.

Alan Lazaros

(1:45) All right. (1:45) So the quote before we jumped on air here was a spinoff of a famous quote in the personal development space, which is, you are the sum average of the five people you spend the most time with. (1:59) What we said is something along the lines of, you are the sum average of the five sources that you allow into your, sources of information that you allow into your consciousness.(2:09) Yeah. (2:10) All right. (2:10) So Evolve Ventures is evolving human consciousness by destroying one limiting belief at a time.(2:17) Yep. (2:18) By breaking, destroying. (2:19) It's aggressive, but I like it.(2:20) Let's do it. (2:21) It is. (2:21) It is.(2:22) Yeah, I think it's better. (2:25) I don't even know if I know where to start here. (2:27) Here's what I know.(2:28) Emily and I just reviewed last week's episode and we do think it's important. (2:35) We also think it would be a heavy mirror for anyone who has not grown up. (2:40) And I, at the end of the last episode, talked about how I had a partner who watched Trash TV.

Emilia Smith

(2:45) Yeah.

Alan Lazaros

(2:46) And at one point she actually asked me like, hey, will you please watch Trash TV with me? (2:49) And it ended up being a finale because I said yes. (2:52) I made the mistake of saying yes.(2:53) It ended up being a finale. (2:55) It was two hours long. (2:56) And I remember thinking during watching that, I said, this is the end.(3:00) I can't ever do this again because, thank you so much. (3:04) The truth is I was sitting there going, I think I'm getting dumber. (3:08) I think I'm getting worse.(3:09) This is making me worse. (3:11) These influences are not good influences. (3:14) One more story.(3:15) A couple of years ago, I was giving a career day to a high school with a bunch of kids and Kevin and I went in for career day as podcasters. (3:28) And I did a whole hour speech with Kevin and we brought a little microphone. (3:33) It was, and at the end there was a bunch of hands up and I thought, awesome, they're excited to ask me a question.(3:39) This is going to be great. (3:39) Let's, let's build these bright futures, right? (3:42) These little kids.(3:42) And this young woman in the back, I think she was like 14 or 15. (3:47) And she said, what do you think about what's going on with Kim and Kanye? (3:51) I know.(3:53) Yeah. (3:53) So, so I looked at her and I said, to be honest, I don't think anything about Kim and Kanye. (4:00) I don't have any thoughts on that, nor, nor do I think in my head, I'm thinking that's your question.

Emilia Smith

(4:06) Oh my.

Alan Lazaros

(4:06) Of all the stuff that we just, the gold that I've imparted on to that young minds, that's your question? (4:14) So that was scary. (4:14) So my point is, is that's a good opening, I think for if there's garbage in, there's going to be garbage out.

Emilia Smith

(4:21) Garbage out. (4:22) Yeah. (4:23) Bianca and I just got done recording today on Evolve Ventures podcast, an episode that's all about the unconscious biases.(4:29) And for anyone that's unfamiliar with what an unconscious bias is, essentially it is a shortcut of the brain that the brain does in efforts to help you make sense of the world and pretty much stay in your comfort zone. (4:41) So it impacts your, the thoughts that you have, the memory, and ultimately the belief systems and picture it like weeds in the garden.

Alan Lazaros

(4:48) Do you know how many cognitive biases there are?

Emilia Smith

(4:50) There's over, I want to say 200. (4:52) Yeah.

Alan Lazaros

(4:52) I think so. (4:53) Yeah. (4:53) I don't know them all, but I think there's more than 200.(4:57) There's a book. (4:58) There's a lot. (4:58) Am I going to remember this book?(5:01) The Art of Thinking Clearly. (5:03) The Art of Thinking Clearly. (5:03) That's a great one.(5:04) That brings up a lot of that. (5:05) Is that the cognitive bias book?

Emilia Smith

(5:07) I know that there's a lot of them.

Alan Lazaros

(5:08) It's a hundred chapters and each one's a bias and it's like four or five pages each.

