I Reached a Major Milestone! 8 Life-Changing Lessons I've Learned From Incredible Guests Along the Way
Jay Shetty celebrates reaching 5 million YouTube subscribers for On Purpose by revisiting powerful moments from past conversations with guests including Tom Holland, Kobe Bryant, Emma Watson, Madonna, Benny Blanco, Selena Gomez, and President Biden. The episode highlights lessons on sobriety and addiction, mastering fear, building relationships from wholeness, integrating spirituality with success, cultivating mature love, and coping with loneliness and grief through presence and family support.
"My Husband Has Been Cheating On Me For 30 Years"
Rachel Cruze and Dr. John Deloney take live calls about marriage crises, debt, taxes, student loans, housing, retirement decisions, and career choices. Callers wrestle with issues like a 46-year marriage marred by decades of infidelity, large IRS bills, car and student loan debt, an inheritance weighed down by tax liens, and how much to give or save while paying off debt. Throughout the episode the hosts stress values-based decision-making, refusing to borrow, facing financial reality, and aligning money choices with identity, relationships, and long-term peace.
Divorce Lawyer James Sexton: #1 Conversation Every Couple Should Have Before it's Too Late (Use THIS 3-Step Script TODAY!)
Divorce lawyer and author James Sexton shares insights from 25 years of facilitating the end of marriages about what actually destroys relationships and what helps them last. He argues that disconnection and not feeling seen, rather than cheating or money alone, are the primary marriage killers, and emphasizes the importance of small daily gestures, honest communication, and preventive "maintenance" conversations. The discussion also covers prenups as a mutual safety tool, the impact of divorce and conflict on children, gendered patterns around infidelity and divorce initiation, and how ego and unexamined stories sabotage both marriages and breakups.
World Leading Therapist: Why You Feel Stuck in Life & How to Get Unstuck
Mel Robbins interviews psychotherapist and author Lori Gottlieb about how the stories people tell themselves shape their emotions, relationships, and life choices. They explore how these often-unconscious narratives are formed, how they keep people stuck in patterns like self-doubt, anxiety, and people-pleasing, and how to begin editing and rewriting them. Through concrete examples and practical questions, Lori shows how changing your story can change how you relate to yourself and others.
Jay & Radhi Talk About Icks vs. Red Flags (How to ACTUALLY Know the Difference)
Jay Shetty and Radha Divlukia have a light but probing conversation about "icks"-small, often irrational turn-offs in dating and relationships-and how they differ from more serious issues. They share humorous examples from friends, social media, and their own relationship, then contrast trivial quirks with fundamental behaviors like poor communication, arrogance, immaturity, negativity, and lack of accountability. Throughout, they emphasize not overvaluing minor icks while ignoring core character and compatibility, and discuss how attraction, insecurity, and expectations shape what people tolerate or reject.
We react to Bill Ackman's advice to young men
Two co-hosts discuss Bill Ackman's formal pickup line "May I meet you?" and share their own dating and pickup line stories before pivoting into examples of bold young entrepreneurs building "man-on-the-street" content businesses. They then dive into the origin story of MTV and its creative leadership, using it to explore the importance of planting a clear strategic flag, underestimating upside, and taking simple ideas very seriously. The conversation broadens into creative careers in animation, the power of curiosity and observational sensitivity in comedy, investing, and AI, and ends with a Jerry Seinfeld quote on proportion and knowing when to stop.
"Is My Marriage Worth Fighting For?" - Tony & Sage Robbins FULL Relationship Intervention
Laura from Miami shares that she has been with her husband for 18 years, married for 6, and feels they have grown apart, leaving her torn between staying with a man she considers great and not losing herself. Sage helps her voice her loneliness and rejection as clear, loving requests, while Tony introduces the six human needs framework to evaluate the relationship. Together they guide Laura toward a 60-90 day period of intentionally loving her husband in the way he best receives love, so she can make a clearer, regret-free decision about staying or leaving.
This One Study Will Change How You Think About Your Entire Life: The Cornell Legacy Project
Mel Robbins interviews gerontologist Dr. Carl Pillemer about the practical life lessons, regrets, and advice he gathered from people in their 80s, 90s, and 100s through his Legacy Project at Cornell. Drawing on hundreds of in-depth interviews, he shares elders' guidance on worry, relationships, work, health, choosing a partner, self-acceptance, and learning to be "happy in spite of" difficult circumstances. The conversation emphasizes acting now on what truly matters, because almost every very old person reports that life feels shockingly short in retrospect.
