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About Simone:
Simone Milasas is a self-made millionaire, best-selling author and Business Development Manager of Access Consciousness®. Simone joyfully sees the prospect of possibility and future in every choice she chooses. She is the founder of Joy of Business, mentoring entrepreneurs around the globe to create greater wealth and happiness, and has been at the forefront of cutting-edge creation and development for over two decades. In addition to Relationship: Are you sure you want one?, Simone is the author of Joy of Business and Getting Out of Debt Joyfully.
Find out more at http://www.simonemilasas.com
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Relationship: Are You Sure You Want One? | Simone Milasas
My guest now is the best-selling author of Joy of Business and Getting Out of Debt Joyfully. There’s a third book too which we’re going to talk about, Relationship. Are you sure you want one? I’m excited to talk about this. She’s also a self-made millionaire and Business Development Manager of Access Consciousness and the Founder of Joy of Business. Simone, welcome to the show.
Thank you. It’s good to be here.
I’m excited to have you here now because this is a hot topic. Coming out of 2020, relationships and all the COVID divorcing that’s happening. It’s big. Where have you seen the data trending?
I’ve seen the data trending in both ways. There are some people who have created a great relationship and gotten to know their partner and then others who are like, “My goodness.”
“What did I do?” How did you decide to do what you’re doing now?
The three books that I’ve written are based on Access Consciousness tools. I’ve worked with Access Consciousness for many years. My whole life, I looked around the world and was like, “There’s got to be something else and different than the trauma, drama and the stories that people want to live by.” When I met Gary Douglas, the Founder of Access Consciousness, I was like, “That’s it.” I had created a business beforehand called Good Vibes for You and my whole desire was, “How do we change the way people look at the world?”
Here we are years later and I’ve always had a joy of business. Hence, I wrote the book, Joy of Business. I created myself to be an absolute financial mess at one stage so I created Getting Out of Debt Joyfully and then my ex-partner co-wrote the book, Relationship. Are you sure you want one? We broke up the relationship as we were launching it which gave our PR agent a slight heart attack but we were like, “Don’t worry. We got this.” We had all these TV bookings and everything in America. She’s like, “No.”
You wrote the book with someone you were in a relationship with and the relationship ended right as you were releasing the book.
That book has so many great tools in it if you try to create a good relationship but also the thing that I see many people do is when they break up a relationship, they make it hard whereas, to me, it should be something where you look at someone, you spent all these years together and you go, “I’ve had much fun. I’m grateful for you but have we done what we were meant to do together? Is it time to change or to choose something different?” It wasn’t the easiest breakup in the world but it wasn’t hard. We used the tools of Access as well to break up the relationship. We’re still friends. We work together and here we are.
I love how you phrase that, too. “Have we done what we were meant to do together?” That’s an okay thing. How do you know when you get to that point? That’s probably a loaded question.
I used to travel a lot and I noticed when I would leave and if Brendan wasn’t coming with me, we looked at one week was fun to be away from each other. Two weeks was doable. In three weeks, you’re like, “What can we change here?” When you would come home and you’d be so excited to see that person or even if you’d been out all day, you walk in the house and like, “They’re home.” In that moment, where you drive home and they’re home and you go, “Ah.” That’s the moment that you start realizing that maybe you would like something a little bit different.
I still liked Brendan. He liked me. We call it creationship because the definition of relationship means the distance between two things. We say we want to create a great relationship. What you’re asking for is this distance. We termed the phrase creationship instead of relationship. We stopped creating it. When you stop creating a relationship, that’s when you might want to ask a few questions and maybe see if you’re done.
I appreciate how you phrase it too in the way that it doesn’t have to be this sad thing. There’s a sadness that’s involved in it but it doesn’t have to be a hard thing.
It doesn’t. I’m sure you’re the same. Your friends, family and over the years, people you surround yourself by, someone always seems to create this habit to break up a relationship. We refer to in our book, “What if you could have a glass or maybe a bottle of champagne and be like, ‘Let’s celebrate what we had?’” At one point, when we were breaking up the relationship, Brendan and I took a bottle of wine out onto our veranda and we went, “Let’s talk about everything that’s up.” The interesting thing was we both had this energy of willing to go to World War III to say what wasn’t working.