Emilia Smith

(5:11) I can't confirm that, but I do know that there's amazing books that are out there that do call out unconscious bias and why I bring that into this episode to what you just mentioned is our consciousness. (5:23) So what comes into our ears, our eyes, and what we surround ourselves with are ways in which we're processing information. (5:30) And the unconscious biases that we have allow us to see a very narrow view of reality.(5:39) And someone like that, a 14 year old, they are highly impressionable, highly influenced by what they see on their phones through TikTok and social media and what they're hearing from their peers. (5:52) So Kim and Kanye are their focal point of concern. (5:56) And that's what happens in a nutshell with intimate relationships.(6:02) What your social groups quote unquote care about becomes what you care about. (6:06) And so what your friends listen to or what your family listens to, podcasts, books, social media feeds, organizations that you're a part of, all of those are different streams of influences and that you bring in to the relationship. (6:23) And so I wanted to use this as an example.(6:26) I right now have Audible. (6:28) I listen to books. (6:30) You and I both listen to books.(6:31) That's one stream of influence on our consciousness. (6:33) I have two credit rates right now, two books that I could go and figure out whatever one that I want. (6:40) A part of my thought process is where are the highest leverage points of those credits going to?(6:46) What specific book is most optimal right now for our future, not just mine, our future that I need to be investing in those two credits? (6:54) And so that's a thought process. (6:57) When you are a conscious couple, you are mindful of the fact that whatever you do with that quote unquote token, allowing influence into your head, into your mind, that's going to be brought into our relationship.(7:10) So I want to use that as the example of not just books, but it's the podcast, it's the social media accounts, it's who you hang out with. (7:17) And what comes with that is essentially either mind virus or something that actually helps your garden of your mind grow. (7:25) Nice.

Alan Lazaros

(7:26) You and I, this is five, 2020, COVID just happened. (7:32) And I'll never forget this because this, I think, was one of the best metaphors I've ever heard in my entire life to date.

Emilia Smith

(7:37) Thank you.

Alan Lazaros

(7:37) You're welcome. (7:38) It was a really good one. (7:39) We were in the backyard, beautiful spring day, and Emilia said, it's so interesting.(7:43) Everyone is doing social distancing for COVID and they're staying at least six feet apart of each other. (7:49) What they really need to be concerned of is not getting COVID. (7:53) But getting a mind virus.

Emilia Smith

(7:55) Yeah.

Alan Lazaros

(7:56) And a mind virus, there's something called memetics, mind viruses, and a mind virus is a misbelief that is not true, also known as propaganda, that gets you to make decisions that are not optimal for your own future.

Emilia Smith

(8:11) Yeah, or an inaccurate way of thinking, which is where the cognitive biases come in. (8:15) Exactly.

Alan Lazaros

(8:15) And so one of the really extreme examples that I think is really powerful for this is during World War Two, Hitler would burn books to keep his followers ignorant because if his followers thought for themselves, they would stop following him. (8:33) And so if you keep people dumb and don't let them have these good sources of knowledge, podcasts, books, then they're easier to manipulate.

Emilia Smith

(8:42) Yeah.

Alan Lazaros

(8:43) And so Emilia and I are the opposite of that. (8:45) We are very frustrated with people who don't feed their consciousness with nutrition. (8:52) So you feed your body with nutritious food.(8:54) You need to feed your mind. (8:55) Jim Rohn has a great quote. (8:56) He says, you can't have a rich, dynamic, positive life and feed your mind garbage every day.(9:04) You might as well start making cake with cement. (9:08) And so this podcast might not be fun. (9:14) I think we have fun.(9:15) I think we're fun. (9:15) Exactly. (9:16) Yeah, we're funny.(9:17) Yeah, nice. (9:19) Maybe if you weren't on YouTube, Emilia is like, we think. (9:23) But at the end of the day, here's what we care about more than whether or not we're fun, whether or not your life gets better and whether or not you think more clearly and more accurately.(9:31) So let's just talk about the five instead of the five people you surround yourself with, which is obviously one of them. (9:37) So people is one of them. (9:38) People is absolutely one.(9:39) Books is one of them. (9:40) Influence. (9:40) You already mentioned.(9:41) Books. (9:42) Yeah. (9:43) Podcasts, podcasts, aka of all ventures, Next Level University and The Conscious Couple's podcast.(9:47) I'm just saying. (9:49) No, but seriously, the podcasts you listen to, the books you read and or listen to the people you spend the most time with and then social media feeds. (9:57) So I have a couple more.

Emilia Smith

(9:58) So social media feeds is one. (10:00) But a lot of time is spent watching videos. (10:03) So that includes your YouTube videos, your Netflix series, your films.(10:08) Like if you're a film buff, even video games. (10:11) I'm going to put that into the media of engagement because of the fact that video games you I remember you sharing like Resident Evil was a really aggressive Resident Evil. (10:21) Resident Evil.

