 A romantic partner is not number one on the top of my list. I have all these things in my mind that I want to create and make and I have all these things that I'm trying to develop and I don't want to be number one. You don't got the degree. You don't. A lot of us don't, you know? And I'm okay with that, man, with things I'm not good at, you know? And people are like, oh, you are good at it. I'm like, nah, nah, nah. In heated situations with somebody I care about that I don't want to lose based on whatever my personality traits are, based on whatever my relationship with my mother. I fold. I get scared. Hi, lovers and friends. The OG lovers and friends on this YouTube channel and those of you who have found me through my podcast, Lovers and Friends, I want to talk about why I'm really ending that. So on the show, Lovers and Friends, I share that one of the main reasons I'm ending it is because I never took a maternity leave and I've really not gotten to spend a focused amount of time with my very young children. And while that is true, if I'm honest, there is something that is slightly more true than that as to why I think it's time to put that podcast on hiatus and that's what I want to share with you today. Oh, hey, I didn't see you there. Are you a creator? Are you looking for a digital fortress for your online ideas? Well, let me shout out the sponsor of this video here, Squarespace. Squarespace is an all-in-one platform. It's like the Swiss Army knife to online entrepreneurs. Just started upscaling your business. Well, Squarespace is like that best friend or work partner that just always got you back. I mean, build a wonderful, gorgeous website plus you can connect with your community and if you've been thinking about doing merch like we have, well, you can do that through Squarespace. I mean, really sell anything. It is an all-in-one platform all on your terms. Now, are you ready to join the Squarespace family? Well, if you are, zip over to Squarespace.com slash Amboody and start playing around for free with a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, you go back to Squarespace.com slash Amboody to get a sweet 10% off of your first purchase of a website or a domain. Happy creating. So the real reason that I'm putting the podcast on hiatus is because I'm not really proud of it anymore. Not in the way that I used to. When I first put out the show and I always encourage people go back and listen because the first episode's actually audio only. But especially, I think even up until mid 2022, I've put together with the help of Jared and a couple of full-time employees who are not here anymore and then even some contract workers, we put together a phenomenal show. Like really end-to-end interesting and engaging multi-segmented. It moved, it had nuance to it. It was never a solo perspective. It was really like an examination of the topic. And I loved it. I was always the first listener of lovers and friends whenever it dropped, even though I'm the one who put together the show. And I was happy to share it and I saw that people also equally were interested in sharing the podcast. I'd see it on my social media feeds. I'd see it in the numbers that we were achieving. And it was a great pride of mine. I accomplished some things through lovers and friends, the podcast, in our 100 episode time that I wasn't able to accomplish with 500 videos on YouTube and other bits of content and other massive TV shows that I've been a part of have never achieved the viral success, the shareability and the impact that this show once did. But the cost of that was my family life, my love life and having friendships. Something that is also a great episode that I love from lovers and friends. One of our last really, really good episodes actually, which is like I'm in my 30s, I don't have any friends. Can't remember the exact title of it. But a reason why it was difficult for me to have friendships or any relationships is because this thing was all consuming. Like I again, like I mentioned, I have worked on a lot of big production shows and there can be 200 people on staff. So when you are producing a quality one hour show each and every week, the amount of effort and intensity that that took was just not sustainable. I would have to work overtime very often. So I would have a full-time employee from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. that person would leave and I would often be working until 10 p.m. at night or I would hang out with the kids while being mentally distracted by the fact I still had this huge workload to accomplish. And then once the kids went to bed I'd be up until one, two in the morning finishing up on work. During the weekends I'd be doing the exact same thing and it wasn't sustainable for me. And so in order for me to put out a product that I felt really proud of I had to have a lifestyle that I wasn't really fully participating in. And until I could figure out how to do both I think that I have to focus on what's more important which is being a mom, being a wife, being a lover and being a student of the craft still learning and still sharing what I learned but in ways that are less committal, less constant and less pressure. And I could very well continue to do the podcast that I've been doing for the past six to eight months or so which is just one guest. And it's just one perspective on a topic that I often feel deserves a lot more than that. Just don't really feel great about doing that. So that is the main reason why Lovers and Friends is going on hold because I want to be better for you and I wanna be proud of me and the work that I'm putting out there. So the next thing that you're about to watch actually is the fact that because I half wanted to it was a hard decision to make because it was something that I really did love and do love so much and I love the community that I built through the podcast in particular. I didn't, as much as I knew in the summertime that this wasn't sustainable I wasn't like a hundred percent like I'm really gonna end this. I only really became firm on that probably like in the start of the fall or so. But up until then I was still recording lots of episodes. So there happens to be like between three to five unaired episodes of Lovers and Friends that I still have that were still interesting conversations that you can grab something from and that's what I want to share with you next. This is Jesse Boykin, somebody that I've known since I moved to LA more or less he's a really good friends with Shameless Maya and through that I've spent a Thanksgiving with him and a couple of other really cool events and so he came on the podcast and we had a dialogue that I thought was worth sharing. So that's what you're about to watch right now. Hi Jesse, how are you? Hi Sham, how you doing? Long time. It's been a while. I only really usually see you at game nights. You was really, you was being mean to me at a couple of those game nights. I'd be mean to everybody. You remember though. I remember. Being aggressive. Being aggressive. Wanting to win, so bad. Yes. Like really bad, like. Speaking of which, tell me about your love life these days. I'm single. I would consider myself to be single, yes. Are you dating around? Dating around. Are your palms sweaty right now? Mama, I'm good. I'm just like, I'm like. What can I say? No, no, no. I actually am very curious about what your impression of dating is right now. I think