The 3 BIGGEST MISTAKES People Make When DATING! | Matthew Hussey & Lewis Howes

Recognizing not what's easy for me to give, but what might be less comfortable for me to give, but is actually what would mean the world to them. And I think if you really want to make yourself irreplaceable to someone, it's...

When do you know you're ready for a committed intimate relationship? When do you know you're ready for it? as opposed to you just feel alone and you want to have someone in your life.

I guess when you're ready to build. When you're ready to build. When it's not you're going there because the fantasy of it all is exciting to you. But when you're actually ready to build. And that doesn't mean that you're not looking... See, the castle analogy is cool because when we were talking earlier about this idea of giving without expectation. Well, you do expect something in a relationship, right? It's overly simplistic. We do expect things. We expect respect as loyalty defined on whatever terms loyalty means to us. Love, appreciation, all of that to be seen. We have a lot of expectations in a relationship. So it's not a relationship where we just we give without expectation. But that to me is where the building thing is really interesting to me. 'Cause you wanna work damn hard as a builder in your relationship, but you want someone else who's building too, right? That's where the expectation comes in. I'm gonna work hard to build this thing and I'm gonna build it at a really high standard. I'm not gonna look at your work and go, well, if you missed out some of the grouting there, then I'm gonna, you know, like skip it on my end. No. This is my standard. I'm gonna build to a really high standard.

What if the person you've been with for a year isn't building to your standard?

That's a conversation. That's a real conversation. Like, here's what I need. Here's the kind of relationship I want to have.

When do you start to just say, well, it's okay if they do half the job that I do?

Is the job they're doing half fast one you really need them to do well, or is it one that can be done half fast? You know, sometimes I think there are certain things we let go in a relationship. That's where the compromise comes in, that's where the sacrifice comes in. There are certain things I'm okay with you not doing as well as I once thought I needed someone to do them. I thought this thing was really important.

It's not.

It's not that important. I love you. What are we doing? I'm not worried. It's not that big of a deal. And we've all done that. We've all seen those things that once were important to us and we let them, we say, you know what? I was at an age where I thought that was really important and it's no longer as important or significant as I made it. And then there are things that never stop being important or they become more important. You know, the ability to communicate well. I think as you get older those things become more important. The ability for someone to have genuine empathy, the ability for someone in, let's say, an argument to to not jump to saying a spiteful thing that's hard to then forget. Someone who doesn't try and do damage in an argument, but tries to build, tries to figure out, let's figure this out together. We may both be hurt, but let's come to this in a loving way. When you're younger, you say shit that's just mean.

Hurtful.

Because you're hurt. Yeah. Right? And then you realize, oh God, three months later, they still remember that comment, even though they said they forgot it.

And they hold on to it.

They still have that in their head. I'm not doing that again. There's certain things I think as you get older, hopefully if we mature, we start to see this is the important stuff.

What do you think are the, I didn't prep you on this before, but what do you think are the three or five components to a foundation of a relationship that has the potential to really thrive? long term, committed for decades. What are like, it needs to have these three or these five things, otherwise it's gonna be really challenging to sustain this type of love and joy and happiness.

I mean a couple of simple ones, I guess, are I need to show up for my partner in ways that they need me to, not just ways that are comfortable to me. In other words, pay attention to what your partner actually needs. Because it's really easy to say, you know, I'm gonna bring them lunch every day. That's like, I'm a really good cook and I'm really, you know, I want to slave away every morning to bring them lunch every day, 'cause you know, that's me giving. They don't care. They don't bring lunch every day. Maybe they don't care. Maybe what would mean the most to them is you, them getting home and you really being interested in their day.

Do you think love languages is an important part of this where it's like understanding someone's love language and giving them their top priority?

I think that it's an interesting framework and it's been for a lot of people a very successful framework. I think any framework that just allows you to kind of create a little structure for things that gives you some simplicity around it can be valuable. It doesn't mean it's the only framework you can apply but it's a valuable model. to work from.

So showing up in ways that are different.

So showing up in ways, yeah, not what do I want to give, but.

What do they actually need.

And I think that's a lot of conflict in relationships because and I think you need to understand, do I want to do something that's uncomfortable every day that's not foreign to me or that's foreign to me, or do I want to find a partner that enjoys the things that I like to give?

Well, that's an interesting question. I, you know, any relationship is going to be a bit of both, but sometimes it works even without like that's a kind of compatibility issue. I think it even works outside of that in day-to-day stuff because you might say, the thing I want to give to my partner is an awesome night together. But maybe what they need is an awesome night with their friends. And maybe the most loving thing you can do is say, Hey, I know you haven't seen this person in a while. You should go and see them. I know that relationship is important to you. you should go and hang out with your mum tonight or, you know, recognizing not what's easy for me to give, but what might be less comfortable for me to give, but is actually what would mean the world to them. Yeah. And, and I think if you really want to make yourself irreplaceable to someone, it's recognizing that because no one else is going to do that for them. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, it's, they, some, maybe, but it's really rare to find someone who who is willing to do that for you.

