#625 - Matthew Hussey - #1 Dating Coach Reveals The Red Flags Everyone Should Know

28:54They were looking for a guy that they could hold hands with and go away to a little summer vacation with and do Christmas markets in December. It seems to me that a lot of the concerns that guys have around what women want and the issues that they're facing don't seem to match up massively. What are the concerns that guys have? I think that the big ones are that they're not going to be found attractive, that they're going to be seen as creepy if they approach them, that if they try to do online dating, that they're not going to be responded to, if they try to approach them in the real world, that they're going to be seen as some Me Too Predator that she is going to trade up because there is an endless hierarchy of guys that could fly her out to Dubai, there's some shake on the other side of Instagram that's going to DM her and put her on a five -star flight to take her out to Dubai.

29:48And this is the world that we live in now that girls have more opportunities than ever before because it's been afforded by social media, which means that the top few guys are going to eat and everybody else is going to starve. I sympathize with guys on all of those things. I feel I really touch as me when you say it because I think that there is...

30:11It's a really hard thing for anyone to feel invisible. And what's more to feel like even if I'm briefly visible, I will become invisible again the moment this person comes across someone with more. And when I hear that, I come to two immediate conclusions. One is choose well. Choose someone as a man who truly is, you know, one of the phrases Audrey used all the time when we were dating and getting to know each other, she kept saying as a philosophy for her life, I just believe in chasing the right things that you will always be kind of not punished, but life will always like give you its come up and if you chase the wrong things.

31:09And you'll always have to end up at some point circling back to the right thing. It's just when you just decide to do it. And I've come to look at that as like one of my key mantras for life. I look at all the time. Am I chasing the right thing or the wrong thing here? And I think that a lot of guys are struggling because they're chasing the wrong thing.

31:34They themselves, you know, it's, there is an entitlement among a lot of guys that I, I should have this. And the funny thing about dating is that we end up accusing each other of exactly the thing that we're doing. And we really hate the other side for doing it. But it is exactly what we're doing. It's one community saying it's disgraceful how shallow they are. I have to be a certain height for them to even pay attention to me. And meanwhile they're going, why don't I have the top 1 % of women? You're going, what are you talking about? You just did exactly the same thing. You just said there was a top 1 % and you're not interested in the rest.

32:26That there is a hypocr - on both sides, there is a hypocrisy there that I really struggle with. And I think the more we can get to a point where we go, what are the counter -cultural compromises that I am willing to make in order to actually live a happy life. Not a life that everyone else says is so impressive. Not a life where I finally go, look, I made it, I'm dating the cheerleader. A life that's actually making you happy because you've selected for the right things.

33:08What countercultural compromises will you have to make for that? We talked earlier about, because I know, for me, I'm all about looking at that on both sides. We talked earlier about women who might say, well, I wanna date someone who's at my level. And I wanna go, well, let's redefine what you class is your level. Do you mean your level for kindness? Your level for generosity, your level for empathy, your level for being loyal, or do you mean your level of income? Because the things I said first will make you far happier. This thing doesn't really matter, but you've told yourself it matters. Now, could you make a compromise that goes against the grain?

33:55Because that is what if we go online and we look at all of these communities, Is everyone arguing to me? From the outside, because I'm not deep in these things. But I know, it's like I hear second hand all the time. So you can always correct me if I'm getting it wrong on what people are saying out there. But when I look at it, I feel like so much debate is being had at the macro level of, here's how men are, here's how women are, and here are all the things we can't stand about, the cultural norm right now. And when I look at that, I'm like, this feels to me like, if it was the business equivalent, it's like, I wanna start a sandwich shop.

34:41And I spend all my time watching the news and the economy and the macro statistics and saying, this is why I shouldn't start a sandwich shop. This is why you can't start a sandwich shop today. Look at it, I'm watching the news all day and it's terrible. Or the banking system's gonna collapse soon, you know that, right? No point starting a sandwich shop now. Or constantly arguing about politics and who's in government? Oh, it's the Democrat. Oh, it's not business friendly. Oh, you don't want to be in California. It's not business friendly, right? I'm not gonna start a business in California. Like, does that mindset, and I have always, one of the reasons that I've always loved studying things from a place of curiosity, and that's what you do.

35:26You're a curious person who's fascinated by how things work and why things are happening. So I get that part I understand. But when people are complaining constantly about the macro of it all and that becomes their excuse, I always just think, do you realize that your life changes by what you do in the micro. If you're a woman and you're saying men are always intimidated by me. I say in the macro you're 100 % right that there is an awful lot of men. If you're a high earner, if you're high status, if you've done a lot in your life, oh there's going to be a lot of men who are intimidated by you.

36:11That's 100 % true. So I would never want to validate that. But on the micro, if you're telling me that men are always intimidated by you, something's going wrong. Well, who's the common denominator between all of these men? Right. Now, you could say men, the gender is the common denominator is men. Men have a problem with this. None of my female friends have a problem with this. Men have a problem with this. But but I look at that and I go, there is a way to either you're going for a certain kind of guy all the time. Or you're going in with that as your kind of power and that as your value and that's the thing you talk about all the time.

36:52No one wants to go out with a rich person who talks about how much money they have. No one. No one wants to go out with a celebrity who talks about how famous they are. You want to go out with someone who has a conversation with you and gets to know you and is interested in you and is impressed by you. That's one the most attractive things in the world is you go on a like people should go on a date asking themselves how could I be impressed by this person? And if you do that and there was a writer friend of mine who used to work and I think he wrote for the Hollywood Reporter or someone but he used to say when he would interview celebrities the goal for himself so that he could write a good piece was always to go because he didn't care he'd been doing it so long it was for him it was like just another person coming through the door with a movie.

37:40It long passed the point of having any novelty for him. But he would say, could I, by the end of this interview, could I get to a place of feeling grateful for having been here? And he knew that the key to accessing that gratitude was fine, feeling like, by the end of the time with that person, they had taught him something. They had given him some kind of life perspective or told him their story in a way that made him feel like, wow, I'm actually really grateful I got to sit with this person. He said, if I could achieve that gratitude, I knew that the article I would write would convey that. I knew it would be a good piece.

38:20I think that we could approach dating that way. But so many people go on a date and it's like, here's what's impressive about me. Here's why you should feel a little intimidated by me. Instead of going, how can I, how can I show I'm impressed by you or how can I show that there's something about you that just, wow, that's really interesting. Although I have a unique understanding of you by the end of the day. That's super attractive. It makes someone feel seen. That, taking, go back to our example, if you're someone who, let's say, is real. You have a job that intimidates people. You also have immense leverage in being able to reverse that by the way that you are on a date with someone.

39:03And so that to me is always, for me, on the front lines of dating, where I'm constantly helping people to actually go out there and find love. I always want to say to them, forget the news, look at what's what are the things you could do to transform your dating life. And it's, it's wild how much you can do to transform your dating life. And it doesn't matter what's going on out there. There's a phrase that a doctor friend of mine used when it came to diseases in hospitals. He says, statistics don't matter to the individual. If you get one in a thousand disease, it doesn't matter to you that it's one in a thousand.

39:41You have the disease. But I actually, from a dating perspective, like to put a positive spin on that, the regardless of how grim things seem out there, the statistic doesn't matter to the individual. If you as an individual learn how to be more proactive in your love life, you learn how to be a beautiful presence on a date. You learn how to attract someone. Those statistics are not going to be the primary thing affecting your love life. We'll get back to talking to Matthew in one minute, but first I need to tell you about a product I've used every single day for three years now to help support my health and my nutrition.

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40:51I always wondered why guys like Tim Ferris and Andrew Huberman and Joe Rogan were talking about it and after trying pretty much every other drink on the market, I can see why it is the best tasting and most comprehensive that I've ever found. Also, there is a 90 -day money back guarantee so you can buy it and try it for 89 days and if you do not like it, they will give you your money back. Head to athleticgreens .com slash wisdom to get a year's free supply of vitamin D, 5 free travel packs and more, that's athleticgreens .com slash wisdom. Remember as well that at the moment, the same news, the same macro weather report is being absorbed by a lot of other people that are in the dating market.

41:31So this is a mental model I learned from David Goggins and he was saying it's so easy to be great nowadays because most people are weak and Dana White said something similar which was he advises his sons if you are even remotely a savage you will run these people over because the bar is set so low. So think about the fact that there are some challenging times and some turbulence in the dating market which causes a lot of people to have a sense of abandon any personal agency that they have. I can't affect this. I'm at the mercy of the weather and it's going to blow me around. Okay. Reverse that and think the bar is set so low because almost everybody else believes this.

42:16So if I put a tiny nanogram of effort into what I do, I will separate myself out from the pack. It's the same thing with guys that are struggling with attraction. I'm like, if you go to the gym three times a week for a year, you are probably in the top percentile of all men on the planet with regards to fitness. 180 minutes a week for you. Like the bar is set so low for this stuff And it is easy for you to separate yourself out from the pack if that's the case. So you can use the concerns, you can use that as a litmus test to think, well, okay, those are the things to avoid doing. I know that if I do something that's even marginally different to that, if I do show up differently on a date, if I do take care of my appearance, if I do try and be kind and compassionate because apparently women say that that's something that they're struggling for at the moment, let's stress test this for myself.

43:10And another thing is that because people have retreated into online dating so much and so few people are going out and actually having interactions in the real world, where's any evidence to stress test any of the ideas that you've learned from the stuff that you've heard on the internet? Like the most egregious stories, the ones that are terrifying and make you worried about the dating market, quite rightly are the ones that get 100 ,000 upvotes on Reddit because they're insane, they're egregious, incredible and terrifying. Okay, well, has that ever happened in your life? Do you ever know anyone that it's happened to?

43:43Apart from that person that's on Reddit, that person doesn't count. Like anyone that you know personally and there will be some people that stories come from somewhere, some people will know that guy. Not many people. And lots and lots and lots of people. Very few of them have encountered any of the night mess scenarios that has spoken about, but people use the stories that they hear on the internet as representative for what they can expect in the real world of dating. Yeah, and that's very dangerous. I... You know, when you talk about that kind of... that whole group of guys that feel invisible, feel overlooked, I...

44:22I always think what... what game is someone playing? Like what's the... What's the outcome? If the outcome is I want to sleep with as many people as possible and I want to be the life and soul of the party. I want to be the person that has the most animal attraction. Then you're going to struggle because not everyone gets to have that. But if your goal is I actually want to meet someone who's awesome. I want to meet someone I can have an amazing life with. I want to meet someone I can build with. It doesn't actually matter how many people find you attractive. It matters that you find someone who thinks you're awesome.

45:15Now if you come from a place where you're so busy focused on how shallow some women are or how much some women will only date up or will only date across all of them, if you're focused on that, that is going to dictate your whole life because you're going to be miserable, you're going to be resentful, you're going to be bitter. If instead you go, you know what, there are people for whom someone showing up with confidence, with kindness, with a boldness because you don't have to be, being bold doesn't mean having money. It doesn't mean being successful outwardly. Being bold can just be unbold in life.

46:01You're someone who has a level of courage. You're someone who has a really beautiful level of loyalty. I know there are guys who are gonna listen to everything I'm saying right now, and they're gonna roll their eyes, because they're gonna be like, try dating, try actually going out there and dating if you're, there will be those people, but I actually believe that, I really believe that. I really believe that, you know, there are people in my company that if they left tomorrow might be able to go and get paid more somewhere. I can't stop that. I can't stop a bigger, more attractive company coming along and going, we're going to pay you double and give you more of this and more of that.

46:50I can't stop it and I can't compete with it. I cannot. I can't be the sexiest company in the world.

47:02But I just in my bones believe that the people that I'm supposed to work with long term are the people that see how much I love them, how loyal I am to them, how much I actually care about them, that I mean it when I say something, that when I say I'm serious about long -term relationship with them, I mean it. I know they could go to another company tomorrow and that person promises them the world and then six months later, they're kicked out because that's how that company is like, yeah, we'll give you the world, but we're also going to get rid of you if you don't live up to every single one of these.

47:43I know that. So I can't play the game of being the sexiest company in the world. But I can play the game of attracting people with the values that I have that they will value. And the people that I want working for me long term are the people that whose values actually match with mine. Dating is no different. You may not be Apple in the dating world. I'm not Apple in the in his world. But your values, they really, with the right people, they will be the thing that makes someone go, yeah, of course I could be with a guy with more money. Of course I could be with a guy who's taller. Of course I could be what I'd be insane to give that up for what I get with you.

48:34And then we'll be some guys who listen to that and go, oh, so I'm the consolation because they'd rather be with this tall, that's insecurity you're talking because no one has everything, no one. And that's you coming from the frame of reference that that guy's height matters more than the values you have. That's you coming from the frame of reference that that guy's money matters more than the values you have. You've bought into that and that's why it bothers you. That's why you feel like you're the consolation prize because you believe it. So you have to stop believing that. And I'm not talking, this isn't like, I want people to understand this.

49:10I'm not talking about some soft like believing yourself mindset. I'm really saying that this to me is the real stuff. This is this to me is like your tall inside. You have a tall personality. You have tall values. When someone feels that from you and they feel that that energy is real, it's crazy how much for so many people. What they thought they cared about yesterday day starts to actually disintegrate. And so what if you started going through life instead of being the person that confirms everyone's suspicions that those things matter more, what if you were the person that made them disintegrate because meeting you was like this, like, change someone's paradigm on what's actually important.

50:01And that is a thing that anyone can do, anyone, but you have to actually live by those values that I'm talking about. And you might have to make peace with playing a longer game because it can take time for people to realize how important those things are. Someone tall, heart and handsome or whatever doesn't sneak up on you. They walk through the door and a lot of people go, okay, this seems like someone I'd want to talk to. But some of the things I'm talking about, they sneak up on you. But when they land, it can change someone's world. I have in my own life started to, in the last few years, really just let go of, you know, whatever, the kind of comparisons that I might have made in the past or the thing for myself where I thought I didn't live up to that or I wasn't there so I wasn't.

51:02I'm an introvert. I'm not life and soul of the party. I'm life and soul when I'm standing on stage because I'm good at public speaking. But put me in a party, I'm no longer life and soul. I never have been. I'm never going to be. It's not who I am. There was a time when that bothered me. I was like I should probably learn some more social skills that make me the life and soul of the party. I want to be that guy who can like, at a certain point in my life, I said, I don't care. I just don't care. And the kind of person that wants me to be that for me to be in their lives, that's not my, that really isn't my, it's not my friend, it's not my male friend.

51:46And I started to learn that I'm appreciated for other things, things that I maybe never registered were important or things that I never thought were important about me. I started to realize, Oh, that's it. Those are the things. Let me focus on that because spending all this time focusing on You know, it's a better looking guy. I'm gonna walk in the room Is someone with more gonna walk in the room is someone you can play that game forever And they always will be by the way There'll always be a Chris Williamson who shows up with bigger biceps You know, it's like it's just the way it is But when your worth is not rooted in that, it's the most liberating thing in the world.

52:31I wonder how much of this is related to age. I kind of get the sense that a lot of the rules that the internet works off get aged out and that people mature out of them and they learn a lot of lessons. So I need to make a little bit of an admission because for the last 18 months or so I have been parroting some data from GSS that said, between 2008 and 2018, the number of men between 18 and 30 that haven't had sex in the last year tripled from 8 % to 28%. And this is true. This was true. GSS data has continued to come out. Last week, I found the 2021 data. From 2018, 28 % of men hadn't had sex in the last year.

53:15In 2022, at 2021, one that had dropped down to 17 % of men. The number of women that hadn't had sex in the last year aged 18 to 30 was 28 % in 2021. Now this changes the story as far as I can see about what's going on because the presumption is if young men aren't having sex, this is because they're not being chosen. Men tend to be the sexual protagonists, women tend to be the sexual gatekeepers, therefore if men aren't having sex it's because they They want it but they can't get it. If women aren't having sex, presumably it's because they can get it, but maybe they don't want it. So what's going on there?

53:55Why do you think it could be the case that both young men and young women are struggling to have sex, but particularly the young women, 28 % of 18 to 30 year old women didn't have sex during 2021. Hmm. Do you have a theory? I'm just curious. My current working theory for a lot of this stuff is that there's generalized, generalized risk aversion disorder, grad, which is something I've completely made up. But that a world where Netflix and Amazon Prime, Uber Eats, Dordash, social media, video games, porn for men specifically, has turned down the amount of risk and discomfort that most people face in their everyday lives.

54:46That means that stepping out of the house to maybe go to a party, well, you've got the competition of the new season of succession on HBO to compete with, you know, it's a pretty high bar. That's quite a thing to compete. Fucking good season. I don't want to compete with succession. No, me neither. So, okay, well, first off, I'm probably going to leave the house less. Secondly, if I do go to a party, I'm going to be on my phone more, which makes me less approachable. Thirdly, if I am there, I don't have the social skills to be interpersonally interesting and leave the cues, the very subtle cues that you need to in order to be able to get people to come speak to you.

55:16Fourthly, while you're there, if you do begin to flirt, it's an incredibly delicate dance that you've got to do. It's push and pull, it's tees, it's leaving sort of wistful intrigue and playing and all that stuff. It's very delicate thing to do, it's very skillful, quite an awful lot of skill to do. None of these things are being developed at the moment. And the reason that I could see that women particularly, especially in 2021, to put my evolutionary psychologist's hat on, I would say increased pathology, pathogen aversion. So women's disgust threshold is lower than men's because they are more fragile from a physicality standpoint, which means that they tend to be more easily disgusted, especially by the presence of disease.

56:05And there's I didn't know that is that real? Of course, of course. Yeah, yeah. The women, I mean, think about it like, you know, how many girls get grossed out by films compared with guys? Like if you just took 100 guys and 100 girls you would presume that more girls would get grossed out by the same thing. I just thought that was because men are more disgusting. Perhaps that could also be it. Yeah, I didn't consider that. But just I think that there's definitely a little bit of hangover from COVID. One of the other sex. So all of the stuff that I mentioned there about, you know, the social media, the introversion, this sort of time that you spend saddening couch watching the TV, none of that would explain a sex difference.

56:43The pathogen thing would do. I wonder how much of a post -MeToo world girls are becoming increasingly worried about being intimate with a guy. I wonder whether we're facing a bit of an intimacy crisis, whether girls' fire alarms are maybe being triggered unnecessarily in some regards. There are a lot of stories from all over the world about what happens if you end up being alone with a guy and it's concerning and so on and so forth, which might just cause girls to check out of the dating market generally. It's possible I'm contributing to the problem. Why? Why? What are you doing? It's creeping women out.

57:26No, I think, no, I mean, I'm joking because I'm a drop in the ocean, but I, you know, I don't think this is true, but I'd almost like to believe that more women are being honest with themselves about what they are actually looking for and when they are presented with something that doesn't represent that. And that's not to say, you know, in the age group we're talking about, there'll be plenty of women who are just having fun and doing their thing, but for women looking for a relationship, there's a lot of sex had by people looking for a relationship that isn't going anywhere. And I like to believe that there's an evolution happening where people are saying no to things that don't represent any actual, I don't think that's true, by the way.

58:16But it would be nice to think that a lot more people are saying, you know what, you don't want the same thing as me. So I'm not going to keep sleeping with you just because you're charismatic, even though ultimately I'm going to end up hurt at the end of this. Okay, so if the bar is raised for what women expect from a partner, especially if it's a casual partner, especially if it's when they're young, this would cause them to not just decide to do it because, well, I'm lonely or because well, he's good -looking or because well, whatever. Yeah, if they were, and I don't think that's true, but if people said to themselves, you know what, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna focus on my north star.

58:58What I want right now is, like I made a video recently about someone, I forget what the age gap was, but it was a woman in her 30s who met a guy in like 10 years younger. He's in his early 20s and this person was like, I really want a family, I want marriage, I, you know, but this guy's amazing. And I just remember thinking you've completely lost touch with your north star. You, the chances of, no, I don't care how much of an old head this person has on his shoulders. He's 21. There's the chances of this person blossoming into a long term committed relationship of marriage and kids is minuscule.

59:51So this just feels like you're betraying your own goals. And that happens a lot. That is one of the most common things that happens is people lowering their standards for something that feels good in the moment, but does absolutely doesn't align with their goals. And a lot of the time people are lying to themselves about the fact that it doesn't align with their goals, because they're just happy to have something that feels good right now. And one of the problems of dating is that especially if you haven't had anyone come along in a while that has excited you, when someone does come along, but they're in the complete wrong package, you're just, you become the most biased judge in the world.

1:00:34And you're like, ah, you know, and you start figuring out a way. You have to do the dishes. You'd love to say, oh, we've made a fantastic dad. Meanwhile, he's never once suggested that he even likes kids. Yeah, if he actively pushes them into open traffic. So, I mean, the bottom line, man, is that with that data, and this is the first time that I've spoken about it on the show, and it's a big deal to reverse that trend from, you know, guys being the ones that were having less sex, 18 to 30 to girls. 2022 will be fascinating. I think we'll be out the other side of the COVID stuff. But the bottom line is that that's what the GSS data says, and it's pretty reliable.

1:01:10And everybody, every single person was totally happy to accept when it was guys that were on the receiving end of this sexlessness crisis. But it seems like, you know, in 2021, 83 % of guys aged 18 to 30 did have sex at some point during that year. So we need to concede, okay, that something is going on, something has changed, and it's women that are being averse to this. I really don't know what's going on, but one of the things that we've spoken about so much has been online dating, somewhere around between 40 and 60 % of relationships now begin online. What are you hearing from women about their experiences with online dating and messaging and guys demeanor and what they're getting right and wrong?

1:01:53I think that you could caricature things a little and say that there's an enormous number of guys who go to dating apps for sex and that it's less likely that on mass and it depends on age group obviously. But an age where people tend to start looking for relationships and women start to really seriously think about why I do actually really want a relationship. I'm not saying men don't get to the same point, but I believe that there's more guys who are on dating apps just going, I'm just here because I want to hook up. And that I think results in a lot of just people are just completely misaligned when they're talking in those places.

1:02:47There's a lot of bad behavior from guys who are hiding behind the screen, we know that. And that's because they're able to do things that wouldn't, that would never dare do out there in the world. How's that affecting women? How's that affecting the behavior that view of men and relationships? I think it's skews their perception of what guys are actually like. Because they're getting, they're getting that from a, a decent proportion of guys. And it's making them think, well, there are no, there are no decent guys. Like, this is, This is just horrendous. But there are decent guys. And they may be, those guys unfortunately, some of them at least will feel completely overlooked in those places.

1:03:32But there's an awful lot of women I think that come away with a really tarnished view of what men are like. And I also think like for some guys, I mean maybe for all, but what they do in that environment when they feel like no one is, there's no repercussions, I feel like that's indicative of how they actually feel about women, or how they, you know, that's indicative of their deeper relationship with women. Because all, or an ignorance, it could just be an ignorance too, that they're not educated, they've never been taught. This is what it's like to be on the receiving end of this. Like, this is what that experience actually is.

1:04:14I don't think most men actually have any bearing on that when they're doing it. And it's not all men, but the men that do it, I think they're not connected to the effects of that. Okay, so step into the guys who are struggling with dating online. What should they be doing if they want to be effective at convincing a girl that they are in this for the right reasons, that they are a guy of value and virtue. What should they be doing when they're texting, making an attractive dating profile, communicating backward and forward? I mean, for me, I think the ultimate thing is that there's a sense of decisiveness when it comes to progression.

1:05:01You know, instead of being the guy that texts back and forth with someone for two weeks, and there's playing chicken with like who's gonna ask who to do something and actually meet in real life. Be the person who actually advances it. I'm not saying in ways that suddenly make us seem desperate but you know you be the person that suggests getting on the phone or meeting up for a quick coffee. Like that that's a pretty that shows intent. What's your good first date? Idea. Some of the favorite ones. I like anything where you are not sitting kind of facing each other. Roll a coaster. Yeah, I remember saying this at an event and just I go, I go, you know, a good date is like park bench style, like anywhere where you could sort of face out into the world and turn to each other when you want to talk.

1:06:02And I just heard a voice in the crowd go, Sushi. LAUGHTER

1:06:12It was like the guy had just like, he really got it. He was like, he was just really connected with, that's where I'm going to do next. Sushi, it really cracked me up. But you know, anything that, if you're going to go to a restaurant on a date, sit at the bar. It's a much better thing that going to a table is awkward. Sitting across from each other and you're staring at each other the whole time, go sit at the bar because then you can chat with the bartender, you can turn and say something but you don't have to position your entire body towards someone. But what it allows to happen is a more natural kind of, you know, We become aware of each other like a sort of side eye arm aware of you and then eventually we turn into each other And I think that a date can almost kind of you've already got there We know each other part unless you're just approaching someone out there in the world but a date where you can start Pointed at something and the more rapport you build and the more comfort you build you kind of end up turning inwards That's a pretty good date.

1:07:26So walking is a good date, like walking somewhere with someone. I think there's a guy you have to, you have to also bear in mind that for women's safety is a big thing. So being somewhere where they feel like, where they actually feel safe with you. So not walking in a dark alleyway. No, no dark alleyways. Right. So for zero dark alleyway, first date policy. Okay, fine, cool. Yeah, those are, those are, and also not, don't be afraid to have a short date. If you can lower the stakes for someone going into a date. 30 minute walk in a coffee. Yeah, like even, you know, I have to be in this part of town later in the day, but I'm over here.

1:08:06Do you want to meet up for a coffee? That just says to someone, I don't have to worry. I don't have to think about whether I want to spend an entire evening with this person right now. The more you can lower the stakes, you only have to think of regular social interactions. If you make a new friend, you kind of want to build up to things because it's hard to hang out with a new friend. It takes effort and you don't have that comfort where you're just like, let's just hang out on the sofa for a few hours and just chill. Like that. But if you say, let's grab a coffee, let's grab a juice, whatever.

1:08:45And there's an out. You're more likely to have half an hour with a new friend. and that half hour can be the making of a new friendship. But you've got to get, you know, as Sean Acre would put it in the happiness advantage. You have to lower the activation energy required. And that can apply for dating, too. What have you seen with regards to online dating profiles? Good ones, bad ones. Oh, man. I'm so not close to dating profiles, but for me, show don't tell is an important rule in dating profiles. you know that whenever we say where something would tell if I say I'm like I'm funny I'm not showing you I'm fine I'm not saying anything that's funny I'm just telling you I'm funny or when we're just saying what we like listing things we want in a person like I want someone who's funny that's it's it becomes vanilla very quickly because sort of isn't everybody I think that real estate is space to actually show something about your personality or who the way that you think.

1:09:54There was a great dating profile that I once came across. And this woman said, the prompt was something like, what's your biggest disappointment? And she said that my future kids will never get the experience of walking around Blockbuster a video and choosing a movie for the night. I always thought that was such a great thing to say because that firstly she was showing that that was endearing. It was like a, it showed a nice part of her personality. She also managed to say that she wanted kids in a completely relaxed way. Not don't message me if you don't want to be serious. Like no casual, you know when people put like no casual hookups.

1:10:43So you don't need to say that. You can just somewhat that intention of yours will announce itself as you start to talk to someone if they behave badly. You don't need to say it upfront. You don't want an ax murderer either, but you're not saying that. Why are you not saying that? Because you've been burned in the past by someone who just wanted a casual hookup with you. So now all you're putting in someone's mind is that you're frustrated by the amount of casual hookups that you've had to have in the passed because you wanted more and they didn't. Like that's not, that's not what you want to put in someone's mind is the things you're frustrated with in dating.

1:11:19So what she did was she, she just very elegantly said, yeah, I want a family. My kids are in my future. But I don't read that and go, it was because there's no edge to it. It's the same. I had a course years ago and there were back years ago when I started I Actually used to send people out for the night women out for the night and have them practice things I don't do that anymore because there's too many people in it was 2000 people in an event We can't send have them to send on the city But back when it was small groups We actually like encouraged people go out for the evening and try this stuff and And it was really interesting.

1:12:06There were two single moms who came in the next day. And one of them said, how do I communicate to someone that I am a single mom? There was a lot of like, felt heavy to her. She saw it as baggage. There was another story where a woman stood up and she goes, I was talking to this guy. And I liked him so I was started initially, like I immediately started flirting with him. And the first thing I said when I spoke to him was, your chin dimple is really adorable. It's not quite as adorable as my daughter's cheek dimples, but it's pretty adorable. She had managed in the first line to communicate that she was a mum and have it be flirtatious Whereas someone else in the room was going, how do I communicate that I'm a single mother?

1:13:07Like she had Darth Vader waiting at home when a guy was going to come over. That to me is fascinating. And I think dating profiles are a great place. They're a great kind of revealer of what's our current mindset, how playful are we, how likely can we take ourselves, how likely can we take our own baggage? Like these are a lot can be communicated in a few words that way. We'll get back to talking to Matthew in one minute, but first I need to tell you about Man'scape. Man'scape's lawnmower 4 .0 is the best ball and body hair trimmer ever created. It's got a cutting edge ceramic blade to reduce grooming accidents and 90 minute battery if you want to take a longer shave or if you're just a particularly hairy gentleman.

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1:14:36to have more women not having children, is this something that you're noticing? A woman saying that they don't intend on having families that are in the groups that you work with? I don't see that, but I have to assume there's a... that has to be true on some level. If you take a society where it's less... I won't say it's not frowned upon at all because there's a kind of no matter how far we've come, there's always gonna be families and societies in which women have to deal with the fact that something must be wrong with you if you don't wanna have kids. Something must be wrong with you if that's not in your path or that hasn't happened for you.

1:15:20They're always gonna face that from somewhere, but to a far lesser extent than before, and if it's to a far lesser extent than before, then naturally you're gonna have people who never wanted kids or don't feel like they wanna be, that's not their path, who are going to feel more comfortable actually following that. So I have no doubt that number must have risen, but you know, a huge proportion of my audience are people who would like to find a relationship and part of what they would part of what they want and their dream is to find someone that They love to have kids with like that's the I think probably I I don't have data on this, but I would imagine that because women are pushing it later, which can either be, which is a kind of combination of pursuing careers, societal expectations, not being the same or being looser and even just the availability of egg freezing and other methods that there's a kind of feeling of, I can delay this.

1:16:30But I know from first -hand experience with not only women, but on my podcast, Love Life, we had two fertility doctors who came on and talked about this. That there are a lot of people who just kind of, there's almost a feeling of, oh, I'll get to it. But so we all know that in life, when we just decide we're now going to do something, life doesn't always cooperate. And if we're leaving the time until later, if women especially are leaving the time until later, where they suddenly decide like, okay, now I'm going to do this, and they haven't met someone yet, and they've got to go through three more guys that don't pan out to get to the one that does, that that can, I've seen a lot, a lot, lot of people end up grieving as a result of that.

1:17:26And by the way, the same is true of a lot of men who assume mistakenly that they're good. I'm good. I can wait and wait and wait and wait and wait. And then it comes down to it. And their sperm count is too low. Or you know, the what's the, I don't know what the medical term is for slow swimmers. But you know, is that they're not in a place of fertility where it's, their sperm is viable in the way that they thought it would be. They thought, oh, I'm the dumb, deal part of this equation. Or they have more complications because they waited a long time. Yeah, which is the reality. That seems to reflect the data that I've seen.

1:18:07So a very, very large chunk of women who make it to adulthood break through the fertility window and don't have kids, didn't intend to not have kids. It's around about eight out of 10 women who end up being childless that didn't intend to be childless. Around about 10 % of women are physiologically uncapable, incapable. Around about 10 % of women intended to not have kids, which leaves four out of five that didn't. And the word grief, which is what you used, is precisely correct, that they grieve for families that they never had. And the support groups Jody Day, who runs one of the biggest in the world, is coming on the show in a couple of weeks time.

1:18:43And it's wild in a, one of the concerns that I do have at the moment is this current trend that we're seeing of demonizing motherhood, I would say, in some regard that, you know, the newly acquired liberation that women have had to be able to go and achieve a career and get education and employment and status and all of this stuff is phenomenal. But to see that as if you choose to be a mother, that's settling. You're choosing to be a second class citizen in some regard. And for every culture, there is a counter -culture movement. For every patriarchal staying in the kitchen, you're not supposed to go and go to university college and get a career.

1:19:30There is now a movement. I mean, Chelsea Handler, I don't know whether you've seen the videos that she's been putting out the trending online is a video of like what it's like to be a woman in her 50s who doesn't have a family. And for Chelsea Handler, she very well may be the right person. She may have made the complete right life choice. She talks about how she's going to get on rare, find a guy for tonight, smoke weed, masturbate, fall back asleep, fly to Paris by a croissant. And I'm like, is this really the fucking future that most women aspire to have? Masturbation and croissant? Yeah, it was blazed out of your mind.

1:20:03She did a clap back video a couple of days ago where she was pouring an entire bottle of gray goose into what looked like a massive nutri -bullet flask. I was thinking to myself, you're an adult infant. Like you're the same as the man child that you would accuse men of being. And my concern is that given the fact that we know the largest mattress analysis that's ever been done, said eight out of ten women who end up not having kids didn't intend to not have kids, we're already fighting against slow life strategy, which which is what you mentioned, sort of pushing that fertility window out. We're already making it, it's difficult to, you may need to cycle through a number of partners before you can find the right person to end up settling down and having kids with.

1:20:46I don't disagree that some dystopian fucking handmaids tale -esque scenario where you're forcing women into the bedroom so that they can pump out babies. That's wrong. But given the fact that eight out of ten women say that they wanted to have kids and couldn't It's also really wrong to tell women that they shouldn't be having kids or that having kids is settling or that they become a domestic prostitute if they choose to do that. And this is a trend that is really, really picking up steam. There's a TikTok called Girl with a List, you've seen this? A girl who printed out a list of 350 reasons as to why she didn't want to have kids.

1:21:27And it goes all the way from can't wear cute heels anymore to baby is literally a parasite light inside of me to all manner of like, and it's got millions and millions and millions of tags and plays on TikTok. And I'm like, I don't disagree that this is interesting content that's going to grab attention and headlines. But the real world outcome of this in 15 years time when the 28 year old girls that are watching this a bit older is concerning. To me, what I hear in all of this is, it's a kind of version of what men go through in a different way, where if we're not careful, we're sold the life that we should have.

1:22:13And if you take, you know, we talked about the percentage of guys that feel overlooked. If you take the opposite end of the spectrum, the guys that have an enormous amount of choice, Many of them will be sold culturally on this idea that if you can, you should sleep with as many people as possible, you should live it up, you should just don't set or anytime soon, delay, delay, delay. And that... You have to be a pretty strong person to go, I don't think that's the answer. Just because I can. It doesn't mean I should. And I'm not even saying that from a moral or ethical place. I'm for myself selfishly, just because I can.

1:23:10It doesn't mean that's gonna make me happy. And... Women will, you know, they already do find themselves in a place where they're having to really get in touch with what they want and try to shut out the noise. And I find myself very conflicted on this because there's nothing I hate more than the idea of a woman who doesn't have the independence herself to be able to walk away because I've I've seen that and I've seen the utter destruction of lives where women don't have enough financial independence or the ability to continue with a job or a business. And so that man has something he's holding over her the whole time.

1:24:13And it is the mandate for abuse, those relationships.

1:24:21So on one hand, the idea of, you know, kind of saying, motherhood should be celebrated, I agree with, but I know if I had a daughter, I would want her to never be in a position where she needed a man financially, where she was always going to be okay on her own, because that's power. Past that point, that's when you have to start getting really honest with yourself and saying, do I need more? If I've already got my independence and now I can choose for love and I can stay for love instead of staying out of fear, it is more necessary. And everyone faces that at some point in their life. I mean, guys face that all the time.

1:25:16You're getting in touch with yourself and going, what do I actually want in my life? You could just keep going and going and going and going. You have the potential, you have the ability, you have everything, you've got a winning hand. Right? You could just keep going. It's an interesting question. We all have to ask at some point, which is, what's good for me? What kind of life do I actually want? Because of course I could keep going. More is all available, always available, but more time isn't. And I think that's when I look at, when I look at women in motherhood, I just think it's trying to quiet the noise, going, what is it I actually want with my life?

1:25:57I've had to do that. Me and Audrey have had to really think about what do we want with our lives. Like what's a kind of life that we're looking for? How much does that involve us working? What's going to make us happier at the end of the day? It's no secret. Like when I thought, for most of my life, when I thought about kids, I was like, sweating just, oh my God, this is terrifying. I don't know. Like I've got friends of mine who, from the age of 22, male friends of mine who are like, I want kids. I know it. I want to be, I spoke to Matthew McConaughey a week ago and he was like, I always know my biggest dream was to be a dad.

1:26:36I cannot relate. But when Audrey and I sit down, we're like, we look at all of it and we go, yeah, like this feels right. It feels right to do this. I don't know when, like we'll figure that out. That's between us, but this feels like something, this feels like it's really important to us, even if it costs us in other ways. And it will cost us in other ways. But those are like really adult calculations. And I think everyone has to make them. And that demonization of people is a bad thing, of course. I'd love to understand your framework of how deep blasting attraction works. Say that we've managed to get through all of the hurdles that we've spoken about so far.

1:27:23And that somebody wants to get into a relationship which has deep blasting attraction. You've got a way to break the very large behemoth that is being attracted to somebody into component parts. Well I always said that attraction is perceived, attraction is chemistry plus perceived value plus perceived challenge plus connection. So physical, you can exchange physical attraction for chemistry, but physical attraction perceived value, perceived challenge and connection. Haven't said it in a while. But I really think those four things are pretty reliable as the components for attraction. You need some physical attraction.

1:28:17This person needs to bring value to your life and that can come in a number of ways. So that's perceived value. And perceived is an important word because if you can be valuable, we all are, but if you don't know how to market your value, then no one's going to see it. If you don't know how to put forward your best for people who are not going to know how great you are, it's no one's job to like excavate how great you are. are, you have to be able to actually show someone. So perceived value, perceived challenges, making sure that value isn't free. That there actually is a price to pay for that value.

1:28:59Why is that important? Because we don't value what we don't have to invest in. If something, if, if you went on a first date and based on her picture or her pictures and you thought she was so gorgeous, you showed up with a brand new car for her on the first date and said, I bought you a car. It would freak her out. She'd think this person's mental. And the reason she'd think that is because she had done nothing to earn that amount of value. And that's when we say someone seems over eager or desperate, what we're really saying is that they're giving an unearned amount of value. They are showing up for me in ways that it's not appropriate to show up for me, given how much I'm giving to them.

1:29:53And that's the classic people, please. I'm suddenly doing all of falling over myself to try to serve this person who I really isn't doing anything to earn that. There's not an equivalent exchange in value. So perceived, perceived challenge makes us value someone's value because we realize that they have standards around it. The, and having standards around your value is essential. Otherwise, you, you'd have no time in life, you'd have no energy, you're just bleeding out everywhere all the time. And when someone realizes you're bleeding out for them exclusively because they're just so hot or they're so charismatic or they're so something.

1:30:38Our value goes down in their eyes because we go, oh, they must not, this person must not have a lot of value because look what they're doing for me. I'm not doing that for them. I'm not doing the equivalent. I haven't even thought about them in the last two weeks, but look at what they're doing for me. That's crazy. You know, so we Now we lower their value in our eyes. So, we at least question it. So that's perceived challenge and connection is, okay, we have animal attraction, but do we actually have a shared world view? Do we, you know, is there a compatibility here that is going to make us last?

1:31:16So the question is, how do you maintain all of those things over time? And that's what, you know, Esther Parell has obviously written great books about this. She talks about the difference between love and desire. Desire is, love is the coming together of two people. Desire exists in the space between two people. So if you are just constantly like this, and there's never a space between you, then that mystery that fuels desire is no longer allowed to, it doesn't have the oxygen to breathe. And to me, that's the great, that is the great challenge of a long -term relationship. I actually think that we kind of pathologize familiarity like it's a, that's the curse, is being familiarity breeds contempt, but familiarity, if it's done right, can breed enormous richness.

1:32:11You can really get to, like, anyone who's really had a successful marriage will say that they're just getting one of the great joys has been year after year, getting to know even more about their partner, their unique facets that other people don't see, don't know about, they've built a bond that is extraordinary. Now that alone won't give you the animal desire that is also needed for a long term sexual relationship, but it will give you a level of connection with someone that is just so weighty that the idea of giving it up is the equation always is weighted on the side of staying. As far as physical attraction goes, I think that there is a...

1:33:06On one... It's like on one hand you have to do the things that allow you to maintain it on some level. If you know that's different for every couple and it certainly isn't limited to Cosmos articles on, try this new sex position as a way of, it's a lot more nuanced than that. You know, maintaining attraction on that level, desire on that level could be that we haven't been out to an event with each other in the last three months or all of COVID. And we go out to an event together and I actually watch you go over and talk to other people and I get to observe you again and I observe the way other people receive you and how you make other people laugh or how you'll look at by other people and they go, oh yeah, she's a sexy person in the world.

1:33:51I'd forgotten living at home for a year and a half or so, you know, like that, that's what happened to a lot of people. And I think the other side of that is to say, I need to rob myself of a kind of this expectation that I have that everything is supposed to stay the same. time and that you have to remind yourself of how much being single sucked a long time ago. Like, there was a time when you were single and you maybe could sleep around or did sleep around and it probably didn't live up to your expectations either. Like, that wasn't some unbelievable, you know, you were living this unbelievable life and even if you were, even this extraordinary life of sleeping with a different person every other night.

1:34:45I haven't met many people, especially ones that feel anything like me, who tell me happy tales about that. Like after a while, they either get anxious because it's like I just feel weird and I'm going to get someone pregnant. This is going to happen. That's going to, they're just freaked out. Or they're in a place where it's just boring because they go, oh, yeah, is just another body. Ultimately, that's all this ends up being. There's no navana on the other side of this. So, I think the longer we get away from something like that, the more we glorify it, and the more we think, oh, remember that type of like...

1:35:24Grass is always greener. Yeah, and it wasn't even that green then. I give probably wasn't. You know, maybe you had a heyday, But I guarantee you that hey, they had a shelf life and at least with this situation This you can point to unbelievable things that you like I'm a I'm not someone who says everyone should be in a relationship but I am positive in my life of How much better my life is in my relationship and how much it brings to me, that that equation is one decisively every single time by what I get out of being in this relationship. And I think when people lose connection to that, that's when they get in trouble.

1:36:10So it's as much about connecting to that as well. How can you stay grateful for the things that a relationship is bringing you? Because any of us, especially Taipei people who are all about optimization and what's the next thing, We are really good at getting to a level that at one point was like our dream or not even conceivable No, 15 -year -old Chris wouldn't conceive by bet of where you are today, but You're probably also a great normalizer And if you're a great normalizer that is not a you that's a useful skill in business Because you just, you never get too impressed with yourself when you just keep going.

1:36:53In a relationship, there's a really dangerous part of people like that. And I count myself as one of them because there can be this done. I did that part. You know, so what's the, what's the optimization from here? But you, the optimization now is a vision that you build together. It's not like I'm optimizing still for the person. and I think people optimize too long for the person actually. Talking about that from a personal standpoint, and your growth, now millions and millions of clients that you've worked with in this illustrious career of internet work and exposure and plays and all the rest of it, how are you personally avoiding getting caught up in external metrics of success?

1:37:39And what have you learned about where sort of genuine happiness and success fulfillment comes from? I, my, like the word that I just keep coming back to in my life now is simplicity. And me and my partner say it all the time, we're just like simplicity. Like what, what's going to complicate our life for very little gain? And what's going to simplify it in a way that just keeps reducing our life to this just of where all the good stuff is. And for me, the good stuff is my relationships with my family, my relationship with Audrey. It's doing work that I feel passionate about instead of work that just gets me ahead.

1:38:23That's a big one. Let's get you ahead. You know, there was a time when for me it was about survival. It was about like I need to feel secure because I don't feel secure. You know, actually? Yeah, when I was growing up, we were not secure. It was a difficult situation at times. So for me, I so much of my life was about trying to feel safe and and it's a hard transition to make actually between trying to feel safe and then now trying to feel fulfilled because it's that engine if you're not careful, just keeps going and going and going, but I these days I just I want to do work that I'm really, really, really passionate about.

1:39:08I want to be connected to it. It's one of the reasons why I like in my work now. If you look at a lot of my videos in the last year or two, they have a dating wrapper on them. So much of it is about trauma. So much of it is about overcoming the wiring that we have that makes us unhappy or makes us anxious or makes us stressed or makes us continually go for the wrong people or stay in toxic situations. I talk about that because not because it's popular, I talk about it because I feel it's really, really important and helping people in their mental health that way is important to me. So, for me, that's what's important.

1:39:48And I'm not going to say I don't get drawn in to the metrics because that's a constant on, I have to have a very firm compass that I connect to every morning that reminds me connects me to this is this is the stuff that actually matters because otherwise that part of me that that massacust he will take over and make all of our lives miserable because I caught that part of me that stresses and is anxious and is feeling like Rome's burning even when Rome hasn't been burning for a while that part of me is not just bad for me it's like not I'm not good company When I'm like that, I'm not good to the people I love.

1:40:33I'm not, not like a calming presence for people. I'm not someone who, I'm not able to access the best parts of me, the most generous parts of me because I'm just, it's a loop of like fear and anxiety and all of that. And that's been a really, it's been a big thing in my life. And I've had to really work on that for myself. I continue to work on that for myself because it disconnects me from everything that's actually important and living in L .A. or Austin or any of these places. Not good for it because you're around people who are doing awesome things and there's always someone who's doing more and there's always someone who's eclipsed whatever you've done and you you it takes a a lot to be like, that doesn't, takes a lot to leave the party where someone just told you something awesome they're doing and go, yeah, I don't wanna do that.

1:41:34How do you stop that external comparison game? I, well, I'm fortunate to be in a place in my life where I've, it's not worked enough times that I realize, oh, it's not, Well, if I was doing that, it wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't make me any happier. Do you mean that you've seen a mountain that you thought was good to summit, got to the top of it and realized? Yeah, you know, I came... When I first came to LA 10 years ago, I came for a TV show called Ready for Love. And it was a huge deal, huge TV show. Executive produced by Eva Longoria. It was like, this was going to be the show. and it got cancelled after three episodes.

1:42:21Was that your fault? I think I was the best part of the show. LAUGHTER I salvaged it, it was going to be one episode. I... But it got cancelled and I, a year of my life that was spent working on this thing that was supposed to be huge, just kind of... And there were all these people that wanted to know me for the time that it was big and you know when it was like everyone was coming out, managers and agents and this and that. And I really got the full, I got the full Hollywood experience. You're so important. And then no one's picking up the phone. I like, I went through that whole thing in a, in a space of a year and a half and it was, it was great.

1:43:10It was like the The best thing that could have happened to me at 25 when that happened was so great. Thank God it wasn't a hit because it wouldn't have been good for me. It absolutely wouldn't have been good for me. I might have blown my life up. I just couldn't trust myself at 25 to handle that. And so I look back now and I'm just like, but when I was up there, it didn't make any difference. It was just like, it was exhilarating in certain moments, just like anything is that has that drug effect and then it's nothing. It's a relevant being on Love Island that I did the first season, first person through the doors of season one, and it was 10 times bigger season two and then 10 times bigger than that season three and then 10 times even bigger than that season four so I basically did a full production, fully broadcast dress rehearsal for all of the remaining ones that were actually successful but I'm so grateful for the fact that I came off and there was 5 ,000 more followers than when I went on No one had about show, nobody gave a shit.

1:44:27No one gave a shit about it because if I had managed to find success doing reality TV, I would have ended up being pigeonholed into a life of that is how you got success, replicate that formula to achieve more. But because it wasn't something that I generated, it was something that had been given to me. Like make no mistake. For every single person out there to think that going on reality TV is the answer to their problems You are basically like the mocking bird mocking J fucking Like that's what you're hoping for you're hoping to be plucked out of the lottery and gifted status on the top of a hill But it's not you you're not manifesting you forward you're being squeezed into the shape that is prefabricated because the show knows what it needs.

1:45:21ITV2 knows what they need out of this show. The same as your thing when you came to LA, and the same as whatever else it is. If it's not completely generated by you, and that's not to say that people can't go on these shows and enact themselves forward and be interesting in whatever. But for the most part, you're being very heavily squeezed into a odd shape that you have to fill. And if you've been taught through life experience, oh well that's how you get success. Not rinsing and repeating that is gonna be very, very difficult not to do. So I couldn't be more grateful that my season of El Vail and the New Year was a failure.

1:45:57Yeah, well because what you're talking about is that in life you can do things that give you these spikes. But those spikes, they correct themselves, right? It's over and then you're kind of back to your life and being you and even if you back to your life but with more money or more something, you're still waking up every morning going, what do I do today? And that's real life. Real life isn't you won the lottery and now your whole life is different forever. No, real life is you still have to wake up tomorrow and decide what to do. And if you, I think one of the, to me at least one of the great secrets is if you can just find something that, that when you really connect to it, you realize I could do this for a long time.

1:46:44Like, this is... I could keep doing this. I think... What I do now, and I don't mean the intensity of it, because I could say I could stand to lose a couple of projects, if I'm honest. But what I do now in terms of every week on YouTube, I make a video, And I have courses and live retreats and all of that and that's an unbelievable part of my world but just reaching people and and saying things that make them feel better and help them That I could just do forever. I Know that would be a life well lived for me and I think if you can find something like that forget the spikes Forget the spikes play the long game with that There's this guy, this is embarrassing, but there's this guy called, I'm a bit of a like Disney geek.

1:47:41Didn't see that coming. I grew up like, when I first time I went to one of the Disney parks, I was like, just blown away by it. And it's just never left me. The man I am today with all of my diverse interests, I'm still one of my favorite things to do is to go and walk around the parks. There's this guy that his name is, his YouTube name is Mr. Morro. And he just walks around the Disney parks and like video blocks about his experience going around the parks. And I spoke to him on the phone because he was such an example to me of someone who just, he figured out something he really loved. And he was working at Denny's.

1:48:30There's some good items. I didn't know that Denny's was uncool and I started going wanting to go there for dinner with my friends and when I said, can we go Denny's, they looked at me like I'd suggested that we go and kill somebody. I lived for a long time in LA opposite the IHOP on sunset Boulevard, which is a particularly sort of, it's right in the middle of Hollywood, so it's quite a... Boozy eyehop. No, no, no, there's a lot of characters. It's like a bit of a, like, you know, it's just a bit grimy. And I lived right there and I used to go to that eyehop every morning for breakfast at like 5am when I was like going to, because I didn't want to work in my little apartment, so I used to go to Starbucks right after I'm working and just eat in that eyehop.

1:49:16So I can slum it with you at Denny's anytime you like. but he used to work at Denny's and then he started filming these videos just going around the parks and I spoke to him on the phone because I was like at one point I really wanted him to come and speak at one of my events because I was like you've just figured it out I can tell you figured something out you figured out something you love and now you do it for a living and you're not you're just so grateful all the time you don't strike me as someone who's just looking for more, more, more. And I spoke to him on the phone and he just was the most, he was just the sweetest guy.

1:49:56And he said to me, I just, he was, there was no, there was no one there to see it. This conversation. He just said, if I could just do this every day and just keep doing this. And I've got a couple of friends here in Florida that, you know, I've made and I walk around the parks and I film and people really like them. He said, I would just be so happy. And that I I was I welled up when he said it. I literally got goose bumps and welled up because of something about it was so pure. And I just thought that he's figured it out. He's figured something maybe hasn't figured all of life out but he's figured something out something that most people never figure out in their lifetimes.

1:50:38What can I just keep doing that if this is as good as it gets I'm good. That's pretty special. I've heard you say in the past that you felt like you were on the outside of your own life looking in. Yeah, I felt like that for a while. I think I hit like 27 and I just, I didn't, I couldn't connect. I was like struggle. I was trying to figure out what's, what's going on, like why am I not, I know this is all great, but I don't feel connected to it. I just felt very disconnected. I didn't use that word at the time, but I look back now and I was just unhappy. I hadn't, I hadn't, I had done, you know, there's, as you well know, there's levels in life.

1:51:30And depending on your circumstances, growing up or at school or whatever, level one for you might be survive or do something that means you don't have to fear and so you kill yourself trying to do something that means you don't have to fear anymore or you can take care of people that you love and that was it for me like from early on it was just like take care of people like the people who are the people I love to let me take care of them let me take let me make it so that I'm secure, they're secure and let's, and I kill myself like doing that. I said no to so much in my 20s. And, and one of the things I said no to that I didn't really realize was just, I suppose true introspection, like really under, I didn't, I was just to, it's not like I kept saying there's all this bad stuff that I need to process So I like let me save that till later.

1:52:33I didn't, I just didn't, I didn't even connect to that. So when I started not feeling right, I didn't know why. I just, it was just, I've just freaked out. I was just scared because I thought, oh, why, what is going on? Why am I numb? Like why am I not, I'm helping a lot of people. I know I'm, you know, people were so grateful for the work that I was doing. I was independent, I was able to take care of people I love. It should have been awesome. And it just wasn't. I had a lot of things, I had a lot of work that I hadn't done. I didn't even realize it was work to be done. For me, the idea of therapy was for someone else.

1:53:23It was for a different kind of person. and I'm killing it. You know, like everything's going, I work hard, I have no problem with ambition. I'm like driving forward in my life, I'm helping people, I'm doing what I like. It didn't, it just felt like, oh that's a thing other people do. And I've been very, very humbled by life over the last eight years in just realizing, There's always another level. There's always something you've kind of not figured out, yeah, or not worked out. And I praise, I applaud great therapists. Not every therapist is a great therapist, but the ones who are really good, you know, I applaud them because that work that they do with people, if you can, is it, you know, the hardest thing in the world is when you have someone in your life that you love and you see them unhappy or you see them disconnected and you're like you really need to go and do this work.

1:54:23Was that the difference then from being on the outside of your own life to actually feeling it was mostly therapy? I think it was a number of things. I think it was therapy but it took my life, it took sort of things happening that affected me immensely or it took an immense amount of pain for me to do that. Like, it wasn't something I was going to do just because, like, oh, let's just add this into the portfolio. I was always, I was always someone who took courses. I was always someone who did self -development. I was always, like, that was just me. But it was all Taipei stuff, you know what I mean?

1:55:02It was all, like, optimization and getting ahead and learning. It was never like going inwards. And that's because I was so focused on that feeling of getting out of danger all the time of like let me just get somewhere secure. Let me just get somewhere where I can control things where we have enough money, where we have enough that I, the inward work didn't feel like it had any return. Didn't feel like, what am I going to, like I'm going to sit in therapy for hours and hours and hours, like what's the return on that? And I think that that happens to a lot of people. There's no obvious ROI on that.

1:55:41So it's like, I'll I'll save that. Like I could do that later, which is why in some ways, for some people, it's actually, I wanna be careful how I say this, but it's unfortunate in a way that, if they never really get punched in the face by life. Because if you don't hit a certain pain threshold, and you're the kind of person that thinks you've always got it together, and you can always function, which is how I was. I was like highly functioning. If something doesn't bring you to your knees, then you may never make that decision to do that work. You may always live in a disconnected way that deprives you of how rich and how beautiful life can really be.

1:56:28I love life. I always have loved life. But there were times where I couldn't connect to that love. love. And so, you know, for me, it was just realizing, oh, I'm not something's not right. And I'm not going to be able to deal with this unless I do something about it. And it forced me to slow down. It forced me to say that hour that I take away from work today to go and sit in someone's office and do this is more important than anything else. was there a single moment that brought you to that? I mean, multiple. Having that realization that I didn't feel, truly having that realization, that was a moment.

1:57:15I dealt with chronic physical pain for a long time, which is still a part of my life. It's not like it's fully eliminated, but I had a long time dealing with chronic pain in my head. And that I'm pretty convinced was arose out of not dealing with stuff and not dealing with stress and not like I'm pretty, I'm not someone who used to be a big believer and I think spent enough time with me to hear I'm a pretty rational person. I need logic to make sense for me to get on board. But I've had enough experiences now to realize, oh, you can really do a number on yourself yourself, if you don't figure certain things out, if something's like creating tension in you, if something's, if you're not processing something or dealing with something, then your life, your body, something will find a way.

1:58:13Aaron Alexander is nodding his head along to this at the moment. Right. Right. Something will happen. And for me, it was a throbbing pain in my head that just never went away. And other symptoms too, which I won't mention just because it's the kind of thing that people, once you say it, everyone wants to give you a thing you should do, you know, you should drink celery juice, you should take ice baths, you should do this, you should do acupuncture, you should, like, I've been on that entire journey for years, so it's not, I don't need suggestions. But it was so bad. It was so bad. This wasn't, I'm not talking like it kind of intruded on my life.

1:58:59It took over my life. And it robbed me of my joy. It really couldn't figure out how am I ever going to be happy again. like I really even said at one point to the therapist that I was seeing. I came in one day and I was like, I've come to the conclusion that for as long as this pain exists, I'm never going to be happy because I can't sleep properly, I can't experience any of the good stuff in my life, I can't focus. It is just there 24 -7 and it... I've come to the realization that I may never be able to be happy again. So I'm just going to live for other people. I'm going to live for my family.

1:59:52I'm going to live for the people that I'm helping. I'm going to live for... Like... And he just looked at me and he went, And that is, the first sentence he said is that is hallmarked depression. But he said it's a circumstantial depression. It's arising out of chronic physical pain. But what you just said is real depression. And that language I would never have used about myself. I didn't relate to anxiety or depression. Like, they weren't words in my vocabulary. And yet, I came to realize in my life, I've always had anxiety. And depression was something I was experiencing then, in a really serious way.

2:00:43And when something is taking over your life to the point where you go, it's not like I was having suicidal ideation. but when you kind of have a thought that I don't know how I'm gonna do this, I don't know how I'm gonna... If this stays this way for the next 50 years of my life, I don't know what I'm gonna do. And that was terrifying for me, like truly terrifying. And it felt to me like becoming an adult in a I'd been an adult for a long time and I'd had to handle my stuff, my own life for a long time. I'd had to rely on myself for a long time. But it felt like a time in my life where it was like the truest realization that no one is coming.

2:01:37No, my family would look at me in so much pain and feeling so depressed and not know how, what do I do? This person I love so much is hurting so badly and they're like a zombie. What do I do? And when the people that love you the most are throwing their hands up because there's so helpless to be able to help you, you realize like, oh my God, no one's coming. This is... and it was my first... I tried everything and it was my first brush with something where my type A... I can't fix this. I've always been able to outwork any problem. And this is not working on this one. And I went through all this day.

2:02:38I went through panic, like sheer panic, to grief, to my life is over, to I went through all of that. And I'm not talking six months. I'm talking like for years this went on. and I had just functioned really, really well through it all. But the more I worked on my own piece, like truly worked on my own piece, the more it started to sort of like ease up, it was almost like tension went away and it started to ease up. And it's gotten to a place now where I'm like, You don't understand, I couldn't have had this conversation with you before. This is not something I would have said to anyone. This would have made great content to talk about this for the years that it was going on.

2:03:34It would have been amazing to talk about this vulnerable. I couldn't speak about it to anyone publicly. The only people that I talked to about it were my friends and family because I couldn't trust that information in the world. and people, I couldn't trust anyone in the street coming up to me and talking to me about it, and that I would be able to handle that. So me talking about it now is like, I still don't want everyone coming and talking to me about it really. You know, still there's a part of me that's like, I don't even want to talk about this because I don't want it to be a topic of conversation.

2:04:12It's a very personal thing to me, but I'm able to talk about it because I've managed to find a completely different level of peace in my life. And what I've learned through this whole process in life is that everything that we're struggling with has a very, you know, my pain, my physical pain, has a very real component to it, right? There's a portion of it that's just physiological. It sucks.

2:04:49But my emotional relationship with that was making it a thousand times worse. And once I had to run that, I had to like truly go through that journey, which is the, for me, the most, I suppose, I'm not a person who uses the word spiritual very much, but it was the most spiritual journey of my life to have to learn to come to terms with that and make peace and coexist with it and build a relationship with it that was positive instead of negative. But the more I did it, the more I realized that 80 % could be, I could figure it out. And if I could figure it out, if I could bring it down to like a six or a five or a four, then I could have a different life with it.

2:05:34And I think that's true of all of our stuff is that we We encounter problems in life and we think We think the problem is this like Immoverable object and it might be and literally might be something you can't do anything about but The people don't understand what leverage they have with what the 80 % is their relationship their emotional relationship with that problem and And now teaching that for me, teaching that to other people on things that they're struggling with is one of the most... It's one of the things that brings me the most joy on my retreats where people come and spend six days with me.

2:06:15It's like it drives me because I know people's lives can be so much better than their experiencing right now. By changing the story that they tell themselves about the things that are happening to them. Changing the story is absolutely one of them. A different story will give you a different emotional relationship with it. Having a different mindset around it, even just understanding that you can modulate something. Like, when I started to learn, I can modulate this. Like, if I can bring this to a 9 from a 9 to a 7, I can actually enjoy my day more. I can live more. If I could get a peaceful five minutes, maybe I can make that 10 or an hour even.

2:07:03I didn't think of, sometimes I go, I didn't think about my pain for the last half hour. Why was that? What was I doing? What happened? As I enjoyed myself, as I distracted, did I have a bigger problem? I was studying it. And what I came to learn is everything, everything changes, everything. We have things in our life that we think I'll never get over this. It'll never change. Whether it's heartbreak, physical condition, someone dies, something happens in your business, you can never get over this. Everything changes. It modulates. lights. And you don't know how you'll feel about this thing in five years.

2:07:48And you have to be very careful because at my worst, I honestly was like checked out of life. As I can't do this. And part of what made it, part of what turned it from a already painful experience to one that was intolerable was when I told myself, it'll be this way forever. Then I was like, I freaked, it's panic. And panic, you can't live in for too long. Your body can't take, your mind can't take it. So you like, it's like you short circuit. And panic just goes to numbness, just disconnection. For me, one of the greatest lessons of my life is that you just don't know how this is gonna change.

2:08:34And if it doesn't change, you don't know yet, you're not an expert on how your relationship with it is going to change. And either way, that can produce a completely different life for you. And I know this is probably off -subject for what we were talking about today, but I just think for anyone out there who's really struggling right now, if that can offer not just hope, but because hope can, like hope itself can be really miserable, right? When you keep hoping that it's going to get better and it doesn't. If instead you just sort of settle in, like if it sucks right now, whatever part of life sucks, if you just settle in and just strap in and just go, okay, it sucks right now.

2:09:18But I don't know how much it's going to suck in five years. It might, I might feel differently about this. This might change or I might change the way I see it. Everything changes. If you couldn't get If you can understand that, then you suddenly have a kind of mental formula for just strapping in. So I'm just just strapping for now. And Jiu Jitsu, when I started out, I was rolling for like three minutes and then I couldn't breathe. And I remember my professor saying to me, you know, you know, some of the guys, when we're here, after you, we'll roll for an hour. non -stop. We like set time for an hour and we just roll for an hour for this like marathon.

2:10:05And I was like, what are you talking about? How is that even possible? And he said, you know, when you realize that it's going to go on for a whole hour, you kind of just, you stop breathing differently because you just realize, well, I can't keep going like this. like I just have to settle in. And suddenly when you settle in, it's a different experience. Then when I'm going for three minutes and I'm like, like 10s, 10s, 100%, you settle in. And I think that's a pretty good way of approaching life in general. If you're anxious in early dating and you go, are they going to text me back? Are they going to tell yourself, if this is going to work out, I'm going to be with this person for the next 60 years.

2:10:53Do I want to breathe like this the whole time? Is this the energy I want to have the whole time? Could I do this for 60 years? Alright, then settle in. Matthew Hussey, ladies and gentlemen, if people want to check out the stuff that you do online, where should they go? Well, I suppose there's three places. If someone wants something that's just easy and free every week, my YouTube channel, you can find me there on my Instagram or Facebook. If you're a woman looking for dating advice, I have a link called your dating solution, where you can literally input your challenge and it will give you my best solution for what you're going through.

2:11:36That's at yourdatingsolution .com. And if you're a man or a woman and you're looking for a bigger journey and bigger life change, not just your love life, but your whole psychology and getting the most out of your life, I have a virtual retreat that's coming up. There's a three day event for men and women, and they can find all of the information about that at MHvirtualretreat .com. I really appreciate you, man. I appreciate the fact that you've done the work. I think that it is very cool to see someone go through this trajectory over time of coming out here of achieving success, of failing of success, the darker side of what's going on, whilst publicly still having it all together and privately going through all of this turmoil.

2:12:19I think it's a very compelling story. I really appreciate the work that you do. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. And I appreciate the work you do as well. Your curiosity is really inspiring. You and I, I think, have probably had a lot of similar influences over time. I, you know, the people that you and I, I think, in our 20s started to gravitate to, the hitchhands and the harrasses and the marries. You know, I think you and I have been inspired by a lot of similar people. and it's fun to watch your mind work. Here's to the next ten years.

2:12:49Cheers.