Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman is one of the world’s most preeminent relationship researchers. Along with her husband Dr. John Gottman, they run the Gottman Institute, who have conducted many of the world’s most extensive studies on marital stability. This week we delve straight into trauma, including Dr. Gottman’s previous trauma work, the trauma of infidelity, and the Gottman therapy related to this trauma. Lastly, we discuss their latest book - Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. What is it that makes a good relationship and how do good relationships benefit us?Podcast Highlights:5mins - Julie’s background in trauma research and her journey to the Gottman Institute. 14mins - Trauma, what is it? What does it do to us? What does it feel like?21mins - The healing power of connection.25mins - The Gottman’s couples conflict resolution approach - what questions do you need to ask your partner?32mins - Cheating, infidelity and the trauma in betrayal.36mins - Therapy for infidelity, the three-stage process.41mins - What often leads to infidelity?50mins - Eight Dates, the Gottman’s newest book on dating and relationships in their initial phases.Podcast Details:The Gottman InstituteEight Dates - Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of LoveThe Gottman Institute InstagramSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you looking to change and grow? Or are you committed to repeating your patterns and limits in life? So often we say we want growth in life - and yet we don’t make the choices aligned with that. AND so often other people want to limit our growth! This week James Silvas and Mark discuss the ways we limit ourselves in love, career, life and everything in between. Why do we limit ourselves from growth and success - why do other people limit us - and how can we stop it? This week we unpack it all!Podcast Highlights:8mins - Mark’s one night stand history!10mins - Everything you want is in your discomfort/ stretch zone.13mins - Self talk and when we self sabotage with our internal talk.15mins - When Mark left the predictability of a ‘stable’ job and career path.25mins - Are you accountable for your choices, or are you blocking yourself?31mins - How we stay committed to our misery and stories of the past.35mins - What makes people successful? - Getting past the boxes you have put yourself in.45mins - How other people might want to limit us and how to look out for it.51mins - Dealing with uncertainty in life, how we try to control.57mins - Confronting pain and discomfort, why is it so hard?60mins - How to change the way you think - how to change your patterns - how to change your life!Podcast details:James Silvas is a Peak Performance Coach and Mental Training Specialist with over 13,000 hours of training experience working with high performing teams at Nike, MGM & ADT. He has studied under 4x World Renowned Mental Performance Coach Dr. Mark Guadagnoli while attaining his degree in Kinesiology at UNLV. He has worked with over 6,000+ people on developing/strengthening the mindset that will take individuals/teams to the next level.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is 20 minutes jam packed with the most juicy breakup content you could ever need. Mark gets straight into the heart of it -- because this time effing hurts. It doesn’t matter whether you wanted the ending or not, you are hurting and we have all been there. Mark walks alongside you and helps you understand the hardest parts, the most painful parts, and explains to you that this rock bottom can be an anchor and a beginning of new possibilities for a deeper and truer connection to ourself and others. Get ready to rise.The Breakup Recovery Course Sign up Here Now!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we have Mark and Amy Young yelling about all things emotional unavailability! Every person has either been caught, is currently caught or will one day be caught in the spell that unavailable people cast over us. We explore why we get caught in the ‘spell’ of unavailable people. How Mark and Amy have both been caught themselves, and how can get unstuck from thinking you’ve found ‘love’ when in reality all you’ve found is pain and suffering. This week is the slap in the face you’ve been waiting for, do not miss it.Episode highlights:5 mins - ‘Bottom feeder bro’ behaviour, why do we want the men who don’t want us?7 mins - When the body codes drama as chemistry - breaking the spell of choosing someone who is not choosing you.9 mins - When people are lying to you in dating.13 mins - Amy’s personal story of the ‘bottom feeder bro’ - how she was going to ‘fix’ the ‘one’.17 mins - Codependent no more - why Amy read it - why you should too.25 mins - How you can break the spell.30 mins - The 5 love languages - what when we have toxic love languages?38 mins - Why we make excuses for other people.39 mins - Don’t be afraid to have the hard conversations!42 mins - When to communicate the issue or self-soothe?50 mins - What energy are you bringing to dating - to Tinder?52 mins - Are you ‘picky’, or not picky enough?55 mins - Are there enough men? What’s going on with men and their emotions?Podcast links:Amy Young YouTubeCreate The Love Live in San Fran!Create The Love Live in LA!Create The Love Live in San Diego!