4 Dangerous Risks of Pursuing POWERFUL Men For Relationships

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Right.

Very controlling, manipulative, authoritarian type of guys. Welcome to the Love Strategies podcast where we help successful women attract high value men, date with a strategy and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the mal mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else. Backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam lodolce and professional dating coach and founder of love strategies, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy. Gary, let me ask you a question.

Huh.

What does Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have in common with. With Michelle Obama and Barack Obama? What do you think? Think about it.

They're popular.

They're popular, but they're also two power couples. Power couples. Oh my God. Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. Let me tell you ult, I thought he was going to propose at the Super Bowl. Didn't do it. Apparently he's not that much of a power. That would, that would have been. That would have been epic. But today's podcast all about power couples. Jay Z, Beyonce, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds. What a powerhouse Ryan Reynolds is.

I mean I always use those as they're my go to power couple example because Ryan Reynolds is a dream. I love that guy.

Dreamboat dream. My brother, my brother was going off about Ryan Reyn. He's. We've determined that if he was into men, that would be his. His person. Like he's like, this is it. This is my man. Yeah, this is my guy.

I agree. He like he's just. And he just seems like such a down and charming. I love him. I love him. Love him.

Definitely. Shall we all aspire to be on the level of Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively? But today we're going to be talk about. Although this is a beautiful thing, power couples are a wonderful thing. We're going to be talking about some of the dangerous risks of solely pursuing the power couple. Okay. And trying to find that. Because, look, we. We all want to be with something that is bigger than yourself, whether that's a cause or is a part of a couple. And, you know, I know that there's a lot of what you talk about in relationship synergy, Gary, is, you know, really a healthy relationship is when two amazing people form a relationship to share their amazing lives and enhance each other. And that's the key to all of this.

Yeah. I mean, that concept of synergy is very powerful.

Right.

But I do think, you know, this idea of power couples, and the one other one that I thought of is Prince Harry and Meghan Markle power.

Oh, that's good.

We think about power couples, and it. It seems like something we would want, like 2. A player with a player, and like, let's both just. And in some ways, that is very appealing. But I think there's a danger to this in the sense that you want to be careful what you wish for, and it's what you wish for and how you pursue it, I think, because if you focus too much on becoming part of a power couple, it causes you to take certain shortcuts that are counterproductive. And I think that's what we're talking about today.

Yeah. And let's call spade a spade. Like, the vast majority of our clients are powerful. Like, we don't have a cheap service. Right. Like, let's be honest, like, to work with us. We. We invest a lot in our coaches, and we invest a lot of time with our clients. So by nature, you know, we just attract a lot of very powerful women, and we help powerful women. And guess what? Powerful women want a powerful guy. So this is something that we are constantly discussing, and we are trying to today really get into the nuance of this. And what is it that we're really seeking in a long lasting, healthy relationship? That's the. That's the key. We want a long lasting health relationship. So why don't we start by defining what is a power. What would you consider to be a power couple, Gary?

Yeah. So I think, you know, this is kind of a better definition of a power couple. This is like my definition, not necessarily the world's definition, but it's. It's two people who are highly successful, respected, influential, and admired. But it's a superstar pairing where no one's the better half. It's that a player with a player, which is you're both confident, you're both capable, you're both accomplished, but you're both supportive of each other as well. And so that's that synergistic element.

Yeah, I love that. So why don't we just jump into these kind of four dangerous, I would say, risks of only pursuing that. So the first one is that it's really important to give yourself a reality check when you're getting out there and dating. Like, what is it that you really, really are looking for? What do you want? Is it about finding a guy who can make you better and you can make him better? Is it all about growth, self improvement? If so, that's great. That means that you're seeking an intrinsic desire. That's a healthy thing. It comes from within that you're really trying to find someone who fulfills you on a deep level and who's on your level. That's a wonderful thing. Now the flip side to it is when we are just pursuing status, and especially at first, we're trying to constantly be able to put people on a peg. How high status are they or not? And the thing about status is when you, when it's about status, you focus on wanting a powerful or high status guy, you know, and, and all of it is about optics, really. Right. Gary? It's like, is he, is he the type of guy that can walk in a room and press everyone and, and you find you get to walk in and it's boosting your ego and his ego and. Or is it about finding a guy who's just your equal? I think that that's the key part of all this.

Yeah. So many of the, the ways that people go wrong about this is really, like you said about optics, it's external things. It's, you know, that person that says, I want to be the couple everybody envies. Yeah, right. It's, it's, I want someone that's going to look good on my arm when I go out to my gala, you know, charity event. Right. Wanting admiration, wanting attention, external validation. I mean, let's be honest, plenty of people want that. But what we're suggesting here today is like that's the version of power coupling that you just don't want because that's actually that extrinsic desire which is very unhealthy. And it can work short term. And so some people are like, oh, that works fine for me. Short term. Yeah. I mean that, that can work for a little while, but it's not going to be that lasting, long term, fulfilling relationship that, you know, we try to help people find.

Yeah. I dated a woman for a good amount of time. And this was right when I was, like, starting to do some television stuff like that. And, like, that's like the ultimate high status thing that actually is pretty low status. Honestly, doing reality TV is not actually a very cool thing, let me tell you. I have war stories from that. But I remember she. Whenever we go out, like, the very first thing she. She'd do is talk about how I was on television. And that was like, her thing is she just, like, wanted to make sure the world knew this. And. And I literally had to talk to her. I'm like, hey, let's like, not do that. Let's downplay that. Let's calibrate this. Like, it's not a great way to actually connect with people. And the best thing that I love about Jessica is whenever we meet new people, they ask me what I do for a living. She is like the ultimate down player. And she actually makes fun of me in many ways, like in a. In a playful, fun way. Like, it's like. And it's like a wonderful thing because it's like, not about status. It's not about that, you know, And I think that that just very clearly shows the difference in. In those two people. And, you know, I'm sure that other woman found someone who she can go kind of, like, brag about or flaunt about and try to raise her status. I'm sure that's fine. But I think that there's a huge difference because it's all about extrinsic validation rather than that intrinsic fulfillment of a. Of a healthy power relationship.

Yeah. Let's say you even find this guy who has these extrinsic attention kinds of things. You know, the guy that's been on TV and it sounds like the exact thing you want.

You know what?

He doesn't actually want you to like him for those reasons.

Right.

Happy that he has those credentials and those experiences. He's happy that he has it, but that's not why he wants you to love him. Right. And remember, people want to be seen and they want to be loved. And that guy wants to be seen and loved. And he doesn't want to be seen in love because of a few accomplishments. He wants to be seen and loved because of who he is as a guy, as a person, as a human being. And so sometimes we forget sometimes that guys are humans, too and, like, want some of these things. And this power couple chasing thing, I think, is. Is. Is that in some of its worst forms, where it's like, we're looking for a trophy. We're looking for this, you know, accessory to my presence. And it's just not the way to approach relationships.

Yeah. And typically, if we're going around flaunting things, like, I met someone recently, and this guy had, like, a Ferrari, actually had multiple Ferraris. His wife couldn't stop talking about the Ferraris. And all I was thinking, because I kind of see through this bs, I've been around enough successful people. All I'm thinking is, this dude is broke. This dude has got nothing. He's probably, like, living in the red. And. But it. Because it. Truly wealthy people who are doing, like, they don't flaunt it. They don't do that. And it comes from a place of insecurity. Like, as a couple to be doing that. And all she's looking for, and all he was looking for was this extrinsic validation. So we can get back to the core, which is we do want to be with a successful, powerful person. But it should be quiet. It should be quiet. It should be between the two of you, acting as a team, acting as a partnership. And I'd be very curious to see that guy's balance sheet, his net worth, honestly, you know, are you ready to attract that perfect guy in 2024? Well, if so, I have something very special for our podcast listeners.

If.

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It's something I say to our clients a lot when they're talking about meeting guys. And if a guy's a little quiet, and what that means is, like, insecurity is loud. Insecurity is boastful. Confidence and security are quiet. They're understated. And that's. It's an important distinction, like quiet confidence. That's really what you're looking for. You know, speaking of what you're looking for with the power couple dynamic is you want to realize that there's things are always a package deal in a sense. Right. So if you're pursuing this power couple partner, you got to take the good with the bad. Right. So the good is there's going to be success, there's going to be some admiration. There Might be financial resources, they might be attractive, they might have these great social skills and all this kind of stuff. But a lot of times those same qualities also come with a pretty negative downside, which is narcissism. Right. There's tons of research, and I kind of have it all in our notes. But it's, it's like narcissists are more confident. They're the ones that command a room. Those are the ones that garner all the attention. They're comfortable in the spotlight. They want the spotlight. They want everyone to notice them. They want. They're going to drive Ferraris, and not only are they going to drive Ferraris, going to drive the bright yellow Ferrari to make sure everybody in the world notices it. And we know that narcissists and relationships are not great. And, you know, we don't have to necessarily review all that stuff. But what I want to point out with this is you got to recognize there's negatives that come with these positives, and a lot of the positives are fantastic in the short term.

Yep.

Days, weeks, maybe months, you're fine. And it's. Everything's wonderful. But these relationships are ticking time bombs because eventually those narcissistic traits take over. And that partner who seems amazing on other accounts, it. The, the act wears thin. And it's not the kind of partner you really want. And so you want to plan long term, not short term, and be very aware of the package deal that these good and trade good and bad traits that they come together in.

Yeah, I just did a little Google search while you were talking, and because I was like, I wonder what percentage of CEOs are narcissists. And I happen to be a CEO, so maybe this is me being a narcissist. But, you know, I know it's, it's difficult to diagnose. And, you know, there's a number of different. I've seen numbers where it's like 2% of population is narcissistic, upwards of 5%, but according to what I just found, the average, on the CE, on average CEOs, 18% of them are not. I guess that's not. On average, 18% of CEOs are, are on the, the, the narcissistic side. So it's a 4x multiple. So it's like, ooh, I'm dating a CEO. He is so successful. Oh, guess what? That, that level in that title tends to attract.

Right.

Very controlling, manipulative, authoritarian type of guys.

Yeah, you gotta take the good with the bad. And it's Hard. And listen, every person on the planet is a combination of good and bad traits, right? So this is not meant to scare you off of powerful men altogether. It's forewarned as forearmed. Right. It's going into this knowing what you're looking for, prioritizing accordingly. And like, something we talk about all the time is just being able to assess risk, because no person that you're dating is risk free. No one is completely tragic, but there's variations all on. And so this is just a.

You.

You want to look for some of these good traits. Fantastic. Absolutely. Go for it. But just also make sure you're paying attention to some of these other things, because, you know, I was just talking about the ticking time bomb of these narcissists. One of the thing that really does it the most, more than anything else, is with a narcissist, with someone who enjoys being the center of attention and having all the power. It's competitive, and it's hard for them to share the spotlight.

Right.

We want relationships. A synergistic relationship is two people who are equals who help build each other up with someone who's competitive, someone who's power hungry, which is very appealing short term. They like to win. And if you're in a couple with someone who likes to win, guess what that means for you. Yeah, you get to lose.

No bueno.

And you don't want to lose. Like, and you can kind of tolerate them getting all the spotlight and attention for a while and being the best one for a while, but that's hard to really continue six months, years into the future. It. It gets old quick. And so it's. It's again, one of those things you just. You just want to be on the lookout for.

I was just at a wedding from a good friend from college, and I haven't seen a lot of other friends from college. And I met up with this. I was just talking to this guy who I haven't seen in, like, literally 20, probably 20 years or so, and he introduces me to his wife. And she's standing there, and I'm like, so what have you been up to? And he's like, everything's been really good. He's talking about some of the, you know, natural small talk. We're both like, yeah, things are good. And she just chimes in. She's like, well, I also have been. It was just like this moment where it was so weird. Like, I. I was gonna get to her next, like, but I was just catching up with him. She wasn't even A part of the conversation. It was like, weird. I get it. She doesn't know a lot of people there, but she was starting to one up him on pretty much everything that he was saying. I'm like, what are we doing here? Like, I don't. Honestly, I don't care. I'm probably never gonna see you guys again, so none of this matters. And it's weird that you both feel. And in many ways, I don't know if he was playing the same game. He probably wasn't, honestly. But I think some couples do play that game where it's just like, well, he did this, I did this. Well, she did that, I did this. And what kind of dynamic? What a toxic dynamic. You're supposed to be a team. You're supposed to be a partnership. That's crazy talent. It's like if I had a team in the company where like two different department heads were like, one upping each other and like, well, they did good. I did even better. It's like, no, no, no, no, that's toxic. That's not working synergistically. That is an unnecessary level of competitiveness that is actually going to make everything crumble, you know? And so it just really stuck with me, that conversation. What is this?

As. As I have a teenage daughter, as she would say, hey, you're not the main character. The teens are very big on the main character. The NPC non playable character, like, who's the real. In any case. But it's important to know that you don't. You don't always get to be the main character. And actually in a relationship, you and your partner are both the same level of character and you take turns and you support each other and all that kind of stuff. So the one last caution we have about pursuing the power couple dynamic is it's a little bit of tough love in terms of I'm a big fan lately of thinking not what you're doing, but really think about why you're doing things. And so what you want maybe is to be part of a power couple. Great. Why? And we talked about the good reason why is like, to help with growth and all that stuff. But, like, there's other reasons why. And if. If it's that other reason why of status. Okay, so that's a thing. Like, maybe you do want that. Now why? From what we know from the research, one of the reasons why you might like pursuing something like this is you have a touch of narcissistic qualities yourself. Ooh. Which, you know, it's. It's Tough, it's tough to diagnose. And you know, we're not here to diagnose any of this stuff because we all should have high confidence, we should all be comfortable with ourselves. But it's like how maybe you're finding some of these power qualities so appealing because you yourself also enjoy a little touch of the spotlight. You really like a lot of the attention. And so like, much like the couple that Adam was just describing, maybe that's something that helped bring you both together. And so this is like one of those times where, huh. Like you just, you just kind of want to sit with that, think with that a little bit. Like, is it some of my own narcissistic traits that makes this kind of thing appealing? Because if it is and you start recognizing that pattern, even if it's just a little bit, you can start doing something about it.

Yeah, we all have narcissistic tendencies in some ways. It's not, we're not calling you all narcissists, it's that we all have narcissistic tendencies. Women tend to be attracted to men of high social status. We like women are attracted to men who have access to resources, who can provide. And that is hardwired in us. And that is okay to an extent, of course. And, but it's realizing those tendencies of going for the super ultra guys who are just flashy, that actually don't have anything to back it up, that's not going to lead anyone to a healthy, long lasting relationship. And like on the flip side, it's like if a guy is in his 50s and he's only trying to date the model who's 25 and has the perfect body, we would judge him the same way. It's like, you know, it's, it's like, dude, that's not leading you to a healthy, long lasting relationship and you're just going with your pure primal instincts here. And not to say like all men only want 25 year old women, but it's like clearly he's just going after just the, the one thing that finally fills, fills this void that he really has. And so it's worth us always kind of checking ourselves in these situations and realizing, well, what part might I be playing in this? And again, just want to make this abundantly clear. It's very healthy to be with your equal or beyond. That's a wonderful thing. It's just the way. Why, why are we targeting this thing? Right? Like, why are we targeting this desire? Is it to impress other people or is it to have a Healthy, long lasting relationship. If it's the latter, that's great. If it's the former, I would really check yourself because it's, it's go. That's where it's like the straight line. It's the, it's the road to love hell of dating a narcissistic guy because that, that's where, that's where we're going to end up in that situation.

Yeah. And I think, you know, it's not blame, but it's ownership. Right. And so you have to take control over the things you can control. Like we can't sit down every guy on the planet and talk to him about any of this stuff. Like you're here so we can talk to you about it. And so, you know, it's just something where the more you think and self reflect about your own role in anything, the more control and more empowerment you're going to have to make a difference on those things. And so, you know, if you have some narcissistic tendencies, you want to make sure that you tamp those down. Because one of the things we do know is a relationship with two narcissists talking about the taking time bomb, it explodes. Right. That's just not the relationship that you want. And so, you know, these are, we talked about a lot about these reasons why power couples are so problematic. Now when I was putting this together, I was thinking, you know, there's got to be people, like, if these things are so problematic, why do they happen so much? Right. Like, why do we see all these and we, you know, we notice them. And I would say you notice them because they're very easy to notice. It doesn't mean they actually happen a lot. Right. It's the exception that become really noticeable. And it doesn't necessarily mean that it's prevalent. Right. It's like, you know, you see that big flashy red car? Well, does that mean that there's actually more flashy red cars? No, it's just like the one that you saw is, is more noticeable because it sticks out. And so we just have to, you know, there's actually a psychology thing behind this. It's called the survivorship bias, where we tend to focus on the people that made it and ignore all the ones who didn't. So every time you see a power couple, you're like, oh, see that power couples work. Yeah, it worked for them. But there's a long list of others who tried the same thing that it did not work out for. And so we never get to see those. And We. We don't keep track of the percentage of wins, of how likely this is to work out. And so you just want to be really, really careful and just keep. Always keep in mind, what's popular isn't always what's best. It's just what's most noticeable some of the times.

Yeah. And just personal experience. Thinking back to all the relationships I've seen in my life, I would say 95% of them, there's one clear, more successful person. Like, on paper, like, just a clear. It's not even, like, a little bit. It's. It's a pretty clear difference. And sometimes it's the female, sometimes it's the male, and I would say it's actually relatively equal. And I think of my own parents, like, my mom was the powerhouse. She was like a top attorney, and my dad was very successful in other ways, but she was just on a different level, and that's okay. That kind of worked. It kind of worked for them in their relationship. I don't know if it would have worked if they were both kind of competing on the same level, and it could be. So what does that say? It says that my mom looked at him as an incredible partner, and they still. They've been married, I think, almost 50 years at this point. It's incredible. And they just have this dynamic where it's like she kind of leads the relationship and leads what it is that they're doing. My dad's like, okay, cool. I'm going along with it. And it's. It's a. It's a beautiful thing to watch. So I think what that tells us when we're dating is we don't have to seek this ultimate power couple all the time. If it works for you, that's great, but if not, that's perfectly fine. You know, we need to really assess that and be able to move forward well.

And I think, though, you know, anybody that stuck around to this podcast this long is dying to know. The question is, like, is there a way to do this the right way? Like, we talk about the wrong way to do it. So it's like, I feel like we owe it to people to talk about, like, is there a right way to do this? And I know Adam, you know, we talk a lot about this in our Lux program. We have a whole program on affluent attraction. And so there's a ton. We. We could talk about this for days. But there is one piece that applies here that I do want to mention, which is you can seek and want to be part of a Power couple, but it's all about timing. You can't put that first and foremost in your pursuit. Right. That can't be the attractant to a guy because he's powerful and he can be part of a power couple. It can be the byproduct, right. So you want the right guy is going to be a guy who's powerful, that you like him. Not because he's powerful, it's a bonus. Like it's an extra thing that he has because the right guy, he doesn't want you to be attracted to him because he's powerful. Like I said at the top, he wants you to be attracted to him because of him.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's really important. It's, it's just this is all about healthy relationships. What we are optimizing for with all of our clients and everything we do is a healthy, long lasting relationship. And it's really funny and ironic that we are positioning it this way because like we have an entire, our highest, highest and coaching program. As Gary mentioned, it's called Lux. We do events and you know, it's only for a select group of women, but these are extremely powerful women and we talk a lot about attracting affluence. Right. Attracting your equal. But we want to do it in a way that is healthy and leads to that long lasting relationship. And one of the first things that we talk about is once again those guys who are flashy, who are constantly trying to put it in your face that they are this incredible powerful man. Those tend to be actually the weakest and most insecure men. So it's, it's so interesting. This is like a huge part of our weekend. About a month ago or so when we were working with our clients here in Boston and this was a fun one. I really enjoyed this. Gary, anything else you want to add?

Yeah, I would just say, you know, when it, I think bottom line is power coupling is not about improving your status, it's about raising each other's character and making each other better in that synergistic way. And if you're doing it that way, then by all means be part of a power couple where you're both improving each other and helping each other live up to their aspirational goals because then you're going to have that long lasting, fulfilling relationship that you want.

Amen. All right, thank you so much for being a part of the Love Strategies community. By getting to the end of the podcast, you have proven that you, you are a high value woman who deserves a long lasting relationship. And we would love to help you get there. So what I recommend you do is go to loveapply.com and you can claim a free love strategy session where someone on my team is going to get on a call with you on a zoom session, be able to understand your challenges and see whether or not we can help you make that a reality this year. So head over to love apply.com apply for that free love strategy session, and we cannot wait to help you attract that man you truly deserve. All right, thanks for being here.