Modern Wisdom - #1057 - Matthew Hussey - How to Know When to Leave a Relationship

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

Matthew Hussey is the world’s #1 dating coach, a YouTuber, public speaker and an author. How do you know if you’re with the right person — or if you're just telling yourself you are? If you’re questioning the relationship more than enjoying it, Matthew Hussey might have the clarity you need. So what does finding your person actually look like, and what signs should you pay attention to? Sponsors: Get my free Valentine’s Review with 75 deep questions to ask your partner: ⁠⁠⁠https://chriswillx.com/valentines See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/deals⁠ New pricing since recording: Function is now just $365, plus get $25 off at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get a free bottle of D3K2, an AG1 Welcome Kit, and more when you first subscribe at https://ag1.info/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/books⁠ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: ⁠https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom⁠ Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59⁠ #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf⁠ #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp⁠ - Get In Touch: Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast⁠ Email: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/contact⁠ - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Valentine's Day is coming up and whether you want to more deeply connect with your partner or work out whether or not you should break up. I've got the fix for you. I have put together a list of 50 of the most viral and science-backed ways to connect with your partner more deeply and 25 questions that will help you work out whether or not you should break up. And they're all available right now at the Modern Wisdom Valentine's review. It is completely free. You can get it by going to chriswillex.com slash valentines. That's chriswillx.com slash valentines. one of the most common issues that I'm seeing online at the moment and people talk about a lot is working out when to end things. How do you come to think about advising people on knowing when to leave a relationship? I coached, there's someone I was coaching recently who had given me all sorts of reasons why they should. already be gone. And I sat in front of her and she was like, what do you think I should do?

And I was like, you've already given me so many reasons why you shouldn't be there. But I can't make you leave. Like I sometimes think of, I think this is a, I don't love this metaphor because I believe in renewal and sort of rebirth, but I sometimes think, it helps to think of things like a cliff edge. And at a certain point, you kind of go over the cliff edge. And then you're in free fall and there's like a lot of damage that gets done. Or maybe the cliff edge is, you know, your life blows up financially because you put off doing something sooner.

Or maybe the cliff edge is that, you know, there's a certain amount of time that's passed that you can never get back. But that idea of going off the cliff edge is, in some ways has been important to me because I see part of what I do is, can I get someone to act? Can I almost even create a fake cliff edge now that stops them from getting to the real cliff edge where there's going to be so much time past that they're now going to have deep regret about having spent that long with that person?

Or there's going to be such chaos in their lives or they will have lost so many other relationships because of this relationship. And I said to this woman I was coaching, I can't make you leave. And the reality is, the really tough reality is you might need to experience a lot more pain yet before you leave. I can't say, I can't determine for you how much pain you need in order to leave. We all have our threshold. And the scary thing, and I'm kind of in a way talking about a certain kind of breakup here

because there's some truly toxic and dangerous relationships that people get into. And I don't mean just dangerous physically, but just dangerous in the sense that they're with someone that really rubs them of their soul, their identity, their, you know, confidence, everything. But there was a Beth Macy, I think it's Beth Macy, who wrote about the opioid crisis in America. She said the scary thing about opioids is that, you know, the cliche,

about drugs is that, you know, someone will hit rock bottom. And it's at that point that they'll ricochet back up again. And she said, no, no, no. With opioids, people hit rock bottom. And then they realize rock bottom has a basement. And that basement has a trap door. There are relationships like that where you, you think someone, oh, this is the point where they leave. And it's like, no, no, no, something even worse has to happen yet.

and something even worse has to happen. So there's no one answer, but at a certain point, I think, that we have to hit a kind of pain threshold where we say, is this really, can I endure this for the rest of my life? Do I deserve to endure this for the rest of my life? And one trap we have to be very careful of is someone asked me a question in my membership the other day, do, do, what did she say exactly? She said, what if what I have right now is like...

The best that's available. The best that I can get. What if better isn't out there? And I said that you have to be really careful with that logic because you're saying that the only reason to leave is if you believe from this place of fear right now that you're coming up with this question from, that someone better is coming. But you can't compare it with if you think something better is coming. You have to compare it with the happy that you can be without this person.

And there's a thousand different versions of that happy. And not all of them even involve another person. But in a way, could I do better is another trap that will keep you where you are. Because now all I need to do is speak to enough friends who tell me that dating is a war zone. And it's terrible. And you don't know what it's like out here. You don't want to be back out here again. And you go, well, then I'll stay, right?

That's a trap. Yeah. Yeah, it's a very odd situation that there is this threshold of pain. Like somebody will say, I knew it was over six months or two years or five years or 15 years before I left. What does that mean? I knew it was over, but I didn't leave. It's strange, right? There's two things going on at once.

There is whatever this justification motivation thing is to push somebody out of the relationship finally or to build up the bravery or the resentment or the bitterness or whatever to be able to say this is it. And that sometimes seems to be separate. The motivation to leave seems to be separate to the awareness that this is not right. Is that a fair way to frame it? I think it's a really important distinction. Yeah.

I think you can have lost hope that it's going to get better. You really just have to, you know, the activation energy, right? The activation energy of leaving is high. I have to go through heartbreak, loss, untangling my life from somebody else's, explaining it to all of my friends and family, you know, letting my community know, whatever it may be. There's all these ways that I have, like, I've got to do a lot and endure a lot

and pass through a lot of pain in order to leave. The activation energy of staying is a lot lower. So it's natural. I think it's human behavior that we default to what we have now. Stayed as quo bias. Yeah. Yeah. And then add to that the sunk cost bias.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the real thing. Loss aversion. Add to that the fear that somehow in the time I've been in this relationship, my appeal has gone down in the world. I'm no longer... My stock price is halved. Yeah, and now I'm going out and I'm going to do worse as a result,

or I'm going to struggle to meet someone as a result. All of these things just converge to create a kind of paralysis that says, yes, maybe I'm not happy, but not today. Yeah. It doesn't surprise. me that people stay in relationships for huge swaths of time that they're not supposed to. All of this sort of converges together to create a really difficult situation for most people to survive. It is definitely an interesting question to ask that what if this is the best that's

available? But if you say, well, this relationship is making you unhappy, you would be happier on your own. Like, forget if there's something better out there. You're choosing miserable connection or miserable coupling over satisfactory singleness? The hard part is that what we haven't spoken about is ego, the way ego plays into relationships. And especially if you think, you know, there's the archetype of someone who's maybe with someone who they don't feel like they're happy with, they don't feel like this person is that great, they don't treat them that great.

kind of like, there's an apathy of do I leave, do I stay, am I, a fear of am I going to do better, all of that. But there's also, when we're with someone who makes us unhappy, but we love them, and, you know, we think they're amazing. And we have, you know, put them on a kind of pedestal where we're like, you know, this person is the best I've ever gotten. And there's something truly special or unique about this person. Now our ego is involved in a really big way. And once ego is driving in that way, it's not, the ego is not asking, am I happy? Ego is like trying to feel enough. Am I redeemed? Yeah. If I can just secure this person, then like, we'll be all right. will be enough. And that's why there are, you know, in dating, there's a lot of people who end up

in relationships because they're so busy trying to get someone that they don't stop to ask whether it's actually advisable to get this person. And then they get that person if they're lucky. And now we're in a relationship with someone who may be wildly incompatible with us, who doesn't make us happy. anxious all the time. We're never quite feel good enough for this person. We don't get their full attention. We feel like we're being fed scraps. But on some level, we're like, but they're mine. And at least they're mine. And at least I'm in the game with this person. But when we feel like that, it's almost like the chase never really ends. The chase is a perpetual chase.

yes, on paper, I'm with this person, they're my partner, but I never quite feel like I have them. You've not arrived. Yeah. I never feel safe. I never feel like they're as into me as I am into them. And when we're in that place, it becomes like, we, we become like chronically anxious, chronically stressed.

Our nervous system is chronically jacked up. It's exhausting. Emotionally, it's exhausting. and of course from the outside you're like this i remember being in a relationship where a friend of mine a very dear friend of mine she came on my podcast at the time right you have an intervention on the podcast no she didn't tell me she so we met up we hadn't seen each other in months lives in new york she's over she we have this podcast she have a nice time she leaves I was in a relationship at the time.

