Mo Gawdat - The 3 BIGGEST Mistakes We Make In Finding Love

0:00If we drop our egos as humans, we realise the gift. Love is not about sleeping together. How similar or not do you feel heartbreak is to grief? Identical. Welcome to How To Fail. This is the podcast that believes, as Truman Capote did, that failures are the condiment that gives success their flavour. Before we get onto this episode, I just want to give you a quick reminder to subscribe so you never miss a How To Fail conversation. this episode is brought to you by squarespace now i know a little bit about building a website because i was pretty hands-on when i launched my own production company and its own website and i wish squarespace had been around then because it ultimately makes your life so much easier by providing built-in solutions all with their best in class design and i'm not the only one who feels this.

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2:25In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your£1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.co.uk slash fail. Go to shopify.co.uk slash fail. Here you're first. This new year with Shopify by your side. I am so happy about today's How to Fail guest, which is not unrelated to the way this person makes me and so many others feel. Because when Mo Gowdat first appeared on this podcast in 2019, he fundamentally changed my mindset and my approach to life. Back then, podcasting was still in its infancy. We didn't have video cameras or fancy YouTube channels like we do now.

3:15And Mo was promoting his soon to be bestselling book, Solve for Happy. The wisdom he dispensed in that episode led to an outpouring of love from the How to Fail community. I have lost count of the number of people who still come up to me and tell me how he changed their lives, especially when Mo spoke about the death of his beloved son, Ali, at the age of 21, and how he navigated that terrible grief. Over the years, I've watched in admiration as Mo, a former chief business officer at Google X, has gone from strength to strength. He is now the author of several international bestselling books, including Scary Smart, That Little Voice in Your Head, and Unstressable.

4:01His own podcast, Slow Mo, is a chart-topping mental health podcast, and he's about to launch a game-changing AI-powered app called Emma that promises to help us all find and sustain love. I don't often have repeat guests on How to Fail, but Mo is always going to be the exception to the rule because in many ways, I feel we've grown up together. Mo's DNA is woven through How to Fail's origin story. And as lots of you will know, I quote him all the time. Compassionately wise, intelligently thoughtful. He is the lighthouse guiding us safely to shore. So it brings me great pleasure to say, Mo Gaudat, welcome back to How to fail.

4:51You always embarrass me like that. You always do. I think that's your editorial skill. You find incredible words to describe things that I would dream to be. I don't know if I am, but I come here just to see you, to be honest. That's the whole thing, isn't it? You have become such a leading voice, not only in the mental health space, but now in navigating the future of AI. But I wanted to start by asking you about the last seven years, because it's almost seven years since we first met. It's almost seven years since you wrote Solve for Happy. And seven years, it's a crucial length of time for humans because we're meant to regenerate every single cell.

5:35Yes. How do you feel? Do you feel you've regenerated yourself? I have completely changed. So like you have no remaining cells in your body from seven years ago, I honestly am a different person. On the one side, I have completely stopped being the corporate executive I used to be. When we met, I was running One Billion Happy as a project. You know, like we want to measure, we want to progress. Why did that not reach people? we need to make this. And then I gave up completely. So one billion happy for anyone who doesn't know was your commitment to make one billion people on this earth happy? Happier.

6:18I mean, happy absolutely is impossible. But I wanted people to take charge of their own happiness and hopefully have the compassion to make others happy. And we measured at the time, I still measure a little bit, but not as obsessively, people who got the message and took action either to improve their own happiness or someone else's happiness. And I think there was a moment, probably around the time when we first met, where I realized that I wasn't doing anything, that maybe it's actually a nice thing to surrender to the fact that things are being done through me. And my God, it just exploded on my, you know, my personal side.

7:04I have evolved into this little teddy bear, seriously, who is, I mean, in a way, I got so much closer to my wonderful daughter, which I think matters more than anything in the world. We've always been close, but it's just constantly, you just get surprised by how far love can go, right? Because you think you have something and then you go further and you go like, whoa, like, you know, you can continue. and she's amazing in every way. Beautiful. Yeah, as I told you, I fell head over heels in love. Unfortunately, failed. And I'm so sorry to hear that because I didn't know it until you arrived here today.

7:49And because today is going to be all about love and because you've been on the podcast before, we're doing something slightly different today where we're going to discuss three mistakes that humans make when it comes to love. But before we get onto that, and I do want to talk to you about your relationship, and I'm so sorry that it's ended, but as you will know from us knowing each other very well, I fundamentally believe that no marriage or any relationship is a failure simply because it ends. That's true. I have to say though. So I'm usually quite resilient. I mean, Ali left. So I dealt with that.

