Hey there, it's Clay with modernlove.life, where I help you get the great loving relationship
that you're looking for without having to play mind games, without having to play hard
to get, and without having to pretend to be someone or something that you are not, because
you deserve to be loved for the unique, amazing, and wonderful person that you are. And if
you agree with me, do me a favor by giving this video a thumbs up and by subscribing
to this channel or this iTunes podcast, if you're listening to this on iTunes, if you're
not already. Yeah. So today we're talking about when is
it time to give up on your ex coming back. And we're going to get into this, but first
I just want to make a couple of quick announcements. First of all, after talking to someone, a
coaching client who found me recently, she said that she found me originally through
the iTunes podcast. And so I have kind of been slacking off on uploading my audio forms
of my YouTube videos to iTunes. So I'm going to start doing that again. If I somehow ever
find copious amounts of time in my life, again, I may actually record new specific content
for that podcast that doesn't go on YouTube. But at least for now, I've got like a million
things going on, and a two year old who thinks that she's a monkey and all that. I'm just
going to be uploading the audio files to the iTunes podcast.
So by the way, if you are watching this on YouTube and you want to get that because sometimes
it's just easier to get a podcast than it is to buffer a YouTube video and all that
when you just want to listen to it. But anyway, link for that is down below in the description
box. Yeah. So anyway, we're going to talk about
when to give up and when not to give up. And I've some personal stories here that might
help you. So if you know me and you know my story, you
may know that me and my wife, before my daughter was born, we went and spent a year traveling
around Asia in 2015. And one of the places that we went was Hong Kong. And Hong Kong
is a great, wonderful, interesting place. They also have this very large Buddha statue.
I believe it is the largest Buddhist statue in the world, atop a hilltop. I guess there's
other ways you can get there, but the most interesting way to get to the top of the hill
where you can see this enormous giant statue is to take a gondola from sea level, basically,
up to the top of this hill. And it's really cool. We took the gondola up and it has like
this glass bottom and you can like see down and it's really amazing. You can see all the
water and all the hills and everything. But obviously there is a big line to get to the
front of the gondola where you can actually get the tickets and take it and all of that.
So we had to wait in this line, this very long line, and we were just waiting there
and waiting there and waiting there. And it goes around several corners, it snakes back
and forth and all of that. And what was interesting is that there were some women who were, I
think directly in front of us, if not, maybe one or two places ahead of us. And they were
speaking English, like American English. And when you're traveling around Asia, that is
not necessarily something you hear very often. So I was kind of eavesdropping in on them
and just hearing what they're talking about. And they were talking about how they were
getting frustrated with waiting for this line and how it was taking forever and how there
are other things that they could do, and all of that.
And what happened was the line was kind of moving forward very slowly, but eventually
they actually got frustrated and gave up and got out of the line, and decided to go and
do something else. I don't know what they're going to go do. But the thing is, right around
the next turn in the line, around the next corner, they were basically there at the front
of the line. So they had put in all of the time and effort waiting at the line, and then
they got out at the very last moment and decided to go do something else. In other words, they
put in 95, 98, 99% of the work, and then they just gave up at the last minute, right when
they were there. And you don't want to do that, right? You
don't want to put in all this work, all this pain, all this suffering, trying to get the
relationship that you want, only to give up at the last possible moment, right before
things are about to go the way that you want them to, and as they say, snatch victory from
the jaws of defeat, or snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Yes, snatch defeat from
the jaws of victory and basically turn what would have been a victory into a last minute
defeat. So you don't want to do that. So how do you avoid doing that? Well, here's
another story recently that maybe might help make this a little bit clearer for you. So,
my wife and I were traveling the world, or Asia at least, in 2015. And then in 2016,
we came back to the United States and we decided we were going to settle down in Seattle. And
at that point, we were pretty sure we're going to settle down here, but we just wanted to
feel it out for a little bit first. And then we were considering maybe buying some property,
buying a house, and then setting down roots and doing whole family thing and all that.
It didn't quite turn out that way, but that's a story for another day.
So anyway, housing here has been really kind of goofy over the past several years. I don't
know if you're aware of the whole Seattle real estate thing, but it's been just really
insane over the past couple of years. If you ask me, it's most likely a housing bubble.
But anyway, I could feel that there was this really weird energy, this really weird kind
of bubble energy going on. And so I was like, okay, maybe we just need to wait. We just
need to kind of figure this out, wait and see what's going to happen.