I was the person I'm describing, deeply unhappy. But in my head I was telling myself, I'm happier than I've ever been. I have this person, I'm with this, I remember, after the breakup, this friend of mine, she said, I'll never forget that day when I met up with you and I came on your show. she said i walked away i called my sister and i she said how's matthew and she said oh he is not good he is not happy and i had no idea how much i was telegraphing you were just leaking your unhappiness out of yourself despite thinking that you were yeah you'd made it dude that's so yeah that's so fascinating i've had it in my head i had hubbard here yesterday and uh i had

love to find out the sort of neurological underpinnings of what's happening during the, I can fix her, I can fix him, chase versus the, I have arrived, I am safe, I am secure, chase, which I guess is kind of less like a chase and more like a rest. Reason being, there's a lot of that sort of cortisol dopamine energy going on of this is a goal, and if I can achieve the goal, I will get a sense of satisfaction. but it's always very rushy it's always kind of like like a high and then a low and there's whiplash and it feels a little bit sort of chaotic and ambiguous and unpredictable and uncertain and that sure there's there are highs but they're more like victories than they are true rests and i would

love to work out what the sort of neurochemicals that are driving that are and i would wager that there will be stuff to do with pursuit and risk and edginess, right, like adrenaline, epinephrine, nor epinephrine, dopamine, as opposed to like oxytocin serotonin. Like, you are in a sympathetic relationship, not a parasympathetic relationship. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yes. Well, and one produces, as you say, the roller coaster.

And it's not just a feeling of achievement. and it's relief. You know, like, that's the feeling so often is relief. I'm, I have them. I have them. Like, when that person who you just so want the approval of and you so want them to want you back the way that you want them, you want them to think about you as much as you think about them,

when that person says something, like, they send you a text and they say, I miss you so much. I just love you so much out of nowhere. You're like, all of a sudden you're like, it's almost like your life was being threatened and now it's not. Now you feel like. Someone's taking the gun away from you. Yeah.

Oh my God. I'm safe. Right now in this moment, I feel briefly. Briefly. Briefly safe. I, I, I, and that release, that kind of euphoria that results from that, extraordinarily powerful. And that, you know, when psychologists talk about that trauma bond, there is that variable reward nature to it.

What is a trauma bond? Trauma bond is the idea that, you know, someone treats you badly again and again and again and again and again and again. And at a certain point, it's so unrewarding that we might even consider like enough is enough. but then right as we're starting to make up our mind about that person, they do something sweet, they do something seemingly kind, they show up for us in some way. They apologize when they've,

you know, lied or gas lit us or made us feel awful about our feelings for the last 10 times, but all of a sudden they show some promise, and then we're dragged back in or sucked back in. That's the trauma bond. and people stay in that for years and years and years. That's the really scary part. But there's a variable reward nature to that.

That's in a way the slot machine, right? If you never won, chances are you wouldn't be there, but you win just enough that it keeps you there. The kind of safety that a healthier, more slow release, energy relationships produce is a different kind of feeling. And I, you know, like, I sometimes, when I see, there's like certain Instagram content out there, you see of people who are like, you know, I'm just waiting. There was one I saw the other day from someone, a guy who was like, I'm just waiting until, you know, I'm not going to settle.

I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. I'm waiting. I'm waiting until it's magical. I'm waiting because love is, you know, I'm not going to sell for love that isn't magical, for love that isn't this, love that isn't that. And the more he spoke, the more, for me, it didn't feel like

the version of love that tends to be enduring, that tends to be genuinely make people happy. It felt to me like a kind of justification for constantly waiting for that that feeling. And I think we get like, in some ways, these arguments get pitted against each other. Like, it's either you find someone that is stable and healthy and it's kind of boring and you

settled a little bit, but whatever, or you find someone who's exciting and it's passionate and it's magical and it makes you miserable. I don't think it's necessarily an either or in those terms, but I do think that in the same way you could do drugs and eat people. every night and get drunk every night and that would produce a kind of high, but you're a healthy guy who values the feeling that being healthy gives you. There is something you get from that that's more powerful to you. And if, and in relationships, until that thing becomes more powerful, you're always going to be chasing this other thing. A quick aside, if you have been feeling a bit sluggish, your testosterone levels might be the problem. They play a huge role in your energy,

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an additional $100 off, bring it down to $399. Get the exact same blood panels that I get and save 100 bucks by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. That's functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. Is this interesting link where people confuse chaos for chemistry and intensity for intimacy. I think it's just largely like a neurobiological trick. I don't think that there's anything really deeper going on. I think that somebody has not almost all of the situations

through any choice of their own, just the way that they present has hooked a particular fish line into this area of your brain and it keeps on pushing it. And then calm love feels boring at first. And that chasing love that feels safe instead of exciting and not assuming that this person isn't sparky, right, that there's no spark. I mean, this was a great insight I learned from Jessica Baum's first book,

anxiously attached. She's got a new one out called Safe. You should bring her on the show. She'd be great for you. And she said some people sit down with someone and they feel a spark and they assume that that's something special between both of them

but what they don't realize is this person is just sparky with everyone that's just who they are and you go that's brilliant and especially on a first date we had this with Prime Logan Paul's drink

for instance allow me to blend two worlds you didn't think I was going to blend today the beverage industry and like intimate connection Prime optimized for first sip and we did a ton of taste testing on a lot of different drinks.

And there were some drinks that have, you're like tolerance for them over time. Diet Coke is a great version of this. Like you take your first sip and it's satisfying, but the real key to Diet Coke and all of the Coke line is that you can keep drinking it and you really never get sick of it. There are other drinks that you optimize for the first sip. So if Logan Paul's on his podcast and he flicks a bottle of prime across you,

he goes, Matthew, taste that. And you take a sip and you're like, wow, that's really, you fucking hell, there's something going on there. but after you get halfway through the bottle you're like, uh, might be a little bit, this is getting a little bit

sort of sickly and by the time you finish it, I don't really want another one of those. They've certainly balanced some of the flavors better than others, but for some of them it's like, ooh, and maybe if you're a 12, right, like your palate is slightly different to mine.

I think the same thing is true with partners, that there are some who optimize for the first sip up front and you're like, oh, this is so, it's thrilling, it's through, I'm on a roller coaster, You're like, yeah, like being on a roller coaster's cool until you can't get off.

There are so many ways that we get it wrong with that mind trick that you just talked about. And actually it's the key to getting over it. That's the great part. Understanding that it's a kind of trick of the mind is the key to not overvaluing that first feeling you get with someone. Oh, this is just, oh, hello, brain. You're doing that thing again. as opposed to imbuing some, you know, comic existential transcendent value onto this person.

And they're doing a thing that, as you say, it might be something that they put out universally, that once you realize that, it becomes cheaper. Yes. It no longer has the same way. I've met guys where I'm like, I meet a guy and when we go out or something

I'm like this guy is like it's so charming what a raconteur so dazzling I'm like and then he makes me feel so you know like connected and I'm like we're gonna be best friend

I've like falling into the trap where I'm like finessed by some dude on a night out well I've been so charmed that I'm like we're gonna I'm like go home and I say your brother yeah like you cut this guy's great you got and like

And then I realized, like, how many of the friends I have, forget romance, how many of the friends I have in my life today that I truly value are the people that in the first 20 minutes I went home and was just like, I got to text that guy again. You know, like, whatever. How many of them were that guy? usually it's the people that over time are really like a value who they are their character the way they show up the integrity all of that so the same is true in our love lives it's very easy don't we have to be very careful of getting bowled over by like like a nightclub trick essentially like we're careful careful dismerching the world of nightclubs okay you can take the boy out of promo we're you can't take promo out of the boy. We, you know, you know that nightclubs will often just hold a line outside. I've done that. Never did that. Even when there's no one inside.

Never did that. And then everyone sees the line outside of the club and says there must be something going on in there. Look how many people want to get in there. And then we've, most of us have been in that place of like we got in and we went, where is everybody? There's no one here. There's no value. There's more people in the line outside the club than there are inside the club. So it's, we're all prone to that, to that idea.

And by the way, when we don't value ourselves, when someone else is showing themselves to be hard to get, instant. We increase their value for two reasons. One, because it's natural, the natural economics of attraction is scarcity. If you make yourself seem hard to get, you're rare. and if you're rare, you must be more valuable. But there's also a personal part going on, which is if you reject me or if you make yourself hard to get for me

and I have even an inkling that I'm not enough, then I start thinking you're really valuable. It's almost like if you want me, I'm like, I don't value me. So by you valuing me, there must be something wrong with you. Yeah, there's something going on with you. You want me. Like, you're starting to dip in my eyes.

That is one of the most unfortunate, dynamics for somebody to have that I only want somebody who doesn't want me. Like if that's your motivation and somebody that seems to be kind and well balanced and open, transparent about their wants and committed and ready now, and you go, oh, that doesn't, there's something, there's something in there that doesn't seem quite right. I can't work it out. But it's because you have lost self-esteem. It's because you don't think very much of yourself. And that means that if you see somebody who shows up in a way that you are not prepared to show up for yourself, you assume that there's a pathology going on. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, there's something going on with them. And if you don't like me or if you're not sure about me, you're on to something. So I found on Reddit five questions to ask yourself if you're unsure about your relationship. Okay. Number one, if someone told you you're a lot like your partner, would this be a compliment to you? Number two, are you truly fulfilled or just less lonely? Number three, are you able to be unapologetically yourself or do you feel the need to show up differently to please your partner?