Okay, so that's number one.

Something to work on yourself.

Yep.

And to say, I'm responsible for me. My partner isn't responsible for me. I need to do the work to be the most loving, confident person I can be in this world.

What are those?

Fulfilled, has their own purpose, has things that drive them. That, to me, is very, very important.

If... What's the first thing people should do to do work on themselves? 'Cause you threw a few things out there, but what's like...

I mean, firstly, do you have... Maybe, here's an interesting question you can ask yourself. If I had 10 hours free right now, what would I do with them?

Interesting.

If you can't give a good answer to that question, you might already be describing one of the weaknesses of your relationship.

Yeah, and binge-watching a series is not the best use of your time.

It's, you know, that if, if the answer is, oh, my God, well, I have my purpose, the thing I love getting stuck into, or it doesn't even have to be some grand purpose. Not everyone has found, like, their life's calling, but it could be, I really want to learn this language, or I really want to see this friend, or I really want to go and, you know, whatever it is, read this book or learn this thing.

Take care of my health.

Yeah, I want to.

I can't wait to get to the gym. If You should be able to answer the question of, My partner canceled on me today. What would I do with that day now? And if you can't, then you begin to describe the person who's sitting there waiting for their partner to text them, waiting for their partner to make them feel good enough.

That's not attractive.

It's not, and it's not fair to our partners.

It's a lot of pressure.

It's a lot of pressure. And by the way, people put a lot of pressure on their partners by expecting their partner to put a band-aid on all sorts of things for them. You know, if they're feeling like, there's a lot of rhetoric about vulnerability right now. Now, I think vulnerability is huge. I think the work that people like Brené Brown are doing and so on is huge. It's massively important. Vulnerability is absolutely an act of courage, and we should encourage it more, both sexes all the time. But, His vulnerability is something's making me insecure and I'm gonna share it with you because you're my partner and I love you and I tell you things, right?

But you don't want to do that every day.

Vulnerability if an hour from now I tell you, oh God, I'm feeling insecure again and then an hour from now you go that thing's affecting me again and this tonight because now In a way, what we're doing is instead of sharing, we're dumping. I'm asking you now to fix it for me, to put a band-aid on it for me.

Make it feel better, yeah.

Of course, it's part of our part, a loving partner will support you and will do everything in their power to make you feel loved and to make you feel safe and to make you feel secure. And it's absolutely true that sometimes what we're feeling is insecurity Is because our partner isn't doing their job in those things.

That's true, they're not building.

They're not building, they're doing things that are proactively making us feel insecure. There's minor betrayals, minor neglects, all of that. But sometimes we have to say, okay, what part of this am I responsible for? And it's my partner's responsibility, is our responsibility in life together? to share, to share the load, to work towards things together. But it's not your job to carry the load for me, to carry my problems, to put the Band-Aid on every day.

I need to, maybe once in a blue moon. Yeah, of course.

Of course. And we, we're all going to do that. We're all going to have, like, we're, we're going to have days, weeks, times where we're going through something really serious. And our partner's job is to show up. Yeah. You know, but a friend of mine who's kind of blunt said to me, some days or weeks, you get to be needy and difficult and high maintenance and boring and, you know, insecure, and then you don't. And I thought, yeah, like, we get to be those things for a time until we don't, until it gets too much for somebody else, because we need to be At the very least, we need to show our partner we're committed to our own growth. So the first one, what did we have? Show up in ways they need, not just ways you want to show up. The second one's work on yourself. I think, I guess the third one, to me, teamwork is everything. Like being a genuine team is huge. Really looking at each other as teammates as opposed to you're there to meet my needs or I'm competing with you in some way.

Man, I've done that before.

Like we're an actual team. And I saw, you know, one of the things I loved most about Chris Rock's recent stand-up, Tambourine.

I haven't seen it yet.

Such a genius name. The whole concept is, you know, about the idea that he couldn't in his last marriage play the tambourine. He couldn't play the backup instrument, right? Right. And I thought that was such a great, great metaphor because in a good relationship, in a really genuinely mutually supportive relationship, some days you play tambourine, some days you're their teammate. You can't, you know, the way he says it, her success is your success and vice versa. you're in this together. And some days that person's the lead and you're on tambourine and a lot of people have never learned how to play tambourine. There's the other thing, I don't remember where it comes from, but every relationship has a flower and a gardener, right? Most people don't want to be in a relationship where they're always the gardener.

They want to be the flower.

Never the flower, right?

Blooming all the time.

Yes, and sometimes you have to be the gardener. No matter how long you've played the flower.

