Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 3 Simple Ways to Make a Lasting Impression on a First Date | Rewind

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Everyone wants to stand out on a first date… especially when it feels like the person across from you has endless options. But the real way to become unforgettable isn’t performing, impressing, or saying the “right” thing—it’s creating genuine connection.In this episode, Matthew shares three powerful techniques that instantly make your conversations feel more memorable. If you’ve ever walked away from a date wondering “Did I do enough?”… this episode will help you show up with confidence, presence, and real emotional impact.---►► Every Friday, Matthew Hussey writes a personal letter to help you strengthen the three most important relationships in your life—with others, with yourself, and with life itself. Sign up for free at TheThreeRelationships.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How to be unforgettable on a first date. The advice I'm about to give can work for any date, really, but on a first date we get particularly nervous, don't we? We worry about how we're going to come across. I want to say firstly that despite what I'm about to tell you in terms of how you can enhance your impact on a date, it's your date. It's a date that's 50% you. It's your thumbprint. And your thumbprint is yours. You can't get it wrong. It's yours. It's you we're talking about. So while I'm going to give you some ideas, some tips, some techniques, some thoughts, I don't want you to overthink going on a date because you've watched this video. I sometimes think that's one of the negative impacts of what I do is that it can lead to an

overthinking. I don't want you to do that. I want you to think that even if you didn't do anything by the book on a date, someone can still fall madly in love with you and decide to want to be with you forever and marry you and have a family with you. You know, it doesn't, this isn't an exam. It's you. With that in mind, there are things that over the years of doing this, I've learned, that are great enhancers for what we want to bring out on a date, for what leads to great. conversation for what leads to amazing connection, what leads to someone thinking about you after a date. So I want to give you today three specific techniques for enhancing the impact you can make

on a date. Number one, start on the ground. One of the things we do on a date, which could be characterized as the really difficult small talk section of the date, is we see someone and we say, hey! How are you? And it's a really difficult thing to answer because where do you even start from that place? It's not that it's a bad question, it's just a difficult question to answer. It's hard to answer honestly, because our answer to that is always extremely complex, and it's also hard to answer specifically because it's such a big and vague question. It's starting from 50,000 feet in the air.

I propose that you reverse that. You start on the ground and work your way up to the 50,000 foot view. On the ground would be talking about something that happened this morning or movie that we've both seen that we really like or something we're excited about in the next month. Go on a date and ask yourself on the way to the date, what's in the news of my life right now? What's in the news of my week? What's in the news of my last hour? What's been going on?

What unexpected thing happened to me just this morning? And by the way, I sometimes think that we get very caught up in life thinking that in order to have great stories, something fascinating needs to have happened to us. But that's not actually true. The basis of great story is we need to have things. feelings about something that's happened to us. However mundane, whatever happened to you this morning, however non-eventful, if we have feelings about it, then we have story to tell. We have conversation. Talking about something that's happened this week or today or this morning or how you feel

about a movie you saw last night, you're immediately starting on the ground, which feels like an organic conversation and then you can work your way up to the bigger question. about each other. Number two, connect, don't coach. I always think that it's really aggravating when we share something with someone that might be a little bit vulnerable. And instead of connecting with that vulnerability

that we've just shared and maybe even offering a little bit of their own vulnerability, someone takes the opportunity to start giving us advice. Which, by the way, it's on a date especially, is a really unsexy move, right? Because you're immediately creating a sort of mentor,

mentee relationship, a coach-student relationship, a therapist-client relationship. None of these are sexy relationships in the context of a date. And they also don't allow for real connection. All they do is elevate one person above the other in a bit of an icky way. It's like if you said to someone on a date, I, you know, I really enjoy writing. but I, one of the things I'm working on right now is I get two in my head and then I struggle to get down to it because I'm pre-judging what I've written before I've even started. If someone then takes that moment and says, oh, you know, that's like you got to do it every day, you know, you just can't, you can't overthink it, you know, you just have

to set a time in the diary and every day just go for it. I feel I feel myself getting aggravated as I'm hearing this interaction because it's so annoying. A beautiful thing you could have done in that moment is if I said, I'm, you know, I pre-judged too much what I'm about to write and sometimes I just, I don't get to it for that reason and I really want to work on that. And by the way, it's kind of attractive when someone says I really want to work on that because it shows a self-awareness but also a pro-activeness. It's not negative.

There's nothing negative about saying that. And there's nothing sort of poor me about saying that. And it's not saying, give me advice. It's just saying, I'm working on that, which is actually really attractive to meet someone who's that kind of person. That's a great opportunity for someone else to say, I'd so get what you mean. I so understand that, because I always feel like that about creative stuff. It feels so good once you've done it, but it's the getting into it that's really difficult. That's just a moment of humanity.

It's a moment of connection. It's also an invitation for someone who maybe doesn't write or maybe doesn't even have that issue. in their creative world to talk about something they struggle with. Yeah, I totally get that. That's, it is, it is really tricky, isn't it, to get into something in the first place. I know that for me, in my life, one of the things I'm working on is this. So what I've done is I've taken your vulnerability and said, oh, I'll reward that with my own vulnerability so that we can have a moment of connection. Thank you for being brave. Thank you for volunteering something about yourself that takes courage. I'm now going to reward.

that by doing the same from my side. We've come to the table and set down our weapons. But instead, in so many situations, someone lays down their weapons and the other person says, advice. Instead of using the moment for humanity, someone uses it for superiority. And lastly, number three, listen and capture. Without a doubt, one of the best pieces of advice for any date or any meeting with someone business too, right? Because so much of this stuff works for job interviews, it works for client meetings, it works for pitch meetings. This is stuff that is to do with attraction and not just in the romantic sense, is being present. Being present with what someone is actually telling us. Which starts with asking questions. In order to be present with what you're

telling me, I need to ask questions. I need to be curious about you in the first place. Now, listening, active listening, really sort of tuning in to what someone is saying, you ask a question and then you really listen. Instead of thinking about what you're going to say next, instead of thinking about how impressive your response is going to be, instead of listening to someone who says that they went to a part of the world and going, I've also been to a part of the world, which we do all the time. We call it story trumping, finding a way to take their story and one up them because you want to show that you've done that thing too or you've done something called too. I'm impressive too, that's a problem. But really connecting is asking a question and then just

listening to what they're saying, being impressed by something they're saying, being even more curious about what they're saying, or if you don't understand what they're saying, asking another question. But listening isn't the only part of this. The reason this particular part of this piece of content, this video, is listen and capture, is because the capture part is really important. When we think of a great photographer, we think of someone who's captured the essence of a moment, of a street corner, of someone outside busking in New Orleans, of a moment between a mother and child. We feel like we compliment them on their eye, don't we? Because there's a sort of, for a photographer, there's a listening period, of course, literally a watching period. There's a period of just what's going on here.

What am I trying to capture? And then there's the moment of capture. And when we look at a great photographer's photo, what we say is, wow, what a great eye. That photographer has been able to see something and capture it in a way that other people couldn't. Is their ability to capture the essence of the moment that makes them great? Well, in conversation, it's our ability to capture the essence of somebody else, or of what they have expressed to us that makes us truly stand out and be unforgettable to that person

because they feel understood by us. They feel we have perceived something about them that is not commonly perceived or that demonstrates an awareness of who they are in a short space of time because we really listened and that builds intimacy. And intimacy makes you really hard to find. forget, it makes you very hard to not call after the date because someone feels that you've really captured them. Now, if you're thinking to yourself, but I, you know, if you get to a part of the date and you're like, I want to, I want to recapitulate what they've said to me in a way that shows

I understand them, but I don't feel I understand them. Well, that's a good litmus test, because at that point, you can ask more questions. Well, what is it I don't understand? What is it I don't know? What is it that's making it hard for me to sort of capture? what they've said to me, well, I don't really know what they quite meant by that. Well, I don't really know how they feel about that. Great. You now know the next most pertinent questions to ask someone on a date that are going to build that connection. Thank you so much for listening to the episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Before you go, make sure that you do this today. I promise you every week you are missing out by not doing what I'm about to say. I am sending a private email to a group of people

who have registered for it every single Friday. The email is called the three relationships and every email is packed with advice on how you can improve one of the three relationships that I believe determine the quality of your life. Your relationship with other people, your relationship with yourself and your relationship with life itself. It's a super valuable email. People really look forward to it. This is not the kind of email that you don't open. It's the kind of email. You're You can't wait to see in your inbox every Friday. Go over to The3 Relationships.com to sign up for that email for free. And I will see you in your inbox this Friday.

Thanks for listening, everyone. I'll see you in the next episode. Be well and love life.