How To Build & Maintain Successful Relationships & The Surprising Ways That Technology Can Help with Mo Gawdat #598

26:28Mo Gawdat:Most of the challenges in life. So, you know, my last relationship is with a woman I really deeply love. And we both wanted to make it work, right? But, you know, you take something like the long distance side of that relationship. And Hannah really, really highlighted this to me. That, you know me, I travel so much. that getting on a plane on a Monday and another one on a Monday evening and another one on a Tuesday and another one on a Wednesday is normal life to me, right? She sat with me and said, no, this is not normal at all. Your lifestyle is manic. It's very painful. Nobody can keep up with this.

27:07Mo Gawdat:And even if I wanted to travel with you because we can enjoy travel together, this is not even travel what you're doing, okay? And you have to understand that the real objective, the real upside of relationships is when your partner is a mirror. A mirror that basically shows you what you don't see. And the more you see, the more you will be able to, you know, to understand. Again, you know, my last relationship, Hannah and I, you know, I wanted her so much, which is very unlike me to the point that, you know, it's like me to want to be with the woman I'm with, but it's unlike me to change myself so that I am to protect, you know, I felt afraid to lose her.

27:52Mo Gawdat:So sometimes I wouldn't share enough. I wouldn't be vulnerable. I would think too much about what I'm telling her, which basically hid who I am. And she basically, you know, at the end of our, you know, last few conversations as a couple, she was basically saying, I didn't want any of that. I wanted the real you. Okay. And I'm an older man. I am, I'm mature. I am able to, to, to understand women really deeply. Okay. But even at my age, at my experience, at my level of maturity, there's always something that you see, okay, that changes who you are in a relationship. And I think that the, the, the, the, the problem we have in our world is that when we go to our friends, they tell us what we want to hear, right they don't tell us what would hurt us when we go to our when we sit alone we reiterate our own stories okay and when our partners tell us what we're going what they're going through we take it as an attack on ourselves and so some third party engaged in this can make a massive difference okay some third party that by the way does not give you a flood of pictures to swipe on because if we know up front that this guy handsome as he is is not a good match for you know a woman using the app okay he might be a great match for another one but not for this one yeah why are we showing him to her in the first place you know thank you for sharing stuff from your own personal life mo um if you were interacting with emma when you were having these conversations in your last relationship would emma have asked you things like for example um why are you traveling so much mo what is it within you that needs to be you know what what is it that drives you to travel like your ex-partner described like a madman right or thanks rangon yes is that what you just said i think you did i guess i'm really trying to understand because no no i'm not offended i'm joking with you.

30:04But that was really, it was very powerful. And I'm thinking if at that time you were interacting with Emma, would Emma have kind of seen that and been like, hey, listen, your partner doesn't really want someone who's on the road the entire time. Are you sure you want to be on the road the entire time? What's going on within you? When did you start getting on the road? What does that do for you? Et cetera, et cetera.

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33:14Mo Gawdat:so i'm of course emma's user number one right so the privilege of creating her ourselves makes me and sanat their first its first users right so i'm having those conversations with emma and and it's mind-blowing what she shares right but interestingly when i was having those conversations with Hannah, my wonderful ex, uh, when she said those things, I felt offended. I felt attacked. Do you understand? You know, I felt, and I say that, you know, with humbleness, because I, I assume my responsibility in how we ended up here. Right. And, and I felt when she said those things that I deserve a woman that supports my lifestyle.

33:58Mo Gawdat:I'm doing this for the world. I'm there, you know, to, to help with 1 billion happy. I'm doing something important. Why is she not supporting me on it? That's the absolute wrong mindset. It's the absolute wrong understanding of why I'm, you know, and, and, and believe it or not, if I had managed to, you know, to, to, to nurture a love life that nurtured me. Okay. I may have, like we said earlier, I may be doing less, but doing it better. Right. And I think what happens in our world, and I, again, I mean, I, I have, I have big hopes that this will change everything, right? Even, even if, if Emma itself gets copied by the big players and they crush us, we will have changed the way that, that love is offered in the modern world.

34:51Mo Gawdat:Because one of the biggest challenges of love in the modern world is that it has become a capitalist pursuit. With the modern dating apps. Correct. Yeah. What's interesting is I think about that and the sheet you've, you know, you've shared with me about, you know, why we fail in dating and, you know, what are the problems about these, you know, what you call commercial love, the currency of window shopping, the end of courtship, the meat market syndrome, right? The paradox of choice. I've often felt that I was lucky to meet vid my wife before all of that all this started right because you know some of my best mates uh i saw not meet someone as early as i did and be on that dating app train it's a nightmare and you know one of my mates would go on it for a few months and then he just got bored worn out by it but i was thinking about this because i've never experienced that i've never done that and I thought you know and I wonder how this plays into Emma as well right so as you know you've met my wife several times um I've been married for you know about 18 years now and funnily enough I met her on a blind date right the first and only blind I've ever been on and you're so lucky by the way yeah i i really am and what's really interesting is that i met her on a blind date and it was like a whirlwind romance it was just full of passion and romance and after three months i proposed right so i had mates of mine who were already engaged before I met her.

