Ex-Google Exec Reveals Why 95% of Relationships Fail (and How to Fix It) | Mo Gawdat

27:51Mo Gawdat:Okay. But work for you, not against you. That's one side. The other side is, remember, Emma is not about building a relationship between her and you. Yeah. It's about building a relationship between you and you, okay, which I think is the relationship that matters the most. And then based on that relationship, coaching you sometimes, pushing back sometimes, helping you find a relationship with others. Now, what I call the empathy observer is it is expected that so many people will say, oh my God, he did this and that and he spoke about it this way and right. And the typical chat GPT would say, oh my God, he is so wrong.

28:32Mo Gawdat:You are so right. You are beautiful. You're amazing. That's it. Emma will ask you and say, have you considered his experience of this? Would you want to write to me what he might have felt? Which in relationships matters the most, but even in dating, because it highlights to you that some of the things that you believe are true are not always true. okay so as you go through that process you know a couple of days later she'll go like are you guys going on a date right and you'll say yeah Thursday evening we're going on a date and Emma will show up Thursday afternoon and say I think those five conversation starters are something to keep in mind and hey by the way remember you guys don't match on this so bring up the topic okay the whole approach is that she is so obsessed with getting as close as possible to helping you find something that is really what you deserve.

29:30Mo Gawdat:Okay. And, and I know that is very courageous of me and my co-founder, Senna, to do, but to help you do that, sometimes we're going to have to tell you there's something within yourself you have to work on. Okay. And, you know, I'm, I'm 58. I'm old enough. I've seen a million experiences and there is so much I need to work on. It's quite interesting. My last relationship was so eye-opening for me. What did you learn from your last relationship? I actually, so quite a few things, honestly, but I mean, I can't speak about her, but she too acknowledges that she has things to work on. But in my biggest side of it, which I have to say was is not the typical me, but I wanted Hannah so much that I was not able to show myself fully.

30:22Mo Gawdat:I was constantly thinking, what would she think if I say this? You know, maybe she'd be sensitive about that. Maybe I shouldn't share this one this way. Maybe I should hold back. Maybe I should. And so I wasn't really fully me. If you really think about it. And, you know, I wasn't, even though I was trying to be present, only parts of me were present. And Hannah's very sensitive, so she noticed that. And it is motivated by the right thing, but it was completely invulnerable, if you want. Of course, you know our story, we also were long distance. So, you know, I lived mostly, let's call it my home base is Dubai and her home base is London.

31:06Mo Gawdat:And with my weird travel style, it became extremely demanding, stressful on her life. And she's amazing. She's the most incredible therapist I know on the planet. thriving career, constantly helping people. And so we wanted her to continue to succeed as she is, which meant that she couldn't really leave everything behind and move to Dubai. I couldn't leave everything behind and move to London. And I have to say, I underestimated that. Hannah was the first time in my life where she openly said to me that, no, you don't understand. You know, You think that your lifestyle is manageable, but that's because it's always been worse than this.

31:57Mo Gawdat:But when you really see the reality of it, my God, I've never realized how mad. I mean, this month, I'm on the road 23 days. Okay? How do you establish any kind of deep connection if you're on the road 23 days? So I have to admit, it's a big struggle for me because I really wanted her. And you know, you met her. Yeah, I met her a few times. Yeah. I really wanted us to work. I really, really wanted us to work. And I can easily see how I would have benefited from a dear friend telling me, no, she's right. Okay. Or someone that could have told me when she said, I don't feel you're vulnerable with me, even though I'm spending hours and hours trying to be listening to her and so on.

32:50Mo Gawdat:If someone had told me openly, no, you're spending the hours, but you're not saying fully what's in your heart. Okay. And again, I mean, you know that I lost people I love to death. So I can sort of handle this somehow. I'm struggling with this one because I can clearly see how what was in my heart a good intention worked against our relationship. Good intention to be successful and make a difference to the world. A good intention to continue with the long distance because of her career and her success. and mine, of course, and, you know, a good intention of not wanting to say something that may make her feel bad.

33:43Mo Gawdat:You learn, you learn. And my mission, hopefully, is to make that learning happen within deep and connected love. One of the things I love about Emma, I love that so much. We have something that's called expert modes. And so when we started to allow people to sign up and they looked at the basic structure and what we're doing and so on. One of them texted me on Instagram and said, I wish I could sign up to Emma, but I'm not single and I'm not in a relationship. We're breaking up. OK, and we've been together those many years and we have kids between us. Would Emma help me with that? And I said, not at the moment, but let me check with the technical team.

34:27Mo Gawdat:And and we built an expert mode that's called Grace. Grace is basically so if you assume that love doesn't end when the relationship ends, if you assume that love is supposed to morph into another beautiful form of love, then grace should help you navigate that. Okay. And so many of them, like, you know, we know, for example, that one of the top reasons for breakups is money. Wow. Yeah. And so we have an expert that helps you reconcile your finances. Okay. And you know, if you guys are so excited and you want to buy a place together, maybe that expert would say, have you thought about this and that?

