Habits and Hustle - Episode 233: Matthew Hussey: How to Foster Healthy Romantic Relationships

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Why do men feel intimidated by women who make more money than them? In this episode of Habits and Hustle, I chat with Matthew Hussey about how one can foster healthy romantic relationships in today��s modern world. We explore how technology may be getting in the way of many people finding “their person” and how it may hinder our ability to make real connections.  Matthew Hussey is the world’s leading dating advice expert for women. He has coached millions of women around the world to help them get the love lives of their dreams.He's a New York Times bestselling author of “Get The Guy,” the relationship columnist for Cosmopolitan magazine and the resident love expert on The Today Show. What we discuss: 00:43: What is Matthew’s professional title? 05:32: Is it normal to feel sad about not finding your person? 07:27: Is technology hindering our ability to create relationships offline? 15:55: How did Matthew become who he is today? 20:43: How did Matthew get started in his line of work? 25:28: How did Matthew learn everything he knows? 29:38: Why do women stay in bad relationships? 31:15: How can you raise your self-worth? 37:11: How can you change your beliefs through curiosity? 47:55: How does jealousy show up in relationships? 54:44: How can we overcome social anxiety? 01:04:14: Why do women not like too much attention from men? 01:08:42: Why do people you are interested in make you feel nervous? 01:14:14: How do stories we tell ourselves affect our relationships? 01:24:34: What are the top 3 things that men are the most attractive to in women? 01:36:16: How can standards impact your relationships? 01:37:50: Do men really want a woman who is more successful than them? 01:46:40: What are the two most common questions Matthew receives? Key takeaways: The cure to changing the beliefs about yourself it is to become curious about yourself. Too often, we get stuck in a rut of doing things the same ways and then wondering why we can’t separate ourselves from a certain belief we want to eliminate. To do that, you need to become curious about your current situation and look for ways you can move differently to change your perception of yourself and these beliefs. Social anxiety in dating is something that many of us feel. However, what we fail to realize is that being shy is, in a way, you being selfish. This is because when you are shy, you are withholding empathy and compassion from someone who is in the same room as you and may need it. Thus, looking as your shyness as a way of you doing a disservice to others is one of the many ways you can get yourself to come out of your shell. The reason why a lot of people stay in relationships that they should leave is not always due to low self-worth. Sometimes it’s due to the fact that they don’t know what beast it is they’re dealing with. When someone has high self-worth and was raised in a very healthy environment, they may not be able to recognize when they are being played by a narcissist or being gaslit. As a result, they stay in relationships where they aren’t aware of how toxic it is. Thank you to our sponsors: This episode is sponsored by Hostinger. Visit Hostinger.com/HABITS and use promo code HABITS for an extra 10% off. This episode is sponsored by Notion. Visit notion.com/habits to try out Notion AI for free. This episode is sponsored by Organifi. Visit organifi.com/hustle and use the code HUSTLE to save 20% on your order  To learn more about Matthew: Take the quiz: https://www.howtogettheguy.com/ask-matthew/ Website: https://www.howtogettheguy.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thematthewhussey/featured Instagram: @thematthewhussey My links: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the smell of the leftover tuna fish sandwich you left in your lunch box over the weekend in a wimpy trash bag. Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy! Yeah! And this is the smell of that same sandwich in a hefty ultra-strong trash bag. H hefty, hefty, hefty! Ha! Smell the difference! Hefty ultra-strong has armen hammer with continuous odor control, so no matter what's inside your trash. Hmm. You can stay one step ahead of stinky.

And for bigger jobs, try the superior strength of hefty large black bags. I got this Tony Robbins, you're listening to Habits and Hussle! Crash it! In this episode of Habits and Hussle, I chat with Matthew Hussie about how one can foster healthy romantic relationships in today's modern world. We explore how technology may be getting in the way of many people finding their person, quote unquote, and how it may hinder our ability to make real connections. Matthew Hussie is the world's leading dating advice expert for women.

He has coached millions of women around the world to help them get the love lives of their dreams. He's a New York Times bestselling author of Get the Guy, the relationship columnist for Cosmopolitan Magazine, and the resident love expert on the Today's Show. Matthew gives us the answers to questions like, why women stay in bad relationships? How and why jealousy shows up in relationships, why women don't like too much attention from men, and why people you're interested in make you feel nervous, how the stories we tell ourselves affect our relationships,

et cetera, et cetera. And also, do men really want a woman who is more successful than them and so much more. You guys, this was a great episode. By the end of this episode, you will have the tools you need to change the beliefs you have about yourself and relationships and raise your self-esteem, how to show up more authentically when you first meet someone and overcome your social anxiety and how to know if your relationship you're in is actually healthy or toxic.

I'm very happy to have you on the podcast. Thank you for being on here. Happy to be here. By the way, do you call yourself a relationship coach? What's the life coach? What's your title? I don't know anymore. I guess dating and relationship coach or dating. I don't even know. Because it's so, it's become really expansive what we do. I've spent 15 years now predominantly helping women find love, keep love, build their confidence and create a life where love is no longer necessary as a precursor to their happiness and that's really been my mission. I've worked with people at so many different stages of their love lives and my fundamental

kind of tenet is that you can't have a great love life without having a great love for life. The two things have to go hand in hand. And, you know, wait, so many people struggle in this area. They either struggle because they're looking for love and they're struggling to find it, or they've had their heart broken and they're struggling with that, or they're questioning their current situation, or they're struggling with their own mind, their own confidence, and the demons that this area of their life brings up. It's a wonderful way in people's love lives, because I love talking about everything. I never set out to say, for the rest of my life,

the only thing I wanna talk about is dating. But you need a way in to all of the things that cause a suffering in life, and love is one of those things. It's a a way in to all of the things that cause a suffering in life and love is one of those things. It's a wonderful way in to people. And it's also like the most universal, right? Because everybody wants love, wants to feel loved. I mean, there's nothing more. I mean, you can talk about money, success, all you want. But at the end of the day, if you don't have that, you feel very, a lot of times, you feel very, like, unfulfilled, I would say, would be a word to say. Yeah, there was a, I put up a, quote, a question

on my Instagram just in the last couple of weeks. And I asked people, what's your biggest fear? And we had thousands of responses. And the response that had the most likes, it had three and a half thousand likes on this one comment, was a woman who said that I will never find my person. She said, I have an amazing life. She was like preempting the things that people would say. She was like, before you start, I have amazing friends. I travel so low, I have a job that I love, I love myself, you know, I have all the things that you're going to tell me I don't have.

And if I'm brutally honest, I still just feel like without romantic love, my life is incomplete. And that's a, what a hard thing to respond to, you know. It is. And I think that's also very honest and true. And I think that a lot of times, especially now, I feel like in the zeitgeist, whatever, we want to call it, people are constantly trying to,

like, you know, kind of like shy away from saying the truth, which is, that is the truth. I mean, you can say, oh, you know, slay women, slay, or you know, you know, you have it all. You don't have to, you don't need a man. You don't need a whoever, whatever, whatever you like. But the end of the day, every happiness expert, every Harvard psychologist, doctorate, anybody I've ever spoken to, at the end of the day, all the research constantly points to the same thing, which is that what makes people truly happy,

staciated, fulfilled, is feeling love and having love in their life. So you can say all these other things that may sound nice in the hashtag, but at the end of the day, that is why you're popular, and that's why people love hearing about these things, because at every stage of life you evolve, like you're saying, you can be dating, but then you can be married and unfulfilled or married in a different situation. You have different phases of love and to keep love, right? I couldn't agree more. Right? And so I just think that we're doing each other a disservice by going out there saying

we don't need it, we don't want it, we are all powerful ourselves. That's all bullshit to me. That's not true. I think you use these other things as distractions when you don't have it. Yeah, you're speaking my fiancee Audrey's language because she has been saying this for some time now that, you know, it's enough. It's one thing to feel sad that you haven't met your person. Right.

It's another thing when you feel ashamed to feel sad about it. Right. Like there's some, not only am I in pain kind of chronically, because it is a kind of chronic pain. I'm very fascinated with chronic pain, because I've suffered with my own physical chronic pain and it taught me a lot about life and acceptance and things you can't just make go away. And there is a kind of emotional chronic pain that comes with wanting to find love and not finding it.

It follows us. Totally. And you can fill your life with many, many things, but you get to the end of the day and suddenly you're in your quiet room and that chronic kind of pain or reasserts itself. It's sort of an absence at the heart of life that we feel. And that's a real thing. It shouldn't be, it shouldn't be just sneer that.

It shouldn't be seen as a weakness. It shouldn't be seen as a weakness. It shouldn't be seen as you're doing it wrong then. Right, right, right. It's a very human thing. And human nature will always reassert itself. And so the things you're saying are spot on. It doesn't matter how many bumpers stick as you throw at people, people will,

they will still feel what they feel. So unless you address that, honestly, you're not really helping people, you're just alienating them more and more, making them feel alone in their pain. 100%. And I think that you can't, you can't really hide what reality is. And what I wanted, you said something earlier that I wanted to ask you about, I was going to ask you about it later on, but since we're talking about something, do you feel or do you see in your world that people are having less and less relationships,

there's less connectivity with human beings because of, we're laughing about apps and technology being, and even Instagram people are so distracted or they're relying so much on these online relationships and likes and followers that they're really kind of unable now to create relationships offline. Do you see a trend in this? I think that we have, we forget what the original idea of some of these things was. I'm not talking about whether these companies

meant this to be the idea or what their ultimate goal was. But I mean, the people who joined these in the first place, it really should have been about making it more efficient to meet people in the first place. If you were using it to find love. And there's something really cool about that. I mean, there is something cool about the fact that there's someone I never would have met

probably in real life, because even if they live only a few blocks down, they go to a different coffee shop, a different gym, they work in a different building. And so our paths never intersect. And yet, a few streets down might be the love of my life. There's something really cool about the idea that from my bedroom I can meet that person. But it then becomes kind of derasinated from that and it ends up being, well now I'm using it to ends up being, well now I'm using it to get a feeling while I'm on it. And we get addicted to that feeling, as we all know, I'm the last person to say it. But the feeling itself

becomes very addictive and it distracts us from what it is we actually started for. We started because we wanted a real connection. We wanted that meaning in our lives, we wanted to build a relationship. And very quickly people end up doing none of the things that would actually help them do that. How much time are you spending texting someone you met on an app before you say, you know what, enough is enough if this doesn't turn into an actual phone call or a date. Right. Then why am I still doing this? This isn't serving me. But it's very common for us to get four weeks in. We still haven't met up with this person,

but we're still pinging messages back and forth because on some very superficial level, it gives us a little hit of very non-nutritional connection. And it's just very easy to get distracted from why we were doing it in the first place. And of course, again, that buffet mentality that these things create is in itself really, really difficult because it doesn't really model how relationships are built, how attraction works. I think everyone has had the experience of either working in the same office as someone or seeing the same person at their gym every week. And maybe they didn't start off

thinking this person. It's not like the first day they walked into their office, that person just bolded them over. But a few weeks or months, and they get to know this person, and they start to develop feelings. Right, to like them. To like them. And a lot of people have had that experience. It wasn't day one explosive. It was, no, I started to connect with this person

and feel attraction. And it grew. It's why many people have had the experience of being attracted to someone who wasn't their type. Because although on paper they would go, this person's not someone I'd be attracted to. They saw them in full color, in life, and animating. And that's so true.