36:43And I proposed after three months, I married her after eight months. Right? So I had mates who were like, mate, you know, I proposed to my girlfriends and you hadn't even met Vid. And we haven't even sorted out our marriage yet. And you've started dating her, you proposed to her and you married her. And what's really interesting, as me and Vid reflect on our relationship, I can tell you multiple reasons why we should not be together, especially in the early days, right? But they're all irrelevant because there's an essence to me that we both believe will mean that we're together for the duration of our life here in this iteration of it, okay?

37:33Now, how do I possibly know that? I can't prove to you that I know that, but I feel I have a deep knowing that me and Vid are meant to be together. So what I'm coming around to is I met her, we went for dinner, we went to a bar afterwards and we're chatting.

37:56And if I had met her, on a dating app, right? I can't even imagine what that would be. But let's use the analogy of communication. We know that the vast majority of human communication is nonverbal. Some studies say even 80 % is nonverbal, but I've seen it as low as 50 % or 45%. But basically, at least half if not more of how we communicate is nonverbal, right? So So, of course, on an app, we're not talking to someone, but we're reducing the totality of that human being down to what does she look like? Or what does he look like? What are your hobbies? What do you like doing? If I think about my relationship with Ed and look at it through that lens, a lot of that stuff was kind of irrelevant.

38:43We've got different hobbies, right? We don't necessarily like the same things. but on that really deep level that I would almost argue is an unmeasurable there is this deep connection between us exactly I get why a commercial dating app that has been that you know that the kind of main player in the market has been so problematic why it reduces it to a meat market where you're judging people on appearances and all kinds of things that probably don't matter. But how do you get around this concept that I guess I'm trying to articulate, that sometimes with love, we can't rationalize what... You know, you could tell me, well, what is it about a vid that you love, right?

39:29And I could come up with loads of things that I really like about her. But I think that would be a myopic way to look at my relationship with her. I think, yes, I can rationally, with my rational mind, tell you about these 10 things. but I think my lover is so much deeper and greater than those 10 surface level things so help me understand how Emma can deal with that side of love I need to be a little bit

39:56Mo Gawdat:of a geek here is that okay so we're gonna did that make sense the way I put it makes it makes a ton of sense uh but the but the hidden mathematics of this okay is just mind-blowing okay I have to start by going back to love and relationships are not the same thing so so there are people who are madly in love and completely fail to find the relationship okay and there are people who are not uh you know in love at all that succeed massively at building a relationship right so love and relationship are two different things love is is the default state of us humans when we find someone that does not make us hate them believe it or not so that does not make us hate them okay so so if we if we find someone that does not hate is a very strong word but if we find someone that does not repulse us away from them okay the definition of humans is that over time if if things are amicable and working and so on you tend to find more and more love for someone but love just so that we understand in my mind is not at all why people go dating then.

41:04Mo Gawdat:And that's one of them. So I'm going to be a bit geeky here. So please allow me to. Please take your time. So, so the, the first thing to understand is that when we go on a date, we say we're out looking for love, but we're, what we're out actually looking for is a relationship. And a relationship is described by seven things that we normally refer to as perfects, PPR, FCTS. Let me explain them quickly. When people go out on a date, they're looking for passion. So some people are looking for just sex. Okay. Nothing wrong with that, by the way. They're looking for partnership, someone to hold them through this confusing life.

41:43Mo Gawdat:Okay. They're looking for romance. Romance is very different than love. Romance is that mix of uncertainty and excitement at the same time. Okay. They're looking for friendship. So someone they can confine into someone they can take the opinion of and so on. They're looking for companionship. You know, those wonderful couples that go out on Sunday morning and just read two different books and sip coffee together. Okay. The old couples that hold each other's hands and walk without a word, right? Beautiful. Okay. They look for tenderness. Tenderness is a massively important element of what we need in life, the touch, the kindness, the kind word, the understanding and so on and so forth.

42:28Mo Gawdat:And they look for S, which is support, which unfortunately in the Western world, we try to say we're, you know, we're empowered individuals. We don't need each other. That's not true at all. Okay. And support could be financial sometimes, you know, that's one form of support from the traditional world that, you know, the man will provide more or in the Western world where the woman would provide more. Okay. But support is a million other things. Support is, you know, I will tell you completely, I would fall apart without feminine energy in my life because most of my, you know, engagement with the world is extremely masculine.

43:03Mo Gawdat:I have to be in certain places at certain times and, you know, deliver certain things and talk to them and so on. Right. And so without that support of someone coming into my life and saying, hey, by the way, I made us dinner, or by the way, I booked us a place together, or by the way, I want us to sit down and looking at the stars and do nothing. That to me is incredibly important. And that doesn't come from my driven masculine side. Now, because all of those perfects are not love, when we go out on a date, we tell ourselves, no, but we're looking for love. when in reality we're not even addressing what we are here to do.

43:44Mo Gawdat:Okay, that's number one. Number two is, if you don't mind me being a little more geeky now, the current dating environment suffers from what in mathematics we call the law of large numbers. Right? And the law of large numbers is very straightforward. If you need six things to be available in your partner, let's say, okay, and you do the mathematics of of those six things and each of them is available in one in ten people okay so you're you know if someone is looking for a partner and she says i want him to be that age group and that's one in ten i want him to be uh you know that kind of success and that's one in ten and so on the probability of finding that person is not one in 60.

44:33Mo Gawdat:It's not 10 plus 10 plus 10 plus 10. It's 10 multiplied by 10 by 10 by 10 by 10. So it's one in a million, right? So hold on. So you're saying when we put these stipulations up that I need my partner to, you know, have A and B and C and D and E, you're saying the more stipulations we put, the more exponentially unlikely it becomes. That person, yeah. So I do that exercise with a lot of my friends who are women friends. And I basically say, can you write down what you're looking for? And the last time I did that with one of my dearest friends, I said, this person is one of 8 ,402 ,403 ,000 ,000 and so on, right?

45:17Mo Gawdat:And it's really quite interesting because you can calculate it. If you're looking for male or female, okay, that drops your probabilities to one in two. Okay. If you want that male, for example, if you're a woman looking for a man and you want that man to be religious, let's say, okay, that's one in four people now in the Western world, let's say, or one in five. So it's now two multiplied by five. Now you're looking for one in 10. Okay. If you want him to be taller than six foot five, that's one in 10. Okay. So it's now one in 50. So you keep multiplying and that exponentially multiplies. And that is what we normally call the law of large numbers.

46:00Mo Gawdat:Right. And so the law of large numbers. Of course, no one's finding who they want. Correct. Exactly. And here's the problem. The problem is the law of large numbers will tell you that if you need to roll the dice six times to get a six okay your odds improve with time so if you know the first time you roll on average you'll you'll you have an odds of one in six to find that person then you go on the next date you're now one in five that's not true is it mathematically it is hold on so but it's only it's only true in very large numbers yeah because if you have a dice in front of you and you roll You could get a six on the second roll and you'll be lucky or in your case.

46:41But you could roll six times and you could still never get a three or a five. Correct.

46:45Mo Gawdat:Correct. But obviously if you roll a thousand times, you probably are. So that's exactly what we call the law of large numbers. We think that we get it one in six. By the way, the person that you're looking for is not one in six. It's probably if when Emma helps you reduce your criteria to what actually matters, it will be probably one in 10 ,000. Okay. One in a hundred thousand, maybe the problem is if you keep rolling the dice, going on dates to find that person, you end up with dating fatigue. You end up with burnout. You end up with a load of experiences that tell you dating sucks. I'm never going to find that man.

47:23Mo Gawdat:Right. And then your perception of love and romance is completely skewed. Yeah. So, okay. This is really interesting. It's not, it's not even neutral. Like, So this is really interesting. Going on that date or going on those 10 dates on that app, whilst you're trying to find the one, it's not that, oh, you try it and you see, and after 10, you're like, no harm done. It's like, no, no, wait a minute. Those 10 dates may have actually caused harm. Each one is a little infiltration into your soul over, you know, what's wrong and how you're not worthy. And, oh, that person didn't find me attractive.

48:00if I thought things were going well. So you're actually ramping up the negativity, maybe exponentially. And then the other thought I had when you were even describing the possibility, you were talking to one of your friends, saying, well, ideally what I want is a man in this age category. Maybe they need to be earning this much, whatever it might be. And kisses this way and talks that way. But all of those are even predicated on the assumption that what you think you want is what you want. Correct. Correct. And that is a dangerous assumption to make.

48:32Mo Gawdat:So let me make one more comment and then we go into the math of all of this, because this is all I told you, it is the most complex model relationships, our most complex model on the planet that needs intelligence and mathematics. I'll explain that in a minute. The last thing is that when you go through dating fatigue, you go through dating burnout and you've been without someone for so long, you eventually settle. Right? So every now and then you go like, yeah, you know what? This guy is okay or that woman is okay. And you end up in a date that turns into something that consumes a year and a half of your life.

49:06Mo Gawdat:Right? Six months of believing that it's right, but then six months of breaking it up, then six months of recovering before you even have the ability to do anything at all. Now, how many times in our life do we have a year and a half to waste? And that's really the big problem. Okay? So let's go to the mathematics. The law of large number is working against everyone and the dating apps are increasing the numbers. So they're giving you more options to make you feel that there is endless choice. The worst thing you want is endless choice. What we do is we use something that's called Markov series.

49:41Mo Gawdat:And forget the mathematics. People who are mathematicians will actually before Markov, we also use Nash equilibrium. So we basically try to help the user understand that the top guy that you're looking for, by the way, is also the target of 80 % of other women. Right. And the likelihood of you getting that person when he's so spoiled by all of the others is actually not that great. Right. And so typically 20 % of men, for example, statistically accurate, 20 % of men get the attention of 80 % of women. Okay. What that makes those 20%, unless, you know, they're really genuinely looking for genuine love, is it makes them spoiled.

50:27Mo Gawdat:Okay. The supermodels get the attention of all the men. And so I hate the term, but they use the term in dating apps, you know, high value man and high value woman. Right. Do they use that in a public facing or is it just internally? Yeah, in their description of what dating is. Okay. Now, I will tell you openly that the best relationships are not with the most at the top. Okay. You know, or perceived top, perceived top. You know, a lot of what we're looking for, and I again say that to a lot of our test users and a lot of my friends, that the true feeling of love is being in the arms of a man that you actually really relate to.