35:08Mo Gawdat:Right. And, and so many, so many interesting possibilities. If you're just a little more intelligent in terms of noticing the complexity of relationships. I'm interrupting for one moment to ask one small favor, please subscribe to the show. This helps it grow more than you know and I'm so bad at asking this from you. I'm so bad at thinking about this but you know my goal is a hundred thousand to get to on YouTube and I really want to bring you more content and better guests and bigger episodes and we can only do that with your help together so please do hit subscribe. Thank you. I think that moment because you're in that moment right you're in that kind of transition and I don't believe that an end of a heartbreak is the end I mean I've been there you've been there with me through mine and it made it honestly has made me such a better person it's a strict it makes you see yourself fully and you said something really interesting earlier when you were talking about you and you and Hannah breaking up was that you didn't find yourself fully showing up in the relationship fully showing who you were even though you wanted to every part of your intention I know you would have wanted to show up.

36:22I think that's one of the most underestimated conversations we don't speak about is that people don't fully show up. And sometimes they're even not aware that they're not fully showing up. They just fit a block.

36:32Mo Gawdat:I was not, clearly. Okay. And I regret that because she said it so openly, so frequently. Okay. But can I be very open? She said it in the feminine. So I just didn't get it. My masculine approach was like, but if you count the hours, if you count the sentences, if you count this, you can figure out, I'm showing up. Okay. But the feminine is saying you're, you're here, but you're not showing up. And these are two different things. And my God, if I just had someone tell me, no, no, by the way, showing up means, and I, I don't want to, I don't have the right to speak so much about her, but you know, it is, and she's you know she's an incredible woman in every possible way she has things to work on too and we've acknowledged those to each other when we were you know separating but the the thing is it's never one thread in relationships do you understand so so the challenge with relationships is that you might be completely in a grinder of a topic that's on your mind but underneath that topic, there are 14 triggers that are leading that topic and your partner is in 14 other topics.

37:50Mo Gawdat:Okay. And, and, you know, when you start to look at it, unfortunately for most of us, we think about the things that they're not seeing, not the things they're telling us. So, so it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm here and I've done this and I've given that and I've, you know, canceled this and right. And it's quite interesting that one of the biggest, biggest issues I think we face in the modern world is that the pace of love and romance and dating and relationships does not give us the time to turn our heartbreak into actual learning. So we get so stuck in the heartbreak. Okay. So many of us get stuck in the blame of the other person.

38:35Mo Gawdat:It's like, how could he have done this to me? How could she have done this to me? And one of the top topics that we've worked on is even if things don't work, if they don't work in a date, okay, or if they don't work in a short relationship, or if they don't work in a long term relationship, can you sit with someone that you trust and say, here is what I believe happened and get that someone to show you what else might have happened. To get someone to show you what happened has actually meant. So that when you get into the next relationship, you get in not to try again just by flipping the coin again, but you get in by trying to flip a different coin.

39:20Mo Gawdat:Something that has changed within you, that has made you a little more prepared if you want. And who knows, maybe if we can, you know, Imagine if two partners broke up and they did that with Emma. Maybe they may have a chance again, right? Maybe they can see something in each other that turns them into best friends. And there is a lot wrong with the vagueness and complexity that we have masked with that constant addiction, if you want. Love is also addictive. It is definitely addictive. But remember, it's not love that is addictive. It's the relationship that's addictive. We spoke about that, you and I offline.

40:08Mo Gawdat:I don't think we spoke about it on the podcast. But so I differentiate between the two. People think that they go out on a date trying to find love. Okay. I think they go out to try and find the perfects, as if you remember the term, PPRFCTS, right? So they go out trying to find passion, okay, in whichever way, whether it's, you know, sex and, you know, and passion that way, or whether it's someone that sees your creativity or whatever. They go out to find partnership, okay, someone that helps you navigate this very confusing world. They go out to find romance, the ultimate mix of hormones on the face of the planet.

40:53Mo Gawdat:The only time - It's like a drug. It is a drug, right? So romance is that, I define it as that unexpected excitement. So it has to be, everything has to be unexpected. If you expected a flower, it's not romantic anymore. Right. And it has to be very exciting. Like he loves me, he loves me not sort of. Right. And it is the, like, it's the only state where humans have both dopamine and serotonin in their blood at the same time. And oxytocin. And oxytocin, of course. That's the biggest drug of all. That's the biggest drug of all, you have 100%. And the mix of those three is just like the ultimate positive feeling.

41:30We go out to find, so per F is friendships.

41:36Mo Gawdat:We look for someone that will listen to us, someone that will console us, someone and so on. uh we look for a companionship you know like those wonderful couples that go out in the morning and walk next to each other and then sit down and read two separate books they don't say a word but they just love to have each other okay we look for tea tenderness oh my god like the the gentleness the touch the understanding the hug the you know has nothing to do with passion has nothing to do with friendship, but we all need it. Okay. And we go out to look for SD support, right? And as much as the Western world wants to paint that whole idea of, uh, of independence, like I don't need anyone.

42:20Mo Gawdat:Come on. I would die without the feminine in my life. I am, you know, look at me. I'm the masculine, masculine man. Okay. And I will tell you openly, I'm half a person. Okay. Because of my masculinity unless someone shows up and says, hey, babe, let's go out and play a little bit. Or, you know, someone that says, I actually need to hear something from you. What good is the masculine if it's not helping or if it's not supporting or if it's not, right? And we all have that need within us and we suppress it somehow and we don't let it be known because if we need the support of someone, that means we're dependent on them.