And they go, oh my God, I'm attracted to this person. It is curious, it's a curious feeling when they go, oh my God, I'm attracted to this person. It is curious. It's a curious feeling when that happens, but it happens. Yeah. Well, if someone showed you a picture of that person on an app or that person from your office, you'd probably just swipe left. Exactly. It's so true.

But the reason that we got attracted to them was because it was allowed to breathe. And nothing's allowed to breathe and nothing's allowed to breathe online in that way. And so we just bulldozed people so quickly. And we really have no, we forget how nuanced attraction can be and how subtle it can be. And that the people we never thought would end up being the love of our lives can end up being the love of our lives. But when we're force feeding ourselves like a frog rod duck, people on a dating app, there's no time to develop any of that.

That's right. And then, but it's weird because loneliness is at an all-time high with all these new things that people can be, you know, just high with all these new things that people can be, you know, just interact with all these apps and everything else, but yet it's still not stopping people from taking a moment and giving people a chance because even if I go on a date, let's say I go on a date with this person or that person,

and it's decent, I'll just rush back home and just keep on swiping an app because that's become like what the habitual thing is to do. And that's kind of interrupting an attraction plotline if you think about it. Yeah, totally. What would happen in a different era was you'd get home from a date

and you might have a couple of days to think about that person. And your imagination does a lot of the work for you. Yes. Thinking about them. It's a form of investment thinking about someone. Yeah. They may not know it, but the whole time you're

thinking about this person, you're in your own subtle way. You're investing in them. Yeah. And you become more attached to those things that you invest in. Well, if you get back from a pretty good date, and then you immediately interrupt that circuit by going online again

and scrolling, then it doesn't, you're taking yourself out of it and it doesn't have that but your imagination doesn't have that space to play in the same way. And so we sort of, we just jump like that. And it takes a strong person and it takes a very intentional person to subvert that and to say, I'm going to actually, I'm going to actually see what this person, who this person is and give it a minute. And it's a tough thing to do. I'm not suggesting any of this is easy. Right.

It's very hard and we've been conditioned not to do it. But it is the way we come to actually care about it. Look at anything in your life. You're right. Look at any skill that you've gotten good at. Look at any movie that you've ended up loving. Look at places you've ended up loving. You had to actually invest some time in those things. 100% that is such a good point. Try, imagine someone playing, imagine what it takes with a movie you have to really engage with that movie. You have to, and these days, these days people struggle more than ever to do that's why we like TV shows is because it's one hour or it's 30 minutes, it's not the commitment

of two hours, you know, but a movie is feels like a commitment these days, but I can't tell you the number of times I've recently sat down to watch a movie and I used to love movies. And I just got out of the habit of watching them. And I sat down to watch a movie and gone, I'm so glad that I actually sat and gave that my attention and invested in it. Yeah.

But that's what it takes to get something out of a movie. Now imagine that I put 10 TV screens in front of you all with great movies on and tell me whether they could be the best 10 movies in the world. You're not going to feel anything from any of them. It's called a paradox of choice, though, right? When you have too much choice, you end up usually with nothing because it's overwhelming to see all these things. And what you said was exactly the point, which is like, you have to put these things in place for you not to have that problem like intention while you're doing something.

Which by the way, before I didn't even, I wanted to ask you, how did you even become this guy? Like, the way you even describe this stuff and how you're perspective, I find it lands really well. Like, even when you're, you know, when I say something, it states it to you and your answers. Like, there's always like, the way you, like, the way your brain works and your responses, I think there's such thought behind it, but you're not a psychologist, right? You never went to school to be a psychologist. Like, how did you become this guy that you became now? Like I know you wrote the book Get A Guy many years ago,

but you've been doing this for a long, long time. So what is your origin? Like how are you the relationship guy? I suppose there's as always, there's short answers and long answers to that. You mean medium answer? Yeah. The medium answer,

then one hour Netflix series answer is... The limited, what do you mean? We're distracted so easily. So give us the snapshot of it. I used to be insecure about this question because I used to think that in years ago I used to think, well, it is my qualification. And some people have masters degrees in this stuff for their trained therapists, psychologists. I don't feel insecure anymore.

I've done it a long time. It's always been a passion of mine, is ideas. Being able to, I've always loved understanding people. And the craft, as I see it, is if you pay attention enough to the patterns with people, can you then take what you've seen and articulate it in a way that, as you put it, lands? Nothing is new, and I don't have any kind of arrogance around the idea that anything I'm saying is new. I don't have any kind of arrogance around the idea that anything I'm saying

is new. I just love the crowd. I love being able to take something and say it in a way that, you know, the greatest compliment is I feel like my mum or my therapist or my best friend has been trying to tell me some version of this for 10 years and for some reason the way you just said it, it connected. It's like that is a great compliment because that's... It is a compliment. How do you make it speak to someone now? And I, you know, my journey journey was being 11 years old and picking up how to win friends

and influence people off my dad's bookshelf. And I, you know, I read it at the time because I had a sort of private interest in the subject because I just thought, God, that's so... At first I was like, that's a strange title for a book. And then I read it and I was so hooked. I was very shy and introverted kid. And I loved the idea that you could do something about that. You weren't just condemned to however you were.

That was really, really, I honestly felt like. I didn't realize when I was 11 years old and I picked up that book that it was a huge seminal, foundational, self-development book, I thought I discovered some sort of secret scroll that no one else knew about. And I read it and it really blew me away. I just thought, I can't believe you can learn to be better at these things. Cut to me being, I don't know, 14 or 15.

I'd read a lot of books of that nature by that point, and I was kind of hooked. And then my friend in school one day came to me and he said, my dad takes his company to see this guy every year, his name's Tony Robbins, and I have a ticket to give a friend because my dad's making me go. So, do you want to come with me? And what he didn't know is that I'd already read his book, I had already been so engaged with that content and it was

like a, it was like winning the lottery for me to be able to go to something like that. And so I accompanied him and his dad to this event and that became the kind of marriage of the content that I was loving and the delivery which I had never seen anyone deliver anything at that level before and be able to impact a crowd on that level. And that became a real fusion for me where some it's not like I decided at that point, that's what I was going to do, but that's where it all started for me. And by the time I was in my early 20s, I was starting to work with anyone who would let me. I was starting to work with anyone who would let me. Like, what would be your first job in it?

Like, what would be your first paid gig doing this, you know? I did. So, I started helping people one-on-one, and I had a friend who I'd made who in London was doing these very tiny events. And I said, can I just come and help? I don't mind, I'll, you know, I'll be a warm-up, even for five minutes, whatever, just, I'm talking, he had like five or six people that would come

into these events. These are not like hundreds of people in a room or thousands of people. It's just a handful, but he saw in me someone who would help for free. And I saw a stage I saw Possibility of exploring out loud all of these ideas that I'd been learning for so long and it was really valuable to me because long before anyone knew me I was able to cut my teeth as a

Speaker as someone formulating ideas weekend in weekend out for three or four years in private. Doing what? You go on stage and what do you pick at top of it? I was talking about confidence and what I'd learned. Nothing like revolutionary, but I was just talking about what I had learned so far. It was... Well, confidence is the big one for you. Your whole thing is for women to be strong and confident is a through line of how to get a guy, right?

Like I couldn't agree more by the way, but I mean, but those are things that are the foundations and so you'd go up on stage and be like I want to talk to you guys about confidence or I talk about confidence, especially with regards to social anxieties and struggling to talk to people. I had experienced my own version of that and had developed much more courage than I had in years prior.

So it was really, I was my own first experiment in all of this, which is why it's funny to me whenever someone says something like, why do you need all this? Just be yourself or whatever. I'm always like, well, you're kind of invalidating everything I've done for myself because this has been my life for longer than you've ever known me and my work.

I've been doing this for me. It's these skills that I learned at an early age have been essentially behind everything I've ever been able to do for myself, from writing books to having TV shows, traveling the world speaking, building a company with an amazing team. This is what I, or we have the number one YouTube channel in the world for dating advice, and half a billion views on that channel. And I credit everything I've learned with my ability to capture someone's attention in that way and build an audience in that way.

So I always just feel like people are missing something when they say, oh you just don't, you don't need all of this. I think. But exactly. I actually do. You do need, yeah, and you don't need all of it all the time in every moment, but you can get better. Like you can absolutely get better. You can absolutely get better. And your love life is not a special category of life where this stuff doesn't apply. Like everywhere else in life, you learn things

that can make you better, whether it's a sport, whether it's going to the gym, whether it's a new gym. No one starts you on your first day of work at a new company and says, just be yourself. I'll see you in a year. Exactly. No one says that. But then as soon as you start talking about people's love lives, people go, you don't need to learn anything. Just be you. And I just think what special privilege

do you think this area of life has to not needing any learning? I think that's so true, especially because you're dealing with another person, right? And then you have to, you do have to look. I think that's, this is an area where you have to have more help. Like, it's essential. Actually, I've needed it. I don't know. Yeah, I've made so many mistakes in my life.

I've got it wrong so many times. I have amazing people over the years that I've gone to for advice. And I just don't, I never understand it. I'm always looking for how I can do better. I mean, who hasn't in the course of their adult life realized that in relationships, there's a good way to have an argument

and a really bad way. And the bad way can result in a breakup very quickly. And the good way can result in a huge amount of compassion and understanding and love and getting over it very quickly. If you understand that, then you understand that of course there are things to learn for all of us. And the same is true on a first date. There are great ways to have a first date, and there are not great ways to have a first date. It applies to every part of the process.