8:30I struggle with losing Hannah. I do. I struggle because I see what I did wrong. And yeah, it's interesting because I think what, of course, long distance is very, very difficult. We were between London and Dubai and she is thriving. She's an incredible therapist, incredibly smart, so committed. And so we couldn't be in the same place. and that adds a massive weight to a relationship. But I didn't know that because I travel all the time. So my lifestyle basically is just mad. And Hannah was the first time that I opened my eyes to the fact that, no, this is not normal at all. It's like even if I want to keep up with you and enjoy the incredible places you go to, it's almost impossible, right?

9:33But also I have to say for the first time ever, I wanted her so much. I wanted it to succeed so much that I wasn't the man I was supposed to be. In that I just was very calculating in every word that I said. I was very, I wasn't vulnerable enough to share what I was going through because I was afraid it would upset her. And, you know, in an interesting way, all of that worked the opposite way, if you want. At the same time, of course, she also has work to do and she knows that. But I'm only at liberty to talk about what I learned. And yeah, and I have to say, we came to a point where we said this is not timed right at all.

10:24And that it is, you know, not helping us thrive. But I have to admit I'm not able to let go of the fact that this could have really worked. Mo, I'm so sorry. This is Hannah, who you got married to. So the last time I saw you, you were so in the throes of this love affair. And I'm so sorry for both of you that this has ended in this way. And I really appreciate your vulnerability. and it strikes me that when we were talking about the seven-year regeneration you were talking about allowing yourself almost to become a vessel letting go of the control that you thought you had over what you were saying and what you were messaging to the world and maybe do you feel that's also what you went through in this relationship that maybe you were trying to calibrate and control things too much.

11:21It's quite interesting because I have to say, you know, as feminine as I can be sometimes, my navigation through life is always through my stronger side, if you want, my very analytical, very mathematical view of the world. And I think this relationship was basically telling me this has expired. that, you know, that, I mean, it's so interesting because we broke up at the time when I was designing Emma. And so in a very interesting way, you know, I was Emma's number one user, basically, in through the need of trying to figure out why, why do we, why do we not get there? Okay. It seems to me that as a society, we overanalyze what has become, in my mind, the most complex mathematical problem on the planet, which is the complexity of relationships.

12:27Love is so easy. Love is so easy to fall in love is, I think, our default setting. It's, you know, you can only block it. But if you let yourself, you will fall in love. And I think the challenge is that the complexity of relationships always hits you from a different direction every time. And it is, you know, in my heart, I'm very good at letting go. Okay. But I think this will take a bit of time. Yes. And that doesn't mean that you're failing at it. It's not a failure, of course. It's the best thing that ever happened. And I remember when we first spoke, I think I was still dealing with a past breakup.

13:11I remember, yeah. And I remember asking you, how do you deal with a breakup? And you said this very profound thing. You said, when someone tells me that they have broken up with someone or relationship has ended or they've been dumped, the first thing I say to them is congratulations. Yeah, I would kill anyone who would tell me that now. I'm quoting Mo Gowda back to Mo Gowda. But the point that you made, which I think still stands, is that you could guarantee that they hadn't been happy in that relationship for at least a few weeks, few months up to that point. And that the world is full of so many people and that you will find love again if you're searching for it.

13:49Yeah, that's very true. And, you know, if you really, really, really deeply understand life, life is a series of seasons and experiences. and the idea that you end the relationship is just an open door for another one, okay? And, you know, every one of them is a beautiful mirror that creates an amazing set of memories in your life, an amazing, you know, reckoning, understanding of who you are, you know, who the other was, like the beauty of being able to hug such a beautiful soul like Hannah is just wonderful. It's also quite an interesting part of life to understand that failing in a relationship has absolutely nothing to do with the duration or the continuation or anything at all other than were you able to open up enough to be one with a person with another soul for a period of your life.

14:57And if you've managed to do that, you know, then that's it. And in a very interesting way, I know you know that about me, I feel that every woman that ever blessed me in my life is an incredible gift, right? And so the love never ends. It's just morphs, right? And, you know, if any of my exes hear this, they will nod because we are very close, we're still in touch. That's the beauty of love. Love is not about sleeping together. If you think about it, you know, what's the cutest thing about this whole breakup is that the first person that texted me was Nibel, the mother of Ali, right? And she said, I heard, are you okay?

15:43And I was like, about what? And she said, about Hannah. I really loved her. I had hoped that it would work for you. If you want to talk, call me. I'm like, oh my God, you're so sweet. You're so sweet. And you see, these are the types of connections that if we drop our egos as humans, we realize the gift, right the ego is oh they hurt me or you know we disagreed or whatever okay but the reality is they blessed us they really really I mean that idea of someone trusting you enough to undress with you it's just so beautiful and and then and then things change the season moves on Love never ends. It morphs is so beautiful.

16:38How similar or not do you feel heartbreak is to grief? Oh, identical. It takes longer though. So heartbreak is very similar to a terminal diagnosis followed by grief. So grief happens twice, you know. So if you fear the loss of someone, that in itself is a process of grief. And then eventually if you lose them, that's another process of grief. And I think that the issue with heartbreak is that we keep trying. Okay. Even though sometimes logically, it's so clear that at least a break is a good idea or that, you know, maybe, maybe that love was pure enough that it didn't take into consideration the complexity of the mathematics of relationships.

17:31relationships, right? And so we grief twice. We grief through the process of getting to a heartbreak and then we grief through the process of overcoming a heartbreak. I have to say that one of the top, top, top reasons why dating in general and love in general nowadays is failing is because we fail to reflect on a heartbreak to turn it into a learning and uh when when we're going through it it's all about the negative side of it not the positive learnings that you've gained uh you know which basically is what a relationship is all about believe it or not whether it breaks or not i mean i know you seven years now i have to say Justin got the best out of you yes yeah well I agree with you yeah that I am so lucky and blessed now to have found someone who supports me being the best version of myself and I hope I do the same for him and that for me is about feeling fully accepted flaws and all because I totally relate to what you were saying I know you're surprised to hear that I don't know of any But I so relate to what you were saying about that idea that you're so desperate for something to work that you're sort of hiding what you believe to be your shadow side.

18:59And she told me so many times. She? Yeah, I just couldn't get it. Well, the thing that I quote most, I think, of yours, along with the Becky brain, is when you experience the terrible loss of your beloved Ali, and you would wake up in the weeks after he died in tears, and the first thought would be he died. and after a while you thought I can't I can't continue to live like this I need to change my mindset and you still woke up and you still had that thought he died but you add and he also lived yeah and within that sentence was 21 years of memories and love and a father-son relationship that was like a best friendship do you apply that same thinking now to the end of this relationship well if if if this relationship was all about our our second kiss our first kiss sucked did it why i'll tell you okay switch off those cameras uh i think that would be enough I have lived.

20:11I have to say it is we take those things for granted. You see dating in the modern world toughens us up. You know what I mean? It removes the glory of, oh my God, that fusion of two souls is just... divine. And, and, you know, I think the problem is that people don't understand the difference between the, the soul fusion of love and the, and the physical fusion of love. When people go on a date, they tell themselves they're looking for love. They're not. They're looking for something I normally refer to as perfect, PPRFCTS, right? So we go to dates looking for P, passion, so sex, basically, for those of us who are interested, you know, we're looking for partnership, okay?

21:20Someone that we navigate the confusion of life with. We're looking for romance, the best hormone cocktail on the planet. You know, a bit of uncertainty mixed with excitement. You know, the only state where humans have both dopamine and serotonin in their blood at the same time. We look for F friendships, right? So we need someone that feels like a friend that we can share things with and so on. we look for companionship you know those wonderful couples that go out in the morning read two different books and don't say a word yeah this you know an amazing amazing feeling we look for tenderness touch gentleness kindness okay and we look for support which the western world refuses to acknowledge but support comes in multiple multiple multiple you know versions of it where one side of the relationship would do something the other is completely incapable of doing and and vice versa and you know and and when we go out on dates that's actually what we're looking for love has nothing to do with that love in my own definition is not even of the physical world love is a is a you know in my definition is is a is a is a longing a sense of longing in the physical world because of a sense of belonging in the spiritual world.

22:52It's those two souls are up there saying, I like you so much, you're part of me. Let's have the avatars, the physical avatars connect as well. Okay. And so that whole idea of solving love is impossible because love is not in the physical world. Love is your ability to literally let go and allow yourself to be who you are. Okay. And, and then, and then the rest, the complexity down here is just, is just like navigating the finance world. It's like navigating the, you know, the, the, the politics at work. It is a complex challenge. Okay. That driven by love can be easier, but it still remains to be two people aligning across a thousand parameters every day.

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25:55Go to ruler.com, that's R-U-L-A.com slash HTF and take the first step towards better mental health today. You deserve quality care from someone who cares. Hi, everyone. It's JVN from Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness. This season, we've been talking a lot about hope. Not the fluffy kind, but the grounded, gritty, we're actually doing something kind. One of the places I turn for that is Americans United for Separation of Church and State. They're this quiet and mighty force that's been working to keep religion and government separate so all of us can live as ourselves and believe as we choose, as long as we don't harm others.