Right?

Right.

You and I have played flowers a lot in our lives, right? We've been used to being a certain, you know, having a leader role and having these kind of big lives and big worlds and whatever. And then you go to a relationship and the relationship doesn't give a fuck. You know what I mean?

What about you?

No. I don't care if.

You'Re the flower.

Out there in the world.

Sometimes in our relationship, you have to be the gardener. Sometimes you've got to play tambourine, even if to everyone else, you are the the constant flower.

Yeah, right. Movie reference, constant gardener. Well, you can't, you can't be the constant flower, right?

You can't, you might be in your business in some way, but the relationship is different. You can't, now you're coming as two equals. And so it's so much of it's checking your own Damn ego and being like, I'm in this to be with you as a teammate. Not this or this, this.

When do you know you've found your match for life or your potential match for life? Or you think this could be the match?

By the way, these are much harder.

Questions than the first interview.

I know. Is it when you see these three things after a period of time and you feel convinced that the The bricks are being laid equally in a certain way.

Yeah.

When you say, I'm ready to be committed all in.

I think there are four stages to a relationship.

Okay, stage one.

Stage one is admiration. That's when you don't have a relationship with this person.

You admire like, I look at you.

And I'm like, this person is hot, they have something about them, I like their qualities. I like their energy.

They have a good potential. Yeah. Okay.

And by the way, that doesn't even mean they have good potential for you right now. It just means this is a person of high potential in some way.

You admire them.

Yeah. The second stage is connection. And you could, I think, in that, in a sense, connection and chemistry are both relevant to this stage because you have this person where there's a mutual like. I like things about you, you like things about me, I think you're attractive, you think I'm attractive, we share some common ideas, common grounds in life, our outlook, whatever.

Beliefs, yeah.

That can be found on a great date, right? Doesn't really mean much still. This is the plot of land.

Yeah, you can have great sex, there'd be chemistry, you can make out all night.

None of this means you're gonna have a great relationship.

Okay.

The third stage is commitment that says.

I.

Want to do this with you. I am committed to building with you and you are committed to building with me. Right? That's a really great stage to be at. It's very important.

Right?

It's. You can't have a relationship without that. Any relationship without that or where that's one-sided is unrequired love by definition. And there are a ton of people out there right now who say, I'm just, you know, I created a program recently called Attraction to Commitment, which literally dealt with why people keep getting stuck in limbo.

Yeah.

Why they keep getting stuck in the casual phases and it never gets to a relationship. One of the things that fascinates me is how long we stay with something that's just casual that isn't a real relationship on the hope that it will change.

Mm.

Unrequired love, you know? Certainly unrequired commitment.

Yeah, it's a nice time when you're 23, right?

That's stage three. Stage four is compatibility.

Mmm, man.

And the hard thing I think for a lot of people is, I used to question this one myself, like, if You know the idea love conquers all, right?

It doesn't. It does not.

I wish. I like it. I like that phrase.

It's an amazing-- I love the phrase.

I love the sentiment of it.

Amazing bumper sticker, you know?

And there's nothing, you know, what is more powerful in the world than love.

And all you need is love.

Yeah, apparently not.

It's not true.

We need a little more. You can have love without commitment, right? You can have commitment without compatibility.

Interesting.

And this is where things get... I used to think, well, maybe commitment is enough and maybe issues with compatibility can be overcome as long as two people are truly committed to each other. I don't believe that anymore. I think that it goes beyond commitment. To truly last, you have to have two people who are really compatible. Like, okay, let's say we got commitment. Two people want to be together.

They admire each other, they have chemistry.

Right.

They say, I'm committed to you.

But one person's sex drive is here, and the other one's is here.

Not compatible.

This is gonna be difficult.

One person likes to spend a lot of money, another person wants to save all the money.

Right.

One person believes in a certain religion, another person doesn't believe in that.

One person, you know, wants to spend five days a week together, the other person is happy with One night a week together.

One person wants their family to move in, the other person wants their space. Right.

These are serious, serious issues that often end relationships. And so to me, you wanna say, how do you know when you found your match?

All four.

Four stages.

All four.

I admire this person. We have connection and chemistry. We have genuine mutual commitment. and we're compatible.

How do you know if you're fully compatible or somewhat compatible and is there a spectrum of what's possible?

Yeah, that, I mean, I wrestled with that for years myself.

We're compatible here, but not here.

And can we overcome this incompatibility here? It goes back to, is it one of my deal breakers? Is it really important to me? Or can I let up here? And does the other person understand the sacrifice I'm making in letting up there? And do they show appreciation for it? And do they, you know, do they see me for that compromise that I'm making?

Or do they just expect you should do it easily?

