A Bit of Optimism · 2025-09-09 · 62 min · 10,830 words

What Your Love Life Can Teach You About Work Relationships with psychotherapist Esther Perel

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you a a little anecdote. I don't think anecdotes describe the full reality, but it was a moment for me that was very interesting. My younger son was in kindergarten, he had a very best friend. I was convinced he would go into first grade with that same friend. No. I went to the principal. I said, Why did you separate them? They were getting so along. That was such a beautiful friendship that could become, you know, my childhood friend like I have from from age six. She said, They need to learn to make new friends each time. I said he's not being trained for mobility. He's a five year old who is being trained for long term relationships. It's not the same. And it was really clear. That was the idea. The idea is not how do you continue a longstanding friendship, it's how do you make new friends all the time. I thought that was just an amazing cultural encounter. Wow.

Wow. So we're actually training our young Just suck it up and get over it and move off. The quality of our relationships Determines the quality of our lives.

This is an idea that Esther Perrell has been trying to instill in us for decades. She is the guru of human relationships, and she's been trying to teach us in all of her work how we can have successful romantic relationships. I've known Esther for years, and candidly when we've gone out for dinner, I have definitely taken advantage of our friendship and asked her for relationship advice, and it's always been amazing. And we agree on so many things, which is why I was so excited to have her on the podcast. Our work overlaps so much. We both believe that the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives in our personal lives and the quality of our lives at work. Esther believes it so much she's just launched a new product, a set of question cards called Where Should We Begin at Work. So we go deep.

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