So how did you learn these things? What was your process? Is it trial and error based on the different relationships you've had and what's worked, what hasn't? Because you specialize so much for women, is it because you use the fact that how you would respond to a woman's actions? Are you basically using yourself as the benchmark? Basically, this is what happened.

This really screwed up because this is what the dynamic was. And then you kind of like try to figure it out. There are no doubt times over the 15 years that I've been doing this where I've drawn on those things. Right. But that, to me, is a very weak argument for knowing that you have something of value to people, you know, I used to I had journalists often say to me early in my career You know, this is this is so interesting because you're a man giving this advice and you know men So that's what works about it and I thought to myself what a cheap

Hockey it's right. It's very cheap. It is it's like it's very limiting We're by that by that standard any man should be on a stage giving advice to people. Well, 100%. I mean, that's not true. So I started out having done a dis, an enormous amount of learning behind the scenes that was self-taught and books that I read

and understanding patterns in people. I pay attention. I am always picking up on things in the way people operate and what people seem to respond to and what they don't seem to respond to. But at this point, it's no longer my idea of what may or may not work. I mean, it's literally millions of people that I've been able to reach over 15 years and in my life events hundreds of thousands. And so you see the patterns,

you see what works and what doesn't. And I wasn't driven by, you know, there was, in terms of helping people overcome their kind of social anxieties, I was definitely driven by a sort of personal feeling of I have really struggled with this in my life and I've learned things that have helped me. I've learned things that helped me approach people.

I've learned things that helped me talk to people and have great conversations. I've learned things that helped me get on stage and give a speech. You know, those things, absolutely, there's a kind of autobiographical journey that's happened there, but the thing that's really driven me over the years is the women in my life, the people that I've loved

more than anyone else who I've seen put up with the wrong things for far too long. And me trying to get to the bottom of why? Why? Why didn't they leave sooner? Why did they decide that this was what they were worth? What didn't they know? What was missing? What part of themselves was in need of healing that they kept doing this over and over again? And anyone who's listening to this will probably know that feeling with someone in their life or themselves. Right.

Where they, there's, there, there is one of the tragedies of life that they have witnessed to see someone they love so much sacrifice so much of their life when you know that they could have been so much happier. Right. And that, you know, I've seen that, I've seen it in all genders but I've seen it so much in women who I've watched them throw away enormous portions if not their whole lives and if I can if I can help people not do that that to me is genuinely saving someone's life I don't mean that in the grandiose sense I

really mean that saves someone's life you I don't mean that in the grandiose sense. I really mean that saves someone's life. You know, foundation repair is an unregulated industry. Because of that, there is a lot of fly by nights in the industry. Well, if you want your foundation done right, by a company who's been in business since 1978, you need to call DuWes Foundation repair. Yeah, you've heard of them. Do West Foundation repair. When you want the best, you call do West. 713 or 737156. You can also check out our website at du-west.com Do you think so what would be the number one thing that you think that why women stay is it because of low self-esteem? Fear what is the main thing that why we do that? This, that's a big question and there are multiple factors. You know, there's childhood wounds,

the things that we're still trying to heal or a story, we're still trying to complete. Yeah. A lack of self-worth is a big one, but sometimes it gets confusing because people can say that for everything, like you just need to have more self-worth. And I think sometimes it actually can, though they may be right, it can sometimes pull the conversation in a direction that isn't always helpful because if you grew up with a certain set of conditioning, if you grew up modeling your parents or some caregiver that either wronged you or didn't give you the treatment

that you should have had, didn't model the things that should have been modeled about a healthy relationship, you almost have to frame that in terms of that's actually just what you know. Right. You know, it's not always the same. It may always be connected to the self-worth conversation because what you have to Right. You know, it's not always the same. It may always be connected to the self-worth conversation because what you have to learn is what it looks like to value yourself

more and to have boundaries and standards and to trust yourself that you'll take care of yourself in the company of other people and you won't let people do those things to you. But you know, so much of what we do, we do because it's just what we know. That's exactly. So how do you teach this stuff? Because these are all overarching, you know, words, right? Self-worth, lack of self-esteem, self-confidence. Okay, now you know, so let's say we now know it. What do you do about it? Yeah, well, I know, I want to add one more just because it's important, I think. There are some people who have a great sense of self-worth and they've grown up in healthy situations, but they come across someone who is an animal they don't understand.

If you, you know, sometimes we go for certain people because they're what we know, and other times we tolerate certain people because they're what we know. And other times we tolerate certain people because we don't know. And we've never, we don't, you know, there's a video that I saw on YouTube of there was like crocodiles in a zoo. And someone a spectator to these crocodiles is filming. I don't know if they were crocodiles or alligators. I'm gonna say crocodiles. Okay. I

Won't hold you to it. So thanks I'm not an expert in this area. You're not gonna lose brownie points with that. Okay I'm gonna speak on subjects. I don't know But this a reptile of some kind right a very large large reptile. Yes, prehistoric looking A very large, large reptile prehistoric looking. They were just laying there. And one of the crocodiles bit off the other crocodiles leg, just out of nowhere. And then just carried on as if nothing happened.

And the other crocodile, by the way, just sort of carried on as if nothing happened. Now with three legs instead of four, which I think is the number that Dr. Codos has. I think so too, I don't know. So it was like, that's like an animal that I don't understand. That's right.

That's not a dog. That's right. That's not a dog doesn't buy another dog's leg off. And then carry on. And then carry on as if nothing, and the other one carries on as if nothing happened. That is a different kind of situation. Totally.

There are people in life that are like that. There are people that we do not understand. And when you come across one of those people, for example, narcissists, you don't know how to handle a person like that because it's not in your vocabulary of human dynamics to understand a pathological lie, or someone who will gaslight you to that extent, or you just don't know. So, we also have to create space for that experience too. Not everyone is sort of blind and bewildered or low self-worth or has a miserable childhood. There are just people that they're like, I don't, I've never experienced it.

They've never experienced it. They've never seen someone like this coming. Yeah. So, there's that too. But you ask the question, what do you do when you start to see that it's either to do with yourself worth or patterns? I am a big believer in this idea that belief is really hard to acquire, really hard.

The self-development world, to me, really undersells how hard belief is to acquire. These are all very, very cool in the moment hashtags right now. Even by the way, narcissists and all these things are very popular words. And it doesn't really land because now you hear it so much. Well, now everyone's a narcissist. Now everyone's exactly every guy's a narcissist just because he doesn't like you. Right. You know what I'm saying? It takes you back for two weeks.

Exactly. Exactly. So you and I are on the same page. I think we have to be careful with language. But there are, the idea of just believe something. If you take an example, like, you've been cheated on a lot. Or you've had a string of people that you couldn't, you learned, oh my God, I've had my trust broken so many times that now your

trust is broken, sort of independent of those people now, you go out into the world and with that. Yeah, now that's your thing that you've taken. My story, yeah. And you have this combination of not trusting your own judgment, not trusting other people, your exes, or especially, it doesn't have to be multiple. It could be one person that you spent a lot of time with and gave a lot of different chances to always hoping that they would change, always thinking if you invested more

or gave more empathy, gave more understanding that they would evolve as a person, that they wouldn't do this to you. And it turns out that they were going to do the same thing over and over and over again, regardless of how you behaved. Well, you can leave that relationship, and now you just think that's your brain doesn't necessarily separate that person from everybody else. It may do logically. You may be able to verbalize that, yeah, I get it. It's just, you know, my ex was a specific kind of person, a specific kind of bad.

And I know not everyone's like that. But internally, the two can quite easily become conflated. And now all of a sudden, it feels like just people represent danger, especially romantically. And now I go out into the world with these trust issues. How do you get over that? If someone comes, a coach comes to you and says, you just have to, you have to trust,

you have to learn to trust people, you have to believe that people can be trusted. Fine, but you haven't had reference points for that. In recent history or maybe ever. So for you to believe that, it's like taking someone who has never made more than 5,000 a month and telling them that they could generate a million a month. It's just, it becomes silly. It does become silly, but then if you go on this stuff, they're

like, oh, you have to have an abundance mindset of versus a, this mind, you know, you don't mean like, and then people feel guilty because they don't have those natural feelings versus getting to the root cause because these are all, again, like, I have a real problem with what's happening in the zygice of the world right now, right? Because of this exact thing, these are all just overarching things like,

lip that you have limiting beliefs. And this is a narcissist or like, having an abundance mindset, okay, and this is an arseuses, or like having abundance mindset, okay, but this is not my reality. So what do I do to kind of shift my behavior in a real way? I think the answer to it is a weirdly subtle and unexpected. I'm a huge fan of curiosity. I think curiosity is like a gateway drug for belief.

Okay, oh my gosh. Okay, so I just wrote a whole thing on this. I said exactly the same. Yes, in my book, I wrote a whole chapter on this and I literally said that. It's a gateway, it's a gateway drug. I totally agree with you. If you can remain curious, you can get the wedge in the door that you need to be able to change the way you think or what you believe or what your experience of this life is. And to be curious, you only really need to know

that not everyone in life is having the same experience you are, that there do seem to be some healthy relationships. There do seem to be people in this world that are good, some. There do seem to be people that are having a better time or better go of it. And it's an arrogance for us to think that the way my experience of life is the only experience of life. Because it's not. You don't have to believe that something way, way, way better is possible. You don't even have to believe any of that. You just have to concede that... And you only need to look at your own past to know that.

There will be things that at certain points in your life you didn't like that you liked at some point. Like a food, there will be a food that one day you said, I hate that food. And then you have somehow miraculously, you've now become a fan of that food. Or if it doesn't even have to be a food you didn't like, there's like a food you discovered that once you tried it,

you went, oh my God, I didn't know that this thing that's now my favorite was something that was available to me as my favorite. When you understand that, that you've changed your mind about several things that you've learned better ways of doing things, you realize, oh, it's arrogant for me to think that in five years there won't be more of those things. There will be more of those new things or new ways of being. You and I were talking before we started about me having done the Wim Hofritry with a group

of 10 guys, and I hated the idea of the cold. But, you know, I've come out of that experience, and my relationship, I couldn't never have believed that my relationship with the cold would be what it is today, but now I associate it with excitement and adventure, not something to be deeply feared. Right, right, right. I could never have predicted that I would change in that way. Now, I didn't go into the Wimhoff retreat in Poland

thinking this, I'm to be good at this. Right. I went in thinking, I'm going to be terrible at this. I'm going with a group of superhuman men. And I'm going to be the worst in the class. And this is going to be really brutally painful. And I'm not going to enjoy it. But I was curious.

