#30 – Erik is writing a sex book

Summary

Erik writing a book about sex together with Neils Strauss. Or is he? This episode is full of spontaneous energy, personal stories and a crazy idea with a high probability of happening.

Transcript

[00:00:01] When we woke up this morning, I felt like the barbecue master pouring gasoline on the sun and the sun. In this case, it’s Eric.

[00:00:09] Eric yesterday had incredible day. Eric, tell me about today. Well, this is one of these days when one day creativity and inspiration just won’t shut up.

[00:00:25] It feels like I’m in a kindergarten classroom with the thousand kids piled in together and they’ve been given five read bills, each watched on kids show that makes them go bonkers on YouTube. And it’s the day before Christmas. But all of them say really smart things. And I’ve been trying to kind of knock this in my head and they just won’t shut up.

[00:00:55] So we were planning to do kind of a standard planning meeting today. And instead we find ourselves, both me and Eric, being in a really good state full of creativity. So we thought, you know, screw the regular schedule. Let’s instead put on a recording and make a podcast. So what are you excited about right now?

[00:01:14] Ok. So last year he just did it in the evening time. I was going for a walk in the evening. And Johanna on my fiance, she didn’t want to join me. She was tired. So I walked out alone and I couldn’t help but my mind just going completely bonkers with ideas. And I started writing this book in my head and started mapping it up and saying, like, fuck, this is brilliant. And I kept on walking and walking and walking. And it just kept unfolding. And I’ve been wanting to write a book for quite some time, but it’s hasn’t been a top of my agenda. It’s obviously a top priority. It’s still like E! So when I came home, I was like, OK. Should I go to bed? It’s late. No, my brain is not going to shut off. So instead, I sat down with the computer and just started mapping up this book. And before I got to bed, I had this huge mind map, like really just tons of ideas. Tons of this could be this chapter. This is the purpose of this chapter. This is what this chapter could include. And it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. And when I finally went to bed is like, hey, this is more or less an inspired book.

[00:02:31] Wow.

[00:02:34] Who dat is slow state. You get like one hundred hours of work done in one hour. Yeah, easily. But so what? What is the book gonna be about?

[00:02:45] Huh.

[00:02:46] So it’s kind of a biography life kind of going through my life. And what is me? But from a very specific angle and it’s an angle that I think is kind of the core of my life, but I believe it’s kind of the core of humanity. But it’s still not spoken about much. And that’s sexuality and relationships that relates to sexuality. I’m an extremely sexual person and this is something that I have in various ways been struggling with my entire life. It’s been challenges, all kinds of situations. And at the same time, I can see how it’s been so beneficial for me to be that person and in various ways that it’s helped me. The kind of core of it is that me and my feelings has always struggled with dealing with this. She’s I would say that she’s highly sexual person as well. It’s just me who is pretty much bonkers. So let’s say she’s a Formula One car in terms of sexuality. She is a very sexual person, but I’m a space ship in Star Wars with machine guns and laser beams. So we’re kind of still mismatched here. And that’s always been a big, big challenge and forced for us. Well, first it made us break up because we had no idea how to deal with it. And we spent some time apart. And then it forced us to really grow together as a couple. It’s forced me to have a lot of very uncomfortable conversations, see uncomfortable alternatives. And this has helped me grow so much as a person and so much in business, so much in all kinds of ways. And I feel that this is not something that’s spoken about, at least not in a way where 20 something old men like I’ve been can relate to it.

[00:04:47] Wow.

[00:04:48] You know, I called you Eric yesterday because I was going through something that was very difficult for me relations wise and actually sexually. You really helped me yesterday the way you. De-wei you. I’m not sure if the direct word is dealt with me the way you were with me, the way you were present with me. The questions you’re asked, your perspectives really helped me go from anxiety to seeing. It’s actually being kind of grateful for what happened and see how that can make me grow. And I just noticed. Wow. Your you to Eric that I knew two years ago. It’s not even the same. Not even the same planet. The way you you were with me. Not even the same sport. It wasn’t even close. You have gained it’s become a whole new person in just two years. And I know that it was about two years ago that you really understood how many problems you had. In your sex life and your relationships, and I know that you have been on a quest to improve your understanding. So what you learned is now spilling over to helping someone like me. So when you told me this morning that you wanted to write a book about it, I thought, you know what, this might actually work. Yeah, I think so, too.