Yeah. You just, well, you should have. that's the way I am. So that's the way you should be. Right. Yeah. And to me, again, part of growing up is realizing I wasn't always right. I was, you know, there were things that I used to, you know, I. I've looked at ways that I've been in relationships in my past where I did something, and I just so thought I was in the right and so took for granted what someone else was doing for me, the way that they were being. forgiving, understanding, and just completely took that for granted, you know? And I think, man, I mean, you know, you talk about we were four years ago, we were together on this. What's the biggest difference in my life? Being humbled.

How so?

Oh, God, in so many ways. In so many ways.

Thinking you had it figured out in one way, but realizing that There was a lot of growth still.

Thinking you wouldn't experience this kind of pain or worry or anxiety or fear and then oh, it turns out that I can feel that too. And those people who used to use that I used to hear using the word anxiety who I used to think, why is everyone freaking out about anxiety? What is wrong with everyone? Oh shit. Yeah. The ways that you realize you're not, you're more vulnerable than you thought. Mistakes you thought you'd never make. You make.

You make, yeah.

You said where everyone else's mistakes.

Oh man.

And then you make them. Things that were going well for you for a long time and then all of a sudden didn't go as well and you thought they were just always gonna go well. All sorts of things. You go, man. And that to me is what as you get older you hopefully, hopefully.

You.

You know, Socrates said the mark of an educated man is someone who has some awareness of how little they know. And hopefully every year I realize how little I know.

Yeah.

Unless more and more I realize how much I don't know. And that has just, it's made me better.

Yeah.

It's made me better, it's made me more forgiving, it's made me more empathetic, it's made me less judgmental. Make me a better coach, a better speaker. Not to be so sure of myself about everything all the time, you know? Yeah. She doesn't always make for great Instagram quotes.

Because you've got to know that.

I know, I know. If I don't know one thing, I know this. Yeah, well, yeah, maybe I feel I know less now than I did five years ago. And maybe that's a good thing.

It is a good thing, I think. humility is a good thing. We all need it at times. I'm curious for all the women who come to your retreats who are suffering, they deeply want this love, this connection, this compatibility, commitment. They want all these things that we're talking about and they feel like they've been struggling for years. They've done the dating apps, they've gone on hundreds of dates. For all the people at your retreats or the women who are watching or listening at home that just want to find their match, their partner. What's the first step they can take to start getting out of the weeds of like failure after failure and start seeing some progress to greater potential matches or.

A couple of things. I mean, firstly, there's a guy called John K who wrote a book called Obliquity. And the whole idea of the book was obliquity is when you reach goals through indirect means. So if you take building a business, you're far more like, if your goal is to make money, instead of focusing on making money, focus on all the things that provide value to people. Because the making money part will be the byproduct. If you focus on, I need to get rich, I need to get rich, I need to get rich, you're probably not going to do the things that are going to get you rich. Because what makes you financially wealthy, the relationships you take time to build, that often for a long time, you don't ask for anything, you don't even care to, you're just building, you know, the products that you create for no reason, then you just think that they're great or that you think they have value or whatever the service that you provide people, it's just, it's not, what's the quickest way for me to make money? Most people like that don't get rich. Right. In a relationship, there's all these things that build a relationship. that really have nothing to, that don't feel like they have anything to do with a relationship. Like who would say knowing what you would do with the next 10 hours of your life if it was free is actually going to be a huge determinant of the health of your relationship. It's like one's over here and one's over here. Shouldn't we be talking about how to have better sex? Shouldn't we be talking about how to communicate well with my partner? No, we're talking about you being an independently attractive Purpose driven independent person who is attractive just to watch from afar because of the life you lead. That's gonna lead to a much better relationship. By the way, even that will lead to better sex. Yeah. Because your partner looks at you and.

Is like, this person is more attractive.

This is a person. This isn't just an extension of me. Yeah. This is a person. So it's the indirect things that contribute. And so let's now take that to the single. I'm single. What do I do next? Understand and study, and this is a big part of what I do in my work, so I'd encourage people to come check that out. Study the things that contribute to getting you a relationship that often have nothing to do with getting a relationship. The things you do with your spare time, Do I, you know, do I do... If I want to learn yoga, do I do it on my own at home with a YouTube video? Learning yoga, by the way, on its own could be a good thing just because it makes you more interesting, you have more to talk about, you feel confident in yourself, all of that. But okay, now let me do a more sociable version of that. Let me go into a class where I might actually have the chance of meeting other people. Maybe they're not men, maybe they're other single women, but other single women are useful too. Another indirect variable. 'Cause you have more single friends or more fun friends, more charismatic friends, friends who come knocking at your door going, Hey, we're going out. Get out of your goddamn pajamas. We're going out. Right? That person is gonna be great for your love life.

Makes you more desirable, have more value.

And makes you leave the house. Instead of staying in every weekend, makes you leave and go to places where people are. You know, the books you read, who would say the books you read have anything to do with your relationship, but they do on a date when you have shit to talk about.

