50: Love, Money, and Self-Knowledge in Relationships — with Manny Wolfe (part 2)

Ellen Dorian:00:00:00

Welcome back to Make More Love. In this show, we share real strategies that help high performing men build passionate intimate relationships and live fulfilling lives. I'm your host Ellen Dorian. I'm both a relationship coach and a business coach, so I know how to handle all the crap that comes up when you're working to be the best at everything. So let's get into it. Today is part two of my interview with Manny Wolfe. But first I wanna share some of my thoughts on this conversation. One of the gifts of editing my own podcast is that I can listen for what's unsaid as well as what's said, and that can spark some connections that might not be obvious on that casual listen. Some parts of Manny's story are so intense. Growing up in a cult, addiction, deep trauma that it might be easy to think, "wow, that's heavy, but it's not me." But underneath all those extremes are patterns and narratives that a lot of high performing men have gone through and that you might recognize in your life and your relationship. Here are some key ones worth pointing out. The first one is solving the wrong problem. Manny talked about misdirected effort, trying to fix a problem by focusing on the wrong thing. And you and I both know this. We've all done it more times than we can count. And it perfectly describes what so many men do when their relationship hits a rough patch. Look, you're not dumb. You know when your partner is disappointed in you, but we've all bought into this Myth of the Good Provider, and you hear that line from Breaking Bad in your head. "A man provides. And he does it even when he's not appreciated or respected or even loved." But that myth leads you in the wrong direction. You double down on work thinking it'll all be okay once you make that business successful, and then everything else will work itself out. Meanwhile, you are starving your partner of what they really want, connection, presence, time, attention, and they're getting even less of it. As Manny says, "it's like your left hand's on fire and you're putting your right hand in water." And this, my friends, is how so many men end up with one successful business and three ex-wives. Number two is putting your integrity on the line. Manny talked about this idea of the Moral Man, the part of him that was watching everything he did, even the things he wasn't proud of, the part that knew better, he said "through all the terrible things I did, part of me was watching and going, what are you doing? But it just had no agency." I think a lot of men know exactly what he's talking about. There's a version of yourself that lives by a code, a personal definition of honor. You want to do right by the people you care about. You value honesty, protection, loyalty, all the things you want your partner and your kids to say about you. That's your moral man. But, if you continually put your moral man in compromising positions. If you cheat on your partner. If you disrespect them. If you ignore their needs. If you badmouth them. If you withhold your love from them. If you stay silent, when you know you should speak up or you run your mouth when you know you should shut up, You are shitting on your moral man and not honoring your Honor. And if you keep it up, it's not just your relationship that suffers, it's your self-worth that takes the hit. You don't have to be perfect. Nobody is. The only knights in shining armor are the ones who've never seen combat. We are all knights in broken armor here. So let's not try to be perfect. Let's just follow our inner code of honor and do our best to live by it. And key point number three is analyzing instead of executing. For me, one of the highlights of part two of the interview, which you are about to hear next, is when Manny talks about how he sometimes spends too much time on inner reflection instead of just going out and doing the thing that needs doing. I am not giving out any spoilers here. You'll hear it from him in a minute. Sometimes reflection gives you wisdom. And sometimes it just gives you an excuse. It's like ready, aim, ready, aim, ready, aim, but you don't take the shot. You feel like you're doing something, but really you're just stalling. Manny has some colorful words for what to do when you catch yourself stuck in this loop, and I'll let him say it himself when we get to that part of the interview. So enough from me. Here's my interview with Manny Wolfe, part two. I'd love to see if we could get it into the plainest kind of language, if we can do that. Um,

Manny Wolfe:00:05:10

so

Ellen Dorian:00:05:10

so the very plainest kind of language, like well, I don't wanna put words in your mouth either, but, what was going on with the money and how did it feel how did that translate to how you viewed your relationship? What, and if you're talking to someone who's never heard of any of these things who only has lived the life, what would you say? What was going on with the money?