[00:06:18] I mean, so to give this some context for you listening, I’ve been talking quite a bit about sex and sexuality in various podcasts and stuff before because I’m truly passionate about the topic and I talk to a lot of my friends about it in very open and vulnerable ways. And what I felt in those conversations is that everyone struggles with their sex life. Everyone, even the people who don’t realize that they struggle once they get some tricky questions, it’s like, whoa, maybe this actually is a big problem for me. I just haven’t figured it out. So, so far, no one who I have spoken to haven’t either had really big challenges or still have very big challenges. And I would say I’ve been aware of this. So me and Johanna, we’ve been together for nine years now. And you said that it was two years ago. I realized it. And I would say I’ve realized that all of those two years it just took me seven years to get to a point where I had any tools to deal with it and start dealing with it. And there was so many things around us that made me grow as a person that, OK, I am not physically capable of.

[00:07:38] Not just opening up my chest and share how I’m feeling right now. I’m suffocating with all this pain and to share that pain with her and to share that pain with other people around me. Got me into a very. Honest place got me to be a very, very, very vulnerable, and I realized that that made people around me much, much stronger as well. So by sharing this, we grew together and I really wanted to dedicate a lot of time for this both to help myself, but also because I really saw the value that could provide.

[00:08:20] So what you then say the honesty and vulnerability are kind of key concepts in what you want a teacher?

[00:08:28] Yeah, I would say the two of them. The main thing is ties back in to tied back into that. That’s where I could see. So for seven years I would say that our sex life got progressively worse. If that’s how you could put it and I didn’t have a solution, I didn’t understand why. And looking back, I can see that pieces of the puzzle, why this got worse and worse. I could see what I did wrong. I could see what we did wrong. And then there was a shift like two years ago where it started to progressively get better. And one of the things that changed over that time that I can see has been key is honesty and vulnerability that we’ve actually been talking about. How does it feel to have these problems? How does it feel to be in this pain? And what kind of feelings do you have to watch each other like? Okay. I didn’t feel feeling so much anger towards her for various reasons relating to this, but I have never told her that. And then that’s been like a cage in my chest holding myself in, which just makes everything worse. So by being able to unlock that cage and in some ways unleashing a tiger of pain on her, but still also helping her to deal with that tiger and together taming it in a sense.

[00:09:56] Now, I’m going completely bonkers on metaphors, but I think it makes sense to have a more specific example of what that kind of honesty would look like.

[00:10:08] Yeah.

[00:10:09] So. For seven years and more or less, I wanted more sex than her. Well, I still do. But for seven years I was the one initiating. She was the one saying no. And me initiating that often forced her to reject me or to say no because, well, she wasn’t capable do anything else.

[00:10:33] And every time I got to know, I got really, really hurt by that. And it just built up and in my emotional body. I say.

[00:10:47] I got angry and sad and depressed and I projected that onto her.

[00:10:52] So in a way, she.

[00:10:55] She became my enemy. I started to feel a lot of anger, too. I still loved her. I love her with all my heart. But simultaneously I got really angry. Her and. It’s really hard to tell your life partner and the lower your life that you’re been holding grudges towards her for seven years.

[00:11:15] You’ve been angry at her for seven years. And at the same time, it’s true. And by me not addressing it, by me not saying it. It becomes unfair to her, unfair to me. So one of the very painful conversations that we’ve had is us actually sitting down talking about us, me telling her that I’m feeling so much anger and so much resentment towards you. And I saw this very clearly at one time where. I just pictured her in my head, my emotions like she was a prison guard holding my happiness in a cage. And I know that she never did anything of this. She was no evil. She had no bad intentions. But that was the way I was feeling because she. She locked. I felt that she was holding, locking her love away in a way and holding that against me. I know this is complex and I’ve never really thought about how to explain this, but that was my feeling. And to tell your life partner this, to see how she falls apart from those words and how sad she is. And then letting her be sad, because I believe that it’s a very horrible thing to hear, but it’s still true. And in a relationship, I felt that I to be able to solve this. Honesty is a key element even when it really, really hurts. So we’ve had a lot of conversations about this. That how. How she has actually made me feel, not by doing anything wrong with my feelings has been equally true and the same thing the other way around where me for seven years making her feel inadequate. Not by doing anything wrong, just by being me and having a much bigger need for sex than she does and for her than being the one who always says no. I mean.