Absolutely. Right?

So there's all these factors. Now, the reason I'm saying that, because of course there are direct factors, but my programs in my company, which by the way, people could go to howtogettheguy.com to go and find all of these, but the programs I have there are about very direct things like how to flirt, strategies, how to meet someone, how.

To do this, how to do that.

But that's one piece of it, right? I encourage people to do all those indirect things and then someone can't say, I'm just sick of going out. I give up. On what? On what? Like someone said that to me in a seminar and I said, I just feel like giving up. Tell me what.

On yourself, on life.

What are you giving up on? I want to hear this. Tell me, what are you giving up on? Well, I don't... Meeting people? Meeting people? Would you not meet people? If someone said you can never find the love of your life, that's off the table. Would you really stop meeting people? Your need for a human interaction would disappear? I don't think so. You'd stop flirting with people? That's part of your character. Being flirtatious is a part of who we are at times. So why would we lose that? Being sexual? Would you really lose that? You're gonna stop being sexual just 'cause the end result isn't coming? I don't buy it. stop doing hobbies, you'd stop getting out there. All the things that you have to get rid of to say, I'm done with relationships, are things that would absolutely erode your life. Even if you take the relationship out of the equation.

Yeah.

So I think people have to, I understand, I know there is a terrific level of like dating burnout right now. And if you're out there feeling that right now, I urge you to think about this differently and to say, I don't have to constantly have it in my mind. I'm trying to meet someone. I'm trying to meet someone. I'm trying to meet someone. That game gets boring. And now when you go on a date and it doesn't go anywhere, you're a failure. And you're exhausted. Yeah. Good. I'm done. See it as life. This isn't dating. It's life. It's meeting people. It's experiencing a great conversation, having a fun moment of interaction of. Flirtation. Doing things you want to do anyway. Doing hobbies you want to do anyway.

What's the biggest mistake people find today when trying to find their love or find someone that they, you know, their soulmate?

Oh, my God.

What's the biggest mistake? Is it being yourself?

I think there's something of a sense of entitlement. that most of us have 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, 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 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, 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, I don't. Frankly, it doesn't really matter what you think you're owed in love. No one cares.

I think it's the same thing with work and so many people are entitled and they think they should just get 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 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. It was really, really in a bad way over it. And a while later, I spoke to this woman on the phone, and I had said to her in a brave moment on the phone, I said, why did you wanna break up? 'Cause by the way... You talked to.

The one you were 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, wow. And.

I was pretty caught up about it. Now, the funny thing was, 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.

Yeah. And she then said to me, okay, that was when I knew she was breaking up with me. It wasn't, you know, when you think you're breaking up with them.

No, she was already doing it.

She was breaking up with me. And it was, what was so painful about it is that she was, she didn't mind. I thought she might get upset. I thought, no, she didn't mind. And that was the most painful part about it. And I... You shouldn't even fake it.

You know, most women 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 remember a while later we were on the phone and we were friends today. We're very good friends, in fact. And I had said to her on the phone, why did we break up? I said, 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 grit my teeth and I went, yeah, I want to know. She said, you were boring. And it 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 be free. No, you were boring. It was really cutting. And I. I remember resisting the urge to bite back.

And I said, that wasn't boring.

Exactly. I said, no, you're. Shut up, idiot. You asked the question. So now.

Yeah.

Listen. So I said, why was I boring? She said, you. 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 were on the phone, you were 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. And 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. 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? If you pair ambition, say, with an ability to enjoy life, now that person is really sexy. Super sexy. 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. The, someone I'm a big fan of, or unfortunately, has passed, but Christopher Hitchens, he, he once said about love, the, the, the challenges in not allowing your strengths to negate themselves.

Wow.

And that's very powerful. Statement because my ambition was my greatest strength that also had the ability to be the thing that crippled me. 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 you have a complete imbalance. It's like, you know, I remember working out at the gym once in 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 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 forearms and my back's fine, but my forearms have given up. He said, you,'re only as strong as your weakest link. If your forearms aren't there, you're not.

Gonna be able to train your back.

As well as you could. So, so here's 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 rely on as their source of validation, success, confidence.

Right.

Over Reliance on that. I had come to over rely on Essentially being ahead of the curve for my age. 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.

Are still living at home. Guess what?

That alone is boring. 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 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 arrogant, obnoxious, but just he knew how to play with her. And then a couple of hours in later, you know, maybe it's getting late. He comes out of the restroom and after being teasing and playful and silly, he says, you, know what? It's getting late. I called you a car. 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. 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.

Oh, it's well.

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, 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, they don't hold a woman. But now you find 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.

Ooh.

And there's a big, big difference. So I believe that we will actually, I believe these pairings already exist within us, but we've overtrained certain muscles. We've overtrained certain qualities that we've gotten used to as habit. Yeah. For some people it's being funny. For other people it's being intellectual and they're the person that knows everything about everything. They've read every book. They can always quote so and so. 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 ant. The ant is where I wonder what.

Else they could do.

Exactly. And you're, 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?

Right.

When you become rare, people get really terrified 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, 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, I never find that.

I was nice to my parents.

And I took them home and she was a sweetheart to my, like, 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. I hear these numbers. I hear 50. band it around. How accurate it is, I don't know.

Who knows? But it seems like people are getting married multiple times and they're easy to get out of relationships. They're, you know, and I'll speak for myself, you know, I am a lot of fears about long-term commitments. You know, most of my relationships are a year, maybe longer, but usually about a year. And then I'm like 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.

I.

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 for it. there's that. I think there's also a greater sense of entitlement these days where people feel like they're owed. And, 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. one after all. I thought they were, but they're not. The search continues. So, so the entitlement has people believing that 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, 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. 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 what's going to turn you on tomorrow. How do I do something that you didn't predict? Or how do I get you to know me a little less so that you get desire again? 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, well, 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.

Matt, think other things become more important. 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 woman who is a great authority on this called Esther 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 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, 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, ironically, 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.

Right.

So.

How do you keep that for 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 you've got to, so what you're saying first before you answer is you've got to have both love and desire throughout the relationship in order for it to be a successful one.

Yeah.

In order to maintain, in order to satisfy your needs along the way. Because 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 give each other enough love. They don't act as a team. And there are problems with that.

Right. But the people spend too much time together.

Lack of love. A lot of people, it's because of lack of desire.

Interesting.

That create, you know, these weird 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 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 it fresh? And there's a great quote by 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 new landscape, you're seeing the same landscape Over and over and over and over every moment.

So you better get good at seeing with new eyes.

Right?

Now the landscape of course, the landscape can change because that person, their job.

Is.

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 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 have to keep up. I have to keep up with this because they keep evolving. 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 someone develops and grows, you're like, oh my God, 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 gonna 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 gonna have nothing to talk about. Because you've said it all. You've said it all, and you've been together this whole time. There's nothing new to talk about. Right, I said, I'm gonna give you a kind of strange piece of advice. I think you should use this time to spend some time apart.

Wow.

Like go, 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, this won't, it will be scary. And 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 are 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.

Before we continue this video, make sure to subscribe below and turn on the notification bell right now so you don't miss out on these great videos every single day. I want to ask you a personal question that you probably only talked about at your retreats. So, I want to give people a taste of Matthew Hussey that you probably share to only a select few women who invest and show up to your retreats where they really get to dive in and ask you the juicy questions.

I'm curious. I'm curious.

And I'm not, You can't, no one can come to your retreats right now, but later in the year, I think you'll have more retreats and they can go to MatthewHussey.com and learn about your retreats because I hear they're mind blowing for women. So if you want to learn how to master relationships as a woman, go.

To these retreats, go to MatthewHussey.com and sign up for them. HowToGetTheGuy.com, actually, because people go to MatthewHusseyRetreat.com that's the best place for people to do. Gotcha. HowToGetTheGuy.com for everything else. I'll also let people know something they.

Can do right now as well because I know.

Stuck at home and they'll want something that they can do.

Perfect, perfect. Okay, here's the personal question. What is the biggest challenge that Matthew Hussey faces single and the biggest challenge you face being in a relationship that you still that you still need to you know, you need to overcome and improve or maybe you're not as I wish I wasn't that way. I'm not proud of myself in these times when I do this. What is the personal thing that Matt Hussey has to do or needs to do to improve when single and when in relationship?

I think, look, I'm someone who has always, I've always craved real connection for as long as, you know, I've liked girls, you know, 12 years old. Yeah, I've always liked it. And it's not that I don't go through the same things other people do where you wonder when you're with someone, am I with the right person? Is this the right thing? Do I need, you know, all of that? But I've always really liked connection. And sometimes that connection, you know, I know in my past that desire for connection has led me to relationships that weren't right for me, you know, weren't relationships I should have been in, but they were wonderful people. They were lovely and they were...

There were great moments and great connection.

Yeah, and they treated me wonderfully and, you know, and that led me to kind of go, well, maybe this is the thing, you know, but without necessarily seeing if it was what I needed, whether it was really the relationship that I was going to continue to grow in and develop myself and whether it was truly kind of, I guess, meeting all my needs and whether I was meeting all of their needs. So I think that over time, I settled for some relationships that I shouldn't have, where I was just valuing the connection over what my long-term needs were going to be. And I knew that it worked today or this year, but if I really thought about it in 10 years or 20 years, It wasn't going to be the relationship that was right for me long term. So there was that. And that has so within a relationship, some of the struggles I've had in the past have been too much question, too much time questioning whether it's the worst feeling, man. So exhausting.

