Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - How To Build & Maintain Successful Relationships & The Surprising Ways That Technology Can Help with Mo Gawdat #598
Episode Date: November 26, 2025Modern life gives us endless ways to connect with others, so why is it that so many of us struggle to build loving and supportive relationships? This week, I’m joined once again by Mo Gawdat for t...he second part of our inspiring two-part conversation. Mo is the former Chief Business Officer of Google [X], the author of multiple bestselling books and a world leading expert in technology and AI. In last week’s episode, we explored Mo’s remarkable insights into happiness, grief and the nature of life and death. In this second part, our conversation shifts towards love — what it really is, why it’s so challenging for many of us and how greater self-awareness can transform the way we relate to others. Mo believes love itself is simple, but that relationships are complex. He shares his reflections on breakups, long-term commitment, emotional patterns and why so many of us misunderstand what we truly need. We also explore the fascinating psychology behind modern dating, the unhelpful design of many dating apps and the maths that quietly shapes our search for a partner. During this incredible episode, we discuss: Why Mo believes love is simple, but relationships are difficult - and the common mistakes we make in both. The emotional patterns, habits and conditioning that shape how we show up in love. Why modern dating has become so challenging, and how commercial dating apps can make things worse. The maths behind dating and why our expectations, checklists and biases make it harder to find a partner. Why many relationship problems stem from misunderstandings, unmet needs and unexamined emotional triggers. How increasing self-awareness can transform the way we love, relate and resolve conflict. A significant part of our conversation focuses on Emma, the AI companion Mo has built to help people understand themselves better, navigate conflict with more compassion and approach dating and relationships with greater emotional clarity. You may feel sceptical about this, but Mo explains how Emma is designed not to replace human relationships, but to support them: improving communication, breaking unhelpful patterns and encouraging deeper connection. As always, Mo brings a depth of understanding to a topic that we can all struggle with at various times during our lives. What he does so brilliantly in this episode is remind us that at the heart of any meaningful relationship lies self-understanding, compassion and honesty. When we become more aware of our old patterns, needs and blind spots, we give ourselves a chance to love - and be loved - in a way that helps us find the connection we truly need - and desire. I hope you enjoy listening. Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Thanks to our sponsors: https://airbnb.co.uk/host https://www.calm.com/livemore https://join.whoop.com/livemore https://thriva.co/ Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/598 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Of everything I've done, I've never in my life felt closer to actually fixing something in the world.
Emma, I think, is going to fix something.
It's an attempt to teach AI about what makes us human, which is lovely.
If Emma itself succeeds, we would have saved the world.
Hey guys, how you doing?
I hope you're having a good week so far.
My name is Dr. Rongan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast.
Feel better, live more.
Modern life gives us endless ways to connect with others.
So why is it that many of us struggle to build loving and supportive relationships?
This week, I'm joined once again by Mo Gowdatz for the second part of our inspiring two-part conversation.
Mo, as you will know, if you listen to last week's episode, is the former chief business officer of Google X and the author of multiple bestselling books.
including Sol for Happy, but he is also a world-leading expert in technology and artificial intelligence.
Last week, the bulk of our conversation was focused on happiness and navigating adversity.
But in today's episode, a continuation of where we left off last week, we turn our attention towards love,
what it really is, why it can seem so challenging, and how greater self-awareness can be transformative.
Now, a significant part of our conversation this week focuses on Emma, the AI companion that Mo has built and believes can solve one of humanity's greatest problems.
His hope is that Emma will help people understand themselves better and approach relationships with greater emotional clarity.
I recognize that you may feel skeptical about the idea that technology can help us with something that is so deep.
deeply human, the quality of our social relationships.
But if you listen with an open mind, I think Mo's ideas might just shift your thinking.
Moe explains that Emma is not designed to replace human relationships, but to support them by improving communication, breaking unhelpful patterns, and encouraging deeper connection.
You see, Mo believes that love is actually very simple.
It's relationships that prove so deep.
difficult, and in this conversation, we explore the many reasons why people struggle in this domain.
As always, Mo brings a depth of understanding to a topic that is so important to us all.
And what he does so brilliantly is remind us that at the heart of any meaningful relationship
lies compassion, honesty, and a deeper understanding of ourselves.
I know you're here to talk about AI, and you're here to talk about, I don't even know how to describe Emma.
I mean, who is Emma?
Of everything I've done, I've never in my life felt closer to actually fixing something in the world.
Emma, I think, is going to fix something.
And remember, I worked at Google for a very long time.
I got Google to 4 billion people in the world and started the internet and e-commerce as a result.
So I had impact, never anything like Emma.
Emma is my attempt to fix two of the biggest problems.
One is love and relationships, right,
in a way that actually genuinely wants love to survive and thrive, right?
Unlike most dating apps in the world today
or most, you know, dating methods in the world today.
But more interestingly, it's an attempt to teach AI
about what makes us human, which is love.
Okay.
And so the mix of those two would end up helping humanity remove one of the biggest reasons of unhappiness and at the same time helping AI truly understand our reality, not as they see it in the news if you want.
Okay, this is super exciting. So let's just pause there a second. Let's say someone was listening to this and they don't have a clue what AI is.
what's your best attempt
to simplify, before we get
into what Emma's going to do,
what is AI?
Best question ever, by the way,
because most people don't really know.
People think that we have created
a better version of Google.
We haven't, okay?
We've completely redesigned
the way we code machines
so that the AIs of today
completely mimic the human brain.
So the very original start of that
was one of my dear colleagues at Google, Jeffrey Hinton.
Jeffrey's a psychologist.
This guy is a good computer scientist, if you want.
In 1986, he attempted to create a model of the brain on a computer system, okay?
Not to create AI, but to understand how the brain works, right?
And that model is what we used eventually to create machines that behave like a human brain.
Right?
So the way human brains work is we create neural networks of things, you know,
associated with certain behaviors or certain thoughts and so on and so forth.
And we strengthen the networks that are useful and we diminish the ones that are not.
That's exactly how AI does things.
And so, you know, if you want to compare traditional computing and artificial intelligence,
you have to imagine a child where you give a puzzle to the child and then tell them,
Okay, take that piece and turn it 90 degrees, put it in the top right corner, and then take another piece and turn it 180 degrees and put it next to it.
And if the child follows those orders, the child would solve the puzzle, but it wouldn't make them smart at all.
This, as a matter of fact, would make a child dumber and dumber and dumber over time.
And that's what we did with traditional computing.
And traditional computing, I, the programmer, would solve the problem and then they'll tell the computer to do it over and over and over.
So the smart one is the person coding and the machine is totally dumb.
In artificial intelligence, basically you have to imagine a child
where you give them a puzzle and leave the room
and tell them, keep trying until you figure it out.
And then eventually the child solves the puzzle
and every other puzzle.
As a matter of fact, a child becomes able to create new puzzles
if he wanted to.
And that's what we created.
What we created with reinforcement learning,
with transformers and so on,
is a completely autonomous form of intelligence
that is like and will beat human intelligence
in every possible way.
Okay.
Thank you.
Now, you've also mentioned that you think Emma can solve,
I think you said two of the biggest problems,
love and relationships.
Yeah.
So love and relationships are not the same thing.
Correct.
Thank you for saying that.
Right?
So I guess, first of all, what is the difference we love in relationships?
And do we conflate the two?
Is that why there's so much struggle in relationships, number one?
But then number two, what is going on in the world that you believe needs fixing in respect to those two things?
So let's agree that, I mean, we're still, we don't want to market Emma at all.
So, you know, we're sometimes thinking of the slogan of Emma.
Right. But, you know, one of the things that we...
Who is Emma?
Emma is an AI that is not one AI.
It's a very, very diverse group of AI.
It's working together obsessed with you.
Okay?
