Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 91: What's More Productive: Being Single Vs. Being In A Relationship

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

Do you get more done when you're single or in a relationship? This turns out to be a topic that has a lot of STRONG opinions. Join Matt and Stephen for a chat about: How to approach being a "builder" when you're in a relationship Choosing the right partner for your needs Connection vs. compatibility How to not get distracted when you're single --- Don't forget: you can email the show at [e-mail]!  --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey --- P.S. Join us on our virtual retreat on March 19-21! Go to MHVirtualRetreat.com and spend a magical 3 days with us transforming your confidence and relationships...

All right, well, here we are, Matthew Hussey in the room. It is the Love Life Podcast. I am Stephen Hussey. Matthew, my brother, my captain, how are you, old pal? Oh, I'm good, Steve. I'm just happy to be back on the podcast. I'm happy we're doing these every week now, where we're just you and I, we're chatting away and, you know, for a long time I thought if we talk doing these every week now where we're just you and I, we're chatting away.

And, you know, for a long time I thought if we talk every week, people might just get bored of us and we should just give people, you know, give them a nice topic every week and get in and get out. You know, do a DiCaprio. How is that? Well, you know how he shows up for a movie, disappears for two years. The only thing you see in between is the odd shot of his belly on the beach well you're referring to something else

but okay yeah i get i get you right and then he comes you know he comes when it's time to make another movie he makes one and we'll see him for maybe a single interview where he says watch the movie right so we're not gonna hear we're not gonna hear from you in between these then well that's my point is i think i'm not sure that the dicaprio philosophy applies to us i think that people want to hear us talk i'm not saying they don't want to hear dicaprio talk but you know what i mean well i i'm very very pleased about that fact and guess what matt uh we have heard from our listeners because you asked them a question last week and we got a couple of great responses so you lost on one of our previous podcasts we were looking for parodies of horror movie titles based on romance. I can't remember what our one was. Oh, 28 Dates Later

based on 28 Days Later. And you said, give us horror movies with a romantic spin. So we got a really good one from Ellen who said, hi, Matthew and Stephen. I was really enjoying your latest podcast right up until you started punning Matt. From that point on, you could have dealt out the worst relationship advice and I would have accepted it blindly. That's how much I love puns. Here are the best film titles I could conjure up on limited sleep, coffee, and well thought. Friday the 13th.

Termin Hater 2, Judge Man Day. Wow, that's good. That's not a horror film, i will accept it um good though fight night that's good instead of fright night the bicker man i think that's brilliant 10 loverfield lane yeah the sixth sense saucy erase her head i'm not sure what act that's referring to but i do know the film erase head erase her head yeah erase her head dark relationship um the silence of the limbs that's also quite dark in both ways go wait hang on so they've just replaced one horror movie with another silence of the limbs i'm not sure what does that refer to in relationship context silence of the

limbs i don't think i want to know but i you know i guess that's someone's thing but you know we'll from that ghosted uh spoiler she says patrick swayze didn't die so it's like oh that's good um that's really good he didn't die that's great i love that ghosted but he didn't actually die and finally the invisible man she says no change required in the title that's good that's really good keep the puns running that's from ellen in ottawa those are really good ellen um wow yeah that's great okay i want more i want we've got to keep putting these questions out to people because there was some really good ones here all right so one thing matt i was in i was in clubhouse last night, a popular new social media app. People were talking

and had a lot of opinions on whether you are more productive in a relationship or single. Now, that sounds like just one of those things that's very debatable, right? There's obviously highly successful for whatever metric you want to say they're successful people who are married they're successful people who are single so you know you can look at it either way of course there are many people who said well actually I do get a lot more done when I'm single and that causes some conflict for me because then I think well in a relationship am I going to be able to achieve the things I want to achieve or, you know, am I going to have to limit my goals? I think that is interesting. And, you know, I don't know if you agree with me, but,

you know, in some sense, that is a particular kind of person's problem. But also, you know, if you're very driven, you're very like type a it's a you know very like oh i'm driven to do things kind of issue but also there's so much there about your choices and i think the big one big takeaway i thought of is it's really important if you are in that place where you want to build build build you have to be really careful about how you give out your energy, even in short-term relationships. This idea of whether you're more productive single or in a relationship is missing a major caveat. There should be a third option. If you really want to talk about what state're what state is most productive you have to compare

being in a relationship with you have to i think you might even need four four categories right being single and not looking being single and looking, being in the building phases of a relationship and being in a long-term relationship. If you really want to talk about productivity, you have to talk about those four things. And the reason is, you're right. If you say I'm single and not looking, you have a lot more time on your hands than if you're single and looking right. Because dating is time consuming. There are ways to mitigate that, which is why I'm a, I'm a big believer in the FaceTime date before

the real time date before the in-person. I'm a big fan of the phone, the five minute phone call over going and meeting someone for two hours that you've never met before i'm a big fan of you know uh uh of not having really labored dates but instead going for a quick drink or coffee and just seeing where you're at but so there are ways to minimize the amount of time that looking for someone takes but looking for someone is a lot more time consuming than not looking for someone so if you say know, so already there's a difference in how productive you can be in other areas of your life based on that. Although even if you follow our advice, if you follow our advice, then even looking shouldn't cost you a lot of time. The dating part might, but the part where you meet people doesn't have to because you can meet people doing a lot of things you'd like to do anyway. Join a running club, join a society that teaches something so that you're learning something you want to learn at the same time as possibly meeting new people.

Networking events, meeting new people online. There are wins to be had from those things that you'll have even if you don't meet someone. So there's a sense in which you could double up on your productivity there, meeting someone and doing things. And don't waste your time with dead ends and people who aren't giving you what you want. That'll save you time. That too. So let's also add that into the mix because now you have a fifth category, which is people who are not in a relationship, but are spending an inordinate amount of time having sleepovers with somebody that is not going anywhere with, you know, I heard Russell

Brand say recently, don't invest time in things that you don't have a future with. He was talking about porn, but it applies to relationships too. So, and by the way, that depends on what phase you're in, whether you're actually looking for serious or not, because you might spend time with someone you don't see a future with. If you're not serious and just having a good anywhere with that's incredibly time consuming. Now you have in a relationship where you're trying to build it. And I think that it's like a plane, right? It takes a lot of energy to get it in the air. It takes a little less energy once it's in the air. Once a plane's up in the air, it's the fuel. You still need fuel, but you're keeping it in the air. That's different than I'm trying to get the plane in the air in the first place. And if you're not willing to invest time in those early stages, I think there is, it is sometimes easier to be productive.

It's easier to be more productive in a long-term relationship than it is in a relationship that's finding its feet you have all of the your brain chemistry is going haywire all of the excitement the the you know the chemicals being released the i mean you are you are you've been given the most amazing new toy to focus just as much on everything else in your life at that point is really difficult and of course yeah you're evolutionary people compare it to like a drug right right and it there's in evolutionary terms that's part of what is claimed is necessary to get us to that next stage right we need those chemicals in order to get us to the next stage who would marry but for the chemicals jameson, those lovely chemicals. So, you know, that stage is hard to be productive

just from the point of view of having all of that going on. Then on top of that, you've got your investing time and energy into getting to know someone. Once you're in a long-term relationship, still laughing at those lovely chemicals. Once you're in a relationship long term, you've got now a partner that may be understanding of the fact that you really want to work on this goal or you want to, you know, you've got something you want to make happen. You're in a busy phase of your life. It's sort of easier, isn't it, for someone to make peace with that when you're in a stable relationship?

Yeah. Yeah. Because the relationship has a foundation that can support it. Whereas when a relationship is growing, it may not have the foundation to support you being in a really busy phase of your life where there's so many other priorities and that's not one of them, the relationship may never get off the ground in the first place. So if we're discussing productivity and whether it's more productive to be single in a relationship, I think it's oversimplified because of all those different states that you could be in. And let's add another complexity. There are people in relationships with people that are incredibly supportive of their purpose and their mission.

And there are people who are in relationships where anytime you try to focus on anything, that's not that person, they get upset. Right. And that's why it's not just about connection with someone. It's the compatibility and And being really honest about the kind of partner you want. Some people say, like, I want a partner who's just as driven as me, and they're both this crazy power couple, but they're going to live a very unusual relationship in a lot of ways, right? And as long as you can accept that, that you're both going to be these hyper-driven people, that's okay. But some people might say, you know, they want someone who's going to be supportive and support their dream. And that is a kind of more selfish thing really. But, but some people it's just like, maybe that works for them. And you kind of need to start to know and figure out what you really want and will be happy with yes and look it's compatibility is an interesting thing it's not that you you could be a super driven person who's trying to achieve a lot and you want to find someone who's okay with that and people can

be okay with that for different reasons people can be okay with that because they've also got their big thing that you know they're super driven about but they could also be okay with it because you guys aren't playing the same game in life you know like it's not there is no there is no right and wrong you know you i we're we're in our company for example we're on kind of a mission and we're really excited about that mission and i'm sort of wired in a way that's always made me excited about building things and and creating things and it's sort of it has a good aspect to it and a bad aspect to it a good aspect when I'm trying to genuinely with great good intention change the world or or that sounds so bloody grandiose but you know when I'm trying to make a positive impact, uh, let's say more humbly that

that's a positive side of it. The egoic side of it that is just more, more, more, more, more is the, the not so good side of it that can take over at times. Um, but that's my wiring is that way. Other people's wiring is different. You know, it's not, they're not trying to do that. I mean, I'm my God, I've met people who are much more naturally happy than me, who are not trying to do that, where they're just like, there's a simplicity to their lives and what they're doing and where their focus is. And they're quite happy not to be on that giant mission. I think that's cool too. I don't think, I don't have any judgment of that. And sometimes those two people can work quite well together. You know, there's that idea of the gardener and the flower, every relationship needs a flower and a, and a gardener, um, you know, and sometimes, but then there's relationships

where you take turns a little bit, you know, you, you're both flowers and gardeners at different times, depending on what phase each of you are in. So this is the, this is the stuff of relationships, Steve. Yeah. It's, um, I think it is, it is one I understand that young driven people struggle with, but you are, when you're younger, you're a little more, you are a little more selfish in that way. And you want all your time and you, you know, you're in like build, build, build mode. And maybe, I think maybe your priorities do change as you get older and you're willing to be a little more, you know, come, come part way to, you know, I want to meet this person's needs as well. And I, well, I think that's why, that's why age gaps are difficult. Well, it's one of the,

there are a couple of reasons, big age gaps are difficult, but one of the reasons they're difficult is just because it's not that you may be in different phases of your drive or productivity kind of cycle. You know, that person may be building and you're in a place where some people never stop building. I've got friends, you know, entrepreneurs that just never stop their whole life. So there's that too. And you better be clear that you want that kind of person. If you're going to get into a relationship with one of those, don't bank on them changing. I personally couldn't the deal, you know, I don't think I could be in a relationship with someone who was like that, dare I say, like me, I don't know. I right I you know but I even there even I think I've mellowed in some ways but the the problem with the big age differences is you might catch someone who's in the building part of their life that you've already been through and you're like

god do I have to relive this again do I want to relive this phase I've already been through it once I got out the other end of it now i'm with someone who's in that phase and i'm ready to spend a lot of time with someone well now that person's not necessarily gonna have a lot of time to spend so um yeah yeah all right great stuff is this good it's interesting stuff to chew on um fun stuff to chew on. It's fun stuff to talk about. Well, I have had a longstanding relationship, a brother relationship with you, Matthew Hussey, and I feel this has been very productive.

So we're getting the best of both worlds, baby. Thank you so much for joining us, sir, and providing your insights, your lucid wisdom, may I say. Thanks for having me, Pickle. All right, chum. I'll see you real soon. Bye-bye. I see the blog sites. Wookiee whoop got a new wife.

Shorty got a new boo. Yeah, love beautiful. I'm looking for love.