Manny Wolfe:00:05:31

If what you do is you make money well, and you have problems in your family, in your health, or in your relationship, you're going to look to money as a way to solve those problems when you should be looking at other things. To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Mm-hmm. What that means is you're going to try to fit your hardest problems into an explanation that you're already familiar with, right? Mm-hmm The idea is, we all want love. And,

Ellen Dorian:00:06:11

Yes

Manny Wolfe:00:06:12

just don't even come at me saying otherwise. You know, we all want it. It is, it food. It is oxygen. We want it. And so to watch my wife reject the idea and the value of love and reduce everything down to, I'm not making enough money right now is bloodless and compromising frankly, and so to try to put it in the simplest terms,

Ellen Dorian:00:06:40

Your real world concrete problems will absolutely affect your money and, and money problems will absolutely affect your relationship 100%. Right, I wanna pull a couple of very clear things just from what said because there are things I think every listener will totally relate to. and that is that one of three things might be true. Um either your wife is saying, "Our relationship is in trouble because you are not making enough money." Right? Or you are afraid that if you don't make enough money, your relationship will be in trouble. Right? Or, and maybe and, if you can make the business successful and therefore have wealth, the relationship problems will take care of themselves. Those three things all relate to what you just said, and I think it's something that every single male married business owner can identify with whether they experience it directly or not. That is, I would say, a universal truth for the the married male, business owner entrepreneur

Manny Wolfe:00:07:54

It certainly seems like Yeah. And then, you know, the, the extra layer of complexity is that if you're having these sort of like deep soul level challenges with your partner, what's happening for them and their experience. It's probably the exact opposite of what you think it is. And that is so hard to wrap your head around. You know, like for instance, I seek communication, I create avenues for communication. And in the case of my wife, there are many times where that's the last thing she wants. it feels to her like I'm cornering her. And to me You won't gimme communication. I feel like you're just drifting away like that movie Gravity with Clooney and Bullock, and the cord has been severed and you're just fucking floating away into space, meaningful long-term bonds are going to bring your stuff up. That's what do. I mean, they do a That's what do too, and it's wonderful, or we wouldn't stay, but you need to expect that that's gonna happen.

Ellen Dorian:00:08:56

Yes, absolutely we should talk about what does money really mean, right? Because, what I was talking about before, about you're not making enough money or you're afraid you might not be, um, money and security are a lot of times the same thing in people's heads. So if you're an anxious attachment style, right? It could, it's not necessarily the money itself, that is the thing. It's the security and safety and stability that the money brings. So you're not gonna be homeless and you're not gonna be starving, and your kids are not gonna be without clothes and shoes. Right. And all those things. it's not the money, it's the stability. If you you could provide stability without money, you wouldn't need the most of us need money for stability.

Manny Wolfe:00:09:41

I think that touches on a huge cultural myth. One of the biggest cultural myths. Mm-hmm there's a lot of, hysteria in the media as there always is, but certainly lately. and it's really interesting that, people are attempting to sell us narratives all the time. And whether we buy them or not is, is gonna be determined by a number of factors, most of which come from our childhoods. Right? And so, so we're constantly being force fed narratives, good or bad, right or left, wrong or right, whatever it is. and some of those narratives will actually work against you. So you're being demanded to buy into stories that will actually harm you. And I'm not Mm-hmm gonna take a political side here, but there's a great line in the movie, the Usual Suspects where Kaiser Soze says The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making us believe he didn't exist. I love that. That is just

Ellen Dorian:00:10:39

That That is a good line. Mm-hmm Mm-hmm You could argue that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making us believe that money wasn't important. And here's why.

Manny Wolfe:00:10:50

Money really has nothing to do with energy and values and morals. It's none of those things and yet generationally, most of us now are fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth generation in to buying some narrative about money it is anything more than a completely neutral medium of exchange, right? And now to, to borrow from Bill Cosby and his great joke about cocaine, he said, well, what is it that cocaine does for you? his friend said, well, it amplifies your personality. And Bill Cosby famously said, yes, but what if you're an asshole?

Ellen Dorian:00:11:30

We're going to continue this conversation, but let's take a minute here because a lot of you've been asking what happens when you work with me. Let me break that down for you. We don't just sit around talking and I don't just dish out advice. I work from a place of logic and strategies and solutions, because I believe the same strategies that solve business problems can be applied to relationships. So, you and I will team up to get a clear picture of what's really going on in your relationship. Then we'll pinpoint the top priorities to work on. We lay out a strategic plan to target the things that will actually make a difference. And then I'm right there with you, supporting you as circumstances change and helping you stay focused on what's important So, If you're stuck in a loveless limbo, why would you want to stay there? Your first step out is easy. Set up a Relationship Reset Call with me. It's free. It's quick. Just 15 minutes. Just you and me. You'll bring me up to speed. I'll let you know if I think I can help. And if not, I'll tell you that too. So Head over to relationshipresetcall.com And grab a spot. Let's get you back on track to make more love in your life and with your wife. And, we're back. Before the break, we were talking about money, so let's keep going with that.