How to Move On When You Still Miss Your Ex (4 Hard Truths That Will FINALLY Set You Free)
Jay Shetty explores why breakups can feel so difficult to move on from, connecting the pain of missing an ex to brain chemistry, identity, and emotional needs rather than to the person themselves. He debunks common myths about time and closure, reframes what we actually miss in a relationship, and offers specific practices to stop romanticizing the past, rebuild structure, and focus on self-worth and personal growth. He closes by normalizing setbacks in healing and encouraging listeners to see heartbreak as a meaningful chapter that can humanize and strengthen them rather than define them.
#624 - Sketch
Theo Von talks with streamer and content creator Sketch about the realities of live streaming, his recent experiences touring college football stadiums, and the mental and physical toll the lifestyle can take. They discuss relationships, shame, therapy, and faith, including how Sketch handled a highly publicized leaked video and how it changed his dating life. The conversation also covers college and pro football culture, future creative ambitions like reality TV and treasure-hunt style content, and various comedic riffs about health, doctors, sexuality, and identity.
Jays Must Listens: You're Approaching Dating Wrong! (Use THIS Blueprint to Attract the RIGHT Person) Ft. Vanessa Van Edwards & Jillian Turecki
Jay Shetty curates a masterclass-style episode on modern dating featuring insights from Vanessa Van Edwards, Jillian Turecki, Sadia Khan, and Laurie Gottlieb. The guests explain how subtle body language and vocal cues signal availability, why impatience and fear of rejection sabotage dating, and how self-esteem shapes who we entertain rather than who we attract. They emphasize honesty about needs, resisting future-tripping, and focusing on present behavior and conflict repair to build relationships that are healthy and sustainable.
How to Communicate With Confidence & Ease (From Harvard Business School's #1 Professor)
Mel Robbins interviews Harvard Business School professor and behavioral scientist Allison Wood Brooks about the science of communication. Brooks explains her TALK framework (Topics, Asking, Levity, Kindness) for improving conversations in every area of life, along with the critical role of listening and perspective-taking. They discuss practical strategies for topic preparation, asking better questions, managing status and group dynamics, handling interruptions and belittling comments, and shifting unhelpful communication patterns in relationships.
Lori Gottlieb: Stop Mistaking Calm for Boring! (Follow THIS Simple Rule to Build REAL Love)
In this live episode recorded at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., therapist and author Laurie Gottlieb joins the host to unpack common relationship challenges around love, acceptance, communication, and vulnerability. They discuss why people feel they must "perform" to earn love, how to create true emotional safety, the difference between chemistry and compatibility, and how childhood patterns show up in adult conflicts. The conversation includes a live on-stage exercise with a couple from the audience and a Q&A addressing conflict timing, gift-giving stress, asking for attention, and relationships involving neurodivergence.
Jay's Must-Listens: Marriage Isn't About Finding "The One" (5 Truths Every Couple Needs to Hear Before Marriage!)
Jay Shetty curates conversations with Heather Pinkett Smith, relationship coach Sadia Khan, and psychotherapist Laurie Gottlieb to explore what truly sustains long-term relationships and marriage. They discuss marriage as a spiritual path of growth, the role of self-control and emotional regulation in preventing infidelity, and the importance of honest conversations about marriage, children, money, and in-laws. The episode emphasizes redefining partnership on your own terms, setting boundaries, and creating emotional safety instead of chasing romantic fantasies alone.
Love 2.0: How to Move On
Host Shankar Vedantam speaks with psychologist Antonio Pascual Leone about why breakups are so difficult, the emotional mistakes people commonly make when relationships end, and practical therapeutic tools such as structured grief lists, narrative reframing, letter writing, and empty-chair dialogues to help people process loss and create their own sense of closure. In the second half, cognitive scientist Phil Fernback discusses the illusion of knowledge-why we routinely overestimate how much we understand, how this affects domains like politics, medicine, and everyday decision-making, and how to cultivate greater intellectual humility and curiosity in conversations with others.
Quinlan Walther: Stop Chasing Love Just Because You're Lonely! (Do THIS to Attract the RIGHT Relationship)
Jay Shetty interviews relationship coach and writer Quinlan Walther about how to stop chasing love from a place of loneliness and instead build the self-trust and clarity needed to choose healthy relationships. They discuss the difference between wanting and being ready for a relationship, the four C's of self-trust, emotional safety and growth in partnership, compatibility versus chemistry, patterns rooted in childhood wounds, boundaries, and how to navigate heartbreak. The conversation emphasizes accountability, values-based decisions, and seeing love as an ongoing action rather than just a feeling.