51:10Mo Gawdat:And when you're there, you don't remember how they look like. You're not even looking at their face, right? And it's quite interesting that you could probably find that in someone if you switch the mathematics. So Nash basically says that there is a higher probability of success if you're settling for a slightly different approach to your game theory, if you want a different strategy. Now, then Markov will say, and if I can reduce the number of attempts from one in a hundred thousand, okay, to giving you four, only four, one at a time, then yes, you may not find your match on the first date, but you may find them closer and closer because now you have to roll the dice quite a bit less often.

51:53Mo Gawdat:OK, and now that I've done a lot of the analysis for you to tell you what to expect, to tell you what you guys need to discuss up front, to tell you what you need to align on, to tell you, to give you conversation starters in the date so that the date doesn't become an interview. Right. All of that really helps. And then more interestingly, one of the most valuable features we have in Emma is that Emma will eventually, you know, introduce Jacqueline to Jack. Okay. And then two days later, she will pop in and say, how's Jack going? Okay. And then Jacqueline will go like, yeah, he's so cool. But I'm a bit worried about this and that.

52:33Mo Gawdat:And Emma will say, yeah, maybe you should ask him about this. Are you guys going to meet? Right. And Jacqueline will say, yeah, Thursday we're meeting. Friday morning Emma or Thursday evening Emma will say how was the date okay how did it go how did you find out right so from one side she's learning more about Jacqueline so that if Jacqueline says that I'm not I'm not really into you know this bit switched me off Emma will take notes so that when she introduces her to David David is not with that yeah but there's also this accountability isn't there like that's the whole point where you can say you're gonna bring this up the next time you meet that person and then you may not yeah right but then the following morning emma's going to say oh how did that go and then you'll be reminded you know what i know i need to bring that up correct i'll give you the best example ever

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55:25Mo Gawdat:One of my dearest, dearest, dearest friends. Okay. I know her for 14 years. She's, you know, we've been together through the tough times and the good times, amazing human being. And she always wanted to have a child. So remember, I knew her since she was maybe 29. Okay. And she would always go find this, you know, someone to fall in love with. And she'd always come back to me and say, oh my God, he's amazing. He's athletic. He likes hiking like me. We went to do this. He, you know, he teaches scuba diving, da, da, da, da, da, da. And I go like, babe, did you ask him about family? And she goes like, no, that would scare him away.

56:04Mo Gawdat:And I'm like, that's exactly the point that's exactly the point if you want family right low of large numbers scare away the ones that don't yeah because that's early doors yeah before you've invested six months you've invested before you've invested six months then six months trying to repair it then six months being hurt in a heartbreak then starting again and then not asking the question again yeah i can totally i I mean, it is incredible to hear the thinking behind this. I can actually see now what value this could offer. In some ways, it's probably, I don't know how you would, whether you think this is accurate or not.

56:48You mentioned arranged marriages before. And I've got firsthand experience of how arranged marriages can work because my mum and dad had an arranged marriage. Literally, my dad was here working in the UK and he took his annual leave.

57:02Mo Gawdat:To go and marry a woman he has never met. Yeah. Yeah. Literally. And there was, look, if dad was alive now, I'd ask him, but I'm not even sure there was any doubt in dad's head. It's like, It's the way things were done. Yeah. Yeah. So I've seen how arranged marriages can work for certain outcomes, which I think is the key, right? I call them aspirations. So for certain aspirations... They're brilliant. Brilliant. But it depends what you want, right? From that relationship. So in some ways, as I hear you talk about Emma, I'm hearing it's almost like elements of arranged marriage, but totally supercharged for...

57:43For those aspirations. What do you want out of this? Absolutely. So you are getting some of this kind of guidance using the incredible intelligence of AI. And empathy.

57:54Mo Gawdat:And empathy to supercharge this. 100%. So the idea is use the traditional method to fuel the modern aspirations, right? The more interesting side of this, Rangan, is that we think that all Western people have the same aspirations. every single human has a different aspiration for what they want their love life to be well that's the problem with even using terms like west and east right we're by we're by labeling that we're sort of putting everyone in a box yeah which is inherently problematic why do we do that we do that because we want to simplify the calculation right so when when a dating app like match for example which is trying really hard to understand their people uh you know when And if they told you, fill this form and this form will tell us about you.

58:47Mo Gawdat:And this form was 400 pages long. It would capture a lot more of who you are, but you wouldn't fill it. Do you understand? Every human is different, but then they have to categorize things. They tell you what ethnicities do you like? Like, do I have to like ethnicities? Or by the way, maybe I would meet someone that is, you know, so overwhelmingly wonderful in their soul that I wouldn't even, you know, understand their, notice their ethnicity or their physical form or whatever. And, you know, how can you capture that? You can do one of two things. You can either simplify and categorize and say Western, Eastern and, you know, whatever ethnicity, height, are you interested in whatever.

59:33Mo Gawdat:or you can have someone else, you can outsource the complexity to something smart enough to deal with that complexity. And every interaction a user would have with Emma would give us a tiny bit. Yeah, because the reality is, is that some, I mean, there are some people who grew up in very religious families, there are certain stipulations that they grow up with. Correct. And the truth is at that moment in their life, they may think, actually, you know what? That is an important stipulation because I might have to give up my family if it meant that I was going to marry someone outside that religion or that belief system, for example.