Alan Lazaros

(10:22) Yeah. (10:22) Brutal.

Emilia Smith

(10:23) So so even the games that you play, right, that's a source of information that is coming into the newspapers. (10:28) If you're someone who's more of a print material type of person, the newspapers you read, the organizations that you join, if you volunteer or if you are a part of a fantasy football league or if you're a part of Pokemon's Anonymous or whatever, like what you join is a source of to make this tangible.

Alan Lazaros

(10:45) Can you think of a. (10:47) Let's think through a positive example, constructive and then a destructive example. (10:52) So can you think of a past client, Keep It Anonymous, who had a partner who had because honestly, I used myself already.(11:00) This this past person I was dating at the time was always watching trash TV. (11:06) Yeah. (11:06) And I could tell.(11:08) I mean, I was listening to books and drink deeply for meaningful books that that I love that quote. (11:15) And she's just like bombarding her consciousness with, you know, the Bachelorette or whatever.

Emilia Smith

(11:20) Yeah.

Alan Lazaros

(11:21) And I remember noticing like the differences in our thinking are not going to work. (11:25) I remember thinking like, this is not good. (11:27) Circles of concern.(11:28) Yeah. (11:28) Her circle slightly groomed versus not groomed. (11:31) And I remember after we were done working out, she'd like go get wine drunk with her friends.(11:36) And I remember thinking like, that's probably not the best post-workout. (11:38) But the point I'm making, though, is is core values and goals and conflict. (11:44) But the source of this is consciousness sources in conflict.(11:48) And so you and I are very careful and I'm not going to come home. (11:53) Very mindful. (11:54) I'm very mindful.(11:55) And I'm not going to come home, you know, after a workout and see you watching the Bachelorette wine drunk. (12:02) You know, it's like hilarious to say. (12:04) But that's so at the end of the day, we talked about committed versus casual relationships.(12:08) Yeah. (12:08) And the truth is, if that was the case, you and I wouldn't be together. (12:12) It just wouldn't make sense.(12:13) It wouldn't work. (12:14) And vice versa. (12:15) So do you have any examples of a male that.

Emilia Smith

(12:19) OK, good. (12:20) Yeah. (12:20) So I actually have my fingers up to not forget these men.

Alan Lazaros

(12:23) OK.

Emilia Smith

(12:24) So anonymously, anonymously, obviously, one of them was focused. (12:30) His focus of concern was on Reddit feeds. (12:32) Reddit feeds that talked about bunch of bullshit commentary about certain things that were happening in the news.(12:39) Completely unproductive. (12:41) And his partner had a really hard time with it. (12:43) Another one is someone who video games all the time.(12:48) Yeah. (12:48) And specifically ones that were able to talk with people. (12:52) Oh, on like Xbox Live.

Alan Lazaros

(12:54) Yeah.

Emilia Smith

(12:54) Xbox Live all the time. (12:55) And the swears were crazy and they have children around. (12:58) And so that's not just, you know, an influence that's impacting your relationship, but it's influencing your family because of what is being overheard.(13:06) Is it Call of Duty? (13:06) I don't know.

Alan Lazaros

(13:07) I don't care. (13:08) What we playfully referred. (13:09) I know.(13:09) We playfully were referred to as Call of Dudesky. (13:12) Yeah. (13:13) Yeah.(13:13) Which Dudesky. (13:14) Yeah.

Emilia Smith

(13:15) Also known as COD, but I'm not keeping up with the times. (13:17) Anyhow. (13:17) OK.(13:18) And then another another person who constantly focused on Twitter, Twitter feeds and what was happening in the news that had zero impact to their industry, what they were doing, like zero, just just to keep up with what was going on in sports so that they could talk with their buddies at work and things that are just completely not helpful to the relationship.

Alan Lazaros

(13:40) So we have to get back to the root of this, which is your circle of concern. (13:45) You mentioned this. (13:46) The young girl at that high school asked me about Kim and Kanye.(13:52) And I remember thinking your circle of concern should be on your grades and your future and your resume and skills or at least something constructive in this. (14:02) Yeah. (14:02) Skills, anything of value at all.(14:05) And the concern here, this is conscious couples. (14:08) She was more concerned with an unconscious couple and all the propaganda around that versus like her own life. (14:16) And so what we're trying to encourage here is if it doesn't concern, if it's not constructive for changing how you what you say, think, do, feel and believe.(14:28) Like sometimes when I can't sleep, I'll go listen to a book. (14:32) And right now I'm reading Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. (14:35) Great.(14:35) It's a great book.

