Relationship Expert REVEALS How To Get The Guy & FIND LOVE | Matthew Hussey & Lewis Howes

Everyone who's at home on their own right now is feeling a sense of loneliness. What's driving what I'm doing and is it genuinely my personal happiness or what I want? 10 years from now, what will I regret not having done in my life? Because I was just on a treadmill of getting bigger, achieving more, doing this, doing that, and what the f*** is it all for? The idea of having a relationship? The idea of having someone that cares about us, but then the reality, when we're confronted with the reality of that person in the same house, then we realize, wow, this person's not as right for me as I thought. Do you want to know how to keep the spark alive?

I think you gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness.

Really?

Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes.

What do you think has been the biggest pain for women during this time, both in a relationship and single? The biggest pain that they're facing.

I don't know if I have a distinction to make between women and men there. Someone stereotyped to me yesterday. She had said, you know, women, if women are trying to look for someone right now and they are looking for the emotional connection, and men are the more physical animals, you know, and are looking for, like, they want the physical.

The Beast of the World.

They said if men want the physical first and then the emotional and women want the emotional first and then the physical, is there a problem right now where women are, you know, looking for someone and they're finding that guys, like, want that instant physical connection, which is why guys will more quickly revert to sex thing or, you know, like looking for that sexual side of things. And the problem was posed to me with that implication, if that's true, that, you know, do we have a problem right now that women are trying to have a conversation and see where it goes and men are immediately jumping to the sexual. And if they don't get that, they're going, well, what's the point in talking to someone if that's not something that's happening? I'm not sure I fully buy the premise of that because I think we're all looking for connection. I don't think there's a difference there. I think we all... everyone who's at home on their own right now is feeling a sense... well, most are feeling a sense of loneliness, most are feeling a sense of warning. I don't care if you're a man or a woman. if you meet someone right now online, people are gonna make a lot of excuses about this time. But if you met someone online at this time who you thought was attractive, fun, you're having good conversation with them, I just don't buy that anyone is gonna go, well, 'cause I can't have sex with them in the next two weeks, I'm not gonna bother with this. What's the point? Is anyone really that abundant in perfect partners that they can afford to turn away someone great this week? I don't think so. I don't bother.

Yeah. As a teen and as someone in my 20s, I will admit that I was deeply needy, deeply needing of women's attention, affection, physical touch, affirmation of who I am, deeply insecure around women and needing it. to validate myself as a human being, as a man, human being, whatever you want to call it. And scared a lot, scared and vulnerable in relationships of being rejected, turned down, laughed at, made fun of, all those things based on a few instances that made a memory in my mind that I held on to for many, many years. Who do you think, you know, men or women, are more susceptible to needing attention, needing affirmation of who they are in a relationship. Is it the same both men and women, and we're all human beings? Or do you see that women tend to, in general, need more affirmation and validation of who they are, or men need more affirmation and validation of who they are to feel better? about themselves?

I don't think I don't think I would draw a distinction in our levels of neediness as genders. It's possible that we might be needy in different ways that we've been taught that, you know, different genders have been taught that they're important for different reasons. I think that's changing actually, and on some level, but I But if you're a guy and you've, you know, guys are just as needy, right? If they, you could be needy if you're going to work every day and trying to achieve and achieve and achieve and achieve and achieve and achieve so that the world thinks you're awesome. And how many guys do we know like that? How many guys do we, you know, even in our community of high achievers, you know, think of that, by the way, that's a label that's been getting high achiever, right? What does that even really mean? Like high achiever, how? Like, could we call, you know, the Dalai Lama a high achiever if you're talking about like internal growth? Or you could call someone who's achieved just someone who lives in a cottage somewhere in the middle of nowhere with their wife and kids and has achieved a kind of peace of mind Maybe they're a high achiever, you know, but we look at these people who are, you know, have achieved big businesses and bought big houses and train three hours a day and do this and do it. They're the high achievers. Why is that? That's a that to me is almost a very masculine construct of this is what it means to be successful. And that's there's a form of neediness in that. like I need to keep achieving so that people keep seeing me as a high achiever so that I can come home to my girlfriend and she sees me as successful and accomplished and whatever. That's a form of neediness. We think of neediness in terms of someone saying, where are you? I miss you. Like that we think of that as neediness or, you know, do I look good in this outfit or whatever. We label that neediness, but how is it not needy? to keep trying to make more money or keep trying to achieve more so that we stay significant and people keep telling us, Look how amazing it is what you've achieved. So that people keep showing us how awe-inspired they are about what we've created in life. There's a neediness to that too. And so I think we have to be very like, certain forms of neediness present themselves as a stereotypical caricature of neediness and other types we get to hide as achievement. We need to check that.

