Conversation w/ Matt and Steve: Love addiction, Avoiding Red Flags, How To Set The Right Goals

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the love life podcast. And who have I? I am Stephen Hasi, of course. And who have I got in the room? In the zoom room? room with me. It's none other than Matthew Hussie, my brother. How are you, sir?

Happy January, Steve.

Happy January. It's that time. It's gone past New Year enough now. You can't say Happy New Year. Well, Happy January. And what's. How is the New Year treating you so far?

I'm. I'm, you know, I know that people are. feeling like last year sort of just bled into this year and it doesn't really feel like a fresh start. But I'm a big believer in the fact that you have to give yourself the fresh start. You can't wait for the macro of things to give you the fresh start. And that's not to say it's easy, it's not. There's a lot of reasons that we could still sort of feel the life sucked out of us right now. But I'm giving myself the fresh start, you know? with work, with projects, with things I want to achieve, none of that is slowing down because of everything that's going on. I'm still being just as aggressive with my goals and I encourage other people to do the same.

And, well, I like that. I've been trying to keep my focus very modest and look at just the next month. That's how I've been. I've been doing a sort of month by month approach. That's how I'm taking the year. and I'm like, what can I do at the end of 30 days to feel like I leapt forward? And then I'm going to revise in 30 days and see how that goes.

I feel like you and I already. Where did we speak about this? Because I told you my philosophy is almost the opposite, where I've got. I'm, like, looking at the next two years, and I've. I've got the next two years mapped out of my life, and in a way, that's how I zoom out of. The you've gone zoom in and, you know, focus just on the next month. And I've zoomed out and gone, there's a much bigger plan in the next two years. So let's not worry about, you know, the fact that the next few months are still going to crawl along in certain areas.

Yeah, we've come at it from different angles and found a different way through it. Yeah. Which are kind of like- When we're.

Having deja vu, did we speak about this somewhere already when we were live?

Well, we spoke about this on our wonderful VIP members area, Matt.

Oh, that's right. We did it on a Love Life webinar.

We did. That's right.

Okay, yeah. Well, do we have, what were you thinking of doing today? Because I said to you, Steve, hey, let's do a podcast together this week. What were you thinking for it?

Well, I just, I asked some people on social media for some questions. I sort of wanted this to be a A bit of reflection on the things we've been talking about in, you know, our dating content lately and, you know, just some reflections on where we are in 2021, like where we're, you know, how we can feel good going into New Year or how you're thinking about it. And just for people who, you know, know our regular podcasts, we're gonna try and do some more of these, aren't we? Just of us having a little catch up chat.

If people like Steve, if they call for more.

Matt and Steve, Cozy Time, Cozy Coffee with Matt and Steve.

We'll see how this one goes. If people are like, I want more of this, then we'll do it again. But we have to do a great job for that. We have to learn that.

Right, right. I have an interesting question for you. We will go, we'll go to something we talked about on dating recently, but do you have, do you have a book that had a big impact on you in 2020? That's what Laura on social media asked or what are you looking forward to getting the time to read?

I've been, there's well two books I've been enjoying. One in 2020 I enjoyed was Mythos by Stephen Fry, which was essentially his somewhat colloquial casual retelling of the Greek myths, which I really enjoyed because I never studied Greek mythology. But there's so much of our roots that is both moral and ethical and linguistic that are contained within Greek mythology that I just find it so interesting. And also when you're reading Greek mythology, you realize that just how many things that we think are original are poor plagiarisms of things that have already been said and told in Greek mythology.

Yeah.

I've been reading that. I was also reading Russell Brand's Recovery, the book Recovery by Russell Brand, which is his take on the 12-step AA program. And I've really enjoyed that. I love learning about addictions and I think that we're, you know, it's a really funny us and them world that gets created when it comes to addiction. which I think is very funny, it speaks perfectly of human nature that when we think of addiction and we, like, a lot of people would probably look and go, Matt, why are you reading a book on recovery? Like, why would you read a book that's designed for alcoholics? And I always think that mindset is we're letting ourselves off the hook to such an extraordinary degree by thinking that there's those over there who have an addiction and then there's the rest of us who don't suffer from that. And you go, have you looked at yourself? Have you seen the way that you pick up your phone? Like a little, you know, cracky fix that you need every two seconds. Have you seen the way that you eat? Have you seen the way that you consume TV or porn or Whatever it may be, we like everyone's got their thing. I don't, I'm not sure I know anyone who hasn't.

Have you seen the way I get with a lovely bag of Haribo Golden Bears when I'm reaching in for that? I eat bags of them.