I just said, you know what? Let me not worry about being last in class. Let me just go and be curious about this. And that's paid massive dividends for me. So the thing I teach people in their dating lives is what's something that emotionally your brain has kind of decided. Right. But you could be curious about what happens if I do something different to what I've done before. If instead of getting jealous and becoming very quiet with my jealousy, what if I expressed it to someone

in an honest and vulnerable way? What if I did that? Now, you may not get a perfect result, it may still get another undesirable result, but it will be a different result. And different is good. When you're trying to dislodge your beliefs, just getting a different result than the one you used to opens you up to the fact that there are more worlds available to you than the one that, than the very well-worn groove that you have settled into for a long time. And once you start messing with your, that's why I tell people, mess with your beliefs. Don't try and believe something different.

Just mess with your current belief. Screw around with it. And, and see what happens when you mess with it. Because that's much more manageable, being curious and messing with your current belief is much more manageable than some kind of platitudinous, believe this thing instead. That's a huge leap for people. And, you know, if you want to, you only need to be curious, you only need enough initial motivation. Like, something hasn't worked for long enough or is making you miserable enough that you say, screw it, I will try something.

Oh, you know, I'll try. Cause this is not, who am I helping by continuing to stay in this groove? This just sucks. I consistently feel bad. I consistently feel anxious. I consistently feel like I don't trust anybody. I grew up struggling with trust. I didn't really realize this until more recently in life. I didn't, I always sort of felt like people had an agenda of some kind. Really?

Yeah, I, I, I, I, why do you think that is? I don't know. I'm some combination of learning from people around me or just, you know, maybe the kind of the segment of society that I grew up around. Right. Right. I, my, my family are all from the East End of London and I, you know, it's a, I don up around. Right. Right. My family are all from the East End of London. And it's a, I don't know.

It's not the Queens. Right, right, right. So you always had, like, you always kind of a thinking. It was a little bit of like, you know, people always out for themselves. There's always a hidden agenda. No one's doing anything nice for free. It sounds like L.A. that you side of London.

Well, that's exactly like L.A. that you side of London. So that's exactly like L.A. Could not be more different places but yeah. No but still the same. I get it. The energy is a bit more like what can I do? What can you do for me before I'm nice to you? Yeah I know. I kind of that hurt me. That hurt me because while I have a I've always had a generous heart and I love people and I as soon as I feel safe I want to give the world to people. But I have realized how much of my life I spent not feeling safe to let my guard down and do things for people. So I had to, the irony is I then had too much of a kind of tip for tat mindset. And that, as you know, from business, that doesn't serve you because

there's no reciprocity to that. It's not, you're not going in with the right intentions. And what I would do over time is I started observing that there were people around me who I weren't like that. In the, not, I around me who I weren't like that. In the, I don't mean they weren't like that in that they were trustworthy. I meant that they weren't like that in the way they approached other people. Right, right.

I'd see friends of mine who would get screwed over and they would still have this generous spirit about them, where they didn't let it kind of affect them. They kind of affect them. Effect them. They kind of brushed it off. They might affect how much they gave to that person next time, but it didn't change who they were with people in general. And I just realized, and especially when I saw people like that doing better in life, when

I saw them like getting results that I wanted for myself, And I don't mean achievement-wise, I mean just emotional, they seem like happier people, they seem more at peace. I just went, I want to be like that. It's not that they never get screwed over. It's like they've decided that life will be better if they just go in with a generous spirit and they don't assume that everyone's got an agenda and even if they someone turns out to have an agenda so be it as fine, you know, just redirect my energy. I've started to really admire that. And so that's a kind of curiosity. When you see someone who's not like you and you like something about that person, you really learn about them.

But that's also, I think that's more being very, like you said earlier also, you notice these things. You're very, you kind of pay attention. And you pick up on people's body language, how they act, the dynamic, like you're just someone who's naturally, it seems very interested in that human nature of how people act and that's what it is, more than, is it curiosity or is it more just observing? And picking up on the absurdity. The curiosity is when I learn, when I see something, I'm not afraid to ask that person questions. I'm not afraid to, I remember a time

when I was getting jealous in my relationships. And my cousin Billy has been in a relationship since he was in his early 20s. A very happy, peaceful relationship, very rarely argue, no jealousy. And it's such a wonderful relationship that they've had all through their 20s and now into their 30s.

And I would look at my cousin, Billion, I'd be like, why doesn't he get jealous? I'm not afraid to ask that question. Right, you should, yeah. So why didn't you get jealous with this thing? Right. Why does that not make you jealous? I'm just curious.

And then he would say something and I'd go, oh wow, he's like really made a different decision about the way he thinks about things or about the meaning that he ascribes to things. And once I realize that, it then becomes obvious why his experience was different than mine at the time and why I was getting into fights with people, why I was feeling wounded or insecure about something that someone just said, or comparing myself to somebody else. And Billy was just experiencing this incredible level of peace in his

relationship. It wasn't that none of the things that were happening to me were happening to him. It's that he had a very different way of processing all of it. And when I see that, I always want to be close to people like that because they know something I don't. And I can learn from that. And that to me is the basis of new belief is that you start to try new things, you put yourself around new people, it will feel unsafe to you.

Weirdly, even if it's better, it will feel unsafe to you because it's not what you know. I have a friend who dated a really awful guy in her early 20s. And then when she dated the next guy, he was a beautiful guy, amazing human being. And she said to her mom, mom, I don't understand, he's so nice to me.

It was like she could, she didn't mom, I don't understand. He's so nice to me. Like, it was like she could... She didn't know what to do with it. And her mom said, that's how it's supposed to be. But for her, it almost felt unsafe. We don't think of that as not being safe, but psychologically, it feels unsafe.

It's uncomfortable, because it's not what you know. No, it's unmapped territory. Right, so that's why people constantly go back to their pattern of what they know, because it feels safe, even though it's not safe. I. That's unmapped territory. Right, so that's why people constantly go back to their pattern of what they know because it feels safe even though it's not safe. I know my way around this thing. I don't know my way around that thing.

And that feels unsafe to me. Yeah. And so what I'm always trying to do in my own life, obviously this is forms the basis of so much of my coaching with other people too, but what I'm always trying to do for me is expand the territory of what I am familiar with so that I can That thing that's actually really, you know, what fear of success for so many people is a

It's that it's the same feeling. I never used to understand fear of success I used to be like someone used to explain that to me. I had it, by the way. I just didn't really think of it in that way. But in my own way, I've always had it because I've always had that feeling of like, when I get too far, I start to find a way to like bring myself back down.

I would even have it with the gym. I'd like have this weird moment where I'd get to a certain point with my body where it was a millimeter beyond where I'd been before. And it was like, that was the night that I would go out and have the binge of the year. Well, yes, why do we do that? That's a hundred percentual.

Like, once we see ourselves thriving, a little bit above where we normally see ourselves, we like, we self sabotage. I honestly believe that it's on some level is what we know. We're like, I know what it is to maintain this sort of a body. I don't know what it is to be. I've never been that guy.

I've never been that guy. And I don't think it's logical. I think the problem is we try to find logic for it. And of course, with the gym example, there might be a sense of, oh, I feel like I've gotten to this point. Now I can binge eat because I've got to this point. Now I've got a license to give myself that cracky thing that I need. Yes.

But I really, because I've seen the pattern in myself in all sorts of different areas of my life. In all areas, yeah. I really think it's just this, I've not been here before, I don't know it, I don't feel, there's some discomfort with going into that room that I've not been into yet. I know my way around this room right now, I, you know, even the difficult parts of it, I just know my way around it, I don't know my way around that room. You know, the same can be true.

I work too much, it's 100% true. I, you know, I feel less comfortable taking time off. I'm working on that. And I have a lot of work to do there. And then I gave you all those other things to do before. And then when we, when I first arrived, you said I should be, why are you doing this business? Yeah. But I, I, I, that's why I laughed when you said it

because I was like this is the worst thing for me to hear. But that's so funny. But you know that's me, me working hard and achieving things and forging ahead. I know that. Yeah. I know that. I know my way around that. I've always done that. Yeah.

It's familiar. It's familiar. The other ways of living and experiencing life, taking a real break, a real time out, stepping away, that's unknown. And it may be better, but it's unknown. And that's the thing that I think all of us need to understand about change is that when better is unknown, don't underestimate how far out of your way you'll go to not go and explore that territory, even if it's guaranteed to be better than where you are now, because we want familiar, even if in some cases familiar is hell.

That's so true actually. It really is. More from our guest, but first a few words from our sponsor. Starting that side hustle can be so intimidating especially when you aren't tech savvy and that's where Hostinger can help. With Hostinger you can launch a website in just a few minutes for less than three dollars a month including a free domain name. Use Hostinger's drag and drop website builder and they have over 150 customizable templates for any type of website, blogs, portfolio, e-commerce,

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Why? Like, I feel like even I notice, even with me, I'm married now. But why is it when we, like social anxiety, when we like somebody even, we end up acting weird or different, and it ruins the entire dynamics. And so like you're showing up not even as yourself, and it's because you have this like anxiety. Like why do we do this?

How do we get over this? Because I think this is like a big stop is in the start, or the start is in the stop, right? Like, doesn't that happen? I would imagine you get asked this question a lot or people confront this a lot in their lives. Like when we don't like someone, we're the funniest, we're great, we're charming, we're charismatic, everybody, you know what I mean? The second you like somebody, it's awkward and weird and then like, it's just a move.