Manny Wolfe:00:12:53

Because money is a universal medium of exchange, you can take it and you can exchange it for goods and services anywhere. Obviously, more of it means more choice, more power, more leverage, more this, more that. And so while it itself is neutral, it will amplify tendencies that people already have. Imagine in a world where money is the universal medium of exchange, that you've been convinced that money is somewhere between not important and harmful. Just think about that in terms of your life. When I was poor, a flat tire could be a week long ordeal. I'm not kidding, right? It could be a two week ordeal. Needing an oil change could be something that took a month to deal with.

Ellen Dorian:00:13:43

Mm-hmm.

Manny Wolfe:00:13:44

You see where I'm going with this

Ellen Dorian:00:13:47

Mm-hmm

Manny Wolfe:00:13:47

And Yeah, so you see successful people talking about how glibly I might add, about how after they got successful, they realized money didn't, well, it ain't that convenient, you

Ellen Dorian:00:13:58

Mm-hmm

Manny Wolfe:00:14:00

but when, you couldn't afford new shoes, it mattered.

Ellen Dorian:00:14:04

Yes.

Manny Wolfe:00:14:05

so

Ellen Dorian:00:14:05

Mm-hmm

Manny Wolfe:00:14:05

more nuanced, well above a certain amount of money. It doesn't, well, fine above a certain

Ellen Dorian:00:14:10

Yeah

Manny Wolfe:00:14:11

matter. But let's be honest, right? Like, I like to joke I don't think I've ever had a problem in my life that would've been made worse by an extra hundred thousand dollars. You know? so the narratives and, and the legends and the mythology, around money needs to be examined each person individually. Because to go through your life thinking that it is not important or that it is bad is self-sabotage at a level of cultural narrative. So,

Ellen Dorian:00:14:43

I totally agree. I was thinking when you started to say the biggest myth, you were gonna say that money doesn't buy stability, and I was ready to argue with you And there you go Just

Manny Wolfe:00:14:55

it is the thing that buys stability,

Ellen Dorian:00:14:58

It

Manny Wolfe:00:15:00

Here's what's interesting about all of those negative money beliefs. It's akin to fleas on a dog complaining about the quality of the skin they get to bite. It's the kid at the coffee shop with the $2,000. Macbook Pro with the "Smash Capitalism" sticker on it. drinking the $9 latte.

Ellen Dorian:00:15:25

Right

Manny Wolfe:00:15:26

so everywhere that you don't even see the ways it helps you, right?

Ellen Dorian:00:15:32

absolutely

Manny Wolfe:00:15:32

If you live in the worst part of the United States, you still have a pathway up. And that is

Ellen Dorian:00:15:39

Mm-hmm

Manny Wolfe:00:15:39

100 percent because of capitalism and money. This is from somebody who comes from dirt poor quasi communistic brain programming. I know what it's to be so poor that I wore homemade unisex hand me down clothes. Mm-hmm. And I got new shoes once a year if I was lucky. Nobody can come at me with any of this bourgeois sort of middle class stuff. I lived it.

Ellen Dorian:00:16:04

Yeah

Manny Wolfe:00:16:04

And I can tell you, every problem I've had would've been made better. Easier with more money and would've been made worse without money. From health problems Yes Yes to emotional problems to rent paying problems, like across the board Yeah And so for me to finally get to that place where it's like, what if the money shit is deflecting over? I was like, oh my God. You know?

Ellen Dorian:00:16:31

Does that mean you finally have enough money that you can see that not all problems are solved by money?

Manny Wolfe:00:16:36

so I've had a lot of money at different points in my life, I know how to make money. Mm-hmm I had to go through some significant changes because the work I was doing in the world of coaching, I bottomed out with it. I can't doing just for me. I gotta sell a service, a tangible good, a measurable thing. And, And so I didn't realize it at the time, but some part of me had already made a decision, you've gotta stop doing this work and transition to some other work.

Ellen Dorian:00:17:08

That's one of the reasons I have this 'podcast cause I felt the need for something more tangible and can reach a broader number of people. As we were wrapping up the interview, I asked Manny to reflect on what love and relationship mean to him now, and I wanted to talk about what he's doing next and why, how his perspective has changed, and what advice he has for other entrepreneurial men in relationships.