I know you do. And that salt and sweet popcorn that you love from Tesco's.

Yeah, I've sort of overdosed on that a bit now. Sort of have to have a break from it.

I just want to say this, and this isn't a paid promotion. But Tesco's, if you want salty and sweet popcorn, this isn't going to be relevant to people in the US. But if you happen to be listening to this in England, Tesco's have the best salty and sweet popcorn.

Credit where it's due, Steve. That's a freebie. No, it's fantastic. It's the best one out there.

Sorry, you were saying about deep, severe addiction issues. Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. So everyone's got their thing, and I've really enjoyed learning more about the 12-step program because I do think we're all addicts, whether we like to admit it or not.

Do you think there's an application with what we do in relationships, people showing addictive behaviors?

Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. I recognize it in myself, Steve, you know, in my past, the way I've, you know, sought love, not just sought the feeling of love, but sometimes put the feeling of being loved above the feeling of even feeling in love.

Wow.

You know, we think of love addicts as people who are just addicted to the feeling of love, but, you know, to the falling in love part. But sometimes getting your fix can just be, you know, being loved and feeling desired. And I've had, I've had those relationships where I've, I've come to realize, God, I'm not. I'm not even in love. I'm just really feel safe here. You know, I feel loved and there's a, there is an addictive nature to that. So it's, yeah, and, you know, obviously people have their addiction when it comes to a person. They're micro dosing on someone that's not good for them. They know that this person isn't good for them, but they have to lie to themselves in order to keep seeing this person, to not feel like they're crazy. You know, oh, well, he did this thing for me the other day. Oh, I think he's changing. Oh, but I really think it might go somewhere. It hasn't already. And it's shown no signs of really changing. But, you know, we find ways to keep getting our fix. It's very dangerous.

Yeah, yeah. I, yeah, I think, I think you do have to, addiction is one of those things you do have to be ever vigilant and look at your own, we have these weird, like mouse-like repetitive behaviors. And anywhere you be, anywhere you're constantly repetitive and you, like whatever your reaction instinctively is to stress, I feel is a good clue to your addictive behaviors.

That's interesting.

Like when you feel stress or anxiety, like what do you typically sort of do? Yeah.

Well, you go to what kick? do you look for when you're down?

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

That's true. I also, Brandon also talks about, you know, he puts it very eloquently when he, as he puts everything very eloquently, but he put very eloquently the idea that there are many times where things start with noble intentions, but his ego hijacks them and then they get turned over to addiction again. So, you know, he uses the example of himself with Politics, you know, it started when he had noble intentions to actually make an impact, but then started getting tons of attention for the work that he was doing in politics. And I suppose that's, you know, the amount of attention he got, how clever everyone thought he was, getting a big following for it. And he said all of a sudden, without knowing it, his addiction, his ego hijacked what started as a noble Cause a noble intention and youd know, I check myself on that all the time. It's always good in when I make a video It always comes from a place of really good intention where I go I've got a message here that I know is gonna help people and then I sit with you or Jameson or Harry and I you know craft that idea and put it out into the world and I'm very proud of this very pure thing that I've created and and if I've done a really good job of that, then it connects with people. But when it connects with people, all of a sudden people start sharing it in droves and commenting on it in droves and talking about how wonderful the video is or how wonderful I am or whatever. And before I know it that day, if I'm not careful, I've checked the comments five times in a row now and I go, Hang on. The first time I did it was me just getting a read on whether people were benefiting and what was the feedback. Second time, okay, third time, fourth time, now we're in trouble. Why am I checking it a fifth time? I already got the read. I already got the read on how people are feeling about it and any good feedback. Why am I checking it again now? And all of a sudden, what started with good intentions gets turned over to one's ego. And that's the dangerous point we've all got to be careful of.

Yeah, the transformation of intentions. Yeah, it's like getting results will then reveal why you're actually doing the thing in the first place.

And then it... Well, how many of the most charitable works we see and the biggest givers of all time, how much of that was being driven by pure intention and how much being driven by ego? In some cases, we'll never know. And look, I do actually think that it's not about demonising this. We all have both. We've all got the best intentions and this voice, this ego that is always looking to take the wheel, always looking to take the credit, always looking to hijack a good buzz for its own ends. It has those two are always there together in the room. And I think it's just worth checking in with ourselves regularly and saying, who's, who's driving the car right now? Are my good intentions driving the car or is my ego driving the car right now? It's always worth our because they're always there. It's not no one's one or the other. They're always both there. It's just asking the question, which one is driving the car right now?

I like that. That's good. Just to circle back on one thing, when we were talking about the New Year's stuff, we had a question from Sian who said, what's your best method for goal planning or setting? So I think the interesting thing is like, is it like an instinctive thing? Is it very calculated or is it a kind of, you know, your inner compass you search for and think, Where am I trying to get to? How logical is it versus the kind of gut thing?

I mean, we talk about this on the virtual retreat, which by the way is coming up in March. What are the dates? Not March the 19th to the 21st. For anyone who wants to go and check that out, we talk a lot about this on the virtual retreat. Oh, and by the way, anyone who wants to go check that out, it's at mhvirtualretreat.com. .com, but there's different ways to arrive at goals. There is no one perfect way. Sometimes we are genuinely inspired by something that we want to do in life. Those moments are not good to wait for though, because life is happening right now while you're waiting for your inspiration. So I'm a big fan of getting the car moving no matter what. you know, just find a way to get the car moving because I do believe that you get more answers on what you want to do by doing things than by sitting around and contemplating all of the time. I think that answers are a reward for doing things. And so I usually tell people to start if they don't really don't know what to do with their year or their next six months or their next month. I ask them to start by looking for areas of dissatisfaction. You know, what frustrates you right now? What annoys you right now? What are your gripes with your life? Whether it's that you don't have enough time or that you're bored in your work or that you feel lonely and you're starved of friendships. So what are the things that are bothering you? Because usually what you want is some form of an inverse of that. Or the things you're not happy about leave clues. as to what you should be aiming for. And that's a crude way of doing it, but it does work. You know, when we were early in our company, what bothered me was that I'm doing all of this one-to-one coaching. It's not my favorite thing in the world. I'm good at it, but it's not what I don't see my future in this. And also, I can't scale this. You know, this is just me giving up my time constantly and this is not a growth strategy. And so, you know, that was a frustration. Once I know that frustration, I say, well, what would allow me to have more time? What would allow me to impact more people than 10, 20, 30, 40 people a week, 50 if I'm killing myself? You know, what would allow me to impact more people? Well, it would be if I had something I'd created that I could get to everybody that gets created once, but then can be given to many, many, many people. And it doesn't cost me more time every time another person uses it. You know, so that's a simple, you know, explanation for how I ended up having the goal of creating a program. But it's not that I started with the goal of creating a program. I started with the idea that I really love this kind of content and I want to help people. But it didn't start with me creating a program. It started with me doing one-to-one coaching. But when I got dissatisfied with an element of that, a goal all of a sudden is born. So, you know, if you're not inspired right now by something you want to head towards, look for the areas of dissatisfaction.

Yeah, that's great advice. Because I think people really do get try and figure out their whole life as an abstraction. But I think starting with what's frustration is, tells you where your gut is.

Yeah, and stop looking for the things you're most interested in, you know, or I should say them, stop looking for your ultimate passion. Probably you're a bundle of passions, you're a bundle of interests. There are many things that you like. It's, you know, it is about looking for the things that we like doing consistently. is probably a more modest goal to aim for. Not what's your one true passion or your one true calling, but what are the things I like doing or I'm interested in doing consistently. And the only way you'll know those things is by trying things, is by tasting things, is by, you know, getting the car moving.

I like it. Well, I don't want to keep this on too much longer. Just one thing, just reflecting on the video we released this week about anxiety in relationships and kind of looking at like when you lash out, you know, because of you're like triggered by something in your past or something from a previous relationship that, you know, you see a new behavior and it really boils you up and you suddenly do something you might regret. I was just wondering on that, what do you think is the line between saying, well, maybe you're just seeing something that you know deep down in your gut, it's like, I don't like this behavior. I've seen it before. It's bad news and it's a red flag. And also, on the other hand, giving the person a chance and the benefit of the doubt and being like, well, don't just assume they are my ex because they did something that reminded me of that relationship. Do you know what I mean? Does that make sense? Because you don't, you don't want to ruin the new one all the time by being overly aggressive, but you also don't want to ignore warning signs.

It's a great question, and I think we have to try to Well, firstly, communication is really important and communication from the point of view of not immediately accusing someone of something, but expressing how you're feeling and how something is affecting you and acknowledging that it's possible that part of it could be to do with things you've experienced in the past as opposed to the reality of what's going on now. And then what we have to do is be honest with ourselves about how much of what I am experiencing internally is to do with genuine things that have unfolded versus story that I have created. Because it's very, you know, it's very easy to take the smallest of things and to build 20, 30, 40 different stories around that depending on where your narrative tends to go. And so any piece of information can legitimately back up whatever it is you want it to back up in isolation. So the key then is to say, okay, is it an isolation or is it a pattern? When I communicate it, do I get answers that soothe me or answers that further aggravate this feeling that I have. And as I learn more about the story, you know, as I watch more of Life Unfold with this person, does it confirm this feeling that I have? Or actually, is it evident that this is actually a different movie? that's unfolding. It's not, you know, despite the fact that this movie has a couple of scenes that are similar to previous movies I've watched, it might be that the story is very different in this movie than a previous movie. There are many movies that have very different, very similar scenes with very different messages. And so I think that, that it's about exploring what's the message of this movie and that's not to say you shouldn't pay attention to what's going on and you should disregard it in a kind of naive head in the clouds way that everything's always going to be alright. It's about paying attention to what's actually going on and recognizing that our brain is this extraordinary supercomputer that is its own kind of Sherlock Holmes that can make thousands of deductions in such a short space of time. And it is both one of the most amazing properties of the brain and one of the most dangerous ones because it usually makes those deductions based on our experiences in the past, not necessarily based on the reality of what's going on now. So, you know, How much of the story am I generating versus is truly what I've seen? And if part of what I'm seeing is making me uncomfortable, then am I actually communicating that with them? Because I will learn so much from their reaction. The reaction will tell me so much. But if I don't communicate, if I don't have the conversation in some way, then I'm gonna have a conversation with them in my head. And that's where things start to get dangerous. A lot of us are having too many conversations in our heads instead of having them out loud with the people in front of us.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I think such a big part of, you know, a lot of things you and we as a company have talked about is in relationships, being wary of your first response and taking a moment to communicate what you mean clearly rather than taking your emotional instinctive animal response. And then also not judging their first reaction, you know, like looking at their reaction and being like, okay, let's see how it processes over the next day or so. Let's not assume everything based on one conversation, one response. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Lovely stuff. Well, I'm not going to keep you, sir, but two. Two very hot questions from our listeners. One from Anna, Batman or Superman?

Oh. I suppose. I mean, Superman, he's just, he's essentially a god, isn't he?

I guess it might be just, who do you like? I.

Think I like Superman more.

Oh, really? I didn't expect you to say that. no.

Do you know what? Maybe I'll go Batman. I'll go Batman. Do you know why? Because, you know, Batman has. He's had to. He's had to work at that, right? I mean, granted, he's a trust fund, you know, kid, so it's not like he didn't have to work at the money part, but he did have to. He did have to become Batman.

He wasn't born a Batman.

No, Superman's just like sort of the equivalent of the best looking kid in class. They didn't do anything to earn it. They just were born, you know, anointed with all of these amazing qualities. So, yeah, I think maybe Batman.

All right.

Batman, the underdog in that situation, isn't he?

He is. That's true. But somehow, yeah, they were a lot more evenly matched in that movie, and you think they would have been.

It didn't make a lot of sense to me, Steve, I'll be honest.

And last one from Claudia, smooth or crunchy peanut butter?

Smooth.

I'm crunchy all the way. So there you go. Maybe that is it all about us, Matt?

Well, I like your eating habits on most fronts. But I don't, I don't, the crunchy thing just, I like peanut butter to me is basically dessert. And I, when I crunch it, it feels like I'm tasting more, it feels more nutritional.

No, I like to say I love the little chunks and the nuts and things.

Well, there we are. We won't be raiding each other's peanut butter.

I will raid your almond butter. I love that stuff. All right, let's toddle off for now. Thanks for joining everyone.

Maybe we'll do it again next week. Maybe we'll do it again next week. We'll see.

Okay, we've got hard maybe folks. We'll see how that goes.

Next week we'll do a 15-minute episode.

15-Minute episode. All right, thanks for joining everyone. If you want to join our next virtual retreat, go to mhvirtualretreat.com and join us there for a full, well, the whole retreat experience in your home with all of us and our team. We have some fun. We do our full retreat, right, Matt?

It's, I mean, it's got all of the magic of the live in-person retreat for three days in your own home, wherever you are in the world.

What more could you want?

You've got to come. You've got to come. It's going to be a year changing event and I believe that it will still be having a massive impact on you five years from now. I don't believe it will stop paying dividends years into the future. I think you'll continue to think it's one of the best decisions you've ever made.

Absolutely. So that's it from us for today. We'll call it there. thanks, everyone, for joining. Thank you, Matthew, for joining us, and we will hopefully see you around.

See you next week, everyone. Thanks, Steve. All right.

Cute. A theme music.

I see the Vlog sites. Ookie. Whoop. Got a new wife. Shorty got a new boo. Yeah, love. Beautiful.