that we're also spoiled. We have so much access and everybody looks so good and everybody could show their best representation of themselves off a jump and I'm a very skeptical person. So I question things and I challenge things. I took the Enneagram test. I'm a challenger. I'm an eight. So that's naturally in me. Sorry. Is it fun to be single? Fun. You're asking the wrong person. I don't, fun. I think it's fun to live. But dating is one of those things where the do or don't do. I mean, in terms of being single and not single. There's another element of it that you can't control, which is somebody else. So a lot of people are single, not by choice. And some people are single by choice because they enjoy it. So I'm just curious if you're in a place of like, I'm single and I kind of hate it and I want to find my person or I'm single. And I'm just really enjoying the space of connecting with multiple different people and energies and learning different ways of life. I think it depends on what your priorities are. My priorities, you know, I always say like a romantic partner is not number one on the top of my list. You know, I have all these things in my mind that I want to create and make and I have all these things that I'm trying to develop. And, you know, I don't want to be number one. So it's easy for me. I don't think like easy when I say it's like to date, you know, because I know what my priorities I'm not. There's no desperation. I think that it's also really beautiful and helpful that you made that statement. I don't want to be someone's number one because you acknowledge right now that relationships are not going to be your number one. Because what happens is it's like, we get treated like we already got the degree. We don't got the degree. We don't. A lot of us don't, you know, like, and I'm okay with that. Men with things I'm not good at, you know, and people like, oh, you are good at. I'm like, no, no, no. In heated situations with somebody I care about that I don't want to lose based on whatever my personality traits are, based on whatever my relationship with my mother. I fold. I get scared. That's why I say I want to educate. I want to educate myself so much. And that's why when you say about dating, I say, yeah, I just want to learn. So it's like I can know what I really want because I can tell you what I want today. Change my mind two weeks later and change my way three weeks later. The basis, I know. When it comes to like all these other things, all these flaws, I'm not really interested. Now I've got to convince myself that I'm not. Yes, you know what this has given me the ah-ha of to think about? It's like everything else has got a structure to it. And sometimes that structure is not positive, but many times it is. Like math, for example, right? I would never apply for a calculus course if I don't know basic arithmetic. But when it comes to love and relationships, this is quantum physics, right? Yeah, yeah, facts. But then you've got people who have never learned one plus one who are trying to solve these very complex problems. Because we don't have this system in place where it's like, why don't you just learn about consent? Why don't you just learn about yourself? Why don't you just learn about love languages? What's the thing that you talked about that you just realized that you're a conqueror? The quiz that you just did recently, you said I found out. Oh, a challenger. A challenger, thank you. Yeah, those little things that you do that you're building up the skillset necessary to even be able to approach these things. And what's funny is my old partner told me to take that test because she was like, I need to know what I'm dealing with. So take this test and I'll tell you what my results was and we'll compare the two and see if we're naturally compatible based on just even just our personality traits, you know? And so I learned a lot from that. And then I went on and took a bunch myself. I didn't see you there. Well, since you're here, let me tell you my top three favorite features for my sponsor today, Squarespace. Now, I just recently bought a site for our production company, Shared Entertainment. And now we all have professional emails through Squarespace. It looks great as little Shared Entertainment at the end of it. It looks like we mean business. And if you mean business, check this out. The appointment feature is a game changer. Now let me tell you, it's like having somebody who just wants to work all the time. No breaks. I mean, with Squarespace, you really got your scheduling needs all covered. This is where things get interesting. You want that website to look as cool as you are, right? 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And I finally, I was like, yeah, I have not a good response to that answer. And, you know, she was ready to go. She's on leave and I'm out. And I'm like, no, no, no, we got to talk it through. Like, I know it's weird, you know, but I really want you to understand my perspective of where I came from. And I remember just like sitting in this bathtub with her for like eight hours a day for like four, four days straight. And a lot of it was from shame and guilt, you know, but I was trying so hard to understand her, like how she felt in that instance. So I wouldn't do that shit again. You know, like it was really tough, you know, and I experienced a lot of confusion during that time. But like looking back, I was happy that I did that. Cause now I don't care about having an uncomfortable conversation. I'm down to talk through whatever mistake I made or whatever, you know, thing I might, I might've did that might've been selfish in that moment. You know, so I can say why, you know, regardless, I don't want you to go into your next joint, all discombobulated and confused about me. And I don't want to go into my next shit, like feeling like I'm carrying on this guilt and shame over here and not having no understanding of why I was doing that. So I think that's like super important, you know, super important. We always come back to that communication is key component. I think it's important, but also I think it's important to acknowledge that communication is a learned skill. And it's like golf clubs, right? Like you've got multiple different ones you have to choose from, you have to know them, you have to buy them, you have to invest in them. Like it takes time. You can't just like throw it and say, oh, just communicate, just talk. Because people who have ego, people who are triggered, people who have past, people who have long issues, whatever it is. Exactly, that person communicating may not actually even be the best choice. Well, to close things out, is somebody who thinks about things and over-thinks about things and somebody who is in this weird space we call dating right now. Before you approach somebody, what do you keep in mind? And maybe people can learn from that. That we all trying to figure it out and the world is hard. Just, you know, consideration is important and moving yourself out the way, you know? I find it a lot of times when I zoom out and I move myself out the way, then everything kind of makes sense why it's developing the way that it is. Sometimes I can help you to understand a situation more, even though it feels so deeply personal. Because if I took myself out of it, what can I observe as an outsider? And how would that help me assess what happened on the inside? Exactly. Yeah.