42:57Mo Gawdat:And if we're dependent on them in a world that we cannot trust what happens when they leave us. And of course, if that's the attitude, they end up leaving us. That's people's biggest fear, I think. Yeah. A hundred percent. And so if we don't even know why we go out dating for, okay, by the way, all of that happens has nothing to do with love. Okay. There are so many people in the world that have passion, but not love. And there are so many people in the world that have love, but not passion. Okay. There are so many people in the world that have, you know, support, but they're not romantically involved.

43:29Mo Gawdat:They're different. Okay. And so that whole idea of going out there, that conversation that basically tells you, don't be fooled. Love is always there. You only recognize it. So if love is between the two souls, right? It's always been there before you were born and after you die. Okay. It's the two souls belong together all along. It's that what you have to work on is the complex mathematics of the relationship, of why you're out there, what you're looking for, what you need. How do you communicate it? How do you sense when it's not there enough? How do you make sure that what your partner needs is provided?

44:10Mo Gawdat:All of that complexity is pure. I know it sounds really weird, but it is pure mathematics. It's mathematics. And mathematics, you know me. That's what I do, right? And if I tell you the math, it would blow you away. Like take the simplest thing, dating, okay? Dating in the dating apps world depends on the part of the mathematics that we call the law of large numbers, right? The law of large numbers is, let me simplify, if you roll the two dice and you want a double six, you have to roll 36 times, right? If your person is one in 36, that means on average you're going to have to go on 36 dates you may be lucky and go on 18 and find someone you may be extremely lucky and go on the first and find someone but that's very unlikely and the probability changes along the the the number of times you throw the dice so let me simplify if you if you if your person is one in six on the first throw of the dice on the first date your probability is one in six right if you throw again it's one in five so now you're up to 20%, right?

45:18Mo Gawdat:If you throw again, it's one in four. Now you're up to 25%, right? And so the more you go out in the law of large numbers, the more your odds improve. Okay. The problem is it's not one in 36. The typical human, if you want only seven things in the person you're looking for, only seven, okay, you're looking at the odds of one in a million. Wow. One in a million? 100%. Think about it. If you're saying I am looking for a man, okay, that is available in one in two people on the planet, right? If you say, and I am looking for a man who is in a specific age group, and that age group is one in four, let's say, your odds are not one in two plus one in four.

46:07Mo Gawdat:So it's not one in six, it's one in eight you multiply the two by the four right and if you want them to have a specific religious background or faith or spiritual background and that's one in five it's not now one in eight plus five it's not one in 13 it's one in eight multiplied by five it's one in 40 okay and that continues if the next thing is one in 10 it's one in 400 if the next thing is one in you know, in five, it's one in 2000 and, you know, 20 ,000 and it continues 2000 and continues to grow exponentially every time you add one and you can see how it works. At first it grows from two to eight.

46:50Mo Gawdat:It's not a big deal, but eventually it grows from 2000 to 20 ,000. And then the next one is 20 ,000 to 200 ,000 if they are one in 10. Okay. And, and so basically what ends up happening is if you follow the law of large numbers, I'm sorry to tell you, your odds are almost non-existent. Okay? And that's what the commercial world has built. What we use with Emma is we use something called Markov series. So it's basically biased choice. Biased choice means if I have, if I gave you the dice to roll a double six and then remove four of the faces and say, they don't count. If it lands on one of those, it doesn't count.

47:34Mo Gawdat:Okay. Now your odds have improved so much because I removed a lot of what you don't need. So what Emma wants to do is it wants to know you so well. Okay. And know everyone on the app so well that instead of giving you what dating apps do, 30 ,000 pictures to swipe through. Okay. On, you know, swipe through based on the wrong attributes because that's, you know, one of the things, but it's not the only thing. Right. What if I could limit it down to only five? What if I can get you out of those 30 ,000 people? What if I could know the closest five to what you actually want? Okay. Now you're no longer in the law of large numbers.

48:16Mo Gawdat:Okay. Now you're very much in Markov. So basically with five rolls of the dice, you can get there. Okay. And that is even more interesting that every one of those rolls of the dice is an enjoyable experiment. Okay. It's something that you learn from. It's someone that you can actually connect to and be close to. So nobody hates dating anymore. Dating doesn't become a chore anymore. It's sad. It makes me feel sad that people might hate dating. And I get why, because the decision fatigue is exhausting. But when I think about it, like how you're talking about this probability with Emma, I think about that just going back to kind of 10 years ago.

48:58And I think, you know, we're both quite sociable people. We're very lucky that we are... We're energised by other people. We put ourselves into lots of different situations. I have a certain kind of pool of friends that don't want to expand, that feel very comfortable in where they are. But now a lot of their friends have become married and they feel very stagnant in that pool. And I think about this in terms of dating. Like, you know, we were saying in the beginning, like how loneliness is becoming such an epidemic now. The online industry now is more addictive than ever. It's feeding this dopamine addiction.

49:30We haven't even spoke about the role of pornography. We speak about capitalism. We think about how that's completely changed the dynamic of especially how men approach relationships. That's such a big thing. It's a disaster. I don't think it's spoken about enough. It's one of the biggest money. The porn industry is going to be at the head of this in the AI and relationships.