And so what happened was my grandmother passed away a few years ago, and I actually ended
up inheriting some money that we were going to use as a down payment for a house. But
we weren't exactly sure where we wanted to live in terms of which neighborhood. I also
had this bizarre fear that this was going to be a bubble and it could potentially disastrously
crash at any moment, specifically right after we bought a house.
So I just thought, okay, let's just wait this out and see what's going to happen. You know,
just from where I'm sitting, looking at the world economy, the US economy right now, real
estate, all that stuff, it just seems like everything is like way overvalued and nothing
makes sense anymore, and I'm kind of dreading a dramatic crash, maybe kind of like what
we saw in 2008-ish or 2009. Who knows? But we'll just have to see how that plays out.
I mean, I don't know with like 40 million people being out of work right now, it just
seems like, okay, that can't make sense that the stock market keeps going up. But hey.
Anyway, so I took this money that I inherited from my grandmother and I put it into some
gold and silver ETFs, basically. Basically, I'm investing in gold and silver because I'm
like, okay, if there is going to be this giant correction, and maybe the stock market is
going to drop, and the housing market is going to drop, I don't want our down payment money
to evaporate. I also don't want it to just kind of sit there and cash because there's
like all this inflation that happens, and the purchasing power of the dollar is continuously
going down. Again, we're getting into bizarre topics here that are not really the main focus
of this channel. But anyway, it's what I see when I look at the financial markets anyway.
So I went and did what some of those crazy people out there do, and I just went and I
put it all in silver and gold. So anyway, things have been going more or less flat with
that for a while. And that's totally fine. I just wanted something that was going to
hold its purchasing power and all that. And then, this year, I don't know if you have
been paying attention to that sort of stuff, but silver started taking off about a month
or a couple of weeks ago or something. But literally the day before silver just started
blasting off, I actually finally decided, okay, we're going to get a house. I'm going
to sell my silver ETF. And so I sold it for like a 3% gain or something like that. And
then immediately the next day, silver starts this enormous tear up from, what was it, like
17, $18 or something like that, up to, at least right now when I'm recording it, I think
it's like a breath away from $30 an ounce. So it just totally took off.
Basically, I put in all the work waiting for it. And immediately, I was that person that
got out of the line at the last possible moment, right when I hit the front of it. Okay. So
that's what happened. And I could have ended up with a larger down payment or something
like that if I had somehow been patient and just waited this through.
So anyway, what the takeaway from this is, is that instead of just pulling everything
out impulsively, like I did, what you want to do is you want to have in the trading world,
what they call a trailing stop. So basically it says if the price of silver drops a certain
amount, we're going to sell, but otherwise we're just going to let it ride. And if it
keeps going up, this stop is just going to follow it. And then if it drops from a new
high, it'll sell at a higher low, or something like that.
So that's what I would have done going back, if I was a little bit smarter. Could have
maybe gotten on the, air quotes, gondola a little bit before it took off. But that's
what I would have done had I been of right mind at the time. I mean, we still have a
pretty good down payment and I think we still are going to be buying a house here in the
short term. I was just waiting for the right house to get on the market. And we are probably
going to be moving to a small town by the sea, not too far from Seattle, but definitely
not in Seattle. But yeah, we're just waiting for the right place to show up and we'll see
what happens. But, just expect me to be moving at some point in the future. And that may
result in all sorts of delays in videos and podcasts and stuff like that.
But anyway, yeah, we're still in an okay place when it comes to all of that. I feel a little
bit of regret looking back at it and I'm like, wow, that's thousands and thousands of dollars
that we could have used for our down payment that I missed out on, because I didn't put
in that stop-loss. So anyway, when it comes to your relationship,
you want to have what we would call a stop-loss or a trailing stop or something like that,
where it's like, okay, if things get worse, I know that I can always turn and walk away.
But if things get better, I can stick through it. If I'm seeing progress, I can stick through
it. And I'm not just going to arbitrarily give up and walk away, kind of like Clay just
arbitrarily gave up and sold all the silver, right before silver started taking off and
going crazy, literally the day before. At least the trading day. I sold it on a Friday
and then on the next Monday, it just like, boom went up.