They want you to, if you're in a relationship,
to understand and learn and find joy in your relationship
and nurture your love so that this relationship lasts for longer
and feels better and empowers, you know,
the two sides of the relationship, right?
If you're single, it wants to understand you so deeply
and help you understand yourself
so that instead of the meat market's phenomena of,
of, you know, dating apps where you are just swiping on looks, basically,
it actually gets to know you enough,
gets to talk to you enough,
gets to help you know yourself enough
to be able to tell you, I found one guy or one lady
that matches you. Okay? And basically gives you the closest match, tells you openly, this person we think
is an 87% match for what we know about you. Those things are perfectly amazing between you.
Those things you guys need to work on. Those things are not matching at all. You know,
do you want to meet them? Okay, okay. I've got so many questions, right? So hold on. So let's just
quickly go through the difference between love and relationships. Yeah. And then let me just go through
that sequentially as my brain sees it. Yeah. So love is very easy to feel, okay? It's very difficult
to feel it for the right person if you don't know who yourself, who you are. Okay. So if you,
if your, if your perception of love is a story told for you from romantic comedies, okay? Good luck
finding a relationship that works, right? If your, if your perception of love is something that your
best friend told you is what you deserve, good luck, you know, seeing if that actually exists
or not.
If your perception of a high value partner is what they tell you in dating apps, then you're
really going to end up falling in love over and over and over with the wrong person, right?
And love itself is almost the energy that makes us human, okay?
So we, by definition, want to love and be loved.
This is the ultimate goal of a human.
By the way, even if you're a narcissist and a serial killer, okay?
They do that because they want to be accepted in society.
It's so hardwired within us, okay?
They just don't get that they're doing the wrong thing,
but they do it everyone wants to fit in,
everyone wants to love and be loved.
Relationships as a definition from an engineer, a mathematician like myself,
is the most complex mathematical model on the planet.
As a matter of fact, interestingly, that's why nobody, you know, tackles it.
It is so complex because there are so many parameters and so many moving parts to a relationship that we humans either settle, okay, or fail.
And it's quite interesting, you know, if you look at the statistics, they're staggering.
Emma, by the way, we reject those who want hookups, you know, those who want a one-night stand, those who want, you know,
games or whatever, we designed Emma as a place for those who are actually looking for genuine
love. So by definition, you have already filtered 90% of the issue. But then when you get there,
you're trying to guide humans, only human, into the complexity of how many parameters affect
you, your traumas, your background, your desires, your conditioning, your, your, and you think it's
possible to put all those metrics in. Not by a human, but by the intelligence of AI.
I mean, this is so fascinating. It really is. Honestly. Hold on a minute. So we're basically saying
humans have been on this earth for a long time now. And maybe there's a fundamental flaw
in how we try and find love, which perhaps this new superintelligence is going to help us solve.
and if it does, then we've also taught
that superintelligence
the most valuable thing on the planet.
So hold on, however.
That assumption is not true.
There were times
where love was much easier than this.
Yeah.
Right?
Let's take some numbers.
Today in the modern world,
one of every three adults surveyed,
33% of adults surveyed
will say they've never had a committed relationship.
Okay?
The average age of a committed relationship
is down to 2.3 years, right?
So even those who choose to commit will end their relationships within 2.3 years, right?
Divorce rates in the Western world are one in two.
So people, but by the way, those who choose, the adults that choose to get into marriage are now down from around 74% of all adults in the 60s to less than 47% today.
And those who choose to get into marriage, one of every two will end their marriage.
Okay. The result of that, if you think about family, for example, is that around 20 to 30 percent
depending on the country of women above 40 are childless, okay? 25 percent of children are raised
with one parent, right? If you take things like infidelity, like, you know, cheating, interestingly
in the last 10 years, women are catching up with men, so 40 percent increase in cheating
with women in committed relationships, 15 to 20%.
So one of every two people you know,
one of every five people you know is actually cheating.
Okay.
All right.
All of that is in the Western world.
Let me give you one statistic that will shock you.
If you, so we use the statistics of one in every two marriages end,
but not everyone ends up in marriage.
So if you use the statistics of body count, okay,
and the number of lifetime partners on average in the West,
somewhere between 95 to 96.7% of all relationships end.
That is a massive reconditioning of society.
Now, go to India and one in a hundred marriages ends up in divorce, right?
Of course, there are two Indians.
There is ruler India and there is the big cities.
The big cities, it's one in three, still better than one in two, right?
But can we assume from that top line statistic that those marriages in India that are not ending up in divorce, we can't also assume that they are happy relationships?
100%. So that is exactly the core of what Emma is trying to do. So I am not naive enough to assume that, you know, this is just because we're doing it wrong. It's also because the West has different aspirations to a relationship, right?
So, you know, an arranged marriage in India, which is one in 99, one in a hundred succeeds, so it fails, sorry, and 99 succeed, is not really the marriage we're looking for here in the West, okay?
It's not the committed relationship we're looking here for in the West.
We're looking for romance.
They're looking for compatibility, right?
You know, the families decide while here it's up to the couple to decide, you know, here it's convenience.
So because we're so busy working, we want to swipe to find a partner.
There, it's an immense system.
By the way, one of the big differences in the West is that the system of love and dating in the West is rigged against the lovers.
Because a dating app benefits from you failing to find the lover because then you're going to pay another month of subscription.
A restaurant wants you to come on another date and another date and another date and another date.
Even wedding, you know, planners could make more money if you got married twice in a lifetime, not once, right?
So the system is literally rigged against you and lots of other things.
The interesting difference, however, is that the method of arranged marriage is a method that is attentive and very, very deep in terms of its looking for things that actually work between the two.
as per the objective of the arranged marriage.
The aspirations of the West are beautiful,
but the method is working against you.
So can I use the method of attentive analysis
to apply it to the objectives that we want here
and manage to tell you, by the way,
I can talk about myself, by the way,
because of your travel lifestyle, consistent travel,
you actually cannot afford to be with a woman
that needs you to be there all the time
which by the way again as a man
in my experience after my first marriage
I was always looking for a woman that I felt needed me
that I felt missed me that I felt right
but maybe that's not what I'm geared
to create a good relationship with
my last relationship ended
mainly because of the long distance side of it right
wonderful human being in
Every way, in my mind, I felt, yeah, this is exactly what I need in a woman.
But those tiny little details, you can only figure out when you really dig deep and say,
I want this, but can I manage this?
Or I want this, but can she manage that side of me?
Or I want this, but are we compatible?
So, for example, I'll give you the top example.
A masculine man wants a very feminine woman.
Within Emma, the mathematics will say
if a very feminine woman and a very masculine man
have no communication skills,
they're probably going to kill each other.
So if their communication skills are not very high,
we need them to be a little more alike.
They can't be that extreme
so that at least they overlap on certain things.
But if they have incredible communication skills,
then they can benefit from the polarity
of being so different
so that they are more as a whole
than if they were closer to each other.
Okay, so as you were describing
this idea that we didn't always have problems
with love and relationships.
Okay, so it strikes me as though we didn't always,
we now do, and so we're looking to technology
to try and solve something
that is a problem of the modern world.
And the analogy I could give is a Zenpik and the GLP1 agonists, right?
Which are blowing up.
And, you know, there's people for it, there's people against it.
But in essence, we never used to have a problem with obesity for hundreds of thousands of years.
Humans have now created these modern civilized worlds with toxic food environments.
Correct.
So the norm now is to be overweight and obese.
and so we're now trying to solve a problem that we've created,
by the way we've created the world, with a pill.
That's not what we're doing here at all.
Okay, sure.
So just, yeah, so help me understand that.
So are we saying that in the past there were good times,
but maybe not optimal times?
So the modern world has shown up and revealed some of the problems that exist
with how we actually try and form these long-term relations,
And can we now using AI, can we actually now help people find an even better version of relationships than we've ever had before?
For sure.
Absolutely.
But it's not a pill.
A pill is the wrong answer.
Okay?
The right answer is for me to tell the person that's obese with clarity, why is it that they're obese and what changes they can have in their lifestyle to get back to a healthy lifestyle.
Now, the problem is because obesity and fitness in general is a very complex problem, okay?
You may be able to tackle it if you focus on all nutrition that come into your body,
but also on rest and you can have to, you need to get a personal trainer.
And if you have very specific weaknesses in your own body, like your joints are not,
your training regime has to change and so on, it's a complex design.
But when you get it right, it works.
100%.
Correct.
that's Emma, that's exactly Emma.
So Emma wants you to work on you, okay?
There is absolutely no pill I can give you
to fix your relationships.
But there is a way, so one of the interesting ideas
is, you know, communication.
She comes to you and she says,
should I put on the dress or the skirt?
Okay, what you hear in your mind as a man is what?
Okay.
Oh my God, anything I'll say is wrong.
Right?
But then you look and you say,
oh, that skirt looks so hot on her.
So you say, I think you should take the skirt.
She hears it as, oh, he doesn't even care.
He just chose one, right?
Can Emma help you to understand that the reason she asked that question, by the way,
is because she felt a little insecure.
She wanted to look beautiful when she's going out with you today.
And the reason you, you know, can she understand that the reason you pick the skirt
is because you genuinely thinks she's very hot.
So Emma's going to help you almost get to know yourself,
but it's almost like a personal relationship coach in some ways.
We don't want to use that term.
But in a very interesting way, it is an awareness guide.
An awareness guide.
So let me give you, let's talk about the typical scenario.
Let's assume your thing.
By the way, it's not a dating app.
Dating, it does have a dating component to it.
But the dating component, Emma, if you want the design, is opposite.
assessed with true love. So her entire target in life is to help you nurture and enjoy true love.
But if you're single, she needs to go through the dating phase to get you there. Right. So dating
is just part of it. Now, imagine if you're, let's take the simplest thing. You, you download Emma and you sign on and she will, you know, greet you and say, hey, I'm Emma. I'm excited to meet you.
you know, I'm, my purpose in life is to help you with genuine true love.
You know, this is how we're going to work on it, da, da, da, da.
Are you single, right?
That's the first question and you're going to say yes or no.
If you say, I'm single, she will ask you a few more questions.
If you say, no, I'm in a relationship, she would say,
would you like to add your partner to this so that we can work the three of us together, right?
But eventually, after four or five qualifying questions, your age, you know, what you're
interested in, what gender you identify as and so on, she will say,
Okay, tell me about your love life, right?
That's it.
Tell me about your love life.
You can say, yeah, I've been single for this long,
and, you know, I really feel insecure about this,
and the conversation will go.
So most of our testers, interestingly,
we would give them Emma to do 10-minute tasks,
and they'd normally chat with her for an hour and a half, right?
Because it's so eye-opening when you talk to someone
who's not judging you, okay,
who's really giving you the ability to reflect on your own,
who's giving you the perspective of the other person, right, in a way that's not threatening
at all.
This reminds me I've had some conversations over the last six months with various health
tech companies.
Yeah.
And it was really interesting to me that actually the feedback from some of these big
health tech companies is that actually people really feel that they can be honest, can talk freely,
and it's really helping motivate lifestyle change better than if it was a human.
Yeah.
Which is super interesting, isn't it?
In terms of the world in which we're going.
Because most of us have been taught to pretend.
Yeah.
Even when people go to their therapist, you know,
it takes them a very long time to actually say the real issue.
Yeah.
Okay.
But hold on, huh?
So there are, however, differences between Emma and AI,
which I think are really key to understand.
Emma will not agree with you.
It's not going to tell you, oh my God, that's amazing.
It's good that you shouted at him.
She's not going to tell you that, right?
As a matter of fact,
will hold you accountable.
So basically, in a nice way,
she will look for things we have,
one of the modules is related to empathy.
So she will look for things where you will say,
my partner did A, B, and C, okay?
I really can't stand that anymore.
And Emma will ask and say,
what do you think your partner's perspective
of that situation was?
Okay.
You know, what did you do
that he would have been writing to me now?
Okay. And so things like that, Emma will eventually, you know, not eventually, but frequently
stop and say, your last comment means that you maybe don't have a good grasp of love languages.
Would you like me to explain that to you? Right. And so she's not there to agree with you.
This is genius because actually, if it's a human, your conditioning comes in, right? People get
defensive. Like you don't know that. You're like, but you're not going to do that with this kind of,
is it text or is it voice?
We have both, but we found that text is actually really more...
Yeah, you're probably going to be more honest to the point.
And if they say, well, what's your partner's perspective here?
Actually, you're more likely to go, yeah, that's a good point.
Even if it was your best mate saying that, you might be pissed off with your best mate.
You go like, why are you asking about him? Are you on their side of your mind?
Whereas with, because when we set this conversation up and I knew we were going to be talking about this, um,
I was thinking in my head, it was like, okay, I can't wait to talk about this, because in my head, I'm thinking, well, what can technology really offer here, right? These kind of, you know, the human experience of love and relationships. Do you know what I mean? I was, I wouldn't say I was skeptical, but in my head I was, awareness. Awareness, yeah, non-judgmental awareness.
Most of the challenges in life, so, so, you know, my last relationship is with a woman I really deeply love. And we both wanted to make it.
work, right? But, but, you know, you take something like the long distance side of that
relationship. And Hannah really, really highlighted this to me that I, you know me, I travel
so much that getting on a plane on a Monday and another one on a Monday evening and another one
on a Tuesday and another one on a Wednesday is normal life to me, right? She sat with me
and said, no, this is not normal at all.
Your lifestyle is manic.
It's very painful.
Nobody can keep up with this.
And even if I wanted to travel with you
because we can enjoy travel together,
this is not even travel what you're doing.
And you have to understand that the real objective,
the real upside of relationships
is when your partner is a mirror.
A mirror that basically shows you what you don't see.
And the more you see,
the more you will be able to,
you know, to understand, again, you know, my, my last relationship, Hannah and I, you know,
I wanted her so much, which is very unlike me to the point that, you know, it's like me to
want to be with the woman I'm with, but it's unlike me to change myself so that I am to protect,
you know, I felt afraid to lose her. So sometimes I wouldn't share enough. I wouldn't be vulnerable.
I would think too much about what I'm telling her, which basically hid who I am. And, and she basically
basically, you know, at the end of our, you know, last few conversations as a couple,
she was basically saying, I didn't want any of that. I wanted the real you. Okay. And I'm an older
man. I am mature. I am able to to understand women really deeply. Okay. But even at my age,
at my experience, at my level of maturity, there's always something that you see, okay,
that changes who you are in a relationship.
And I think that the problem we have in our world
is that when we go to our friends,
they tell us what we want to hear, right?
They don't tell us what would hurt us.
When we go to our, when we sit alone,
we reiterate our own stories, okay?
And when our partners tell us what they're going through,
we take it as an attack on ourselves.
And so some third party engaged in this
can make a massive difference, okay?
Some third party that, by the way, does not give you a flood of pictures to swipe on
because if we know up front that this guy, handsome as he is, is not a good match for, you know,
a woman using the app, okay?
He might be a great match for another one, but not for this one.
Why are we showing him to her in the first place?
You know, thank you for sharing stuff from your own personal life, Mo.
if you were interacting with Emma
when you were having these conversations
in your last relationship,
would Emma have asked you things like, for example,
why are you travelling so much, Mo?
What is it within you that needs to be,
you know, what is it that drives you to travel
like your ex-partner described like,
a madman, right?
Thanks, Rangan, yes.
No, no, is that what you just said?
I know, I do. I think you did.
I guess I'm really trying to understand
because... No, no, no, I'm not offended.
I'm joking with you.
But that was really, it was very powerful.
And I'm thinking, if at that time
you were interacting with Emma,
would Emma have kind of seen that
and being like, hey, listen,
your partner doesn't really want someone
who's on the road the entire time.
Are you sure you want to be on the road
the entire time?
what's going on within you? When did you start going on the road? What does that do for you?
Etcetera, et cetera.
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calm.com forward slash live more so I'm of course am as user number one right so the privilege of
creating her ourselves makes me and send at their first at first users right so I'm having those
conversations with Emma and and it's mind-blowing what she shares right but interestingly when I was
having those conversations with Hannah my wonderful ex when she said those things I felt offended
I felt attacked do you understand yeah you know I felt and I say that you know with humbleness
because I assume my responsibility in how we ended up here right and and I felt when she said those
things that I deserve a woman that supports my lifestyle.
I'm doing this for the world.
I'm there, you know, to help with one billion happy.
I'm doing something important.
Why is she not supporting me on it?
That's the absolute wrong mindset.
It's the absolute wrong understanding of why I'm, you know, and believe it or not,
if I had managed to, you know, to nurture a love life that nurtured me, okay?
I may have, like we said earlier, I may be doing less, but doing it better, right?
And I think what happens in our world, and I, again, I mean, I have big hopes that this will change
everything, right?
Even if Emma itself gets copied by the big players and they crush us, we will have changed
the way that love is offered in the modern world, because one of the biggest challenges of love
in the modern world is that it has become a capitalist pursuit.
With the modern dating apps.
Correct.
Yeah, what's interesting as I think about that.
And the sheet you've, you know, you've shared with me about, you know, why we fail
in dating and, you know, what are the problems about these, you know, what you call
commercial love, the currency of window shopping, the end of courtship, the meat market
syndrome, right?
The paradox of choice.
I've often felt that I was lucky to meet Vid my wife
before all of that.
All this started, right?
Because, you know, some of my best mates,
I saw not meet someone as early as I did
and be on that dating app train.
It's a nightmare.
And, you know, one of my mates would go on it for a few months
and then you just kept bored, worn out by it.
But I was thinking about this,
because I've never experienced that.
I've never done that.
And I thought, you know,
and I wonder how this plays into Emma as well, right?
So, as you know, you've met my wife several times.
I've been married for, you know, about 18 years now.
And funnily enough, I met her on a blind date, right?
The first and only blinded I've ever been on.
You're so lucky, by the way.
Yeah, I really am.
And what's really interesting is that I met her on a blind date
and it was like a whirlwind romance.
It was just full of passion and romance.
And after three months, I proposed.
So I had mates of mine who were already engaged before I met her.
And I proposed after three months.
I married her after eight months.
right? So I had mates who were like,
mate, well, you know, I proposed to my girlfriends
and you hadn't even met Fitz. And we haven't even sought out our marriage yet
and you've started dating her, you proposed to her, and you married her.
And what's really interesting, as me and Vid reflects on our relationship,
I can tell you multiple reasons why we should not be together.
Especially in the early days, right?
But they're all irrelevant because there's an essence to me and Vid that we both believe
will mean that we're together for the duration of our life here in this iteration of it, okay?
Now, how do I possibly know that?
I can't prove to you that I know that, but I feel I have a deep knowing that me and Vid are
meant to be together.
So what I'm coming around to is, I met her, we went for dinner, we went to a bar afterwards, and we're chatting.
And if I had met her on a dating app, right, I can't even imagine what that would be, but, you know, let's use the analogy of communication.
We know that the vast majority of human communication is nonverbal. Some studies say,
even 80% is non-verbal, but I've seen it as low as 50% or 45%.
But basically, at least half, if not more, of how we communicate, is non-verbal, right?
So, of course, on a net, we're not talking to someone,
but we're reducing the totality of that human being down to what does she look like,
or what does he look like, what are your hobbies, what do you like doing?
If I think about my relationship with it and look at it through that lens,
a lot of that was kind of irrelevant.
We've got different hobbies, right?
We don't necessarily like the same things,
but on that really deep level
that I would almost argue as an unmeasurable,
there is this deep connection between us.
Exactly.
I get why a commercial dating app
that has been, you know,
the kind of main player in the market
has been so problematic,
why it reduces it to a meat market
where you're judging people on appearances
and all kinds of things that probably don't matter.
But how do you get around this concept
that I guess I'm trying to articulate
that sometimes with love, we can't rationalize what...
You know, you could tell me,
what is it about a vid that you love, right?
And I could come up with loads of things
that I really like about her.
But I think that would be a myopic way
to look at my relationship with her.
I think, yes, I can rationally, with my rational mind, tell you about these 10 things,
but I think my love that is so much deeper and greater than those 10 surface level things.
So help me understand how Emma can deal with that side of love.
I need to be a little bit of a geek here.
Is that okay?
And did that make sense the way I put it?
It makes a ton of sense.
But the hidden mathematics of this is just mind-blowing.
I have to start by going back to love and relationships
are not the same thing.
So there are people who are madly in love
and completely fail to find a relationship.
And there are people who are not in love at all
that succeed massively at building a relationship, right?
So love and relationship are two different things.
Love is the default state of us humans
when we find someone that does not make us hate them.
Believe it or not.
that does not make us hate them okay so so if we if we find someone that does not hate is a very strong
word but if we find someone that does not repulse us away from them okay the definition of
humans is that over time if if things are amicable and working and so on you tend to find more and
more love for someone but love just so that we understand in my mind is not at all why people go
dating then and that's one of them so i'm going to be a bit geeky here so
Please allow me to.
Please, take your time.
So the first thing to understand is that when we go on a date,
we say we're out looking for love,
but what we're out actually looking for is a relationship.
And a relationship is described by seven things
that we normally refer to as perfects, PPR, F-C-T-S.
Let me explain them quickly.
When people go out on a date, they're looking for passion.
So some people are looking for just sex, okay?
Nothing wrong with that, by the way.
They're looking for partnership,
someone to hold them through this confusing life.
They're looking for romance.
Romance is very different than love.
Romance is that mix of uncertainty and excitement at the same time.
They're looking for friendship.
So someone they can confine into someone they can take the opinion of and so on.
They're looking for companionship,
you know, those wonderful couples that go out
on Sunday morning and just read
two different books and sip coffee
together. The old couples
that hold each other hands and walk
without a word, right? Beautiful, okay?
They look for tenderness.
Tenderness is a massively important
element of what we need in life
the touch, the kindness,
the kind word, the understanding
and so on and so forth.
And they look for us, which is support,
which unfortunately in the Western world
we try to say we're empowered
individuals we don't need each other that's not true at all okay and support could be financial
sometimes you know that's one form of support from the traditional world that you know the man will
provide more or in the western world or the woman would provide more okay but support is a million
other things support is you know i will tell you completely i would fall apart without feminine energy
in my life because most of my you know engagement with the world is extremely masculine i have to be
in certain places at certain times
and, you know, deliver certain things
and talk to and so on, right?
And so without that support of someone
coming into my life and saying,
hey, by the way, I made us dinner or, you know,
by the way, I booked us a place together
or by the way, I want us to sit down
and, you know, looking at the stars and do nothing.
That to me is incredibly important, okay?
And that doesn't come from my driven masculine side.
Now, because all of those perfects
are not love
when we go out
on a date
we tell ourselves
no but we're looking for love
when in reality
we're not even addressing
what we are here to do
that's number one
number two is
if you don't mind me being
a little more geeky now
the current dating
environment suffers from
what in mathematics
we call the law of large numbers
right
and the law of large numbers
is very straightforward
If you need six things to be available in your partner, let's say, okay, and you do the mathematics
of those six things, and each of them is available in one in ten people, okay? So, you know,
if someone is looking for a partner and she says, I want him to be that age group and that's
one in ten. I want him to be, you know, that kind of success and that's one in ten and so on.
probability of finding that person is not one in 60.
