The Therapist Who Breaks All The Rules — Terry Real

Tim Ferriss May 9, 2025
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Tim Ferriss has been listed as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and one of Fortune’s “40 under 40.” He is an early-stage technology investor/advisor (Uber, Facebook, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ others) and the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, including The 4-Hour Workweek and Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers. The Observer and other media have called Tim “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, which is the first business/interview podcast to exceed 100 million downloads. It has now exceeded 900 million downloads. Listen to The Tim Ferriss Show podcast: https://tim.blog/podcast Sign up for Tim's "5-Bullet Friday" free email newsletter with 1.5M+ subscribers: https://tim.blog/friday

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Terry Real is a nationally recognized family therapist, author, and teacher. He is known for his groundbreaking work on men and male psychology as well as his work on gender and couples. His book I Don’t Want To Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, the first book ever written on the topic of male depression, is a national bestseller. His new book, Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship is a New York Times bestseller. Terry’s Relational Life Institute offers training for therapists and workshops for couples and individuals. This episode is brought to you by Cresset prestigious family office for CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs; Ramp easy-to-use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and more; and Wealthfront high-yield cash account. Tim Ferriss is one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. He is also the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers: The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors. The Observer and other media have named him “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which has exceeded 900 million downloads and been selected for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three years running. Sign up for "5-Bullet Friday" (Tim's free weekly email newsletter): https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-yt/ Follow the Tim Ferriss Podcast: https://tim.blog/podcast/ Visit the Tim Ferriss Blog: https://tim.blog/ Follow Tim Ferriss on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tferriss/ Follow Tim Ferriss on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timferriss/ Like Tim Ferriss on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/ [00:00:00] Start. [00:00:17] The pumpernickel story. [00:04:08] Wise adult, wounded child, and adaptive child. [00:05:55] Relational mindfulness. [00:06:39] Remembering love. [00:07:55] Why do we remain loyal to bad relationships? [00:11:18] The RLT stance on taking a position as a therapist. [00:13:03] Objectivity battles. [00:18:29] Entering into compassionate curiosity about your partner’s subjective experience. [00:23:50] Normal marital hatred. [00:27:03] Taking the first steps toward repair. [00:29:40] Empathizing with someone whose reality doesn’t match yours. [00:32:33] Should you stay or should you go? Understanding relational reckoning. [00:36:28] Leveraging a resistant partner toward therapy. [00:38:44] The preconditions that must be addressed before RLT can be effective. [00:41:16] Understanding covert depression in men. [00:45:32] Determining underlying depression. [00:47:15] Favored modalities for working with trauma. [00:47:53] Parsing the patriarchy. [00:52:27] Taking care of your relationship’s biosphere without being codependent. [00:56:24] Terry’s prescription for overcoming my own faulty childhood templates. [01:00:03] Pondering gender expectations and expressions. [01:06:05] Were Terry’s distinctly different boys raised similarly? [01:08:02] A good Morani vs. a great Morani. [01:09:50] The greatest achievement of Terry’s life. [01:11:36] Advice for people who want to be better parents than the ones they had. [01:14:12] The typical format of Terry’s men’s group therapy. [01:16:43] Full-respect living, group guidelines, and boundaries. [01:17:56] Comparing and contrasting Relational Life Therapy (RLT) with Internal Family Systems (IFS). [01:19:47] Modern relationship challenges — from polyamory to monogamy. [01:22:42] The research is clear: Humans are born to be intimate. [01:25:13] Toxic femininity and the new world order. [01:27:37] Relational empowerment vs. individual empowerment. [01:28:40] One up, one down. [01:30:38] From grandiosity to baseline: Relational joy vs. gratification. [01:35:53] How to learn more about Terry’s work. [01:38:06] Recommended reading. [01:41:53] Terry’s billboard. [01:42:20] Parting thoughts.

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