[00:13:24] If you think about this for a second.

[00:13:26] How does it feel to get a no from something you really, really want?

[00:13:35] I mean, that’s a big, big pain.

[00:13:39] And that was my part of this. But now let’s turn this around. How does it feel to be forced to say no? To someone you really, really love when they badly want something and you’re not willing to give it.

[00:13:57] We’re not able to get it know.

[00:14:01] I mean, what’s worse, getting the know or being forced to say no?

[00:14:09] Serialised. From this that.

[00:14:13] I inflicted a lot of pain on her, and similarly she has been very open and told me about all of these situations and this pain that she’s been feeling.

[00:14:24] And just knowing that I inflict that pain on her husband. Traumatic, but by being able for her to open up the part of me to open up about it. We’ve been really growing together in this.

[00:14:36] And I would say thanks to that. Our relationship is today stronger than it would ever have been if it wasn’t for that.

[00:14:45] So your honesty is taking things out of the closet and putting it out in the open. Yeah, yeah. And I guess that means a lot of trust as well. The relationship.

[00:14:55] Yeah. I mean, trust is everything. And if you if you never say the bad things, if you don’t go and oh, if I would never tell her the painful parts, it will feel too good to be true. And the reason is that it would be so if anyone is in a relationship where it seems too good to be true. I’m pretty sure it is. If we don’t say well, it’s actually what we feel is as bad about the other partner or not about ourselves in relationship to that partner or whatever it is. It doesn’t mean that it’s not there.

[00:15:35] It builds resentment. Yeah. Right. So. In this book, you will talk about your life, what you learned in relationships. I guess what you learned in business and personal development as well, but through the filter of sex. So how would you say what you learned when it comes to struggles with sex has improved your you as an entrepreneur or how has it affected you as an entrepreneur and leader?

[00:16:09] It’s one of the key things comes from honesty and vulnerability, and I believe that one of the most one of the most essential parts in business and life in general is that the more you’re willing to deal with, the uncomfortable, the more tough conversations you’re willing to have. The trickier things you’re willing to do, the better everything will be. I’ve heard this quote somewhere that the quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncomfortable conversations you were willing to have.

[00:16:47] And I truly believe in this. And.

[00:16:51] My relationship has been training ground feels like the wrong word because it’s definitely the camp, no arena in terms of what’s important in my life, but let’s call the training ground of me having these conversations and dealing with this on a regular basis, which makes the tough conversations in business feels like the playground. And I feel that me being able to deal with someone in the team who I’m having a struggle with something is not delivering or whatever it is. And I’ll tell them in a very open and honest way, and we did a podcast the other week about me struggling with self-doubt right now. And old Eric, very cute, described before, would never have admitted that to the team or definitely not to the world. And now I see that as a strain that’s being able to do that.

[00:17:39] And I can see how it benefits all of these things. So, yeah, this is one.

[00:17:44] But it’s the main race. And you would say that it’s a strength.

[00:17:51] Some believe that a leader can hold up a facade and make a team work really hard over a period of time. But I think that a leader that is a human can connect with people and create a feeling of. I want to do this for the rest of my life. There’s a difference there when you actually feel connected and a leader who holds up this facade of being a superhuman can be hard to connect to. And if someone in the team struggles, if they have pain, if they are going through bad things. I think it’s hard to to go to a leader that’s too strong in such a situation. But if the leader shows vulnerability, shows honesty, shows that I’m just as human as you are. It first it makes it okay to be in pain because if the leader is in pain, that means that it’s okay for you to feel pain. So you don’t have to be ashamed or feeling pain for whatever reason. It’s. But it also creates a bond and a connection where you can actually say, okay, this is what I’m feeling.

