The School of Greatness - 189 Matthew Hussey on the Secret to Attracting Your Dream Relationship

Episode Date: June 15, 2015

"It's not enough to have confidence in life. You have to have competence." - Matthew Hussey If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at lewishowes.com/189.

This is episode number 189 with New York Times best-selling author Matt Hussey Welcome to the school of greatness My name is Lewis Howes former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur in each week We bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome everyone to the episode today. Very excited about our guest. Matt Hussey has become a good friend over the last couple of months here.

We've connected in Los Angeles and the more and more I learn about this guy, the more I learn to love him and all of the stuff that he does. Now, Matt Hussey, this guy is a charmer and a charmer in a good sense of the word because he is a wealth of information. He is an incredible speaker, a New York Times bestselling author, columnist for Cosmo magazine, and a dating expert on the Today Show. He's on the Today Show like every week. He also runs programs all across the world helping thousands of men and women reach their true performance potential. He's worked with celebrities like Christina Aguilera, companies like Hugo Boss, Procter & Gamble, and over 50,000 women.

I think it's probably like 100,000 now, but over 50,000 women have attended his live events and he's reached over 10 million people online. He is a young guy, but has a wealth of information and a wealth of experience. So it's like I go and watch some of his videos and he's speaking to women about relationships. But it's like I learn about relationships with myself, with business partners, with my team. I learn about my business and just psychology and just everything. It's not just about helping women find the man of their dreams, although that's what he teaches. But he also teaches so much more. although that's what he teaches, but he also teaches so much more.

And I found this interview to be fascinating, a lot of fun, intimate, and really connected. So I hope you get a lot out of this interview. And make sure to check out the show notes back at lewishouse.com slash 189 as you're going to get the full video interview that we did here in the studio in School of Greatness. Also, some extra tips that Matt talks about that you're going to make sure you can only see on the bonus page at lewishouse.com slash 189. So make sure to check that out after this. And yeah, let's go ahead and dive in right now with the one and only Matt Hussey. Welcome back to the School of Greatness, everyone everyone thank you guys so much for tuning in

today we've got a new friend on matthew hussy what's up brother hello man hi thanks for having me i'm excited about this i am too actually yeah you've you've interviewed some big people so i feel very honored to be here well you're another one of the big people so i first heard about you because we we connected a few weeks ago and talked about this but i first heard about you because we we connected a few weeks ago and talked about this but i first heard about you because you were on a show called ready for love and i was being aggressively uh recruited to be one of the quote-unquote bachelors on the show as well and i remember having being so torn about this because the the producers and the and directors were like evil and gorya wants you this is going to be a huge show it's gonna be bigger than the bachelor and i was so torn because

i was like this could be great for my business but i don't want to be that guy who was a bachelor type because none of those guys have done anything in their career afterwards except for maybe one or two have like kind of done well and i remember watching the show when it came out because it was just promoted everywhere buses planes you know everywhere you could go it was just promoted and i was like who is this guy you were the only guy on the show who's coaching these women there was two other like relationship coaches right yeah yeah and um i remember thinking to myself and this could be big but that after the third episode, it went under and they stopped it. Yeah.

And I was like, thank God I didn't have to make a decision to do like the next season. Yeah. Man, that was a heartbreak for you because you did so much time and energy in building this. It was. It was. It was a very grueling year doing that show. And it was kind of a, it was an example of something that, you know, I feel like in life, there are things that you invest time in that you know will pay off tomorrow or tonight or whatever, you know by writing it you'll be able to hand it in tomorrow or it's making a sales call and you know that you'll get commissioned by next week this was like uh it was like buying a lottery ticket but then investing a year into that lottery ticket and hoping that it was going to be a winner yeah and it turned out to be a it certainly wasn't wasted

investment because a lot of interesting opportunities have come off the back of that. You know, a lot has happened for me as a result of the exposure that that show gave me. Interestingly, not necessarily to a mass audience because a mass audience never watched it. me exposure to certain key decision makers who watched me perform in that environment and as a result saw that i was capable of handling a show like that yeah so a lot has come to me but at the same time come from that yeah you know i'm now i heart radio exactly i'm a regular on the today i'm a resident uh expert on the today show i have my own radio show now and you know there's there's lots of good things but at the same time still you you know every now and again you think god that that could have been huge but it was on abc right it was on nbc but it was prime time i mean it was a it was a big big show they spent millions and tens of millions of dollars

i think the budget i was i heard somewhere was 50 million for the show there or thereabouts um so it's it is crazy but you know that's kind of life i i have a friend of a friend of mine uh is a director here in in la and he said you really had the full hollywood experience from start to finish you you auditioned you got a show you got chewed up like every like everything happened for you so that you know that's kind of in a way that's kind of fun except for the huge success of it exactly but you know what that's the part you can do well if you're in a business like ours where you get to uh invest in yourself and you don't have to wait for people to give you opportunities then you don't really need the show for that. The show just becomes that catalyst.

And this is where I remember I do research on pretty much everyone because I'm always interested in seeing what people are doing, how they're doing it, and then I reverse engineer what they're doing and see if I can apply it to my business. It doesn't matter if you're in the dating space or the sports or the fitness space. How can I apply something to my business and to my vision? And I remember researching you and the other two women i don't even remember who these other women are but i remember googling your name and seeing your website and saying ah this guy is smart because

you had built the back end getting ready for the amount of track that i was going to come to you unfortunately it didn't probably come as much as you wanted, but you built an engine and a system and this content with a foundation that the other two didn't have. Yes. And we'd been building that for several years. So there's certain things that you can't just do overnight. No. It took time. It took time. And luckily, because we'd already invested time in that, we were in a different position to benefit than the others were. Now, you know, the interesting thing is someone, I remember once wanting to go on holiday. And one of my mentors, I said to one of my mentors, I can't go.