Which is exactly why I always remember reading and actually I'm not dissing the book because I haven't seen it in a long time for all I know I'd agree with a lot of it, but there was a there was a specific part in the book, The Rules, that Oh, that book from a long time ago, yeah. But years ago, I must have been 20 years old, I remember reading that book and there was a line in it that never rang true for me because it said something like, if a guy doesn't come over to you, don't bother, he's not interested. And that was almost like, moments like that would give me excitement because when I felt something

being said that seemed so, so the contrary of what I felt as true, I saw that's an opportunity for me to go and have some impact. And that one seemed to me so patently false because my whole life, I had been avoiding the very girls I wanted to talk to. Is that most people though? Right, but the assumption is that men being the hunters that we are have this Danny Zuko confidence everywhere we go and can waltz up to anyone and for me, you know, I wasn't I you know, I it's not like I grew up unable to talk to a human being I I was you know, Afro ball at school. I had great friends I was friends with everybody, but you give me the one person that I actually

fancied, as we would say in England. Yes, I like to. In that moment, I'd freeze. So you're right, it's a very common experience. Look, the reason, which may not help people an awful lot, but it is worth saying, is that we're over valuing something in them and we're under valuing something in ourselves. We have put something on a pedestal. And it may even be not them that we've put on a pedestal, it's what we think this is going to do for us if it goes well. It's a

bit like going into a job interview and you're convinced that your happiness lies on the other side of a yes. Yes. And therefore now I am sweating going into this job interview because I think this is the key to all of my problems in life. And I think when you realize that nothing is the key to all of your problems in life, you stop putting anything on a pedestal. That thing doesn't exist. So there's that.

We can also warm up for situations, which is important, practically speaking. So what's, you can go into a room and instead, one of the big mistakes we make when we think someone is attractive is we save up all of our energy for going up to them at some point. And we sit there and we think for a long time

about what would I say if I went over there. And that's the exact energy that hurts us when we go over there. Totally. It's a bit like when someone has written a text message and you can see from the text message, they must have spent a lot of time like thinking about it. Because it's too good. There's something too perfect about it. It's too thought-out, it's too well-lettered. So it doesn't have the feeling of someone who, you know, just confidently sent a message. Instead, it has the feeling of neurosis to it.

Exactly. And that's what we do with people when we're attracted. So I used to call it, I don't know, I need to think up a new name for this. I haven't said this in a long time, but this idea of two-hit theory, the idea that if you walk into a room, one of the best things you can do is have immediate interactions with people. If it's a coffee shop, have an immediate interaction

with the birch star, have an immediate, quick interaction with the person next to you. I'm not talking about going around and kind of getting in everyone's face and having these conversations. I'm not talking about going around and kind of spend getting in everyone's face and having these conversations. I'm just saying quick interactions. When you do that, especially with people that, you know, there's something about an attractive person or someone we've deemed to be attractive,

we're all immediately thinking what they can do for us. This person can make me happy if they say yes. This person can make me excited if they want me. We're trying to get something. So that takes us already into this very selfish mode. And our fear comes from that selfish mode, because we're not thinking about their experience. We're not thinking about providing any value. It's like stepping on stage for a speech. If I step on stage and I'm trying to be impressive, we're in trouble already, me and the audience. That's right, but that's true though.

Yeah, because it's all about me. And if I'm trying to look cool up there, we have a problem. We are not going to connect. If I go into that room going, let me get, let me understand these people. They all had to move stuff around to be here. They all, you know, someone got a dog sitter, someone got a babysitter. They, you know, they traveled, they paid for parking. And they did it because there's something they want to solve. There's some pain they have. Or there's something they want to improve on. How can I help? Like if I can go into that place,

then it's no longer about me. That's why I always think the cure for shyness is to know that that feeling you have, that you wish someone would come over and make you feel at home at the party, you have to go give that feeling to somebody else. Because there are other versions of you standing around right now, although

they may have brave or good poker faces. There are people like you standing around wishing that someone would come and make them feel at home in this place. And if you can go to that place, it's almost like I want to encourage people to see shyness as selfishness. Because it's a reframe that's actually very helpful. Like when you're being shy, you're being very, very, you know, no one wants to be selfish. Everyone wants to be generous. What generous act is to go make someone else feel at home

when you're scared, because they're scared too. And that puts you in a whole different mindset of going and actually being compassionate to other people. And that then gets you out of your own head and getting out of your own head is a cure for shyness. Yeah. A good trick. Yeah. I like, I want more of these tricks.

That has helped me an enormous amount. Is there's another me in this room. And so when we, two hit theory is, let me not overthink my first interactions with anybody. Let me just when I go into a room interact. And the benefit of that is twofold. Firstly, if at some point you end up going to talk to that person that you'd really like to talk to, you're already kind of warmed up. You've not gone from being Mr or Mrs. Unsociable to suddenly I'm now going to be this ball of charisma walking up to someone. Instead you're just graduating, you've already been going

at 30 mile an hour, now you're just, you know, it's just a continuation of the same energy. It's just towards a new person. The second real benefit of this, if you want to meet people in general, most people when they go out, only go out with one or two other people. And if you are the person that has even a moment of a friendly interaction with one of those people, you're immediately their fourth best friend in the room. If they came with three other people, you're the, you were mildly approachable, you said, what are you drinking there? That looks good.

Oh, is that? Okay, I might try one of those. Hey, have a good night. And you now are their fourth best friend in this room because they only know three other people. Right. When, let's say you're still in that room an hour from now or 30 minutes from now,

when that person is looking for a new person to talk to, who's the person that most likely to branch out to first? They're fourth best friend in the room. Right, that's a good one. When you're in a crowded room, what happens when you're one on one and like you meet somebody and you like them, and like, but you know whatever, you don't like care.

I say, when you don't care, you're like your best personality. And then when you start to actually like them, and then that's when you start acting strange and not yourself, then what do you do? Because there's no other people that you can like rely on. As soon as you've done that, you've gone forward in time. You're no longer in the present.

You've gone forward in time. How did I go forward in time? Because you've made a whole bunch of decisions about this person, you cannot possibly know a true. That's true. Well, wait, wait, wait. We got to the case of yes, because what we would do is we like meet them We like them and then we get to know them and then we do start like thinking and thinking and thinking and then we end up acting Weird. Yeah, because we know we know one or two things about this person. No, we create a whole story in our head We take the 5%, not even.

That's what girls do anyway. Men too, men too. Why is it men suddenly full head over heels for a woman they don't even know? We're going to do it a lot. We're going to create a whole story in their head. This is the new guy, the best guy, I love their life.

Well, they do, but I think men are too easily let off the hook. I mean, we're quite capable of, you know, why does a woman get creeped out when a guy starts showering her with attention and love and affection and, and really generous action? I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. She doesn't know him that well. I'll tell you why. I think it's a groucho Marx thing. If you heard this one, like, whoever, like, you know, the person in the room type of thing?

That's what it is. Yes, yes. The Groucho Marx, what did he say? I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a man. Exactly. It's like the thrill of the chase feeling like, oh, you know, like they're ungetable.

Like, it's a challenge. Which is a kind of self-loathing, by the way. It is a self-loathing. Right, because it's a, you know, you like me. And I don't like you. Gross. But the weird thing is, there's another thing in the Jewish, there's a rabbi in the Jewish world.

And his whole thing is women all want to be chosen. Everyone wants to feel chosen, right? He has a whole thing on this thing, which is true too, which is then the antithesis of the grow-cho-marks thing, right? Well, we feel very flattered to be chosen, but I think we want to be... But the right person. We want to be chosen by someone we think has a lot of value.

Yes. So does it really come down to who it is? If you choose me and I think you're uncle, Yuck. Yeah. But that's a kind of... Then you're a pre-birth. Yeah, and that's, there's this.

If you're Brad Pitt, then I'd be happy to be chosen by you. Well, if you're in high school, think of how teenagers operate. If you're in high school, and you're insecure that you're not cool, the last thing you want is a not cool person hanging around you. Right.

That's true. Because you say, you're gonna give me up. Like you're gonna alert people to're gonna give me up like you're gonna alert people To my uncoolness, right. I can't be seen if you're super cool. If you're really cool You don't mind who's around you? No because I might be shining value on you in some way But you're not gonna take mine away from me, right? You know, I'm just I just believe in in cool. I'm using teenage words here, but that's the point. It's a kind of teenage mindset of, if I'm not sure of my own value, I can't have you near me if you're not. If I don't think you have value, because it is going to

confirm my lack of value. So I need to go find someone who's a certain level of cool and the grown-up words for that are good-looking, high-staters, powerful, wealthy, you name it. I need to find a certain kind of person at that level who by being around them raises my value because my value doesn't start there. Right. So that's where the groucho marks thing comes from

because we go, you don't want me, you must be onto something. Right. Exactly. It's something good of you. Right. You know, you've seen right through me. You must be great.

That's right. That's right. And so it's a very, it's a very, very dangerous place to operate from. And it gives, it says, my value is defined by the people that want me. How cool the people are that want me, how high value the people are that want me. Okay, so, but what's the answer to this thing of like,

when you're like the stories we make up about somebody and we overvalue someone, we undervalue us because of the story and we act to our acting strange and weird. We're chasing the wrong things. So when we're with someone early on and we immediately get nervous and oh my god, this person's amazing

and I now must do everything right. And I don't want to put a foot wrong. That's because we've decided they have all this value. Now what value do they have? Because tell me the value, what makes someone valuable in a relationship? Like, what would you say makes someone really valuable in a relationship?

So if we say things like we got a great connection, I'm attracted to them, that's all fluff, right? It's, they may be pre-requisites for a successful relationship, is that we have some attraction and that we have a great connection, but on their own, without the rest. But I wouldn't know the rest yet, right? Because I haven't dated them long enough.

Like, I find- Which is exactly my point, is that they have no real value in your life until you learn the rest. That's true. point is that they have no real value in your life until you learn the rest. There are four stages of importance in any relationship. The first one doesn't even constitute a relationship. Admiration. That's just where you see someone and you think there's something about them. The second one is mutual attraction. That's when that person that you see something in

knows who you are and also feels something towards you. So we call that chemistry. We may call it connection if we talk about it in a non-sexual context, but both of those things, chemistry and connection. That on its own doesn't count for a lot. As anyone who has had their heart broken by someone who never wanted more with them,

even though they had chemistry and connection, knows. So the third stage of importance is commitment. That's when someone says yes to us and we say yes to them. We say, hey, I don't just admire you, we have a mutual attraction. There's actually an exchange here and we're both saying yes to each other.

We want a relationship. We want to actually date each other to the exclusion of other people. That's a commitment. But commitment won't get you all the way there because there's a fourth stage of importance and that's compatibility. Right.

You can, many people will have had a relationship where there was the first three stages, but they absolutely were not compatible. And so even though they said yes to each other, their lives together were really, really fraught and difficult, because this person had a completely different, you know, look, if you, if someone says yes to you for a relationship, but they have a very fluid relationship with the truth.

