00:02:40.400So, you know, can I actually be of more help?1.00
00:02:43.800And, you know, I read a lot of women's books on dating and relationships.
00:02:48.140and i found some of it to be questionable in its approach and so i started to take a different
00:02:56.060approach that was just very practical very logical to how women could get better results in their
00:03:01.740love lives everything from finding a person attracting them and having a great relationship
00:03:08.240that put me on a journey of of coaching and to tell you the truth it was never really dating
00:03:14.880that was my passion. It was people. And it gave me a platform that built quite quickly through my
00:03:23.32020s. And that's allowed me to reach a lot of people with ideas. And now I'm in the privileged
00:03:29.080position of being able to not have to talk about dating constantly and still have an audience,
00:03:35.100even when I'm not. And that's what I enjoy doing today is empowering people in all sorts of areas
00:03:42.220of their lives but i in that area i wrote a new york times best-selling book and there's been
00:03:46.900millions of people that have come and seen my work and so you know that's all it's been kind of a
00:03:52.820wild 15 years it's been 15 years so did you start because you just saw an area or was there something
00:03:59.480that triggered the interest in helping women attract men no that wasn't i i started i mean
00:04:07.920here's the thing i started when i was 11 i i my dad was a crazy like entrepreneur uh he's still
00:04:14.440around so he's not past tense but he was a an entrepreneur we had our ups and downs but whether
00:04:21.480we were living in a house or a trailer he always had books and when i was 11 years old he he had a
00:04:27.540book on his shelf called how to win friends and influence people which of course everyone knows
00:04:32.060but when i was 11 i didn't know that everyone knew that book i i thought i'd discovered some
00:04:36.980kind of secret scroll that only i had access to and i read it and i i i loved it i mean i loved
00:04:44.060this idea that you could be better at with people that it wasn't you weren't just condemned to
00:04:50.680however shy or introverted you thought you were and i was both as a kid so that kind of set me on
00:04:57.660a path when i was 14 my friend's dad dragged his son to a tony robbins seminar and i being the
00:05:05.400friend of of this guy got dragged to but I wasn't really having to be persuaded because I was already
00:05:12.120into those kinds of books and so I went along and that became the kind of early yeah and it became
00:05:17.800this marriage of some of the content I was reading with the performance aspect of it someone who had
00:05:25.820an incredible you know whatever you you think of Tony Robbins love hate whatever that person has
00:05:32.160an extraordinary charisma on stage. And that then became this, this marriage of the two that set me
00:05:39.460on a path quite early. And not that I thought I was going to do that. I mean, I was, you know,
00:05:43.960studying real estate at university, but I, I knew I was interested in that world and I was looking
00:05:49.840for any opportunity to help people. And I'd coached guys from 19 years old. Uh, I was doing
00:05:57.640one-on-one coaching. I remember going into London and seeing a seminar where guys were coaching
00:06:03.140other guys on how to talk to women. And it was a weird, underground, strange world. But even at
00:06:10.720the time, I was like, well, this is a stage that at least I can get on. You know, no one's going
00:06:15.980to let me on. Dale Carnegie, and I know because I went there at 16 and asked to go on stage for
00:06:21.940them. They weren't going to let me on stage. So if I found this kind of strange little underworld
00:06:29.100in London of people coaching other people, I realized, oh, I might actually get some time
00:06:34.840coaching people, even if it's four or five people. And that's where it started for me was helping men.
00:06:40.540And then at 20, I had the idea that, well, no one seems to be doing a great job of this for women.