But yeah, you want to not just arbitrarily do this. So I wouldn't recommend that you
set some sort of arbitrary timeframe. Like, if this relationship isn't working in a month
or three months or whatever, I'm just going to call it quits. But you want to do is you
want to look for progress, look for progress that the two of you are getting closer, that
the two of you are getting closer to whatever commitment that you want, looks like. Whether
that's getting back together, whether that's getting into an official boyfriend, girlfriend
relationship, whether that is getting married, whether that is something else. Go ahead and
say, okay, is there progress being made towards this? Is there actual, tangible progress?
Not just someone talking. But are there actual steps being made towards making this happen?
So look for that. And if there ever is a backslide where it's like, okay, there's progress being
made, but then there's a setback of some sort, what you want to do is you want to turn toward
your partner or your ex or the person that you have amorous feelings towards and just
say, "Hey, something happened here. Help me understand what's going on." So that they
can just say like, "Hey, this happened because of that. This happened because I'm having
these feelings. This happened because I'm afraid or I'm anxious, I'm whatever. Or, some
other thing came up." And at least then we can have some sort of understanding about
why it happened, and then we can make an informed choice from there.
And then that's really kind of what I'd look for. I want to see either progress being made,
or I want to have some sort of understanding in terms of why we lose progress, why we have
a setback of some sort. If the reason for the setback makes sense and it's acceptable
to you then, okay, you can stick it out. But if it doesn't make sense to you or it's not
acceptable to you, then maybe that's time that you activate that stop-loss, and you
decide to bail on it. And so, that's what I'd recommend that you
do. Again, I do want to see progress. If there's not progress happening, even if it's slow,
that's fine. But if there's not progress happening, that's when I'd say okay, let's set a certain
timeframe. And let's just say three to six months. That's usually what I recommend people
do. If you see three to six months of no progress and you're actually putting an effort towards
building up that connection and doing a lot of the stuff that we talk about on the other
videos or in this podcast, then that's when I would start to say, okay, maybe we want
to think about other things here. I mean, you're obviously free to do whatever
you want to do, but you know me, as someone who would like to see you in a great relationship,
I'm just going to tap you on the shoulder and say, "Hey, it looks like there's not a
lot of progress being made here. Are you sure this is what you want to keep doing?" And
if it is, cool, that's great, make that choice. But if it's not, when you're just exhausted,
you're tired, you're frustrated and you want to walk away, that's totally fine too. By
the way, it's always fine to walk away no matter what, if your heart's not in it anymore
or anything like that, that's totally fine to walk away.
But look for progress. If progress isn't being made, try to understand why, and if it's acceptable
why it's not being made, cool, you can stick with it. Or if it's not acceptable why it's
not being made, then obviously that's when I would consider thinking about things in
another way. Let's put it that way. So yeah, put in those stop-losses, those relationships
stop-losses, and you can avoid doing 95, 98, 99% of the work, and then getting out the
last minute, kind of like how I held this silver ETF for a year and a half or two years
or something, and then sold it the exact day before silver just started this monumental
climb upward. I mean, they're saying it's the best week that silver has ever had in
the past 40 years. And I'm like, "That was me. I sold right before that happened."
Anyway. All right. Hopefully you can learn from my financial mistake here. But anyway,
thank you so much for listening to this or watching this. Hope you have a great weekend.
If you do want to subscribe to the iTunes podcast, there is a link to that down in the
description. I am going to be uploading more of these videos to that. People have requested
that before. And for a while, I just kind of thought, oh, well, it's just people that
watch the videos. I'm not actually reaching new people. But then I had this coaching call
with this other woman the other day. And she said, "Yeah, I found you through podcasts.
And then it turns out you have this YouTube channel." So I'm like, okay, cool. Maybe I
need to start doing this. And then also some other people recently have just been like,
"Yeah, I found this one podcast that you did really insightful." So I'm like, okay, people
are getting value from it. I should probably start doing it again.
So I'm going to at least just upload the recordings here for now. And maybe when things settle
down a little bit, when I'm not actively creating this new Effortless Connection course, at
the same time, trying to be a good husband and a good dad, and also apparently trying
to move to a house somewhere, then I might be able to think about making original content
for the podcast. But until then, I'm just going to be posting the recording. So take
care, have a great weekend. I'll talk to you next time. And enjoy the podcast or enjoy
these videos, or enjoy whatever format you listen to these on. Take care. I'll talk to
you later.