The worst. When you think I've had this in my past relationships where every day I would think and question myself for 30 minutes. Am I supposed to be in this? Is this the right thing? Should I end it? How am I going to end it? But this is good, but this is that just debate. Internal debate is exhausting, like you said.

That's right. And so that sapped a lot of energy from me. A lot of times when I would have liked to have actually had more energy to pour into you know, either the right relationship or my business or friends or whatever, but it was being sapped by me constantly waking up every day and going, is this the right thing? Should I be here? Should I not? And that's you're just fighting yourself constantly. So I think there were things that I allowed to go on too long that I should have seen things sooner or rather perhaps more accurately paid attention to what I had said.

Because you saw them.

Yeah, I saw.

They were there. You were aware. You just weren't right. Actively paying attention and taking action on the attention.

That's right. And, and so much of what I've been able to, to teach people and share with people has not been coming from a righteous place, but I've been experiencing things intensely. I'm, I'm a very sensitive person, and I'm someone who emotionally feels a lot, you know. So the reason I can relate to a lot of people is because I feel things very intensely, for better or worse. Sometimes I wish I didn't, sometimes I see it as a gift. It depends on the day you ask me, but that I think has been a big thing for me in the past. And actually, I think I'm much better now at saying I'm. I won't allow myself to slip into something that's the wrong thing. I. I am much more conscious about the decisions that I make.

You won't make a long-term commitment on short-term feelings. If, you know, it's not at least setting you up for the best chance.

Yeah.

And careful.

I'm trying. I try to be more careful with what I say. I try to be more careful to. To be. to have integrity in the promises that I make or to not make a promise simply because it's what someone wants to hear, you know, but to say what's true even if that's difficult. And that's hard.

That's not, I'm not so hard to say something painful.

I don't want anyone to think that I'm on my high horse about that because I fail that test a lot and I'm doing my best always to try to be more of that man that I want to be in that respect. In terms of being single, I think the challenge for me is ironically, ironically, it's meeting people. Yeah.

It's probably not hard for you to meet people, but you just mean, what? Quality people? You mean the right people?

Perhaps not even quality people, but just.

You are introverted. People don't know that you're extremely introverted.

I am introverted, although. A huge part of my career has been showing people how to build the skills of the extrovert.

And you've had to overcome that in order to get what you want.

Yeah, I've done that my whole life. So when someone sees me on TV, people who don't know me like you, Louis, think that that's a joke when I say it, or that I'm pandering to some image to make people feel better.

No, it's real.

No, it's real, but he doesn't leave the house unless he needs to. Well, that's changed. That's changed in recent years. I made a conscious effort to change that. I'm, you know, when I go on stage, I'm an extrovert. When I step out on TV, I'm an extrovert. Right now, in us talking, I'm an extrovert. I know how to turn that on when I want to. And I've learned that over time. And I think that no introvert should use being an introvert as an excuse to not learn those skill sets, which is why I have the whole suite of programs I have is about showing people how to do that. But It's not so much that my introversion is the tricky part about being single because I know how to overcome that to go and meet people. It's more that I have to go back to, you know, it's funny that a huge amount of what I do is I show people how to meet people in real life. Because that's actually my reality is that I don't have the tools available to me that a lot of people have available to them. It's not, I haven't, I've chosen not to. I never say never, but I don't think it's advisable for me to get.

On Bumble or Tinder or whatever, yeah.

Or whatever. I don't think that that's advisable because I don't know. I think it would be, that would be a tricky experience for me. So then, you know, the way other people are sitting at home in their pajamas meeting people, I don't really have that. The only way I'm going to meet someone is actually by going out is either if I get approached online somehow.

Yep.

Through whatever social media or if I go out and create activities. Now, activities require time and they require energy. And one of the things that this is something that I'm super interested in right now is I just read this book, I just read this book by Bertrand Russell or this essay by Bertrand Russell on it was called In Praise of Idleness and Bertrand Russell essentially makes this case. He was a very controversial and lucid thinker in his time and amazing individual, very learned, He made this argument for the fact that we should all work four hours a day. Four hours of intense focused work a day. And then the rest of the day, he said, should be used for active leisure, what he called active leisure. He describes passive leisure as sitting in front of a movie.

Yeah, right. I call that strategic messing around. Active leisure, it's like you're strategically messing around.

Right. I imagine he would like that term because he was very much into the idea of play. He was very much into the idea of going and involving yourself in things, whether they're sports, whether they're activities, whether it's cooking, whether it's practicing something, learning something, going places, just being in nature and noticing things, writing, reading. These are active leisure. And this is a thought that I'm glad you asked me about this, Louis, because I'm progressing this thought right now and it's something that I invite people to think about with me. I don't have a solid answer yet because I literally am, I'm literally go, I read this book this week and it really made me attached to my own content in a way that I thought was really interesting. I have for a long time been calling people out on them saying, I have work and I do this and I do that so I never meet anyone because I have no time. And I look at it and I'm like, okay, it's true that those things are excuses and that we have to create time. But time is only as good as your energy. And what a lot of us are experiencing, myself included, because I don't, like I said, I don't have that way of just meeting people online from my bed at night because I finish work at 9 o'clock and now I'm going to lay in bed and meet some people. I, it's hard for me to do that. So I'm back to kind of where we were 30 years ago, where it's like, oh, I've got to live a life that brings me into contact with other people. And that is, could be classed as a form of active leisure, but that active leisure requires energy. And it's so exhausted by our day that the only thing we have the energy to do is watch a series on Netflix is to sit and watch Tiger King, you know, or Ozark.

Yeah, I watched both of them. I watched both of them.

No, no, dude, I love it. But that's the thing.

Amazing.

At the end of the day, that's like the only thing I want to do is sit. I don't even want to read. Why is it when I go on vacation, I used to like go on vacation. I'd be like, I've read three books this week. What the hell? Like, I love reading. I get so much out of it. It does so much for my life, so much for my mind. We're only having this conversation about this right now because I read a book this week. Why do I read three books on vacation and not at home? It's easy to say because you had more time. It's not because I had more time. It's because I had more energy. Because my useful hours were not on vacation being used for work. Because even if I finish at 7 pm, like you could say, well, you've got four hours to read before bed. It doesn't really energy.

You need time to unwind. You need to, yeah.

So I read on vacation because I have energy to read. Now it becomes active, not passive leisure time. And what I'm fascinated by about this quarantine is that not all, not all people are finding themselves with this. There are plenty of, of parents with kids who are finding themselves with even less time and energy than before because now they're homeschooling.

Yes.

In addition to doing their jobs and looking after their old, worrying about their elderly parents and so on. So it's false to say that everyone has more time right now. But there are a segment of people that have found themselves with more time and what they're enjoying is not necessarily having more time. What they're enjoying is having more energy for active leisure. And now they're like, wow, I'm doing all these things. They're almost dreading the time when they have to go back to work because they're worried I'm enjoying these things I get to do right now, but what they're really saying is I'm enjoying the energy available to do these things because often even when it gets to the weekend, I'm too exhausted to do anything. So apply that through the lens of dating and what you see is a lot of people are not meeting people. This is what I'm, I know I'm talking so much, Louis, but I've got so much, my brain is so creative right now. I've got so many things bouncing I.

Just turned a bad mood day into a good mood day.

Well, of course, what makes a good mood day is flow states, losing yourself in moments, in thoughts, in ideas, and that's why we need more time, more energy, more energy to do those things. So through the dating lens, people looking.

To date right now.

Yeah, I'm really curious about how people can start to see that, okay, it might not be your fault that you're not meeting a lot of people. Because it's not just tied into your dating life, it's tied into everything. How hard you're working or how much exhaustion you experience working, you would never imagine actually has a tremendous impact on your ability in your dating life, in your ability to flirt, in your ability to go and take on new activities.

Because you don't have the energy.

No, you don't.

Now you have the creative energy to go out and say, okay, I'm going to approach this person online and do a special FaceTime, that's chat and do something creative.

The irony is right now people have more energy to date, but it's harder to date because they're at home. John Kay wrote this book called Obliquity about how results are achieved indirectly. So if you want to get rich, don't focus on making money, focus on all the things that provide a valuable service, that add something to the world, that give you time to think. That's what makes you, quote, rich financially. It's not focusing on getting rich. and the same is true of our dating lives. It's all of those things that we don't even associate with our dating lives that have a tremendous impact on our dating lives, whether it's, you know, reading books and now you have something to talk about on a date. Who would know that reading Bertrand Russell's essay on in praise of idleness would have an impact on how interesting you are on a date? Well, it does, because now you can. This is a date, right? We're on a date. We're having a conversation. We've got plenty to talk about because.

I read a book. this week because I'm making myself more interesting by learning, by practicing something.

And who would think that reducing your workload or that saying no to more is going to have an impact on whether you meet the love of your life? Not through any direct reason, but indirectly, because saying no to more means you have more energy, which means you have more time for active leisure, which means you're putting yourself in more situations where you might meet someone. You do join that running club. you do go to that evening lecture, you do join that cooking course where you just happen to meet someone.

And she says, I don't feel safe right now. To a man, we may analyze the area and say, well, there's nothing of danger here. What's your problem? You're crazy. No, don't do that. If she says, I don't feel safe, you have to understand how she feels. As men, we make a mistake of dismissing it because it doesn't line up with our logic.