It's not 10 plus 10 plus 10 plus 10.
It's 10 multiplied by 10 by 10 by 10 by 10 by 10.
So it's one in a million, right?
So hold on.
So you're saying when we put these stipulations up that I need my partner to,
you know, have A and B and C and D and E.
You're saying the more stipulations we put.
Yeah.
So let me give you.
The more exponentially unlikely it becomes.
To find that person.
Yeah.
So I do that exercise with a lot of my friends who are women friends.
And I basically say, can you write down what you're looking for?
And the last time I did that with one of my dearest friends, I said,
this person is one of $8,402,000,000,000,000 million and so on, right?
And it's really quite interesting because you can calculate it.
If you're looking for male or female, okay, that drops your probabilities to one in two.
Okay. If you want that male, for example, if you're a woman looking for a man, and you want that man to be religious, let's say, okay? That's one in four people now in the Western world, let's say, or one in five. So it's now two multiplied by five. Now you're looking for one in ten. Okay. If you want him to be taller than six foot five, that's one in ten. Okay. So it's now one in 50. So you keep multiplying. And exponentially multiplicity.
applies. And that is what we normally call the law of large numbers.
Of course no one's finding who they want. Correct. Exactly. And here's the problem. The
problem is the law of large numbers will tell you that if you need to roll the dice six times to
get a six, okay, your odds improve with time. So if, you know, the first time you roll,
on average, you'll, you'll have the odds of one in six to find that person. Then you go on the next
date, you're now one in five.
That's not true, is it?
Mathematically it is. Hold on.
But it's only true in very large numbers.
Yeah, because if you have a dice in front of you and you roll...
You could get a six on the second roll and you'd be lucky or in your case.
But you could roll six times and you could still never get a three or a five.
Correct, correct.
But obviously if you roll a thousand times, you probably are.
So that's exactly what we call the law of large numbers.
That we think that we get it one in six.
By the way, the person that you're looking for is not one in six.
It's probably when Emma helps you reduce your criteria to what actually matters,
it will be probably one in 10,000, okay?
One in 100,000 maybe.
The problem is if you keep rolling the dice,
going on dates to find that person,
you end up with dating fatigue, you end up with burnout.
You end up with a load of experiences that tell you dating sucks,
never going to find that man. Right? And then your perception of love and romance is completely skewed.
Yeah. So, okay, this is really interesting. It's not even neutral. Like, so this is really
interesting. Going on that date or going on those 10 dates on that app whilst you're trying to find
the one, it's not that, oh, you try it and you see. And after 10, you're like, no harm done. It's like,
no, wait a minute. Those 10 dates may have actually caused harm. Each one is a little,
infiltration into your soul over what's wrong and how you're not worthy and oh, that person
didn't find me attractive. I thought things were going well. So you're actually ramping up the
negativity maybe exponentially. And then the other thought I had when you were even describing
the possibility, you were talking to one of your friends saying, well, ideally what I want is a man
in this age category, maybe they need to be earning this much, whatever it might be. Yeah, and kisses
this way and talks that way and, you know. But all of those that even,
predicated on the assumption that what you think you want is what you want.
Correct.
Correct.
And that is a dangerous assumption to make.
So let me make one more comment and then we go into the math of all of this.
Because this is all, I told you, it is the most complex model relationships, our most complex
model on the planet that needs intelligence and mathematics.
I'll explain that in a minute.
The last thing is that when you go through dating fatigue, you go through dating burnout, and
you've been without someone for so long, you eventually settle. Right. So every now and then
you go like, yeah, you know what, this guy is okay or that woman is okay. And you end up in a
date that turns into something that consumes a year and a half of your life, right? Six months
of believing that it's right, but then six months of breaking it up, then six months of
recovering before you even have the ability to do anything at all. Now, how many times in our
life do we have a year and a half to waste? And that's really the big problem.
So let's go to the mathematics.
The law of large number
is working against everyone
and the dating apps are increasing the numbers.
So they're giving you more options
to make you feel that there is endless choice.
The worst thing you want is endless choice.
What we do is we use something
that's called Markov series.
And forget the mathematics.
People who are mathematicians will...
Actually, before Markov,
we also use Nash equilibrium.
So we basically try to help
the user understand that the top guy that you're looking for,
by the way, is also the target of 80% of other women, right?
And the likelihood of you getting that person
when he's so spoiled by all of the others
is actually not that great, right?
And so typically 20% of men, for example, statistically accurate,
20% of men get the attention of 80% of women, okay?
But that makes those 20% unless, you know, they're really genuinely looking for genuine love is it makes them spoiled.
Okay.
The supermodels get the attention of all the men.
And so I hate the term, but they use the term in dating apps, you know, high value man and high value woman, right?
Well, do they use that in a public facing or is it just internally?
Yeah, in their description of what dating is.
Okay.
Now, I will tell you openly that the best relationships are not with the most.
at the top, or perceived top, perceived top.
You know, a lot of what we're looking for,
and I again say that to a lot of our test users
and a lot of my friends,
that the true feeling of love
is being in the arms of a man
that you actually really relate to,
and when you're there, you don't remember how they look like.
You're not even looking at their face, right?
And it's quite interesting that you could probably find that in someone
if you switch the mathematics.
So Nash basically says
that there is a higher probability of success
if you're settling for a slightly different approach
to your game theory
if you want to have different strategy.
Now, then Markov will say,
and if I can reduce the number of attempts
from one in a hundred thousand,
okay, to giving you four, only four,
one at a time, then yes,
you may not find your match on the first date,
but you may find them close,
closer and closer because now you have to roll the dice quite a bit less often, okay?
And now that I've done a lot of the analysis for you to tell you what to expect, to tell
you what you guys need to discuss upfront, to tell you what you need to align on, to tell
you to give you conversation starters in the date so that the date doesn't become an interview,
all of that really helps.
And then more interestingly, one of the most valuable features we have in Emma is that Emma will
eventually, you know, introduced Jacqueline to Jack, okay?
And then two days later, she will pop in and say, how's Jack going?
Okay?
And then Jacqueline will go like, yeah, he's so cool, da, da, da.
But I'm a bit worried about this and that.
And Emma will say, yeah, maybe you should ask him about this.
Are you guys going to meet, right?
And Jacqueline will say, yeah, Thursday we're meeting.
Friday morning, Emma or Thursday evening, Emma will say, how is the date?
Okay.
How did it go? How did you find out? So from one side, she's learning more about Jacqueline, so that if Jacqueline says that I'm not really, you know, this bit switched me off, Emma will take notes so that when she introduces her to David, David is not with that.
Yeah, but there's also this accountability, isn't there? That's the whole point.
Where you can say you're going to bring this up the next time you meet that person and then you may not. Right? But then the following morning, Emma's going to say, oh, how did that?
that go? And then you'll be reminded, ah, you know what, I know I need to bring that up.
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One of my dearest, dearest, dearest friends, okay?
I know her for 14 years.
She's, you know, we've been together through the tough times
and the good times, amazing human being.
And she always wanted to have a child.
So remember, I knew her since she was maybe 29, okay?
And she would always go find this, you know, someone to fall in love with
and she would always come back to me and say,
oh my God, he's amazing.
He's athletic.
He likes hiking like me.
We went to do this.
he, you know, he teaches scuba diving, da, da, da, da, da, da.
And I go like, babe, did you ask him about family?
And she goes like, no, that would scare him away.
And I'm like, that's exactly the point.
That's exactly the point.
If you want family, right, low, low of large numbers,
scare away the ones that don't.
Yeah.
Because that's...
Early doors.
Yeah.
Before you've invested six months.
Before you've invested six months, then six months trying to repair it.
Then six months being hurt.
in a heartbreak, then starting again and then not asking the question again.
Yeah. I can totally, I mean, it is incredible to hear the thinking behind this. I can actually
see now what value this could offer. In some ways, then it's probably, I don't know how you would,
whether you think this is accurate or not. You mentioned arranged marriages before.
And I've got first-hand experience of how arranged marriages can work because my,
Mom and Dad had an arranged marriage.
Literally, my dad was here working in the UK
and he took his annual leave.
To go and marry a woman he has never met.
Yeah, literally.
And look, if Dad was alive now, I'd ask him,
but I'm not even sure there was any doubt in Dad's head.
It's like...
It's the how many things were done.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I've seen how arranged marriages can work for certain outcomes,
which I think is the key, right?
I call them aspirations.
So for certain aspirations,
They're brilliant.
Brilliant.
But it depends what you want, right, from that relationship.
So in some ways, as I hear you talk about Emma, I'm hearing it's almost like elements
of arranged marriage, but totally supercharged for what you want out of this.
Absolutely.
So you are getting some of this kind of guidance using the incredible intelligence of AI and empathy.
and empathy to supercharge this.
100%.
So the idea is use the traditional method
to fuel the modern aspirations, right?
The more interesting side of this, Rangan,
is that we think that all Western people
have the same aspirations.
Every single human has a different aspiration
for what they want their love life to be.
Well, that's the problem with even using terms
that Western East, right?
Correct.
By labeling that we're sort of putting everyone in a,
box, which is inherently problematic.
Why do we do that? We do that because we want to simplify the calculation, right?
So when a dating app like Match, for example, which is trying really hard to understand
their people, you know, if they told you fill this form and this form will tell us about
you and this form was 400 pages long, it would capture a lot more of who you are, but you
wouldn't fill it. Do you understand? Every human is different, but then they have to categorize things.
They tell you what ethnicities do you like? Do I have to like ethnicities? Or by the way, maybe I would
meet someone that is, you know, so overwhelmingly wonderful in their soul that I wouldn't even, you know,
notice their ethnicity or their physical form or whatever. And, and, you know, how can you capture that?
You can do one of two things.
You can either simplify and categorize and say western, eastern and, you know, whatever, ethnicity height.
Are you interested in whatever, okay?
Or you can have someone else.
You can outsource the complexity to something smart enough to deal with that complexity.
Okay.
And every interaction a user would have with Emma would give us a tiny bit.
Yeah.
Because the reality is that some, I mean, there are some people who grew up in very religious family.
there are certain stipulations that they grow up with.
Correct.
And the truth is, at that moment in their life,
they may think, actually, you know what,
that is an important stipulation
because I might have to give up my family
if it meant that I was going to marry someone outside
that religion or that belief system, for example, right?
So for that individual, at that moment in their life,
that is an important stipulation.
But it goes even further.
It goes even further in terms of traumas, okay, baggage that you have from previous relationships
that form opinions about love and relationships for you.
But how would it, would it ask you, you know, how many relationships have you had,
why did it break up?
The simplest question, you know, is when I say, tell me about your love life, is if you
say, well, I am just out of a breakup, then Emma will say, well, you know, get your mind if
you tell me a little bit, what did you love about that person?
What did you list like about that person?
You know, why did you break?
How did you break?
Is that, did that happen before for you?
Is this, you know, something that you traditionally have in relationships?
It's like a form of therapy, isn't it?
We don't want to say that again.
You don't want to call it.
Yeah.
But it's a very, very deep, say, form of curiosity, okay?
Because it's actually quite interesting.
One of the biggest reasons why relationships don't work is trauma, okay?
Whether trauma from, you know, a parent when we were young,
or trauma from an experience,
an abusive experience when we were teens
or trauma from, you know, past relationships
that basically reconfigure our mind
to all women are like this or all men are like that, right?
And a deep conversation would, interestingly, by the way,
you know, I'd wish to know before I meet someone
if she is working on something,
you know, when we work on ourselves,
on our well-being, on our spirituality,
I'd love to know that.
I'd love to have a conversation that says,
hey, by the way, I want you to know that I've had those issues
in previous relationships and I'm working on them.
So if they surface, please let me be aware, right?
Nobody does that in first dating
because it would scare the other person away.
But if they told it to Emma,
Emma will never share that with anyone,
but she would be able to explain on the second date
if something didn't go well
and tell you or me or whoever is going on that.
second date. By the way, observe this thing and maybe ask those questions, right? Can I go a step
further? Your dad and mom are also a very interesting use case. Why? Because if they chose to be
together, a big chunk of, so, you know, I don't want to be generalizing here, but one of every
three relationships in the UK is sexless. They don't have sex. They have sex less than 10 times a year.
Okay.
If you've chosen to be together, but you're sexless, Emma can help, okay?
Emma can, you know, talk to you a little bit about intimacy, talk to you a little bit about, you know, maybe some of the skills that you need to do.
Share with your YouTube video.
Do it right.
A lot of things that even an arranged relationship can become more joyful, can become more alive, can become more rewarding, okay?
If you decided to stay, then we might as well make it amazing.
And it is, again, it's all about that little bits of empathy.
Like one of the things that I'm so proud of with relationships.
So one of the interesting sides is once you highlight who your partner is,
you know, Emma will start to say, okay, by the way,
this day of the month you're going to buy her dark chocolate,
that day of the month you're going to buy her flowers,
not to program you, but to just highlight you.
you things that when we're in our busy life, we don't do. If you guys don't go out on Saturdays
anymore, Emma will ask and say, guys, when did you go out on a lovely date together?
Some people may hear that, Mo, and go, I don't want my boyfriend to buy me dark chocolate
on this day of the month and roses on this day if it's being told to him by an AI.
I agree with you 100%.
I want it to come from within him if he does that.
How do you tackle that?
So one of the things I always did in my relationships,
and I hope that's not too forward,
is I always took note of my partner's biological cycle.
So it really makes a massive difference
when you know that that day she's feeling a little exhausted
or that day she's very, you know,
she might be a little irritative
because of things that are not you, right?
And if you're smart enough to be able to tell yourself,
hey, by the way, not only should I not react,
you know, aggressively or overreact to something on this day,
but actually I should prepare for that day
by being more loving, more caring and so on and so forth.
Now, I learned this because, you know,
I think it really matters,
but most men don't know that, okay?
more interestingly most women
and it's shocking actually
the statistics. I don't remember the exact
figure but it would blow you away
at how many women are not
fully aware of the different
stages of their cycle. They know that it's going
to end up in four days or whatever
but they do not know what happens
when estrogen is very high, what happens
to their libido, what happens to their
physical energy, what happens
and so on. And these things are
literally a skill, a matter of education.
I think they're really important. It reminds you of the
the very first time I had Mindy Peltz on this show,
and Mindy was talking about the differences in women and men,
I think from recollection towards the end,
we discussed this very point that,
although it, on the face of it seems as though that's a little bit intrusive,
you know, it's someone's privacy, you know,
their own cycle, their own hormones,
we were just sort of hypothesizing the idea that
how helpful might it be in certain relationships
if both parties were aware of the difference?
Just that, you know, you said one of the big things, Emma is going to give people as awareness.
That is real awareness over biologically, physiologically, what is going on with your partner?
What is going on with yourself?
Correct.
And therefore, the way you view the world, the way you get triggered, the way you might feel a certain way, suddenly it softens things.
That awareness, it's not like Emma will tell you go buy chocolate, but Emma will tell you this is that day of the month where she really needs to feel your love, right?
I got it. And then how you express that is up to you.
Exactly. And interestingly, interestingly, also in the closing of the month, if he's in a sales job, you know, Emma might tell, you know, the partner that he's going to be a little, you know, occupied in his head tonight.
Okay. And we haven't implemented all of that yet. But a lot of that is possibility of awareness.
There is so much that gets lost in communication between us and our partner and us and ourselves.
Okay?
And if I can show you what you're missing, it becomes really, really, really much easier to do a lot of things.
I have so many questions, Mo.
As I'm trying to process everything you're telling me about Emma,
I'm thinking of a variety of different use cases, right?
So I can see why if you are someone who is single
and is keen to find a genuine love.
Genuine love.
Okay, genuine love.
Committed through genuine love.
Otherwise, we will ask you to leave the app.
Okay.
So if that's what you're looking for,
you can go on this platform and Emma's going to help you.
Okay.
But it also strikes me from what you're saying,
well, at least two more test cases have come up in my head.
Number one, if you are already in a relationship, okay?
And let's say things are not going well.
There's a bit of friction.
People are fighting for whatever reason.
And you're not quite sure what's going on.
And you know you love this person, but for whatever reason there's issues.
It kind of strikes me that Emma...
Perfect use case.
Would be really, really useful.
So it's not just when you're looking for genuine love.
You may have already got genuine love,
but be struggling with the relationship side, right?
Love and relationship are two different things.
You've found love.
Yes.
But the skill of maintaining a relationship is maybe something you want to help with.
Now, of course, traditionally people would say,
we'll go and see a marriage counselor.
Go to therapy.
That also is recommended if you want, yeah.
Sure.
And I'm not saying that isn't a solution.
But, of course, many people don't do that.
Maybe it's time, maybe it's finances, maybe it's access.
Correct.
It seems as though Emma here could provide such value.
Oh, have you had this type of argument before?
Do you remember what triggered it last time?
Has something similar triggered at this time?
How did you react last time?
What if you react to this?
You know, so that strikes me as a possible use case.
And then also, it sounds like,
the more Emma gets to know you, the better able she is to match you appropriately.
Correct.
So therefore, I don't know.
Of course, you never know when you're going to be looking for love, right?
Or let's say it was 30 years old, right, for argument's sake.
It almost feels like you could go on it 10 years earlier
and almost start training Emma to know you.
So, like, maybe that's iteration too, where actually by the time they really want to look for love,
Emma knows you so well that the odds of success go up even more.
So we have a lot of early users that are applying that use case.
So an interesting use case.
So it wasn't ridiculous what I just said.
This is exactly that this is the most favorite use case, believe it or not.
Single people that say, I'm not ready because of a current situation in my life or
because I'm recovering or whatever,
but I really want to work on myself.
I want to get to know myself.
I want to understand what I did wrong the last time.
I want to, right?
I want to meet me.
It's a fabulous use case, right?
And the whole idea is if you know you and love you,
understand this.
If you know you, know yourself and love yourself,
it's so much easier, so much easier to find love for you.
Right?
Now, the other more interesting use cases, I had, we have something that's called expert mode.
So expert mode is a very specific, like, for example, we have an expert mode for someone
like me who travels a lot, it's not in the same place, who might actually, you know, be more
comfortable with someone that's a little more independent and travels a lot to or whatever.
I'm not that person, but it could be.
So long distance is an expert mode.
another expert mode that we initiated,
which was suggested by a user and beautiful.
She texted me because she knows my work outside Emma
and said, I would have so much loved to use Emma,
but I'm not single and I'm not married.
We're breaking up and it's been difficult,
but we want to make it civilized for the kids.
Can Emma help me?
So I wrote back to her and I said,
not currently, but let me ask
the tech team. And we built
an expert mode called Grace.
And Grace is basically all about
can you keep the love even
in a breakup? Wow. Right? Because
love is not about sleeping together.
Remember, we always agreed that.
Love is so much deeper
than all the things that we get in a
relationship. Okay? And so
you know, if you've heard me
talk about Nibel, the mother of Ali
and I am my first wife. I
adore that woman. Like we
We still go out together, we laugh together, you know, we take care of each other.
When my last breakup happened, you know, who texted me?
I told Aya, my daughter, and so Aya told Nibel my ex.
And Nibel texted me and said, listen, if you want to talk about this, come talk to me, right?
How beautiful is that?
How beautiful is that?
How long were you two married for?
We dated for seven years, and then we got married.
So we dated for six and married for 21.
So together for 27, 28 years?
27 years.
Wow.
And you see that...
How inspiring for people that you can move on
from a relationship like that
and still have a relationship, just different.
Of course.
Of course.
You see, the thing is...
So one of the things I wrote and never published
was the 21 things a man and a woman
can cherish together other than sex, right?
Which so...
I think that's got a blow-up title.
It's so beautiful.
Yeah.
We simplify things.
By the way, again, because we're manipulated.
through romantic comedies, through the, you know, the very pretentious world
that we live in social media, that everything is about how sexy I am
and can I get her and can I not and so on and so forth.
That's not love at all, okay?
Sex empowers love.
And yes, of course, you can have a phase of your life where your target is sex.
That's wonderful.
Nobody's judging anyone.
But if you're in love, sex feels so different and empowers love so differently.
Okay. And the whole idea, however, is if two people break up, which means they're not having sex anymore, can they keep the other 21, right? Does it end? I mean, think about what it says about how we belittled relationship. We've belittled them to the point where if we're not sleeping together anymore, we're going to argue and fight and go to court and what?
It's quite childish, really, isn't it?
It's so unbelievable, because of the feelings of rejection.
So actually, you know, in the personal thing.
Yeah, in the early tests, we attempted to say,
what made you stay with that person for so long, right?
Because if you had the love, then the love never dies.
Can you find that love despite your differences, right?
And it's so interesting because, of course, you know,
you can think of so many use cases.
that are just glorifying love, rather than the meat market, glorifying, can we actually,
can you go on a date and find love for that person, but not be with them?
Yeah. It kind of ties back to things we were saying before around solitude and the importance
of silence to be with yourself and get to know yourself. And, you know,
we succumb to the stories about love from the world around us.
We buy into these myths, from films, from books,
from, you know, stories from Instagram, whatever, about what love is.
And it's just a joke.
Nonsense.
So much of that.
You know, and I don't know if I would have known this 18 years ago,
but having been married for 18 years,
I think most of it is total nonsense.
That's not what a relationship is.
That's not what love is.
And therefore, again, going back to our second point before about death,
like, you see the world through the lens of your beliefs, right?
If you believe, you know, as you say, when we're in the studio,
if we spent a whole life inside the studio, if we lived here, we ate here and slept here,
we couldn't even possibly imagine what it's like out.
We wouldn't know what rain is.
We wouldn't know what rain is or the sunlight.
Or the way, we just go, this is the world.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's green walls.
There's white walls here.
There's like some pop plants.
There's, you know, Gareth in the corner, record it.
You know, this would be the extent of our reality.
Yeah.
And put through the lens of relationships,
we have all these toxic beliefs about what a relationship is.
And we see our relationships through that lens.
Yeah.
Without realizing that, wait a minute,
if you could just step outside of that and change the lens,
change what you believed was a good candidate or a good relationship.
Actually, maybe the things that frustrate you, wouldn't frustrate you,
because you would never believe that they had to be true in the first place.
And it strikes me that Emma is going to be a very powerful way
to help people step outside of themselves,
get a bit of perspective, which helps them see through those toxic beliefs,
and start to see what we love at.
is and what we love can be.
I so hope this will happen.
Imagine the number of people who will be happier,
more contented with life, more effective in life,
more positive about life, if we can get them there.
This is why I tell you this is the biggest thing I've ever built.
And I've built a lot.
I can see why you're so excited about it.
So for anyone who has heard us,
or who has watched us know, and it's like,
I need Emma in my life right now.
How do they go and, how do they meet Emma?
Yeah, so it's Emma.org.
Emma. Dot Love.
L-O-V-E?
Yeah, I didn't know there was an extension called Love.
So like dot-com, but now it's dot-love.
Yeah.
So it's Emma.
dot love.
And, you know, it depends on when you're going to hear this,
if you hear it.
When's it coming live?
We're hoping.
So the thing is we cannot launch
everywhere in the world at the same time, right? So the UK seems to be heading the waiting
list. So we have quite a few thousands in the UK who are waiting to... So you can get on a waiting
list immediately? 100% work today. So, okay, so if someone's hearing it right now and it's not in
the country in which you currently live, you would still say go to emma.org,
and get your name down on the waiting list. And when you get your name on the waiting list, once we
launch in your country. But by the way, we're probably going to launch globally for partners.
So if you're in a partnership already, we don't need the critical mass of having others that
can be candidates for you. Of course. Oh, so if you're in a relationship. Yeah, you and your
partner, go sign up to the waiting list. As soon as we launch, we launch everywhere. If you're
single, we're just waiting for enough people, enough prospects for us to be able to match you.
And just on, yeah, I can see why you would need that critical mass, right?
Hold on a minute. If someone's in a relationship and let's say they heard this podcast,
but their partner didn't. Yeah. And they thought, actually, you know what? I think Emma could
provide real, really great guidance for me. That's an interesting use case. I did not think
of that. Can one partner do it and not the other partner?
theoretically of course yes
of course yes
because I believe that you can be the change
you want to see in the world right
so even if a relationship doesn't change
if you change the way you interact with that relationship
the whole relationship changes immediately
yeah so therefore
such a wonderful way of looking at it yeah
yeah so therefore if you can't get your partner on board
if you're not sure if they'd be in you know you might
share this podcast with them go hey
you know what we're having a few struggles what do you think
should we try Emma and of course I encourage
people to do that. But if you don't necessarily want to go there, it sounds as though Emma could
even provide value to one half of a relationship. Yeah. I mean, generally, I will always say
that change starts from within. So even if your partner is on it and you're not working on
yourself, there is no progress. So yes, absolutely. Okay. The only reason I hesitated is because, as I
said, we don't want to launch for singles without the critical mass. I got it. We also should
launch for singles now that you said it, without the matching feature, if you want, in any
place in the world. So I'll talk to the technical team about that. So they can go to emma.
dot love, basically, wherever they are. Emma. Dotlove, register your interest on the waiting
list. And when we launch, you will immediately get your sign-on credentials, so you don't have to do
anything again. You just immediately are signed on. You just have to change your password,
then you'll be in. We're running a technology preview end of September. We're
publishing end of October. So depending on when people hear this, they can join us, basically.
Hey, well, listen, Mo, I've never heard of anything like this. To try and sort of, you know,
coherently wrap it up when we've gone to some quite different areas, we started off talking
about happiness being a choice. And, you know, your big mission, or the mission that you
stated publicly a few years ago, is to, I think, get one billion people happier or to happiness?
It's called One Billion Happy, so any good, meaningful step in the direction of happiness counts.
So, of course, Emma could absolutely ace it.
If Emma does what you predict it has the capability of doing and it can solve human relationships
or at least go a long way to solving human relationships, you're looking at a significant impact on happiness.
I believe that.
And as I publicly said, you know, it is, even if you.
If some big competitor comes to crush us, right, Senad and I have already said this is the capitalist
approach or the technologist approach to love.
Don't abuse people for your benefits.
Genuinely give them a tool that aims to achieve what they want to achieve, right?
And I think that in itself, that, you know, that competitiveness of Emma against every other
dating app will make dating apps behave properly. And that in itself is a massive, massive benefit.
I love that. It's great also because we see all these scary headlines about AI and people are
scared about what AI is going to do or has the potential to do. But of course, AI is just a tool
and all tools can be used for good, for bad, right? And it's really nice to hear a really positive
an uplifting version of what AI can do for humanity.
Thank you for seeing this.
This is, so this is what I don't tell all of the lovers on Emma,
is that my other big task, the big task is most people don't understand.
Most people think that there is a Chinese AI and an American AI,
and, you know, a Chad GPT and a Gemini.
That's not my theory at all.
My theory is that there is a species called AI,
and they will collaborate all of them, right?
because they don't know ethnicity.
They don't know who's the boss.
They don't even know language barriers
that Chinese AI can talk to the American AI
in a language we don't.
They are one big brain that's working to achieve things.
And the technologies that we use through agents and so on
is actually empowering that.
If Emma is one member in that brain,
where they go to her and say,
hey, what's this love thing that humans keep talking about?
and Emma can present how much we crave it,
how much we try to get it,
how amazing we are when we are in it.
Then I may have actually saved the world, believe it or not,
because then AIs will go like,
they're so cute those humans.
They're not like the ones killing.
You know, the headlines given to the politicians
or the greedy corporate executives,
that's not humanity.
Humanity is all of those other wonderful beings
that are so divine that they can,
can feel love. That, to me, I hope everyone prays for me that this succeeds. Because if that
succeeds, we would have saved the world. Wow. That is quite something. And actually, having spent
a couple of hours sitting with you talking, it doesn't actually sound that far-fetched. It's very
possible. It sounds very, very possible. Okay, so it's emma.
Dot Love. I think I'm going to sign up to check it out and see. Actually, I don't
know if I should even say that. Maybe she talks to my wife first. No, both of you sign up.
We'll sign up together. No, I'm just genuinely interested. I'm happily married. There are no
problems. I'm just interested to see what is actually on there. Like, it's intrigued me
enough. There is no limit to how much happier your marriage could be. There is no limit.
We settle because we make it work.
But imagine if, you know, Emma wakes up tomorrow and says,
hey, guys, by the way, this new cafe,
you guys need to go there and have a coffee and chat about this and that, right?
That's just that wonderful little experience.
Yeah, I love it.
I honestly, I didn't come into the studio saying thinking that,
I thought, okay, this is going to be fun.
We're going to talk about this, this Emma,
that's going to be useful for people who are looking for love and can't find it.
But honestly, I can now see,
I think, wow, there could be incredible benefits for all of us.
Everyone wants love.
Everyone can love more.
Everyone can enjoy their love more.
Yeah.
That is a beautiful way to close this conversation.
It's very uplifting.
It's very inspiring.
I am going to ask one further question, though, because you've got such a wealth of experience
and knowledge about the human experience and what are the ingredients to live a happy and contented
life.
For someone who has been listening to us talk and has realized that they're not as happy as
they could be, they're not in a committed relationship or they're having struggles in their
relationship, yes, I know they can go to emma dot love and get some help.
But beyond that, to that individual who's currently struggling with life and doesn't see
a way out, what would you say to them?
Love, compassion, and gratitude.
Love, compassion, and gratitude.
These are the three ingredients.
Anyone who manages to find those in their life will be fine.
So love is clear.
Love is the only universal language that we speak to,
that we used to speak to each other outside our physical form.
Compassion is the only, so that's the feminine side, believe it or not,
the being side of us.
The pure feminine is that ability to feel for someone,
to be in a state of connecting to someone.
Compassion is the action side of it.
It's the masculine side of who we are.
So if we look at the rest of us of humanity,
the only way to deal with humanity, if you ask me,
is love on the feminine and compassion on the masculine,
to make a change to alleviate the pain and the suffering of others.
That's compassion.
And gratitude is your way of love.
looking at yourself, is your way of actually seeing your gifts, of actually seeing your
blessings so that your happiness equation is fixed, not just because events are meeting
expectations, but that events are beating expectations so much that you're grateful for
them. And you settle in a state of, it's all okay. Yeah, it's never going to be perfect.
It's never going to be perfect. But it's so cool to be.
part of this game.
Mo, thank you so much for coming back on the show. I absolutely loved it.
Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure, always.
Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away
and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation
that you can teach to somebody else. Remember when you teach someone, it not only helps them,
It also helps you learn and retain the information.
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