We had one of the best conversations we’ve ever had our whole entire relationship because we’re willing to go, “Here’s what’s up for me.” Many people do this thing and say, “Here’s what’s up for me. You need to change.” It’s not. You can’t do that in a relationship. You can’t try and get someone to change. “I’m allowed to say this because I’m a woman.” Many women do this thing where they get into a relationship and then they decide that they’re going to change their partner. One of the things I always say, “If you want to train someone, get a puppy.” You met this man and you liked him when you saw him. What if you allow him to be him and not try and change him?” The relationship is not about going, “This is a good template. If I work with it, I can change it.” If he wants to change, great. If he doesn’t, great. You’ve got to be okay with the person in front of you.
It sounds like there’s a point where it’s okay to not be okay with that person in front of you anymore. You’re talking about change. That’s the unrealistic expectation of that person to change over time but what if they do change over time? They were themselves but now they’re growing themselves and their likes or dislikes have shifted and morphed over a time period as they start to develop even maturity in life through their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s.
Hopefully, you can embrace that and allow that person to change as much as they would like to change as well. For me, it was interesting. I’ve never been interested in marriage and I was born and bred a Catholic and stopped going to church at sixteen. The whole marriage thing to me was like I don’t get how I can look at somebody else and say, “I know I want to be with you in 50 years’ time.” I can wake up tomorrow and say, “This is great. I want to be with you now, 1 or 10 years.” Make that commitment. I was like, “I didn’t know what I would like to be doing in 50 years’ time.” To me, if you create a great relationship, it should be about that place where you allow that person to choose what they want to choose. For example, at one stage with Brendan and myself, he had a child. I had a stepson and we had this house in Australia. I said to him, “I want to go and live in Europe for a while like six months.” He looked at me and he goes, “Will you still contribute to the mortgage?”
I was like, “You and Nash come over in the holidays.” He didn’t say, “You can’t go because we’ve X, Y, Z.” He was like, “If you feel like you need to do that then go.” I didn’t go but the fact that there was no restriction allowed me so much choice to explore what it is that I truly desired to choose. That’s important in a relationship. We were such different people as well. It was at one stage, he was a tradesman, a pilot and he hated it. I said to him, “Why don’t you stop working for a while? I’ve got this. I’m earning money. You’re living at my house. We can work this out. Give yourself some space to figure out what it is you want to do.”
In the beginning, he would sit on the couch, watch TV, have a few beers and depressed. I’m very creative in the morning. I’d wake up, be all creative and happy. By day three, he looked at me and said, “Simone, will you stop being so happy? Do you know how hard it is to be depressed when you live with someone who’s happy?” I looked at him and like, “Are you kidding me?” We both start laughing and it was like, “No.” What I’d like people to get with that is don’t stop being you but you don’t choose for yourself by choosing against. Be you and it invites the other person to be all of them no matter what it is. I was in total allowance. I’m like, “If you want to lie on the couch for three days, watch TV and drink beer, that’s okay with me but I’m going to keep creating.”
It sounds like a lot of relationships will start to fail when you have unrealistic expectations from what you’re saying. It’s almost like you’re trying to fit them into a mold.
I want to say it’s not our fault because this reality has trained of what next. If you look in history, marriage was originally for wealth to create wealth. Over the years it’s been through religion then it’s the next move. Years ago, if you were 24 or 25, you were an old maid if you weren’t married. You had to get married, have kids, do all of that and now I’m grateful. There seems to be a lot more choice. It’s not right to be in a relationship and it’s also not right to be single. I see this and I did that myself too, the righteousness of being in a relationship and being single. I was like, “What if it was all a choice?” Give yourself some freedom to choose what works for you. Don’t succumb to the rules, regulations and the judgment of this reality of what they say you should be doing. I would like everyone to know that they have a choice and what would you like to choose?
When one person in a relationship says, “I need some space,” does that mean that the other partner did something wrong? How do you take that on the receiving end of that?