26:35Church-state separation touches so many of the things we care about. LGBTQIA plus rights, marriage equality, reproductive freedom, and abortion access. Americans United is out here being one of the vital voices of reason, fighting in the courts and in Congress and pushing back against Christian nationalist efforts to force everyone to live by one narrow set of beliefs. You can learn so much more about what AU does and how to support their work at au.org slash getting better. Your support, no matter the amount, helps to safeguard our freedoms. Americans United is fighting for freedom without favor and equality without exception.

27:12You can start a chapter in your hometown today. You can volunteer money or time. Get involved in your community. Learn more at au.org slash better. Let's get on to Emma and get on to these failures that we make when we search for this illusory love. First of all, tell me what Emma does. Because I do think it's brilliantly conceived. Yeah, Emma's my biggest attempt ever. I told you before we started, this actually is the first time in my life that I feel I will fix something about the world. I've done, luckily, I've been blessed with doing well so far, right? I get a lot of people that say, you have an impact on my life, and I appreciate it.

27:56But I never felt I could fix something. I could affect one person, you know, 100 people. And I might actually fix something about the world. And I have to admit it might fix the biggest challenge of our world, which is the challenge of love, believe it or not. And, you know, basically I've met this incredible co-founder of mine, Senad, who's 27, who's even more geeky than I am. Can you believe that? I'm struggling. I am struggling. I swear. I mean, we are like the ultimate geeks. OK, so so we decided that we were going to create an AI that has one obsession, which is to help you find and nurture true love.

28:42OK, and we make that known up front. So when when we opened the waiting list, we basically said if you're looking for a hookup or you're looking for a one night stand or you're looking to experiment, you're not in the right place. And Emma will tell you that if that's what you're looking for. She will tell you, I'm really sorry, I suggest you use other apps. Right. But the whole idea is that love of another starts with awareness of the self and love of the self. And most of today's dating scene doesn't do that at all. Today's dating apps, for example, are focused on the looks of the other person.

29:18They're not focused on you. Okay. And Emma wants to reverse that. It wants to help you understand yourself enough, right? Understand your preferences, your past, your experiences, what you used to crave but told yourself you shouldn't, what you now crave but probably should not, you know, all of the traumas that you may not be aware of, all of the things that normally manifest when we fall in love and remove our veil, right? And lead to breakups eventually. and it's attempt like literally the first message Emma will tell you is hi I'm Emma, excited to meet you I am obsessed with helping you find ink, basically she said obsessed is what we say internally but she will tell you my purpose is to help you find and return and nurture true love.

30:11Emma's not a dating app remember as she's all about nurturing love dating is just the process of getting you in love so that we can nurture it. Brilliant. And so it's very different than other dating apps because we don't want to send you on more dates. We want to send you on fewer dates that are actually mathematically accurate. Okay. So let's get on to the first failure that humans make, because I think it's connected to what you've just said, which is that we use capitalist tools that rig the system against us. What do you mean by that? Dating is very profitable for so many people. I mean, think about it.

30:54What's the success of dating apps? You know, they'll tell you that the success is for you to find a match. But no, the success is to have a lot more people in the meat market so that they can show you more images. The success is for you to have more likes so that you feel your ego gratified right the success is for you to keep swiping because that fuels their renewal of their you know of their subscription and so on and at the end of the day believe it or not you're not the customer you're the product. This has blown my mind because it sounds so obvious when you say it because you have the gift of making profound thoughts accessible.

31:38And if you understand how the corporate world works, you know, what might sometimes start as, yeah, let's help people find love. When you become a corporate and you have a stock and you have to, you know, work for the shareholders and so on, you eventually have two departments, one that lies and the other that tells the people, the world, the lies. So, you know, the slogans that are marketed to you are not at all the truth. Nobody would measure how many customers we lost last week because they found love. Right? Yes. And so the idea is interesting, but it's not just them. The place you go to on your first date wants more dating.

32:21You know, the flower shops want more dating. Everyone wants you to date forever. Even wedding planners, okay, their business would improve if you got married twice in a lifetime, not once. And so it's quite interesting that consciously or unconsciously, I'm not saying there is any evil in this, but we improve what we measure. OK. And the capitalist world of the dating scene has not only turned your constant suffering into money. Right. But interestingly, they have redesigned the supply demand equation. OK, so so it is actually the reason why dating is becoming so frustrating in the modern world is because that's the reality of the new scene.

33:11OK, we've completely broken supply demand. And in a in a very interesting way, we've completely reduced the value of the product to a swipe. Okay. And so even if you find someone that seems to be a good match, you're constantly asking yourself, but there are 4 billion more that I haven't swiped on yet. The noise of that scene is that 90 % of matches don't actually result in a date, not even in a relationship. Right. But more interestingly, most of those relationships are becoming so shallow that 20 % of men are getting 80 % of women. Right. And that spoils the 20 % and the 80%. Do you understand that?