[00:18:55] And based on that. The leader can be. Role model of life, basically.

[00:19:03] I don’t know. Does this make sense or am I just rambling on right about.

[00:19:06] That makes total sense. And I see the main benefits is that it builds trust and safety within an organization, which then increases the likelihood that people are going to want to be there for a longer period of time. As their well-being and happier well-being. So you said that you have a very high sex drive and I know as well that you have a lot of creativity and power to start new things when it comes to business. You’ve been a very active entrepreneur pretty much your whole life. How much? And in which way do you think those two things correlate?

[00:19:49] Subra that all creative energy is sexual energy. Energy in whatever thinking, grow rich. I think the book is funny. Talk about this and it really resonated when with that with that chapter of that book. And basically what it says and when we are doing things for. Or for someone else, but also from a kind of sexual place. We get in contact with a lot of creativity and a lot of positive energy. Like when we are trying to impress a girl or when I’m trying to impress a girl. So many things just on leashes and they say that a lot of songs, a lot of books, a lot of everything has kind of been riding with with a woman or for that matter, a man in mind. And I can relate to that, that I have so much of that energy that I just want to target towards someone else. But it could also be channeled through creativity coming up with so many other other things. So I think that. A lot of all the energy I’ve had in business and entrepreneurship and stuff like that is actually sexual energy being channeled this way. And now we’re in the. Country, which is tricky to explain, it’s like pink, fluffy clouds. What is this actually meaning? But this is a spiritual aspect of me that believes in this.

[00:21:15] Well, if you look at a practical aspect that I thought of just now, the reason you won’t have sex is to create something new. Right. You want to create a baby? Yeah. And creating something you could be a company or a song or. It’s pretty much the same drive. I want to create something that wasn’t here before.

[00:21:32] Yeah, I can see that. And I could also feel just when I said mapping up how this book could look. I started to see all of this ways. This could benefit integrate. So for once, I don’t want any money from this, but I’d love to create something that generates profits that we can give away. So to give out a book where 100 percent of the profits goes to to the environment and the causes that we are passionate about right now, I’m really passionate about the rainforest. That’s also the biggest source of life on the planet. And to be able to direct this energy to that would be amazing. And I can also see how this would benefit. Great. From a PR perspective, where I think that this is something that would be easy to get publicity about, easy to get traction about, and that would benefit our entire mission as well. Also, my head goes on this as, OK. This is a passion project. I want to solve this issue. I want to help this and this and this and this. And at the same time, I see, hey, this is an amazing marketing campaign to help in this way and this way. This way.

[00:22:36] Wait, so let’s slow down. You’re talking about what benefits could writing a book have for the business of. Great. So just quick background information. Great is a casino affiliate that will give away 100 percent of its profits to charity. And a lot of our revenue will come from a CEO that is being ranked high up on Google. And a lot of that is about getting links to our Web site. Great dot com. So how how important do you think writing a book would be to create links and for marketing, etc.? Is there something other entrepreneurs could take advantage of?

[00:23:16] Yeah, this is actually something quite a few entrepreneurs have taken advantage of, like one of the best. So to sum that up, if you’re running a website and you’re interested in ranking higher up in Google links towards your site, is is everything. Or at least a very big part of it. And by writing a book about something, you’re automatically becomes an authority. It’s it’s quite easy to write a book today, actually, but very few have done it. So when you’ve just written the book, you you become an authority. And this is something that people like to write about. Websites write about. He wrote this book, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you could actually use them to get marketing. And I’ve seen search companies. So people working with Google specifically to rank that have given out books with a CEO and health ranking. Google has kind of their main topic of the book, but they’ve done it also a lot because they want the links to their Web sites and then is given this book away to all the other all book blogs and stuff out there and kind of like getting reviews on them, getting links back. So it’s it’s definitely a marketing thing that can be used in so many ways. And regardless, if you want to rank in search or if you’re doing something completely different. A book, a well-written book book that people actually want to read will be a great marketing tool because imagine Takecare Tim Ferriss, for example, who is actually an author, but he also does a lot of investments in big things. Imagine how many extra investment opportunities he’s gotten by writing three really big books that people have read. So it becomes marketing for who he is and what he wants to do. Same thing because marketing for his podcast was in his podcast because marketing for his books. So they kind of all tied together in a big range of things where there is synergy one build on another.

