The School of Greatness

Stop Attracting The Wrong Relationships. Do This To Find Lasting Love! | Lewis Howes

February 18, 2026

Key Takeaways Copied to clipboard!

  • If your entire story about a past relationship focuses only on what the other person did wrong, you are missing the crucial element of understanding your own role in the dynamic. 
  • Eroticism in a relationship is sustained by imagination, curiosity, playfulness, mystery, and risk-taking, not just physical intimacy. 
  • The core of relationship issues often lies in an individual's inability to tolerate and regulate uncomfortable emotions, which manifests in behaviors like blaming a partner or withdrawing. 
  • Listeners are encouraged to subscribe to the Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts for exclusive, ad-free bonus episodes. 
  • The audience is urged to share the episode on social media and leave a review on Apple Podcasts to provide feedback for future content direction. 
  • The segment concludes with an affirmation reminding listeners that they are loved, worthy, and matter, before encouraging them to 'go out there and do something great.' 

Segments

Self-Reflection in Relationships
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(00:02:17)
  • Key Takeaway: When analyzing a breakup, focusing solely on the partner’s faults means a piece of the story is missing; one must identify their own role and what they wish they had done differently.
  • Summary: A relationship is a story involving many people, and self-reflection requires asking what role you played and what you overlooked. Understanding the dynamic means taking responsibility for your contributions without self-blame. The relationship itself is the dynamic that occurs between two people, not just the sum of their individual personalities.
Eroticism and Play in Love
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(00:07:14)
  • Key Takeaway: What keeps a relationship alive is eroticism, defined as the quality of imagination, curiosity, playfulness, mystery, and risk-taking partners bring to the connection.
  • Summary: Eroticism is distinct from sexuality; it is the poetry and meaning accompanying connection, often fostered by doing new things together outside the comfort zone. Playfulness and humor are essential salves in relationships, acting as a perspective-grounding mechanism during conflict. A complete lack of humor is diagnostic, as play invites possibility, change, and healing.
Psychology and Partner Selection
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(00:17:57)
  • Key Takeaway: Choosing the right partner requires understanding your own psychology, including vulnerabilities and trauma, and being rigorously honest about your non-negotiable lifestyle needs.
  • Summary: Attraction to someone whose lifestyle fundamentally conflicts with your own (e.g., loving the outdoors but hating camping) will not sustain a long-term partnership. Codependency and low self-worth lead to relying too heavily on a partner for happiness, creating catastrophic disappointment when they inevitably fail to meet those expectations. A healthy baseline for partnership involves creating your own joy and fulfillment independently, allowing a partner to only add to that existing happiness.
Trauma, Conflict, and Nervous Systems
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(00:44:37)
  • Key Takeaway: Conflict without repair creates pain, but conflict with repair facilitates healing, as relationships are fundamentally about healing the wounds nobody else could address.
  • Summary: Partners enter relationships implicitly asking the other to heal their unhealed pain; healthy relationships involve supporting the partner in healing their wounds. Conflict often triggers historical trauma, meaning hysterical reactions are rooted in past experiences, requiring courage to address. A key to relational health is understanding your nervous system’s dysregulation patterns (e.g., withdrawal vs. hyperdrive) and learning to auto-regulate rather than solely relying on co-regulation.
Mel Robbins’ Marriage Insight
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(00:54:03)
  • Key Takeaway: The biggest game-changer in a long-term marriage is learning to tolerate uncomfortable feelings and regulate one’s own nervous system, rather than expelling stress or withdrawing from the partner.
  • Summary: Opposite coping mechanisms under stress (e.g., hyperdrive vs. withdrawal) can create a cycle where one partner feels unneeded and the other feels unheard. Surface-level arguments, like fighting over cardboard boxes, often magnify deeper, unresolved childhood trauma regarding unmet needs or feeling unimportant. True relational growth comes from learning to sit with uncomfortable emotions and provide oneself with the assurance and love previously sought externally.
Exclusive Content Promotion
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(01:03:56)
  • Key Takeaway: Subscribing to the Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts unlocks weekly, exclusive bonus episodes and ad-free listening.
  • Summary: Listeners can access exclusive bonus episodes directly from Lewis Howes by subscribing to the Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. This subscription tier also guarantees an ad-free listening experience. This is presented as a way to receive more direct support and service from the host.
Listener Engagement Call
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(01:04:08)
  • Key Takeaway: Providing social media shares and detailed Apple Podcast reviews helps the production team understand listener preferences for future content strategy.
  • Summary: The audience is asked to share the episode on social media and leave a review detailing what they enjoyed about the episode. This feedback is crucial for the team to determine how to best support and serve the audience moving forward. Specific enjoyment points are requested within the review.
Closing Affirmation and Send-off
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(01:04:22)
  • Key Takeaway: The core message reinforcing self-worth is that every listener is loved, worthy, and matters before they are encouraged to pursue greatness.
  • Summary: The host delivers a direct affirmation to the audience, stating clearly that they are loved, worthy, and matter. This message serves as the final emotional anchor before the episode concludes. The segment ends with a directive to ‘go out there and do something great.’
Opendoor Advertisement
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(01:04:40)
  • Key Takeaway: Opendoor’s ‘Cash Now, More Later’ service offers homeowners immediate cash for their home while allowing them to capture future profit after fees and costs.
  • Summary: Opendoor provides homeowners with cash upfront for their property, coupled with the potential for profit later, eliminating showings and chaos. This service is now available nationwide, and offers can be started by visiting Opendoor.com/radio. Eligibility and final offer prices are subject to variation after fees and costs are calculated.
Greenlight Financial Literacy Ad
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(01:05:10)
  • Key Takeaway: Greenlight is a debit card and money app designed for families to teach financial literacy, addressing parents’ ranking of it as the most difficult life skill to teach.
  • Summary: Parents often find teaching financial literacy challenging, which Greenlight addresses through its family money app and debit card system. The platform allows parents to automate allowances, set up chores, and monitor spending via real-time notifications. Kids learn to manage earning, saving, and spending responsibly within parental guardrails by signing up at greenlight.com/podcast.