If you're enjoying this right now, go ahead and leave a thumbs up or leave a yes or a symbol so we can see that you're enjoying this. I want to spend another 10-15 minutes with Matthew. I've seen a lot of people jumping in the debate. Men are more needy, women are more needy, men need more validation of their efforts, women need more support. I'm seeing the debate happening and I'm not here to say who's right or wrong or what gender needs more this and that. But also by the way, go ahead.

Louis, I'm, you know, I don't want people watching this to think that I'm removing myself from that idea because I feel deeply connected to what I've just said as we go through this time right now and I assess what, you know, my cousin Casey, we were talking on the phone the other day and she was like, you know, she's with her partner spending the weekends together and she's like, you know, it's really nice just to get time together where we don't feel like we have to say yes to things and we don't feel like we have to spend time apart just for the sake of spending time apart. And so that we don't, like, we just have an excuse just to sit and be together. And I thought to myself, that's true for me. How many of the things that I do in a week or a month do I do for the right reasons? If I'm so, like, I'm, I'm really enjoying the time that I'm getting to spend on, like, cleaning out cupboards and just. Moving around, just walking around the house and just doing, I mean, totally an excuse. And so then I go, well, how many of the things that I do are just driven by FOMO? Are just driven by fear? So much. How many of the business endeavors that I do are just driven by this, I don't know, mindless need for growth or for continuing to achieve more? And why am I doing that? Is it because I'm comparing myself to somebody? Am I looking at what Lewis Howes is doing or what this person is doing or whatever and going, Ah, you know, look at all this, I should be doing that too. Or what's driving what I'm doing and is it genuinely my personal happiness or what I want? If someone said to me today, Matt, you're not allowed to do any work for the next month. You're forbidden, by law, you're not allowed to work for the next month. You just have to travel. and read. That's all I want you to do is just travel and read a bunch of books. I secretly, I'd be like, oh, that's a, that's a mate. Well, I don't have, like, I could, now I have an excuse. Someone's given me an excuse and a license.

You know, it's funny. You told me this a year ago. You were like, we were at your hot tub hanging out in your backyard and you were like, you were talking about, like, I'm just in the weeds of my business so much. I wish I had space and time. You really wanted to write this new book you were talking about, but you didn't have the time to carve it out.

You're like, if I could just have.

A month, And now we have this time.

How many of the things, if someone gave you an excuse to do something, how happy would you be that you had an excuse? And sometimes I look at, I love what I do. It's why I talk so passionately about it, because I love ideas. I love, that's what I do, right? But we all know that in order to do what we do, we have to do a lot we don't want to do. You know, I have to worry about marketing and building a site and doing this and coding and blah, blah, all these crap that you don't want to do just to do the thing you want to do. That's the hard part. But still, I realized myself, I'm 32 now. I'm like, what is it I want to do? What if I got 10 years from now, what will I regret not having done in my life? Because I was just on a treadmill of getting bigger, achieving more, doing this, doing that, and what the f*** is it all for? Why am I doing it? Those are important questions to ask because otherwise you could be a chee, the dangerous thing is everyone else can see you as unbelievably successful. Everyone else can see you as someone who has done so much and from their standard you keep assessing how happy you should be because you're like, well everyone keeps saying I'm doing so well, everyone keeps saying I'm achieving so much, then maybe I should, maybe this is the right thing I'm doing. But that's not a mark of a life well lived or how happy you are. Those are questions that have to come from a different place.

Yeah, yeah. Dude, I'm loving the comments here. People are saying some amazing things. A lot of people are just like, I need this right now. This is so validating. Someone said, I'd pay to be in that hot tub with both of you. Maybe me and Matthew should get a big hot tub. Charge people. Do a program in the hot tub. How many of you would come to a hot tub with Lewis and Matthew Hussey? Talking about love, sex and relationships. Go ahead and give me a thumbs up.