Emilia Smith

(14:36) Excellent book.

Alan Lazaros

(14:37) Yeah, yeah. (14:38) Extremely.

Emilia Smith

(14:38) His circle of concern is spot on. (14:40) So virtuous. (14:41) Yeah, right.

Alan Lazaros

(14:41) It's very strong. (14:42) So. (14:44) I guess that that's really what I want to get back to is for each listener out there, think about your partner and think about you and let's get the weeds out of the garden.(14:55) So a weed out of the garden would be that Pokemon Go, whatever club or the fantasy football. (15:01) Oh, I'll say this. (15:02) I used to have a friend group.(15:06) That loved fantasy football, obsessed, and I used to say this, and I if you're any of you are watching, I'm going to say this and you used to hear me say this to your face. (15:14) If you spent one tenth as much time and effort on your own career as you do following these stats, you guys would 10x your results. (15:23) What?(15:24) I feel they know every stat, every player and it's like, listen, if it's a passion, that's fine. (15:28) But like, what about your career?

Emilia Smith

(15:30) Right. (15:30) Why are you passionate about you? (15:32) Yeah.(15:32) Because that's going to help your family and your relationship. (15:34) Exactly. (15:35) Another one that I have that's coming up is same thing with murder podcasts.(15:39) Like you and I talked about how mindful the influences are that come into our consciousness. (15:43) Why? (15:44) Because every time we watch a thriller, a horror story or listen to a murder podcast, our brain is all of a sudden going to be more primed.(15:51) But the world is scary. (15:53) The world is bad. (15:54) People are bad fear.

Alan Lazaros

(15:55) Right.

Emilia Smith

(15:56) So like the influences that you have are seeping in these unconscious little planting seeds of what your mind is now primed for. (16:03) And I remember Final Destination. (16:05) Yeah.

Alan Lazaros

(16:06) Terrible idea.

Emilia Smith

(16:07) Because remember the tanning booths?

Alan Lazaros

(16:10) The what ifs. (16:10) Yeah.

Emilia Smith

(16:11) And that's and that has an influence on our relationship. (16:13) If we were to go and watch a bunch of scary movies like you and I would be a little bit more like hypervigilant and that would have an impact in these little ways. (16:20) And so we don't consciously think about this.(16:23) But the more you can consciously think about the streams of influence that are coming into your mind as an individual, not only the better your life will be, but also the better your relationship will be. (16:33) Because one thing that I found, for example, I could put those credits on a murder mystery book. (16:38) I would never do that.(16:39) Why? (16:40) Because you and I would never be able to connect over those two credits and it would disconnect us. (16:45) So I want to go another level.(16:46) Because what I plan on investing those in is something related to neuroscience and future of tech. (16:52) Those are two things that I genuinely value that I know you and I can have conversations on. (16:56) So not only can you be mindful about the influences that are coming into your brain, but you can also build your relationship up given the level of mindfulness that you are going to apply in what your influences are.

Alan Lazaros

(17:08) OK, last piece. (17:08) I know we got to jump here. (17:10) I said this to a client literally last night and I kind of gave her a pop quiz.(17:15) I said, I want to see if you can come up with the answer. (17:18) So what you pay attention to determines where you invest your time, effort and money and where you invest your time, effort and money is in persons, places, things and ideas. (17:27) And so this is the equation.(17:29) This is what I call the success equation. (17:31) What you pay attention to determines where you invest your time, effort and money into the persons, places, things and ideas that bring results. (17:39) I said, what determines what you pay attention to?(17:42) Love it. (17:43) OK. (17:43) And that was sort of pop quiz.(17:45) Yeah, playful. (17:46) And she said your influences. (17:47) And I said, nice.(17:48) No, but I said that's that's the second most important one. (17:53) What's the first one? (17:54) And she's like, I don't know.(17:55) And I said, what do I always get you to do differently after every call? (17:58) And it was she didn't get it. (17:59) I said, what you measure.(18:02) I know, I know as an engineer, what you measure, if you step on the scale, if you measure your bank account, this is tracking.