I don't have enough time, you know. And he said, then you're a slave because you you is seven days and he said at the end of the day those seven days that you have to build the systems in order to get will be worth it just to get you to build the systems yes and you know i kind of think of the show a bit like that that the show forced me to be ready for something that never actually happened right but by getting ready my business is now stronger than it has ever been so you know even that itself is kind of a blessing yeah and i read online correct me if i'm wrong that you've over 50 000 women have attended your live events is that yeah you know that number's

now out of date it's now closer to a hundred thousand so yeah so you do live events. Is that? Yeah. You know, that number's now out of date. It's now closer to a hundred thousand. So yeah. So you do live events all over the world or, or how is it? We, we started in London and, and those grew and grew and we started doing them a couple of different places in Europe, but mostly the UK. And then it was my dream to do a seminar in America. Truthfully, it was my dream to come to america uh i i you know i've i since i think 13 years old i really wanted to live here and visited um i had visited this this is the funny i'm embarrassed about this now but when i was when i was that age 12 13 my parents brought me to america for the first time and took me to florida and i remember yeah exactly the whole the whole the whole thing and i remember it was the first time i'd ever been somewhere where

someone said you know at the end of a phone call like have a great day or someone actually spoke to you or and i i just remember and of course at the time at the time you know i've didn't put two and two together that i'm in disney world everyone's trying to get a tip everyone's being paid to be super nice and tell you to have a magical day whatever but but it that's kind of like that in a lot of places it is it is and it did something to me because i it was so different from what i'd grown up with london in london anyone is not like that the complete opposite and and i thought this is more what i want okay you know i was i knew enough to know that there was a slightly contrived element to it where i was but at the same time i thought i prefer this um i i you know people sometimes say that about la like it's so fake the way

everyone's so nice to each other and blah blah well i don't mind that like even you know if their little bit of fakeness means that they're just a bit more polite when I first say hello to them or something, I'm sort of okay with that. And so I kind of had this childish view of moving to America and everything being, you know, Disneyland. And then interestingly, the older I got, that never really changed. Even when I traveled more of America and saw a real side of America and what America is in different states, because there are so many different Americas, right? Yeah, of course. But I still somehow felt more at home here than I did back there. And I still love England and I love where I'm from, but it's something about living here suits me better.

I used to date a girl who was uh so to answer your question sorry i i started to bring seminars here just because i wanted to be here not because i thought it was a terrifically good idea i didn't i didn't necessarily think i'm now gonna make it in america i just thought let me just if i can run a seminar for five people in new york or something at least i can say i'm going to america for work and you know it's different when it sounds cool when you get to say i'm going for work you somehow somehow you feel important and special and uh and i i i lost money i think the weekend i did it i lost money i spent more on my plane ticket i think than i made in seminar seminar tickets but it just it meant something special to me to do it.

So now you've done a hundred thousand women who have come to your live events and they, they're all smaller events. Are they bigger events? So how do those work? They're, they're, they're a different, so we have, um, these one day dating events that I do for my organization, get the guy. So, uh, we, we coach women in their love lives how to find, attract, and keep the guy they want. And the one-day event that we do is kind of a show. It's a big event. We have anywhere from – the smallest one we do is probably 300, but that's where we go to a small state that – a small city, I should say, where we're bringing people that are just getting to know us. But you know, when we do New York or LA or London, we're talking 1500 people in a room. It's amazing. Yeah. Full day. That's a full day. That's a long day. And then, um,

but people are on their feet. They're moving around. They, they get used to the energy. Is it all women? All women. Wow. And then we do five day retreats where it's a bit smaller. It's more intimate. It's about 250 people. And there we do a more retreats where it's a bit smaller. It's more intimate. It's about 250 people. And there we do a more immersive program. Of course. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting because there's not too many people in the relationship online dating advice space that I want to hang out with because there's so many guys out there who just leave a bad taste in your mouth. But don't you feel like that about self-help in general? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I sort of do. I've learned learned to hate it maybe people say that about me too right like oh who is this guy preaching something um but i uh you know but i just feel

like i've got a bad taste in my mouth especially being in la because i've met a bunch of guys who have sleazy courses and they do the online marketing thing, in my opinion, in a way that isn't of the highest integrity. Now, I'm not saying I'm always, you know, I'm the most perfect person in the world with everything I do because I know I make mistakes. But when you're intentionally doing something that's like, I don't know, it's just got a bad taste in my mouth in the dating space for some reason, a lot of the marketers. And I remember seeing

your stuff the first time and thinking oh this guy's doing it right but i don't know if i trust him yet and someone introduced us via email and i was kind of like yeah i don't know if i want to meet this guy because honestly the dating space whatever but then he was like you know he's actually a really good guy you're gonna love his stuff and then when i met you i was like oh i get it now i know why a hundred thousand women come to your stuff. Now I know why you're on the Today Show all the time. Now I know why you're getting the results. And then I was like, let me watch some of these videos. And I'm going to link up a bunch of your videos here in the show notes for people. But I started watching your videos and I was like, wow, okay. It makes

a lot of sense because you're doing it with integrity and you actually have a lot of sound advice and wisdom for women. And I see you're helping a lot of millions of people you're helping. And the cool thing about you is, you know, I was actually listening to a video last night for like an hour of you. Like it was like the three dating advice tips or something of you speaking in a seminar, answering questions. Right. And I remember just hearing your answers, all these women would say, well, what if I'm, um you know with a guy and the flames out or what if i'm excited and he was excited and then he starts not responding and you were answering questions and i was like they're all so logical yeah and sound it's not like this sleazy weird things it's like well

think about it if you were in this position how would you respond and this and this and this and it was like man you're giving great advice and now i know why so many people are attracted to the information you're putting out there well thank you so much i really appreciate that i i i think that too much advice either strays into the uh either the aphoristic side of things it's very very cliche i mean this is what i think one of the big problems i have with the self-help industry in general is it um it it it has it's become so platitudinous it's just it to the extent that it becomes mind-numbing and and to some extent i the crowd that it begins to attract i don't like or have anything in common with right uh you know when someone comes up to me at the end of a seminar and says you know

i love your stuff you know it's it's um you know i'm a big law of attraction fan i know immediately we have nothing in common right um i i think wow i wow, I don't even know how you like my stuff. Right. Because I can't stand these concepts and this pseudoscience that is often put out there. For me, I'm all about the logical. I'm all about the practical. And I like things that can be tested. I think that's why people like tim ferris perhaps have