The difference between healthy and unhealthy love | Katie Hood (re-release)
Relationship expert Katie Hood explains that while love is a powerful instinct and emotion, the ability to love well is a skill that must be learned and practiced. Drawing on her work with the One Love organization, she outlines five clear markers of unhealthy love-intensity, isolation, extreme jealousy, belittling, and volatility-and shows how these can escalate into abuse if left unchecked. She emphasizes using shared language to recognize unhealthy dynamics in all types of relationships and encourages daily practice of open communication, respect, kindness, and patience to build healthier connections.
#483 - Julia Shaw: Criminal Psychology of Murder, Serial Killers, Memory & Sex
Criminal psychologist Julia Shaw discusses the psychology of "evil" as a continuum of traits, covering the dark tetrad, serial killers, murder, and why ordinary people can commit horrific acts under certain conditions. She explains her research on false memories and how easily they can be implanted or distorted, the limits of lie detection and intuitive judgments like creepiness, and how these insights apply to therapy, policing, AI systems, and environmental crime. She also talks about sexuality, bisexuality, polyamory, sexual fantasies and kinks, and her work on green crime and the psychology of those who commit serious environmental offenses.
Love 2.0: Reimagining Our Relationships
The episode first traces how marriage has evolved from an economic and political alliance into a love-based, self-expressive partnership, and explores how rising expectations can either suffocate relationships or, when met, produce unprecedented fulfillment. Psychologist Eli Finkel discusses his "all-or-nothing" model of marriage and offers practical strategies to align expectations with the time and energy couples actually invest. In the second half, psychologist Jonathan Adler examines how the stories we tell about our lives-especially redemption and contamination narratives-shape our well-being, illustrated through powerful listener stories about trauma, illness, grief, and resilience.
Feel Behind in Your Career, Relationship or Life? THIS Is the Episode You Need To Stop Comparing Yourself
Jay Shetty delivers a solo episode about what to do when you feel behind in your career, relationships, or life. Drawing on psychological research, parables, and stories of public figures, he explains how social comparison, comfort, and misunderstood timelines create a false sense of lateness. He offers six key reminders to reframe progress, embrace struggle, and recognize the invisible skills and foundations you are building over time.
Love 2.0: How to Fix Your Marriage, Part 2
Host Shankar Vedantam talks with psychologist James Cordova about how blame and efforts to change our partners often trap couples in years-long conflicts, and how practices like genuine acceptance, "eating the blame," and lowering pride can restore intimacy. In the second part of the episode, public health researcher Victor Strecker discusses the science of purpose, how a clear sense of purpose supports health and resilience, and answers listener questions about burnout, caregiving, loss, empty nesting, and finding meaning at different life stages.
Your relationship expectations could be holding you back | Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile (re-release)
Host Elise Hugh introduces a TED Next 2024 talk by couples therapist Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile about how conventional expectations can make romantic relationships feel harder than they need to be. Yates-Anyabwile argues that many relationship struggles come from comparing ourselves to societal norms rather than designing arrangements that fit two unique individuals. Using examples from her clinical practice and her own family, she shows how redefining success in relationships-sometimes in unconventional ways like living apart or commuting separately-can reduce conflict and increase connection.
Essentials: How Humans Select & Keep Romantic Partners in the Short & Long Term | Dr. David Buss
Andrew Huberman interviews evolutionary psychologist David Buss about how Darwin's theory of sexual selection explains human mate choice and the different criteria men and women use for short-term versus long-term relationships. They discuss universal and sex-differentiated mate preferences, deception in dating, jealousy and mate guarding, dark triad personalities, stalking, attachment styles, and how people assess mate value in themselves and others. Buss also describes his major books on human mating and sexual conflict.
EMMA WATSON EXCLUSIVE: The Story She Has Not Shared Until Now
Emma Watson joins Jay Shetty to have a long-form, personal conversation about stepping back from acting, disentangling her public persona from her private self, and learning to live more truthfully. She talks about growing up between two households, using acting as an escape, the emotional costs of fame and Hollywood, and the health and nervous-system burnout that forced her to pause her career. Emma also explores love and relationships, creative writing as therapy, friendship and interdependence, and how she holds nuanced positions on activism, including disagreements with J.K. Rowling and speaking about Palestine and Israel.
(#9) Elise's Top Ten: Rethinking infidelity ... a talk for anyone who has ever loved | Esther Perel
Host Elise Hu introduces a replay of therapist and podcast host Esther Perel's TED talk, "Rethinking Infidelity, a talk for anyone who has ever loved." Perel examines why people cheat, including those in seemingly happy relationships, and how modern expectations of marriage intensify the impact of affairs. She explores the psychological meanings behind infidelity, the dual nature of betrayal and self-discovery, and offers ways couples can understand, heal from, and sometimes grow after an affair.