[00:25:22] Right. So how do you feel about the challenge of writing a book down? Because I know that you’re one of your biggest strengths. If it’s expressing yourself via text. So are you excited about writing? Yes, I know.

[00:25:36] So I’m horrified of the idea of writing and I’m passionate about the idea of writing. And one thing we spoke about in the previous episode was how do we unlock creativity and how do we make sure to stay and stay in that direction? So when we’re writing a book is to sit down, write a book on bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. And what we spoke about in that episode was that it’s really hard to do it on your own. It’s hard to stay focused. It’s hard to not get distracted. At the same time, I would like to use my own words and be passionate with my own words, especially talking about really vulnerable and open things, about my childhood, about my life, about how this girl. Another way I read writing a book, which I think most people aren’t aware of how this is so many books are written this way, at least biographies and things like is of Ghostwriter, which is basically having a journalist or a previous author interviewing you, then writing the book as if you had been writing it. This is the way most football stars or movie stars, whatever this write their books, they’re actually not the wrong one. Putting the words down there. Someone is interviewing them. And the upside of this would be that it’s a lot easier to stay on track. There is someone there whose job is to keep you on track. Who’s gonna show up at that time? Who’s gonna run the conversation? Knows how to ask the questions. And they could actually then turn this in to to text. So that could be one way of doing this. To actually simulate the things we spoke about in that podcast, how much it how much easier it is to be creative and focused when you’re two or more people. So I might go in that direction just because I really want this to happen and I really want so many things. So I’m not sure if I would have the time and energy to really write it myself or if I would do go the other way.

[00:27:35] Yeah, the biggest challenge is just to sit down. I guess when you’re writing something and if you have it in a studio with someone else, that becomes much easier.

[00:27:42] Yeah. And if someone is asking you questions and have done this before, I can see it being very beneficial. So yeah. I’ll see how the my my main goal. Right Mengel, my goal since about one hour ago is to get Neil Strauss to write this book up.

[00:28:01] And how would that happen? So I have a plan that I’ve been thinking about this for all my life.

[00:28:07] No, not one hour. Sorry. Pretty much so. Neil Strauss is an author of biographies in general, and he’s already written big baseball about Jenna Jameson, his huge porn star. And she’s kind of like me not, but she could have been like me and. I actually read quite a few his books, and I think he would be a suitable guy to write this. And just by having him as an author, it would get massive publicity to start with. So this is my master plan. I’m going to write to Neil Strauss and I said, I’ve been thinking this for like an hour and I’m going to write a comment on his Instagram account or Twitter somewhere very public. And then I will ask all the people following me in various medias and a couple of my friends who’s got much, much bigger channels to share on their Instagram stories and whatever about this thing that I’ve been writing to Neil Strauss and go in and like it and share it so that there will be a massive balton Bob likes on this. And whatever he writes is, Hey, Neal. I have a book idea. And if you take one phone call with me, I’ll give ten thousand dollars to protect the rainforest and I will do it. I want to give money to the rainforest so I can kind of do it. So what I see and create a publicity thing about that. So I’m thinking that if there is a thousand likes on a comment like that and everything, it is at least gonna read it. And I mean me to be honest, he’s a douche if he doesn’t do one phone call. If that generates ten thousand dollars for the environment. So we’ll see.

[00:29:45] We’ll see. All right. We’re running up towards 30 minutes. So I think it’s a good time to wrap up. Do you have something final? Anything final you want to say before?

[00:29:55] No, I’m just very, very excited. So if you can’t hear that in my voice, this is me when I’m excited. So if you’re ever talking to me, you know, having this voice is a good sign.

[00:30:04] It happens quite often. That’s true. If you have any comments right there for the book or any feedback, send us an e-mail to podcast. That’s great. And we’ll see you next week.

[00:30:17] Thank you. Bye bye.