Fluid relationship. And you don't. Yes. Then you're going to have a compatibility issue around that, regardless of the fact that you both committed to each other. So those four things are all necessary. Or, you know, we can say the first stage is not important at all, because you can have admiration for someone

and they don't even know you exist. Exactly. Mutual attraction, we think, is the most important thing in the world. And connection. Connection. Because when we... You're saying, see what you're doing is you're saying

your number two, that mutual attraction, is the same as connection. It's connection, it's chemistry, it's all of those things that make us feel like there's this explosion of possibility. Oh, okay, because I think there's two different things. I could be attracted to you and have a connection to you. Mm-hmm. Or I can just be attracted to you because I think you're physically attractive. Right. I would put, if the attraction is one way in that sense, I would put it in admiration. It's just the first phase. But if you both are attracted to each other, whether it's just an animal attraction

or it's a deeper mindset connection, it still just lives in that phase where there isn't any commitment. There's just we enjoy this thing. Right. People make a whole relationship on that, by the way. Most people do. Well, people can, well, they get married just on those two things. Well, but then they have commitment.

Well, then can, well, they get married just on those two things. Well, but then they have commitment. Well, then the three things, yes. But people, what is true is that people can waste years of their life in the second stage of importance, where they'll say to me, but Matt, you know, I have this amazing, I've found this amazing person and we have the most amazing connection and it's whenever we're together, it's like fireworks and we have the best conversations connection, and it's whenever we're together, it's like fireworks, and we have the best conversations, we can talk about anything. And I always know there's a butt coming,

right? Because otherwise, why say all of this? And eventually the butt is, but he says he's not ready for a relationship. And so what someone is describing there is, we're stuck in phase two of importance. We're not in phase three, which is commitment. And people want to act like it's so important because it must be important.

We have such an amazing connection. It must be important. We have such an amazing attraction. My argument is, while it may be on its own feel quite beautiful and while it may feel electric and incredible for its own sake, in the context of your future, this is not important for as long as this person isn't saying yes. Right, why though? I'm curious because if you paint you a really ridiculous example. Okay, I like these examples.

If, imagine someone broke up with you. All right, here's a good comparison. You meet the love of your life and then a year into your relationship together, you're in this beautiful, exclusive relationship, the two of you are talking about your future together and then that person gets hit by a car and killed. They're gone. That's a tragedy. Yes. Right? You had the love of your life, or so it seemed,

who knows where you would have been in 30 years. The great thing about one-year relationships is you'll never know. You never know. But what culture that would be. That's suggesting there's anything great about someone, you know. You're killing a car accident. I think a premature death. All the terrible, one-year- accident. I think a premature death. All for terrible. Why would he just walk on with it?

Yeah, go on. But, you know, there's a kind of, it gets to remain perfect in that way, right? Yeah, it's exactly, I know what you mean. Yes. But there is something deeply, deeply tragic about losing someone to a situation like that. Now, let's take a one year relationship

where the love of your life says to you, I just don't feel like I'm ready. And months later, that person comes to me and says, Matt, I, the love of my life, I can't get over them. They were the love of my life. No, we're not talking about someone who got hit by a car. No, I know. We're talking about someone who's shopping at Target. Yeah.

Right now, as we speak, they exist. Yes, they're walking the planet. It's still here, yes. They're here right now and they're choosing not to be with you. Right. How long are you going to maintain the story that this is the love of your life? That's a great point.

Well, I guess you tell me or the expert. It's a story. You have to admit, at certain point, you have to say, I am telling myself a story about this person. And what I... So true. I think you've got people to do is, marry reality, divorce the story because the story is, I am, you know, out out this, my person is out there and they

just don't want, you know, they just don't, they don't know it. It's like, so tell me again, what the problem is with the love of your life, they don't want you. They don't want me exactly. Okay, then, then this is a story and they may, by the way, this is where it gets really dangerous. The person on the other end will feed that story a lot of the times because it's convenient for them to do so.

No one wants to be the villain in a breakup. No everyone wants to be the hero, even when they're doing something that hurts someone else. Totally true. None of us want to be the bad person. So we tell someone something that's incredibly confusing. We don't say I just don't feel attracted anymore or I just don't feel like I'm happy. I really want to be with other people. We don't want to say that. We don't say that. We say, you know,

I'm not ready. Let me tell you an excuse. I was in my, I have a members club called the Love Life Club and every month I coach people. And there was a member today. This is straight off of the back of one of my live Q&As. She said this morning, the guy that I'm, have been dating, said to me that we have so much attraction and chemistry that he can't focus on anything else in the relationship and therefore

It wouldn't be fair to her for him to continue. No way stop it. She believed this nonsense I'm telling you word for word what I was told today now From the outside we will go that is unbelievable that someone would believe that. But we all have our version of that story where someone has said something to us that doesn't, that feels really confusing and sort of somehow still allows them to be the victim or the good guy or the, you know, like,

he's the victim in that story. He's like, I just wouldn't be fair to you. I just, I'm so attracted to you. I've never heard a guy say it like in my life. No, and we know that it defies all logic. But when we are married to the story, we want the logic to be true because it gives us an excuse to keep trying.

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Try Notion AI for free right now at Notion.com slash habits. I like what you just said. Be married to the reality and divorce the story. But that's where people get really hung up, right? And they get stuck. They get stuck in the look. This should be a mantra for people, because I really, I want everyone to understand. I'm not coming from a place I've ever, ever, ever, ever, ever preaching to people because

I know, I'm the one who, when I'm on stage and a woman stands up and tells a story and the rest of the audience groans because they say, how could she have fallen for that? I'm the one who sticks up for the person because I'm like, no, no, no, I get it. Like this is, this has happened to all of us. My sense of urgency comes from the fact that I have seen way too many times how hurt people get. I've seen people throw away their lives. It comes from a protective instinct for people. And we have to start saying to ourselves, okay, you know, what I was gonna say is the mantra is people or relationships are replaceable,

but life is not replaceable. These years you don't get a rerun. You can find another partner and one that's much better. Because any, by the way, any partner that's actually ready is already better than the person who's telling you they're not ready. That's a hundred percent true. They're already better. They already trump that person. I don't care if they don't have the qualities you want or whatever. They're already ahead of the person who says they're

not ready. But a relationship is replaceable. Your life is not. So we need to start valuing our life more than we value the person in front of us who's not actually meeting our needs, who's not actually giving us what we want. And if someone is giving us this convoluted logic about why they can't proceed, why they can't give us their all, why they can't commit, why it can't be done. You have to apply, you know, Occam's razor, the Occam's razor is the concept that the simplest explanation is the best. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, explain this to this person, that when someone is telling you, I can't be with you because I'm too attracted. What's more likely to be true? What's the simplest explanation? That they really are so attracted that they can't have a normal conversation with you. They can't come see your family.

They can't progress with you. They can't keep seeing you. Or that there's some other reason they're not telling you about why they don't want a relationship with you, or don't want a relationship at all, and they just don't want to seem like a bad guy. You have to go with the simpler explanation. Does she finally understand and believe you? It was a written question that got sent in, but I hope so.

I hope it gives, sometimes it's good to get an extreme example like that because it also allows us to hear less extreme versions of it and go, oh yeah, actually, even though it's on a spectrum of completely ludicrous to somewhat believable, just because mine is on the somewhat believable end of the spectrum, it doesn't mean I should give more credit to it. And by the way, you don't need closure, this is the thing. Closure is overrated. You don't need to know whether what this person is telling you is true.

Someone can be telling you, I just don't know, and this and that, and I'm really busy in my life. That's a common one, right? I've got so much on with my business and I just don't think and then what people try and do is solve that problem Yeah, also you're really busy with the business well look I have an idea Why don't I help you with the business and then I'll do some of this and then we'll have weekends and we'll come with you when you do that And it's like no no no no no no no You you don't need to try and solve the problem they just gave you. What you need to do is

say, you have your reasons. It's not up to me to say whether those reasons are true, false, good, bad, overcomeable or not, or surmountable or not. That's not for me to worry about. You have your reasons. I have my reality. And my reality is that I've got someone in front of me who's telling me they don't have enough time for me. Regardless of how valid your reasons might be totally valid, doesn't change my needs, doesn't change my reality. That's so true. And if your needs can't get met, then your job is to pivot and say, that's a real shame

because I think we have a really good thing. I think, you know, God knows I would support you in your mission. I would absolutely want to be a great teammate. I don't want to distract you from what you're doing. I just want to be a part of your world and for you to be a part of mine. And I think we'd be really great together and I think we'd actually be stronger as a team.

But if you really feel that you don't have time for that and that you can't make that work then I have to trust that that's true for you and go and find someone who it's not true for. And when you do that, when you communicate like that, that, if anything by the way is going to make someone take pause, it's that kind of communication. 100%. I think that's some, it's also put you in such a more of an attractive light, right? make someone take pause is that kind of communication. 100%. I think that's some, it's also put you in such a more of an attractive light, right?

For instance, let me convince you why what you've just said isn't true. Basically, to like be with somebody, which leads me to my next thing, which is like, what do you because you do this for women mostly? Like in your opinion, where are the top three things and men really find the most attractive? Oh my god.

You're a guy, but I'm not saying because you're a guy. You've talked to millions of guys. You know that like, is it, because people always do the easy thing like, well women, like status and power and men like looks. But it's not, that's so basic. I think that, uh... Were they really attractive? The top three things that men are the most attracted to?

I don't know about top three, but what immediately comes to mind is acceptance. If you accept him, that won't be the first thing he says, but on an emotional level, that will be one of the things that resonates the most is if he can feel like he can drop the kind of BS Act that he does the rest of the time and actually be him be him and Reveal certain things about maybe things that he's felt ashamed of or things that he's felt like if people knew that about me

They'd they'd run a mile or if people, if he can express those things, I'm not saying if he can, you're justifying bad behavior, but if he can express those parts of himself that he thinks he won't be accepted for, and it could even just be his goofiness, it can be his like whatever. And you still fully accept him. That's a very, very powerful thing. And I would combine that actually with really seeing him. It's what you have to really see someone before you can accept them.

So if you can echo back to that person, who they are, and even sometimes I think the little things that make them them, you know, when you're able to point out something that they do or a little ritual they have that means a lot to them and you don't judge them for it. You just show that you know it and you feel it. It shows that you're also paying attention. Exactly. And I love you for that and I think that's such a lovely part of you.

It's, and that maybe was a private ritual or something that not a lot of people know that they do or care about or whatever. That is a very very powerful thing to feel that scene and that accepted. So that would be my first one. Another one would be having a real sense of your own value. I think that one of the big turn-offs for a lot of people, not in any one moment, but over time, there can be an erosion of

attraction if someone consistently puts themselves down and doesn't you don't have to be the best-looking person in the room, but if you're constantly pointing out that you are not are not over time That does start to erode attraction because instead of being able to just People take their cues from us if if our cues tell someone that we're attractive Then that's an energy that they buy into if we're constantly throwing out cues that we're not

Eventually they they might believe you. I totally agree with you. There's a real subtle line between being vulnerable and just dumping on someone, your insecurities, the things that you're self-conscious about. Vulnerability is sharing some of the things that you feel self-conscious about, maybe even all of the things, but it's confidence or power is owning them and taking responsibility for them. And if we are constantly giving that stuff to our partner, almost like we're holding up a poster that says, I'm shit and expecting them to say, no, you're not.

That eventually that person will become exhausted by that. And you don't, you, you want to walk around like, I can't stress enough how important it is this idea that we tell people what to think about us by the way that we communicate about ourselves. The same is true of our past. We may have things from our past that we have historically seen as baggage. And people will normally bring that to me in the form of, how do I talk about this thing? And I know when someone says, how do I talk about this thing? There's a sense of it's become this baggage. And how do I reveal this? How do I open this who goes to them because I'm afraid that

if I do, they're going to leave. But at a certain point in life, when we have made peace with certain things about our past mistakes we've made, regrets we have, things we're not proud of or ashamed of, when we've made our peace with those things, we no longer convey them with the same emotion anymore. We convey them with a sense of neutrality. And when we convey it with a sense of neutrality, it's almost like it becomes just a car that went down the freeway in front of them and they don't really have,

they don't even have the same time to stop and look at it because they just go, oh, maybe they would have, maybe even a part of them goes, oh, I am not sure about that thing. I don't know if I like what I just heard, but they also see that you've processed it and dealt with it and are at peace with it. And so if their reaction was going to be a nine out of 10 on disapproval, it drops to a five or a four and you can manage that. We give people those cues. That's true of baggage.

It's also true of our insecurities in the present. So I think anything someone can do to work on their own value so that they can give the right cues to the person they're with and not give them reasons, not to like them all the time. Exactly. It's a really big deal.

So what did we have acceptance and being seen owning your own value? I forget how I put it the first time around, but owning your own value. And I think then a real sense of, hmm, some having things in your life that mean this person doesn't feel responsible for you and your happiness. They don't feel like by being in a relationship with you, they have a full-time caring job,

a full-time care job, I should say. They're not babysitting. I care, give her. Yeah, because that, you know, Esther Perrell talks about it extensively, the idea of love versus desire, love, both are necessary in a relationship. Love is the coming together of two people. Desire exists in the space between them. And in the course of a relationship, one of the struggles of maintaining desire is that

if there's no more breathing room for that flame, it becomes extinguished, it gets suffocated. So how do you maintain a healthy level of breathing room so that that fire can stay alive? And that's a subtle dance in any relationship, but I think it's always worth asking ourselves, what are the things that I do that, you know, Proust said, the journey of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes. You can almost ask yourself the question, what have I done lately that allows my partner to see me with new eyes? Yeah.

Am I doing, and that doesn't have to be anything, I'm not recommending people, you know, go take a journey to India for six months and meditate on a hill. I'm just saying, it might be a weekend away with your girlfriends. I think also, kind of what you're saying overall is like have a full life.

Like don't depend on someone else to provide you with everything, all your happiness, all your everything. Like have a full life. Now where it comes kind of like tricky is then I think, in my opinion, what I also like to observe and see, a lot of men don't want to have the girls who are so put together

and career success, because then, like, where do they fit in? So I think it becomes a new, it's very nuanced, right? It really is, because you're right, it's intimidating. It's very intimidating, and I think that's like becomes like who the guy is and what his story is because there's some guys who want to have, you know, have the control and and and that's why a lot of guys who are super successful are with a bunch of dumbos. Like the girls are like nothing's and nobody's. They came and string a sentence together.

Like the my most successful friends who are like rock stars and you meet their wife or their girlfriend and you're like you got to be kidding me. Are you serious with this? But you know you kind of know your fans because I'll probably listen to the podcast because it's not what you see that isn't that like that's it's realistically like all this can be said like depending on who the guy is what they're looking for how really how insecure he is, how confident he really is, like true confidence. That will depend. That's almost something you don't have to concern yourself with because those guys, the

guys that you're talking about, everyone kind of gets, I don't mean this in a new way, but kind of everyone gets what they deserve in that scenario. 100%. He gets someone that it's gonna, that he's sacrificing an enormous amount of connection with someone that can really hit the ball back. 100%. And she is kind of living in this world where she's sacrificing an enormous amount of freedom.

Because if she grows and she becomes unmanageable. What if she doesn't grow? Like a lot of these people... No, but that's what I mean. Like they kind of... They end up settling into a groove that both of them have made a sacrifice there. I hear what you're saying.

He's sacrificing connection. She's sacrificing, becoming... It's actualizing. Yeah, act self-actualizing. And so that... Those people find each other. That's true, that's a good point. If you're looking for, if connection is really important to you,

then and truly feeling like the values you want in a person, you find them, you're not even looking, you're not the first point of call isn't going to be how successful someone is, or if you're a woman, let's say, or how controllable someone is if you're a woman, let's say, or how controllable someone is if you're a man. You're not looking for those things. You're looking for a partner.

But is it psychological? Like, is it psychological to a point? Because I mean, guys do visually, visually, like, they get attracted and then that's the door opener. And then you have to, you know, and then you got to prove other things. Sure. I'm just, just from my own experiences. And for the girls, like, you have to, you know, and then you've got to prove other things. Sure. I'm just, just from my own experiences. And for the girls, like you have a certain standard of who you want to be with. So that has to be the, the door opener. Right.

And I'm not suggesting that everyone is on the table. Yeah. But, you know, there are certain things that you may want. You may want someone who is attractive. You may want someone who has a level of success where they are independent, where you can do things together, and you're not carrying them all the time. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, but those standards get mutated very quickly. Yeah. To the point where now someone has a certain thing that you're not, they don't come in this exact package that you thought you wanted

and all of a sudden you're going back to the drawing board and you're kind of in this obsessive kind of optimization that is really dangerous when it comes to finding love. That optimization hurts a lot of people. It leaves them alone because they can never find some... There's always gonna be something that someone is missing or they don't quite look like this or they don't quite have that level.

He's not quite six foot. Like, there's always that thing. There was a point I was gonna make. Remind me how we got onto this. We were talking about... What the three things that guys find most attractive? Or was it? Are you were saying,

but don't you, are you were saying about women intimidating men by having lots going on? I think that, That happens also, I said that, and I see this all the time, my girlfriends who are single, like in their 30s and 40s, and they're like beautiful and successful

and they've everything going for them. And they cannot find a guy to save their life. They can't get arrested, never mind. Like they can't find anybody. And then you have like, and it's not, I don't know if it's a lack of people or like guys I feel like don't really want sometimes that equal partner.

That's what I was saying. There is a school of thought that any situation where a guy earns less money than a woman or is less successful than her is sort of doomed. I don't subscribe to that, but you have to hear these things and go, what's the where's the seed of truth here? Instead of just dismissing it, what's, why are people saying that? And I believe

that people say that because it's typical for, firstly, there's always going to be in that example. There's always going to be a portion of men who are intimidated no matter what, and it's insurmountable. You're not going to get over it because they cannot do the work on themselves to get to a point where they're comfortable with a successful woman. So but we're not worried about that group of guys. There's another, I would argue, bigger group of guys, they are just trying to figure out what they're needed for, where their value is, where

their significance comes from, like we all are in life. We're trying to feel, we want to feel needed, we want to feel like we matter. And we're worried that, you know, on a date, if this person has it all figured out, I don't, I might have that slight, it doesn't necessarily make me a bad person, it doesn't necessarily make me a misogynist. I just might not know where I fit in, like, can I be needed here, can I get that feeling that I'm looking for? Can I say something?

Yeah. I think what it is, not for fuck. I feel like what it is, is that, if I wasn't doing this, I would do what you do. I love all this stuff so much. I feel like guys wanna feel like a man. And I think that's at the core of everything. If they don't feel like a man, it's hard for them to be in a relationship

because they need to, you know, I'm not saying you're gonna constantly, you know, you're amazing, you're amazing. I'm saying like, make them feel like a man, it makes them want to be around you more and wants to be with you. And I think when some of these women who are very type A and very put together,

it makes the guy feel very emasculated. That's would be my opinion. You have to ask that. No, no, no, no, no. I think you make a very valid point. I don't think all men are like that, but I think that if you're talking, if you're talking patents in men,

a very, very, very, very, very common patent is men who want to feel like a man. And by the way, they've been brought up to believe that that's their value. They, in many times by mothers, not just by fathers, by mothers who have taught them that their value is their ability to provide, to protect and be that masculine figure. And so they've not been equipped with any of the things that they might need to feel valuable

in a context where they don't feel like a man. So that's not easy for people in that. It doesn't make them bad people. It just makes them people. No. They don't know how to figure out their way around that. So I look at that and I think, what's, in the same way, let's take it, because gender often charges things.

Let's just take a gender out of it and say, in a situation where someone in a school reunion goes back and they've made a ton of money. They've made millions of dollars and everyone knows it in that room. What would be a great way to go into that room? If you really wanted to connect with people and you were a good person who also wanted to make other people feel significant. And by the way, you're also the kind of person whose own values are in the right place. And so you don't think you're better than everyone in that room because you've made a load of money. How would you go into that room? You would go in curious about the other people wanting to know about their lives people wanting to know about their lives,

wanting to know about their families, about their kids, about what they love doing, about the movies they've watched that they love, about what for them feels like life well-lived now. And you'd want to share those same things from your side. I'm not talking about hiding what you've done. I'm talking about actually connecting with those people on a human level. The idea that on a date, someone comes out knowing all of your achievements is bizarre to me.