That’s a big topic. One of the things I talk about in the book as well is man-cave is a real thing. Men and women process things differently. A woman likes to talk a lot, talk it out and the poor guy’s going, “What am I going to do, fix and change?” She’s like, “I want to talk about this.” First of all, if a man can get that, “Pour her a glass of wine or make her tea, whatever you want to do and just listen.” I know I’m generalizing. Sometimes a man functions as a woman and a woman functions as a man. Generally, a man would like to play video games, have somewhere in the house, somewhere that they go, a sport that they do, read a book or watch a sport on TV or something that they process on their own. Many people take it personally. My suggestion is if your partner requires that space, say to them, “Is everything okay?” They’ll usually say, “Yeah,” and then say, “Is there anything I can do or be for you? I’m here if you need me,” and then leave them alone. You need to leave the other person alone. I was talking to a friend of mine. He lives in South Africa. He met his partner working on Zoom, a modern-day 2020 relationship.
They didn’t even have the chance to go, “You want to spend the weekend or the night?” He goes, “We moved in together. I realized we were doing everything together. I started asking questions by going, ‘I’m going to the grocery store. Can I get you anything?’” I was like, “That’s brilliant because it’s not about, ‘I’m going. I don’t want you to come with me because this is like that resistance.’ It’s just like, ‘I want to go for a run. I’ll see you later,’ or whatever it is.” Allow the other person to have space and it’s not personal. Don’t take it personally.
There’s probably a lot of stories that could be created in those moments too that are untrue.
People hate this tool that I talk about but I’ll mention it. One of the ways to create a great conscious relationship is to make everything about the other person. It’s not the easiest thing to do. I remember at one point, I lived across the road from the beach. I was cranky at Brendan and I don’t even remember what about but I wanted everything to be about me. I’m walking on the beach then this friend of mine, Gary Douglas, the Founder of Access, rang me. He said, “What’s up? You need to go home and make everything about Brendan.” I was like, “That’s not what I want to do.” He said, “Try it.” I was like, “Every other tool he’s given me has worked so I’ll do this.”
I walked into the house and started making everything about him. Within ten minutes, he was like, “What would you like me to make you for dinner? Sit down. Can I get you a drink?” I was like, “This worked.” Often, we have this like push-pull energy. If you’ll be available for the other person and make it about them, they’ll end up being on this is level of gratitude that making it about you as well. You cannot have an expectation. That is one of the tools that we talked about of creating a conscious relationship. Make it about the other person. Stop trying to make it about you.
I love that how that tool sounds and still at a point, you both made a choice to say that, “This is not for me anymore,” even with everything amazing that you put into place along the way because it sounds fantastic.
Do you know many people would go, “When are you getting back together?” We’re like, “We’re not.”
This real-life that it could happen this way but still at some point, you got to where it was. I love the celebration that you had too to say, “Let’s celebrate all the amazing times that we had.” Can we unpack this? There was a phrase you said that you were both ready to go to World War III over all of the issues that you each had. How did you overcome that initial defensive posture to move into that celebration of separation?
That was probably not the easiest conversation but it showed up as one of the greatest. There were some vulnerable moments. I knew he wasn’t cheating on me but I also had this awareness that he wanted to and I knew who with. It was a mutual friend of ours. I hadn’t spoken about it. When you know something, you know it. Don’t disavow you knowing. That was one of the things I brought up. I was like, “Have you slept with her?” He was like, “No.” I believe to this day that then he hadn’t slept with her while we were together. That’s his girlfriend now. They’re together now which is fine.
I was the one who had to process so many of our friends on it and I was like, “I’m good.” I brought it up and was like, “What’s going on?” He got immediately defensive about it as well. I was like, “I don’t desire to live in a relationship where that stuff is going on. It doesn’t work for me.” There are people who have open relationships. For me personally and it should be a personal choice, if someone that you’re with is starting to look somewhere else to have sex then maybe the relationship isn’t working the way you would like it to.
Every day, I would wake up and it was like, “Who do I want to have sex with? Brendan,” which I was grateful for. If I started looking elsewhere then I would start to question what I was doing in the relationship. That’s me and there’s a lot of different points of view out there. One thing I would say is go with what works for you. Don’t try and live by somebody else’s theory. That’s what works for me. When we laid that on the table and we started talking about it and he was admitting as he gets on so well with her, friends and we broke that down and was like, “Okay.”
He’s a nice guy. He’s looked at me then and I get he cared about me too. I’m justifying but later on some stuff came up that I found out about. It was a couple of months later. I spoke to him and I said, “I can’t trust you anymore.” He said, “You can trust that I’m going to lie. I’m being an asshole.” I was like, “Good point.” It was her frame as well. We are great friends now and with her as well. I am one of those women who love men. They’re wonderful.
