The Bossticks - Matthew Hussey - How To Find & Keep Love, Raise Your Standards, Be Desired, & Live Happily

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

#690: Today, we're sitting down with Matthew Hussey. Matthew Hussey is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and coach specializing in confidence and relational intelligence. His YouTube channel is number one in the world for love life advice, with over half a billion views. We have a conversation today about how to find a partner who will make you a better person and help you reach your highest potential. We dive into how to approach people, what you should and shouldn't look for in a partner, and how to become a person that people want to date. To connect with Matthew Hussey click HERE To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Watch the Show click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Delta Airlines Delta Airlines believes you should feel at home, even if you're 30,000 feet above it. Learn more at delta.com This episode is brought to you by Pvolve Try Pvolve at www.pvolve.com/skinny with code SKINNY for 20% off sitewide This episode is brought to you by Squarespace From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business. Go to squarespace.com/skinny for a free trial & use code SKINNY for 10% off your first purchase of a website domain. This episode is brought to you by Cymbiotika Cymbiotika is a health supplement company, designing sophisticated organic formulations that are scientifically proven to increase vitality and longevity by filling nutritional gaps that result from our modern day diet. Use code SKINNY to receive 15% off your subscription at cymbiotika.com This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol Nutrafol is the #1 dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement, clinically shown to improve your hair growth, thickness, and visible scalp coverage. Go to nutrafol.com and use code SKINNYHAIR to save $10 off your first month's subscription, plus free shipping. This episode is brought to you by Nerdwallet NerdWallet lets you compare top travel credit cards side-by-side to maximize your spending, some even offering 10X points on your spending. Visit nerdwallet.com to learn more. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. Quick announcement for those out there that are looking to have and enjoy even better sex with one of our portfolio businesses, Woo More Play. Many of you may remember a few episodes back on actually episode number 652. We had our partner and co-founder of our brand, Woo More Play, Weson Mitchell, on the podcast to talk all about the brand, all about having better sex, and also about a very specific raise that we are doing on a platform called Start Engine. So for those looking to learn more, check out startengine.com

slash offering slash woo more play or just go to start engine and then search Woomore Play to see the initial offering. If you find this kind of business interesting, definitely check it out. Everything's on startengin.com. And again, if you just start engine.com and search Woomore Play. Also, we will leave the link in our show notes here. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic.

And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you alone for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. Aha. In your love life, relationships, you can't take with you this hyper optimization mindset to humans. You're dealing with a person.

And if you were to exchange the things you have in this person for the things you have in another person. You don't get to tweak the one thing that you want more of because you're going to get something else that's difficult or challenging in this other person that you didn't get in the person in front of you. And relationships, they get better because you sculpt them. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Skinny Confidential Him and Her show. Today, we have a much requested guest. Matthew Hussey is finally on the show. We were able to squeeze him in while he was on his US tour while he happened to be in Austin, just happened to work out with a timely perspective. And I'm so glad that it did.

because this is a different kind of conversation that we typically cover on the podcast. And I know Matthew Hussey has a massive fan base and audience that has been waiting for this moment and we've been waiting for him to come on the show. So for those that are unfamiliar with Matthew Hussey, Matthew is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker and coach specializing in confidence and relational intelligence. His YouTube channel is number one in the world for love, life advice with over half a billion views. We have a conversation today about how to find a partner who will make you a better person and help you reach your highest potential. We dive into how you approach people, what you should and shouldn't look for in a partner, and how to become a person that people

actually want to date. This covers a lot of ground out there for the romantics or people that are just looking to get into a better relationship. With that, Matthew Hussey, welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and Her show. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. How does one get into the subject of love? Like, what's the backstory? I feel like there's some crazy story of how you even started dipping your toe into this? Mine, I was very interested in self-development as a teenager, much more interested than I probably should have been at that age. And one of the things that self-development helped me with at that age,

especially because I was brought up on books like how to win friends and influence people, and those were like books my dad had on his shelf always. The kind of natural place that went for me was I'd want to be able to talk to girls because I'm scared of talking to girls. I was like shy and introverted as a teenager. So to me, the idea that there were things you could learn that made you better with people

was like a revelation. It truly was like a light bulb moment for me that you could actually get better at that. And when I got to, man, when I got to like 19, 20, I started making videos for people in their love life. not like nothing deep, but just how people could take more risks, because I knew for myself taking more risks, being a little more courageous, had helped me to actually put myself

out there and stop waiting to be chosen, actually be able to go and choose. I'm the kid at school who if you came up to me and told me your friend wanted to go out with me and you just asked me enough times on behalf of your friend. I said yes because I was like, well, I'm not going to go up to the person I really want to talk to. So I'll go out with you because I guess I'm not going to do anything, you know, and eventually I got to the point where I went, I don't want to spend my whole life where I'm waiting to be chosen instead of actually being able to talk to the people I want to talk to. And then I started helping other people do the same.

First guys and then women started asking me, well, when are you going to do this for us? And I said, I don't really, I don't know you. I don't know what you go through in this area. But the more I kind of started reading up on the advice that was already out there for women, the more I started to see that there was actually a place for some of the things I'd learned. And that was where it all started. I was like 20, 21 years old at that point. How did you go from people choosing you to you choosing them? Like, what is that transition like? For me, it was being braver.

It was being prepared to be rejected. It was being prepared to actually create opportunities instead of like needing so many signs that someone was into me that I would never be rejected by that person and then saying yes because I knew it was completely safe. And the irony of that is when I started working with women, what I quickly realized was so many of them were doing the exact same thing. They were waiting for people to come over to them. A lot of the times, the things that women would say, that men wouldn't typically say is, I'm old-fashioned, I don't want to make that move. And so the extra barrier I had to get over with women was not just helping them make a move,

but helping them feel like it was a dynamic that they actually wanted to engage in instead of being like, well, that's not my role. That's changed a bit with dating apps. Sure. It's an interesting dynamic, though. And as you were talking, I was trying to think back and like just think on this topic in general, while you were studying all this, it sounds like, probably like at the core of this is there's a fear and maybe an insecurity or a lack of confidence and just being rejected in

general, right? That's why people don't approach. But is there a certain profile or certain type of person you cross with or a certain maybe kind of childhood that made some people more prone to feeling this way compared to others who maybe just come out the gate confident? Oh, that's an interesting question. And there's a deep question, but I wonder like, is there common denominators that you've found Not necessarily. I think for, I think it's a fairly universal thing that fear of rejection. But if for whatever reason we've been conditioned to believe that embarrassment is really bad, that there's nothing worse than looking foolish, that, you know, failure is a bad thing in that area or rejection means something about you as a person, about who you are and what you're worth at your core, anyone who suffers from those kinds of beliefs.

is going to have a hard time putting themselves out there. And there's not, you know, it's the pattern isn't that if someone, it fits the stereotype of someone who would be afraid of rejection, like they're, you know, they don't feel stereotypically attractive. They don't feel like someone who's got a lot going for them or whatever. The idea is that that person would be the person that's afraid of rejection, but anyone can be, right? You can be someone who, like your belief that you are quite great,

that you, if you think you're attractive or if you think you've got stuff going for you, that can also make you afraid of rejection. Because you don't want to like shadow the image you have of yourself. Yeah, you're afraid, you're afraid to give that up. And in a way, it's why you see a lot of, you know, a people who have a very strong ego are often the ones that are like, I'm never going to go over to anyone because there's no way I'm giving you the power to reject me and shatter that idea I have of myself.