done so well because they in in a market that is full of just vague silly advice yes um you know i hear people in their life you know say to women in their love lives just open your heart and you think what do you mean by that like what does she do today that's different based on that piece of advice just like be yourself um you know be yourself is is extraordinarily lazy advice right it's the advice people give when they don't know an actual solution because what do you just be yourself what does that even mean you know and by the way be yourself is often just a euphemism for don't grow right because how many people are the same person today they were five years ago no one and who's going to be the same today uh tomorrow as they

are today people change and they evolve so be yourself is a very strange uh and lazy piece of advice to give someone but that's what we get all the time so advice either goes into the to the kind of vague or it ends up going into um sometimes the sleazier or more sarcastic elements you know i sometimes think at the other end of the spectrum sometimes you have the comedian you know the guy who is just everything's a joke everything's's sarcastic. There's very cynical. Oh, you can't change anything. Blah, blah, blah. Learn to deal with it. And that gets too much the other way. Then someone essentially just becomes a cynic. nice balance of realism and, and I wouldn't even say optimism,

just the, the being empowered to actually do something about real life, however that stands. So what I'm curious about is how, why is it you have the credibility to give so many women advice? You're only 27, right? And why should they listen to you when,

you know, you're a man? Should they even trust you? You're not married, right? No, no. And you're currently single, I believe, right? Single. So why should they believe what you're saying has validity?

Firstly, that you're right in the sense that being a man gives me no extra credibility whatsoever. I always cringe when a journalist says to me well this is so great because you're a guy so you can give them insight into guys i think what a stupid argument that is it's like saying you're a woman so you know all women right how many women are exactly the same yeah you know how many women do you get in a room and they agree on everything the the same is true of men i'm not i don't i'm not here to speak on behalf of all men sure um i might be here to relay a message that i constantly get from men or something that i observe with an enormous number of men i mean i i say to women i only

started working with women a because they asked me to i i didn't when when i was a coaching guy i coached nearly 10 000 guys and women were saying when are you going to do the same thing for us and i i said i don't know because i don't really know you uh i know men uh because i've not because i'm a guy but because i've just coached 10 000 of them over the last three years i said so i have something to say about men i said but i don't know you and they said don't worry we don't want to know more about us we know we want to know about men yeah so i said well that i can do and i started i sat down and i i started talking about some things that were that felt obvious to me based on what i'd learned from men but weren't obvious to them you know a very simple thing would be that there were so many women out there that were saying well i i want a guy who

has the balls to make a move on me right and and if he's interested he's already coming over to me and there was certain there were massive dating books out there for women that would say this like if he's not coming over to you don't bother going up to him because if he wanted to be there he would be this defied everything that i'd ever, not just from every man I'd ever coached, but from growing up around men. And even for myself, this is an area where my personal experience does relate to that lesson. I was terrified. I was terrified. The idea of walking up to a woman and saying, I like you, or I think you're cute.

I got brought up by my mom to be a gentleman, right? I was brought up to you know buy flowers buy the meal don't don't ever let her pay don't ever let her carry her bag open her door so at school as a teenager i got mauled by women for being that way you know i got i got walked all over they liked me they thought i a nice guy, but I was the one holding their bag while they got with that guy. Right. So it, it didn't, it didn't translate. And I knew as a guy, as a teenager, something wasn't clicking and something about what I'd been taught about attraction by my mom, who taught me treat every woman like a princess. Something about that advice wasn't translating and wasn't working now i then when i started hearing from these books written for women if he's like if he likes you

he's already talking to you i i looked at that and i thought god you know what i'm not i'm not a loser i'm not someone who's got everything going wrong in their life and is like you know oh that's why he hasn't got the confidence no i was like a guy who had some great things going for him and yet still i would look over there and go no way yeah i'm not doing anything terrifying so so you know i i started to say to women listen firstly guys even even the guys you want are nervous about coming over to you so you might have to do a little more to make this a possibility. To make them feel good about themselves, comfortable to come over. Correct.

And women will say, well, no, that's not true, Matt, because there are these guys who always hit on me when I go out. Yeah, but it's the same 5% every time. Yes. Right? There's 5% to 10% of guys who will hit on everybody who walks in the room. Yeah. Right? But that's representative of- And they're not getting the girls. Right yeah right but that's representative and they're not getting the girls right very often

they're not they're not um there's a there's a percentage of those who are like players who are good at it yeah who know how to do it but the game actually most guys aren't in that mode most guys aren't good at doing that and and actually don't wish to do that because they don't want to be sleazy and they don't want to seem like that guy so i started saying women you might have to do a little bit more and don't assume because in a seminar any woman who comes to my seminar will see this i'll say put your hand up if at some point or another you've said or thought well if he doesn't have the balls to come and approach me i don't think he's my type of guy anyway and like 90 of the hands go up so i say here's the thing as a guy you when you live in a city you probably see 30 women a day that you're attracted

to yes right you can't go up to every one of them you can't go up to every one of them nor would you wish to nor is it convenient to and sometimes you just see a woman standing with her friend and you're like oh do i really want to go and approach her in front of her friend and have the possibility that she's got a boyfriend and I'm going to have to walk away with my- When you get rejected, you don't want to go do it again. It's horrible. Yeah. So I would say to them, if out of those 30 women that a guy sees in a day, he's going to approach the one that makes it slightly easier for him to approach her than the other 29 one that says it's okay for you to talk to me correct however she chooses to do that and that doesn't

mean you making some big grand move it just means i i call it you know i call it dropping the handkerchief when when you you know women who say i'm old-fashioned i don't make the first move i always say then you're not old-fashioned because a hundred years ago a woman would walk past a guy drop her handkerchief and keep walking. The guy would see it. He'd say, this is an extraordinary opportunity to be a man. He'd pick up the handkerchief, walk it over to her and say, madam, you dropped this.

