[laughs]

And I was saying my philosophy, which is, you know, planning is great, but I don't believe in it.

Because what happens when you plan is that you focus your plan on an outcome that you have designated as a possibility and is limited by your imagination as a human.

It'll only be- your plan will only res- have the result of what you think is possible.

But what my career, my life, my love life, my career life, everything has shown me is that all of the things in my life have happened way off the page of possibility.

So I, you need to create space for the divine.

This is where it gets a little heady.

I love this.

What do you hope that young singles and couples who are watching Temptation Island, what do you hope they take away from what you're saying to the, to the contestants?

I, I, I kinda try to make this a little bit more macro than micro in my view of it.

I hope there's one thing that they hear, the audience, that lands for them and helps them get some clarity and they can apply to be a little bit better than they were the day before.

So that's my-

Especially on TV.

Right.

And I'm always, and I, one of the things the, step one, it wasn't, this isn't a plan, but now that I've done the show a while I realize I do this, is that I feel like people come to the island, we all do this, I do this too, and if I ask you what your problems are, I'm probably gonna say, "She doesn't do this, and I'm not getting this, and he doesn't do this," and we're pointing.

Mm, yeah

... what you may not realize in the swirl of less than honest communication is that you have some agency here.

You know what I mean by that? You actually have some control.

You're not the victim.

And so what that looks like is you get to be the honest, clear one, even in the face of somebody not being honest and clear.

So reframing the relationship in a way to say, "Look, we've been friends a long time.

We've been intimate a little bit.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And when I started the show back, when I hosted the show back in 2001, there wasn't a whole lot of plan.

So I would go into the bonfires without a script or any direction, and I would kinda say, "I'm gonna start these conversations and ask questions.

Cut me out, but then you're gonna get the content of them sharing their truth." That said, I haven't had any training, any formal training of any kind, but I've been on a path of trying to discover more about myself my whole adult life.

And then when I met my wife at a very young age, she, in her journey, we have kind of grown each other up.

So I, I always put it this way, you know, you walk next to people you went to high school with or whatever, and you can't figure out why one person has grown and become something, and the other person has- hasn't, and it really comes down to you're either somebody who asks questions and wants it, or you're somebody who doesn't, and you wanna be a victim for the rest of your life.

Mm-hmm.

I call it the vibe.

[laughs]

And, um, and we start rolling tape, and there's just no script or plan.

I knew a concept.

But what I loved was the producer at the time, um, was a real heady guy.

He was into the emotional intelligent drama, kind of that thing, before we even called it that.

And so here comes the cast, and they, he's just like, "Go have a conversation with them." And that was kind of the template.

And so we went into those bonfires, the original bonfires were actually on the beach, and there were these kerosene lamps.

Interesting.

Yeah.

But what I found is, you know, from a hosting standpoint, you've got, you've got a choice here.

You can look at the train wreck concept of Temptation Island and wring your hands and lean into, "I hope they cheat.

What can I do to make this happen?" Or you can be a human.

And the choice that I've kinda made, which was a subconscious choice, but now an actual choice, is that regardless of what you guys think, regardless of why they even chose to come here, I'm gonna try to look at you...

And I, I always say to them, "I'm more committed to this outcome for you and your relationship than you are.

And while this is a TV show, I'm the one taking it seriously.

Mm-hmm.