So it works in both directions. Rejection can hurt for people who have no self-belief, but it also hurts for people who have built up a very big, strong image of who they think they are in the world. Yeah, that's what I mean, I asked you because I figured there was nuance like that. That makes so much sense when you say it. I'm not a big go-up to people kind of girl if I was single, and the reason I'm not is because I, what you mentioned earlier, want to be courted.

Like I, and I think maybe- Maybe you don't want to shatter the image of yourself, one. Maybe when you're saying that, And I'm like, is that, I don't, I think that for me, I'm so masculine in my business, that in my relationship, I want more femininity. What do you tell people that do want to be courted? Like, girls that are like, I just want the tradition. When I first started out, I'm 36 now and I've been doing this for like nearly 17 years of my life. Wow.

When I first started out, I was help. I was literally trying to get over that barrier you just said. Yeah. That I felt like women were making bad choices. sometimes with guys and accepting bad treatment because they didn't have enough choice. So in my mind, I was like, if I could just get them more choice, they'll have better people to choose from and they won't choose these assholes that keep, you know, treating them poorly. So my way of getting them more choice was to reverse that old-fashioned trend by coming at it with a certain metaphor.

And I said, look, if you think you're old-fashioned, not approaching someone at all is not old-fashioned. A hundred years ago, someone would walk past someone, drop a house. handkerchief and she'd keep walking and the guy would see the handkerchief and he'd think this is an extraordinary opportunity to be a man. He would say, pick it up and be like, Madam, you drop this. She'd be like, did I? And they'd now have a conversation, a conversation that he thought was his idea, but she chose him. So what I would tell people is, look, I can show you how to drop the handkerchief in today's era and what that looks like and how you can use that to make the move, but in a way that doesn't in any way make you feel like you're the one doing the chasing.

In fact, you can make it feel like it was someone else's idea, but you are choosing them. So how do you drop the handkerchief? I mean, it's simple way. Look, there's three things that matter in any interaction. One is eye contact, and most people don't make nearly enough of it. You know, they look at some. Many people will look at someone once, and then they'll look back at their friends, and they'll be like, okay, he knows, and he doesn't know.

He's no idea. We're really dumb. By the way, he's also not wanting to take the risk that he thinks he knows, but he's wrong and he's going to walk across the room and get rejected in front of you and your friends and have to come back and tell that story to his friends. Like, that's a hard thing for most people to do. So we need to be eye fucking in. Whoa. I would class it as multiple rounds of eye contact. But yeah.

But to your point, though, it's like it's a little strange if you're not reciprocating that. Like if a man's looking and it's not going to, like, then as the guy to just keep like staring over, because then we live in this also time with that. Like that could be construed as very creepy. Yeah, yeah. And that's honestly the last thing most guys want to come across as there are no shortage of creepy guys. But most guys I really believe it's like their worst nightmare is coming across as creepy. They're like trying to manage that situation. Especially now. Right. Like there's it's not good for a guy to be labeled. Well, it never was. But it's like these days like if you get that label as like you're a creep like that. Yeah, that's great wildfire. Okay, so go back to the eye contact. So we need to be making more eye contact. More eye contact. The second thing is proximity. Like get closer to someone because it's really, like I said, it's really hard for someone

to walk across the room to you. You're asking too much. You know what we are? We're atoms that just need to collide. That's it. Like if we want to find love, we are atoms that need to collide with other atoms. And the more collisions you have in your life, the more chance it is you're going to actually find someone.

So you have to ask yourself, how, many people am I meeting in an average week, like new people? How often am I colliding with other atoms? So now you say, okay, if I need to collide more with other people, then I have to make it easy for that to happen. One way is eye contact, because if I make more eye contact with someone I like the look of, it's going to make them braver. If they're not brave enough to come up to me with some eye contact, what I can do is get proximity. Let me just get closer to this person so that they can say something. I met my wife, Audrey. who's here with me today.

I met her because I was in a room. We made a lot of eye contact and there was boxing on the TV and I was watching the boxing. And she was like she decided to come and watch the boxing at the same time. And so side by side, it's so much easier for something to happen

than like you can risk rejection shoulder to shoulder or even like a couple of steps away. But when someone's across the room, you're asking too much. It's like walk across the room, get rejected, walk back across the room. It works.

Audrey dropped the tankerchief by standing next to you close when you guys were watching boxing. So set three is say something and don't obsess over what you say because what you're doing when you say something is you're just giving someone a green light. Like we obsess over should I approach, shouldn't I approach. And it's the wrong obsession. We should be obsessed with being as approachable as possible. Because if you're approachable, you will have no problems with initiating. things. Most people are not initiating things or having things initiated with them because they are

not approachable. It's not because they're not doing enough approaching. They're not approachable enough. And I contact proximity and saying something. Like Audrey literally asked me something about the boxing, like something she has never shown an interest in since, by the way. But that day, she was like, she looked at the boxing and she was like, so how does it work with the like, and I was, and I was immediately, we started talking. And then we talked literally for like the next. eight hours. So, and that was the first night we met each other. But that, those three things. And the irony of this is, I had been saying this since I was 21 years old. And then when I met Audrey, I, that was literally how we met was through this thing that I'd been saying for the last decade

of my life before that. So it's, it's very simple, but it's, people don't do these simple things. They don't make themselves approachable. And then they want to. wonder why they never meet anybody. Well, I think a lot of it, too, has to do with a body language. Like, I think what you're saying, too, is, like, you need to be disarming with your presence. Like, you have to have an essence of being disarming. If you're, if you have this body language where your arms are crushed and you have, like, a negative look on your face or my favorite, the worst way not to get approached is being on your phone. Like, if you're sitting there on your phone, no one wants to approach someone on their phone. It makes it look like, I don't know,

it makes it almost look like the person feels self-important. So if you're looking to be approached, don't you feel like you have to have these cues that you're open? Yeah, 100%. Looking at your phone's one of the worst ways to shut yourself off from the room. So is like you imagine like a, I don't know, a situation where you're at a bar or something like that. When you're the two,

you and your friend are like facing towards the bar and not out to the room. Like you have to create a space for someone to come in. It's like instead of creating this fortress around you, It's like someone has to heal you apart to come and say something. That's one of the hardest things in the world for people to do. I can't stress this enough. Most people are not really strong at going up to strangers and saying something. And that doesn't make them bad partners.

It doesn't make someone that would be a bad bet for your love life. So many of us are writing people off because we're like, well, if they're not brave enough to come over to me, then I'm not interested. No, we're dealing with human beings. And by the way, the people that will run up to you no matter what you're doing, not always the best people to have a relationship with. Very true. Go off on that. Whenever someone like, well, guys come up to me, they do this. And I'm like, yeah, it's the same 5% of guys in every room you go to.

Right. Because those are the guys that. I don't want to be with the guy that's going up to every single girl. No, thanks. Because one of the things I was going to say to you as being a guy, and I'm sure you have friends like this. I know certain types of my guy friends. It is a numbers thing with them.