And she'd say, did I? And they'd now have a conversation. Now he thought it was his idea. Yes. And she was clumsy. She chose him. So I say to women, listen, this isn't about reversing roles here and you suddenly doing the guy's job it's about you doing what women have always done and dropping the

handkerchief you just need to know how to do it in 2015 um so so that's so what are some ways to do it what are two two or three ways that a woman could do this to create an opportunity for a conversation to happen right so one one of them is really really simple um there was a there was actually a book written um by a guy called i think richard wiseman it was called 59 seconds but one of the studies in the book um that wasn't done by him it was done by i think jekra and landy was about um the psychology of favors and what they found uh years ago when they did this study, they were looking for the obvious, right? If I do you a favor, you'll like me more.

Yes. Uh, what they actually found was if I do you a favor, I'll like you more because we like people that were able to help in some small way. The only caveat was that the favor couldn't be something that was difficult to perform. If you ask me something that's difficult, I could get annoyed, right? And frustrated. if you ask me something that's difficult i could get annoyed right and frustrated if you ask me something that's easy for me to do and i get to help you in some way i actually end up liking you more so the the psychology when done in the direction of woman man to woman is much more powerful because men have these two instincts provide and protect so now when a woman comes up and asks for a favor he immediately gets to gets to cater to those two male instincts that make him feel important so uh the the advice goes like this if you walk up to a

guy and you say uh use this one first line and it will work time and time again you say um i could really use your help with something that one line is going to have nine out of ten guys immediately receptive to whatever you say they want to provide and protect yeah anything tell me how i can feel important right now um so i could really use your help with something now it could be answering a question it could be anything right directions but let's say you're in a bar and you say could you hold my jacket for two seconds while i give these drinks to my friends i'm running out of hands here you then take your drinks you give them to your friends you come back you take your jacket and you say thank you so much you're a gentleman how's your evening going

anyway now the beauty of this is rather than having to go up to him randomly and saying how's your evening going anyway now the beauty of this is rather than having to go up to him randomly and saying how's your evening going which makes it feel like you've really chosen him in this example he's doing you the favor you're just politely asking how his evening is going after he's already done the favor for you so that's an easy way for women to drop the handkerchief in any environment and never have they never have to risk rejection with that because there's nothing for him to reject. It's just a simple favor. Wow. Okay.

So that's number one. Maybe one more way. That's number one. Let's think of a good one here. This kind of goes alongside it. I mean, you could ask a guy's opinion for example you could say you know uh no in fact here's a good one when you're with your friends and you see a group of guys simply walk up to them and say we're trying to guess what people's jobs are by what they're wearing that's cool and then start guessing everyone loves this game because you

you have fun guess you could and again you can you can start in everyone loves this game because you you have fun guess you could and again you can you can start in a funny way and say you're a spy but whatever it is play with it a little but then the nice thing is they they immediately know how to carry on that conversation because they're going to do it back now for for guys who are experiencing this and they see a woman who creates an opportunity to talk to them and now it's their responsibility to kind of continue the conversation, right? And to show that, okay, now I am interested. So this is a really important part. This is really important because there is a mistake people make here. And I realized this early on because I was giving women this way to go and be proactive with guys in a way that they hadn't been before.

But they were making the mistake of staying in there too long. Oh. Right? So don't stick around. No, no, no. Think of it this way. In order to give someone the opportunity to hit on you in the first place, you need to close the gap.

So when a woman goes in and says, I mean's another one i'll give you if you're you know this one's always pay attention to what's going on around you and if nothing else say the obvious so you could be in a bar you know lining up for a drink can you say to the guy next to you oh my god it's so busy in here all right that's it by the way you're not saying it's so busy in here you're saying it's okay for you to talk to me that's really what you're saying um so in that moment again if you wanted to make it more flirtatious you'd say oh my god it's so busy in here it's you with your big shoulders move right and then you'd push him and then you immediately you're going to have some great tension he's going to feel mad um but the the key thing is

don't then stay in there i was in la recently LA recently and I was with two buddies and three women came over and started talking to us. Now, I can't fault that because that's why I help people to do that. I think it's important. I think they did the right thing. But what they could have changed is when they came over to speak to us they stood facing us with their feet pointed towards us in a circle and then there was no sign of them leaving ever they were just committed to you know when someone's body language says i'm not going anywhere yeah and it immediately makes you nervous because you sort of think oh you're like how am i gonna get out of this you're not

interested in them right you don't want to be And a woman knows this feeling much better than a man. Of course. Because when a woman is approached by a guy, she can't even concentrate on whether she's attracted to him if he's too much in her space to begin with. Yeah. He needs to give her space to observe him and decide she's attracted to him

before he keeps just going and going and going. So these women would have been better off to maybe a minute in, just turn and talk to each other again. They don't have to go to the other side of the room and make things difficult, but just turn and talk to each other. Or, God forbid, there's another person there that they turn to and ask something of. What they've done is close the gap, but then recreated space. something of right what they've done is close the gap but then recreated space so the second step of recreating space is very very important because when they recreate space it gives us a chance to

observe them a chance to miss them and a chance to think oh how do we get them back over here so now when we go over there and say by the way i was thinking about what you said just now and keep talking for them it's like ah okay that's like now they've made a move now now they've chosen to be in the situation with it instead of us just choosing to be there and never knowing if they were really attracted that's what needs to happen for women is they need to feel chosen as well correct right correct so it's kind of like you, you choosing him to begin with so that you're not just randomly choosing from the pool of guys that are brave enough or obnoxious enough to run up to you. Um, but at the same time, you're not, you're giving it space so that he can choose you and you can be confident in that process. And then from there, there's a whole

another workshop you do on teaching how to get the guy or how they get to go after that yeah imagine never ends because yeah what is the uh what's the biggest mistake people find today when trying to find their love or find someone that they you know their soulmate god what's the biggest mistake is it being yourself it's i i i think there's a something of a sense of entitlement that most of us have uh or that most people have when they're going out to date where they somehow feel like they're just owed the love of their life that it shouldn't be difficult that um that they don't have to do anything that it's enough that they are just them you know it's the you know that there's i don't know if you've ever seen bridget jones but there's a there's a line in bridget jones where uh forget his name colin firth i think it is he's he's looking at bridget and he's i think he says i love exactly how you are i love you like no changes nothing i love you