49:50Mo Gawdat:Absolutely. They're always ahead of everything. They're going to be one of the most dominant forces. but I think about kind of what you were saying about the probability of people it feels that we're becoming narrower you know as our lenses as our view is becoming narrower into this computer this device this machine and and Emma sounds and shallower really and shallower and Emma sounds very different in the sense but if I'm looking at it on a macro level and an economic level of like where we were talking about the sadness is like people just aren't going out as much and connecting to a variety of different people, we've become very connected to a subset of groups.

50:25Like where we work becomes one of our main driving forces and then the people that we kind of live around in the community. But we're not expanding that time. So when you're talking about one in a million, about the probability,

50:38Mo Gawdat:It's impossible to find them, yeah. It's becoming, I think the reason why it's becoming more stressful is because our field is now just feeling so small. And there's an energetic thing when you meet people. You know when you meet someone and you vibe with them, you know that you can feel comfortable. You do, because you've experienced that in your lifetime many times. Younger generations don't. For a younger generation, their only method growing up to have met people was online. Okay? And interestingly, they sort of are very uncomfortable. So there are statistics. I don't know the exact figure, so I'm not going to quote it.

51:14Mo Gawdat:But about the increase of the number of men in Gen Z that wouldn't approach a woman ever. Okay, because it feels very unnatural to talk in real life like in real life is not the thing. The conversation. Yeah, and you and I may feel differently about this because, you know, there is nothing to us that ever replaced a hug. Okay, but to other people and you can't blame them. They are constantly being programmed by the industry that it's better to be behind the screen. Now, this by the way, again, I'm sorry to geek out on the mathematics, but this is the core of choice. It's something they call Nash Equilibriums.

51:54So basically, when you take what you said

51:58Mo Gawdat:that in the past you met people in your network, that wasn't the only reason we found love easier, okay? The other reason is because we understood that one in a million is unlikely to be found in our network and there is no other method that's convincing us otherwise, right? So basically, if you were in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and you went to work, or even 90s, if you went to work and you met four lovely guys, and you have a group of your friend and there are four other single ones, you chose one of the eight. Simple as that, right? And you knew for a fact that if you had waited 60 more years to find someone, they would have been 5 % better than any of the eight.

52:47Mo Gawdat:And that's the whole point. This is by, again, goes to East and West. One of the big differences between Eastern, you want to call them arranged relationships, and Western keep searching in the convenience of the little screen is that the Eastern relationship says there are 10 things that matter. For example, one of them is that the families are compatible. And there are 100 other things that matter, but they matter less. okay there are 20 things that are important and you can't acquire them your values for example okay but there are other things that you can learn in the relationship communicating or whatever and so on and so the idea is Nash will tell you don't all go for the top guy or the top girl okay it go for the one that actually creates that benefit for the entire community.

53:45Mo Gawdat:Because when you are going to one that actually works for you, by definition, the top guy realizes they're not getting enough attention. So they start to be a little more realistic. They start to try harder. So everyone else starts to benefit. But forget about the benefit of the community. Your own benefit is that you actually realize, like most young people realize in their 30s, that the stuff they chased in their 20s is actually not the stuff that matters for a deep relationship at all. Absolutely not. My mindset has changed on that dramatically. 100%. And so, and so again, what we're trying to use with Emma is we use Nash in a, in a very interesting way where we basically also calculate that first of all, this top guy okay maybe on the superficial qualities that you're looking for matters but on the depths of the qualities that actually matter to you is not there at all so we will tell you openly look you know we're not going to match you with this guy or we're never going to bring him up honestly okay more interestingly we will show you the assets in the you know the top 80 percentile.

55:00Mo Gawdat:We will show you the assets in that person that you may not have seen because they're not very good at pausing in front of a camera. Right. We'll show you the assets in that person that you may not have seen because you never really had a conversation with them about your specific trauma and how they are capable of handling it because we know that from our conversation with them. Okay. And it's so interesting when you move to, when you, when you change that whole idea of go for the top prey to go for the optimum prey to get that to a Nash equilibrium, it changes everything. And so you go back to that 60s vibe of, yeah, I mean, I will come across 20 single women in my next couple of years that I will be able to see in a bar or in a club or in a, you know, through a friend of a friend.

55:49Mo Gawdat:And so I might as well choose the most interesting of them. Believe it or not, that was my first marriage. And my first marriage lasted 27 years. Beautiful in every possible way. She's still my best friend, right? Because, you know, I had my sports club, my university, and that's it. There was no social media. There was no dating apps. There was no porn at all, okay, growing up. And suddenly I look at that woman and go like, oh my god, she's gorgeous. I will never find another woman that gorgeous. Okay, I'll never find another woman that's more spiritual. And believe it or not, I was right. Okay, in many ways, Nibel is still gorgeous, and she's still amazing in every way.

56:30Mo Gawdat:But had I had, you know, access to a million other photos of a million other women that are hinting interest by showing themselves on a dating app, I would have questioned 16 times, should I approach Nibel, or should I try a little more first. Well, this brings me on to commitment. Yeah. I've been there with men that have really struggled to commit, that have really struggled to feel that they can make that next step. I think women now also maybe not on a similar path, but I think I've definitely experienced that with men. And I think a lot of women will say, you know, how can I get this man to commit to me?

57:09It's a big conversation. It's a big thing. And I think, especially being a woman hosting this, I think it's like a voice for so many women who will listen and go, yeah, that's something that I'm struggling with my partner with. I've been with him for eight years and he's still not popped the question. The commitment area now is a big conversation because you're just talking about choice. Choice is abundant to us right now, even though it's kind of a, we've got a flip scene here. People were having dating fatigue, but there's also so much choice. And so that next step to commitment seems to be a bit of a barrier in today's relationship.

57:48Mo Gawdat:It is. Why? Like, why is it? Can I represent the man's view before we talk about it in general? So, one of my dearest friends was a commitment folk for a very long time. Young man, very attractive, lived in Warsaw, so surrounded by gorgeous girls. Every one of them was interested in him. and I remember vividly we were walking in Seattle, Washington. I don't remember why we were there. Anyway, on the bridge and I was telling him, I realize how gorgeous Polish women are, but there is something you've never experienced. There is a form of joy that you have never experienced. And he said, what is that?

58:33Mo Gawdat:I've experienced everything. And I said, the feeling I felt about Nibel, okay about having someone at home that you deeply deeply deeply want in your life every day okay i'll come back to that in a minute a lot of young men have never experienced that why because dating the quality of the pipeline sucks the matching sucks right so they never truly found genuine love and and i will be very very open again i'll say i'll speak about myself only in my lost relationship, sometimes we don't deal with our partner, we deal with our previous partners. Okay. And so for a lot of men, and I say that with respect, please don't be offended by me.

59:21Mo Gawdat:A woman by definition is very sensual. She feels everything around her in the world. She's very intuitive. Okay. So she feels everything that's not even around her in the world that's in the spiritual world. She is very paradoxical. So she would hold two truths at the same time. She's very, unfortunately, and I hate to say that, unfairly treated in the world. So she's concerned. She's sometimes unsafe. And I can go on for 16 traits when we spoke about the feminine and the masculine. When you put all of those traits together, a woman is a lot, a lot of emotions, a lot of the feminine, let's put it this way, whether you're a woman or not.

1:00:05Gender is not the definition of the feminine, but most more associated with women, if you want.

1:00:12Mo Gawdat:There is a lot happening and a lot happening, especially if you don't have the experience and the maturity then turns into unpredictability, okay, which then gets even further blurred into communication because if your partner is also young and you know not mature enough he doesn't get it he doesn't understand what's happening he doesn't understand what's going on and if you add that layer of we treat our partner as as our partner seen through the lens of all our previous experiences including how our parents dealt with each other and so on and so forth what ends up happening is that most men fear that committing gets them into something that is not actually what they need or what actually what they want.

1:00:58Mo Gawdat:Okay. Now, here's the interesting side of it. This friend of mine has been with a wonderful, wonderful young lady. I love Mary so much. And yeah, they fight every now and then. They disagree every now and then. But he literally texts me when they're out of an argument and says, Oh my God, I love her so much. Right. And here's the trick that I believe fails in modern relationships because we both don't trust because there are so many references of failure around us. 95 % of all relationships fail. The cost of commitment becomes really high. Okay. And one of the things that is shocking when I speak about it, but I actually am.

1:01:48Mo Gawdat:It's probably my biggest Bible, if you want now, is that a relationship is a project that needs to have milestones and reviews. OK, and through those milestones and reviews, the project has one target and one target only. OK, the the square foot next to you should be his favorite place on the planet. The square foot next to him should be your favorite space on the planet. Okay. And if that ever breaks, you need to talk. Right. If that is the case, then I've cited seven steps to a relationship. Okay. The seventh is a commitment. But the first six without going into the details are milestones that you have to go through that the modern world rushes us through.

1:02:36Mo Gawdat:okay meaning you get into you you go on a date and oh my god she's so gorgeous right and as a man i'm trained that it's a very delicate balance on the first date because i actually want to get to know her but i can't afford being friend zoned okay so i have to play that balance where i inject a tiny bit of naughtiness on the first date or at maximum on the second. Okay. That very tiny bit of naughtiness makes us naughty. And then there is that fear on your side of, oh, if I don't kiss him on the second date, or if I don't sleep with him on the, you know, I think the rule now is third date, he might go away.

1:03:23Mo Gawdat:I might lose him. And all of those pressures are not real at all. Okay. What I ask people to consider is that there are milestones. So when we reach a point when we're dating that basically feels one, we have aligned on values, not just attraction, that we can spend three hours together talking and not feel that we're burdened by it or hoping that it ends so I can undress you. Then maybe we can move to the next milestone. And in the next milestone, believe it or not, I think it's only fair to say we're having a good time. I, you know, it's an interesting milestone where we're seeing if we can vibe together, if we can be fun together, because as you rightly said, you know, I call it the second time theory.

1:04:14Mo Gawdat:Okay. If he produces enough oxytocin within you twice in a row, and that makes you feel so safe around him, you immediately say, this is the one. I want this one. I'll keep this one, okay? If he enjoys you enough in an intimate way, then he goes like, oh, I can't stop having enough of her. I want more and more and more of that. And we rush. But there again should be milestones around, are we able to feel that we can finish a month together without being too irrational? Are we able to understand that there is the concept of space? And so on and so forth. And the milestones continue. I mean, I'm, you know, again, I will guide you through those things if you allow her.

1:05:03Mo Gawdat:But most of us will rush through and eventually we end up exactly, exactly like a McDonald's, right? You walk in, you're super hungry. It's not been, you know, you haven't eaten for a while. You know, the burgers look amazing. You order six of them or one of them if you're a woman and you know, you end up at home with a tummy ache. I'm not saying against McDonald's specifically, but I mean, McDonald's is the ultimate binge. Exactly. It's like the comfort food if you want. Yeah. But the idea here is the following. The idea is that you haven't really gone through the, you know, the connection with yourself and your body and said, is that exactly what I need?

1:05:46Mo Gawdat:And so on and so forth. And so to answer your question, do men not want to commit? No, they are afraid of the last time they committed. They are afraid of the last time they committed. Okay. And that's not your mistake at all. It's not your mistake at all. It's just that they have a bit of trauma, a lot of trauma around the irrationality of how that went. Okay. And like me, because we unfortunately are not taught to be vulnerable or we're taught to be very sensitive to how you feel. We don't always share the issues that we struggle with. Okay. And put those two together. And I think that the path to commitment is to go through the milestones together, constantly assessing, is this still your favorite square foot on the planet.

1:06:42Mo Gawdat:Interestingly, it's not about trust. It's about milestones. It's about let me try to give you within this season of the relationship. Okay. Within this milestone. Okay. Let me try to give you an assess how you give me back. Okay. And because I'm not head over heels yet. If you don't give back, I will alert you and say, hey, by the way, this is not what I expected at all. We can have a conversation. And by the way, if it turns out that you're not what I want, we can separate now instead of waiting, which I, again, going back to mathematics with Emma, one of the biggest challenges of, of modern love is what is time.

1:07:22Mo Gawdat:People don't understand that, that there is. So the law of large numbers takes you through a hundred dates. Okay. And on the hundred dates, you end up with four relationships, each of which takes two years, right? Why? Because you walk in, you're very excited. You're spending six months of a high. Okay. And then suddenly you realize, holy shit, this is the wrong person. But then you tell yourself, I can fix him or her for another six months. Then you bang your heads against each other for six months. Then you break up and take six months to recover. Okay. And, and how many of us, if you don't mind me saying this with love, how many of my wonderful friends in their 30s, a woman in her 30s, have four cycles of eight years?

1:08:10Right?

1:08:11Mo Gawdat:So the trick for me is from a mathematics point of view, to first not put you in the relationships that are not going to work. I think that one of the biggest things there is, I thought two things when you're talking about it, the milestones makes me think about being in a relationship with a co-founder. Yeah, I swear. It's the same thing. I swear. Because you think some of the best co-founders have some of the hardest decisions to make, some of the roughest moments, but they have to communicate. And actually, you know, there's many co-founders that have to break apart because it just doesn't work.

1:08:42And the communication is completely failed. But we don't look at relationships in that way. But that is going to be your biggest co-founder of your life, is your partner. 100%. Right? And you have to treat it in that way. You have to have those milestones. And if you don't communicate, I think one of the biggest things is time. and I've definitely learned that where kind of in my past relationships I haven't had the confidence even though I seem a very confident person and you know I communication is a skill of mine for my job there's something about doing it in a relationship that's different or that I hadn't realized I wasn't conscious to I am now I've learned I've learned the hard way like many of us do some of us biggest learnings comes from our hardest moments but it's about having that honesty to be able to say how you feel in the hardest moments because it will save you so much time in the long run rather than just thinking I'm going to piece this over similar to a business.

1:09:35If there's a crisis in the business you don't just say well we're going to piece that over we're just going to look past that because your business will collapse.

1:09:42Mo Gawdat:But you know what else is amazing about that example about that analogy is that co-founders have targets. They discuss them, they agree them and they measure them. Right. And so I find that extremely difficult, but if I, you know, I'm not ready, but if I'm ever ready for another relationship, okay, that would be the one conversation I'd like to have, which is, can we slow burn on this with the following milestones? Like, you know, before we even think of exclusivity, can we go on a trip together? okay can you before you you you we even think of moving in can we spend a week stuck in the same place right and and stuff like that but here's the problem the problem of course is that this takes the romance away and so it takes a very mature couple to have a conversation that says I'd only just met you three dates ago but I'd really like this to work and so for it to work I don't want to rush in it.

1:10:45Mo Gawdat:It's a very unusual way of talking about it. Okay. And, and because of the breakdown of trust, she will mostly look at you. I mean, or he, by the way, if that's the opposite way, she'll mostly look at you and go like, Oh, so you want to just spend a good time with me with no guarantee. And that I think is why most women are complaining about commitment. because the more you ask for it, the more he goes like, what am I not aware of? Like, why are you trying to get me to sign that contract? If you were convinced that I don't need a contract, that would be the biggest conviction for me that you're absolutely certain that this is going to happen all the time.

1:11:29Mo Gawdat:And so one of the things I normally actually refer to, not with Emma, but in general with my friends, is that commitment is a project. Right? And so you, you know, instead of saying, when are you going to propose to me? Okay. You can talk about the project. Like, are you interested in a family? Because I am. And if you are, what's our plan for that project? The co-founder. These are your values and your virtues, which is what every company has. 100%. Are you, are you interested in a specific career for the two of us where we are maybe living in Sri Lanka. Okay. If that's the case, what does it take for us to get there?

1:12:11Mo Gawdat:And then commitment is part of the project plan. Okay. Because between you and I, commitment in itself is not the objective. The objective is, can we build those partnerships? This is one thing. The other thing is I have to say openly, the definition of commitment is actually quite interesting because you said there could be a man with one of your friends that have been together for eight years and he's not willing to commit. what is more commitment than eight years? And that's really interesting. That's a conversation to have. But then is the conversation not, because I can see that, but I can also see how a woman or a man, it depends who the one is not saying yes.

1:12:51Mo Gawdat:It's always, by the way, it happens both ways. Like what is the block? What is it that you don't want to do that? That's a wonderful conversation to have. And I think that's the conversation. But you know, it's also a nice conversation. What's the motive? What's the motive? Right. So typical of men that would be in a very committed relationship, but don't want to move to marriage is that their family had massive issues with marriage, for example, one of the main reasons. And so it's such a beautiful conversation to have as a couple sitting in the best in your favorite square foot on the planet next to each other, okay, hopefully in each other's arms, just dreaming, literally, not talking about it as a must document to sign, okay, but basically expressing that the reason you want to feel commitment is because, as I always call it, the SFO, SSO spectrum, that one of the top things that a woman wants in her relationship or the feminine wants in her relationship is to feel safe, okay, And that kind of commitment would make me feel safe.

1:13:54Mo Gawdat:And I don't feel safe because I've seen so many examples around me of eight-year relationships that have broken down, right? By the way, the answer to that might be very different. Let's make sure it doesn't break down, okay? He, on the other hand, if he's, you know, mature enough and able to talk about it, should say something like, yeah, but, you know, my parents had went through this and it was so painful and so on. And, you know, I heard in the news that a marriage means that I end up losing all of my work, financial wealth. And these could be very open conversations to have. And I think this is why it's essential to have that pretty early on.

1:14:31Mo Gawdat:I normally say as early as you can. Yeah. Okay. And again, so interestingly, most of my women friends would say, but that would scare him away. I think that's quite a good test of character. And I say that's exactly the point. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, you want to scare him away if he's not the right person for you. But you can't go to someone and say, on the second time you slept together, you can't say, so when are we going to have kids or are kids your thing? But you can say something like, this is not something I'm thinking about in the next couple of years, but I want to know your overall position on family.

1:15:09Mo Gawdat:That's very important to have. It's a very important conversation to have. and if his answer is no I'll never want to have children then you have your answer which is correct and then you decide where you want to go from there correct right and if he says this is I'm not sure this is a conversation that maybe we should have when we're closer you set the milestone and you say okay we're going to have that in eight months time okay but it's it is important to have that very open look I'm not trying to bring you in and I'm you know like to lock you in and I'm not trying to push you away I just want to know if we're a match, right?

1:15:44Mo Gawdat:So I'm the opposite. Like I'm, you know, in my 50s, I for sure don't want to have a family, okay? I had a family, I had my story, I lost my wonderful Ali, I have my wonderful Aya, which is the light of my life, right? And I respect every woman in the world that wants a family, okay? I'm not that guy, okay? And so I say that almost like on the first date because, you know - I think that's great though. Yeah, because - Because I think the biggest thing about this conversation on the whole, which I think is like even from the beginning, is understanding yourself, your needs, your wants, but also your self-worth.

1:16:20Mo Gawdat:100%. And I think one of my biggest learnings... Remember we had that conversation. Yeah. One of the biggest learnings for me in like the last couple of years is understanding my worth. And now I would never be afraid to say, do you want children? Yes or no? No, because that's brilliant. That allows me just to know exactly where you are. because if you can't have those conversations, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be with you. I just want to know where that person would be and vice versa, that person should know that and expect that from me. 100%. And I think these conversations can sometimes feel heavy in the beginning, but my biggest thing is, similar to even having that as a friend in your life, you want to know what their needs and their wants are.

1:17:00And if you have enough self-worth, you won't look at that as an ultimate rejection because it's got nothing to do with you. You're finding out more about that person. and the more you can understand about that person doesn't mean it's with you it just means that you you see that person what they are and who they want rather than trying to change them and you

1:17:16Mo Gawdat:might as well by the way you may you may make a choice and say oh in that case then i'm going to have a wonderful time with you for three months and you might find a great setup for them the amount of people that i've gone on a date with that's not worked and i've set them up with someone else it's been amazing because i've got to understand what their values are and i think wow, you're not for me, but you are going to be amazing for this person. I set my best friend up with my ex, one of my exes, one of my dearest exes, to be honest, some wonderful woman. But her, the things about her expectations from me with my weird lifestyle were the things that I felt the most insecure about.

1:17:56Mo Gawdat:But for that friend of mine, it's the, It's his lifetime dream that he was dreaming of a woman exactly that way. And they're happy and they're wonderful and they're really connected and they're so good together. Like I look at them and I go like, my God, you're incredible. Right. The reason why we built Emma from the beginning on, we're not even going to suggest anyone until you know yourself. OK, and if you're not willing to put in the effort, we may give you someone, but we'll tell you openly, you know, this is a 70 % match score. We really don't recommend that you go there. Okay. Again, Sened, my co-founder is so values driven.

1:18:36Mo Gawdat:He's an incredible young geek, even geekier than I am. It's really refreshing to be honest. I swear he is with such an amazing, you know, team as co-founders and, and he pushes me. He goes like, no, I'm not going to give them a 70 % match. Right. And I'm like, but maybe people will get, you know, insecure and they will leave. And he goes like, leave. That's fine. Okay. As long as you haven't given the effort to get to know yourself, I'll give you a 70 % match and it will fail. Yeah. I do also think that a 90%, 100 % match will fail unless you have self-love and self-worth because a mirror, a relationship is a mirror.

1:19:16Mo Gawdat:Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. There is no 100 % match. Just let's agree that, right. But, But but it's you know, it's also because we constantly evolve. We go through seasons where we become completely different people. OK, and again, Emma, Emma, the love coach, not Emma, the date, the matchmaker is all about that is all about telling you from the simplest things of like, hey, by the way, she's not in her at her best today. Can you please be gentle? OK, all the way to he's closing the quarter this, you know, this week. so maybe don't expect him to be available. You know, from that all the way to telling you, it seems that you guys are getting into a different season.

1:20:01Mo Gawdat:You know, like you start as sweethearts and then you move in together, okay? Completely different setup. And, you know, you need to be alerted to the differences and what, you know, irritates you about things becomes very different and so on and so forth. And all of those different seasons, again are the complexity of the thousand parameters by a thousand parameters matrix and can be solved. I do think that the different seasons is such a big thing and I think that's same as every relationship. Like every relationship you go on is going to go through its own chapters. It's going to be an entire story and every chapter is going to be a different one.

1:20:36It's like that with dating. I think that is just the essence of love and that's the essence of self. That every season is going to be different and I'm so excited for this to launch.

1:20:45Mo Gawdat:Oh yes, thank you. We will put it in the show notes. I could talk to you all day about AI and love. It's such a weird topic, right? I think we could create a whole documentary on this together. I hope so. It's one of the most fascinating concepts now. We're kind of living through this like extraordinary, never seen before, never expected. We are in such a unique position in the world of where we are going with artificial intelligence. It is something that blows my mind. I think even in five years from now, it's going to be a completely different landscape. We know that. I hope there's no more AI marriages.

1:21:15there was the first AI marriage last year in New York with an artificial intelligence.

1:21:19Mo Gawdat:Yeah. Let's see if they break up. Let's see if they break up. Let's see how that goes. And then I do think my worry is that the porn industry is going to start, I think they already are, making robots to feel like female. You call it porn, but so there are two sides. There is porn with virtual porn. So you can create anything you want, which completely resets the expectation of humanity. And there is virtual vice, which are actual physical robots. And they're making now skin to feel like human, which is terrifying. So I think we're going to have to have you back on. Once Emma's fully up, I really want to get you back on.

1:21:57Mo Gawdat:Emma's out by the time you publish this, hopefully. I think six months to a year in, it will be great to have an analysis of where Emma is. Should we do that? Absolutely. 100%. Book me in. Yeah. So the funny thing to close with is that we wondered what to call it. And instead of calling it emma.ai, we called it emma.love. And I didn't know that a.love extension exists, actually. I didn't. Yeah, so it's not, you know, a.com. It's not a commercial enterprise. And.love is exactly what this is about. I actually think that we will learn so much and hopefully make a big difference. I think everything at the center of life is love.

1:22:36The substrate of life is love. And I think the more love that we need more love than ever before in the world, you know my biggest thing is self-compassion. And I think if we can have that with ourselves and with others, it does change the world. And I'm excited for your mission. Thank you. I am so excited for this to drop. Thanks for having me. For people to listen. It's always one of the best conversations with you.

1:22:55Mo Gawdat:You're the best. Thank you so much. And we're going to put everything into the show notes. But my last and final question, which I don't know if you remember me asking you this last time. And I wonder if it's going to be the same. Okay. Which is Mo, what does live well, be well mean to you? I think at this stage, it is acknowledging my change of seasons and behaving accordingly. I think my biggest two realizations in 2025 have been that I don't have a normal lifestyle. And I push myself really, really, really hard. But that I've actually, I've always been happy, contented with life, but I didn't enjoy life enough.

1:23:35Mo Gawdat:And so I'm really trying very hard to allow myself to enjoy my life a little more. I'm allowing myself to acknowledge that because of all of the progress I've made in life, I don't need to do many things to actually make a massive difference. So since we last met, I reduced the number of focus projects that I have from 18 to now five. Amazing. And all of them are the size of Emma. So my, you know, Emma is one, my documentary is one, my next book is one. and so on. And so I am in a very different phase of my life, very much slower if you want, very much more attentive and genuinely concerned with my wellbeing.

1:24:18Mo Gawdat:That makes me very happy to hear. I know that you would have wanted me to say that. I've always wanted you to say that. Yeah. So that's live well, be well for me is now much less around what the impact I leave is, but also about how well I feel getting there. That's the essence of life. You can't teach that unless you are it. Yeah, 100%. I know that from my own struggles. Yeah, 100%. Mo, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This was wonderful. It was amazing. Thank you.