It's a good one. Number four, are you in love with who your partner is right now as a whole or are you only in love with their good side, their potential or the idea of them? And number five, would you want your future or imagine child to date somebody like your partner? These are good questions. Those are good questions. I think as well, would you, here, I think this is a good one. If you and your partner had a child and then you died and your child was going to be raised by them and only them with all of their habits, values, behaviors, would that worry you or would you feel like that was a problem? or would you be super happy with it?

Wow. Yeah, like are you basically hoping that your future parenting, you're going to act as a gatekeeper or as a magnifier? It's like, well, you know, I'll be there, so I'll be able to protect them from the parent, or I'm happy to get the fuck out of the way because they're much better than I am. They're a much better person than I am.

There was another one that I read this year that I thought was so fucking interesting, which was question to ask yourself, if you're unsure about your relationship, if you could wake up tomorrow morning and the relationship was over without you having to say it to them, would you feel relief?

Or would you feel wistfulness? I always remember having a dream about someone that I was at the time really heartbroken over. And it was like the moment I realized, something had truly shifted in me that meant I was better. Because in the dream, we got back together. And then within five minutes of getting back together in the dream, the same things that made my life hell in the relationship were happening again.

And I suddenly in the dream thought, what have I done? Like I've made a terrible mistake here. Why did I, why did I go back? Why am I back in this situation? And I woke up and I realized the nightmare was, was being back. The nightmare wasn't, you know, having, you know, been heartbroken. And that, that was a very, it was a very profound, I'm not big on dreams, don't get me wrong, but I'm, that was a very profound moment for me to realize like, oh, I'm finally, like my brain has switched. And I, but I do even remember, even in the midst of the worst heartbreak of my life, I do remember a sense of relief. And I don't, I, I don't want to say for one second I wasn't in the worst pain because I was in

terrible pain. And I was questioning myself, I was questioning my worth. I was like in a dark but I still remember feeling a sense of relief when I thought I don't have to continue to feel the way that I did. Because I was so anxious. I was like a version of me that I really didn't, not just didn't like, but that I didn't, you know, it was a version of me that was like the worst possible version of me in many ways. and I felt this sense of relief that no matter what, even if this is the worst heartbreak ever, I don't have to,

I no longer have to feel that anxiety. I'm now deeply, deeply heartbroken in its place, but I don't have to feel that anxiety. In other news, I've been drinking age one every morning for years. Dude, you tried to fastball me that. That was down the plate, and I've just Shohay Otani did.

I've been drinking age one for as long as, as I can remember. It is the best all in one drink that I've ever found, and that's why I'm such a fan of them. And that's why I partnered with them as well. I have got my mom to start taking it, my dad to start taking it, and all of my friends as well. And if I found anything better, I would switch, but I haven't. Why do you keep throwing it at the mic? Stop throwing it at the mic. See? Anyway, over 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients. It's got probiotics and prebiotics. It's also NSF certified, meaning that even Olympians can use it. And in the throat, in the throat. How dare you?

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Anyway, if you two want something to throw at your friends or a tasty blend of 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food sourced ingredients, designed to drink first thing in the morning in one scoop, it's here. go to drinkage1.com slash modern wisdom for stuff. Thank you. Definitely one of the pains, I think, that people feel, this sort of odd kind of inheritance of a relationship that went on too long

when you knew that you should have left is the sentence and the worst thing of all is I lost myself. You know, because the relationship is now over, but there is this weird inheritance that future single you has gotten from the relationship, which is this weird parasite or, you know, pattern that was a part of that. And unfortunately, because of how long you have tried to fold yourself into a shape to make this person happy, you have left, but the shape that you're in has remained in part. And I think that the knowledge of that, the knowledge that, well, I don't think that I am the person that I was when I got into this relationship anymore.

A person who I preferred to the person that I am now is another motivation for not leaving. Because you say, well, I'm not even me because that's more sunk cost fallacy. That's more loss aversion. Right. And you go, well, when I get out of this, I can't even do the things that I did to get myself into this. So, like, my value, maybe my stock is decreased. But worst of all, my stock is decreased because of something that that person did to me. So I'm going to get them to redeem me.

I always remember, I don't even know, I don't know Jordan Peterson's work very well, but I always remember hearing something or reading something about the lobsters. Yeah, yeah. And what is it, a defeated lobster sort of gets, it's like affected afterwards? I had a, that gave me like this invasive thought. thought that like, yeah, this like, what if I am the lobster? Yeah. That now is like, you know, there's some, I now walk away as this permanently sort of.

Scarred thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The red thing is, I think people, people have this fear that leaving is going to make them

lonely. but in relationships where most of your time is spent questioning whether or not this is the right relationship, you're already alone. You're already alone in this relationship and leaving is the first step to stopping that. And that will bring on the, you know, all of those feelings will come to a kind of crescendo at that point. and, you know, there'll be heartbreak to go through and all of that. And, you know, any good coach or therapist, when someone is going through the most acute heartbreak is not going to start by saying, why did you let that go on for so long?

They're going to start by just treating the wound. Like, we have to get you back to a, you know, a feeling of safety again, of, you know, getting lessening this acute uh pain that you're feeling but at a certain point the question will come somewhere down the line what happened there like what was now that we're in a better place what actually happened in that situation you know what was going on that made you ignore your intuition. By the way, not instincts. Instincts and intuition are different.

How do you distinguish those? Your intuition might be telling you something's not right. Like some, this isn't, I shouldn't be treated like this, or I should be in a relationship that's not this hard or whatever. Your intuition can tell you that. Your instincts, as my boxing trainer used to say, will get you killed. Because your instinct might be, I feel unsafe, try harder.

I'm not getting love. Try harder. Do more. Stay in it. Instincts are what tell you when you get sucked out by a riptide in the ocean to swim straight back to shore. And the riptide's stronger than you, so you die. Your instincts won't tell you swim.

Take a longer part. You already feel like you're going to die? take a longer swim back, swim sideways, parallel to the ocean or to the shoreline, and then swim around once you're out of the tide. Your instincts won't tell you that. Your instincts in boxing don't tell you to slip. Your instincts in boxing tell you to blink, right at the time where you need to have your eyes. So it's in a relationship, we all, most of us at least, have some bad instincts that have been trained. And those instincts get us into a lot of trouble.

And actually, it's not, your instincts aren't necessarily you listening to yourself or that deeper voice. Your instincts are actually often what get in the way of that deeper voice and stop you protecting yourself. So to add some compassion and some comfort to that idea that, you know, we get into this thing and then I'm afraid to leave because I don't want to be the version of me that is like, realizes I've now lost myself and I'm like,

feel like I'm starting from further behind and all of that. I think in many ways, we shouldn't focus on the person that has become the object of all of this anxiety and cortisol and, you know, fight or flight. We should instead see them as a kind of like

a revealer of something. Like, there's some, something was already there in me. And that could have been ignited by 10 different people like this. And if it wasn't going to be ignited by this person, there's a very good chance. It was going to be ignited by somebody else. And in a way, it might be a blessing that it got ignited by this person this year than someone 10 years from now. Because if this draws my attention, to some, like, it's not our, I want to be very clear about something. I'm not saying it's our fault when someone treats us poorly.

But when we ignore certain behaviors, when we continue to put ourselves in the firing line, it's worth, it's, it's in some ways powerful to know, okay, that revealed that, that, that showed me that. I now, it's not that I'm further behind. It's that I got, it became revealed exactly where I am. And now that I know that, that's beautiful. I know, forewarned is forearmed. I now know that that's going, something happened to me there.

Instead of personalizing it, which actually makes this person too powerful. I shouldn't make this person that powerful. They're not that powerful. In our love lives, we have a tendency to make people into angels and demons. you know, they're either the angel on the pedestal that can do no wrong, and that's false, or they're the demon that has, like, got so much power over us because of, you know, the way they've hurt us and what they've become, and that gives them way too much power as well. I think instead it's like, no, let me take both of you off that pedestal and give you a lot

less respect and instead realize that all you were was the person that I met along the way that revealed something that was already there in me. And you're not so powerful that only you could have revealed that. There's a thousand people that could have revealed that about me. But what I do now get to do is address that. And me addressing that today might be the thing that actually allows me to find healthy love. Dude, you're so good. You're fucking fantastic.

I mean, obviously, you're like a fossil at doing this stuff now. You know, like part of the fucking archaeology of the world of relationships. but I just think your insights are really, really wonderful, and I very much appreciate how you deliver them with sensitivity. A lot of the conversations now, especially actually even coming from sort of female advice online, feels male-coded. It's sort of quite stiff and stern and spiky,

and it doesn't allow. Maybe this is just because most of the stuff that goes viral doesn't have the breathing room in terms of duration to be able to say, well, we need to be gentle with people here. We need to understand that humans do have emotions and they can't act rationally as opposed to, here's the five icks that you need to know as a red flag for whatever. Does it fit into 45 seconds, if not fuck off?