That's so true. Why do they know? Why, why, every time I come off a date, people are intimidated by my success. Why do they know about your success? What did you lead with it? I walked into this room. When you and I met today, did I walk in and go,

so I have the number one YouTube channel in the world, I have a New York Times best selling book, I have this, I have that. That's not a conversation. You are preach, you are so right. And that's what happens a lot of times, 100%. Because you know why they lean on that? Because that's what they've, that's what make them feel like they are worthy.

That's what people do. Well, it's the weapon they feel comfortable with. The weapon. And it's the, your weapon becomes, Christopher Hitchens once said your weapon becomes, Christopher Hitchens once said, the trick in relationships is not allowing your advantages to negate themselves. And it's a very, very powerful idea because whatever is the thing that you're comfortable wielding

because you think that's your power, you think that's your value, you're probably gonna overuse it. And it becomes to your detriment. When we go on a date, we forget that my job is to connect with this person. And if I keep, again, there are always going to be some people that are intimidated by you no matter what.

And there are people that are misogynists and blah, blah, blah. But there's also a ton of people that they're looking for a way to connect and feel like they matter. And if you go into a date, instead of thinking, can they handle me? You think, how do I make this person feel like they matter? How do I, how do I, you know what's a guy, a writer I know?

Kevin Conley. Yes, yes. He said to me, he used to interview people for, I don't know if it was the Hollywood reporter or but he used to write columns on very well-known people. But he didn't, a lot of them, he didn't even know. So it's not like he went in being awestruck by these people. In a lot of cases, it became so run of the mill to him that it was a kind of like exercise

in trying to figure out how to care. And he would say to me, the thing that would really make an article when he wrote a piece about these people, was him going into the interview with the challenge to himself, can I get to a place in this interview where I actually feel grateful to have sat with this person? And his line of questioning would always be trying to lead him to that place of gratitude. How could I feel grateful for being in this person's presence? And if he could come away from a conversation, feeling like he learned something, feeling like he had an admiration for something they had overcome,

feeling like there was something about them that was unique or interesting, and he therefore felt grateful for the time, by the time it finished, he said that would always translate into an interesting article. Imagine we took that approach to a date. Instead of going in, going, how do I, you know, overshadow, how do I trump this person with my achievements? How do I show how great I am? How do I impress?

If we went in from a place of, you know, how could I achieve a moment of gratitude that I was with this person? Because if you can achieve that, you probably made them feel special in the process. 100% true. That's a very good point. This is why I love your perspective. You're very good at this whole coaching thing.

I've one more thing to ask you. We're the two most common things that people ask you. Most common questions. Like not people like, I mean like, who, you know, DM you or in your love club. Is that what it's called? I think it would be the love life club. Love life club, okay.

Love club. It sounds like a, like a swinger club. Yeah. There's a different, you'll to be trying to get me to create that next. Yeah, exactly. That's the kind of app I was talking about. I'm kidding.

What do people ask me? I suppose there's most, so many questions revolve around either how to find love. How, you know, what do I do? I feel like I'm not meeting the people that I want to meet. I feel like the people I'm attracted to, I never attracted to me. You know, I feel like I never meet anyone that I really like. It's so hard where I live. Those are all variations on how to find love.

And what do you tell them? In a very brief way, what do you say? They can't find love, where to find that, what do you say? I think there's a whole hinge. Like what do you say? A whole no. I think there's a whole kind of, and this isn't actually a lot of as much work as it sounds, but there's almost like a portfolio of things that you can do that if you tick those boxes, I believe, it becomes close to inevitable that you will meet someone.

And those are, that's literally, the Love Life Club is designed to give people that road map and show people, what does it actually look like to be proactive in? I, I, I talk about it as this is, I'm going to show you the approach to finding love for people who are exhausted by trying to find love. Really? So that's what your Love Life Club does. It's, yeah, it's about showing people that you're, you want to find love. Really? That's what your love life club does. It's about showing people that you want to find love, but you're sick of dating, I'm going

to show you a holistic approach to getting your love life to where you want it to be, and learning to love your life in the process even before it happens, because I really believe that the battle is won while you're still single. That doesn't mean you have to be perfect before you meet someone, but the so much of the work you can do, you can do now, and if you have the right strategies in place, it will happen. The other set of questions I get usually revolve around closure of some kind. Why didn't they call? Why did he fade away?

Why did he give me the slow fade? Why did he come on really strong and then all of a sudden disappear? Why does he keep calling and wanting to see me and wanting to do things and wanting to do trips even though he doesn't want to commit? Why did they why did they ghost me? It's so much of it revolves around I want answers. I want to understand What happened and whether there's anything I can do about it. And what's the main answer you give to all those Variations of the second question. Well, I think there's answers to do with them. There's answers to do with us

I think oftentimes the answer to do with them. There's answers to do with us. I think oftentimes the answer to do with them falls into that category of, you don't need to spend time understanding them. All you're doing there is trying to spend more time in understanding the wrong person. And you're then making that the wrong people, your entire field of vision. You need to pivot to the people that are the,

you know, the example of the race car driver in the post. Yes. You know, they teach them to steer away, look away from the post. Because if you look at the post, even though you think you're steering away from it, you're gonna drive right into it.

Exactly. That's what it's like when you over focus on the wrong person. It's like you wonder why you keep hitting the post. It's because that's where you're dedicating your time and energy. The reasons to do with us, and again, I have a whole masterclass that I do on this in the love life club, is the way often, like we talked about earlier, we often have mutated in a certain area of strength. And we don't realize that when someone says we're to this on my Q&A call today with the Love Life Club,

someone said, men keep saying I'm too optimistic, which is an interesting thing, right? You say that's a attractive quality, but when I hear that, I don't hear you're too optimistic. I hear you're not enough of something else. There is something else that is actually the reason why people are fading out when you're trying to build attraction with them. It's not your optimism. That's not the problem.

It's that your optimism would go right. Please, I like this. I'd love to have any. Flirtation. When paired with sense of just vulnerability instead of like someone giving you their problem and you go, well, here's what you should do. Yeah. You know, instead of you just listened and related and shared something, that would pair really well with that.

Optimism pairs really well with playfulness or a little teasing. You know, like these things become what I call unique pairings and unique pairings are what make us Irresistible one great quality won't make you irresistible It will get someone's attention, but it won't make you irresistible when you pair Something that's great with another Unexpected thing that's great that you wouldn't normally find those two things in the same person

That's when you become irresistible. That's a great, give me a couple more pairings than you can go home. It would be, I mean, this is a silly one, but like you have great sex with someone and then you realize that they're really fun to hang out with for two hours after we're eating pizza and watching a show. Okay, because you realize like, oh, this isn't just someone I had fun with sexually. This is someone I love hanging out with.

That's a unique pairing. A unique pairing is you have this playful confidence about you that's really cheeky when we're together, but when we go and see my family, you're an absolute gentleman. Like my family, you're an absolute gentleman. Like, there's, you're so caring and you're so kind to the people. I love. So, it's kind of like opposite. Like, often. The things that often you don't find in the same, they don't always have to be opposites, but

the thing that tends to make them unique is that it's hard to find both of those things in the same person. And by the way, like, if you ever want to know why you struggled's hard to find both of those things in the same person. And by the way, like, if you ever want to know why you struggled so hard to get over an X, it's usually because they had a unique pairing that you didn't think you'd find again. That's so true. I agree with you. And you can create unique pairings. And that's what's really empowering about this. How? You can invest in yourself. You're not going home to have something that's not for a guy. Well, we'll do another one. But you can invest in yourself in ways

that build unique pairings and build how irresistible and attractive you are out there in the world. That is true in business. That is true in love. It's true in friendships. It's true in every part of life. And that, that to me, is one of the great. life. And that, that to me is one of the great, like when you know that, your life becomes

a really fun exercise. That's such a good thing to end with, a unique pairing. That's great. I agree with that 100%. But I don't know how you can really, you know, I think you're right. If I think back, it's always people have this,

like, I'm never gonna find this because it's so true. I'll do this again sometime. When are we coming back tomorrow? No, I've no idea. But you're great. You gave me a lovely compliment in saying I was great at what I do. You're great at what you do.

And I see you when you say, like, if I wasn't doing this, I do what you're doing. You're very good at it. And you're very, your mind puts things together very, very quickly. And it's clear to me why you do what you're doing. You're very good at it and you're very, your mind puts things together very, very quickly. And it's clear to me why you do what you do. You know, you elicit incredible conversation and incredible information. So, it's so nice. I really appreciate you saying that. I actually, I'm so fascinated by human nature and human behavior and I'm always watching and observing. So that's why someone like you on this podcast who does this, like I'm like so interested in this stuff, right?

Because people, you know, in my world come to me for all, I'm like, I had a whole breast cancer charity and I had an auction every year. It was very well known in LA and it was basically a bachelor auction and I would auction off eligible men and all the money we would raise, we would give to breast cancer.

And it was because I was the person I would always be giving people relationship and coaching advice. I love all of this. So it was such a pleasure to have you on this podcast. Thank you. And I see why you have the number one YouTube channel. I see why that you're so light.

You are so light-able and you're so relatable. I, you need to have an app and you need to have all these other businesses. I'm just kidding, but you are amazing. Thank you, thank you. And so, how do people, okay, go to YouTube because he's got amazing videos. Obviously, Instagram, you're on TikTok, right?

I mean, I tell you where there's a great thing people can do. On the website, if people go to yourdatingsolution.com, it will just give you a quick multiple choice quiz. You can answer it based on your dating challenge, your relationship challenge right now. So whatever you're going through, you'll find the answer that matches that. And it will recommend you the best one of my solutions for what you're dealing with right now. It's kind of a neat little tool we have right now. So it's over at yourdatingsolution.com.

Are you writing any books? What's next for you? I'm writing something right now. It will land next year. But I would love to. Yeah, you're gonna come back before you have to come back before then Thank you for tuning into this episode with Matthew Hussie I hope you have a list of next steps and action items to follow to ensure you're in entering a nourishing healthy Relationship that also fuels your self-esteem to find more from Matthew Be sure to check out the links in the show notes. And if you love these guest episodes, don't forget to also tune into my solo episodes every Friday, where I share my best habits and hustle tips. That's all I have for you guys today.

Remember, to live the life you want, not the life you get. I'll chat with you more in the next episode. This summer, go to the movies. Projected on the side of a mountain. Discover a new favorite restaurant, your campsite. Find yourself when you lose your signal. Discover a new playlist, Mother Nature. Make your summer special at the Kia Summer Sales event with a dependable Kia SUV or powerful sedan.

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