They'll go out and they will approach as much. many as it takes until they find somebody that says yes. And then there's some other friends that I have that are great guys will make no approaches for the reasons we're talking about here. And they would be amazing guys to be in a relationship with, but they don't have that. But not surprisingly, a lot of the guys that go up all the time end up getting the girls. But in this case, I'm not to throw any shade at my friends that do this. Like, they're not the people I would want dating my sisters. No, for sure. And it doesn't, it's no indication of how great of a person you are, how great you would be in a relationship. If you're the kind of person that is like a little more reserved when it comes to just approaching strangers.

You know, we shouldn't use that as some kind of marker of, well, they're less attractive if they can't do that. This is like a team sport. It's not that you have to do all of the work for someone. is that you have to give people little green lights that make them realize that it's a maybe not a no. As soon as someone is standoffish and we think we're going to get a no, most people bail before they even try.

You know, a lot of people that I know, I'm not going to say man or women, are very picky, almost to the point where the pickiness is in their way. It's like they want someone who's over, six foot with this color hair that has this job that makes this much. I'd like a doctor or a lawyer. I want them to be charismatic and amazing and have a great personality. I think that sometimes when people are so stuck in the mud with their type, it works completely against them. What do you see

with people who are overly picky? You have to chase the right things in life or you'll always be unhappy. Chasing the wrong things will reliably make you unhappy. Go off on that because I have someone specifically that needs to hear this. I remember talking to someone who said, I can't get over this guy. And I talk about her in the book. She said, I said, well, what's it? What's great about him? and she said, well, I think she said he's really charming, he's great to be around, and he had a really big exit from his company. I thought you were going to say big something else. No, she didn't say that one.

I was like, it is hard to get over that. Fair enough. So for you, that would be the chasing the right thing. But I, for her, I was like, wait, you haven't told me a single thing about how this person treats you. Like, there's nothing in the description you just said about, this person's character or how they are with you. Like, what did any of those things meant nothing to me?

They said nothing about the strength of the relationship you had. We all have, like most people in life have at some point or another chase the wrong thing. And the, you know, that's not to say chemistry isn't important. It's not to say sexual attraction isn't important. I think those things are wildly important because it's going to be a very long life with someone. if you're with someone who you have zero chemistry with. But chemistry can come in many different forms, many different shapes and sizes. Like the idea that you can only have chemistry with this kind of person, that's a story

that you've told yourself. And a lot of that story is driven by ego. It's driven by who we think is going to look good on our arm when we bring them home to our family or friends, who's going to impress our social circle, who's going to make us feel like we're good enough because so much of who we date is our attempt to try to feel good enough through them. So if I can just get someone that matches the description you've said, then that'll make me feel good enough. And we spend our lives trying to chase someone in high school that we didn't think we could get, never paying attention to the actual qualities that make for a great

relationship. Do you feel at home with this person? Do you feel seen by this person? Do you actually feel truly accepted by this person? Do they make you more of yourself? Do you have an amazing time with this person? The problem is we get very excited by these attributes. I had a guy that I coached, or a guy that was a friend of mine, rather, he's always dated dancers. I talked to him about his wife and he said, I said, is she a dancer? And he said, least coordinated person I've ever met. And I said, well, what happened? Like, you know, did it bother you? And he said, Matt, how much of my life do you think I spend dancing? So we go out, like we dance, what, a couple of times a year?

He said, this woman is an incredible partner. She's one of the most amazing human beings I've ever met in my life. She's an incredible mother. Like, those things are the things that make my marriage amazing. The fact that she can dance is utterly, she can't dance is utterly irrelevant to me. But sometimes we have to let go of those things that we've always told ourselves we want. to find something that's actually going to matter. And here's the thing we have to suspect ourselves on.

A lot of the people you're talking about have really high standards about ridiculous things. And they have really, really low standards about the most important things. It's wild. So when it comes to kindness, it's like... Like a tool. Yeah, they're like, I have no standards around how this person

and treats me. How's her thigh gap though? How's the thigh gap? No, we have a friend. What's the thigh gap? The thigh gap is the thing when you're standing from behind. There's like a thigh gap. Lauren has this, she does this thing where she's zoned in on a specific person in our life right now.

And that's what she's, but so, but anyways, I'm going to send this. We have some friends and I'm not going to even say what should end up. But like, they are caught up in a very superficial way of dating, especially with dating apps. Like it's super, like, what is the aesthetic? It's like, none of the other stuff to your point, matters. There's no thought on kindness or what they do for a living or how they would be as a partner or what their energy is like, anything. It's a very, around other people. It's a superficial, like, this is what you look like. And I believe like this is the certain type of look that is

right for me. Again, high standard in that. But every time this person meets one of these people, they are shocked that the person is so superficial and doesn't have the other qualities. I'm like, what I pointed out to them the other day, I said, do you not realize that the way you're meeting this person is the most superficial way you could meet them. Like, why would you expect then to find, like, the ultimate partner with all this? Like, what you're putting out is not what you're going to get back in a way. Does that make sense? Oh, 100%.

And the problem is we tend to, we also resent the people that respond to our bait, whatever our bait is, but that's the bait we keep using. It's like the guy who keeps, I knew a person who, every first date, he took people to like a five-star restaurant. Like, there's going to be some crazy. easy check. And I'd be like, and this person complained to me that I just, I really don't want people who want me for my money. I was like, why do you keep going to these restaurants on first dates? Like there, I know some really amazing ramen places you can go to. Food's incredible.

I'd love a happy meal. You'd love a happy meal. Somewhere maybe between a happy meal and a five-star restaurant. But like, but to my point, you don't need to go to these places. Why do you keep taking people to these places. It's because there's something, and when you ask people that question, there's always a first response. And his first response was, well, because I'm a food guy. I love the food in this place. I'm like, you don't need to spend $500 for a meal to have great food. There are some amazing places you can go. This is about something else. This is about what you think your value is. This is about what you think is your best bait, and you've not, you don't believe in everything else you have that that's going to be interesting enough, that you have to take someone to this fancy place in order to be impressive. It's no different from men or women who are constantly on Instagram posting these ridiculous thirst trap photos that it's like, people only want me for my body or people only want me for sex or people.

Well, the bait that you keep putting out over and over and over again is hypercessing. It's so wild to hear you say this because it makes so... Like, we have a good friend and same thing. He literally will start dating a new woman and he's like, hey, let me get you a car. Do you want to get you a condo? Do you want to do this? And then a few months later to be like, I'm so pissed. Like, this person's a gold digger.

They only want me from. I'm like, dude. And I'm like, what do you talk about? He gave her the gold. I'm like, you started with all the gold. And like, to your point, they resent. And that's going to attract a certain person. And that's the brave thing.

If you really, if you're serious, like, I wrote this book for people who are serious about finding love, not getting attention. It's a big difference. To elaborate on that. And you have to, you might have to give up the attention that you're used to to find the love that you actually want and need. Give us an example of like somebody like that you're describing us, that you're describing.

Like you, well, if you're a guy, you might have to go on a date and stop talking about your achievements and stop talking about the car that you're driving or the lifestyle Oh, you have even casually alluding to it. Like people have very casual ways of alluding to it because they want someone to know. But you might have to risk them not knowing that for the first three dates to see if they like you for who you actually are. There's a smell of desperation to when you're talking about your car on the first date. There's got to be more. The car is a very on the nose example, but people do it in subtle ways all the time.

Like there are women who go on dates who say, I intimidate everyone all the time. Now, look, some people, as a woman, this is a fact. If you have anything going for you in life, there is a whole swath of men that you will intimidate no matter what, right? That's just true. But if you tell me I'm intimidating everyone, then I have to start to say, what's come, what way are you interacting or what are you bringing out constantly that is consistently making someone feel disconnected or intimidated instead of connected to you.

Because some of the most successful people I know, men or women, are the best at connecting with people. They come in with ultimate humility, and they're just curious about other people. So if we keep making someone feel a certain way, it's usually because there's a weapon we're used to using that makes us feel very comfortable. It's like telling, it's like someone who goes on a date

and does nothing but tell jokes. And that other person had a really entertaining date, but at the end of it, that person feels like, I don't really know you. It was hard to have a moment of sincerity because everything was a joke. But if that's your,

if you feel like that's your weapon that you lean on over and over and over again, then you never show the breadth of who you are that means someone says, this is the kind of rounded individual that is truly irresistible to me. And it's a danger we all can fall into. Whatever is the thing we feel most validated for, whatever we take the greatest sense of

significance from, risks becoming our greatest vulnerability because we overuse it. Whatever is our validation becomes our mutation. This one's for the travel bugs out there, the ones that are looking for the best solution when it comes to travel and airfare. I will personally not fly any commercial airlines other than Delta. To me, Delta is by far the best airline out there. I love them for so many different reasons. One, I think their application experience is by far the best.

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If you're flying in a premium cabin, they have the best options for lounges in all the biggest and busiest airports, which is always convenient, especially if you're someone like me who has to commute a lot or travel a lot. And like I said, at this point, Delta is really the only commercial airline that Lauren and I will fly. I think their best in class. I think their service is best in class. I think the information they provide from a communication standpoint is best.

I think their applications the best, their lounges. And also their in-flight experience, they always have the cleanest planes than the friendliest staff. So if you have travel plan in the future or you're getting ready to travel, think about Delta. Delta Airlines believes you should feel at home, even if you're 30,000 feet above it. Learn more at delta.com. Again, that's delta.com. So if you have travel plan in the future, you're getting ready to travel, think about Delta. Delta. Delta, Airlines, believes you should feel at home, even if you're 30,000 feet above it, learn more at delta.com. Again, that's delta.com. We recently had the founder of P-Volve on the podcast. It was amazing. It was so amazing that I actually actually. harassed her to book P-Volve workouts when I'm in L.A. So I'm like booked for four workouts. I'm a huge fan of the brand. And you know who else is a fan of the brand? Jennifer Aniston. She is obsessed with it. The founder actually found out that she was a huge fan because she received an email from Jen's team. And Jen wanted to get involved. She said she feels stronger than ever

before. Anything that Jennifer Aniston's doing, I want in on. I don't know about you. So P-Volve, if you didn't listen to the episode, go back and listen, but it's basically a functional workout method that gives you, like, resistance. And it's designed to sculpt, strengthen and energize the entire body. The cool thing about it is it's clinically backed with proven results. A lot of fitness methods are not. This method is designed to make you feel tight, toned, and lean. They even have like expert doctors and trainers on board. It's an amazing workout for if you want to save time and you want to do it from the comfort of your own home. They have on-demand streaming and they even have equipment. They send it all to your house. Recently, I got a bunch of the workout gear and it's so chic. It's like white and black.

It's amazing. We have a code for you. You can work out at home with Pvolve streaming on demand. It's so easy. It's not just another workout routine. It is a game changer. Try it out at pvolve.com slash skinny. You can use code skinny for 20% off sitewide. That's pvolve.com slash skinny. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online, whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand. Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything from products to content to time, all in one place, all in your own terms. I've been talking about Squarespace now for a couple years on this show. I think it is so important to own your own online presence, your own brand. One of the reasons Lauren and I love podcasting so much as you own and are.

S feed that you can distribute this show anywhere that people listen to podcasts. We also love owning other properties like websites and blogs and ecom sites and newsletters, all of which Squarespace can help you build. It has never been easier to build an online brand, an online shop, an online presence. They have so many things like email campaigns, flexible website templates, analytics, blogging tools, flexible payment solutions for ecom sites, appointments, courses, anything you want to build online. And like I said, you own all of this yourself. You're not reliant on a third party or a social platform to build your presence. Lorne and I think this is such a great solution for anyone that's starting out on any level

long gone or the days where you have to hire 18 different developers and designers and spend a boatload of money to stand up an online presence or a website or a blog or a shop. With Squarespace, you can do it all cost effectively, conveniently from the comfort of your own home and in a reasonable amount of time without 18 different moving pieces. Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, go to www. square space.com slash skinny to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Again, that's squarespace.com slash skinny. This may sound a little misogynistic, you know, it just might, but to your point earlier about seeking attention, if you're a woman that's out there posting

thirst traps all the time, and then you attract a certain guy because of that, and then maybe that guy also does not then want to take a relationship seriously with you. Like, again, to your point, You may be getting a lot of attention from a lot of different people doing these things, but to find love, you may have to sacrifice some of those practices. And again, like, I don't make all the rules of society and I don't make, you know, the gent. But there's a certain type of guy that might be not inclined to pursue a serious relationship with someone who's engaged in that behavior.

I'm not saying that that's right or wrong. That's just how it is. I don't think that's just a female thing. I look at guys on Instagram. Sure. And, you know, certain guys who are like, I want to be taken serious. You know, if there's a guy out there in business who's like, I want to get booked for keynote speeches by companies.

And every photo of him on Instagram is a six-pack photo. Same thing. You're not putting yourself in that lane because it's hard for people to take you seriously when this is all you're posting. But the problem is that we live in a time where people think the lanes shouldn't matter and that because they're alive in a time when people are either more accepting or they're a little bit more socially liberal, that like all of a sudden all the rules of society of past go away.

And it's like it's just not realistic. But it's also. kind of BS. Of course. People post things because it feels good, because it's like we're inclined. All of us, we are inclined to want to post to be drawn to post the things that get us the most attention. And it's no different.

You know, in love, it's in many ways the same as building a brand in business. The temptation in business is online to just post whatever content is going to get the most likes. But what gets you the most likes this week might not be the best things for your brand. long term, they might not be the things that attract the kind of opportunities you really want, but it's hard to stray away from the things that get us the most attention. But if we, in our love lives, we have to go for quality over quantity. Like, what's actually going to attract the kind of person that I am interested in? And it doesn't mean any of that is wrong.

It just means what kind of person am I trying to attract? To your point, Lauren, it's like if someone says, you know, these guys are so superfitting, but there's something about the way they're engaging with people that takes place very much on a superficial basis, then that is what you're attracting. Well, I think what I like about what you're saying is there's a lot of energetic things that aren't said that need to be talked about more.

There's energy and body language and underlying reasons people are, like, this is more than just like going on a date and being funny and cool. It's like there's energies that you're putting out there, and then you're confused at why you're getting the energy back. No, but it's like, but this could be said not just in relationship for business as well. To your point about the guy that's doing the six-pack abs

and then wanting to be a keynote business speaker, it's like you're not in the lane where other people in that lane are going to take you seriously. It has nothing to do with how you feel. It's like it's just the space in general. If you want to be there, you have to kind of put yourself in alignment with that space. Yeah, and the values of the people you want to attract.

You know how many messages I get a week from, from guys telling me they want to work with me in some way, shape or form. And when I go to their profile, it's Ferraris and watches and planes and them in some silly restaurant somewhere. And they're like, I want to work with you, bro. And I'm like, I don't think we have a lot in common right now. Like, everything you do is about money.

Every single post you have says to me, the number one thing that's important to you in life is money. Why do you think that there's a lack of humility happening? Do you think it has to do with social media? What do you think this is like going on? Like as in these things that people are posting about reflect a lack of humility? Or do you believe that maybe in some of these cases these people believe that these things are what we'll get? That's the problem.

Maybe they believe that that's what will get them attention. I think that we have, we use whatever. Look, we're all trying to get by in life. And we're all trying to find love. Whether it's love of another person, whether it's love of a community. friendships, we weren't popular at school, we didn't feel love then, we want to feel love now in adult life, we're all just looking for love. And that's the core of everyone. I really believe that. And so it's not, I'm not looking at all of these things, judging these things. I get where

it comes from, which is why I say, it's not, I'm not criticizing it. I'm saying we need bravery to do something different because it's in all of us to want love and then to put forward whatever we think is going to get us that love. And so we default to either what we've been taught. You've got guys who are being taught that, bro, you're not enough as you are. So if you go and make a ton of money and become powerful, then people will respect you. Then you'll be attractive. And so the guy that worked for the last 10 years to achieve those things, what is he going to

post about? Of course he's going to post about everything he's now achieved and all of the money he has. Or if he's on his way up, he's going to post about those things as if he has those. things because he's been told that those are the most important things about him. And it's the same for many women. If it's like, oh, this is actually the quickest route for attention. This is getting me that picture I've just posted of a sunset got three likes and the picture I just posted by the pool got 200 likes.

It's human nature to be wanting to post more pictures by the pool and less sunsets. Right? It's just we all have that gear. No one is immune to that seduction of wow, this this gets me more attention. and attention feels good because it feels like it might make me worthy. So I don't necessarily think for some people it's a lack of humility, right? And at the extreme end of that is narcissism. But narcissists are the most insecure people. It's why they have the greatest veneers.

It's why they have the greatest egos and the identities they build up. It's because they're the most insecure. So, you know, I think that we live in a culture that seems to reward a lot of what I think of as whether you want to call them the wrong things or things that just don't pay off in the long run, things that aren't really nourishing in the long run. I think we live in a culture that rewards a lot of that. I try to sit with myself and go, what is it I really want? What is it? Like for me? Yeah. Well, let me give you an example, right? Because the answer is different depending on what area of my life. But right now, I'm promoting this book. I have people

coming to me from magazines who want to do pieces with me to promote the book. And one particular magazine has come to me, a very big magazine and is like, we want to do a big piece on this, and we want to tie it to a celebrity relationship because we're big on celebrity relationships. And my immediate answer is, I'm good. I don't want to sell books as much as, you know, enough to go out and start talking about celebrities because I've got zero interest. I've never done it. In my whole career, you will never find me in 16 years of YouTube videos talking about celebrities.

I guarantee you my YouTube channel, my profile, my media presence would have all grown much faster if I was just willing to talk about celebrities. And that's the sacrifice that you make is that there are certain things you give up because there's something more important to you and you have to be connected to what is more important to you. If it's a business, how do you want to build it? What do you actually want to be known for? If it's love, what kind of love do you actually want?

And, you know, I was in a relationship where I was anxious all the time. I didn't feel peaceful. I didn't feel understood. I didn't feel valued. And that was a relationship that was hell for me. It made me miserable. So when you realize, like, I urge people in your love life, whenever you're tempted by the seductions of how charismatic someone is, how sexy someone is, how much it seems like they offer or the fun lifestyle they seem to have, how much status they seem to have, ask yourself, the last time you were truly miserable in a dating situation or a situation, a relationship, what were you missing? What didn't you have?

And the answer is likely to be, I didn't feel seen. I didn't feel acknowledged. I didn't feel safe. I felt anxious all the time. I didn't feel like I could trust this person. When you were missing that thing, even though you were probably holding on for dear life thinking, I just can't lose this relationship, I'll die if I lose this person, this amazing person. By missing that thing, you were utterly incapable of being happy in that relationship. You were miserable. When you understand that, the next time around, if you truly, connect to that and you don't forget that feeling you had, then you naturally say to yourself, no matter how amazing someone is next time around, if I don't get that thing, the whole situation

and the person is worthless to me. It means nothing to me. And that's where your power comes from, is knowing what you can't tolerate ever again and making that thing the price of admission for anyone who comes into your life, no matter how sexy or charismatic or hot they seem. So say somebody has gotten to the point now where they're in a new relationship and they're feeling good about a relationship and they want to keep a healthy relationship. Of all the people you've worked with and all the years you've been doing this, what have you seen to be the cornerstone or pillars of a healthy, successful long-term relationship? I think someone who A sees you, like genuinely cares to get to know who you.

you really are. Not they're just, they've created an image of you and they're just happy with their image of you. They never ask you any questions. They never try and figure out who you are. They've just decided you fit some kind of idea of what they want and they're not interested in getting to know you beyond that. That's a problem. You want someone who truly sees you and someone who having seen you, someone that, and by the way, you really feel safe to be yourself with, that's really important. What happens when you are more yourself? What happens when you say the thing to them that you're worried makes you unlovable?

Not when you show the most exciting parts of you, not when you show the most impressive parts of you. We all have those and we're all really good at showing those. But what happens when you actually say something to that person in a weak moment or in an insecure moment? How do they respond to that? Do they respond with love and acceptance or judgment and shame? you. You know, I, I, I, the thing I value the most about my, one of the things I value the

most is that when I was vulnerable in this relationship, it was rewarded with more love. And I've been in situations where that wasn't true. I was, been in a situation where I said, after a night, I said an insecurity to someone and I was deathly afraid of saying it. Like I really, in my mind, I went, don't say this, because they're not going to like you anymore. And I said it. And this person looked at me and said, I find that really unattractive. Wow.

And it crushed me. Like it crushed me. And I remember, I was living with a friend at the time. And I went over to his room and I was like, I'm never doing that again. Like it was the wrong lesson to take. But the lesson I took at the time was,

I knew I shouldn't have said that. I knew I should have kept it in and I didn't. I'm never doing that again. this vulnerability stuff. Like, and it took till this relationship to find, like, to then truly be vulnerable in a different way where I was like, and it was hard. It wasn't easy. It wasn't easy.

Like, I remember being vulnerable at one point and then going quite cold after I got vulnerable and her being like, why, what's going on with you? Why are you so cold right now? And I, the reason I was being cold is because my defenses went up because I was like, Now that you know this about me, you're going to look at me different or you're not going to be attracted to me anymore. Your view of me is going to change. And she was like, that is the complete opposite of the, like, the more I know about you,

the more I love you, the more I understand you, the more I know who you are. Like, I love learning more about you. And it doesn't change any of the other things I think about you from all of these amazing qualities you have. It just, I just feel like I know you better and I love that. I feel closer to you. That was a very corrective and he. feeling thing for me. So I think being seen is one of the most beautiful things you can have in a

relationship. And then I think having someone who values teamwork, there's someone who's actually a team with you in figuring it out. There's a lot of people who are in relationships. They're not really a team. That's the biggest problem that I see from, I don't want to say my inner circle, but just people, especially when I interview them, is the teamwork thing. Yeah. We argue with our partner and the problem is we get into this ego battle and we get competitive with each other instead of being like we're actually on the same team like the two of us are a unit we're building something together like that to me is the most beautiful thing about a relationship is you get to build something and the more awesome your partner is as a builder the more amazing they are the better the thing

you can build like you should hope for your partner to be as amazing as they can possibly be You shouldn't, the idea of being competitive with someone who's on your team. It's so weird. It's so weird too when I notice like even if maybe you're out to dinner with someone and they try to sort of stifle their significant others, so they look better. It's like they want to, it's called tall poppy syndrome, I think in Australia, where they want all the poppies to be the same. No one can grow too high.

To me, I think that's really important in a relationship is to be able to allow the person to reach their whole potential and to be a cheerleader for that person. Or couples that are always bashing the other person behind the person's back when they're not with the person. We go to, we'll meet couples all the time, not to call it any specifically. And it's always strange to us when they do that because it's like the next interaction we all then have, Lauren and I are kind of like, well, we have all this like energy. We're all bringing to this dynamic. Like say that we, us three all went to dinner and you were just bashing your wife, not that you ever would. Seems very lovely. But then we all would go, all four of us go to dinner after.

And we're all three sitting there like, you, I just heard Matthew say, it's just like, I think it's a real betrayal. Yes. Because they're sitting there not knowing that you've bashed that they've been bashed to the group. It's a horrible thing. It's a real, that to me is like beyond unkind. It's a breaking of trust. It's a breaking of a pact that you should have with your partner. And it's a, and it's a kind of, it's almost like a lack of, I want to say like a.

lack of vulnerability. We're afraid of giving too much in case someone else doesn't give back. You also see this sometimes in a relationship where one person in the relationship decides to start really trying to better themselves and the other person kind of cuts them down for doing it. It's like a weird thing. It's like I don't want like I want to keep you here. I think that's a projection though that they don't want to better themselves so they're projecting an energy onto the person. Or it's like maybe I don't want anyone else to desire you type and there's like a lot of weird. I think there's that there's a fear of I'm going to lose you. There's a fear of this upsets how I think about myself. We all exist in

this web with other people. When none of us are on our own, none of us are an island, we have threads between us and everyone we know. And when someone we know does something, even if it's not your partner, it could be a friend, it could be a colleague. If they do something, it sends like a ripple through the thread between us. And it forces us in some way to question our identity. If I go for a dinner, I'm like, usually I eat pretty healthy. I'm traveling around right now. We're doing all these podcasts and everything. My diet is atrocious right now.

I've not been training. I don't feel that great in my body right now. I don't feel like myself. If I go to dinner with friends and they order salad tonight, there's a little piece of me that feels bad. I don't hate them for it. But I also am like, it really reminds me of the fact that I'm not eating well this week. And so it doesn't, you'd think that that thing just happens in isolation.

They're like, I'm ordering a salad order or whatever you want. No judgment here. But I'm feeling something about myself because I'm going, I should order it salad, but I don't want a salad. I'm just tired and stressed and hungry and I want to eat the burger. You know, Texas and the barbecue here's pretty good. The Texas barbecue and the tacos and everything else. And it's, so on every level we're used to this, our identity gets.

affected by how someone shifts or changes their identity around us. And it does take strong people and generous people and open people to welcome other people's identities expanding and to have a strong enough sense of self that they don't feel threatened by that. If you already feel you're not enough and someone else around you gets larger in some way, then it immediately, it reminds you that you don't feel enough and it makes you feel like you're going to lose that person because right now the thread I have to you is tied to you staying where you are.

So it's a very challenging thing, but in a relationship, I had a boxing trainer that used to say to me, pay your sparring partner, that you pay your sparring partner. And I said, what do you mean? He said, you, like Muhammad Ali,

couldn't have become Muhammad Ali without George Foreman. He needed George Foreman. He needed another great boxer to be the Muhammad Ali that we know. So when you have someone that you feel is your competition in some way, because they're great, I think about this in business all the time. Like, who's the person that makes you feel insecure? Send them a check. Because that's the person that's going to make you better.

That's the person that's actually going to up your game. You can't become the person you're going to become. come without having that standard set. And you can actually look at your relationship the same way. I want my partner to be as amazing as she can possibly be. I want her to go as far as she can go, whether it's professionally or personally in her own growth. I want it to go as far as she can go because that rising tide raises all boats, right?

That's going to make me better if I'm around that. That's a privilege to be around someone who's great. And you can spend your life surrounding yourself with people who are not, great and you can feel big and strong and important, or you can make your goal just your highest potential. But you can't reach your highest potential without surrounding yourself with amazing people. You just can't. Jesus Christ, there it is. That's the clip for TikTok. I mean, that was a great, great, great sentiment. For a long time listeners of this show, this will be no new information, but it may be the information to get you right over the edge to start taking care of yourself,

your health, thinking about a better way to live. And that is why I'm so excited to talk about symbiotica. We've talked about symbiotica on this show for so long now. We've had the founders of symbiotic on the show, I think five or six times they might hold the record. And that's because every time we have them on the show, we go down rabbit holes of so many different areas of health and wellness, which I know this audience loves so much. At this point, symbiotica is taking up most of our cupboard space when it comes to supplements. And that is because they have so many incredible supplements that we take on a regular basis. I think symbioticca is vitamin D3 and K-8. 2 is one of the best on the market. It's liposomal delivery so you actually eat it. They make a

phenomenal glutathine, which is one of the best antioxidants for the body. They also have a liposomal vitamin C that we take every time we travel. For those that are looking to get better sleep, their magnesium L3 and 8 is such a powerful formula. You can take this in the morning or at night. We typically take it both, actually, and it's one of the only magnesiums that passes the blood-brain barrier. What we love about symbiotica is there's such a focus on quality supplements and products in a market where there's so many people that cut corners, this brand definitely does not. I named a few of my favorites, but like I said, there's so many phenomenal products, whether it comes to gut health or cleaning or sleep, their line has become so robust they have

options for everyone, whatever your health needs may be. And of course, we have an offer for our listeners. Start your subscription today. You can save up to 15% off your subscription with our code skinny. Just go to symbiotica.com and use code skinny on your subscription order. Again, that is symbiotica.com and code skinny. My hair has never been thicker in my life. This is attributed to just really getting serious about my hair health.

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tight on time here, but before you go, when you talked about kind of enough, and I wonder, like, and I think you talk about like being happy enough, how do you define that? And, you know, the way I think about this is, we all kind of know these people that have either reached a certain level of success or like have something in their relationship and they just kind of like push for that extra inch, that extra mile. And sometimes to their detriment, Robert Green talks about this in his book. It was like, they go past their mark. And like historical examples, like Napoleon does not need to go into Russia, right? Like, it was fine. You didn't need to do all that. Like, there's all sorts of examples of powerful people in relationships and throughout history and in businesses that,

like, they just go too far because they just can't be happy enough. When you think about that, especially for what you do, how do you kind of talk to the people you work with about that? The opposite of happy enough is never enough, right? And there are all so many people for whom it's never enough. There are people for whom they'll never be happy in a relationship so long as someone that on paper is better looking than their partner can walk into a room. They'll never be happy as long as there was a, you know, something else they could have gotten. There was a quality that the partner they have doesn't quite have as much as this person over here. But in your love life, relationships, you can't take with you this hyper-optimization mindset to humans.

you're dealing with a person. And if you were to exchange the things you have in this person for the things you have in another person, you don't get to tweak the one thing that you want more of. And the grass isn't always greener. No, because you're going to get something else that's difficult or challenging in this other person that you didn't get in the person in front of you.

And relationships, they get better because you sculpt them. It's not like an iPhone where it's like this one has a better version of the camera. You're getting a bunch of other shit that may be broken as well. That's exactly right. And it misses, it really does miss the point that what makes relationships great is that the two of you together, you evolve and you sculpt and you create this history and you build something together. Like, that's the special part. In the book, I talk about there being four levels of importance in any situation. There's a chapter called How to Tell Love Stories, because I think we tell ourselves love stories all wrong. And we get attached to all the wrong love stories. I guess it's fine. and books are great. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm a huge romantic when it comes to movies and books. But I never confuse them with what a real love story looks like. I did love Cinderella. You love Cinderella? Yeah, but go on. What was Cinderella? The prince. She's cleaning like No, but talk about this though because I... Titanic.

Okay. How old is she in Titanic? Have you seen that meme of the person and it's like the greatest love story of all time, the woman who slept with a homeless man and then let him drown? That's like kind of like summed it up in a dark way. Well, here's what does trouble me about the story is we are all invested in this love story between two people that took place, what, 80 years ago in her life, 70 years ago in her life, and she knew the guy for how long, five days? Honestly, to be kind of crass, I mean, she fucked him in a car and then he drowned.

The car was hot, though. Yeah, I know, but the point is... The car was hot, come on. But to your point, like, where... By the way, I'm not bashing Titanic. I love that film. I cry every single time I watch that film. Not bashing the story, the movie.

But in real life, this is a story about someone who is still thinking about and talking about someone that she knew for a few days. Decades ago. This is not... You know, we have to stop cheapening what, you know, when people were in a marriage for many years and they build something amazing, that can't be compared to a three-month fling that someone had, that they're like, he, you know, he was amazing. He was, I just feel like he was the one. And you go, well, what happened? Well, he decided he wanted to go traveling. It's like, well, then this wasn't anything you think it was. You had a great connection for a couple of months. What is that? That's fireworks. It's not a life. anyone can enjoy fireworks for 10 minutes, but a life is what happens the day after the fireworks. New Year's Eve, the fireworks, oh, they're amazing.

But next morning, you wake up into your actual life and that's your life. So in this chapter, I talk about what's a real love story? What's a real love story? One that's worth valuing. It has four levels. The first one is admiration, which, by the way, is level one, which is to say, not that important if you don't have the other three, right? because level two is mutual attraction.

Now I don't just admire you from afar or think you're awesome or have this unrequited love. You don't even know I exist, but I think you're amazing. It's nonsense. For something to mean anything, there has to be a mutual feeling. Okay, so now you have level two, mutual attraction, chemistry, connection, whatever. You've made it to level two. Go on. Now everyone thinks level two is really important.

And why do we say level two is really important? Because I never meet anyone I like. And especially when they like me back, oh my God. That's like the Holy Grail. That's amazing. That's so rare. But level two is not that important either. Because level two is riddled with people who are like, he's just amazing.

She's just amazing. Oh my God. I've never felt this way before. I feel amazing where we could talk about anything. We talk about. What's the problem? Or they said they don't want a relationship. Then you have nothing.

What is this? This is not, you know, you can't. If someone, if the love of your life gets hit by a car, that's tragic. If the love of your life is at target right now, buying things, and the only obstacle is that they don't want to be with you, that's not the love of your life. They still exist on this planet. They're not gone somewhere.

They're there. They're just deciding not to be with you. That's not the love of your life. So level two, mutual attraction is a prerequisite for something important, but on its own, not that important. So level three is commitment. There's two people actually saying yes to each other. Do you have someone who's actually saying yes?

If you do, I promise you, they're not important. They cannot be important. So they have to be saying yes to be important to you. Otherwise, not important at all. But there's a fourth level, and that's compatibility. You can have two people who are saying yes to each other, but are they actually compatible? Love is not all you need.

Love isn't enough. You need compatibility. If you've got two people who both, They're in level three. They have commitment and they have mutual attraction. But one of them feels like it's okay to pathologically lie. And the other one really values honesty. This is going to be a miserable relationship for the person who values honesty.

If you've got one person whose idea of a good time is being out till 5 a.m. every night and sleeping through the morning and another person who values the morning or values time with their partner that's not in some loud environment surrounded by people all the time, then you're going to have two unhappy people in this. that case. Good thing we like to be in bed at 8 p.m. together. So what do you think we're speaking in our language too? So what do you think people do is they get to this point where maybe they have a few of these things and they disregard all the other stuff? Because of a scarcity mindset, we find something that, you know, where we feel an attraction and we cling onto it. And we're so afraid to let go of it because we're worried nothing's ever going to come along again if we do, that we settle for that thing. And not to mention, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, we're I'm happy to go into this.

But there's all this nervous system wiring that we've had since we were children, many of us, that has us responding to the complete wrong thing. Someone picks us up and puts us down. Someone doesn't text us for five days and makes us feel anxious. And then texts us on the sixth day and says, what are you up to? Oh my God, this feels so good. It's like a drug. And it's a drug that we're used to.

We're used to, you know, we feel anxious and we call it chemistry. You know, we have crazy sex with someone after a fight and we call it passion. You know, it's this feeling that so many people are addicted to that then they think that they measure the importance of someone in their life by the intensity of feeling they have when they're with them. And it's a complete non sequitur. There's no relationship between, just because you feel really intensely about someone, do you know what?

People feel really intensely about drugs, right? There's an intense feeling, but none of us say, I must take these drugs home to meet my family. These are really important. I feel like this is my life's destiny is to be with these. Some of them do take their drugs to meet their family, and it's a fucking nightmare disaster. They'll take someone that they met on a one-night stand home to their family, and it ruins Thanksgiving. It doesn't work out well. Yes.

And then we pay no attention to the fact that it has ruined Thanksgiving and that no one we care about seems to really value or get on with this person because it's something. Something about it produces a familiar feeling for us. And when something's familiar, it's, like, that's, that's, now we're getting into deeper stuff, but we keep gravitating towards these things that have been patterns our whole life. I have a whole chapter in the book called How to Rewire Your Brain, because the truth is, what's getting in the way for so many of us in our love lives is that we have wiring that keeps driving us to head on collisions with the things we say we don't want.

I was going to ask you how you, in a way, and maybe this is dumbing it down, and I'm sure your book is much more elegant than I'm going to put this, but how do you get people to kind of like start using their rational mind and to start recognizing these patterns? You have to, I'm such a good question. You have to start to deviate from your normal behavior, which takes bravery and it takes curiosity because you have to do something different than you would normally do. And by doing something different than you would normally do, you start to invite a different. from a subtly different result. And when you get a subtly different result, it can be just the beginning of a new belief about what's possible. I'll give you an example. There was a woman I coached. She was by all accounts dating a guy who was a great guy so far, like had been doing everything right. And then one Saturday, he got together with his friends and he didn't invite her. Like daytime

thing, Saturday. And all her abandonment issues came up. She, it just activated her nervous system. And she went into full fight or flight. And in the middle of him being with his friends, she texted him and said, why didn't you invite me? And he said, oh my God,

I'm so sorry. You know, I haven't seen these friends in a while. I was just looking for a get-together, but can I call you later? And now remember, her nervous system is activated. She's not in her rational mind.

And so she's now in her programming. And he said, can I call you later? She said, don't bother. Three days later, she's saying to me, this always happens to me. Now he's not texting me back. Now he, like, I knew this would happen. So now what's the thing she wants, less in the, at least in the entire world, she does not want to be abandoned.

That's like the thing she fears the most. What has she created in this situation? She's literally created the thing that she's most afraid of. There's an addiction to the chaos that you had when you were a kid. If abandonment was hers, she wants to warm the temperature right to abandonment so she can create it because there's an addicts behind it. It's also just with, it's familiar. And when something's familiar, it gets really hard to stop doing, even if it makes us unhappy

because anything that's unfamiliar just feels scary. if it's outside of our comfort zone. So we have to start doing things. And by the way, when we do something that's unfamiliar, we have to be prepared for the fact that we are like a toddler who does not know what they're doing. Let's say instead, she said, right, how do I deviate from my programming here?

If I could just do something different than I would normally do, what is it? Well, maybe I'm going to express that I'm going to speak to them that night and express that I was, I got hurt by the fact that I wasn't. invited. So I still bring it up. But instead of saying, why didn't you invite me, don't bother calling me? Instead, I get on the phone and I say, this may be silly. Maybe I don't have a right to feel this, but I actually felt a little hurt and sad that you didn't invite me today. I don't want him to invite me because I want him to see how boring life is without me. Which is a different pattern.

We don't, listen, we'll have you back on it. It'll be about four hours. Let's talk about Four hours to go out with your friends and you can see how that is without me and my personality and you go see how that is. We got a lot of pattern resolving to do the next time you come back. No, but so, okay, so in this instance, what did you do with this woman to help her through this? To help her understand that, look, this, firstly, it's not, ultimate compassion for yourself is necessary in this situation. And that's why I said to her is that you have to be really compassionate to yourself because the next wave of what we feel when we do this is shame.

Yeah. Like, I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I blew it. What's wrong with me? Why can't I be a normal person and have a normal reaction to stuff like that? Why did I have to get so hot-headed, so hurt? We then shame ourselves. And that's the wrong thing to do because, look, there was a time in her life where that

abandonment was real. So there's a part of her that's not reacting to what's really going on here. it's reacting to a time in her life where she, her body adjusted in a way it had to adjust for her to survive, whether it's physically, emotionally, psychologically, that requires ultimate compassion. When you get triggered by something, no one's choosing to get, you don't choose to get activated where you now feel like tense and anxious and you don't feel good anymore. No one like would choose to flick that switch and turn that on is involuntary. So compassion.

This comes from a time where your body got wired up in a certain way and you didn't choose that. So now we're dealing with the wiring. Okay, so we're here. How do you get out of your wiring? Well, first, recognize that this old wiring has not worked for you in many situations as an adult. In fact, it keeps robbing you of the very thing that you want the most in the world. You want love, you want connection, you want intimacy, and this fear of abandonment is literally making you push people away.

So this hasn't worked. Now, are there people that get different results than that? Are there people that don't push people away? And that have an easier time connecting with people because they don't push people away. Yes, we know that to be true. So let's get really curious about what they might do in this situation. I can remember a time in my life where I would get jealous and I hated being jealous. It's like a worse feeling in the world.

I don't want to be jealous. And I remember finding people who I knew who were in great couples and just being a dummy with them, just sitting with them and asking questions like a toddler who just doesn't know what he's doing. So how do you not get jealous? And okay, so, and then I'd like come up with scenarios. So if they did this and this, what would you do?

And I'd see where I went left, they went right. And I'd go, oh my God, you have. have a completely different way of seeing this and approaching this. And it made me realize that this reality is one that I am creating over and over again and that there are people whose relationships I love, respect and admire, and want to model who have a completely different way of seeing this and a different way of reacting at that fork in the road moment. So she can start paying attention to what other people do in these situations. Ah, okay, if you're a bit hurt, express that you're a bit her express that you feel a bit sad because you wanted to be there. And then what happens is you

you start to get a different result and a different result is good. Any different result is good. Because what it teaches you is a different result is possible. And that then shatters your belief that what you've been getting so far is all that's available to you. That's when you start to realize your past does not have to equal your future in this area, that there are a thousand different ways to live this life and play this game and interact with people and that the way you've been doing it, your whole life so far is only one of them. And this assumes a level of self-awareness that these individuals have reached that they themselves are maybe their greatest enemy in some cases.

Yeah, that there's something we're doing to reproduce a result and that, you know, curiosity is a very powerful word. If you get curious about other experiences that other people are having or the way they're engaging with life and that you see that, that requires humility, there are other people having an experience that is different from the one I'm having. Why are they having a different experience? How do they go about life differently? How can I take some of that? I may not be able to be all of them, but how do I take 5% of that, 10% of that, and bring it into my life? When you do that, my God, it's like your whole world changes. Your whole world changes.

They can start by getting curious about your book, how to raise your standards, find your person and live happily no matter what. Love Life by Matthew Hussey. Where can everyone find you, Pimp yourself out. Where can we get your book? You're also the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Get the Guy. Yeah, from 10 years ago. Damn. Where can I go and find you? Your Instagram's amazing. The thank you. The new book is called Love Life. If you go to lovelifebook.com, not only can you get a book there from any bookseller you want, but we have this really fun thing on May the 4th. I'm doing a big virtual live event for people from all over the world. The only way to get access to this event is to grab a copy of the book. It's called Find Your Person. And it's going to be

an amazing accompaniment to the book. I'm going to be coaching people live. So that's happening on May the 4th. If you buy it from lovelifebook.com, I mean, you could buy it from anywhere, but if you come back to lovelifebook.com and put in your confirmation code, you'll be able to get a ticket to that event on May the 4th. But I've been working on this for years. I'm very, very proud of it. I know how hard it is. I've lived with people for 15 years struggling to find love. I was struggling to find love. I didn't write this book as a married person. I was a single person writing this book.

And during the course of this book, I met my partner, got married, and then the final edit of this book I did on my honeymoon, which is crazy. Like there were parts of this book I wrote deeply, deeply heartbroken and in a really tough place. So, you know, you'll also get to know me on a much deeper level. and the journey that I've gone through. But it worked for me. It's worked for so many people that I've helped. And it's for anyone who wants to find love faster, do love better, and also be happier on the way there so that they're not deferring their happiness to a time in the future where they have a partner because life is too short for that. And also, you never know when you're not

going to have a partner anymore. So the link is lovelifebook.com. And Instagram? Instagram is at the Matthew Hussie. Thank you for doing this. I'm glad we got you in here. Thank you for having me, guys.