That might be a bit on the nose in the hot tub, but I think what we need to do is balance out the scene of the hot tub with something very asexual. Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. What are you seeing mostly from, you get a lot of DMs. Your content, by the way, if you guys aren't following Matthew, make sure you follow Matthew because he's got some of the best content on Instagram, YouTube, But what are the comments that you're seeing that are coming in is the most frequent comments that women are talking about?

I suppose, like it's a combination, if there's a lot of terrific loneliness right now, real solitude that people are experiencing and how to deal with that, especially if you're going through any kind of a heartbreak. then this feels like a heartbreak from hell.

Oh my gosh, because you can't go out and heal through other relationships or rebounding or just seeing friends and family. You can't go do those things you normally would do in a breakup, right?

That's right. And so that's people are going through a really hard, hard time with that and they want to know how to deal with that. Then there's also people who are now finding themselves in a long distance relationship because they can't see the person that they were seeing when this started or they just met someone during this situation and they're faced with not being able to see them for till months, who knows? So how do I keep the spark alive with that thing during this time? That's a big question.

How many people do you think are going to be going through a breakup over the next few months, if they haven't already. And how many marriages do you think we're going to get divorced? Is it going to be, you know, a big percentage, a small percentage? What are your just general thoughts without actually knowing the data?

I mean, my boxing trainer, Martin Snow, he always says, are you in love with their absence or are you in love with their presence? If you're in love with their absence, what that means is the time the relationship works best is when the two of you aren't actually together. You know, I mean, I remember being in my early 20s and I was in a long distance relationship for a year and a half and we moved.

In together and you were like, peace out.

For a year and a half and I think it lasted two and a half weeks. You know, we sometimes are in love with the thought of the relationship or the idea of that person. The idea of having a relationship, the idea of having someone that cares about us, but then the reality when we're confronted with the reality of that person in the same house, then we realize, wow, this person is not as right for me as I thought. I think that's going to be a blessing for a lot of people because they're going to learn in three months what might have taken them years to figure out about the relationship. I think the important thing to separate is the The true incompatibilities that are arising from spending an extraordinary amount of time together versus the kind of artificial or forced incompatibilities that are coming from just an unnatural amount of time together that no one would really recommend in an organic scenario that is being forced on us by this.

I think someone said that like, love is created, like you create love in the space between the time together. It's like when you have the time to reflect and think about each other, about what happened, the good things, whatever it may be, that's when you really, that you dive in deeper into love is the time apart. Is those space in between, I'm not sure if you said that or someone else said that.

Esther Perel articulates it extraordinarily well in mating in captivity. That, you know, love is the coming together of two people and desire exists in the space between two people.

And can you create desire with someone 24/7?

You can, but it requires engineering space. In order to create desire, you need to create space. And if you live under the same roof as someone 24/7, you're going to have to find ways to engineer space. It's not just about you know, let's do something romantic tonight. Let's do something. That's. That's important. But space is important, too. Creating enough room for mystery. And even if you live in a 500 square foot Studio apartment where the bed is the apartment, we've all been there at some point, then you have to still engineer space there. Your space could be you putting in your headphones and going into your own world and. And saying, look, I'm gonna work for a couple of hours, and then coming back to that person, you've got to. you gotta have that. And one of the important things, even reading a book, it's like you're going into a different world to read that book. You know, go escape into your own worlds. And by the way, hopefully those worlds that you escape into will be worlds that feed your mind and that give you new ideas and bring you back even an hour later with a new conversation, a new idea. This is gonna be a time where, especially where we're living with someone, for 24/7, we're gonna have to graduate from talking about events to talking about ideas, because there aren't any events right now.

Or if you're talking about events, you're talking about the news all day, which is stressful and anxiety, which is not good for events.

How many events are there right now? Like, even in the news, we're talking about the same, a slight graduation on the same thing every single day. you know, we have to, we have to transition, go from events to ideas. Right now, observation is conversation. What are you noticing about the way, about life? What are you noticing about your thoughts? What are you thinking about? You know, go, go into yourself to really, I, I think just anytime you notice something interesting, just speak it. Speak it.

Yeah.

And by the way, that's gonna make everyone better. Like, do you know what? Public speaking, you know this, Louis, public speaking is ideas. It's not about getting on stage every time and telling an amazing story about something that happened. Great storytellers are able to create something out of nothing. You can notice something, like I was in the gym, like a couple of months back. I wrote this down as an idea for a video, but I never actually used it. But this is just an example of how I think of content is I was in the gym and I what my trainer was on the other side of the gym as I was leaving and I waved to my trainer and said bye. The woman between me and my trainer thought I was waving to her and we didn't know each other at all, but she looked at me and she went oh like bye and then noticed that I was waving to my trainer. Right? And she got embarrassed and awkward and she like put her hand down and was like, you know, that awkward moment when you thought something was for you but it wasn't. When I went to my car, I thought about that and I was like, that woman didn't know me. She saw me wave at her and say bye and even though a perfect stranger was saying goodbye to her, She like, she took it and she was like, all right, bye. And it literally made me think of how many like, that woman's ready to be more sociable and all she needed was a push. And now I hate to think that that moment where she felt awkward and like, I know in her mind she probably felt stupid. She was like, oh, I'm not gonna do that again. In my mind, I'm like, no, don't learn that lesson.

Yeah.

That's amazing that, you know, how many times I just think we should go around pretending we know everybody and saying goodbye as if we know them because we would make so many more connections. Now that's just a tiny moment in my day. That moment happened in a second. But when that moment happens, I instantly go, there's something, there's an idea there, there's something there, there's a thought there, there's a, that I could have an hour of conversation about that thing alone. So most people will see that in their day and just move on.

Yeah, I love this story and I want to share a few comments that people have been saying during all this. Shout out to my friend David Walton who's been on the podcast before. He's saying our hair looks great. I was talking about Matthew's hair before and how he keeps it so perfect all the time. I need a lot of product. I saw another comment that come through from Mona saying hi to her favorite people. Good to see you when I saw you do her live before. yesterday.

Nice. Hi, Marina.

I didn't know you were watching. Someone also commented and said, who is Matthew Hussey? I'm in your inner circle. I don't know who he is. So for those that don't know who Matthew Hussey is, he's the top dating relationship expert for women on how to get the man of your dreams. And he's an amazing coach, teacher, trainer, content creator. We were talking about creating desire with the space in between when you're being with each other. And when you said that, you know, Esther Perel was talking about that. And when you're around someone 24/7, it's hard to create desire unless you manufacture it and engineer it the way you're talking about, which made me think that 75% of my relationships in the last 15 years, maybe 80%, have started long distance, have started at least being a couple hours away from the person. Typically much farther. I remember 10 years ago I was dating a girl in London from Ohio. It was not even a non-stop flight to get there. I had to go to New York and then London. It was always the three to four weeks in between that was like the anticipation of seeing someone created the desire. And then after I was there for too long, I was like, okay, I need to get out and like go back and do my own thing. I'm in this person's space too much. I need my separation. so it made me think that I've probably been conditioned to create desire by having this story in my mind of long distance of the build up of traveling and seeing this person and the chemistry, but then a lot of them didn't work out over time. They're great for six to 12 months and then it's like, okay, it's kind of worn off when you spend more time with that person. I just moved in with my my girlfriend after a year of going long distance. And I wake up every morning grateful that it's working out. Grateful that it's like, wow, this is like something I appreciate. But you have to work at it, like you said, to create that kind of structure and separation so you can come back together. Otherwise, you might get let down. You might be emotionally not connect, whatever it may be. What do you see as the biggest challenge for people when they're They have the desire and chemistry from afar. Then they get together, it's great for a few weeks, and then they're in this kind of routine that's not as interesting anymore. How do you get out of that normal, boring feeling routine when you're living with someone?

In normal circumstances, you would maintain your own life, make sure that you still have those things that you can go to our friend, as Pharrell says, you have to keep a secret garden. Everyone needs their secret garden. Everyone needs their place they can go to.

The man cave.

Yeah, whatever that may be. You know, it might be your work, it might be a hobby you really love doing that you go to to kind of be in your own world. But those things make you really attractive and those things give you something to share with the relationship. You get to bring a piece of you that they don't that they didn't bring to the relationship. And that's wonderful. And it also, of course, allows our partner to observe us at a distance. That's one of the sexiest things you can do, is, you know, for Jeanette Lewis, you know, when she sees you do your thing or she sees you on stage or whatever, she doesn't have to interact with you. She just gets to observe you. And that's powerful, because now it's like, or even it doesn't even have to be anything as grandiose as you being on stage. It could just be you in a room when she gets to see you interact with your friends. or go and hold court with a group of people, tell a story, make people laugh. She gets to watch you being you, independent of her, and just look at you as, instead of looking at you as my Lewis, look at you as, look at that man. Look at that guy over there. That's, he's hot. Look at the way you're talking to people. Look at the way you're gesturing. or when he laughs or like there's an observation there that's really attractive and that's the thing we often lose when we're too close to someone is we're no longer able to observe them as a separate entity to us. We're only observing life together, standing next to each other and then we wonder why am I not as fascinated by this person anymore as I am by life? Well, you're still observing life, but you're no longer observing the person. So that's something that people have to work on. And like I said, you could still do that stuck at home with someone 24 7 you've got to give them ways to observe you doing your own independent of them.

I think also one of the, someone was talking about love, long distance actually creates a deeper connection. And, and in ways, I believe that because you're on the phone. For hours, typically every day, you can't physically touch someone. So you don't rely on physical touch and sex or that type of feeling to keep you connected. You have to then talk about ideas, talk about experiences, philosophy, whatever it may be, to see if you truly are connected to this person and if you like the person.

So that, that, you know, the big thing Okay, so when you're long distance, right? You have space. So you don't have to engineer space, you have it. But what's the weakness now? You might not be building the right level of connection or you might be or because right now, like, okay, here's that we're in a heavy time. We're in a time where there's a lot of depression, melancholy, sadness, people are mourning the loss of the year they thought they'd have. They're on top of that now missing each other. They're missing their person. so that precipitates the same kind of exchange over and over again where you go to them and you're like, I miss you, this is so hard, this is so frustrating, it makes me so angry. You go, you keep going to that place and you've got to, look, you know what I'm interested in right now, Louis, the, I call it the baggage paradox. baggage. Baggage Paradox is if you text me and you say, how are you? And I go, I'm good, man. What's going on?

I love your latest. I love your latest post about this. Right.

That might be. That might be. Because it's not. There's no Nuance there. There's no sense of what I really feel, what am I anxious about right now? What am I experiencing? But baggage can be where we just. offload on someone constantly all of the things that we're going through. Now, there's a sweet spot in the middle, which is true powerful vulnerability. Where people say, well, what's the difference between vulnerability and baggage? Because we're all worried that if we, you know, if I get on the phone to my person and I start talking about the things that make me feel vulnerable, then they're just going to see me as weak or pathetic or, you know, offloading baggage. I describe it this way: vulnerability is a song. Vulnerability is I'm playing you a song from my mind or my heart that tells you something about who I really am, what I really feel right now, what I'm experiencing. I'm playing you a song and that song makes you feel more connected to me. Baggage is when I play that same song 50 times for you today.

So let's just say it one time. Just play the song once, don't put it on repeat.

If you want to know me better, let me play you a song. But you don't get to the end of that song and say, Can we play, can we run that back? Let's play it.

See, I'm the type of guy that likes to play the same song over and over, because I like it. But don't do that in a relationship where you're saying the same thing over and over. If you want to listen to music and play it over and over, that's fine. But don't make that part of the.

Relationship, that's what I'm here for. A relationship has to be an album. Ooh, ooh, that has to be.

Ooh, snap.

That has to be a different, you know.

So there can be a sad song, there can be a love song, there could be a hype up, you know, dance party song.

Exactly.

It can be a bluesy song, but it can't always be, I'm dying, this hurts me.

Exactly, and that's what, and that by the way is one of the keys to to a long distance situation right now. If you want to know how to keep the spark alive, you can't you like any piece of music, by the way, if you listen to the same song too many times, it will lose its juice. You'll start to, you know, at a certain point, you'll be like, I want to play a different song. You might come back to that song and love it, but you need to listen to a couple of songs in between or take a day break from that in order to love it still. So a relationship is an album and in a long distance situation, this morning, I'll call you and tell you I'm struggling.

Today.