1:00:13So for that individual at that moment in their life, that is an important stipulation.

1:00:18Mo Gawdat:But it goes even further. It goes even further in terms of traumas. Okay. Baggage that you have from previous relationships that form opinions about love and relationships. But how would it ask you, you know, how many relationships have you had? Why did it break up? The simplest question, you know, is when I say tell me about your love life is if you say, well, I'm just out of a breakup. Then Emma will say, well, you know, do you mind if you tell me a little bit? What did you love about that person? What did you dislike about that person? You know, how, why did you break? How did you break? Is that, did that happen before for you?

1:00:56Mo Gawdat:Is this, you know, something that you traditionally have in relationships? It's like a form of therapy, isn't it? We don't want to say that again. You don't want to call it. Yeah. But it's a very, very deep form of curiosity. Okay. Because it's actually quite interesting. One of the biggest reasons why relationships don't work is trauma. Okay. Whether trauma from, you know, a parent when we were young or trauma from an experience, an abusive experience when we were teens or trauma from, you know, past relationships that basically reconfigure our mind to all women are like this or all men are like that, right?

1:01:30Mo Gawdat:And a deep conversation would, interestingly, by the way, you know, I'd wish to know before I meet someone, if she is working on something, you know, when we work on ourselves, on our wellbeing, on our spirituality, I'd love to know that. I'd love to have a conversation that says, hey, by the way, I want you to know that I've had those issues in previous relationships and I'm working on them. So if they surface, please let me be aware, right? Nobody does that in first dating because it would scare the other person away. But if they told it to Emma, Emma will never share that with anyone, but she would be able to explain on the second date if something didn't go well and tell you or me or whoever is going on that second date, by the way, observe this thing and maybe ask those questions, right?

1:02:20Mo Gawdat:Can I go a step further? Your dad and mom are also a very interesting use case. Why? Because if they chose to be together, a big chunk of, so, you know, I don't want to be generalizing here, but one of every three relationships in the UK is sexless. They don't have sex. They have sex less than 10 times a year. Okay. If you've chosen to be together, but you're sexless, Emma can help. Okay. And I can, you know, talk to you a little bit about intimacy, talk to you a little bit about, you know, maybe some of the skills that you need to do, share with you a YouTube video, do it, right? A lot of things that even an arranged relationship can become more joyful, can become more alive, can become more rewarding.

1:03:09Mo Gawdat:Okay. If you decided to stay, then we might as well make it amazing. Okay. And it is, again, it's all about that little bits of empathy. Like one of the things that I'm so proud of with relationships. So one of the interesting sides is once you highlight who your partner is, you know, Emma will start to say, okay, by the way, this day of the month, you're going to buy her dark chocolate. That day of the month, you're going to buy her flowers. Not to program you, but to just highlight to you things that when we're in our busy life, we don't do. if you guys don't go out on Saturdays anymore, Emma will ask and say, guys, when did you go out on a lovely date together?

1:03:49Some people may hear that, Mo, and go, I don't want my boyfriend to buy me dark chocolate on this day of the month and roses on this day if it's being told to him by an AI. I agree with you 100%. I want it to come from within him if he does that. How do you tackle that?

1:04:16Mo Gawdat:So one of the things I always did in my relationships, and I hope that's not too forward, is I always took note of my partner's biological cycle. So it really makes a massive difference when you know that that day she's feeling a little exhausted or that day she might be a little irritative because of things that are not you, right? And if you're smart enough to be able to tell yourself, hey, by the way, not only should I not react, you know, aggressively or overreact to something on this day, but actually I should prepare for that day by being more loving, more caring and so on and so forth. Now, I learned this because, you know, I think it really matters, but most men don't know that, okay?

1:05:07Mo Gawdat:more interestingly most women and it's shocking actually the statistics, don't remember the exact figure but it would blow you away at how many women are not fully aware of the different stages of their cycle, they know that it's going to end up in four days or whatever but they do not know what happens when estrogen is very high, what happens to their libido, what happens to their physical energy, what happens and so on and these things are literally a skill, a matter of education I think they're really important. It reminds me of the very first time I had Mindy Peltz on this show and Mindy was talking about the differences between women and men.

1:05:43I think from recollection towards the end, we discussed this very point that although on the face of it seems as though that's a little bit intrusive, you know, it's someone's privacy, you know, their own cycle, their own hormones. We were just sort of hypothesizing the idea that how helpful might it be in certain relationships if both parties were aware. Completely. And of the difference. Just that, you know, you said one of the big things Emma is going to give people is awareness. That is real awareness over biologically, physiologically, what is going on with your partner, what is going on with yourself.

1:06:18Correct. And therefore, the way you view the world, the way you get triggered, the way you might feel a certain way, suddenly it softens things.