At one stage, my friend said to me, “You need to stop adoring men because you put them on this pedestal.” The same thing can happen with men and women. I could be seeing it wrong whereas you can have a much greater friendship relationship if you can receive everything that they are and when I had decided Brendan is wonderful. He’s near perfection then you get slapped in the face when something else shows up. That’s unkind and unfair to him as well to allow him to choose what he chooses.
You say too that living by your own expectations rather than everybody else around you. Your publicist was one person but you come out with a relationship book that you’re writing with a partner and then after that point, you separate right as the book is being released. It’s like, “Where’s the validity in this?” It’s awesome because I’m having a conversation with you and I completely get everything that you’re talking about. That’s bravery too that I see and that you did it because you needed to. Both of you needed to at that moment, too. How was that dealing with the judgment of everybody else around you?
It became very paramount that you could see the bond that we had no matter what as well because we were in America and we had all these TV shows booked. The whole idea of the title of the book is Relationship. Are you sure you want one? The whole idea is we wanted people to question, not to assume. I see so many people go, “They’ve got a great relationship. They’ve been together for 42 years.” I’m like, “What makes 42 years great? Someone can have a great relationship for 1 or 50 years but don’t determine great by the longevity.” I had a great relationship with Brendan.
We did a Fox TV in Austin and one in Houston within two days of each other. There was one interviewer who wanted to drive this wedge between Brendan and me. It was cool because you could see that wasn’t going to occur. We still liked each other. The other interviewer was like, “You guys were amazing that you’re here and hanging out. You can genuinely see that you are fond of each other.” We are. To me, if you choose to be with someone for that long then why would you dismiss that bond, friendship and everything that you can have?
There are a lot of good things that can be preserved from relationships too and that friendship would be one of them.
We built a lot of wealth together and we did those things and are going, “Let’s 50/50.” I did the cranky, “I’m taking everything,” for 48 hours. I did the drama but it was two days and I went, “That feels like shit. That’s not what I want to do.” We sat down we went, “What do we want to choose here?” A couple of years later, we’re still unraveling some things so that it creates greater and doesn’t create less.
How long were you guys together?
Eight years.
That’s a good amount of time. You built up some things, probably some assets. I’m not trying to get into the logistics of things but even probably emotional ties to some of those things I would assume.
A friend of ours when we broke up said, “I want you to write down three things that you are asking for of each other.” As soon as he said it, I went, “Does that mean who gets the house?” I sat with it. I was in Costa Rica at the time. I went for this run and then came back. Number one on my list was friendship. I don’t want to lose the friendship. It was when we started talking about it, number one on his list was also friendship. I’m not saying every relationship can be like that. Every relationship and person is different. You’ve got to choose what works for you. That’s what I talk about with all my books. “All of Access Consciousness is if you’re choosing your reality, what are you going to choose whether it’s finance, business, relationships or sex. It’s what works for you?” We looked at.
There’s this pandemic divorce. Is there anything that you would say? It’s a little different scenario. In Australia, you can’t get in and you can’t get out of the country. If someone’s on the brink of a pandemic divorce because this is out there, what suggestions do you have for them to take? What actions should they take or direction, staying or separating?
You need to work out. You know if you’re happy or not. If you’re not happy then my first suggestion is to take a moment and some space, write down at least eight things that you would need to change in order to make the relationship work. These eight things are just for you and for fun. Don’t tell anyone. It’s not like you bring this list to your partner and say, “I’ve written down eight things that you need to change. It’s not that.” If you write down these eight things and look at each one and go, “Is this possible?” If it’s not possible then you might want to start looking at having that conversation of, “Have we done what we were meant to do together?” It doesn’t have to be this kicking and screaming. One of the books that we started to write and we haven’t quite got there is Breaking Up Is Easy-ish.
You got to know what it is that works for you. One of the things I always mention is, “This is your life. This is not a test run. This is it. Where you are right now in your life, are you happy? If you’re not happy then what would you have to change in order to create happy for you?” Start to look at that. In March 2020, I was in Europe and came home quickly. We’re sitting at home going, “What do I do now?” I was used to traveling ten months of the year for like the last years. I sat down and I wrote down these topics for myself. Business, money, relationships, sex, body and geographical.