exactly how you are and it sometimes we feel like we're owed that and it kind of becomes an excuse again not lazy to grow not to you know i don't frankly i it doesn't really matter what you think you're owed in love yeah no one cares i think it's the same thing with work and you know some people are entitled and they think it's a job yeah and so the biggest criticism i get all the time which i'm happy with as a criticism of my advice is well why do you need to do all of this stuff why can't you just you know go through life and and you know when the time is right you'll know why do you need to do all of this stuff? Why can't you just go through life and when the time is right, you'll know. Why do you have to do all of these techniques? I'm happy with that criticism. If that's what you think, you're not my audience because my audience are the same people

that go to a business seminar to make more money. They're the same people that say, you know what, if I want to start a business, I might actually need to know what the hell I'm doing. It's not enough to have confidence in life. You have to have competence. You have to actually know what you're doing. And that's what a lot of people don't know in their love lives. If you, for example, there's something I came to understand. I remember once having a breakup. It was the most painful breakup I've ever had. I was really, understand i was i remember once having a breakup it was the most painful breakup i've ever had i was really really in a bad way over it and a while later i spoke to this to this woman on the phone and i had said to her on in a brave moment on the phone i said why did why did you want to break up

because by the way you talked to the woman you're dating yeah the one that had later on the phone later like a year or two later it was less raw i was feeling a little more how long was the relationship for a couple of years okay well and um uh and i was i was pretty caught up about it now the funny thing was uh to make a long story short she had actually done something i didn't like and that i thought was inappropriate and disrespectful and i remember going to her the next day and saying i think we need to break up during the relationship she did this yeah and uh she then said to me okay that was when i knew she was breaking up with me it wasn't it wasn't you know when you you think you're breaking up with them no no she was already doing it she was

breaking up with me uh and it was what was so painful about it is that she was she didn't mind uh i was i thought she might get upset i thought no she didn't mind and that was the most painful part about it and i shouldn't even fake it you know most people would fake that they might i can't believe this but they're really i know i know she looked like she was okay. This is a good decision. So I, so I, I remember a while later we were on the phone and we were, we became, we're friends today. We're very good friends. In fact, and, uh, I had said to her on the phone, um, why did we break up?

I said, what, what was it for you that I wasn't doing? And I braced myself for the answer. She said, do you really want to know? Honest feedback. And I said, I literally thought to myself, wait,

do I really want to know? And I said, I gritted my teeth and I went, yeah, I want to know. She said, um, you were boring.

And there was so much worse than I thought it would be. Do you know what I mean? Like not, not just like, oh, well, you know, it was just,

I was young and I was, you know, wanted to like not not just like oh well you know it was just i was young and i was you know wanted to be free no you were boring it was really cutting and i i remember resisting the urge to bite back and i said i wasn't boring right exactly i said no you're shut up idiot just you asked the question so So now listen. So I said, why was I boring? She said, when I first met you, you were the most ambitious person I'd ever met. And she said, I never met someone with such an ability to decide they want something and then get it. And she said, it was so sexy. She said, but as we went into our relationship the more time went on the more that was all you were you were super ambitious you knew how to get what you want but it you were

so one-dimensional you know it was all you did even in our free time you were just you're on the phone you're on your laptop you would talk about your business you were always talking shop there was never anything else you had to talk about we didn't do anything spontaneous we never went and had adventures it was just all one track and she said it got boring yeah i said wow she was right she was right there was nothing i could argue with and i realized something in that moment the thing that makes that one quality can make you really attractive right but it won't keep someone can make you get the person one quality can make you really attractive, right? But it won't keep someone. It can make you get the person.

Right. It can make you sexy. It can make you intriguing. Mysterious. Right. But it can even for a time make someone worship or idolize you. One quality, but one quality will not hold someone because the reality was there was a flip side to ambition, which would have made it eminently more attractive. And there are a few, right?

life now that person is really super sexy you you you combine ambition with a sense of spontaneity for example adventure very very sexy yes ambition on its own is when you look at it from afar very very attractive you go women will say i want an ambitious man i like that but when they get up close if it's only one side to a coin, it quickly becomes unattractive. Someone I'm a big fan of, or unfortunately has passed, but Christopher Hitchens, he once said about love, the challenge is in not allowing your strengths to negate themselves. and that's a very powerful statement because my ambition was my greatest strength that also had the ability to be the thing that crippled me uh because what happens is when you get good at something and you get validation from it you keep doing it and get better at it and it becomes if you're not careful a muscle that you that you train to the point of mutation and then every other part of you is is is not working is it has atrophied yeah so now uh you have a complete imbalance uh it's like a you know i remember working out at the gym once and my trainer i was doing pull-ups and was trying to

work out my back my back was fine i could keep going and then all of a sudden my my forearms gave up while i was trying to pull myself up and i said this is so annoying we're trying to work out my back my back was fine i could keep going and then all of a sudden my my forearms gave up while i was trying to pull myself up and i said this is so annoying we're trying to work my back but my four and my back's fine but my forearms have given up right he said you're only as strong as your weakest link if your if your forearms aren't aren't there you're not going to be able to train your back as well as you could yeah so so here's the the the point about this which i find very interesting about dating to your point of what's the biggest mistake people make apart from of course the entitlement it's over reliance on a key strength that they have come to uh rely on as their source

of validation success uh confidence right over reliance on that i had come to over rely on essentially being ahead of the curve for my age yeah that was like the thing that i was always based my confidence on was i am way ahead of the curve for people my age my business is going great correct the people i grew up with in my age group are not where i am just still living at home but guess what that alone is boring yeah it's boring and it doesn't make an interesting rounded sexy person but when you combine it with something else it becomes what i call unique pairing it's a bit like if i if i wanted to really get a woman attracted tonight not me but like send a guy out to get a woman attracted, I could literally, if he went in and he was a little cocky and teasing, but in the right way, not an arrogant, obnoxious, but just he knew how to play with her.