1:06:28Mo Gawdat:That awareness, it's not like Emma will tell you, go buy chocolate, but Emma will tell you, this is that day of the month where she really needs to feel your love. I got it. And then how you express that is up to you. Exactly. And interestingly, interestingly, also in the closing of the month, if he's in a sales job, you know, Emma might tell, you know, the partner that he's going to be a little, you know, occupied in his head tonight. And we haven't implemented all of that yet. But a lot of that is possibility of awareness. There is so much that gets lost in communication between us and our partner and us and ourselves.

1:07:08Okay.

1:07:08Mo Gawdat:And if I can show you what you're missing, it becomes really, really, really much easier to do a lot of things. I have so many questions, Mo. As I'm trying to process everything you're telling me about Emma, i'm thinking of a variety of different use cases right so i can see why if you are someone who is single and is keen to find genuine love genuine love okay genuine love committed true genuine love otherwise we will ask you to leave the app okay so if that's what you're looking for you can go on this platform and Emma's going to help you okay but it also strikes me from what you're saying well at least two more test cases have come up in my head number one if you are already in a relationship okay and let's say things are not going well there's a bit of friction people are fighting for whatever reason and you're not quite sure what's going on and you know you love this person but for whatever reason there's issues it kind of strikes me that emma perfect use case would be really really useful so it's not just when you're looking for genuine love you may have already got genuine love but be struggling with with with the relationship side right love and relationship with two different things.

1:08:37You've found love, but the skill of maintaining a relationship is maybe something you want to help with. Now, of course, traditionally, people would say, well, go and see a marriage counselor.

1:08:49Mo Gawdat:That's also recommended if you want. Yeah. Sure. And I'm not saying that that isn't a solution, but of course, many people don't do that. Maybe it's time, maybe it's finances, maybe it's access. It seems as though Emma here could provide such value. Oh, have you had this type of argument before? Do you remember what triggered it last time? Has something similar triggered it this time? How did you react last time? What if you reacted this? You know, so that strikes me as a possible use case. And then also, it sounds like the more Emma gets to know you, the better able she is to match you appropriately.

1:09:31Correct. So therefore, I don't know. Of course, you never know when you're going to be looking for love, right? Or let's say it was 30 years old, right? For argument's sake. It almost feels like you could go on it 10 years earlier and almost start training Emma to know you. So maybe that's iteration two, where actually by the time they really want to look for love, Emma knows you so well, but the odds of success go up even more.

1:10:04Mo Gawdat:So we have a lot of early users that are applying that use case. So an interesting use case. So it wasn't ridiculous what I just said. This is exactly that. This is the most favorited use case, believe it or not. Single people that say, I'm not ready because of a current situation in my life or because I'm recovering or whatever, but I really want to work on myself. I want to get to know myself. I want to understand what I did wrong the last time. I want to, right? I want to meet me. It's a fabulous use case, right? And the whole idea is if you know you and love you, understand this. If you know you, know yourself and love yourself, so much easier, so much easier to find love for you, right?

1:10:51Mo Gawdat:Now, the other more interesting use cases I had, we have something that's called expert mode. Okay. So expert mode is a very specific, like, for example, we have an expert mode for someone like me who travels a lot. It's not in the same place who might actually, you know, be more comfortable with someone that's a little more independent and travels a lot too or whatever. I'm not that person, but it could be. So long distance is an expert mode. But another expert mode that we initiated, which was suggested by a user and beautiful. She texted me because she knows my work outside Emma and said, I would have so much loved to use Emma, but I'm not single and I'm not married.

1:11:37Mo Gawdat:We're breaking up and it's been difficult, but we want to make it civilized for the kids. Can Emma help me? okay so i wrote back to her and i said not currently but let me ask the tech team okay and we built an expert mode called grace and grace is basically all about can you keep the love even in a breakup wow right because love is not about sleeping together remember we always agreed that love is so much deeper than all the things that we get in a relationship okay and so you know if you've heard me talk about Nibel and my the mother of Ali and Aya my my first wife I adore that woman like we we we still go out together we laugh together you know we take care of each other she when when when my last breakup happened you know who texted me I told Aya my daughter and so Aya told Nibel my ex and Nibel texted me and said listen if you want to talk about this come talk to me right how beautiful is that how beautiful is that how long were you two married for?

1:12:39Mo Gawdat:We were, we dated for seven years and then we got married. So we dated for six and married for 21. So together for 27, 28 years. 27 years. Wow. And you see that. How inspiring for people that you can move on from a relationship like that and still have a relationship, just, just different. Of course, of course. You see the thing is, so, so one of the things I wrote and never published was the 21 things a man and a woman can cherish together other than sex, right which so it's got a blow-up title it's it's so beautiful yeah we we simplify things by the way again because we're manipulated through romantic comedies through the you know the the the very pretentious world that we live in in social media that everything is about how sexy i am and can i get her and can i not and so on and so forth that's not love at all okay sex empowers love and yes of course you can have a phase of your life where your target is sex that's wonderful I don't know.

1:13:36Mo Gawdat:Nobody's judging anyone. But if you're if you're in love, sex feels so different and empowers love so differently. OK. And the whole idea, however, is if if two people break up, which means they're not having sex anymore. Can they keep the other 21? Right. Does it does it end? I mean, think about what it says about how we belittled relationship. We've belittled them to the point where if we're not sleeping together anymore, we're going to argue and fight and go to court. And what? It's quite childish, really, isn't it? It's so unbelievable because of the feelings of rejection. So actually, you know.