But I think as a fellow sensitive Chad, like somebody who fills emotions more deeply than would probably be optimal. I think a lot of guys have, I can only speak for men. I imagine women probably have this even more so. Like they're on average tend to feel emotions more deeply, like emotionality is one of the big sex differences between men and women. But for the guys that do, they're like, fuck.

I have a sense of shame or uncertainty or emasculation about the fact that I feel this thing. And I should just be able to cut and run or not invest or not feel things with the sort of level of depth that I do. And I think it's reassuring to people to hear, oh, I'm not broken. Like that, it's okay for me to feel it. Maybe it's even good for me to fill these things. Maybe it gives me access to a depth of life and a resolution of existence that other people don't. And with that is going to come some potential pitfalls and some pains and some challenges. But if I can navigate those pretty well, look at how much beauty and connection and intimacy is available on the other side of the this thing. But yeah, there's a bunch of pitfalls. And I think that the relationship, the ending

of a relationship, the letting go, even in careers, in friendships, this sort of weird balance that a lot of guys have and girls too increasingly now as they become sort of socioeconomically more independent and they've kind of got into their masculine energy more. Increasingly, these sorts of people living those sorts of lives, say, well, look at how much discomfort I can put up with in my professional life. Or maybe I should apply that to my personal life. Maybe my resilience, my ability to endure hard things that I've developed in order to be great in my degree or great in my career or great at my sport of choice or whatever it is. Well, I can put up with a lot of discomfort there. And then this skill gets potted over because it's a noble skill, right? For most of the world,

putting up with discomfort, going through hard things, enduring stuff, subjugating your own needs, putting your desires to one side in place of a bigger goal, chasing the dopamine, doing the thing, delayed gratification, right? Not taking right now's emotions as the most important thing or right now's level of comfort or stability is the most important thing in place of something that's in future. And then when you take that and warp it just a tiny little bit, that becomes the very thing that is catastrophic to your personal relationships. It's a really, really, really astute point. And that skill in itself, and thank you, by the way, for what you said. It's very meaningful coming from you. You're the goat. It means a lot. It really does.

and that that skill let's just call it resilience right the ability to endure difficult things it's a very very powerful skill to have a very powerful trait for one to have but what we often don't realize is that there is and i'm getting here into the work of people like phil stutz and barry Michaels and Schwartz but the idea that there is an inner child there

who isn't who gets overlooked when those skills mutate into your kind of bodyguards that you rely on to get the job done in everything in your life and those bodyguards showed up somewhere as a survival mechanism

like you're not equipped to deal with this like I need to come along now and take care of this and we forget who was who predated the bodyguards what part of us predated those bodyguards what part of us is kind of sick of us running the show using these bodyguards applying them to everything these bodyguards are weaponized by fear right if you take your foot You know, if you, for one second, take your eye off the ball. It's all going to come crashing down. Hypervigilance. Right.

There's a, that, these bodyguards are armed with your greatest, most catastrophic fears. And that brings them to life. And behind all of them, part of us that doesn't have a voice is this part of us that that didn't need to be all of that, that didn't need to have all of that. And that's the part of a someone, there's a therapist, a coach, I should say, Kristen Stewart, who, no, sorry, Kristen Sargent. Kristen Stewart's an actress, I think, or an actor. But she said something to me that was very, very powerful. She said, that part of you, that.

that has been kind of abandoned. And for me, it's the part of me that, you know, just kind of, like, I have an image of myself as a kid at a time when I didn't feel like I need to, like, hustle and do something, like, try and, like, prove my worth, create safety. Like, it's a version of me. I won't go into detail, but it's a version of me that's just, like, sitting at home very innocently and is like eating cookies and watching TV, like that version of me. And I don't have to go too far forward in my life to find a completely different

version of me who was on the playground at school selling cookies, who was like, I got a like, you know, I have to like earn money and I have to protect and I have to be safe and I have to, like was already in that mindset. And there's such a difference between. those two parts of me. Like this one, the bodyguard had already come out and said, we better crack on and we better start doing that. We better start doing that. And that part of me doesn't need more of a voice.

You know, like when people say like, but what if I don't do that? What if I become soft? Or what if I become? And I'm like, that's not, as they say, the leading edge of your growth is figuring out how to do more of the same. You know how to be resilient. You're like, no one needs to tell you to work out. You're going to work out.

No one needs to tell you to be ambitious. You're going to be ambitious. It's in you. Like that, what's the part that's not natural to you? And the part that Kristen said to me that was very, very powerful was this voice. The bodyguards always have a voice. But this voice, this little you only has the power that you give them. They only have the power in the material world that you.

you actually give them. You're the person who has to actually materialize their demands. So ask them, like, hey, what do you need? What would be help? What would represent a good day to you today? And what they say will probably scare the fucking shit out of you. Because they might say, I want us to like have some fucking fun. Does everything have to be so serious all the time? does everything like that my bodyguard i'm on the chris williamson podcast right you're a friend of mine so there's a comfort there but still it's you and this is a big show and there's a lot of people watch it my bodyguard comes out and says you better say good stuff on this show and you better be your best and you better and this and this and this and this and this and this but that little me

if i ask him like what do you want he'll say something very different he'll say He might say, can we just like do the show today and just have fun doing it and like talk to our buddy and enjoy it? And no matter what, if we do it, like this is one of the things I was taught as long as we do it together, it's a win. Like that is so powerful. And it's, I know for a lot of guys, this kind of talk is not what they're used to. It's not the natural go-to. Us men are very, very hard on ourselves. We're more sensitive than most women will ever know.

It routinely shocks women to learn how sensitive men actually are and how much things actually affect them. I think it's one of the reasons that women can be cruel and callous and dismissive is because they don't really actually don't realize. They assume it's going to bounce off of this guy in front of them. He doesn't show he's not bothered by anything. He's kind of like a punching bag emotionally. Meanwhile, there's this little boy inside of the guy who's getting bruised every time he gets hit.

100%. And like us guys have to start, it's like you have to be the superhero that starts sticking up for that little boy. And ask yourself, what would that mean in this relationship? What would that mean in the way I'm working myself to the bone right now? What would that mean in the way that I'm berating myself constantly because this business isn't succeeding in the way that I would like it to? You know, what would that mean when I get rejected by a woman that I talk to or approach? And in that moment, I get made to feel like I'm not good enough.

What would it mean for me to be a superhero to him right now and to take care of him and to give him what he needs? It's going to sound strange to a lot of men who have never looked at work. in that way, but it's one of the most powerful things I've ever done. Like it's truly, I find it life-changing. In other news, if you're feeling tired, you might not need more sleep, you might not need more caffeine, you might just be dehydrated. And proper hydration is not just about drinking enough water. It's about having sufficient electrolyte to allow your body to properly absorb those fluids. Element contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio, sodium, potassium and magnesium with no color, no sugar, no artificial ingredients, or any other BS. It plays a critical role in reducing

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There's no code. I usually care about the box more than that. DrinklmnT.com slash modern wisdom. To be a caretaker of yourself in that way. Yeah, dude, I wrote this essay about advice hyper responders a few months ago. And it's basically that advice for the masses often lands disproportionately.

So if you say you should endure hard things, you should be resilient, you should suffer. On the other side of discomfort is something valuable. The people who are already not predisposed to taking that advice, it probably bounces off of. And the people for whom they assumed, I knew I had to work harder. I knew that I'm a piece of shit and I knew that I needed to work harder. They're already killing themselves trying to do it. So this idea of advice not landing evenly.

And when you think about most people on a, average, if you were to take a general population view, probably do need David Goggins screaming in their face telling them to go harder, rather than Eckhart Tolle whispering in their ear that they're already enough. But that advice does not land evenly. And because of that, you need to go, oh, I have too much of that thing already. And maybe what I actually need to do is give myself fucking break. You have to be real about what you need. Dude, I had a personal training. I had a personal once, that when he, when I was like flat out, couldn't breathe, like, he would yell at me and he call me names, like, just drill sergeant style.

I'm all, that, I got that guy in my head already. I don't need to externalize him. Like, that, he, that's the voice I've been needing to quiet down my whole life. And I said to this trainer at the time, was like, dude, you can't, I promise you, this isn't what I need. Like, this isn't going to work for me. I get, it might be what some people need. You got to find a different style with me. I'm good, you don't need to worry about me pushing myself. I'm pushing myself. If I'm on the, it's because I'm about to throw up. Like, you don't need to give me that energy. And if you do,

I can't carry on with you. Within the same session, he couldn't, he went back to that gear. And I said to him, and by the way, I like this person. I actually like this person. But I said, let's remain friends. I can't train with you anymore. But that was me recognizing that there's the leading edge of my growth is something else. And it's usually the thing that makes you the most uncomfortable. The other day, I woke up with a sore throat.

And I was going to, like, I was like, should I go to the gym or should I go to Jiu-Jitsu this morning? I train early in the morning, so I was like, should I do it? And there's that voice in my head that says like, you know, I've got Jocco Willink in my head saying like, stop being a pussy. Just go. Just go. Ask you know, fine. If you don't want to go tomorrow, don't go tomorrow.

But today, go. And I'm like, yeah, but that's always what I do. I'm not someone who stays in bed. I'm someone who gets up. So if I'm worrying, if I'm like on the edge, because that's what people ask me when we're doing like values work. of, you know, what's your North Star right now and what does change look like for you? What does growth look like for you? There's often that feeling of like, but do I really need to stay in bed right now? Or is this one of those moments where I'm using it as a get-out to get out of doing something

difficult? Those are hard questions, by the way, because when you're trying to do something new, there's a lot of clumsy recalibrating and you'll swing too far in certain directions. If you're trying to be, you're trying to get over your fear of confrontation, there are probably going to be some times where you create confrontation over something you shouldn't because you're just like, I don't know right now what's appropriate for me to do and say and what's not. But in that moment, my guiding light is Matthew, over the last 38 years of being alive. I don't know what you're going to say. Has your bigger problem been slacking off and not doing the thing that's hard?

Or has it been giving yourself grace and not making things worse? This is so great. And I think it is a, for every level there's a devil. And as you become older and you have more experience, that intuition becomes more powerful. And you're able to sort of play with what to 23-year-old Matthew needed to be a relatively one-dimensional piece of advice, which is stop being such a pussy.

but after a while you go I understand where my tolerances are I understand what the ceiling feels like I understand what the floor feels like I understand the difference between backing off because I'm leaving something on the table and backing off because I'm going to get injured in one form or another

can I read you an essay please okay some advice on how to support men men want to aim high without feeling insufficient if they fall short men want their suffering to be recognized and appreciated without being pandered to or patronized and made to feel weak.

Men want to believe that they can be more without feeling like they're not already enough. Men want to be able to open up without being judged. Men want support without feeling broken. Men want to be loved for who they are, not for what they do. TLDR, blending inspiration with compassion is not an easy task. How do I set lofty goals

which drive me to fulfill my potential without feeling less than if I don't get there tomorrow is a question, every guy has asked ever. The desire for self-love and high performance comes into conflict inside the mind of everyone, men especially. Sure, some men are all drive and goals with non-introspection, and sure, some men are all reflection and inner work with few external desires, but most men desire a mix of encouraged self-belief and understanding support. Inevitably, these two things come into conflict. Basically, every man just wants to hear, I know you can't

be more, but you are enough already, and even if you just stay where you are, I'll be right here next to you. You're going to be great, but you don't need to be great, and I'm with you no matter what. Or, as said best by Sturgle Simpson's mum in one of his songs, boy, I don't care if you hit it big, because you're already number one. Oh, wow, that's beautiful. I know you can be more, but you are enough already, and even if you just stay where you are, I'll be right here next to you. you're going to be great, but you don't need to be great, and I'm with you no matter what. Fucking hell, dude.

I wonder how few guys have ever heard anybody say something like that. You can do wonderful things, but it doesn't matter if you don't. I think you've got, don't praise a guy's achievements, praise the personality traits that made them possible. It's kind of the same sort of thing. Like, I'm not fussed about the outcome that you get from this.

I'm bothered about the inputs that sort of go into it and those inputs can be malleable, right? If the output, like if Guy's outcomes, there's difference between inputs, outputs, and outcomes, I think. Inputs how hard you work. Outputs what the work resulted in and then outcomes what the final end of the equation when it hits the real world is.

The sense of malleable ability that guys have got if you praise them based on effort and traits. I'm sure this is the same for women too, but if it's outcomes, you go, well, that means I just need to grow the company, or I need to work harder, or I need to become more muscular, or I need to do whatever, as opposed to, oh, it's your tenacity that I really respect, or it's your loyalty, or it's your sensitivity. And you say, oh, there's 3,000 ways that I can manifest that into the world. And that means that I don't feel like the pressure that I already put on myself. And again, this is for a very specific subset of humans,

but they're almost exclusively the sort of humans that listen to modern wisdom, listen to your show too, right? So you know they're like people hyper respond to advice differently. It's like, yes, that's true if you take a broad cross section of the world, but not if you take my audience. They're just the type A people with type B problems, like insecure overachiever group. like oh well that means that my sensitivity is my strength and the fact that she really cared how I was there for her when her dad died means that because that's like sensitivity but like in a sort of a rigid

like I'm going to be stunted it's like huh well maybe maybe maybe she'll be okay with me talking about how I've got some self-doubt coming in from work, and she'll be able to help me work through that too. Or she really appreciated my loyalty to my friend when he was going through a tough time. Huh. Well, maybe that means that my loyalty to her is valued in a different way, as opposed to, like, I care about, or she appreciates how hard I worked, like, to build the business as opposed to how big the business is, you know? I just think that distinction, don't praise a guy's achievements, praise the personality traits, and I know you can be more, but you're enough already, and I'll be right here next to you, even if you don't change. I think that's like,

for the women that are listening, like, if you want a guy to just, like, fucking completely melt emotionally and then go on and end worlds, like, rip the fuck out of it. Like, I think, I think that's it. I think that's a playbook personally. I think that's, to receive that kind of compliment from someone, it's, it's like as truly safe as you can feel in in yourself. I think that women, men, women, anybody need to also really realize that if they're anxious, this is not an uncommon feeling. If you are doubting yourself, this is not an uncommon feeling.

And it's, you know, I heard Jesse Eisenberg, talking about having a panic attack on set. Severe anxiety, right? Yeah. And he was in the middle of a scene and the director, he paused the scene and said, I went over to the director and said,

I'm sorry, like something's happening with me. I'm not like able to go on right now. And the director just said, everyone take five. And he essentially said to Jesse Eisenberg, you, if you didn't have these feelings, it would be strange. Like, you're learning all these lines, you're on a set, you're trying to be emotionally sensitive. If you're trying to do your thing, you're trying to make sure your makeup's right at the same time.

You're trying, like, there's so many things here that if you, he said, I don't know how you do it. Like, if you weren't constantly feeling this way, that would be weird to me. And Jesse Eisenberg describes this feeling of like, oh, because as soon as he didn't feel like he was broken for having those feelings, it actually gave him the ability to embrace them and to say, well, then my job is just to do the best I can do with them. I'm not a freak for having them. And I think that men especially, because we don't talk enough, and the most for me, for me, the most powerful conversations I have that make me feel better tend to be with other men who are being honest. When I'm on the phone to a friend,

when you and I are on the phone together and we're just being honest about things, I'll always get off that call and just feel better about myself. I don't get off the call. I only feel, get off a call feeling worse about myself if it's become some egoic call where we're all talking about what we're achieving and this and that. And then I'm like, am I doing enough?

Am I this, am I that? But if I'm just having a call with someone and we're like having real conversation about things, I go away going, oh, it's not just me. Yes. And then I'm like, oh, well then I think then I'm fine. And then my job is not to not have any of these feelings or to think that I'm deficient in some way for having them. We're all having some version of it. So now my job is just to do the best I can with them, given my life, my makeup, my DNA.

There's a great concept I loved. I think it's from Alfred Adler, the psychologist, who talked about the idea of relationships being a, being horizontal, not vertical. That when we have horizontal relationships, we look at someone that we think is ahead of us, and it makes us insecure because we think we're behind somehow. He said, but if you imagine instead that you're all on a football field together and you're all just moving along the football field

on your own speed, your own journey, getting to where you can get to based on you and all of your factors, it's not, it doesn't matter whether someone else has won the Super Bowl and you're raising a family somewhere. It's, you're there's no vertical it's all horizontal and you can look at someone else as your friend as

as you know your teammate or whatever however you want to see it and go oh that's awesome that you're doing that with where you are you then get to be in your own world where you just go look I'm not this comparison thing really makes no sense who who am I what have I dealt with in my life what factors have been holding me back. What, you know, what's been the hand on my ankle every time I try and do something? Like, I always think of that scene in Lord of the Rings, where Gandalf is hanging off the edge in the minds of Moria. Yeah, the bow-rog, like, he's like, going to make it. And then, like, the Balrog's whip just comes and grabs him and pulls him and pulls him down. Yeah. Like, we've all had that moment where it's like no matter how hard we're trying like I'm doing everything and and maybe we're just finally getting some peace in our life or maybe we're finally like starting to get somewhere and then yeah that wit comes and grabs us by the ankle and pulls us down and it's in those moments where you're like I can't take another thing I can't I cannot take another thing going wrong in my life I cannot take a

another defeat. I cannot take another way that life gets hard out of nowhere. It's in those moments that people want to give up and be like, I just can't, I can't do this anymore. Part of that is this kind of comparison with where other people are, with how easy we perceive them to have it. Resentment that like someone else doesn't have to deal with this or whatever it is. But I'm just a, I'm a big believer in making peace with even the challenges and the difficulties that we have that no one else can even see, that only you know the particular fingerprint of how hard your journey is and what's making it difficult. And when you really accept that, which is a kind of form of accepting yourself and your life, it almost is like, nothing else matters anymore.

All that matters is what's the best I can do with where I am. Forget moving to LA and comparing myself with someone else and where they are and this person, that impressive person and whatever. It's all irrelevant. All there is is just your life and all your difficulties and what will you make of that? It's why I wrote in my book about this, I've never watched a full episode of it in my life, but the TV show chopped. I don't even know what that is. There's a TV show chopped where it's a bunch of chefs, no, who like basically get given a basket of ingredients.

Make something. And they're like, you've got 20 minutes. And by the end of the show, they're going to get rated on what they do with those ingredients. The show is about how resourceful and interesting these chefs can be with these ingredients. The episode I watched, there was like one got, they got like Alaskan king crab, great ingredient, and then they got kelp jerky. Like, I don't know what you do with kelp jerky. You have to be a pretty interesting chef I'd imagine to do something interesting with kelp jerky.

But that's the point. The show isn't about ingredients. The show is about chefs. And I think that in life, if you, like all our resentment comes from obsessing over our ingredients, whether it's the way we look, our height, how much money we have in the bank compared to somebody else, where we started compared to somebody else,

how, you know, our natural level of wit compared to other people. It's like we're so, we get so angry or hurt or down, on ourselves based on the perceived deficiency of our ingredients. But that's not the game. The game is just, here's your basket. You're a chef. What do you do with those ingredients? And yes, you can't expect anyone else to understand or fully acknowledge how far you've come with your ingredients. Because most people, apart from the people who know you best, hopefully the person that you have an amazing relationship with, certain key people in your life, they may not even be family, they might be friends you develop over a lifetime, but most people

will never know what it's taken for you to be where you are today, or in some cases for you to even still exist today. But you do. And that's why we have to do ourselves the service of understanding more often, like what, forget what amazing meals I want to create. What amazing meals have I already created from the ingredients that I started with. Because if we start paying more attention to that, the confidence we're looking for might be something we already have in abundance. There's this a line from Oliver Berkman where he says, outward complaints are not a good gauge of internal suffering. Just because somebody carries it well doesn't mean it isn't heavy. Yeah. Yeah. So good. And yet this sort of boring.

mundane private victory where you've overcome some something right like it's that day where you didn't get sleep because you accidentally had a coffee too late and you had to deal with that email and you hit that bit of traffic and you did this thing and you did this thing and you did this thing and it's so it's honestly so normal and unspectacular that it might not even register with your evening conversation with your partner unless you have a particularly open connection with them. But getting through those mundane victories or boring successes, those are the ones that even though they're not grand, they are even more important because life is largely made up of overcoming those things and of how you deal with those things and of the

resistance of them. And I think a good part of it is one of the reasons that men in particular struggle is that I just want someone to see how fucking hard it is sometimes. Like this really, really sucks sometimes or maybe even a lot of the time. Just see it. Please. Just like pat me on the back and go, that's not easy. Dude, you crushed it for getting through that. And it's an odd kind of appreciation, awareness, recognition.

It's like a gratitude from somebody else. They've sort of inserted it into us. They've hit us with a tranquilizer dart that's being filled with being seen. It's like, yeah, that was tough. Sorry you went through that. Congratulations for doing it. Like, oh, thank you. Thank you.

And again, the advice hyper responder thing, for the people that worry, well, if I let my foot off the gas or if I take too much of this, you know, this sort of pussy sympathy stuff, you're going to lose my edge. It's like, you haven't lost your edge ever. Like, when was the last time that you backed off because you were being lazy? If you're the sort of person that has hit burnout more than two times, it's like, what side of the ledger do you think that you typically fall on? And, and that thing that you're afraid of in yourself,

to let too much of it in, it might have more wisdom than you realize. Oh, well, you've drained the fucking well of this side. You've drained the well of the Goggins energy stuff. Yeah. It's like, well, what's on the other side of something's truly uncomfortable to you?

Vulnerability, openness, sensitivity, connection, intimacy, truth. Like... It's a different kind of power. And you don't know what that power is going to... You don't know what doors that's going to open for you. That's the thing. That's really scary, right?

There's the fear of getting up early. There's like the discomfort, the endurance that's required, the resilience that's required to do that. But what about the resilience required to truly say what you want or what you actually think to somebody about them in a sensitive way and to just say it and be like, allow it to land? Now you're in no man's land. You're basically off-road at that point because you don't know.

You know how to navigate the thing you've always done. You don't know how to navigate. It's like if someone was always sarcastic in conversation, and I say, the key to your power at this point is to start to weave in some sincerity. Now that person, all of like change, personal change is contained, even just in an example as pedestrian as this. and as superficial as this, because that person developed their sarcasm as a response to something. And it worked for them on some level, which is why they kept doing it.

And it became just entrenched as their way of being. But that way of being created their world. So now the way people respond to them, the opportunities they get, the opportunities they don't get, that they don't even know they don't get, is all a result of that that way of being. or in part from that way of being. But if they stop doing that, and if they listen to that advice to, hey,

bring down the sarcasm, bring up the sincerity, the vulnerability, the connection, that person is going, in sarcasm, they're a black belt. Over here,

honestness. They don't even know how to walk. So now you're like teaching someone how to walk in a, area as a fully grown adult who's like, I don't want to be in conversation now. If I stop being sarcastic, and none of this is really conscious, but in what's really going on is, if I stop being sarcastic as my response system to things, what will I say? I won't even know what to say to begin with. So now I go from sounding slightly clever and maybe a bit witty, at the very least having other people on the back foot.

With evidence that this works in the past. Right. To someone says something and I go, yeah, no, it was a good weekend last weekend. Because I don't know what else to say because I'm not used to going to that style and that way of conversing and connecting with people. So now you're asking,

this is why a change is so fucking difficult. It's because you're asking that person to give up maybe temporarily or in part at all that they know, a weapon they've wielded for so long. And to bring forward a weapon they don't know how to wield at all and to suck at it and to live with sucking at it for some time, not with a leap of faith that doing this is going to get me more or better results than sticking to the thing that I know. It is extraordinarily hard.

And it's why, by the way, I think that we should have some sympathy for the members of our family, or our friends or anyone close to us who we are so tired of trying to get to change. And we're like, but you could be so happy if you just change this one thing or if you, you would be so much, we would have such a better relationship. if you just stop that one thing, because it's as hard for that person to change that thing as it is for you to change something that you find nearly impossible to change.

And it's why true change in any family system, right, we're all part of a family system in some way, we all came from one in some way, true change is a fucking miracle. And when you actually deviate from me, your programming, you're a pioneer. You're the pioneer of your lineage because most of them didn't or couldn't,

it didn't even come close. You carried the torch a little further. If you're finding it really, if someone watching this out there and going, it's so hard to do, like to change this thing or whatever, yeah. That's why so few people do it.

That's why most people die. Yes. Not changing. Yes. It's expect that and you'll realize there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you. You are finding what every human being has ever lived has found difficult. You are finding difficult now.

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at checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-M-T-O-U-S dot com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom. A checkout. I've been thinking about vulnerability recently. Vulnerability is hard. Fully feeling your feelings gets in the way of life. They slow you down, make you doubt, opening you up to mockery and cause you pain. Embracing your emotion sounds great in principle,

but feels frail in practice. That being said, I'm to try and prove to you that embracing vulnerability is true strength. Vulnerability is speaking your truth even when it's scary. It's Joe Hudson's definition. Who is truly the braver person, the one who lets themselves feel, or the one who flees,

the second an emotion gets too close. The one's strong enough to carry the full weight of their emotional experience are the ones so fragile that they have to suppress it. Without vulnerability, there's no courage. If there's no uncertainty, no risk, no exposure, you're not being that brave because there's nothing on the line. We're so quick to praise suppression as strength. We call it control, discipline,

we pretend that emotional detachment is a sign of maturity. But fully living your life means actually feeling what happens, not just performing composure while something inside you quietly breaks. The enemy here is toxic stoicism, not the grounded, reflective kind, the hollowed out kind, the kind that rewards shut down that teaches you to be proud of how little you feel, as though restraint were the same thing as resilience. Fearing vulnerability turns your inner world into a minefield. It teaches you to treat emotions like threats, so you tiptoe carefully through your life

trying to not set anything off. Proud of your control, but slowly growing more disconnected from life around you, this isn't strength, it's avoidance rebranded. That's very good. I'm trying to make... That's very good. I'm trying to make vulnerability strong again. But like, I just think...

At that point there, like... I'm enjoying your writing. Thank you. You write beautifully. Thank you. Yeah, I'm spending... I mean, I do this newsletter every week, and it's a thousand words, so it's like everyone can write a thousand words a week.

But after a while, I've done it for five years. That's a quarter of a million words. That's a lot of fucking writing. And a lot of this stuff is, I'm not very good at journaling. I've never really been very good at journaling. But it turns out that if I have to write for an audience, I'm much more consistent than if I have to write for myself.

And much of this is me like, okay, I've conceded the fact that I'm a sensitive guy, even if I present like a budget Andrew Tate. I've conceded that I feel shit more deeply than some people, maybe most people, and maybe that I've let myself in the past realize that I feel stuff as deeply as. Like, I've suppressed that. There wasn't much room in the northeast of England at a state primary, secondary, and sixth form college. And then, you know, university living with lads. There wasn't much room for, oh, this conversation I had today sort of like really made me a bit

upset and I felt excluded and, hmm, like, that's whatever. Or I watched a Christmas movie and I cried because it was like really cute or like, I saw a photo of a dog or like this girl, whatever, you know, there's not much room for that. And I think, again, it's because emotional mastery is an element of almost every definition of masculinity that exists, cross-culturally, some sort of emotional mastery and that's because if you are unable to effectively control the things that you feel, you cannot show up and operate reliably because you are going to be ragged around at the winds of whatever you feel as opposed to I just get done what needs to get done. And again, this praises suppression as strength, right? And restraint as the same thing as resilience. But this fleeing

from emotions, it sort of comes back to what we were talking about before. Okay. you realize where you're, what are the things that you're really hiding from? Like, what are the things that you're really unprepared to face? And it's not more of the same. It's not more bench press or Brazilian jiu-jitsu or even more time meditating. All of these things are actions that you have done. They are a intentional, control, agentic approach to the world. are not a release. They're not you letting go of, of that control. They are not you sort of

turning inward and facing. It's not about exposure. It's not about opening up. And this, is there space for it in the world? Well, very rarely have you had someone that, certainly very few people's parents are sufficiently educated in accepting the complexity of a young, sensitive person's emotions to be able to really give you a safe space. You don't even know how to navigate it. How the fuck are they? Like you're a different person. So you grow up learning, well, I should probably just like not talk about that stuff or not open up in that sort of a way because it scares people or it does something else. I learned this thing from Joe Hudson. It's a fucking awesome story. His daughter was seven years old and she was crying in the bathroom.

She'd been crying a little bit recently over the course of a few months. And he went in and was having a conversation with her about why she was crying. He said, you don't sound very sad to me. Are you pissed off? She said, yeah. It's like, hang on. You know when you cry, how often are you pissed off and how often you're sad? She's like, about 50%.

So, okay, so half the time when you're crying, you're pissed. Pissed off, not sad. Yeah. Why don't you get angry? Says, well, when I cry, my sister comes and comforts me, but when I get angry, everyone runs away. Like, wow. There are certain emotions that are more pro-social than others. Anger is one of them.

And I think that for men, sensitivity is one of the things, like a particular type of sensitivity, especially if it's messy. Like if you see a guy who's out of control with his emotion. emotions, not in an aggressive way. Almost when that happens, it's like, oh, there's respect out there. Like, you know, he's like, there's wrapped up in the sort of warrior mindset and like, yeah, maybe he's lost his chill, but it's done in a sort of directional, agentic kind of way. You know what I mean? It's lean in, tento's down type shit. Oh, this guy's, this guy's like struggling and down. Most people don't know what to do with that. And I think that that makes, in the same way as Joe's

daughter said, like, when I'm angry, people run away, but when I cry, my sister comes and comforts me. I think that that's kind of the similar lesson that a lot of guys have learned, which is when I feign strength, people respect me, and when I embrace sensitivity, people turn away. It's what makes the most important decisions you'll ever make will, I think, are who you put yourself around, who you choose as your friends, who you choose as your partners, because there are people on this planet who are good with emotion, who have really evolved ways of being around someone who's emotional because they're they're in touch with themselves too. And we often masochistically continue to put ourselves around people who don't allow it, they don't allow themselves to be that way, let alone us. So it's like we're taking people who are, you know, not good at this thing and we're basing our behavior on their acceptance of us. I think we should get around

people who are emotionally, emotional black belts and make more friends with those people, make more friends with people who aren't afraid to be vulnerable. And by the way, like, I think there's a couple of things I'll say. Firstly, when it comes to being attractive, because One of the things we're afraid of is being less attractive if we show too much emotion or vulnerability or sensitivity. I've been talking for a long time about a concept I call unique pairings, which is that what makes someone really attractive is not one dimension of something. It's when you see two different qualities in the same person that you don't normally find. in the same person.

So you have someone who knows how to be resilient, knows how to be strong, can lead, but who at the same time can be intensely vulnerable and sensitive. Like there's no doubt to me, not to kind of analyze why you're where you are, but there's no doubt to me that one of the reasons that your audience has done this. And your success has done this is because you have unique pairings. If you had simply been the guy who came along and, you know, banged his fist on the table and talked about masculinity, it would have got you somewhere because you have certain traits that are always going to make you successful to a degree. But this doesn't happen. Like what you've built doesn't happen. This is what I

mean by there's wisdom in that thing that part of us that we're afraid of. There's no doubt in my mind that your sensitivity, your ability to speak to people's hearts and men's hearts especially, has opened doors for you that would have never opened if you hadn't tapped into that side of yourself. I think it's why men sit and what, it's why men won't just watch a podcast with you that they enjoy once. They'll, they'll be on, they're on the journey with you. They'll be on the journey with for years to come because they're bought in to those unique pairings. And also it's a, I hope, an underserved market, right? Because in order to be able to say, I Cry at Christmas movies, there's a shame that

kind of comes along with that if you live within a particular kind of ecosystem or a particular plane of the world. I just said yesterday a conversation with Tucker Carlson went up talking about man and masculinity. Tucker Carlson is not the guy to say, I cry at Christmas movies too. But if I can be like, oh, well, I'm able to hopefully hold my own at least in, like with Tucker in the kind of conversation that he wants to have about men and then sit down the next day

with Matthew and be like, yeah, man, fucking sensitivity, dude, like vulnerability is real strength. And I would happily, if I'd had more time, happily tried to make that case, that thesis to Tucker even if he didn't agree with it. But I think that you're right with what you say about these unique. pairings. What's interesting is, I thought you were going to go unique pairings between people. And I think both of these things are true. So, Naval's first episode on, his only episode on Rogan, where he says, you see a bear, that's kind of interesting. You see a unicycle, that's kind of interesting. You see a bear on a unicycle, and you go, wow, look at that. So when you have, you know,

like hard-hitting philosophical insights with, I've made some real money in the world, you go, oh, that's like a kind of a unique combination. You see somebody who can crush it in the boardroom and is prepared to be a puppy dog in the bedroom. Oh, that's interesting, right? There's tension there, there's complexity, there's layers and multitudes. Brilliant. Another element here is a lot of people, I think, especially the guys and the girls who have an issue with, let's say, sensitivity or have an issue with stoicness, right, on whatever side, whichever side of this equation you are like, I have a preference or a demeanor and my partner doesn't accept it or isn't able to reciprocate it. I think what you're talking about there is just a lack of compatibility. And so much of

what is being navigated in relationships is just a straight up lack of compatibility. I had this idea that it's far easier to date somebody who compensates for our shortcomings than it is to fix them. So if you are the sort of person that likes to go to bed at 9 p.m. and your partner wants to go out clubbing three nights a week, there is going to be tension there and you're going to have to navigate it. Now, maybe the rest of the relationship is so good that this slightly major thing of a different fucking sleeping pattern can be navigated through because everything else is great. But for the most part, there's going to be other stuff that comes along for the ride that you also don't agree on. Now, if you have to compromise your sleep two nights a week and they have to not go out one night a week,

both of you aren't getting the thing that you want, right? It is much, there is somebody out there who would love to party three nights a week. Allow them to find them. There is someone that would adore going to bed with you at 9pm every single night and wants that homebody life. Go and find them. And so much of the issues where people are trying to navigate this stuff is a lack of compatibility.

Same thing goes for this. I think a lot of the guys who say, I opened up to my partner, okay, so you feel feelings, that's good. Congratulations. You faced the scary thing. as a man you face the scary thing, and my partner was turned off. They weren't for you. That partner was not the person who can hold you in your wholeness, right?

In your truth, in your full expression of who you are. Allow them to go and find someone who is never going to open up their emotions to them. They don't need to worry about those icks. They're never going to get that ick because Homeboy is never going to fucking talk about it. Enjoy that. Enjoy this emotionless, barren wasteland of no one ever talking about their emotions. And maybe that's the guy that if you put him on a fucking poster, you can say he's masculine and he's going to stand up. It's like, great.

You can date him. I'm going to go find someone who melts at the prospect of me being able to feel my feelings and then allows them to be a springboard for me to go and fucking destroy it in the world outside. Like that amount of compatibility and so much of like the memes that exist online are basically people saying I dated someone whose demeanor and disposition did not match mine and my personal. preference and look at how everything broke apart. Allow me to create a broad rule of human nature overall from what is actually just you mixing vinegar and baking soda together. Yeah. That, that, that, what you just described is I think how people get more and more into these, uh, hyperpolarized echo chambers online because they, they've had an experience. It's been a very painful experience, they then go in search of other people who've had that experience,

and they hear more of it. And I'm not saying communities where people talk together about what they've been through aren't powerful because they are. But what it can be instead is this, you know, I talk in my book about this idea of the wall, like staring at the wall. You know, the very famous self-development trope, you know, the race car driver Mario Andretti said, you know, his advice for race car driving, don't stare at the wall. Your car goes where your eyes go. And, but that, I don't think people take that concept far enough in terms of what it really means.

We all have our wall, right? Let's say it's people can't have, people, women don't like when I'm vulnerable, right? That's my wall. I was vulnerable with someone once and they ripped my heart out. And so now I go in search of other people who have that wall as well. And all of us together stand there and point at the wall. And we keep talking about the wall. And we find more evidence for the wall.

Everywhere we can find it. We go out in search for it. Anytime we hear a story about it, we say, here, look, this has happened again. And the wall becomes the world. It's no longer a wall. It's a law. It's life. Yeah.

And that's the truly. dangerous part and that's like we have to stand back from anytime i hear women generalizing about men men generalizing about women and i'm like be very very careful of the the little worlds that you get into turning a an individual experience into a globalized law i have there's a there's a the other day I was on Instagram, my algorithm fed me a guy, one of those little skit videos where it was a guy saying, me doing XYZ because I don't have kids. So it was like me waking up at 8 a.m. Because I don't have me eating pizza at night, me checking my bank account that's so high because I don't have kids. It was like all of that. And there were thousands of comments on this. And I was like waiting for that.

I was like, oh, and people are going to be, like, tearing this guy to shreds in the comments about, like, how this is such a one-dimensional view and blah, blah, blah. No, thousands of comments from people just being like, yeah, me too. I'm, you know, I don't have to do anything on my weekends. I'm facing the wall along with you. Yeah, but it was just like, everyone who had that wall, apparently, the algorithm found them. And all of them. It picked you wrong. You're ready to pop at the moment.

For sure, yeah, in the next couple of weeks. But it's a funny thing for me as someone who is having my first child with my wife who's like watching this and going. And by the way, looking at it and going, I know that there was a me that was scared of commitment and having kids and all of that. That really would have related to the things in this video. Well, the problem that you have with these is that there is a cohort of men out there for whom that is the life that they want. probably is the life that they should lead. You're like, you'd suck as a dad and you shouldn't make yourself one. Please continue to do that, right? It's the same as, it's the same as women that say, like, all men are trash or whatever. Like, if you make these sweeping statements, one of the

wonderful sort of ways to neutralize the conversation. And also it makes you feel pretty good, too. It's like, men are trash and like, I'm done with men. It's like, okay, feel free. And you allow somebody to take the route that they want. The same thing with that guy. It's like, I'm so happy living the side. It's like, dude, great for you. You'd have been an awful dad anyway. Oh, what? It's like, okay, well, which one is it? Big boy?

Like, which one do you want? Do you want to be able to have the counterculture fucking black sheep, heterodox cynicism points? Or do you want to be able to say that you could have been this, would have been good at this, but have chosen the other one? I don't think that these two worlds are compatible.

and allowing someone to like, there's enough rope, dude, crack on. Yeah, well, we're not good at, I don't, we don't like the complexity of life. And so we do kind of gravitate towards this very simple, like, argument. When I was single, I had, I remember watching Guardians of the Galaxy, the first one, and seeing, you know, Chris Pratt playing Star-Lord. And it became like this emotional button for me for why being single was awesome. Okay, because he's just renegades. Yeah, I was like, yeah, I'm Starlord.

I'm so stupid. But like, you know how these funny things get in our head and they make sense to, we're like, yeah, like, that's how great is it? And I get it. Like, I really understand it. It makes a lot of sense to me why we do those things. Now that I'm having a child, I'm looking at like finding Nemo and going like, oh, that movie is now like got a whole new meaning. to me and how exciting to it. So like, I get it. I get why we, it's a kind of survival mechanism. It's also a coping mechanism, right, that we go to these places to lean into our choices or to,

to our, you know, lack of choices. And, and so I get it. But it's a very dangerous, we're living in a really dangerous time belief-wise where you're, you're, you're, algorithm will really pull you into these little worlds of people who all have the same wall that you do and celebrate it together. And in some ways, those are exactly the kind of people sometimes that you need to be able to stand back from. Because the people, when I want to go somewhere different than where I've been, the people I want to be around are people who don't have my war at all. They're like they don't, they're not, they don't even, they're not even aware of my wall. If I explained my wall to them, they'd be like, what? Wait, really? You've had that experience or you feel

that way or whatever? It's like not real to them. And I, I had a boxing trainer who, he, he told me a story of going into, this was in London and he went into, like, he was training a lawyer. And this lawyer took a shine to him and was like, come out for a drink one night. And, you know, he took him somewhere like really nice. And he takes this rough and ready boxing coach from the east end of London into the west end and they go out to this like really beautiful place in Soho. And he's at the bar. And my boxing trainer, the guy that I know is explaining the story to me, said, I was standing at the bar. And all of a sudden, this guy that my client, who's just taken me out for a drink, looks at me and says, what's wrong with you? And my friend went, what do you mean? He goes,

what's wrong with you? You look like you're about to fight someone. And he said, what he realized in that moment was that he had walked into this bar immediately like was sort of scanning for threats and was looking for like, you know, who's the person making bad eye contact with me who's got mean intentions towards me? And by the way, this boxing trainer is a sweetheart. He's a sweet inside. He's a softy. You get him talking about emotions. He'll talk.

But something happened. He went into that bar and he started looking for the wall because he's a guy that's grown up around in a rough time, rough childhood. He's had some things. He's like looking for that threat. And this guy, this lawyer who's just boxing for fun is like looking at him going, I've brought you to a nice place. We're having a nice drink at the bar.

And you're standing there like you're about to fight someone. Like, what's going on with you? But there's so much getting around someone. Did you see that clip of Shohei Otani when it was like three months ago or something? By the way, I'm going to say this as someone who knows nothing about baseball. So for all you baseball fans... I know everything about baseball, so it's fine.

Okay, good. You could correct me along the way. Forgive me for butchering the rules of baseball. But there's, there's, I assume there is some scenario where throwing at the batsman actually makes sense in terms of like actually launching the ball at their body. Okay. Actually makes sense. Okay, yeah, if you want to walk them. It's a foul ball, yeah.

So the pitcher just launches it. at Otani and he turns around and it cracks him on the back. And I'm only watching this, this clip with the commentators, but there's this really interesting moment where like all of his teammates, like they've already got one leg over the wall of the dugout where they're like about to rush the field and start fighting someone. And he just stands them down.

He just like, in his very classy way, he just says like, no, no, no. I got it. And the whole team stands down. And the commentators are just like this. I remember it because I thought it was such like a beautiful moment. He goes, this is why this guy is going to be a legend. He transcends the sport. Like this is something that, you know, a normal thing.

The team would rush out and his teammates just stand down because he's like, I'm fine. He makes nothing of it. And there was a guy. I read the comments and there was a guy in the comments. who was like, I'm a hothead and I, this is exactly the kind of situation that I would have turned into something. And he said, watching this is like an example of a different path. This has taught me so much. And that what you have is a guy who's, he knows what his wall is,

but he's watching another guy who doesn't have that wall. who's got no, he hasn't got that thing that says, someone just wronged me, let me turn this into a fight. It's all good. There's, like, you have to get around people who don't even understand, like they don't even buy into your frame of reference, because those are the people that are going to take you into new worlds. Those are the people that make you realize life is not,

there's no one reality. There's so many different realities. And get around people who, by being around them and by thinking like understanding the way they think and the way they process things it puts you in a different reality altogether there is a difference between being around people who teach you stuff from a different perspective and being around people that you can't be yourself around right like yes yeah that's different difference between like education and incompatibility uh dude i i love you i love your work i think you're fucking fantastic everyone needs to

check out everything that you're doing and uh you're gonna have a kid by the time this comes out as well You're going to have a brand new little hussy in the world. It's a crazy time, man. My whole life will change in a matter of the next two weeks from this episode. I said my wife already, she's at term. So, like, it could have happened, you know. While we're on this podcast. I could have got that call in the middle of this podcast to say,

it's time to go to the hospital. But I love you too, brother. And it's like a real, I get excited about the conversations we have. I think you're doing something really, really different. You know, you know, I feel that way. I think you're doing something special and you're special and it's something unique you're bringing to the world. So thanks for having me. I appreciate you.

Until next time, man. I get asked all the time for book suggestions. People want to get into reading fiction or nonfiction or real life stories. And that's why I made a list of 100 of the most interesting and impactful books that I've ever read. These are the most life-changing reads that I've ever found. And there's descriptions about why I like them and links to go and buy them. And it's completely free. And you can get it right now by going.

to chriswillex.com slash books. That's chriswillex.com slash books.