Emilia Smith

(18:09) Yeah. (18:10) So goals are so powerful because you to measure, as a matter of fact, which get you to focus on what you need to focus on, which brings the necessity. (18:18) That's why we love goals.(18:18) And we could talk about it all day.

Alan Lazaros

(18:19) We did an episode once on the 10 reasons you need goals. (18:22) And we realized there was a thousand. (18:24) So we had to kill that with fire.(18:25) No, I'm joking. (18:26) It's actually we did a part one and two.

Emilia Smith

(18:28) It was a great.

Alan Lazaros

(18:28) It was intense. (18:29) Yeah. (18:30) So because we realized in that episode that you and I have never not had goals.(18:34) Yeah. (18:34) And the way I see it is if you and I were to go run in the woods right now, you if we were looking for a squirrel, we'd find a bunch of squirrels. (18:42) Right.(18:42) So so you have to have a goal to to filter out what's important. (18:47) And that's what my work is built around. (18:49) Filter out what's not important.(18:50) Filter out what's not important and then filter in what is important. (18:52) You have a goal because you have the five senses, taste, touch, smell, eyesight and hearing. (18:59) And then your sixth sense, which I call your intuition.(19:01) All of that input is determining what you say, think, do, feel and believe, which is your output. (19:06) And your entire future, based on this metaphor, is if you it's like trying to build cake with cement if you want a rich, dynamic, positive future and a magnificent relationship. (19:19) But yet you keep feeding your brain with all this toxic stuff.(19:23) One last piece, too. (19:25) I realized that stats are not researched that much. (19:31) I research stats all the time.

Emilia Smith

(19:32) I sent you some research recently out over a digital asset related to the GDP in the US.

Alan Lazaros

(19:38) So a lot of people are not making decisions based on accurate data. (19:47) So, for example, Massachusetts is one of the safest places on Earth statistically. (19:54) Well, if you're watching thrillers all the time that are taking place in Boston and there's murder mysteries, you're going to think the world is more threatening than it actually is.(20:02) Whereas, like statistically speaking, you can basically run outside and be totally safe 99.9999999% of the time. (20:12) However, on the news, all you're going to hear is about the 0.00000001% of the time that something awful happened. (20:19) And so I'm not saying to be naive.(20:21) That's a whole nother conversation. (20:22) But at the end of the day, protect your brain, take back your brain. (20:27) And more importantly, because if you're a conscious couple, you're already doing that.(20:32) If you're listening to this. (20:35) Audit your partner, because even the thought of me noticing you watch some murder mystery thing was enough for me to go. (20:46) I get scared.

Emilia Smith

(20:47) Can you imagine if you came home and I was watching some like. (20:50) Yeah, if your circle of concern was on like Reddit feeds, I would absolutely have to have a relationship because it was negative way.

Alan Lazaros

(20:57) Yeah.

Emilia Smith

(20:57) So being mindful of time, we need to close before the you know what goes off to that end. (21:03) We want to invite you to our next relationship talks event. (21:06) Co-creating deep emotional intimacy in your relationship is going to be on the third Thursday of this month at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. (21:15) So join us in that emotional intimacy is what so many couples struggle with. (21:20) And it's a co-creative process. (21:22) We're going to teach you how to do it.

Alan Lazaros

(21:24) OK, awesome. (21:25) The last, last, last thing is you would not eat cement because that's bad for your body. (21:32) So you should not watch trash TV and a bunch of nonsense that's bad for your brain.(21:36) OK, squad relationship talks. (21:38) Coaching is available. (21:39) We have an inside out model.(21:41) We just started. (21:42) Shout out to you. (21:42) You know who you are.(21:43) We're starting with you. (21:44) And we have a hybrid model as well. (21:45) Reach out to myself or Amelia if you want that.(21:47) As always, it's not about you or me. (21:49) It's about the we. (21:50) We'll talk to you next time, everyone.

Emilia Smith

(21:53) Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Conscious Couples podcast. (21:57) We love connecting with the conscious couples community. (22:00) So please check the show notes to connect with us and say hello on social media.

Alan Lazaros

(22:05) If you and your partner resonated with this episode, please leave us a five star review at the link in the show notes and share this with someone you love. (22:13) Until next time, it's not about you or me. (22:16) It's about the we.(22:18) We'll talk to you next time.