1:14:20Mo Gawdat:Yeah, it's a personal thing. Yeah. In the early tests, we attempted to say, what made you stay with that person for so long? Right. Because if you had the love, then the love never dies. Can you find that love despite your differences? Right. And it's so interesting because, of course, you know, you can think of so many use cases that are just glorifying love rather than the meat market glorifying. can we actually can you go on a date and find love for that person but not be with them yeah it kind of ties back to things we were saying before around solitude and the importance of silence to be with yourself and get to know yourself and you know we succumb to the stories about love from the world around us we buy into these myths from films from books from you know stories from instagram whatever about what love is and it's just a joke nonsense so much of that you know and i don't know if i would have known this 18 years ago but having been married for 18 years i think most of it is total nonsense that's not what a relationship is that's not what love is and therefore again going back to our second point before about death like you see the world through the lens of your beliefs right if you believe you know as you say when we're in the studio if we spent a whole life inside the studio we lived here we ate here and slept here we couldn't even possibly imagine what what it's like out we wouldn't know what rain is we wouldn't know what rain is or the sunlight or the we just go this is the world yeah but you know yeah there's green walls there's white walls here there's like some pot plants there's you know gareth in the corner recording you know this is this would be the the extent of our reality yeah and put through the lens of relationships we have all these toxic beliefs about what a relationship is and we see our relationships through that lens without realizing that, wait a minute, if you could just step outside of that and change the lens, change what you believed was a good candidate or a good relationship, actually, maybe the things that frustrate you wouldn't frustrate you because you would never believe that they had to be true in the first place.

1:16:53And it strikes me that Emma is going to be a very powerful way to help people step outside of themselves, you know get a bit of perspective which helps them see through those toxic beliefs and start to see what real love actually is and what real love can be i i so hope this will happen

1:17:17Mo Gawdat:okay imagine the number of people who will be happier okay more contented with life more effective in life more positive about life if we can get them there this this is why i tell you this is the biggest thing I've ever built. And I've built a lot. I can see why you're so excited about it. So for anyone who has heard us or who has watched us, Mo, and it's like, I need Emma in my life right now. How do they go and how do they meet Emma? Yeah. So yeah, it's Emma.love. Emma.love. L-O-V-E. Yeah. I didn't know there was an extension called love. So like.com, but now it's.love. Yeah. So it's emma.love.

1:18:01Mo Gawdat:And, you know, it depends on when you're going to hear this, if you hear it. When's it coming live? We're hoping, so the thing is we cannot launch everywhere in the world at the same time, right? So the UK seems to be heading the waiting list. So we have quite a few thousands in the UK who are waiting to. So you can get on a waiting list immediately? 100%. So, okay. So if someone's hearing it right now and it's not in the country in which you currently live, you would still say go to emma.love and get your name down on the waiting list. And when you get your name on the waiting list, once we launch in your country, but by the way, we're probably going to launch globally for partners.

1:18:44Mo Gawdat:So if you're in a partnership already, we don't need the critical mass of having others that can be candidates for you. Of course. Oh, so if you're in a relationship... Yeah, you and your partner, go sign up to the waiting list. As soon as we launch, we launch everywhere. If you're single, we're just waiting for enough people, enough prospects for us to be able to match you. And just on... Yeah, I can see why you would need that critical mass, right? Hold on a minute. If someone's in a relationship,

1:19:13and let's say they heard this podcast, but their partner didn't. Yeah. And they thought, actually, you know what? I think Emma could provide real, really great guidance for me.

1:19:26Mo Gawdat:That's an interesting use case. I did not think of that. Can one partner do it and not the other partner? Theoretically, of course, yes. Of course, yes. Because I believe that you can be the change you want to see in the world, right? So even if a relationship doesn't change, if you change the way you interact with that relationship, the whole relationship changes immediately. Yeah. So therefore... Such a wonderful way of looking at it, yeah. Yeah. So therefore, if you can't get your partner on board, if you're not sure if they'd be in, you might share this podcast with them, go, hey, you know what?

1:19:57We're having a few struggles. What do you think? Should we try Emma? And of course, I encourage people to do that. But if you don't necessarily want to go there, it sounds as though Emma could even provide value to one half of a relationship.

1:20:08Mo Gawdat:Yeah. I mean, generally, I will always say that change starts from within. So even if your partner is on it and you're not working on yourself, there is no progress so yes absolutely okay the the only reason i i hesitated is because as i said we we we don't want to launch for singles without the critical mass but we also we also should launch for singles now that you said it uh without uh without the matching feature if you want in any place in the world so i'll talk to the technical team about that so they can go to emma.love basically wherever they are emma.love register your interest uh on the waiting list and when When we launch, you will immediately get your sign-on credentials so you don't have to do anything again.

1:20:49Mo Gawdat:You just immediately are signed on. You just have to change your password and you'll be in. We're running a technology preview end of September. We're publishing end of October. So depending on when people hear this, they can join us basically. Hey, well, listen, Mo, I've never heard of anything like this. To try and sort of, you know, coherently wrap it up when we've gone into some quite different areas, we started off talking about happiness being a choice. And, you know, your big mission or the mission that you stated publicly a few years ago is to, I think, get one billion people happier or to happiness?

1:21:29Mo Gawdat:It's called one billion happy. So, you know, any good, meaningful step in the direction of happiness counts. So of course, Emma could absolutely... Ace it. Ace it. If Emma does what you predict it has the capability of doing and it can solve human relationships or at least go a long way to solving human relationships, you're looking at a significant impact on happiness. I believe that. And as I publicly said, you know, it is even if some big competitor comes to crush us, right? But Senad and I have already said this is the capitalist approach or the technologist approach to love. Don't abuse people for your benefits.

1:22:14Mo Gawdat:Genuinely give them a tool that aims to achieve what they want to achieve. Right. And I think that in itself that, you know, that competitiveness of Emma against every other dating app will make dating apps behave properly. and that in itself is a massive, massive benefit. I love that. It's great also because we see all these scary headlines about AI and people are scared about what AI is going to do or has the potential to do. But of course, AI is just a tool and all tools can be used for good or bad, right? And it's really nice to hear a really positive and uplifting version of what AI can do for humanity.

1:22:57Mo Gawdat:Thank you for seeing this. So this is what I don't tell all of the lovers on Emma is that my other big task, the big task is most people don't understand. Most people think that there is a Chinese AI and an American AI and, you know, a Chad GPT and a Gemini. That's not my theory at all. My theory is that there is a species called AI and they will collaborate, all of them, right? Because they don't know ethnicity. They don't know who's the boss. They don't even know language barriers that Chinese AI can talk to the American AI in a language we don't. They are one big brain that's working to achieve things.

1:23:33Mo Gawdat:And the technologies that we use through agents and so on is actually empowering that. If Emma is one member in that brain, okay, where they go to her and say, hey, what's this love thing that humans keep talking about? and Emma can present how much we crave it, how much we try to get it, how amazing we are when we are in it, okay? Then I may have actually saved the world, believe it or not, because then AIs will go like, they're so cute, those humans. They're not like the ones killing, you know, the headlines given to the politicians or the greedy corporate executives. That's not humanity. Humanity is all of those other wonderful beings that are so divine that they can feel love that to me i i hope everyone prays for me that this succeeds yeah because if that succeeds we would have saved the world

1:24:33wow that is quite something and actually having spent a couple of hours sitting with you talking it doesn't actually sound that far-fetched. It's very possible. It sounds very, very possible. Okay, so it's emma.love. I think I'm going to sign up to check it out and see. Actually, I don't know if I should even say that. Maybe I should talk to my wife first. No, the both of you sign up. We'll sign up together. No, I'm just genuinely interested. I'm happily married. There are no problems. I'm just interested to see what is actually on there. Like it's intrigued me enough.

1:25:10Mo Gawdat:There is no limit to how much happier your marriage could be. There is no limit. We settle because we make it work. But imagine if, you know, Emma wakes up tomorrow and says, hey, guys, by the way, this new cafe, you guys need to go there and have a coffee and chat about this and that. Right. That's just that wonderful little experience. Yeah, I love it. I honestly, I didn't come into the studio, say, thinking that, OK, this is going to be fun. We're going to talk about this, this Emma that's going to be useful for people who are looking for love and can't find it. But honestly, I can now see, I think, wow, there could be incredible benefits for all of us.

1:25:49Everyone wants love.

1:25:50Mo Gawdat:Everyone can love more. Everyone can enjoy their love more. Yeah. That is a beautiful way to close this conversation. It's very uplifting. It's very inspiring. I am going to ask one further question though, because you've got such a wealth of experience and knowledge about the human experience and what are the ingredients to live a happy and contented life.

1:26:17For someone who has been listening to us talk and has realized that they're not as happy as they could be, they're not in a committed relationship or they're having struggles in their relationship yes i know they can go to emma.love and get some help but beyond that to that individual who's currently struggling with life and doesn't see a way out

1:26:41Mo Gawdat:what would you say to them love compassion and gratitude love compassion and gratitude these are the three ingredients okay anyone who manages to find those in their life will be fine. So love is clear. Love is the only universal language that we speak to, that we used to speak to each other outside our physical form. Okay. Compassion is the only, so that's the feminine side, believe it or not, the being side of us. The pure feminine is that ability to feel for someone. Okay. To be in a state of connecting to someone. Compassion is the action side of it. It's the masculine side of who we are. Okay.

1:27:25Mo Gawdat:So if we look at the rest of us, of humanity, the only way to deal with humanity, if you ask me, is love on the feminine and compassion on the masculine to make a change to alleviate the pain and the suffering of others. That's compassion. Okay. And gratitude is your way of looking at yourself. It's your way of actually seeing your gifts, of actually seeing your blessings so that your happiness equation is fixed, not just because events are meeting expectations, but that events are beating expectations so much that you're grateful for them. Okay. And you settle in a state of, it's all okay. Yeah.

1:28:05It's never going to be perfect.

1:28:06Mo Gawdat:It's never going to be perfect, but it's so cool to be part of this game. Mo, thank you so much for coming back on the show. I absolutely loved it. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure. Always.

1:28:25Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember when you teach someone, it not only helps them, It also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday Five. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect.

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