I was like, “What is it that I desire with all of this?” Many people put business and money together. It’s not true. Business is business. Money is money. They put sex and relationships together and that’s not true. Sex is sex and relationship is relationship. I was like, “Do I desire another relationship?” I was like, “I don’t think I do. I like aspects of it. I enjoy sex so then how do you ask for that but not this? What do I want to create with my wealth? What do I want to create with my body? Where do I want to live? I’m in Australia. Do I want to live there?”
Every time something would ping, I’d write it down and then go, “What would it take for this to show up but in my reality? Not based on somebody else. What’s my reality with all of this?” If you’re with someone, what if you wrote this down and see if it’s fulfilled with this person. Here’s another tool that I would say with relationships. If you’re going to create a great relationship, make sure they’re good in bed, they contribute financially in some way and that could be even one person’s earning more money but the other person is contributing in the household. Number three is to let the other person do whatever they want and make sure that they’re letting you do whatever you want. A relationship shouldn’t be about something that ties you down. To me, if you’re going to choose to be in a relationship, what if it created at least twenty times more being with somebody than being on your own. It should be life.
You do have another book coming out, How To Master The Art of Intimacy. I see that.
I do a lot of classes called Relationship Done Different and sex comes up in there. A running theme is that people don’t know how to ask for what it is that they want in bed. It’s funny because especially when they’ve been in a relationship for a while and somewhere in it, they have the point of view that if they asked what they want, their partner is going to go, “That’s so perverted. It’s too vanilla.” What if you tried that out and went, “I wouldn’t mind trying this,” but you’ve got to be okay if your partner doesn’t desire to try it or say, “Could we?” It’s like playing with what’s possible.
I like it. I’m going to buy that book.
Our bodies like to be touched and like sex. It’s one of those topics that when people talk about it, everyone goes, “Hopefully, she’s not looking at me.” She is like, “I am. What do you like in bed? What is fun for you?” Start exploring it. It’s not wrong. It doesn’t have to be this hidden thing. Have a look around. See what would work for you. Play. Go to a sex shop.
We didn’t even talk about business at all, did we? It’s been a great conversation so far. I feel like everything that you have is going to help a lot of people. I say that extremely sincerely because I understand a lot of things. As long as somebody fulfills that list, those eight things that you’re talking about, it’s okay to stay but then it’s also okay to leave. The point is that both of them are okay because it has to do with what’s right for you.
If you write that list down, those eight things then you go, “Can this person be this or do this?” If you get a no, you go, “Is that okay for me?” You might find that list of eight, you end up going, “I don’t care about this anyway.” It’s all about giving you clarity so that you have awareness of what you can choose.
The other thing that jumped out at me too because I’ve heard people say this before. It’s like, “I have to drive around the block ten times before I go home because I have to get up the courage to walk through my door.” I’ve had friends say this to me before and I think there’s something up with that.
Many people are trying to get the relationship right. I saw this comedian one day. It was Jim Jefferies. He’s Australian but he lives in America. He was talking about how this guy is at the pub and he’s having a drink with his mate. He’s like, “I’ve got to go. The missus is at home.” His friend looks to him and goes, “You’re a CEO. You’re 50 years old. You’ve got to go home and you can’t have another drink because the missus is going to do something?” The way he put it was brilliant because you’re like, “That shows the insanity.” It could be a choice, “I want to have one drink because I want to go home and see my wife,” not because you’re going to get in trouble.
Simone, where can everybody buy your books?
You can buy them on Amazon, Booktopia, all those places as well. You can go to SimoneMilasas.com and find a lot of information about things that I do and also AccessConsciousness.com too.
Your latest book Master The Art of Intimacy is not out yet, correct?
It’s not out, Rick, and it’s going to be dedicated for you.
I would love to invite you back when that comes out and we’ll have a good discussion around that, too. Thank you for being on.
Thank you.
Important Links:
- Joy of Business
- Getting Out of Debt Joyfully
- Relationship. Are you sure you want one?
- Access Consciousness
- Joy of Business
- https://Tinyurl.com/wvheehy9
- https://GaryMDouglas.com/
- https://Tinyurl.com/tc5f8akz
