The Key To Finding True Love | EP 869

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes, and welcome to The Daily Motivation Show.

0:11If you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose, and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of, I've written a new book called The Greatness Mindset, and I think you're gonna love this. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and step-by-step guidance, The Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link in the description to get your copy today. It was stunning to me that a 2009 UC Berkeley study, you know, found that good relationships can add a decade to your lifespan, potentially.

0:49A decade. It was crazy. And then there was a meta review where they look at all the studies about relationships. And what they found is that good relationships are second only to genetics in terms of predicting both health and longevity in humans. It's so crazy we forget that those little stressors that build up and we don't have a release valve. When we can't talk about things, we can't share things. When we can't hear that it's normal, it's okay. This is really hard stuff. The stress hormones that happen, that basically because of loneliness, is the equivalent of a physical attack. Loneliness is like getting beat up.

1:25Loneliness before the 19th century basically didn't exist. We were so enmeshed in societies. Tribes and communities. Religions, tribes, nations. we always felt a part of something. Even if we weren't close to people, and we usually were, we felt we were a part of something. You basically, before the 19th century, you can't hear it mentioned because we were always embedded in a group. When you hear the word lonely, it meant something by itself. It didn't have the negative stigma. Really? It wasn't until literally Frankenstein that you heard lonely in the 19th century start to be used as a negative thing because we had an explosion of individualism, which unlocked a lot of power, a lot of great things in the world.

2:03but we felt separate. And people who are lonely and people who are not lonely spend the same amount of time with others. Lonely people don't spend any more time alone. We've all felt lonely in a crowd. You can be in Times Square on New Year's Eve. Feel alone. And still feel alone. You can feel alone on the subway. Loneliness isn't lack of proximity to people. Loneliness is how you feel about your relationships. When you go on a business trip, you might miss your friends and family, But you know they're there. You know they're missing you. You know they don't care about you. You don't feel lonely.

2:36You might miss them. Versus if you're surrounded by people, but you think nobody cares, that's when you feel lonely. Time is one of the most powerful signals in a relationship. That's why we like it. That's also why manipulators like it. How you show somebody that they're really special is by costly signals. If I spend a lot of time with you, if I spend an hour a day with you, I can only do that for 24 people. And I've got to sleep. That shows you're special. There's no way around that. Time is costly. Vulnerability, I'm telling you things that could be used against me. Those are powerful signals.

3:11And when people reciprocate those signals, we know they're serious. If they're making the time, if they're saying things that maybe they shouldn't say, then these are people who are making the effort. If you're not feeling supported enough in your relationships, an easy thing you can do is introduce your friends to one another. because the issue is there's a synergy. I think that word's often overused, but there's a synergy in that, in the sense of having one-off relationships is great, but once you start introducing your friends, you're creating a community. Your friends can coordinate. Hey, Lewis is feeling down.

3:48We should take him out. Now they can work together and you're creating your own group. You're creating your own community. That is so much more powerful than a lot of one-off relationships where people can't share information and say, this is what he needs right now. Usually the things our friends know, we usually know. But when you go one degree out, those are the things we're not hearing about. Those are the things we're not connecting. When you're connecting people with other people that are one degree out from you, they're getting new ideas, new potential, new job offers, new opportunities.

4:20You're creating this whole network. You're the center. You're the champion of all these relationships and opportunities. And that is so valuable. there's a lot of places that say they want to have impact. It's like, no, let's have positive impact. Let's focus that a little bit more. And it's like, to do that makes all the difference in the world. I mean, not only in terms of, again, relationships and love, but also in terms of career. One of the biggest tips that's come out of research in terms of people networking is there are some people who are super connectors. There are some people, if you look at your contact list, you will see they introduced you to a disproportionate number of the people you know.

4:54And reaching out to them is a very high leverage way to network better by creating these things. You're not only bringing people together, doing warm things. You may be helping these people get jobs and opportunities because you are the super connector. We're often reluctant to even talk to strangers in a Starbucks or something like that. We often feel like, oh, we're going to annoy them. And the truth is, that's not the case. When they surveyed people just saying something small, wow, the line's long, or how can you relate to them? We usually feel better. And when we think about it, like, again, to specific, yeah, when I did say something, that person said something, we overemphasize the negative.

5:31Most of the times when we just say something nice, we reach out, we feel better, they feel better. And sometimes it blossoms into an actual friendship. In longer relationships, you are going to get away from the craziness. But love makes us nuts. Love makes us absolutely crazy. When you look at the historical documents, go back to 3000 BC and each of you. Wars and killing and this and that, yeah. Love was described as a malady. It was described as a sickness. Really? Yes. Because it was literally a diagnosable illness. And to this day, if you just... Yes. Because we get so nuts. And the truth is, it makes sense.

6:06We talked about earlier, we're in friendship with costly signals. What is a more costly signal than I am running around like a maniac, thinking about you all the time and doing everything. I'm not behaving rationally. That tells you I am invested. I am serious. I am incapable of callously taking advantage of you because I'm crazy. And they actually tested this. They looked at countries and communities where it was very easy to just ghost someone and countries and communities where it was very difficult. They had strong network ties. It was hard to ghost. What do you see where it's easier to ghost?

6:43The signal of love, the craziness of love is greater because your brain realizes fundamentally, Finally, I need to boost the signal to show the other person I am nuts about them. Love is stronger because it has to communicate. It is a valuable sense. It's a valuable sense to the other person that you are literally crazy about them. What predicts long-term success in a relationship is you isolate part of that crazy. Idealization. Idealization. Seeing that person as better than they are. It not only predicts happiness in a relationship, It predicts the duration and the success of a relationship.

7:19You need to see them as better than they are. It is the greatest hallmark of love. Really? Yeah, because we can get cynical. Everybody has flaws. When you start making negative assumptions about your partner, that's not a good sign. There's a strong correlation between how people feel on their wedding day and how things work out. Because when people have second thoughts, divorce is much more likely. Versus when people have that idealization. You've heard it. When people first start dating, they are over the moon. This person has done everything. They've won Nobel Prizes and gold medals. They are unstoppable.

7:54Having some of that and keeping some of that, a little bit of a rational positive, people are not deluded. You realize your partner is imperfect, but you're always willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. You always believe they have the potential. When they do something wrong, they must be having a bad day. You're compassionate. You give them the benefit of the doubt versus the idiot did it again. So that idealization, seeing that person as better than they are, being able to sustain that is a great sign of true love.

8:34Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. that will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

9:29Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.