Manny Wolfe:00:17:34

Um, in terms of the time that has passed from writing the book till now. I don't know that. I've had many changes in perspective as it relates to the lessons I tried to capture in that book. It's more like perhaps deeper understanding, Like most entrepreneurs, until you finally hit the thing that really blows up, this is the road you take. It goes up and down, up and down, up and down. I think that it's. Fair to say that nothing will shake a marriage or a commitment more than the entrepreneurial journey, you know? Like in the case of my wife and I, when we first came together, she was completely supportive of it. And only later did she reveal to me, "Well, I never said this to you, but I expected it to not take as long." Well, I don't know what to tell you, you know? One thing I can say for sure is, is I don't lie. And in fact, I'm extremely cautious and careful of making promises I think I might not be able to keep. And so when it came to any kind of talk about, well, how long do you think it'll take before we're rich and famous? You know, I'd always say like, I, I can't give you an answer to that. Obviously the dream for entrepreneurs is to build something. That changes our station completely. Whether that thing lives or dies over time doesn't matter. We want to build stuff. We want to give stuff to the world. And by the way, a lot of people who call themselves entrepreneurs, especially online, are not entrepreneurs. It's just simply not what it is. So in that book, I tried to do two things I tried to hold myself and everyone else to the same level of accountability. I tried to tell the truth is what I tried to do. Um, and you can't tell the literal truth when you write a biography, an autobiography. Memory is not reliable enough for literal truth. So I strove for emotional truth. to speak the emotional truth of my life experience. And in so doing, I was inspired. By a lot of literature, but certainly the more cloaked in analogy and parable self-help stuff from the seventies and eighties. Um, Jonathan Livingston Siegel, for example. Short little book full of beautiful life lessons. But you gotta work for them. You don't just get 'em spoonfed to you. And that's what I tried to do. I tried to tell this very unflinching personal story. And hopefully make it accessible so that you don't have to have lived my life to learn the lessons from it. And if anything, my perspective has just deepened moving along the same track.

Ellen Dorian:00:20:10

I would recommend to everyone to read your book. I wish that you would read your book and make an audio book of Because a lot of my audiences are audio book fans, and so they would love that. And just in our talk today, hearing it in your voice makes it even more powerful than on the page, and it's pretty damn powerful on the page. Well, I actually do have plans for my book. When I wrote it, I was working with a nonfiction book coach, and she really tried to push me to make it an elaborate sales page like most nonfiction expert books are. And I couldn't do it. I, I was not willing to do it. So one of our compromises was at the end, it sort of turns into this call to action after the story is over and I never really liked that that much. I'm more interested in it being a literary work than a client getting tool, and I didn't know that then. So there, there's a perspective shift. Mm-hmm. Sure.

Manny Wolfe:00:21:11

but moving out of the world of coaching and being a service provider and information broker, which is what I've been doing for 12 years, before my life is over, I'd like to make a contribution to, culture through writing. That's something I want do, and it's something that's taken me all this time to figure out. Just because it comes easy to you doesn't mean that it's not something you should be doing, you know, which is an interesting sort of curse of the entrepreneur. We think we have to be doing things that are hard all the time, and in some cases, that's just not true.

Ellen Dorian:00:21:45

Mm-hmm. Well, interesting 'cause we were talking about your family the beginning of the conversation and their extraordinary talent, and yet

Manny Wolfe:00:21:54

None of them did anything

Ellen Dorian:00:21:55

And I'm seeing some parallels you have everything

Manny Wolfe:00:21:58

For sure. Yeah.

Ellen Dorian:00:21:58

to be a great writer,

Manny Wolfe:00:22:00

Which is really, what I wanna do. yeah. I want to do it in a way that is not like in your twenties where you just go burn the ships and just charge forward. I don't wanna do that because, because I like the comforts of food and warmth and a house, and, and so there's a strategy at play. But yeah. Ultimately, I want to see what kind of a contribution I can make through writing. I think that's the gift I've been given that I express better than any other gift I've been given.

Ellen Dorian:00:22:33

Your writing is really so vivid because I have never experienced anything close to the life that you Right. Anything close, and yet I. I could see it, I could visualize it as I'm reading the book, I can visualize where you were, the neighborhoods. I can translate memories of my own. That was the goal. use those. Right. And that's,

Manny Wolfe:00:22:53

was the

Ellen Dorian:00:22:54

and it's really quite extraordinary. The closest thing I've ever come to a cult is I did EST.

Manny Wolfe:00:22:59

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which was like short term cult light.

Ellen Dorian:00:23:05

And I was in a second generation of it. It was even less cult-like. But I did do that and I did recognize some of the use of language and the coding of words. So that words you'd be using every day actually had different meanings. And there's a lot of that in that world Um, and, and there's value in a lot of that work too, that I did when I was in my early twenties. Um, but. Worth the price that you pay to get there. Maybe not. Just like, what you say. But I will put a link to the book in our show notes so people can, can have that. And, it's really, so worth a read.