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are boundaries, why are they so hard? Why do we suck at boundaries with parents, exes, co-parents? Why don’t we just unfriend or block people that have hurt us? What is stopping us from letting go?! How the HECK do we do boundaries with our co-parent exes!? We tackle it ALL this week and nothing is off the table! Dr. Alexandra Solomon takes on the hardest of subjects with wisdom and compassion, if you haven't yet read her book find it in the show notes below.Episode Highlights:3min: Boundaries, how to deal with boundary violations.5min: Cultural differences in boundaries.7min: Emotions and boundaries, childhood and boundaries.14min: How do we know when a boundary is violated?16min: Personal empowerment vs relational empowerment.18min: Types of boundaries, secure vs porous vs rigid.24min: Vulnerability cycles - what the heck are they?27min: Voicing and breaking out of a vulnerability cycle.30min: How to deliver a boundary.31min: Tricky boundaries - exes! Why don’t we block them or delete them?37min: Why don’t we just break contact - are we being kind to them or only to ourselves?39min: BOUNDARIES AND COPARENTING 10144min: How to hold space for your child - what impacts your child the most during a breakup?49min: Types of families.Show Notes:http://www.dralexandrasolomon.com/http://www.dralexandrasolomon.com/book/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bryan Reeves is our guest this week and I am so excited to introduce you to a man who has truly lived a life of adventure and exploration. Bryan and I discuss his journey, from hyper-masculine army careerist, to wandering the Earth, and later to being a relationship and life coach. Bryan talks us through the journey that broke his heart, opened his heart and totally renewed his joy for life. Bryan and Mark go DEEP on all things masculinity this week. Why did Bryan’s girlfriends always end up frustrated and angry with him? Why do men follow Instagram models and damage their relationships with online behaviour? How can childhood emotional neglect - even the most subtle forms - play out in our adult lives? And what about our triggers, how can triggers from previous relationships or previous lives continue to impact our current partners. Mark and Bryan discuss the challenges that every couple is bound to face.Episode highlights:6:00 - The journey from army career to relationship coach.9:30 - Finding the subject that ‘lit’ me up10:30 - Why are the women I am in relationship with always angry at me?15:00 - Instagram and the online world affecting relationships.22:00 - Childhood emotional neglect - how can the most subtle forms affect our adult life?28:00 - What triggers us in our parents, what does this reflect in us?49:00 - Therapy, coaches and relationships, the value of working with someone from outside of our relationship.51:00 - Triggers from past, childhood and their influence in current situations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week I was over the moon to be speaking with my dear friend Kelsey Grant. Kelsey is an absolute goddess on all things relationships, intimacy, and sex! We got really real on intimacy in every way, how sex relates to connection and visa versa. We got into the juiciest parts of relationship and shared our own pasts on the highest highs and lowest lows - commitment, patterns, past hurts, cheating, breaking up, growing and knowing ourselves.Episode Highlights5min: Sexual intimacy and communication - whats the link?8min: The vulnerability in sex - can you hide yourself and still enjoy climax?10min: The differences between men and women when it comes to sex and connection.12min: Integrity, cheating and shame.14min: Pleasure and growth, how we change over time.17min: Connection to self and ghosting, looking at it from both sides. When Mark was like a “Mt Everest Basecamp” of red flags20min: Honesty in dating - are you dating just to date - to find a partner - to just have fun?21min: Narcissism is a massive buzzword at the moment, but is it really narcissism?25min: Taking responsibility in relationships and in life. You aren’t responsible for anyone else’s behaviour, but you are responsible for your own.29min: The power dynamic in ‘saving’ someone.32min: Breaking up and moving into a new relationship.34min: Infidelity, the pain, the grief and the healing.39min: Finding self love through our suffering.43min: Mark’s ‘yoghurt and granola breakup’ story, what breakups are here to teach us.54min: Kelsey’s relationship with a well known public figure - the deeper the connection the deeper the triggers and fears.56min: Finding safety when we are in fear from past triggers.59min: Trust and friendships with the opposite sex, does your partner trust your opposite sex friends?1.06min: Family enmeshment and intimate relationships, they don’t gel!1.10min: Getting started in making connections when you’re single - building the relationship skill set .Episode NotesKelsey Grant - My entire life has been focused around relationships and how to get the love you want. As I’ve grown and shifted my ideas of what I wanted evolved as I did. The person I have grown into has given me access to learning, experimenting and through direct experience understand that which I was searching for in a relationship. When I found it I thought that was it. I was done. That area of my life was complete. There was one catch though. I hadn’t yet learned how to really love myself. So the relationship ended. The universe works in mysteriously incredible ways. The breakup was exactly what I needed to actually for once look at my relationship to myself and understand I was at cause for all I was experiencing. I finally had to take a real look at my self confidence, self esteem, self worth and self love. Through my journey of self love I was able to repair relationships of all kinds in my life, build my self esteem and self worth to levels they had never been before and ultimately begin to be the love I had be so intensely searching for in another. Once I was able to build this relationship with myself my love life flourished along with all the other areas of my life.