And then a couple of hours later, you know, maybe it's getting late. He comes out of the restroom and after being teasing and playful and silly, he you know what it's getting late um i called you a car um i don't want you walking outside and he says i have to go as well i have to get up early he takes her outside um he gives her a little kiss he says all jokes aside i've had the best night with you tonight i'll call you later this week puts her in the car car drives away that woman will be going oh crap i like this guy now the reason wasn't because he was a gentleman and it wasn't because he was cocky and teasing it was because he was both of them yeah it's the and if he does just one thing it's not interesting enough because you can replace the cocky guy like that women know that yes they can

go out tonight and meet a cocky guy in hollywood any night of the week they can go out the next they don't even have to go out the next night they can turn to their left and meet another one straight away by the way they even though people complain about chivalry is dead you can go out and meet a gentleman you can go out and meet lots of nice guys that's all they are right incredibly boring women will never too nice they don't hold a woman right so but now you find like what seems to be a good man but with an edge that's a unique pairing yes and that's someone that becomes not an attraction but an addiction and there's a and there's a a big big difference so i i believe that we will actually i believe

these pairings already exist within us but we've over trained certain muscles we've over trained certain qualities that we've gotten used to as habit uh for some people it's being funny for other people it's being intellectual and For other people, it's being intellectual. And they always, they're the person that knows everything about everything. They've read every book. They can always quote so-and-so. For others,

it's being seductive. That's the thing they got really good at. So they're really good at, you know, getting someone into bed or getting someone sexually attracted, but they're never the person you want to eat pizza with the next day. You know? So it's like,

it's finding those combinations that make you go oh my god the person i was with last night they were this and they were this it's the and the and is where i wonder what else they could do exactly and you and by the way that's what makes it so hard i say this to everybody if you want to know why you found it so hard to get over a certain ex, look for the unique pairing. Because they had multiple things. There was some unique pairing that made you feel like they were difficult to replace. And that's what scares us. The more unique pairings you have, the more you become a rare bird in the dating marketplace.

Right. And when you become rare, people get really terrified of losing you. And that bird in the dating marketplace right right and and when you become rare people get really terrified of of losing you and that's always the case whenever you think of someone you've lost and you think like your heart aches for having lost them for like months and months yeah you it's because you go it's not because you go they were good in bed it's because you go they were good in bed and they made me laugh like like i never find that right and i took them home and she was a sweetheart to my like this there's those moments where you go god i can't find this person again and that terrifies you so again to be more positive about it be the person that has the

unique pairings that other people are terrified of losing yeah you know i like this because i feel like well i don't feel like but the statistics show that the divorce rate is up higher than ever right now, right? Isn't it something like 50%? I don't know if you hear the numbers. and they're easy to get out of relationships. And I'll speak for myself. I have a lot of fears about long-term commitment. Most of my relationships are a year, maybe longer, but usually about a year, and then I'm either bored or I get scared because I have my own walls and I still get to grow and learn. For sure. I'm curious, why do you think so many people bail in relationships?

And why do you think so many people are getting divorced more than ever now? Oh, man. That's a big question. Well, I think there are a number of things. I can have a stab at this. I think, firstly, there is less of a stigma now than there has ever been about divorce. It's okay now, right? Right.

Certainly there are parts of the world where it's not, and there are certain religions and cultures where it's not, but certainly less than ever. Let's speak in America at least. Right. There's less of a stigma about divorce. We don't feel like complete failures in the same way that we might once have or we wouldn't have there would have been a time where we would have been outcast from society yes for it so there's that um i think there's also a great sense of entitlement these days where people feel like they're owed and uh you know marriage is you've met the right person

so it's supposed to all feel great and when it doesn't feel great and when it's not all working there must be something wrong with this person not with me not with the amount of effort i'm investing into this relationship there must be something wrong with this person ah it turns out they're not the one after all i thought they were but they're not the search continues so so the entitlement has people believing that it it shouldn't be effort and and that's a very dangerous way to think of relationships it's very if you really want to see who someone is in their relationship um talk to them about sex and and passion and and desire in their long-term relationship and

you'll get some very heated answers because some people will, will, will say it's absolutely paramount. We, you know, you have to maintain that passion. You have to find new ways to excite each other. Me and my partner, we're always searching. We're always exploring each other. We're always trying to figure out like, what's going to turn you on tomorrow? What's the, like, how, how do I, how do I do something that's that you didn't predict or how do i get you to know me a little less so that you get desire again you know whatever it is other people and i've had hosts on tv get very very uptight and and and upset over this issue and it's usually they're overplaying their hand when they do they'll say you want matt it's

different when you're in a marriage when you're when you have kids when you're in those situations it's different right you you don't you you can't just think of it like that you don't do matt you think other things become more important and and i always know who they are in their relationship when those things happen because people i think don't go into relationships with a healthy view of what is required over the long term and what is required well there's a there's a there's a woman who is a great authority on this called esta perel and she talks about the difference between love and desire and i'm a big fan of her work and i think she articulates it very very well that in relationships you have to have both love and desire love isn't enough love is the the thing that makes me want to get close to you when i when i when i feel

things for you i want to know your mind i want to know everything there is to know about you i want to know what you're thinking i want to know what you're doing tonight i want to know who your friends are i want to become friends with them i want to get close to your mom i want like it's all these things that's love the desire to almost become merged but desire exists in the space between two people so you feel desire when there's a void and when there's some mystery and when you're still getting to know someone so desire, is the thing that ends up creating love because desire is like, I want to get close to you because I don't have you. And then when I get close,

we feel feelings of love, but not desire now. So how do you keep that after years and years? And that's a great question. And it's a big one. I think there are many answers and I think they change depending on the couple. So what you're saying at first before you answer is you've got to have both

love and desire throughout the relationship in order for it to be a, a successful one. Yeah. In order to maintain, in order to satisfy your needs along the way, because the, the, I think many people get divorced because not because there's a lack of love.

I mean, sometimes that's true. You know, sometimes it's true that two people don't, don't give other enough love they don't act as a team um and and there are problems with that right but a lot of people spend too much time together lack of love a lot of people it's because of lack of desire interesting um that lead that create you know these weird um moments in relationships where sometimes people cheat or they, maybe it's not going as far as cheating, but they realize that they're having all of these thoughts that

they're not proud of. Maybe they just have to leave because they think there's something wrong with them because they're bored. You know, I got a question on the Today Show recently. I mean, I was on the Today Show recently and me and Kathy Lee, you know, got heated over this issue because, you know, there was a guy on there whose question was my kids have just gone off to university how do you know we're now basically what he was saying is the kids have all left so now it's just me and my wife so how do me and my wife now keep keep it fresh and there's a great quote by uh proust when he says, I think it's the journey of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes. It's very interesting when applied to a relationship.

Because you're not seeing a new landscape. You're seeing the same landscape over and over and over every moment. So you better get good at seeing with new eyes. All right. So you better get good at seeing with new eyes. All right. Now the landscape, of course, can, the landscape can change because that person, their job is to be, to make themselves less predictable. And you don't do that by like playing hard to get with your partner necessarily.

But what you do is you, you grow, you develop new skills, you learn new things and you develop yourself in ways that keep your partner guessing about you because they're like oh my god i i have to keep up yeah i have to keep up with this because they keep evolving yes and that in itself you can start to desire your partner more because you feel like you know them a little less not because they're now hiding things from you but because they're developing and when when someone develops and grows, you're like, oh my, I don't know this side of you. I need to learn it. And it sparks attraction again. So there's that whole thing. But I said to this guy, you know, I said, I know everyone's going to tell you now your kids have gone off to university. Now you have all this time to

spend together. I said, but the problem is you're going to have nothing to talk about. Because you've said it all. You've said it all and you've been together this whole time. So I said, right. I said, but the problem is you're going to have nothing to talk about. Because you've said it all. You've said it all. And you've been together this whole time. So I said, I'm going to give you a kind of strange piece of advice. I think you should use this time to spend some time apart. Like she go on holiday and you go on holiday and then come back and tell each other about it. You know, have some space so that when you come back together there's a little mystery to it you know that this won't it will be scary and this is this is why people get very emotional about this and they

get upset because they're like what do you mean get to know my husband less what do you mean like spend time apart we we're supposed to be like this the whole time but what they don't realize is a you never know your partner as well as you think you do. So the idea that you're like this and you know everything about them is a complete illusion. And secondly, you doing that is death to the relationship. So if you really care and if you really are a team, you'll be able to trust each other, but you'll be able to give each other space to create that desire again. Yeah. Otherwise, you're suffocating each other. Yeah, absolutely.

So again, I think that's another thing that people don't anticipate when they're in the feelings of love and desire all mixed together early on and they decide to get married. They don't anticipate that over the long term. And I think many of us are out there making promises that we cannot keep.

Now, of course, the whole different conversation is to what extent monogamy works and to what extent – It's a whole other topic. That's a whole other thing. And I think if we're not going to cover it, we should – it's fair to say that for some people it works and for others it doesn't. But that is a whole other can of worms. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've got a few questions left for you. I have lots of questions.

And maybe I can convince you to come back on. We can do some more of these sometimes. This has been great so far. I love this. So we can talk more about this because I think people are going to like this topic. And I haven't really dove into intimate relationships in this way for this extended amount of time. So I'd love to have you come back on if we can make it happen love to because i want to cover monogamy next time i also want to cover uh marriage in general because i'm still in the discovery stage of my

life of what is marriage what was your what was marriage originally intended for the first time it was created, however many years ago? Yeah. Thousands of years ago. On an anthropological level, it's very interesting. And why are we still practicing the same things we did from its original intent? And if that's the case, should we keep doing marriage?

Yeah. And should we keep doing it when 50% of them fail? I have all these questions that I'm still in discovery for myself. As am I. Yeah. And I don't think anything's right or wrong i just think it's coming up with your own solution that works for you and your partner a hundred percent and i i think it works for many many people yes um i will say i'm i'm like you i i haven't quite figured out yet whether it will work for me or not i don't i don't know um it's i i know that i have a lot

of issues personally with it and i don't give those to other people because i i think some people are very different to me um uh and different from each other but i i know there there are things that i struggle with and um i haven't figured it out that's why i'm always i always cringe when i go on a tv show and they call me a relationship expert uh which they love you know these shows love to label you as something nice and simple uh i always say i'm really what i am is a guy who likes to talk about people but you know that's not got the quite the same ring to it but i i you know the idea of a dating expert or a relationship expert to me is a un unbelievably narcissistic idea um and i and i cringe every time i hear it because it's who could say that they're an expert

in all things relationships yeah it's crazy it's all good though um well i was gonna ask you a few more questions but i think i want to wrap it up on this one and bring you back another time okay so i want to ask you a couple different related uh different questions not related to that one is um what are you most grateful for in your life recently i'd like to finish with gratitude wow um god i think one thing i'm i'm very grateful for is i i well i just uh recently applied for my green card um and uh i i it kind of brings a a dream full circle uh fingers crossed that you know it should be coming through in the next couple of months hopefully i don't get rejected but i am it's but it's come full circle you know something that i had dreamed about for a very long time uh and and really has been uh you know nearly two decades

of of thinking about that idea wow um you know has actually come to fruition. And it's amazing to me that it started with me thinking, why not come and do a seminar for five people and lose money just to say that I'm doing something in America. And I'm there now. So that, you know, I say to everyone out there, always drive in the thin end of the wedge, whatever it is, whatever is the smallest possible thing that relates to your bigger dream. Do the smallest possible thing because you never know what domino effect that might have. I could never have guessed that by this age I would be living here and traveling the country doing what I love.

And I am. And I feel immensely grateful for that. That's cool, man. Very cool. I've been asking this question a lot lately for some of my guests. So I'm going to ask you this one as well because I'm interested to hear the response. But many, many years from now, it's the end of your life, the last day. And everything you've ever said online, written, you're a New York Times bestselling author, you've got millions of views on all your videos, has been erased from

time. You've got a piece of paper and a pen. All your friends and family are there supporting you in your final moments, telling you how much they love you. You've got a pen and a piece of paper, and they say you get to write down three truths about life. The three things you know to be true about life. And this is the only thing that people will get to see from your message moving forward because everything else has been erased. Wow. What would you write down as the three truths?

Let's see if I can think of three. It'll have to be perfect, but what comes to your mind? Be kind. I think one of my favorite shows is Derek. I don't know if you've ever seen it. It's a Ricky Gervais show. But it's about a guy who works in an old people's home. And his favorite line is a line his mom told him,

which was, kindness is magic. And I don't believe in magic. And I certainly don't know what happens later on or whether anything bigger is there. But I do, I do believe that there is a magic to kindness that is really, really special. that the whole world is horrible be kind because you just never know who is watching and who will decide that there is still some good in the world because you did something kind um so and i'm always grateful for anyone who restores faith anyone's little faith in humanity in those little tiny moments so be kind um number two always operate on the assumption that you don't know nearly enough um coming up one of i remember my friend told me uh he i remember him meeting up with me once

this is you know when i was kind of starting out but getting a bit big for my britches about what i was doing and he said you know he said what books have you read recently and i said i haven I haven't. I said, cause to be honest, you know, I'm doing all these seminars and I said, I don't want to put all of these other ideas in my head. I want to, you know, I'm trying to develop these ideas and I don't want to have all of these different. And he looked at me and he's an older guy is about four years old. And he looked at me and he said, mate, he said, I can't tell you how disappointed I am with that answer. And I looked up to this guy. So I was mortified. But I have in recent years understood exactly what he meant, that he's a learner and someone who always operates on the assumption that he doesn't know enough.

So always operate under the assumption that you don't know enough and never trust anyone who claims to know everything about anything. And then the third one, God, the third one, I think there are many, many different lives that you could lead. I think one of the most depressing things about life is you won't have time to lead them. You won't have time to read the books you want to read. Even if you stack them all up and think about them all now, you'll already have to start eliminating enormous numbers. You won't be able to travel to every country that're going to go to um if you want to depress yourself put a draw list all of them and look at how many you already have to eliminate you'll realize you're only going to do a a select few more uh even if you're young um the jobs you think you'd enjoy the career paths you think you'd enjoy the types of people you'd like to meet um there just isn't time and that makes it that much more important that we enjoy the path that we take instead of obsessing

over the 10 000 paths that we didn't take because that really is the most tremendous waste of life is is when we obsess over the paths we didn't take instead of figuring out how to enjoy the one that we have taken. Even if we look to improve it or adapt it or change it, even then you'll adapt one way and there will have been 10,000 other ways you could have adapted. So it's not easy, but I think the challenge for us all is to figure out how to enjoy the path that we're actually on. Yeah. That's a good three truths, man.

I'm really happy because I got to number two. I thought, what is the last one? But no, I feel quite solid in those. Yeah, that's good. I want to ask one more question. But before I do, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you, Matt, for your ambition. Because you are so ambitious, but your ability to continue learning. And when you teach, you teach with humility.

And for me, that really comes across and I appreciate that. And it reminds me to myself to always come from a humble place when I'm educating or facilitating anything because that really connects and lands with people in a deeper way. And I know you've been inspiring and impacting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of women around the world because you come from that place of love and humility when you educate. And so I want to acknowledge you for your ambition and your humility to continue learning what you don't know. Thank you so much. That means the world to me. Thank you. to continue learning what you don't know.

Thank you so much. That means the world to me. Yeah. Thank you. Final question. Before I ask, where should people go to connect with you and learn more? Well, I guess I should give a couple of options, one for the men and one for the women. For women out there, I have something really fun, actually, for the women out there. It's free of charge but uh i get an enormous number of

questions about texting um and i think actually somehow the way you text is a kind of microcosm for how you are in communication in general so um there's a guide that i put together which is the the nine texts that get any man to chase you and it's really cute and fun and literally you can take these nine texts whether you're in a relationship some of them are good for a relationship some of them are good for when you have a guy that's gone cold some of them are good for if you just met someone but there's something in there for everybody and it's literally i mean you can download it now and use like copy and paste them into your phone sure and use them right now and and tweet me let me know

because i always get tweets about this guide from people who have used it and say that was that one text really made a difference so uh if you want to um go and download that it's at nine texts dot com uh and it works either with the number nine or the the word nine so nine texts dot com and i'll be sure to link these up on the show. Great. And, and for the guys, you know,

I'll say this. I don't have, um, any immediate programs for guys. Um, but the, there are huge numbers of guys that watch my YouTube videos and, and, and really,

um, appear to get an enormous amount from them and, and are part of that community. And I, I think that's great. I'm a guy and I talk to women, but everything I say is useful to me as well. So I would encourage guys to go and subscribe to my YouTube channel and actually watch those videos because I think- They're really good.

Yeah. They're fun and they're designed to be useful. So they're useful on a human level not just a one gender so my youtube channel is called get the guy team but if you just type in matthew hussey into youtube yeah uh you're gonna see it awesome we'll have it all linked up on your website get the guy.co.uk as well we'll have it linked up um very excited man we're gonna have you back on here soon hopefully last question is what's your definition of greatness oh my god the i love your questions man i i love them they're just uh they're challenging uh my definition of greatness um i i guess to your point on humility it's someone who who continues uh to strive to be better and to know more um in and whilst they're doing it instead of looking at those who they are better than in that area they're always looking up at the people who seem to know more than them yeah so

you know they look up not down when when they're figuring out where they stand in the hierarchy there you go matt thanks for coming on bro thank you appreciate you man i appreciate you thank you for having me and there you have it great i hope you enjoyed this episode with matt if you did enjoy this make sure to head back to lewishouse.com slash 189. You're going to get all the links for Matt's information, his website, his YouTube channel, which I recommend checking out. Follow him online. Let him know that you listened to this episode.

Let him know what you thought about this episode. And make sure that you connect with him. He's a great guy, and he's got great content. I highly recommend it. If you enjoyed this, please share this with your friends. If you know a man or a woman who would be interested in this episode or might find it helpful in their relationships, then send lewishouse.com slash 189.

Send that link off to your friends. Either email them or post it on social media and let them know what you think. I think it's going to be really helpful for a lot of people. So, and again, thank you guys so much for being on here. It means the world to me that you continue to listen and to spread the word of greatness to your friends, to your family, to your coworkers, to your employees.

And we're in this together, guys. So as I learn, I want to share with you what I'm learning from some of the greatest minds in the world. And I hope you continue to share, learn it, and then apply it in your life and then share the wisdom as well. We're all in this together. Thank you guys so much for all that you do. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music Bye. Outro Music Bye.