Manny Wolfe:00:23:41

Thank you so much.

Ellen Dorian:00:23:43

so what are you thinking about when it comes to. Relationships these days. What are the three things that you could either advise about or ideas that you have or really like three big ideas on relationships?

Manny Wolfe:00:23:57

If I can get to three, I'll be happy. The main one for me is to, to really understand what they do. They are not what they're sold as, and it's really important to understand that,

Ellen Dorian:00:24:09

you're saying they're not about comfort so much as they are about learning.

Manny Wolfe:00:24:13

Yeah, they are about comfort sometimes, but I think the deepest, way that I can talk about them is that hopefully they create containers within which you can deal with your shit at an increasingly deep level until you get to the root of it. Originally monogamous relationships were a tool of the state and there's a value for them there. I'm not saying anything negative about that, because you can't actually have a society without some version of nuclear families. Which is why outside of the US arranged marriages have endured for so long. There's a reason for that. I'm not saying it's good. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm saying it has utility. Mm-hmm. You know. You're gonna have to get your own house in order in this lifetime or die trying. That's, that's my philosophy. And if you find a meaningful partner to do that with, the parts that are beautiful are, just, above the ability of words to capture how powerful they are. And so there's a lot to them. That is wonderful. And then. Some parts are the hardest thing you'll ever have to do. I can't remember who said this, and I've heard it attributed to multiple sources, but there's this great quote that says, "Love is the labor for which all other work is merely preparation." Oh, Oh,

Ellen Dorian:00:25:39

that's a good quote.

Manny Wolfe:00:25:41

I've heard it. I've heard it attributed to Hemingway, Shakespeare. I don't know who said it first, but um, that's a good one. And in fact, that might be what I'd want people to leave with. If you're talking about relationships and love. Um, here, I'll tell you what, I wrote something about it, so how about if we end with a little thing that I wrote? That's

Ellen Dorian:00:26:02

That's fabulous.

Manny Wolfe:00:26:03

here it is. "The child drifted languidly across to the old man and gazed upon him with his face made of sunshine. Father, what is love? The man his own face a mask of lifetimes lived, paused for a moment. Then his voice rang clear as a silver trumpet. Love is the thunder clap that breaks the barley and the wheat at the stalk. It is the bolt that splits the lonely oak in twain just as it sets fire to the bow. Love is the quest of heroes and fools and a labor beyond all else. It stuns the field mouse and blinds the falcon and rips the very sky in two. Love is the subtle reflection that clings to the dew and greens the meadow. Love carries both cornucopia and sword and none though they stuff their ears with wax or lash themselves to the mast can do aught but to heat its call. Love is the very breaking of the world to know what lies within. It is both salvation and inferno. It is both the work and the reward." The child paused at this, an eternity flashed. Then again, the child spoke. "Okay, father."

Ellen Dorian:00:27:11

Beautiful. Emmanuel Wolfe. The next great American writer. Thank you so much I just can't tell you how much fun this has been, I hope that your next venture comes out well. And I wanna stay in touch and we'll come back and talk about some of those other topics at some point in the future.

Manny Wolfe:00:27:30

Perfect.

Ellen Dorian:00:27:31

Alright. I hope today's episode got you thinking. But you know, we can only do so much in an open forum like this. If you want to look at your specific situation, book in that free Relationship Reset Call. We'll figure out the next best move and set you on a path to a better relationship for both you and your partner. Again, you can just head over to relationshipresetcall. com and pick a time. You can also join our Passionate Partners Insider Community on Facebook. There's exclusive content and resources there. Or, visit our website or our social channels to learn more about our programs, workshops, and private coaching options. All the links to everything I mentioned plus my personal email are in the show notes. I'll be here whenever you're ready. Now I've got a quick request. I'd really appreciate your help spreading the word about Make More Love. First, if you haven't done it already, hit follow or subscribe on your favorite platform. It helps more people find the show and it also keeps you in the loop. Second, leaving a review would mean the world. It helps us grow our community and reach more people. And finally, if you know someone who is struggling in their relationship, then share the show with them. You might just change their life. Thank you so much for spreading the word. I believe you had good reasons for choosing your partner. My mission is to help you reconnect with those reasons and discover new ways to Make More Love in your life and with your wife. I'm Ellen Dorian and that's what I've got for you today.