I miss you today. I'm really. I don't know. When are we gonna see each other? I feel hopeless today. Later this afternoon, let me play you a different song. Let me. Let me do something fun or silly or goof. Let me send you a goofy picture or something that shows you a different side to me. Let me tell you that I miss your body right now. Let me tell you, like, let me give you something that takes things in a different direction.

So sexual healing. That type of song. Yeah.

You need to remember I'm mischievous. You need to remember I'm sexual. You need to remember I take charge. You need to remember I can be soft. You need, like, we need all these different songs to be played.

Yeah.

People should ask themselves. And they, by the way, this isn't just true for a relationship. People should ask themselves, am I doing this with my parent right now? Am I doing this with my kids right now? Am I doing this with my friend right now? Am I playing them the same song over and over again? Or am I bringing them anything different? Because every time, if I call my mum and I go, How you doing, Mom? You okay? Then I'm taking it to that tone every single time. Sometimes I should call my mom and go, Mom, you'll never guess what just happened. And like, bring us to a different place. That's how you keep things alive. Matthew always goes on the best, I.

Want to call it a rant. I don't know what you call it, where you just go off and just blow people's minds and everyone's quoting you and relationship is an album. Matthew has the best metaphors, all these different things. things as you were talking about a relationship as an album. Relationship is an album. And something that I love that you talk about, you've said it on probably every interview we do and probably said it on stage, is that if you want to create the most, if you want to be the most desired person in your relationship, if you're single and you want to be desirable to lots of people, you want to attract a great partner, you always talk about the combo is having the combination of yes, I'm smart, but I'm also, I don't know how you say better than me, but it's having like not just being good looking and attractive and sexy, but also being curious, not just being like driven, but also being sensitive, not just being a gentleman, but also kind of being like a little bad boy every now and then. Like it's having both And what is that analogy that you use with that?

Yeah, you gotta keep people off guard, baby. You know, like keep people a little unbalanced.

It's, it's, where am I?

This idea that we call them unique pairings is when you have two or more combinations, two or more different traits that are all attractive, but you wouldn't normally find them in the same person. Right? So it's, you know, all right, let me get, I was thinking about this the other day, Louis, there's the practical application of this. You know, like we all put forward an image of ourselves. Like on Instagram, people might have an image of us. People might have an image of who you, what you present on a dating app. There's a kind of caricature of ourselves that comes across. I think that one of the most powerful things we can do when someone first messages us or we have an initial conversation with them and they ask, how you doing? What are you up to? What have you been up to? Say something that would surprise people based on the image that they already probably have of you. So this requires some self-awareness for how you come across. for me, if people come to my. If people search me online or come to my page or whatever, and they're like, this guy is a coach. This guy is a speaker. This guy gives advice. This. The last thing I want to do with someone personally in my life is. Is make in any way come across, like, I'm gonna be in a coaching mindset. I'm gonna be preachy. I'm gonna give advice. I'm gonna analyze something that's going on. That's the last thing I want.

Do.

So I, I want to talk about anything but that. If you're a, like, if you're a model on Instagram who's, like, every picture is you in, like, either, if you're a dude and you're in your swim shorts all the time, or if you're a woman, you're in a bikini all the time. Talk about book you're reading right now.

Exactly.

Talk about something else. Don't, like, what are you doing right now that runs counter to the image that someone has of you by watching you come across in one mutated dimension constantly because that is a mute. That's a, what should we say? That's a image mutation of someone.

What should I do differently that I'm not doing in your, as a personal friend, what would you say for me? Should I post shirtless photos? Should I do?

You should get, you should say, I should say, how are you doing, Louis? And you should say, you know what, I'm f*cking ungrateful for Matt. And then just moan about something.

Because all I do is talk about what I'm grateful for. That's good. I love this, man. Guys, if you don't know Matthew Hussey, make sure to follow him. If you enjoyed this, leave a thumbs up. Appreciate you, brother. Miss you, man. Can't wait to hug you soon.

It's always so fun, man. Love to you, love to Jeanette. I hope you guys are good and yeah, man, always a pleasure. And thanks to everyone who joined us and spent some time with us.

And if you want to learn more about mastering relationships, then make sure to check out this video right here.

People, I think, don't go into relationships with a healthy view of what is required over the long term. Pay attention to what your partner actually needs.