Thanks for joining us, folks. This is a
series of videos with the one and only
Jon Butcher where I'm going to be
asking Jon a couple of questions which
I've always wanted to ask you because,
Jon you've built one of the most
extraordinary lives of anybody in the
planet. Now, one of the most
incredible things about your life is
your relationship with your wife Missy. I
consider Jon's relationship with Missy
probably the number one most incredible
loving relationship I've ever seen
between anyone. So what is your
philosophy of marriage, of relationships,
and what allows you to build such an
exceptional relationship in your life?
Thank you for those kind words. I am so
grateful that we've been able to achieve
what we've been able to achieve in our
life. We've been together, we've known
each other for over 30 years. We've
been together as lovers for about 27. And
you've got four kids, two grandkids and
third grandkid on the way. That's right, yeah.
And you guys do not look like
Grandparents. That is not a grandpa
body. So let me ask you this: Today
in America, one in every other marriage
ends in divorce.
What do you think is the problem going on
there? And what would be your advice to
people who are in relationships right
now, who want to make these relationships
not just last but thrive over decades?
Hmm, here's the most common story
that I've seen. When we were young, it was
hot, it was passionate. We loved each
other. We couldn't keep our hands off of
each other. We spent all of our time
together. We just enjoyed each others
company and those first couple of years
were smoking hot. Then the kids came, and
then our careers heated up and we just
don't have as much time to spend
together anymore.
We used to care about how we look when
we were together. Now we spend more time
getting ready to go to work, then
we do, you know, for each other
to look good.
And all that passion and romance and
heat that we used to have in our
relationship has kind of faded. The
energy that we used to put into each
other has been cannibalized by demands
with the kids, demands with our work,
demands for after-school activities. We
don't have enough time to spend together
anymore and when we do finally get
intimate time, at the end of the day, we're
exhausted from our duties and
responsibilities of the day. And that's
how relationships go, from starting out
with extraordinary potential to just
descending into mediocrity and that's
the most common story that we've seen
with couples over the years. I would say
they naturally devolve into that state.
Isaac Newton has a couple incredible
laws of thermodynamics that you can you
can apply to this. Isaac Newton proved
that in any closed system it will
naturally fall apart over time, unless
energy is put back into the system from
the outside. So no matter what everything
that we see all around us is constantly
in a state of decay.That's why cars rust, our
bodies get old
that's why everything ends up
disorganizing. Newton proved this. The only
way to counteract it is to put positive
energy into the system and to do it
constantly.
So how does that apply to our love
relationship? The natural state of things
is the tendency to disorganize and decay.
And that will happen to your love
relationship if you don't consciously
put energy back into the system
continuously. What's the best way to do
that? It's through habits.
It's through repeated behaviors that
keep things hot, keep things passionate
keep things energetically moving in the
right direction. So the most important
single habit that Missy and I installed
more than 25 years ago, was an overnight
date, alone together every week no matter
where in the world we are. An overnight
date. We have killer childcare
now that that takes a lot of
responsibility to set that up but we've
literally got a roster of people from
relatives to great babysitters to
housekeepers and we have that.
Once a week is you know it's our
date day, our sex day, our intimacy day.
It's the day that I take it completely off of
work, completely away from the kids and
focus all of my attention on my wife and
she focuses all her attention on me.
So it doesn't matter what where
we are. Whether we are in Africa or whether
we're in the Far-East doesn't matter. We
figure it out and we spend an overnight
and that's key
I mean if you can't do an overnight
which is understandable in this
day and age. At least a long day when
you come back the kids are in bed so you
can keep it going and that's just it
that is absolutely been one of the most
effective strategies. That is such a beautiful
beautiful idea. What other tips would you
have?
Well for us it has been about
habitual connection rituals. So we have
our overnight sex day every week, we have
our daily connection ritual which is we
have what we call our ring walks, which
is where we walk around our garden
you've seen our beautiful garden outside
and so at the end of the day sometimes
the cocktail sometimes we just we just
walk around together holding hands and
we reconnect and if we haven't
seen each other most of the day, I find
out about Missy's day and she finds out about
my day and and we spend an hour in our
garden together just sort of
reconnecting from the day. We've got
daily, we've got weekly and then we
definitely do a week a year together.
Once a year we go to a spot somewhere in
the world and we work on our Lifebooks
for the entire week we
crystal clear and sort of the updated
version of our life vision and those
have been incredibly powerful. One week a
year somewhere in the world doing
nothing but talking about the life that
we are creating. So you're
consciously creating your life with your
partner about your side in all 12 dimensions of your life.
You got it. That's amazing.
I have to ask you this as I walk around
the spectacular home then you live in, a
home that Oprah asked you to come on her
show to talk about, because it is one
of the most beautiful homes in America. I
see pictures and artwork of your wife
everywhere.
It's just that this isn't just a
home you live in this is a shrine
to your lover. I'm glad that you picked
up on that because I that is absolutely
the truth.
One of the things that Missy and I have
done over our 25+ years together is
we've documented our love and this is
this is an amazing trick for a couple
especially for a couple just starting
out. We had so many photo sessions, we
met originally in the music industry so
we made a few records together. So photo
sessions were kind of part of our you
know original strategy for getting
getting a few of our projects done and
we just never stop doing that.
Photography was it just a big part of
our lives. So you're right this home is
plastered with pictures of Missy with
pictures of me and Missy and Vishen that
is just part of the Mojo man is part of
the magic. That is a strategy that I
haven't really seen many other couples
use that I was easy to do and like you
and your wife, your beautiful wife you
should be documenting that right, before
you get too old. You're gonna look back
on that and be so happy that you did it.
What would be a final tip that you could
give people listening on how to craft a
relationship as beautiful as yours?
Love requires action.
It's not just enough to have romantic
feelings or two
saying I love you is is a really good
thing, but it's not just enough to
feel love is an emotion. If you really
want to manifest an extraordinary love
relationship, you've got to show your
love in deeds. Small and big. So an
example of this is: I take a nap every
afternoon and every single day
when I wake up I come down to get my
coffee and Missy has left me a little love
notes in my coffee. Every day it's just a
little tiny friggin you know on a
little post-it note but what
that says is I'm thinking about you,
you are important to me, you're
important enough for me to take a few
minutes out of my day to let you know
how much I care about you and that's
just one tiny little example of how you
can show your love through actions.
That's part of the energy that you need to
put into the system to keep your love
relationship from disorganizing which is
the natural tendency, you've got to fight
against that.
What about people who are in established
relationships? Relationships that
might need decades old. How do we bring
this back in? It seems a little bit
difficult to break the current pattern.
Well that's a great question Vishen
we worked with a lot of couples that
have gone down that road for 15 years in
the relationship has disorganized. I'll
tell you the number one tool
that we have found most effective
is sexual intimacy. So that that's a
doorway in. One of the things that is the
first thing to go when you're going down
that bad road is sexual intimacy. There's
a kind of connection that a couple can
only get through sexual intimacy and
deep deep connection and so one of the
things that we try to do early on in
trying to fix a disorganized
relationship is to reintroduce sexual
intimacy and that can sometimes serve as
the foundation for getting things back
on track.
More than anything else it takes a
commitment. It takes a commitment from
both people that they're going to work,
they're going to do whatever it takes to
get that relationship back on track and
and sex can be a doorway in. Thank you
Jon
Those were incredible tips. So remember those
tips guys whether you're starting out in
a relationship or you're in an established
relationship what Jon just shared are
powerful ideas to help you make sure
that you're constantly in that honeymoon period.