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week I was honoured to be joined by filmmaker Brendon Marotta. Brendon has just launched the ground-breaking documentary ‘American Circumcision’ on Netflix. We had an incredibly powerful, raw and real conversation on the issue of circumcision. We went deep on the trauma, pain and often undiscussed power that circumcision still holds in our society today. This is a topic that deserves so much more investigation and I am so passionate about bringing this topic to light. Don’t miss this episode.Highlights1min: Why did you end up working on the topic of circumcision?4min: Circumcision is a cure in search of a disease - a cure for masturbation.7min: The data behind circumcision.10min: Women as supportive of the issue.12min: Trauma and circumcision.19min: The history of circumcision.25min: The power of cultural conditioning.28min: How and why is the conversation on circumcision changing?31min: Who are the gatekeepers and powerhouses behind the conversation?41min: Circumcision the documentary.42min: Was there a backlash to the documentary?49min: Healing from circumcision and early childhood traumas.56min: Healing from grief.Episode notesBrendon Marotta graduated from the University of the North Carolina School of the Arts in 2010 with a B.F.A. in film editing & sound, where he worked in every major role on a film set. In 2013, he completed a year long Meisner Acting program at the Waterfront Playhouse & Conservatory. In 2014, a feature he edited was selected to premiere at the Austin Film Festival and won the Narrative Feature Audience Award there. In 2017, he completed his first feature-length documentary as director, which won Best Documentary at the Lone Star Film festival. Brendon currently lives in Austin, TX.https://www.brendonmarotta.com/@bdmarottaBonus features and full access to film atcircumcisionmovie.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt Corker is a CEO, MBA and ’a magician of human experience’, this week he joins me to discuss all things leadership and business. We discuss Matt’s latest venture The Corker Co, and how he is crushing it in the business world, not only by connecting with people but also by connecting people to each other. There are so many synergies between how we communicate and manage relationships at work and with how we communicate and manage relationships at home - but too often we see them as separate worlds.We jam on the difference between being authentic and putting on roles for different contexts. How real are you at work and how is it impacting yourself and those you love?Episode highlights:6min: People don’t quit their job they quit their manager, is this true?8min: Fulfilment and work, being an entrepreneur vs employee, what’s the difference?15min: Authenticity and the roles we play, how to we manage different relationships in different environments.19min: Being real and communicating at work vs at home.21min: Energy and motivation at work, how the time of day can affect how we behave.32min: Toxic bosses, harmful management tactics and where do these stem come from?36min: Formal company values, vision and mission vs the dynamic and culture in informal conversations.41min: Talking about relationships, sexual relationships and sexual harassment at work.48min: Working in “the office” and how our work space setups affect us.52min: What is transformational really? Is it a buzzword or something more?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode Mark Groves is joined by Stephanie Coontz, researcher, academic and author of seven books on marriage and family. They explore topics ranging from traditions, gender roles, the evolution of relationships in history and the more recent impacts of technology on relationships.Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and is Director of Research and Public Education at the Council on Contemporary Families. She has authored seven books on marriage and family life, including A Strange Stirring: ‘The Feminine Mystique’ and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. Coontz is a frequent guest columnist for the New York Times and CNN.com. Selected articles and tv appearances can be found at www.stephaniecoontz.com Highlights3m30sec: The history of marriage - what was it’s purpose?8min: The difference between love, relationships and marriage, what is the role of coercion?20m40sec: What is the history of monogamy and polygamy?28min: The changing perspectives of being single, partnered, married and what is the role of gender here?35min: The role of tradition and gender, how does it impact on the happiness of a relationship? How egalitarian are couples and how does this impact on happiness?42min: Women having the courage to speak out and the #MeToo movement, how the times have changed.45min: How has technology changed relationships and marriages?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices