How to Build the Relationship You’ve Always Wanted With Matthew Hussey

0:28Hey, it's Adam Grant from WorkLife, a podcast from TED. software, you'll work smarter, not harder. Freshworks uncomplicates. Learn more at Freshworks.com.

1:00Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hi, friends. Grace from the Working Hard podcast here. When you're stretching every dollar, a little goes a long way, and Walmart Business is here to help. They make it easy to order what you need from tech and cleaning supplies to everyday essentials, all at low prices and with helpful tools like spend tracking and tax-exempt purchasing for eligible organizations. Because when your operations are smooth, your impact can be bigger. Visit business.warmart.com to get started.

1:43What is up? I'm Grace Beverley and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast shape guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing. Because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

1:57what is up and welcome back to working hard today's episode is a special one because not only is it all about love and relationships but it's also going live the week of my wedding which we thought would be a fun kind of collab situation and i couldn't think of a better guest to help guide us through it all than matthew hussy matthew is the world's leading dating coach his youtube channel has over 4 million subscribers and his advice has been viewed over 1.5 billion times online. He's coached celebrities, CEOs, and he's always on the Today Show and in the New York Times. So it's safe to say he knows his stuff about relationships and dating.

2:28I met Matthew in LA earlier this year and I knew I wanted him on the podcast, not least because the first podcast episode I listened to with him was a good few years ago, right after I'd been through a breakup and I found it so helpful and sent it to about five of my friends. So the moment he touched down in London, I knew we had to make this happen. This episode is kind of like a masterclass in love dating relationships from spotting red flags to building confidence to keeping a relationship strong long after the honeymoon phase. So whether you're single, dating, married or literal days away from getting married like me, there is something in this episode for you.

3:02So I hope you find it really helpful. Before we get into this episode, please do go and hit follow on whatever app you're listening to this on. It means that you'll get a new episode every single Monday to start your week with a fresh perspective and it also really, really helps us grow the show. So I'd be super, super grateful if you could do that.

3:20Matthew Hussey, are you currently more working hard or hardly working? Working hard? You've caught me in a weird month because I'm back in the UK with my wife for this month, which means we're living under my mum's roof. And that's always a time where I try and spend more time with family and give myself more of a break. But in general, working hard, but I'm trying to work hard so I can work less. Yeah, I love that. And I think it's important to like what we always preface on this podcast is kind of the fact that, first of all, you need the hardly working times to be able to have the working hard.

3:57That's kind of the whole point of the name. But also that like around the idea of designing a life in the way you want it between like what hard work you do to stay fulfilled and make sure you're doing, you know, you're working towards the things you want and also having pride in the fact that you can also spend time hardly working. I'm working on that. Yeah. I'm not there. Neither. So I can't help, I'm afraid. Would love to be able to help. Yeah. Well, I'm sure you'll get there sooner than me, the way you're going. But it's taken me a long time to figure that one out. And I guess in line with that question then, I'm very intrigued as to how someone becomes the world's most famous relationship coach.

4:38Is that what I am? Yeah, that's what's stamping on you. What's the story? What's the story? I, well, I'm in very, very tough competition for that particular label, but I'm, I started coaching people at a very young age, younger than I should have been really. I mean, I was in my early twenties. I was 19 when I started on YouTube, which was given that I'm 38 now. I was there right, you know, at that stage where it was quite a strange thing to be doing. and you know I was fascinated by people and I was an introvert growing up I was shy I've never really I'm still an introvert but I'm less shy I found tools to help me with that and it was fun for me to to find tools for myself and then pass them on to other people that was always a I realized I both really enjoyed the idea that you could improve yourself as simple as that sounds I remember being 11 years old and my dad had uh how to win friends and influence people on his bookshelf and I picked it off the shelf and read it and was very quickly just it was a revelatory idea to me that you weren't stuck with the way you were with your shyness with your patterns with your level of impact in life it was actually something you could get better at and we live in i think a self-development infused culture every pore now that makes it feel like that's a very obvious thing to say but to me at 11 years old the idea that you you weren't stuck with how you are was huge so i that was a huge thing for me but then what i realized about myself is i really enjoyed translating ideas that i was learning that i found helpful for other people and i think that's one of the kind of for me it's always you know my that's been my instrument in life as it were is figuring out what's a way of saying something that someone might have heard that thing a thousand times before but they hear it this time and something about it makes it resonate so i started out doing that on youtube i wrote a new Times bestseller.

6:59There was a dating book called Get the Guy. It was aimed predominantly at women at the time. I then 10 years later went on to write a book called Love Life, which was another New York Times bestseller, this time much more gender neutral and aimed for everybody. But I kind of built my career across live events, retreats over the last 17 years. I think I first listened to a podcast with you on, I think maybe five years ago. I think it was when I was going through a breakup and it was through searching a keyword on Spotify and I can't remember what it was. I think it was something like blindsided or something like that.

7:40And I was like, ah, interesting. And I remember listening to the podcast. It was really great. It was a really, I remember sending it to like a good few friends afterwards. And I think it's so interesting how exactly, as you say, you can hear the same advice a million times, but it's how you kind of how that's put and how you're able to digest that in that moment that really makes such a difference to you being able to actually then make changes in your life. I think that's an exquisite thing. I think the idea that nothing we say is new. We're going to go through our whole lives saying things that are revelatory to us, but have been said millions of times over millennia.

8:21but the idea that you can say it in a way that the people around you are going to hear differently or they're going to have that revelation because you said it in your way that to me is one of the most fun things about what you do what i do this podcast these things i i think that's a that really is like that gets me out of bed in the morning the idea of crafting something in a way that someone's going to hear it and go, I've been in therapy for 10 years and it never landed the way it did in that moment in that video or in that moment with someone on stage. Yeah, no, I completely, completely agree.

8:58And in that guise, my aim today is to get the most advice out of you possible so that anyone who's listening to this can kind of have a dating and relationship 101 in terms of some of the, not just the surface level things, but some of the deeper things as well in terms of why we might not choose the right partners and how that's reflective of things we've been through and all of that. So first of all, I'd like to start with probably one of the big ones. Why so many of us struggle to find the right partner, even though, you know, we know better. Maybe we go for the same types of person again and again when we know that they're not the right type of person for them or the type of behavior is toxic.

9:39Why do we, why do so many of us struggle with that again and again i i think for the same reason i struggle to to work less you know we have this conditioning that has us gravitating to what is familiar not towards what makes us happy and it's for many of us to do something different represents a form of danger disease discomfort we don't feel safe in unknown territory even if that unknown territory could make us happy and also unknown territory can be unattractive at first i mean you can find someone if you're used to the kind of highs and lows of a very tumultuous relationship or dating that always feels like drugs then when you find something that feels peaceful you might not experience it as peaceful you might experience it as boredom and that's a tricky place because now you go now you're in this dilemma is this the right person and i just need to like get used to this new feeling that's not chaotic and doesn't feel thrilling all the time and doesn't feel like when they're away, I'm like lovesick, yearning for them.

11:02And am I just supposed to relax into this or have I settled? Is this the wrong person? Is this not peace? Is this just, I picked someone who's safe and I'm bored and I'm going to pay the price for settling for this boredom 10 years from now when I realize I cannot be in this relationship because it doesn't stimulate me in a way that's going to keep me around forever. These are very, very hard questions. And it's much easier sometimes to just go back to what we know, hope that we're going to eventually find someone who gives us all of the feelings that we want, which often toxic people do. Often relationships where there's a lot of push-pull keep us engaged.

11:44When we always feel like we're chasing, we never really get the that we never get to just sit and go, is this person actually right? Because you're always on your toes. If there's always a feeling of I'm trying to get you, I never really stop and go, do I want you? And that's the cycle that many of us get caught in. By the way, you can get caught in that not just in the dating phase, you can be in that in a relationship. Some of us, I've been in a relationship like this where you feel like you're still kind of chasing in the relationship. Like we typically think we stop chasing once someone says yes to a commitment, like, oh, we've decided we're going to be exclusive.

12:26It's you and me. We're an item now. So we go, oh, now, now I'm going to feel safe. But there are some relationships where you still don't feel safe, where you still sort of have this weird sense that someone's half out the door. You don't know if you really have them. You never really feel like they're yours, that they're committed on the level you are, even though they've said they are. and so in the relationship like that the chase never really ends and neither does the romance because of that neither does the kind of those giddy highs and those severe lows that is a very dangerous thing in itself because now if you ever leave that relationship or if that person leaves you you go in search of somebody else but somebody else can't give you forever that feeling that that gave you because the only reason you experienced that for so long was because you never really felt safe in that relationship so no we end up almost going how can i find a secure loving healthy relationship that gives me all of the feelings of a toxic unhealthy chaotic relationship and there's a conflict between those two things a lot of the time so if you're the type of person who's listening to this and thinking boring who's thinking oh that might be my issue like i might go for avoidant people again and again and again because it's what i it's what feels exciting to me i'm not attracted to people who are interested in me like i need the chase all of those different things what would you say to them that involves some real introspection because why is it that someone becomes uninteresting the moment they decide they like you what does that say about your relationship with yourself there's a groucho marx line that that you know goes i wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member and that's kind of how a lot of people are in their love lives yeah i wouldn't want to be a member of any relationship that wants me uh and and so we go through life going you know if if you you want me what's wrong with you you don't want me you're on to something and I think it's sometimes even less obvious than that like I'm I I actually would say that probably every I've only ever gone for avoidant people in the past like always and I remember seeing something that I remember knowing it was a thing and knowing that it was something that I needed to fight against because it felt exciting, but I didn't want it.

15:09That's not what I wanted my next relationship to look like. There was a quote that was like, do you want to be loved like this forever? And I was like, oh God, fuck no, please no. But I think that I saw something that said, I can't remember what it was it was like you you tolerate what you think you deserve and you kind of in something like an avoidant situation you see them acting that way as kind of appropriate like it is reflective of your self-worth it makes you I don't know as you say it feels safe it's more comfortable because maybe you're used to avoidant like you had avoidant parents and who weren't very present or you had, you know, some sort of traumatic avoidance situation that's kind of really stuck with you.

15:57And that to you is your comfort zone because you can deal with that much better than you can deal with someone who's overbearing or always present. It becomes both your comfort zone and your level. So your comfort zone in the sense that it's what you know. And so you kind of know your way around this behavior. In a sense, you don't, you wish you could navigate it better but you also know it you know the pattern you know this formula you don't know the formula of someone who behaves in a secure way or who behaves in an in a way where they really show you they want you or they're keen on you like that's behavior you don't necessarily know your way around but the avoidant behavior is like ah i got it i know this it's your level because often our worth is set by whatever we've received in the past, not by what we're capable of or what we can have, but what we have had.

16:51It's like there's an internal mechanism that says, if you could have had more in the past, you would have had more. The fact that you haven't had more means that you're not worthy of more, regardless of what anyone else is getting. So we say, this must be my level. And we think, well, love, I can only experience love if it comes with a catch. if it you know there's a great there's a line i put in my book about nikki glazier the comedian who you know she was on a podcast and she was talking about having an orgasm and she went into this whole kind of hilarious monologue but about how you know in order to have an orgasm she needs to be tied up or she needs to be like you experience some form of pain or some form of because it's she said it's like an orgasm is like christmas you can't have christmas every day and I and I thought it was so funny and so true of how so many of us live our lives you know again it goes back to the work thing it's how many people including myself struggle to just allow themselves to feel joy to take a day off to say I'm just gonna play and how many people say before that happens I have to have worked five or six really hard days and then when I'm at my like point of like exhaustion then i get to let myself experience joy fun playfulness you know this is joy with a catch and a lot of people feel like based on their model of a relationship growing up if they had to fight for attention if if they never felt like they got approval unless they did certain things or jumped through certain hoops or minimize their needs they learned that love comes with a catch and so they only recognize love later in life when it comes with a catch ironically for them when they record when they see that love that comes with a catch they feel safe because this is the kind of love i know how to work with i know how to achieve and yes it might be difficult to hold on to it might go away but at least i know what I'm dealing with a different kind of love.

18:57I don't know what I'm doing with that. And by the way, it's not just, I think it's important we recognize that the reason we go for certain people who are scarce, avoidant, hard to get, isn't just an issue of self-worth. That's part of it. the other side of it is that there is a kind of economics that happens where we convince ourselves in the same way that we think of diamonds as being important and and and valuable even though they have no practical value for us whatsoever and by the way we never think about air diamonds and air which one's more valuable obvious but we never give a second thought to air that's what someone who's hard to get is like it's diamonds it's the thing that its value goes up simply because it becomes more scarce when it has nothing to do with the value of the person and we have to be very conscious of that mechanism inside of us that the moment someone's not texting us back some something goes off in us that says why aren't they texting me back who is this person I think I like them.

20:13I think I really like this person. I wouldn't be thinking about them this much if I didn't like them. This wouldn't hurt this badly if I didn't like them. But what we miss is the sleight of hand where it was nothing to do with the value they're providing. It was everything to do with the fact that they disappeared, that they're no longer available. It's no different to a nightclub with a guest list. And what does a nightclub do? The nightclub keeps people outside, even when it's empty inside. form a line, have a list. Because even if it's empty inside, I can convince you that what's going on in that club is really interesting based on the fact that this one has a line and this one anyone can walk into.

20:54All of a sudden you go, I don't know if I want to walk into that one. Anyone can go in there. This club's got a line outside. Maybe that's where I want to be. But it has nothing to do with how great the things going on inside that building are. It has everything to do with the false economics of scarcity that have been created on the outside of it. What can you do to make sure that you're not falling into those traps and you're not just replicating past pain by going for certain types of people? Stay connected to the pain, firstly. We don't have great pain memories when it comes to stuff like this.

21:28So we forget how much it hurt last time or the last 10 times. and the moment someone shows up and those chemicals those drugs start coursing through us again all of a sudden that's what makes us light up and that's the feeling we're craving what we don't stay connected to is the misery that we experienced over two and a half years with the last person who never really committed to us who always kept us hanging who never made us feel like we were good enough for an actual relationship and then we find someone and they're exciting again and instead of being clear about what was missing last time that made me deeply deeply unhappy because it was missing because if we know that we'll prioritize that this time over whatever feelings we're feeling in the moment so a good experiment is to say to yourself okay the last time i got really really hurt what was missing was it empathy was it sensitivity was it communication was it uh loyalty was it respect was it openness was it commitment what was missing the last time and it's worth noting that in that relationship or that situation you held on to it because you really, really wanted it.

22:55And yet you were utterly miserable. So now you know that even in a situation where you still have access to someone you really want, sometimes more than anything in the world, even when you had that, the fact that you were missing that thing made you deeply, deeply unhappy if you know that the next time you find someone exciting you'll connect to that and you'll tell yourself nothing matters if i don't have this thing nothing matters if i don't feel good in this person's presence and i do this with myself in in everything in life and i also think that you the more you heal a lot of these kind of internal wounds as it were or kind of things that you've been through again and again, the more you start to tune into that gut feeling better.

23:51Because I think that for years and years, for me personally, any of that push and pull wouldn't give me a bad feeling. Like it wouldn't give me a bad feeling because I was so used to it and because that was what I considered to be, like that's all I'd known as like love in many different forms. So I think that that is like you have to do the work to be able to get the signs that you're doing the work and also to just be able to trust yourself a little bit more in terms of your decision making because it's not your fault that you might be bad at decision making when it comes to going for the same wrong people again and again but at some point you do actually have to do the work and be able to recognize it or you do just replicate that cycle curiosity is a very valuable um trait to have because it's you you don't necessarily know how to escape the cycle you're in.

24:41But if you're curious about life and about the way other people live, if you see that other people seem to be having happier relationships than you are, curiosity can be the gateway to a new experience because you don't have to know how to do it right now or what you need to give up exactly or how to have perfect judgment. What I really took seriously was when someone else in my life be a friend could be a mentor it could just be someone i know in my vicinity if i felt like they were doing something experiencing more peace in their life more happiness more joy that more time more whatever i would get very very curious about how they made decisions differently than me like i i even remember a time getting more jealous in dating and relationships and i would notice there were certain people who i really valued whose opinions mattered to me who i saw in happy relationships and they they were not experiencing jealousy the way that i was and i was like i would probe them i'd be like let me give you a situation and i'd give them a situation that maybe i told them it was a situation i'd be in maybe i didn't But I'd give them a situation and I'd say, how would that make you feel?

26:02And they'd be like, well, and instantly I'd see there was a different kind of belief system they had around it. And then I'd go, that's really interesting. Then I'd say, well, so what would you do next? And then I'd see where I would make a left turn and they would make a right turn in the way they would handle it or the way they would bring it up with somebody. and what i would see at every juncture is what they would do differently or what they would think that was different from what i think in that situation i think that that's important it's actually essential when you're you're living your world your experience all the time to your point you only have ever lived your experience so what our version of life what we think of as reality is just our reality it's not life it's our very very narrow experience of this life that at one point or another we decided was the way things are.

26:56And I think when you realize there are a million different ways to live this life, all of a sudden you get curious about how other people are living it, especially if they're experiencing life in a way you'd like to. Absolutely. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert.

27:35That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com. Post a job for free and get started today. What's up? Grace from the Working Hour Podcast here and I want to tell you about something exciting. You're watching every dollar and Walmart business helps you stretch each one. From office supplies to snacks and cleaning gear, you'll get everyday low prices, plus easy bulk ordering and fast delivery. And with tools like spend tracking and multi-user accounts, staying organized is simple. Save time, money, and hassle at business.walmart.com. It's free to sign up. I'm no tech genius, but I knew if I wanted my business to crush it, I needed a website now.

28:09Thankfully, Bluehost made it easy. I customized, optimized, and monetized everything exactly how I wanted with AI. In minutes, my site was up. I couldn't believe it. The search engine tools even helped me get more site visitors. Whatever your passion project is, you can set it up with Bluehost. With their 30-day money-back guarantee, what have you got to lose? Head to bluehost.com to start now. And I want to come on to speak specifically about dating, because I know a lot of our audience are in the dating trenches, unfortunately. especially with the state of I guess modern dating now and all the apps and it's hard to know what you should be doing what you shouldn't be doing what means you're not putting yourself out there what means you're kind of falling into all of these traps so I'd like to first talk about first dates on a first date what do you think you should be paying attention to versus what you should kind of avoid obsessing over I think how you feel in someone's presence if you can actually tune into that instead of you know how hot they looked showing up tonight instead of the clothes they're wearing i'm not saying attraction isn't important of course it is it's important that you can see yourself having chemistry with someone but how do you actually feel around them because those markers of status popularity uh looks how desirable you think they must be in the marketplace place of dating based on what you're seeing in front of you.

29:40Those are all things that obfuscate your ability to just check in with how does it feel in this person's presence? Is this someone that I could have a thousand meals with? Is this someone that I could see myself in like feeling more of myself around? That's a really important thing. Can I be more of myself around this person Or do I instantly feel like in some weird way I'm closing off parts of myself or I'm already pretending to be something else because I think that's what they'll want from me? Understanding that, understanding that feeling. And then, you know, there's obvious things that, you know, is there a level of, are they kind and warm in the way they receive you?

30:25How are they to people around you, you know, in this room? Is there a kindness that's 360 degrees or is it just pointed at you? That's a very important one.

30:39How is the communication after the date? Does it feel easy or does it constantly feel forced? I don't think we should obsess over who texts who first after the first date or anything like that. I think that's a, you know, by all means, if you want to give them half hour or an hour to text you, do it. But also don't obsess over it. If an hour later you're like, I want to tell them I had a good time. Yeah. Tell them you had a good time. But does that set off a nice rhythm of communication? Or is it like pulling teeth constantly? And if it's like pulling teeth constantly, don't ask yourself how to get it to not be like pulling teeth.

31:22say to yourself I don't want to be with someone where it feels like pulling teeth the whole time or playing games as well I think a lot of the time when you're dating or looking back for me when thinking about dating I think a lot of the time I excused kind of objectively impolite behavior as kind of oh well it's just dating etiquette and you don't really know when they're gonna text and they might not you know just like all of these different things and it's kind of you can have standards as to what you believe is polite and what you would want from your partner in terms of actual just like decency it's not even kind of dating etiquette it's just like kindness decency communication all of these things and I think it's really easy to call them different names and put it in you know it's just what people dating do and you know there's a little bit more push and pull and all of that and I actually look back and I think god why was I making so many excuses for people rather than just being like oh no I would always only want to be with someone who communicated effectively and wanted me to know that they had a good time and all of these different things and sometimes the only way you know how to gauge that is if you show up with your best energy both during and after the date and you see whether that's whether that comes back to you you can't what you can't do is go into dating in a defensive position going i'm gonna wait and see if they're nice to me and then i'm gonna be like that that's not you dating is leadership that doesn't mean you're the one leading all the time but in terms of your personal demeanor your energy that you bring dating is leadership is the ability to show up and make an impact and invite someone into that to that you know that place you want to go which is a place of playfulness and fun and energy and excitement and possible romance.

33:16And, you know, you're bringing them, you're creating a world with who you are and you're inviting someone to participate in that world. And you're seeing if they can meet you there. And if they can't, that's okay. By the way, we shouldn't, we should, it's healthy to manage our expectations after date one, because frankly, after date one, people don't owe us shit. Like there's no, no one owes us great communication after a date. No one, people like when people say to me, like, you know, I got ghosted after a date. I'm like, did you text them? No, they just didn't text me ever again after that date.

33:56I'm like, but did you text them? No, I didn't. I wasn't going to since they didn't text me. I'm like, then they didn't ghost you. You just didn't talk to each other again after the date. That wasn't a ghosting. ghosting is if you're reaching out to the person saying are you dead and they ignore you you know ghosting isn't two people who just decide they're in a stalemate and no one's going to do anything it i and i think no one it's no one's job after a first date to think that we're the greatest person they've ever met and now be certain about us ultimately dating is a dating is a process you there's nothing that says you can't go on another date because you just went on a date you really enjoyed this week you know i think that's an interesting thing that people do it's like i had a great date and then all of a sudden in their mind they're like because i really like this person i'm now not going to date anybody else and that's fine but that already sets up this weird uh asymmetry where you're now in your mind already exclusive so you've set up the conditions to be mad that they're not or that they haven't reached out to you because now when they don't reach out to you for the next few days you're pissed and you're like what the hell we had a great date why haven't they reached out and my thing is why two weeks or three weeks later are you still thinking about this person?

35:30Why haven't you been on three more dates? Well, because I like them and I thought we had a great time. But did you agree together that you weren't going to go on any more dates? Of course not. So there's this, that happens too, where we have these disproportionate expectations of another person because we've silently decided we like them and that's who we want to get and now when they don't meet us there we're we struggle with that reality it's a delicate balance of go out and date people be the energy that you want in them and then go where the attention is reciprocal go where you feel like the energy is matched and invest more in those situations but also recognize that we we have a word dating for a reason why do we why do we not say you know after every day i'm in a relationship now because it's dating and i think some of us lose sight of that especially when we've decided that we like someone that we are very much just exploring someone for now you don't know who they are.

36:45You don't even know who someone is after three dates. You have no idea. Okay, you really like them. Guess what? They're a stranger. You have no idea who they are. And many people find that out six months from now when all of a sudden this person they've been seeing for six months turns out to be a completely different person. I don't say that to create fear in people. I say it to slow people down and recognize that in the very beginning of dating, all someone has done is make an impact on you. What they haven't done is confirmed their character. The character can only be measured over time. So you think one of the most important things when dating is just taking it slow?

37:29You have to be conscious of a pace that allows you to actually get to know who someone is and whether the two of you are compatible. Because chemistry on a first date tells you neither of those things. I also think that sometimes compatibility can be mistaken for two people just wanting to be in something. And therefore, if you both have the same aim, like you both want a relationship and you get on to a certain level, then sometimes that can extrapolate itself into a relationship. We're perfect for each other. Yeah, we're perfect for each other. We both don't want to be alone versus actually, no, this is my person or could be my person or could be my person for the next few years whatever it might be a lot of the time the thing that you might have in common is the fact that you want to be in a relationship and I do think you're right in that slow mitigates a lot of problems and it's not about not putting yourself at risk because of course once you like someone you're you know at risk of getting your feelings hurt anyway you've kind of got to take that risk I remember one of my friends was saying to me today like oh I was really annoyed you know I haven't had someone affect my feelings for ages and I was really annoyed that someone now has the ability to make me upset and I was like yeah but as long as they're not making you upset the whole time that just means that they also have the ability to make you happy like it can't you can't just have one of those sides of things you've gotta be able to let someone in in some way if you want any relationship but that's that's why so many of us avoid these things like dating is something that people avoid because they go I just can't do that again you know I don't there's a there's a kind of equanimity that people find in their own space you know I'm out of I've got over my last breakup I now have my apartment and my my peace things that I do in the morning and my weekend activities and I have my friends and I've worked extremely hard to curate this perfect equilibrium that I have.

39:33I don't want to go date someone who I didn't give a shit about five minutes ago who can now fuck me up. Why would I want to do that to myself? Why do I want to enter that game? I had a boxing coach once that told me, you cannot throw a punch without exposing yourself to a punch. the only way as a boxer you can throw a punch is by exposing part of your face so that's dating which is why we have to have a big enough why for doing it in the first place like what is why am i doing this and i don't think the why i don't think it's necessarily a big enough why to simply say because i want to find love that's a pretty big one i think it's you know i'm in order to close myself off from this altogether, I am kind of amputating essential parts of myself, whether it's in some cases my ability to connect or to feel an intimate connection or sexuality.

40:38I'm sort of amputating a part of myself and telling myself that that has no effect on me. but it does have an effect on people there's there is often a very deep sense of sadness or longing in people who have told themselves i'm never doing that again and you know it depends on stage of life you know there are people who you know get to a point in life where they lose a husband or a wife for 50 years and they're like you know what i'm good you know i got my grandkids and I got this and I got that. Do I need to meet someone again? Maybe not. Like some people get to that point and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that.

41:15And there's nothing wrong with realizing you're happy on your own. But a lot of people are, they have all this potential to connect and to love and they really want that. But there's just something terrifying about exposing yourself in that way.

41:40This episode is sponsored by Adobe Express. Running a small business and having to do all of the social content yourself is a task that so many people think is easy until it is very much not. Let me tell you about a real secret weapon for those early days. Adobe Express is the quick and easy create anything app, which allows you to make stunning social posts, images, videos, flyers, and so much more. As the founder of a social's first company, let me tell you I know the importance of being able to make engaging content quickly and easily. Adobe Express has an all-in-one editor where you can create and edit your images and videos and schedule them to go live on your socials all in one place.

42:15You can even easily resize your images and videos for any platform in just a few clicks, so you can cross-post to all of your social channels. Adobe Express is available on desktop, or you can download the mobile app and start creating today.

42:38Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Free.

43:11so then on that I guess move from dating to talking more about relationships I'm interested in how with all of these things in mind you how we can set boundaries effectively without I guess a lot of people have this anxiety of maybe scaring someone off like when you're going from that dating stage to that relationship stage and things get a little bit more serious and you kind of have to be able to put your foot down or protect your peace, protect your time, whatever it might be. Given dating is so hard now, I can imagine it is harder and harder or it feels harder and harder to then set those boundaries.

43:52So how would you really recommend being able to set boundaries whilst avoiding scaring someone off? Well, that's the impossible rule that we set up is how do I set a boundary without scaring someone off? And that's why we don't have them in the first place is, is that scarcity mindset that says, I don't know when the next person's going to come along. And if I found someone who's hot and fun and I'm attracted to them and they're the kind of person I see myself with, I don't know when that's going to come around again. So now all of a sudden we become whatever we think that person wants from us.

44:33The problem is it's an illusion of safety, having no boundaries. And once we recognize that we give up on having no boundaries. The illusion of safety is if I become everything that you want me to be, if I go out of my way to please you, if I always come to your side of town, if I, then I'm, if I always go to your schedule, even if it's inconvenient to me, you're going to like me but what's actually going to happen is you're going to have no skin in the game what's actually going to happen is you're going to develop a deep sense of entitlement without even knowing it by the way what's actually going to happen is you're not even really going to know me and at a certain point all of this is going to come tumbling down because i i'm going to starve my soul is going to starve i'm not going to get any of my needs met i'm going to be deeply unhappy and one day that will leak out and you'll be horrified to learn I have needs and you won't know how to meet them or maybe aren't prepared to and I might have lost 10 years of my life in the process so it's recognizing it doesn't work having no boundaries has never worked for us and when you realize that you go okay there is no alternative to having boundaries there really isn't the alternative is a deep suffering but what we can recognize is boundaries aren't that as someone said to me once boundaries may have been a friend of mine david kessler he said that boundaries aren't for somebody else they're for you the example he gave which i really liked was if you say to someone hey um i'd love to speak to you tonight i'm going to be in bed by 10, but any time before that, let's speak.

46:19And they're like, great. And then they call you at 1030. Boundaries aren't picking up the phone and saying, I told you I was going to be in bed by 10 and now you're calling me at 1030. Why are you doing that? That's not a boundary. Boundary is just not picking up the phone and then calling them tomorrow. That's the boundary. It's not for them is for you i remember when i was in the very early stages of dating my wife audrey i asked her that we were on like our i might have been like our fourth date and i had just finished a show in in west london where i was you know i met i was living in la at the time but i came back to london for christmas and i was with my family in the west end and we had just seen a show and i came out of the show we had just seen white christmas i remember this very vividly we just came out of the show and me and audrey had agreed we were going to meet up after the show and i said trying to make it convenient for myself hey i'm in the west end why don't you jump in a cab and come meet me she wasn't happy with that because for the last three dates she had gone out of her way to be where i was so there's different things that could happen right now.

47:36She could either internalize all of that resentment and not say anything and just say, I really like this guy. I'm going to go see him. Or she can say something. And then the question is, how do you say something? Do you say, you know, the last three dates I've come to see you and I feel like, you know, this is our fourth date and it's really your turn. That would have created immediate friction when we're still just getting to know each other and we're in a fun mode. So why are we having such a serious conversation she didn't do that what she said was um there's a bar near me it's really cool there's they have great drinks why don't we meet there i said that sounds great but do you mind coming this way because well whatever i said i was trying to make it easy on myself and she said that's okay no worries um i was excited to meet in my part of town tonight but let's do another night.

48:34She didn't need to explain anything. She just took it off the table. And the message was very clear. If you want to see me tonight, it's in my part of town. I'm the one who now has to have a serious conversation if I have a problem with coming to her side of town. Instead, what I realized was, oh, this woman that I really want to see tonight, I'm not going to see if I'm not careful. I guess I'm going to that bar in that part of town. that was a boundary but it wasn't a serious conversation and a lot of people i know there are people who watch my videos on youtube who mistake them for constantly going around having really deep and serious conversations with people you've just met that's not what boundaries are and by the way it's not appropriate to the early stages of dating no one wants to be in a relation dating someone who's that intense about everything all the time but you just this is this is what I'd like to happen and if that can't happen right now that's okay that's a boundary and that's what she did and I went to her part of town yeah and I think it's so easy as well to kind of always say that you're going to avoid setting a boundary now and just set it in a week or whatever it might be especially in the early stages of dating you know you want to be fun you want to be carefree all of these different things and I think that that's a great example of as the opportunity arises this was the appropriate time to say it set it move on like boundary as with everything else as with you might be managing someone for the first time you might be telling a friend they did something that pissed you off like it's it doesn't need things don't need to be a big deal but they do need to be done in a way that doesn't mean that you're constantly bulldozing your feelings and how you want to be treated just to kind of people please and mark that's so true grace and mastery and communication is recognizing that there are so many different ways to achieve the same result i had i have a friend who uh is a bit older than me in la where we live and i remember going over to his house to we would hang out with their family and one time i went to his house and i've known him for a while already and i was doing it from a slightly shy or sheepish place like waiting for someone to like give me a plate and you know do what like i was like i don't want to go into the kitchen and and he's a very kind of playful slightly sarcastic person he said to his family Matthew's not getting his own plate because he still thinks he's a guest in this house and it made everyone laugh and it made me laugh and I was like oh and I stood up and I went and got a plate he did it in a completely playful way making fun of me but the message was loud and clear from now on when you come over get your own shit you're a friend not a guest so make yourself at home you didn't need to sit me down and have a serious conversation about that and not all of our personalities lend themselves to that kind of like playfulness but we all have tools that allow us to have these conversations or by the way antique some of them are not conversations they're just actions it's just what you do a boundary is what you show through what you do obviously at the beginning of a relationship things are often a lot more smooth sailing you're still in the exciting part you haven't necessarily needed to set a lot of boundaries or go through lots of hard things or disagree on the types of lifestyle you want to live, whatever it might be.

52:15How do you keep things alive and exciting and kind and all of the things you want from a relationship when that kind of honeymoon phase is over? Or less about kind of, you know, just being completely obsessed with each other, but more just how do you keep it the type of relationship you want when maybe some people get a little bit complacent or they aren't necessarily investing into the relationship in the same way complacency is like a default for human beings i think when we're not being chased by a lion like complacency is kind of the default where and when you're looking for love it's like there's this feeling of being chased by a lion like i'm gonna die alone i'm never going to meet anyone i can't handle this is an untenable situation so there's that motivation to go out there and try very hard and i think for a lot of people once they feel secure in a relationship that desire to try to stay interesting to stay uh to stay sexy to yourself not just the other person like people i think get it backwards you have to stay sexy to yourself and what happens for a lot of people is they get comfortable in a relationship they no longer feel like they have to impress the other person it's like i got you i got the relationship we're in it like we're good i can move on to other goals now and day by day that relationship loses attention and the things that you did to secure the relationship lose attention so whether it was staying in shape taking care of yourself you know worth focusing on your style or the the way you show up the energy you show up with to your partner that stuff all starts to seem less and less important and i think one of the interesting counterintuitive things that happens with that it's not just that you lose a certain kind of shine or appeal to your partner is that you no longer feel as good.

54:27And when you don't, there's a caricature about women that when women don't feel sexy, they don't want to have sex. That is 100 % true of men too. This is not a women thing. This is a people thing. When a guy hasn't been to the gym in a year and he doesn't feel good about himself anymore and he feels like he's put on weight and he feels like he doesn't look his best and he's feeling like he's slipping in life or his career is not going well or that's a hundred percent going to affect how sexy he finds himself and if he can't connect to his own appeal in that way he can't translate that to somebody else in an effective way so now like you get a lot of relationships it's like the cliche is you know oh men want sex all the time and women don't how many relationships do you know that where it's the woman who's saying I want to have sex and he's just like his drive's not the same as mine in a lot of situations that's because the guy has he's no longer connected to himself he's not taking care of himself for a lot of people the horniest moment for them is the moment they come back from the gym the moment they've done a workout the moment they've done something that makes them feel good about themselves so one of my I think one of the most important pieces of advice is you have a responsibility to stay as sexy as possible to yourself because if you do that you will walk in with a different kind of swagger you will have a different energy you will have a different level of sass you will have that cheekiness that you had when you went out on a date and you teased them in just the right way that made them lean forward i want to grab you like that's the energy but it's precisely the energy we lose in relationships and sometimes it just happens unconsciously other times it happens through arrogance because we think i i did it i got the person now i don't have to worry about that anymore and that comes back to bite people later on when they realize it did have an effect over time just because they weren't vocalizing to you that it's having an effect it doesn't mean that effect isn't going to creep up on you later on when they're not happy.

56:44So it's don't take your eye off the ball. You know, yes, be in a relationship where you can be yourself, be in a relationship where you feel safe, be in a relationship where you're not looking over your shoulder the whole time, of course, but don't use any of those things as an excuse not to have a vision for who you want to be in that relationship and how you want to show up. Yeah, I think that's very, very valuable. And I think that it really, it reflects in so many different ways like it's not just how you physically feel it's how you feel about yourself it's how you feel about your career your life like whether you feel like you are going in the direction you want to and it's very hard to give in any way or kind of build a relationship when you also can't feel that about yourself like it comes back to the self-worth thing again and again and one more thing i want to say about this just because it's important when you it's also incumbent on ourselves to notice what turns us on so if you went to a party last night with your partner and it was the first time the two of you have been out in the last four months and there was something about that environment the two of you dressing up watching them talk to a group of people from afar seeing that they were getting looks from other people which you can't you can't see other people looking at your partner at home, but you go out and they look good.

58:12And all of a sudden people are looking at them in the street. You get reminded who they are. And if, if that, if you felt like, oof, a little bit of like that turned me on a little bit, or oof, I got, I got a little bit jealous there for the first time in months in a good way. That did something to me. It's incumbent on you to understand that's part of your blueprint for what makes a successful relationship for you. Don't expect your partner to figure all those things out. Their job is to figure it out for themselves. Your job is to figure it out for you. And both of your job is to make sure you're communicating that stuff to each other.

58:55Because then I'm giving you the keys. keys my wife always says this it's giving someone the keys to the kingdom i'm giving you the keys to the kingdom you're giving me the keys to the kingdom we're learning what are your triggers what are the things that get you going when we do them together what are the moments in life that get you deeply connected to me like what are those things but it's not your job to mind read my what those things are for me it's my job to figure like notice them go through life paying attention to the moments where they just came home with a certain hairstyle and it really messed me up.

59:28There was something about you where you had your hair today and that outfit, but don't keep it to yourself. Tell them. Because when you tell them, you're saying, just in case you want a clue as to what messes me up, what is really going to, like, this is it. They'll log that information if they care about the relationship. So give each other clues. Don't force each other to be mind readers. And obviously conflict is a hopefully not a huge part of a long term relationship, but it's definitely, you know, it's conflict and compromise and needing to be able to express yourself and communicate is obviously very, very important.

1:00:05And things are going to come up and arguments are going to happen. How do you argue in a way that strengthens the relationship rather than weakens it? arguments shouldn't leave either of you with your egos destroyed by the end of them you know i think that we have to we we have to look at what whatever it is is the challenge it's not about you're i'm gonna label you a bad person i might be unhappy with what you did but at your core do i really want to tell you that you're a horrible person do i really want to ascribe that to some deep like character flaw in you because if i do that if i really believe why am i with you either you believe they're rotten at their core and you shouldn't be with them or you believe that they're truly good at their core and that everything else is behavior that has frustrated you upset you hurt you and you focus on those but you focus on those things and you enroll each other in you know i want us to figure this out do you want to figure this out too because i really do want to figure this out i care about you so much i care about what we have so much it's it's not the the number one way to to ruin a relationship is to attack each other's deeper character and who you are at your core and leave you feeling like you're not just fighting in an argument you're not just having an argument you're defending your deepest nature and being against someone who's telling you that it's awful um so that yeah yeah i think that's really important.

1:01:55I think it's a, for me, every argument should start from the position of, I assume you're a good person and you didn't do anything to upset me. And I would like every argument to start the same the other way around. Because it's horrible to have anyone come at you basically assuming that you did something terrible and you intended to do something terrible because you wanted to hurt that person. And it's like this baseline of understanding that it's us versus the problem. There's quite clearly a, you know, something's gone wrong, someone's got upset, whatever it might be. The baseline assumption is we are good people who didn't mean to do anything and also didn't mean to, you know, wouldn't go out of our way to get upset about something we didn't actually feel upset about.

1:02:40And as long as that's the baseline, then everything should be kind of figureoutable. And then you can come to someone and say like, this thing, you know, something's been on my mind and I wanted to share it with you. Like there's something that happened the other day and it hurt me. I don't know, I'm sure you didn't mean to, or I don't know where it came from, but it really hurt me. And I just want to share it with you because I don't want to keep it in my head. The spirit of that is not one of, you know, destroying your character. The spirit is, it's not good for our relationship for this to live in my brain.

1:03:16I want to share it with you. It affected me. And I'd just love us to talk about it. Yeah. No, I think that's really valuable. And before we end, I'd love to ask you the question I ask everyone, which is, what is the best piece of advice you've ever been given? No, I don't have anything to say. Okay, there's another way I can ask this, which is what's a common piece of relationship advice that you find yourself giving again and again? One of the things I was, I got known for saying years ago was don't invest in someone based on how much you like them. Invest in someone based on how much they invest in you.

1:03:55And that you can't really go far wrong when you follow that. You have to be willing to make a move in the beginning. Like you can't just be a stalemate where I'm saying I wait for you to invest and then I'll give something. Someone has to make a move. but beyond you giving someone a clear signal that you are open to something happening, you're open to someone going on a date with you, you're open to a relationship with them, you can't now continue to chase them on the basis that they're the best person you've met in years. You have to invest based on how much someone invests in you. and if you do that you'll avoid 90 % of the unnecessary heartbreak in your life we're all going to go through heartbreaks we're going to have a much happier life if we can avoid 90 % of the unnecessary heartbreaks the ones we don't need to have and that piece of advice don't invest in someone based on how much you like them invest in someone based on how much they invest in you is a way to do that.

1:05:08I think that's very, very, very good advice. Well, thank you so much. You've been fantastic. I feel like people will learn a lot from this. And yeah, I really appreciate you sharing all that advice. Thanks for having me.

1:05:31What's up? Grace from The Working Hour Podcast here and I want to tell you about something exciting. You're watching every dollar and Walmart business helps you stretch each one. From office supplies to snacks and cleaning gear, you'll get everyday low prices, plus easy bulk ordering and fast delivery. And with tools like spend tracking and multi-user accounts, staying organized is simple. Save time, money, and hassle at business.walmart.com. It's free to sign up. At Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the course room to the workplace.

1:06:02A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu.