Podcrushed - Matthew Hussey

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

The gang is joined by Matthew Hussey, the renowned relationship coach and New York Times bestselling author of “Love Life”. Matthew goes into his personal journey of confidence and clarity in relationships, shares simple advice on how to find a long-term partner, and gives insight into how to avoid the avoiders (and tame the avoider within).    Follow Podcrushed on socials: TikTok Instagram XSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada I went up to this bouncer My friends had already all got in And I gave him my ID And he looked at me and he went What year were you born? And I hadn't stopped I think no

I was going to say I haven't That seems like the first thing you should do Is practice the year Do you know what? I think I had studied I was going to say I hadn't studied it I think I had and my mind went completely. Yeah, you got nervous.

Welcome to Pod Crushed. We're hosts. I'm Penn. I'm Nava. And I'm Sophie. And I think we would have been your middle school besties. Forming a rock band in your parents' garage. And no, we won't keep it down.

Hello, welcome to Podcrashed. You know. Oh, you're doing it. Yeah, I'm doing it. I'm taking the reins today. Wow. We just lost thousands of listeners. They just dropped out.

Sofi's here. Sign up for this. Not a deep male voice is the first thing to greet my ears. It's really what people come to expect. We've asked each other a lot of questions about love over the years. I know. I'm so tired of it. But I have a new question. I want to know about the first slow dance you ever had.

Do you remember it? I think, I don't know if this is my actual first slow dance, but the first one that I remember, I was in sixth grade, I want to say. Sixth grade at a back-to-school dance. It was like the first week of school. I had gone dress shopping with my dad and had picked out a dress at Contempo Casuals, which I think doesn't exist anymore. And I think my first low dance was with my friend Luis Oskar Sanchez.

He was my best friend in elementary school. He was gay. Did you know it at the time? He had not come out at the time, but we kind of knew. But we were just really good friends, and it was like a comfortable person to have my first low dance with. And it was really sweet. Oh, sweet. How sweet. How about you, Sophie?

Well, my first dance, slow dance, was also with someone who was gay. But I didn't know it at the time. He was your boyfriend. He was my boyfriend. But it was really sweet. It was to the song, Hey There, Delilah in the cafeteria at my, at the elementary school. It was a middle school dance, but it was the elementary school cafeteria. Yeah. And it was really sweet.

And like, you know, heart racing. It was very PG, you know, like room for the Holy Spirit. Yes, exactly. But it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. That's really sweet. What about you, Penn? He's trying to say something snarky, but he's lagged. I don't know when it was happening, but at some point you're talking about your gay boyfriend,

and then you said PG, and then I said, like, pretty gay. That's so good, no. How about you, Penn? What was your first slow dance like? From what I can recall, so there's like three memories I have, and I don't know if they happen all at the same time these are the this is the dances um so first of all they wore a suit with my friend uh jack saffle uh i know that also around that time casey and jojo was very huge huge absolutely huge and then i just remember dancing with one of the very clearly like she was

one of the hot girls one of the popular girls but But she clearly did not want to dance with me. I mean, it was abundantly clear. You know, it was like, it was like a mercy dance, you know. And she kind of kept it at arm's length and we were sort of dancing. It was just, it was humiliating in this way quietly, quietly. Obviously, I was trying to just act like, yeah, this is cool. This is what we do, you know, whatever.

But I just felt like such a chunk. And a friend came up and just, you know, made some, like, joke that I recall. now doesn't it doesn't even like make sense it's just you know the way kids are so awkward and they're like all laughing about it and it's like you're just you just don't know what the hell you're doing your body seems so foreign so that's that's what i can recall and then you know that stuff didn't get fun until i was in my teens well today's guest is the perfect person to help us all process sort of the yeah the childhood wounds that hold us back in dating yeah today we have Matthew Hussie, New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and relationship coach.

He's known for his practical advice on love and relationships, and he's helped millions through his YouTube channel, his seminars, and his books get the guy, and now his latest one, Love Life. It's out now. We, do my goodness say we loved having Matthew on, but yes, we did. We loved having him on. The relationship gets really deep. Oh, see what I just did there? That was a slip. The conversation gets deep. And I really, really loved hearing about Matthew's early life. He's a really sweet, humble guy. I think you'll also lerve this conversation.

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store or at chewy learn more at trynom.com slash podcrushed spelled try n-o-m dot com slash podcrushed hey it's lena waith legacy talk is my love letter to black storytellers artists who've changed the game and paved the way for so many of us this season i'm sitting down with icons like Felicia Rashad, Loretta Vine, Ava DuVernay, and more. We're talking about their journeys, their creative process, and the legacies they're building every single day. Come be a part of the conversation. Season 2 drops July 29th. Listen to Legacy Talk wherever you get your podcast, or watch us on YouTube. We start with adolescence, you know, because it's a unique, formative period.

There's things happening then that are just not happening in any other phase of life. Nava and Sophie, my co-hosts, are previously in former lives. They were both middle school administrators and or teachers. You go ahead, which one you think. The one with the blazer was the administrator. It's pretty obvious. Okay. So your most recent book, Love Life, you actually start, it's dedicated in part to your mom, your mom,

who seems to be a very big book, part of your life. You know, she's like been involved in any of your stage appearances. It seems like she's there. So, you know, if we're going to talk about adolescence and growing up, a huge part of that is your parents. So can you tell us a bit about your relationship with them growing up? Well, my parents are from the east end of London. They're like your classic cockneys. I don't know if that means anything to a lot of Americans, but I always think whenever, if you don't know what cockney is, it's just always, if there's ever a villainy, in a movie. They always seem to have a

Cockney accent. But my parents were from the East End of London, which is that world, and from very humble beginnings. And my mum my mum have always

had such a close relationship with her. I've always been very protective of my mum. And that never really changed. As you say, Penn, she comes to, I've run a treat every year and she comes to every single program that I do. She's actually coming out here to Los Angeles to be with me and my wife Audrey in two weeks. So she's just a very big part of my

life. But I was lucky. I had an entrepreneurial father, so I got a lot of entrepreneurial spirit from him and I think a lot of that drive to do things and to try something that people might think is a bit silly from the outside or I think is an unorthodox path. I definitely got that from my dad and my mum was always much more craving security and safety. And so she, I remember when I started my path, which was like, can you imagine telling your parents like, oh, I'm helping women in their love life. That was like not a, it wasn't a career. It wasn't anything anyone thought would be anything. And this was also, I feel like pre, it was like very, very early days YouTube, pre-instagram, pre, you know, seemingly every fourth person being a coach of some kind,

giving advice online. And so it really was at that time, this was going back, you know, 16, 17 years now, a strange path for someone to go on. But it was normal to my dad who'd always, you know, done unique and different things. He owned a nightclub when I was growing up. So I'd start. My first job was as a pot boy in this nightclub and which is what the person picking up glasses and whatnot. And my mom kind of was scared.

She had been through an entrepreneurial life with my dad. And she did not have any romance about that whatsoever. So for her it was like, can't you go and get a nice, like, safe job as a banker or something? Like, do you have to? Like, that was her in her. her mind coming out of the east end it was like the safe jobs were the guys who like went and you know used their ability to talk to go and trade in the financial center in london but she the world i was walking into was kind of everything she wanted me to get away from so how old were

you when you were working in a nightclub you said like nine oh 13 yeah way way too young it was very i look back now and it's like that was wildly inappropriate I shouldn't have been it wasn't like a glamorous nightclub either i don't want anyone picturing it's like my my accent immediately gave you a different impression yeah listen it doesn't it doesn't sound like i'm from the posh part of london so you're like this wasn't some nice club in chelsea no i it was a club in essex uh which is just outside of london and um it was a rough club i mean it was like you know i saw all sorts of nasty stuff there and people getting in fights and being thrown through doors by bouncers. And it was a kind of a weird environment to grow up in. But I started working,

collecting glasses at 13 and then worked my way up to at 15. I was the warm up DJ in the club on Friday and Saturday night. This is amazing. So you're, well, we call it middle school, but you're at you're like your early adolescent years were spent in like at nights partly in a nightclub that was your father's that's uh definitely a first on our show yeah yeah it was a weird it was a weird experience and it was sort of it was it was cool kind of you know like when you've got friends that want to drink and they're not old enough to go and drink but you're sort of their ticket to like sneak into places and i didn't think you needed a ticket in uh in england for that It just kind of starts, doesn't it?

It's so funny. I remember, well, people do start early in England. My first experience, a really embarrassing experience of going out one night, was all my friends getting into a local club and me having a fake ID. That was 15. So, yes, like the fake ID start, the beginning of fake IDs in England, I think starts earlier. I don't think in America, what you might be doing? ages younger. Yeah, like in America, you might be using a fake ID in college or something. Yeah, like 17, 18. Yeah. So I was like 15 and I had a fake

ID, which didn't look very good. Can I, can I ask, were you like, were you, did you happen to be a tall 15 year old? No, no, completely underdeveloped. Like, just not looking like I should have been out at that time of night, couldn't grow stubble. And I, I went up to this bouncer. My friends had already all got in and I gave him my ID and he looked at me and he went, what year were you born? And I hadn't stopped. I think no, I was going to say I haven't. That seems like the first thing you should do is practice the year. Yeah. Do you know what? I think I had studied. I was going to say I hadn't studied it. I think I had and my mind went completely. Yeah, you got nervous. Yeah, I got nervous, which by the way, has not, like I still have those moments in adulthood. I can tell you another

story of going blank on the today's show live with Kathy Lee as an adult but I I went like the exact same thing happened to me I went completely blank and I went I don't know and the guy just looked at me the guy just looked at me and went Rick and then and then took my ID pocketed it and I just walked away and with my friends all in this I was like it was one of those moments, I look back, it was hilarious to look back on at the time. You know, when you have a moment where you're like, I'm going to think about this for the next three years. Yeah. Like this is just going to be this moment I replay over and over again. So yeah. I'm picturing you 15 years old, DJing some nights at your dad's nightclub. And I'm trying to figure out

how you ended up where you are. And what was your path towards becoming a relationship coach? How did you, what made you interested in it in the first place? It's such a funny story. I really enjoyed playing music and mixing and all of the things that come with playing out as a DJ. But the thing that I really had to work up the courage to do was speak on the microphone. And actually, you know, they would keep telling me, like, you got to talk to the crowd more. You're not talking to the crowd. You're just playing, you know, and I had to, like, learn that part.

And I did actually learn a lot about reading and how to, how to work a room through that. And that still serves me today. But from the kind of self-development perspective of what I do now, I was, my dad being that kind of entrepreneurial person, he was always interested in self-development. So he had a bookshelf full of books. And we had ups and downs when I was growing up.

You know, we'd live in a nice house. And then, you know, my dad went bankrupt when I was a kid. And we got moved into a trailer because he had a plot of land, but no money to put anything on it. So we ended up living in a trailer in this plot of land. But wherever we were, there was always books. And they were usually books around psychology or success or, you know, like all the kind of stereotypical kind of books that people listen to when they're trying

to motivate themselves. And one of the books on the shelf was how to win friends and influence people. And by Dow Carnegie, obviously a seminal book, almost a cliche these days, that book. And I was 11 years old, I think, when I saw that on the shelf. and picked it up. And I became a kind of mildly obsessed. I was reading it in every free period I had at school. I just loved this idea that,

because I was a shy kid and I was also introverted. So it, it was kind of a magical moment for me. There's a concept that you weren't stuck with however you thought you were and that you could actually make more of an impact. by learning certain things. That was a big moment for me and it sparked an interest. It sparked a passion at that time

that led me into devouring lots of books like that. And then weirdly, when I was either 14 or 15, I think, my friend, his dad used to take his whole company to see Tony Robbins every year. And it was like he was in English. Obviously, this was in Essex in England, but Tony Robbins would come. come once a year to do a show in England at this huge arena called the Excel Center in London.

And he was coming this year and the friend came up to me at school, my friend, and said, my dad's dragging me to this thing with this guy, Tony Robbins, and he says I can bring a friend. So do you want to come? And what he didn't know at the time was I had already read like half of Tony Robbins' book. It was part of like that experience of devouring all these books. So I was like, I played it call in front of him. But inside I was like, yes, I want to come and see Tony Robbins Live.

I couldn't afford to go myself. This is the funny thing. I had even spent, I'd even had a phone call with one of their sales team, like, to talk to them about an event. But I didn't have a credit card. So I don't know where I thought it was going. I just had the phone call and wasted some salesperson's time. But I ended up going to that event and it became the marriage of the, the content I'd been learning about, but with someone who had this unbelievable delivery

and this impact that none of my teachers seemed to have at school, it was like, I can't believe someone can command a room like that. And so that became the birth of like, I feel like I want to do something in this area, but I don't know what. And then my next kind of step was realizing that all of these things that I was learning as a very shy and introverted young guy would probably have some utility for me in trying to talk to girls at that age. And so that became my like first, you know, practical use of all these things I was learning was to try to be a bit more courageous with girls at the time because my whole experience of being a teenager was not in choosing the people that I wanted to date.

it was being too shy to talk to the people I wanted to date and instead having a girl's friend come up to me and say my friend likes you and wants to go out with you and then basically after the 20th time of saying that me going okay I'll go like because I just knew I was like I'm not going to go and talk to anyone else so I should just go on a day I should just date you because you're asking me and so my experience was that

of being chosen rather than doing the choosing and that weirdly ended up after some years leading me to work with women because in a strange way I actually came to relate to the female experience because I was like oh one of the reasons women are struggling so much is because they're waiting to be chosen and they're not doing the choosing they've been taught they can't be proactive or that it's not, you know, it's not old-fashioned. Then it's, you know, the right thing to do is to kind of play it cool. The last thing you want to be is desperate. So I ended up learning, oh, there's a lot of women who don't want to make a move.

For different reasons than I don't want to make a move, being brought up as a guy, I've been taught it's my job to make the move, but I'm still too scared to make the move. So, weirdly, I ended up relating to that feeling of being chosen instead of doing the choosing. And that became my first kind of, I suppose, lesson into the world of helping women, which I started at, I must have been 20 years old when that started. Wow. Which also doesn't make any sense. And feel free to ask me questions about that. But it's like, it's a strange place I ended up in for sure.

I don't think that anybody comes to a calling in life like this by sheer, I don't know, accident or happenstance, that if, if part of your work is to sort of see people's pain, to sit with them in their pain, I'm curious if you have any insights into where that comes from. Like what's that, when that might have, what happened to you, Matthew? No, I'm just curious.

Like, you know, that's a great question. I think that throughout my life, as a teenager, as a kid, I got used to having to adapt to new, circumstances very quickly and in many ways not being given the space to actually process anything, but just to have to adapt, you know, whether it was, you know, I said we had some hard times in life and having to, you know, have our world upended and then being forced to go, now you just have to get on with this new reality and

losing things over and over again. That was a big experience of mine for my childhood was kind of this feeling of the other shoe is always about to drop. And when it does, it's going to be painful and messy and difficult and you're going to have to learn how to be happy with these whole new circumstances. And that created a hell of a lot of hypervigil. for me. I mean, I still, to this day, I have to work on not having this feeling of the other shoe is always about to drop. Then going into adulthood, you know, I worked really, really hard

in my 20s, got to about 27. It hit a real crash because I wasn't happy. I felt very numb to everything. Everything was going very well on paper, but I felt very numb. At this point, you must have already been at this point in, I think, L.A. And you were successful. I was in L.A. I had, my first book, Get the Guy, had become a New York Times bestseller. I had had a couple of TV shows. I had a team, a sizable team. I had about 20 people in my company.

And, you know, it just, I had bought a house in LA and I remembered I had a company retreat where everyone came out to, you know, do some vision stuff for the next year and I just remember having a really, really scary moment where I was, I just was not in a good place. And I think that I'd been running for so long in my life. I don't think it was that it wasn't that I became successful and then couldn't handle the success or anything like that. It was that the same thing that made me successful hadn't gone away. things that had made me successful were quite negative in a lot of ways. You know, it was me running from something. It was me trying to create security. It was me trying to create safety where I didn't feel a sense of safety. You know, it was just a constant like running, running, running.

And then one of the things I talk about in the book is I started to develop chronic physical pain. Tinnitus, right? It starred with tinnitus, which even on its own was it, it really, really freaked me out because I kept waking up every night, month after month, thinking, okay, like, I would wake up in the middle of the night and think, please go away, please go away, please let me, like, and then it would still be there, this loud ringing. And I would, like, break down every time because I thought, I don't know, I don't know what to do. I'd been able to fix everything in my life until that point, or so I thought, but I, that was like

something I couldn't fix. I couldn't make it go away. And I went to doctors and they we can't make it go away. It's not very well understood tinnitus and it's not there's not like there's not a cure for it and then that ended up I think the way that I agonized and stressed and made myself deeply deeply depressed over that ended up creating even more symptoms and I had pain in my head and ear and all sorts of symptoms and over a seven year period that became like one of the biggest one of the biggest battle of my life was me feeling like life is not worth living anymore because I'm this physical this pain is making me so unhappy that I don't know what to do I don't know I'm I literally

I went to a therapist at the time I started therapy because of my chronic pain and I remember saying to a therapist at the time I think I'm just going to live for everyone else now because you know I was in a way I was lucky I had a family that that loved me I had a team that I was you know the company that I was running was supporting and you know I a lot relied on me and that kind of saved me because I had all these people that I was like every morning I get up and I can do something for those people not to mention an audience of people that I was helping I said to him like I'm not I'm like going to have to live for everyone else I think from now on because I just don't I don't feel joy anymore anything I do and he was like that is hallmark depression

like what you're experiencing is he said it's it has its origins in physical pain but it's a distinction without a difference you know you you the result is that you are you're in a place of real depression right now and I went through a really bad heartbreak over those years as well I'd always been in the driving seat in my love life and then I was in a relationship or I wasn't in the driving seat and and by design by the way I'd always been in the driving seat in my love life I'd always picked people that I felt like I, you know, was in control and then I was in a situation where I wasn't and I got very badly heartbroken. And so that just was like, it was a period of my life where it felt like it was just one big kind of cataclysmic heartbreak after another

where it was, whether it was a heartbreak of like, I'm never going to be happy in my future because I can't get rid of this pain and with this pain I can never be happy, whether it was the heartbreak of, you know, a relationship ending or the heartbreak of achieving. things and none of it working for me. It just felt like a huge portion of my life was defined by pain. At the same time, by the way, that I was helping all of these other people in their lives, which is a really weird paradoxical position to be in. And so I got really, really comfortable empathizing with people and talking to people about their hardest moments. I was really comfortable in a dark space. Like, that just became fluent for me. And I think in a way,

became my superpower because while there were so many, it seemed like there was so many self-development people out there who were constantly in this state of like peak performance and optimization and happiness and passion and this and that I was coming from a completely different end of the spectrum, which is like if you're in deep pain and you're struggling and you're figuring out how to hell to get up today, I'm your guy. So I think that's where that came from. and we'll be right back all right so um let's just let's just real talk as they say for a second that's a little bit of an aged thing to say now that that dates me doesn't it um but no real talk uh how important is your health to you you know on like a one to 10 and i don't mean the in the sense of

vanity i mean in the sense of like you want your day to go well right you want to be less stressed you don't want it as sick when you have responsibilities um i know myself i'm a householder i have i have two children and two more on the way um a spouse a pet you know a job that sometimes has its demands so i really want to feel like when i'm not getting to sleep and i'm not getting nutrition when my eating's down i want to know that i'm that i'm being held down some other way physically you know my family holds me down emotionally spiritually but i need something to hold me down physically right and so honestly i turned to symbiotica these these these these these vitamins and these beautiful little packets that they taste delicious and i'm telling you um

even before us i've done ads for these guys it was a product that i uh i really really liked and enjoyed and could see the differences with um the three that i use i use uh the what is it called liposomal vitamin c and it tastes delicious like really really good um comes out in the package you put it right in your mouth some people don't do that i do it i think it tastes great i use the liposomal uh glutathione as well in the morning um really good for gut health and although i don't need it you know anti-aging um and then i also use the magnesium l3 and eight which is really good for for i think mood and stress i sometimes use it in the morning sometimes use it at night all three of these things taste incredible um honestly you you don't even need to mix it with water

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to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. On the first page of your book, Matthew, you said that, I'm going to read it. You said, and the great joke of life is that from the moment we start ranting righteously about any one thing life will conspire to make us trip up in that specific area and when I read that I was wondering how you have found ways to guard against that when you give advice on such a large scale and I think probably you answered that a little bit with what you just said that you're open about your own struggles and your own pain but I wonder if there's anything else you would add no I think you're right Sophie I think you have to

you either keep BSing people or you start to live more authentically and you embrace that and you hope that you'll still have an audience at the end of it and that was kind of my journey was in my 20s I think I was trying to be something trying to know it all trying to sound like I knew more than I did

and then I hit a point in my 30s where I thought, I just want to, I want to connect with people. And I don't need to be impressive to connect with people. I just need to be authentic. And connecting became the game over impressing people. And the nice thing about connecting was that it allowed me to be a student again. Because there's something really, like if anyone asked me, you know, someone's decided to start giving advice at an age where they don't know it all, what would be your advice to them be? I'd be

like, just document your learning and talk about that. If you try to know it all, you're going to delay your growth by many years because it will become your prison. And so for me, I kind of got out. I feel like I broke free of that prison. And now I'm in the best place I've ever been because I get to really be myself. I don't have to come to this. conversation with you guys who are all impressive people and your people that easily if I came to this being like I'm trying to impress I'm immediately anxious and intimidated and you know because these people have done so much and I don't want to but actually instead if I just come to connect and I can't really fail at that so I it allows me to relax and I actually think that's an

interesting lesson for dating in general is it's you know people people come to the table to try and impress instead of connect. And I think that's the source of so many people's issues in their love life. Matthew, in 2017 or 2018, I think you came to New York City and you did like a day-long seminar and I had two friends. I lived in New York at the time. And I was going through a really difficult situation that was of my own construction. Like I had authored a story that I couldn't get out of.

And I had a friend sort of visiting and she was like, let's go to this. You know, Matthew Hessey has this retreat. do you know who he is? I was like, no. I was like, I don't want to go. And I think I just didn't want to be vulnerable on any level. And my friend, like, truly dragged me. And then at like one or something, she was like, you know, we can go. I know you didn't want to come. And we've already been here a long time. And I was like, no, no, no, we're staying for the whole thing. And it truly, like, changed my life. And I took notes on that day that I still revisit. I still share them with friends. But it helped me just, like, change the story that I was telling. And it was sort of like

it released me from a prison that I couldn't get out of for several years. I wanted to thank you personally for that. But I also want to read a quote from your book that I think summarizes a lot of what you were saying that day and then I want you to help us unpack it. Actually, Sophie, can you read it because I'm too emotional? Yeah, of course.

A real relationship requires bravery from both sides. It requires us to be vulnerable enough to allow ourselves to be seen. It requires curiosity and vision to fully take in who the other person is, to really see them, to accept their on-camera selves and they're hidden behind-the-scenes mess.

to view their worst parts with acceptance and generosity not contempt, and to have enough faith and strength to trust the other person to offer the same latitude to our darker sides. On top of all this, it requires two people who actually have a vision for where they want the relationship to go, and the daily execution to move toward that vision. Exceptional relationships are not found. They're built.

And I wondered if you could just share more about that concept of like choosing, build, like working as a teammate with someone even from the very beginning like what are the signs that you could do that with someone early on? Do you mind feel free to say no but do you mind Sophie telling

sharing with us what you connect with about that that brings up emotion for you? Me, yeah. Never. One is the idea. Another, yeah. I think the idea of being brave

and being voluble. vulnerable enough to be seen is like something that I have struggled with, particularly the vulnerability part and not in other areas of my life, like just in my love life. And that's something that Penn has told me like in other areas like you show up. Like you're so bold. Like no one would think of you as someone who lacks courage and like I'm vulnerable with him. But in your love life, Penn called me one day. I was like you're, you need to level up. Like you're being super strange in your love life. And like it doesn't add up with who you are in other places. And so I still struggle with it. Yeah. We have that in common. I know that in the beginning, I kind of always thought I was a vulnerable person. And it took me until my relationship now,

you know, ironically, when I started writing this book, I was single and I finished the final edit on my hundred honeymoon, which is crazy. But I, so I really, I have, I've experienced every stage because, you know, anyone who would say, well, easy, you wrote this book, you know, from a place of safety and security. I really didn't. I wrote this book from a place of not knowing if I would ever find what I was looking for. And, you know, one of the things that was really clear to me early on in my relationship is that I hadn't been nearly as vulnerable.

as I thought I had been in previous relationships, that I always thought I was this open book, but actually what I was was quite happy to tell the parts of me where I thought I was impressive and leave all the parts of me that I thought were too shameful or ugly or pathetic out. And that, you know, I think that we do that a lot in life, in general, I think that that's a lot of online culture is people will talk about their past,

but only in the way that they're, they're kind of outlining their hero's journey in their life. So they'll, like, talk about the time they were sleeping on their, you know, brothers' couch, trying to start a business or whatever, and how, and that sounds like vulnerability. But it's not really, because it's really a story of how awesome I am that, look, I started there and now look where I am. It's not, there's nothing vulnerable about that. hard story to tell. Vulnerability doesn't necessarily feel good. It's when we say the thing that we're actually deeply afraid that someone will find unlovable about us. And it took me being

in a relationship where I shared something. And I had all of the reactions that I would normally have when I shared too much where I thought I would have anxiety and think she's not going to want me now she's going to find that like that's going to change her whole impression of me it's going to make her think I'm someone other than the person she's fallen for and when that was met with love and compassion and her not seeing me differently as a man that that was a real game changer for me it became what therapists call corrective relationship and and I think we all need corrective relationships, ones where we test the waters in being more vulnerable, more brave than we have in the past. And we find much to our surprise that someone doesn't run away as a result

of that. And that becomes the ultimate test of the right relationship. It's the person that runs away. We take the wrong lesson from that. We think that it means that we're unlovable instead of realizing that that person wasn't, they weren't the person that is right for us. It becomes really egoic when we're like, they didn't deserve you if they ran away when you said that or whatever. It's like that's just another kind of egoic framework. It's not that.

It's that just they're not your person. I think the right person is not someone, I think the right person is someone who's good at handling us, we have we don't come to people perfect we come with a whole bunch of baggage and things we're trying to figure out in real time we certainly don't come to relationships like you know whenever someone says you've got to be ready before you meet someone I'm I always call bullshit on that because I'm like the half the time the people that say that are married people who if you really go back and you look at the day they met their partner they weren't enlightened beings who had it all figured out right So it's easy with the beauty of hindsight to be like, no, you have to be ready in order to meet someone. Most of us aren't ready. We're working our stuff out. But do you find someone who's a good partner to work stuff out with?

That to me is the real test of a great partner. And so, like, I think, for you, it's like finding those people that, like, I'm sure, the people that you're surrounded with on this show that are old, friends when you find people. Which one of us are you talking about? I was assuming both you and Sophie are incredibly loving. Yeah, I'm actually the oldest. Thanks, Penn. But you know, when you find people like that, those are corrective relationships because you see what it's like for someone not to run away when they know more about you. And it's then about translating that to situations where it feels like the stakes are higher because it's romantic. but I think doing that in small ways

and seeing that it can go better than before is I find that to be a life-changing experience it's like what happens if I try this even if I just try I think what I try to encourage people to realize is all change just starts with curiosity what happens if I do a different thing than the thing I normally do

And, you know, we all have our well-trodden path, and usually we can see it, like, show up in our entire history. I can see the way that I was avoiding with my wife, Audrey, when we first met, and the ways that I, like, shied away from being truly vulnerable, I can see that throughout my whole life. I remember when I knew I was coming on the show, I was like, you know, possibly they're going to talk to me about, you know, my something from my childhood. Like, what would be a story I would tell from my childhood? And the first thing that came up for me was me playing in the garden with friends at around 11 years old, 10 years old maybe, maybe, yeah, around that age, 11, maybe 12. And we were all in the garden playing football. And then something happened. I don't know what it was. I don't remember. All I remember is that my mom must have yelled at me in front of people or something like that. And I got embarrassed and hurt. And I remember going up to my room and like slamming the door and being like, screw everyone. Screw my friends. Screw my mom.

Screw the whole thing. I don't want to talk to anyone. And then what happened while I was gone was my brothers, I go two younger brothers and my friends, all decided that they were going to take the sleep over that had happened at our house the night before and they were going to carry it on at my friend's house and they all came knocking on the door and they're like Matt we're going to go over to Alex's house now like we're all going to go there now and I was so stubbornly hurt that I ignored everyone and I was I wouldn't answer the door, and they all left.

And my mum came to me, and she was like, Matt, they're all going. Like, come, have a nice time. Like, you don't do this. Like, go and have a great time or whatever. And I was so angry and hurt and upset. And I was like, no, screw everybody. Like, no one's going to get me going and having fun or whatever. And I bobbed my mom off.

I will never forget the next morning when my brother, brothers came home and talked about how great the night was and how they had such fun and they played games and they did this and what it killed me because it was like I denied myself that good time and I know that I missed out because my pride and my anger was really just this like I was ashamed if I actually tell everyone how I'm hurt or I'm embarrassed or whatever then that's like something I can't put back in. Then I'll have like revealed all of this weakness and it will make me ugly and unlovable.

And I didn't know any of this at the time, but I think about it today. And I'm like, I was just terrified of, you know, letting that weakness out. So I'd cover it up with all this anger and slamming the door and screw you guys, go have a great time without me. I'm not coming.

And no one lost in that scenario except me. like I'm I hurt myself I'm the one who robbed me of that night that I'll never get again so then I fast forward to like my early relationship and I'm like I did the same thing if I got hurt or insecure or jealous about something rather than share what I was really feeling was that thing I'm jealous right now and it's probably because I'm insecure or because I don't think I match up or because I whatever it may be I just closed down and got angry and passive aggressive. And it's like I was in danger of literally like, we're talking about the person who's now my wife. I could have cost myself the person who is there for me in every way in my life out of that same thing that cost me the sleepover when I was a teenager.

And if I can encourage everyone to do anything, it's just have enough curiosity to say, well, let firstly, This hasn't worked for me in the past. So let me just try something different. I may not know what the right thing is, but let me just try something different than the normal path that I go down.

And for me, it was actually sharing with Audrey what I was feeling and then realizing that I got a different response than the response I thought I would get. And when that happens in life, it's like becoming aware of a different world that you didn't think existed, and you suddenly realize how small your life has been because of the way that you've been living it. And there's all these other realities that you can experience

by just shifting your behavior one millimeter to the left or the right. So that's how I have come to think about that. Yeah, that's really helpful. Matthew, you touched, you talked about your wife, Audrey, and I have wondered, because you said in the beginning, maybe in the intro of your book, that, you know, people would before you got married people would would question you and ask like well are you in a relationship now how's your love life and because of the work that you do and that that you felt pressured by that which I can totally understand and then your critique your your response to that critique was that you know being in a relationship in and of itself isn't really a badge of honor and it doesn't guarantee any wisdom which I totally agree with but I also do I wrestle with it because

I also think there is something to be said about advice that comes from a place of experience. And I wonder now that you're married, how has it changed your work, if at all? This is so funny. I've thought about this question so much because I have had to resist the urge to in any way since being married, start almost weaponizing that for credibility. Yeah. Like now I'm more credible because I'm. I just, I really don't, that would be such an easy thing for me to start trading on. And I don't, I always resent the idea that I'm somehow more helpful now than I was a year ago or two years ago.

And I think we have to be careful with that with ourselves because it is the same logic that leads people to think that they are somehow less than because they haven't found that. in their lives yet is a bit of a different situation when someone's, you know, taking it upon themselves to give advice that definitely changes the equation. But we're still talking about what value do you have to offer as someone who is single versus in a relationship or married. I think that some of the smartest, most wise people I know are the people that have spent 20 years in a marriage and are now divorced. And they have so much to share because, of the experience that they've had. And I know many people who are more successful and more credible the moment they leave

a relationship because they did the hard thing. So has it changed anything? I think it's always fun to go through new stages and to then get to, you know, I'm sure I will have, you know, pen you're ahead of us in terms of the road with children. And it's like learning, you know, understanding your experience there. would be valuable to me right now and we're not there yet but I know that when we go through that you know let's hope that we're able to go through that when we get to that place it will then offer me all these new experiences of life that will be really exciting to share from

so I think to that extent it's really exciting it really strikes me that there's a a discipline that is required for any kind of long-term relationship. And I don't think that we think of discipline in, you know, when we think of long-term relationships or marriages, discipline is love comes up a lot. But discipline doesn't come up a lot as a word. And I kind of feel like it should because I think discipline is about what's your standard for that thing?

was your standard for loyalty what's your standard for the way that you show up regularly what's your standard for what you value you know because at a certain point your values have to shift into the gears

that make a long term relationship possible and you know I for me you know back as a single person it was it was clear to me at a certain point that like oh i am on some kind of like dopamine cycle here that is not healthy for me long term it's like this is the the dopamine of messages and new people and

this kind of variety and anything can happen and like that's it's like this constant dopamine rush if you're not careful, that is the kind of antithesis of the peaceful, connected experience that I think a long-term relationship offers. And so at a certain point, it requires you to get off of that dopamine cycle and to go, I'm going to start valuing something else more than I value this in the same way that if you want to be healthy at a certain point, you start to value, the way you feel when you're eating well more than you value the taste of pizza every night. And that's not easy to do because pizza tastes pretty great. You know, but there's a, if you, and I'm not talking about, I'm not a rigid person.

I just spent the whole weekend eating terribly. But it, you know, if you, if you value the way you feel when you're healthy more, then you'll do that even if it means that you don't get to eat whatever fast food you want every night. And, you know, I think that that to me is one of my biggest things right now. I almost, ironically, as someone who's experiencing a lot of things as a married person right now, I feel like I would have a lot to say to guys who are, my audience has typically been women, but I feel like there's a lot I could say. Got to get back on the guy track.

Get back on the guy track. I feel like I have so much to say to every version of me there is from five years ago. and and I feel like I have a lot of there's a lot I could do perhaps to help guys with the anxieties they feel in that stage of their lives where they're in transition and they're not quite sure what they want and guys who aren't sure what they want cause a lot of pain yeah you know so I that's that's I kind of feel like I could probably do as much for women by helping those guys be less confused as I could for women by helping them with, you know, how to avoid guys like that in the first place. Stick around. We'll be right back. Fall is in full swing and it's the perfect time to refresh your wardrobe with pieces that feel as good as they look. Luckily, Quince makes it easy to look polished, stay warm and save big without compromising on quality. Quince has all the elevated essentials for fall.

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Both people have to be avoiding the difficult conversation. So that's the other thing that I really struggle with. And I realize very reason like, oh, my parents were chronic avoiders. Like to this day, my question for you is like, I'm sure there are listeners who will relate to this. I have a really hard time initiating a difficult conversation in person. I can do it over text. is it really important to do it in person? And if it is, are there any tricks?

Because I'll literally, I'll practice. I'll be like, three, two, one. Say it. And I just won't. I'll be like I'm going to throw up. That's so hard, though. That's the hardest way. Don't ever three, two, one yourself.

That's so much pressure. If it's important to have a difficult conversation in person, and I will just say that a therapist once told me that it is, he was like the outcome of those conversations are different in person because eye contact really helps someone bring their walls down. So as much as possible have these sensitive conversations in person. but to this day have never initiated a difficult conversation person. So I'm just wondering if you have advice about that.

Yeah, well, firstly, I think, Navar, for you and anyone else in that position, is having extraordinary amounts of compassion for yourself in why it is that that's a pattern in your life in the first place. It's not, it's not, this didn't come from nowhere. Like it's not, you're not deficient, you're not broken, and there's not like something wrong with you that everyone else seems to be so great at confrontation and dealing with difficult.

Firstly, many, many, many, many more people than let on have a hard time with confrontation and difficult conversations. But it's also, you have to have compassion for the fact that these patterns were developed in a time where you weren't choosing any of your patterns. So what's happening is you're thinking of having a hard conversation with someone, and even before you get there, your nervous system is having a response. And that nervous system, you know, there's fight, flight, freeze, faint, fawn, all different

nervous system responses. And you're having one of them, right? And we hate, we beat ourselves up and we shame ourselves when we're having a nervous system response, as if like there's something wrong with me, but it's not. It's, that was a response developed at a time in your life where you weren't choosing any of the way that your brain and your nervous system was getting wired. And so, of course, of course, you feel terrified of having a hard conversation. It threatens your fundamental sense of safety. And so understanding that is actually a really valuable thing, because not only does it allow you to have maximum compassion for yourself, but it also allows you depersonalize how valuable this whole nervous system response is making this person in front of you.

In other words, it makes you realize, oh, my nervous system is telling me that this is life or death if this person leaves. And actually, it hasn't got anything to do with them because I've experienced this with many, many, many people in my life. And I'll experience it with the next person after them. So it's not a reflection of how important they are or how powerful they are. It's a reflection of how powerful my nervous system response is to a situation that was created long before I had any agency or say in how my nervous system got linked up. What we can then do is from that place of awareness and compassion, because once you're compassionate with yourself about that, actually it gets easier because you no longer think you're broken you're like oh of course

I struggle with this and then you can say what are some small ways that I can start to build this muscle that I never got encouraged in me in childhood and then you start to work that muscle in those small ways and you can start with smaller conversations you can start have things in the book that help people with just some ways of bringing things up that aren't antagonistic, but allow you to be honest about how you're feeling about something. You know, this is how it's made me feel. I'm not trying to make you wrong. I'm not trying to make you the bad person, but this is how I feel in this.

And if you follow the rule, this is a really important principle. If you follow the principle that I am going to spend more time thinking about how someone makes me feel than how I feel about this person, your life will change because it's in your anxiety about bringing something up. Part of what you're telling yourself is this person is so important and I don't want to lose them and they're really great. And all of that is like how you feel about them. But none of it has anything to do with how they make you feel. And there's a huge distinction. Who we want to be around are people that make us feel great. And the people that make us feel great aren't just the ones who come to the table

giving us everything that we want and meeting our needs as a mind reader. The people that make us feel great are the ones that when we express a need, it goes well. when we talk about something that's hurt us it makes the relationship stronger those are the best relationships and if we then so now we're into oh there's a reframe i can give myself that any relationship worth having is made better by a hard conversation not worse so if someone leaves because of this hard conversation or because of me god forbid expressing and need something I need a little more of, something I'd like a little less of. If it gets worse as a result of that, then this person has failed the test of being someone

who makes me feel good. So it doesn't matter how I feel about them. They've failed the most fundamental test that they need to pass for me to continue investing in them or thinking that they are an important person for my life. And that can make you braver because all of a sudden the stakes don't feel high anymore. the stakes are really high if I have a hard conversation and you leave and I'm like I left I lost another person who was right for me no one can be right for you that leaves after a hard conversation you started it sort of advising or speaking to men about dating and I guess

relationship dynamics right and then at some point you transitioned because you found women were more interested and so you know I mean there's a lot of maybe um there's caveats to be made as we have this uh you know increasing awareness of of queerness and and other identities but but heteronormative relationships do um they've they've written so much of our history and the way that we we all see society the way that we think of men and women and our interactions with our parents and all this stuff so you know as a man i couldn't help thinking reading your book that there is this profound crisis and it's not the first time I've thought of this

but somehow reading it in a book that does feel oriented I mean for anybody but you know your experience now by and large is with women which is great so I just felt like I was deep in this like a glimpse into

this world where women are desperate for meaningful relationships with men and men are somehow not as aware of their own need for meaningful relationships with women

and that it's creating a profound struggle for self-worth for all people and you know I think that generally as people whether men or women they're I'm not about to say something like men are trash

and men need to get with it um we all know that yeah because it's a given no no because actually i think like probably there is some equality in the flawed of virtue ratio thing that just most people are working with right but but there is this thing this dynamic where i was like it it feels to me like men are being evasive and immature which and i'm thinking of those words very sensitively like it's not i think a lot of times it's not conscious what do you think is causing this fear and insecurity and

men that leads to this evasiveness and being immature? I think, firstly, there's a lot of men either consciously or unconsciously choosing to be unaware of how much damage they actually do by being either directly dishonest or just pretending that they don't know that someone wants more until it's like the elephant in the room all the time or pretending that they don't know that someone likes them more than they like that person and I think that happens on both sides but the number of women who come to me at a place in their life where they are ready for a relationship is extraordinary and they are so often coming, they're meeting with people who don't seem to be in the same state of

readiness that they are. I think some of this is men feeling like, you know, they've been taught that they need to live a certain kind of life and that what would be cool for them is to hook up as much as possible and to feel like they're a big shot because they're able to do that. They've been sold this idea that this is where happiness might lie for them. And then when it doesn't happen, they almost never extinguish the idea that that's where happiness might lie for them if they could just scratch that itch. But I think that happens to an awful lot of people. Was it Jim Carrey who he said, like, I wish everyone could get rich and famous by the

time they were whatever age 30 or something so that they could realize that it doesn't work. You know, I think many men think that it's going to work if they're able to go and sew their oats in the way that they've always wanted with the kinds of people they've always wanted to do it with. They're still chasing the cheerleader. They're still chasing that person that they think if I could just get that person, it would make me happy. And it doesn't happen for them.

And a lot of guys then become very bitter and resentful and they're constantly chasing. this thing that they wish they'd have had and that they see other guys getting and thinking, oh, those are the happy guys. I'm not like them or, you know, I wish I could be them. I think social media has created this version of perfection in people that creates an unparalleled level of entitlement these days where people feel like they're entitled to someone who looks a certain way that like five people in the world look like. And everyone else using filters and it's and so it gives people this impression that but but all the people all the guys that they're following are seemingly with those people and their heroes in whatever form

are all getting some version of that so surely i'm and i'm being told i'm entitled to a version of that and so i think that there's a lot of guys chasing this image of perfection and never coming to realize, like, what makes a relationship really great? Like, what, you know, they're plaguing themselves and torturing themselves going, you know, they might have an amazing person in front of them who would bring them so much happiness, so much peace, an unbelievable connection, you know, they'd be able to build this extraordinary life with this person, and they're in their head going, but could I, like, could I do a little better than this in this way or this way or could I still get that? And maybe I can get someone with all of these things

and this other thing, you know, that I feel like I'm missing. And life doesn't, humans don't work like that. You don't, optimization is a, it can be very counterproductive when it comes to your happiness in love. Because you don't, you don't upgrade a human when you move from one to the next. you exchange one basket of ingredients for a whole new basket of ingredients and you'll get some stuff that's not great that you didn't even have last time around and you'll get some new things that are less of a headache or are more attractive or you'll just get a new basket of ingredients but you're not going to keep tweaking to the point of perfection and I truly believe that when you find someone

with the core fundamentals that are going to make you happy long, term, things that you need to decide in advance. Like, this is the stuff that I'm really going to value. If you find that and then you find it in someone that you have some chemistry with and you find attractive and is an amazing partner, like, that's your, if you lean into that, that's your person. It's not, like, let me wait and see if I get more chemistry with the next person. Like, I don't believe in that. I don't, like, there's a section of the, book. I say don't comparison shop for chemistry. Like, because even that, so much of that is an illusion, right? It's like you're comparing the chemistry of someone you're with right now to someone that

you dated for two weeks three years ago on a vacation. This person's never going to win. That person had all the benefit of being someone who was going home in two weeks and all of the excitement that that creates. You're not going to match that in a normal scenario where healthy love is present so that's that's the stuff that I think people don't realize and I think a lot of guys they they they think that settle is a word that is really misunderstood we think of settling as a bad thing it's not a bad thing it all depends on the context in which you use it yeah settling for someone has all the negative connotations right that's like I'm getting short changed here I could do better I could have more I that's what makes people resentful and

then men stay in relationships that they're constantly torturing themselves going should I leave and try and find something better and like that's because they thought they settled for something but now change the phrase to settling on something and it changes the whole meaning of it. It's settling on something means resolving to take this thing and make it the best it can possibly be. And that's what makes an amazing relationship is resolving to make something the best it can possibly be. But it all depends on what your association is with that word because you're never going to find a perfect person. You're going to find someone that you believe is worth settling on and then you're going to spend your life making it incredible with that person.

And I'll say one more thing on this because I think it's really relevant to this whole thing. So many men struggle because of their associations with commitment. And again, I wish I could I could pull this up right now. In fact, I have, is my phone around? Maybe I can pull it up. If you were to go on Apple dictionary and pull up the word commitment, there are two definitions that come up. One is commitment restricts freedom and creates an obligation. Oh, geez. And the other definition of commitment is a dedication to a cause.

Now, think of how much of a different life you will create, depending on which one of those associations you're following. If you're a guy, and this is true of women too, but since we're zeroing in on what I think are some of the real issues that men face, if you're a guy and you have been taught, brought up educated by society or by your friends to think that commitment is something that restricts freedom and creates obligation, that's the like, you know, you're with your friends and they're like, oh, another guy got married, another one bites the dust. you know what definition they have of commitment. It restricts freedom and creates obligation. If you compare that with the life someone will create

if they think of commitment as a dedication to a cause, I know that my life changed. And I'm not judging anyone here because I've been through all different stages as a man. I've got stages I regret. I've got things I wish I'd done differently. I've got people I wish I hadn't hurt with being ignorant or not understanding a better way to be at the time

or not being conscious enough about the consequences of my actions. So if you're a guy out there listening, there's no judgment from me. But I can tell you my life changed dramatically when I shifted my definition of commitment as being something that would restrict freedom and create obligation to a dedication to a cause. My marriage now with Audrey, who is sitting to my left, my marriage, we're like, it's so exciting, man. building like that's what's so fun about it i'm like we're building something that's so wildly exciting to me i'm so happy to be in that place of building like we're on a mission together and that's because it's for me it's now a dedication to a cause and as a result i'm so much happier

i feel so much more peaceful i i don't have any of the anxieties that went along with living that other life. And I feel like I'm more grounded and able to share from this place. I'm more open, I'm more vulnerable, I'm more myself. So it's a life-changing thing. And I think if more guys spend more time, if you're a guy, the best thing you can do is spend time around other guys who have already had those realizations and then get curious with them. Give them your challenges, talk to them, tell them what you're struggling with, tell them about your anxieties, your fears, you know, all of the things, just say it. Say all the things you're afraid to say.

And I can tell you, my mentors in life became the guys that were really peaceful and happy. And I noticed some patterns in the guys in my life that were really peaceful and happy. Matthew, I want to ask you one more question about your book. And then we have a final question that we ask everyone to close the show. But in your book, you talk about this idea of being happy enough and why it's, helpful to focus on being happy enough rather than pursuing like blissful happiness. Can you share about that? I think happy enough is like a unbelievably profound and powerful phrase. You know, we, some of us on this call live in L.A. and L.A. is the land of never enough. And it makes people

really, really unhappy. So at a certain point, it's about looking at what's enough for me. And I actually think that happy enough is a superpower because when you're happy enough, you kind of have nothing to lose. If you're a single person who's happy enough, it doesn't mean that people are like, they want to come up with these phrases that don't really hold true for them. Like, I'm just as happy single. I don't need a relationship to make me happy.

And it's like, fine, but like, you can even admit that if you found the love of your life, you'd be happier than you are today. You can do that. It doesn't cost you anything to admit that so long as you feel happy enough today. Because if you're happy enough with your friendships, with your life the way it is, with the things that bring you meaning, with the things that make you, you proud of yourself with the love of the energy that you're putting into the world, if you're happy enough with those things, then no one has any power over you.

It's actually the same as the TV show example. I honestly, nothing ever needs to happen for me in that department. I don't care. If it happens and it was amazing and it brought me loads of joy, then great. But it's not something that I feel that needs to happen. and I'm happy enough today. And in love, you can be happy enough to say no to someone, happy enough to have a hard conversation with someone

without fearing that if they left or decided they didn't want to be with you, that your happiness would leave with them. It's happy enough is, to me, it's an incredibly powerful foundation from which to take risks in life. You can actually take more risks when you're happy enough. um because no one has any power over you so that that's how i think of happy enough and that's why i finished the book there because guess what not everyone finds the kind of love that they're looking for not everyone has not everyone's love life turns out the way that they thought it would

and we have to get out of this mindset that if that doesn't happen we'll never be happy we can get to a place where we realize that there is a kind of magic that no one can take from us or our lives that we can author ourselves and when you connect to that power you know you'll always be okay and you might even be able to be more than okay you might actually be able to find more happiness in this world than you ever realized it was possible outside of the narrow confines of the way you told yourself your life had to be for you to be happy. So I'm going to turn the final question into a bit of a two-parter. Has Penn ever asked a one-parter, I wonder.

The final question is always a one-parter, I think. It feels to me that part of the difficulty we all have in the realm of love, dating, whatever you want to call it, is that no one seems. seems to have prepared us adequately for either what will foster a true love relationship, but then also like the confusion and wildness and chaos of the modern dating world. So what do you think would genuinely prepare kids going through adolescence, middle school, high school, for entering that world, this world of, you know, quote unquote, love that they're inheriting.

Teaching them to chase the right things and teaching them to accept themselves. Those would be the two big ones. If they could put on a pedestal, kindness, a great teammate, someone who brings them peace, someone who actually sees them and acknowledges what is awesome

about them, someone who has, who actually is a great teammate, if they could put those things on the pedestal instead of all of the things that we're taught at a young age to put on a pedestal that have us, have our ego essentially directing our love life instead of our happiness, that would change the game.

And then, like I said, accepting ourselves, learning to have ultimate compassion for who we are and how we got here. Because you spend your life as a teenager thinking there's something deeply, deeply wrong with you. Most people, anyway, there are some special people that seem to find a different level of security. But for most of us, I think we feel like there's something really wrong with us. And we don't realize that we're just exactly a product of, you know, I'm a little bit of a determinist. You know, I kind of feel like we're a product of everything from our parents to our own brain chemistry, our own DNA, our society, our mentors, and the mentors we didn't have to.

you know, I feel like we're a product of those things. And so, you know, by the time you get to 15, I feel like everyone should just be told, what chance did you have of being anything else, other than the thing that you are today? But that's okay because the past does not have to equal the future there. But while you're looking to create who you're going to be in the future, don't shame yourself for who you are today because you really didn't have much of a say in the matter. So this is our final question.

If you could go back to 12-year-old Matthew Hussie, what would you say or do? Honestly, I think I'd tell him that. I think I would say, and I'm, you know, Nava, this is why when I was speaking to you earlier, I'm not speaking to you from any kind of a pedestal because I relate to you. I really relate to the things you've said.

And I think we shame ourselves so much, so much. I have no doubt, if you're anything like me, Nava, that it's not just that you have a hard time having those hard conversations, it's that you shame yourself for having a hard time having those hard conversations. And I think, you know, I would go back and tell myself, you are not broken and it is not your fault that you are struggling with these things that all these things you're struggling with they're a product of everything you've ever been through

and the way that you've been wired how could you have been something else and um and guess what almost everybody else is experiencing some version of this thing too so you're not worse you're not worse than everyone else you know you think you're especially bad especially worse than everyone else um you're not and and there's freedom in that there's freedom in that so yeah i would be i would give myself completely different level of compassion than I've ever given myself and a level of compassion that I'm still working to give myself today, which never comes naturally and is

never easy. And I'm still learning to be better at it. But that's what I would try to give myself. Do you think 12 year old Matthew would have been like, oh, I fuck off? Oh my gosh. I think I think that he would have probably gone back to how to win friends and influence people. They've been like, just give me another tip for how to talk to people.

Yeah, I don't think, I don't think, uh, who would have had, been able to cope with the depth of that. But yeah, I like, I want you to do a whole like,

can you do some sort of entire comic series pen of your interpretation of me as a 12 year old? No, no, no, you know what? It was, it really,

I actually feel like the, the picture you painted earlier is that you were, I mean, what you were just saying was so, was so sensitive and compassionate. So I think what you're saying is that we all actually feel that way at 12. But our ability is to demonstrate it or like receive it from others. Well, that's really what we spend our adult lives trying to return to.

You shouldn't take it personally, Matthew, because all Penn wants to do ever is do his Cockney accent. Yeah. That's all. He's just trying to find a way. You were very modest at the beginning of the show then because when I was talking about what Cockney's were, you didn't interject at all. I was listening. He also does a little Victorian British boy I actually don't really do

Cockney I only do a little Victorian boy It's something I developed When I was shooting the fourth season of my show In London It just kind of started happening on set And then it It was like a

God I'm now I'm now going to live for the day 10 Where you get to play Some sort of Victorian Cogny I like it's going to That's going to be like a little dream

come true now when you set to roll. I'll do Jane Austen and then I'll be the man picking up the handkerchief and I'll give a little wink. I'm like, where I come from

would never have made it into a Jane Austen movie. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I know, I know. I'm colliding worlds. It's all the same to me. Maybe I think we have the TV show idea that we're going to bring to you.

You'll just, you can be in a Jane Austen novel but you know, adaptation. but you'll have to be the surf you won't be able to be like the you won't be one of the main love interests that's for sure you won't be picking up any handkerchiefs yeah unless it's to wash it I suppose

Matthew thank you so much for coming by yeah this was so lovely we're so appreciative Matthew and it's a wonderful book it's so helpful I have pages of notes already and I know I'll be reading it I really appreciate it for anyone who wants to get it you get it wherever you get your books but also the website

lovelifebook.com has all the information on the book. So check it out. And it's been such a pleasure to be on the show with you all. You're all so lovely and warm and vulnerable. And this is a great show. I love what you guys are doing here. It's really, really cool. Thank you so much. You can get Matthew's new book at lovelifebook.com or wherever you get your books. You can listen to his podcast, Love Life with Matthew Hessey. And you can follow him on Instagram at The Matthew Hussie. We are so excited that you can now listen to Podcrush Add free on Amazon Music. In fact, you can listen to any episode of Pod Crush.

Add free right now on Amazon Music with an Amazon Prime membership. Penn does the introduction later. He doesn't like to do it live. So there will be a very nice and complimentary introduction to you. I completely relate. to that. I, I, whenever it's our show, I hate having to do the intro's life. When I watched Jay Shetty's podcast, I'm always so impressed because he does it totally, he's just like keeping eye contact with the guest and totally live. That's crazy.

It's so funny you say that. I thought Jay's a friend of mine. I thought the same thing the other day, like, I was watching one of his things and I was like, he just did that live. That would be, that would be the most anxious part for me. He was trying to remember someone's resume. Exactly. I watched his Gabramate episode. And, uh, And he's staring either at the camera or at the guest the entire time. And it didn't cut away. And I thought, oh, it's interesting. He's doing like they're cutting what they did after together.

And that's like kind of balzy. Like it seems pretty. And then it just cuts right together. And I was like, oh, that's live. He's staring at him. Like, undeviating eye contact. I was really impressed. Yeah.

That's amazing. This is why I'm in my aesthetic environment. I'm getting my jayshed years in while I can. Yeah. Thank you.