00:06:45.980Yeah. So I'll start helping women. So when you're coaching people,
00:06:51.400just savor the man the men aspect where you're teaching men how to pick up women does that end
00:06:58.160up translating to the rest of their relationship or are they're just like tricks you learn and
00:07:02.440then you can pick up women but then after six months some of these tricks wear off and you have
00:07:07.600to figure out you know how to have a personality or something that's a fascinating question because
00:07:13.580it's it's kind of interesting to me that different
00:07:21.400different phases of a relationship require such different skills and the the act of having to
00:07:32.780walk over to someone who you don't know I mean of course now we have apps and so on but when I
00:07:40.340started my company I that was it was very much the world of no dating apps you had to go and do
00:07:45.580something the idea of walking over to a stranger that you don't know with the intention of picking
00:07:53.400them up man or woman is an intensely scary thing for most people and one that's even scarier for
00:08:03.140people today because they're 15 years out of practice or they were born into a world where
00:08:07.500they've never had to do that and it's kind of it's extraordinarily unique to the first five
00:08:14.620minutes of your life with someone. So it's not a skill that you necessarily have to be good at
00:08:20.280again after that. And okay, yeah, fair. And so now you meet someone and you get into a relationship,
00:08:26.400you're now into a different skill set, which is showing up for someone being a great teammate,
00:08:32.840being a great partner, knowing how to get through hard times together. Hopefully,
00:08:38.160you don't lose all of what made you attractive in the first two weeks. Cause I, I am a big believer
00:08:45.640that what made you attractive in the first two weeks is still a key to what will make you
00:08:50.520attractive in year two and year four and year 10. I think people losing that idea is part of the
00:08:55.340reason why relationships go stale and die, but yeah, you're, you're right. It's a different,
00:09:00.840it's a completely different skillset. And that's why people who find themselves to be
00:09:04.520men or women i coach who find themselves to be single again after many years out of the game so
00:09:10.420to speak i hate that part most of them like you mean i've got to go and talk to a stranger again
00:09:19.280and put myself through this this is a horrible thing for most people to have to put themselves
00:09:24.480through huh okay most people want a relationship but they don't want to date that's fair i don't
00:09:31.540think i ever had that problem to be honest going to you were you were pretty brave yeah maybe maybe
00:09:37.780too much probably i wasn't worried about that kind of thing at all which is interesting that's
00:09:43.020really amazing what do you think that comes from for you because i was the opposite i was quite
00:09:47.840afraid i didn't i mean the worst that could happen in that kind of situation where somebody says no
00:09:56.160didn't seem that bad like what are they gonna say turn like what are they gonna do turn me down
00:10:00.360like oh well it died so that amount of fear i guess just didn't didn't disturb me for whatever
00:10:07.640reason i have no idea i i suppose that most people you know including myself at that time
00:10:14.300equate that rejection with the with our own worth you know with yeah if i if you rejected me it must
00:10:21.300mean i'm hideous uh okay so i didn't have that i just had oh well their loss so maybe just
00:10:27.740grandiose that's pretty amazing that's pretty amazing thank you thank you very much maybe
00:10:35.740how i grew up who knows this episode is brought to you by true local true local partners with
00:10:41.680local farmers and butchers in your area to source the best meat and deliver it to your door
00:10:45.740meat like 100 grass-fed and grass-finished beef pasture raised or raised without antibiotics
00:10:52.140chicken r-r-w-a lamb bison and more eating healthily is so important for attracting people
00:10:58.860trying to make it relevant to this episode guys but seriously eating meat makes you more attractive
00:11:03.460hands down there are studies on that on men there are i recommend their grain fed beef
00:11:08.920wild salmon and their lamb is some of the best i've had look at this baby look at this
00:11:14.040they also have 100 different cuts of meat that you can't find at your grocery store probably
00:11:20.360depending on where you live in the boonies definitely not to get started just go to
00:11:24.420trulocal.ca for canadians that's trulocal.ca for canadians or trulocalusa.com for americans to
00:11:32.540build your own personalized box oh meat shows up at your door vacuum sealed individually portioned
00:11:38.080like so buy an air fryer also just throw those steaks in the air fryer flip them once the laziest
00:11:46.260way to cook. It works so well. And use code MP to get free steak in your order at truelocal.ca
00:11:53.160or truelocal.com. Code MP. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Do you think, do you think some people
00:11:58.660are destined to be single or are people supposed to be in relationships? I don't know that I think
00:12:07.160I was just talking. We literally just did an episode of my podcast right before this. And
00:12:14.740we were talking about that idea of is one better than the other should should we aspire to one
00:12:22.160particular state and we do live in a world culturally societally where it's it still
00:12:28.760seems to be that the undertone is still why are you still single that carries it carries that
00:12:37.700message that there's somehow something wrong with you if you are and and I really worry about that
00:12:43.480I mean, not least of which, because I work with literally thousands of women a month who are making bad decisions based on that idea of their value, that they're somehow not as worthy or they haven't achieved enough if they don't find themselves in a relationship or they don't find themselves with children.
00:13:07.540And it, uh, you know, I saw the, the interview that you guys did, you and your dad with Russell
00:13:12.420brand. And there was a moment in that interview where your dad said something that was very
00:13:17.800interesting from my lens, because I, I have a different, I suppose just a diff I I've had a
00:13:26.380different perspective for the last 15 years. And he said, you know, he didn't feel that someone
00:13:33.140could really truly grow up unless they had children yeah which is obviously a bold statement
00:13:40.340which your dad is not known for of course no I I heard that and I and I actually intrinsically I
00:13:48.000understood what was meant by it I I I truly do I come from the perspective where I've I've dealt
00:13:56.320with probably ironically as a as a man who doesn't have children and who isn't a woman i have dealt
00:14:03.620with more women than probably most people on earth ever have or will who are grieving the fact
00:14:13.360that they have missed their moment to have their own biological children
00:14:18.500and so i see the um i see the pain the terrible terrible pain that comes with that and i'm very
00:14:27.160close and intimate with that in my profession and i also deal with an incredible number of people
00:14:34.820who are made to feel like a failure because they're not in a relationship and i think it's
00:14:39.500it's really really damaging to people's not only their confidence but their ability to be happy
00:14:47.200with their current lot in life and and what I what I don't like about the cultural thing of
00:14:54.360you know you're more successful if you're in a relationship is that I deal with people every day
00:15:00.380who become instantly more successful the moment they leave a relationship because they shouldn't
00:15:07.380be in that relationship it's toxic it's abusive yeah they settled for something that's far less
00:15:12.980than they deserve and so success to me is leaving it's not staying but when we get constantly
00:15:19.880indoctrinated with this idea that that being in a relationship or having a stereo stereotypical path
00:15:25.660in life is success we start to make really bad decisions yeah i suppose it's an interesting
00:15:35.320conversation as to whether there is just whether there is just a higher like there's a hierarchy
00:15:59.940How do you know when it's better to leave a relationship
00:16:03.660and deal with the loneliness of being alone?
00:16:07.680How do you know when that's a better option than staying?
00:16:11.700I suppose what we want to look at is, am I basing, if we stay and we're really unhappy,
00:16:28.300then we must on some level be basing that decision to stay on the premise that this
00:16:36.720is going to improve that this person is going to be better yes that this person or this situation
00:16:43.040is going to change and i said the perhaps the most pertinent question to ask ourselves is
00:16:50.760on what evidence am i basing this on this idea that it's going to change or that this person is0.99
00:16:58.820going to change what is this based on you know when a woman for example let's take the scenario of
00:17:06.720someone just broke your heart they just decided i don't want to be here anymore i'm out
00:17:13.400and you didn't see it coming but they left and then two weeks later they come back and they say
00:17:21.860wait wait wait i was all wrong i i don't know what i was thinking i i love you to pieces i i want to
00:17:27.640be in a relationship with you okay maybe you give them a chance let's say it happens again a month
00:17:33.540later. And then they break up with you. Two weeks later, they come back. Oh my God, I made the
00:17:39.760biggest mistake. At that point, it's actually really important to ask the question of that
00:17:45.880person in a very sober way, not in an emotionally charged way. What is it that is going to be
00:17:56.300different this time? And why? Like, why would it be different this time? And I don't mean asking
00:18:04.240it from a place of anger. I mean, sincerely being curious. What's the plan here for more certainty?
00:18:11.480Because you seem very uncertain. You seem to not know what you want. And from my vantage point,
00:18:18.940it seems very likely this is going to happen again in the next three to six months. So what's
00:18:24.720different for you now, other than you got panicked in the two weeks after you just did this again.
00:18:33.200In a relationship where two people are trying to make it work, you have to ask what evidence
00:18:38.880is there for the fact that this is going to make it work? It's going to work. Are we
00:18:42.540together in therapy? Are we working through it? Have we genuinely made a plan about how we're
00:18:49.580going to work through this issue? Are we communicating and there's genuine progress
00:18:54.040in the communication. Because that's the part where we consistently ignore the fact that we
00:19:02.280haven't actually had any signs that this is really going to change. And yet we go, I just feel like
00:19:08.540it can be better. Based on what? Not based on them. Based on whatever fantasy you're constructing
00:19:15.340in your head about it being better. So it's, can I live with this? The key questions are these.
00:19:20.860can I live for the rest of my life in this relationship as it is today and experience
00:19:28.180a wonderful life and experience the happiness, the peace, the joy that I want to experience?
00:19:34.400Is that possible in my current relationship if nothing changed from the way it is today?
00:19:40.740And if the answer is no, the question to ask is, so therefore it needs to change or I need
00:19:47.940to leave? What evidence do I have that this is going to change? And that's a question you have
00:19:53.920to ask very, very soberly. There's a biased judge in here that wants to do what's comfortable,
00:19:58.840not what's going to make you happy. And you have to be very careful of not listening to that judge.
00:20:05.400Okay. What if you're not unhappy, but you're just not happy?
00:20:09.140like what does unhappy look like exactly is that like obvious misery because i feel like those are
00:20:21.960the relationships where you're like okay i'm out of here this is definitely not working but it's
00:20:26.800the ones where you're like okay this isn't working but you know maybe it'll get better
00:20:30.760it's not that bad i don't know if there's anything better out there what do you do yeah
00:20:35.240acute you're right acute pain is useful because it can force action the low level
00:20:44.740chronic pain is um more insidious in some ways be it emotional or physical i mean yeah the
00:20:54.780the emotional side of it is that you can convince yourself you can live with it but
00:21:03.440even even with let's say chronic physical pain as a as a metaphor even with that
00:21:12.420you can kind of live with it for so many days or months or years until you get to a point where
00:21:20.240you and I know you talk a lot about physical pain and I'm fat I love listening to you on that
00:21:25.480subject by the way I'm like whenever whenever I see your clips on Instagram and things cut up from
00:21:30.040you talking about these subjects. I know you have so much experience with it. Um, I love it. I love
00:21:34.580chronic pain experience. Yeah. Well, I just love how you talk about it in such a raw and real way.
00:21:40.720And I have to say, I admire, I really admire the rawness and the authenticity that you bring
00:21:46.140to your communication publicly. Cause I know that's not easy and it's amazing. Um, but I,
00:21:52.380thank you. I, I, when it comes to chronic pain, we can, we can deal with it for so many days until
00:21:59.300it becomes something where we go there's almost a moment where we admit to ourselves like this is a
00:22:04.580problem yeah this isn't this isn't life well lived like I am this is so ever present in my life that
00:22:14.220it it may not make me suicidal in every moment but it certainly is like taking away any enjoyment I
00:22:23.600could have out of this life. And that becomes, I think, a certain crescendo of pain at a particular
00:22:31.780point. And I think that's true in a relationship too. Emotional, the chronic pain of not getting
00:22:40.620your needs met is something you can sustain for a certain amount of time before you look at that
00:22:46.720expanse of time and go on what level was I really living during that time? And, and do I really want
00:22:54.120to live like that forever? Because maybe this relationships have this unique ability to poison
00:22:59.540other parts of our lives when they're going wrong. You know, we can kind of leave a bad day at work
00:23:05.400and go back home to our family or our relationship and, and escape when, when things are wrong in
00:23:10.780our relationship unless we are the most incredible compartmentalizers that for me personally I can't
00:23:18.280I'm not good at compartmentalizing in that way if I have a fight with my girlfriend or if something
00:23:22.780I carry that with me into the day and it affects me and it creates anxiety and it creates so you
00:23:31.000know it can poison everything else and and that's what you have to look at is the unhappiness I feel
00:23:36.920in this relationship, I may be convincing myself it's contained to this area of my life, but
00:23:43.620actually it's probably infecting me everywhere. And I'll bet if we really look at it, it's
00:23:50.620infecting everything else too. I was in a relationship where I was incredibly unhappy
00:23:56.040and I was lying to myself about how unhappy I was. And my publisher met with me one day
00:24:02.820and she was we were doing an interview together and I was interviewing her and she's an amazing
00:24:09.360wonderful woman she's been a kind of mentor to me in my life and she left the interview and she
00:24:15.180didn't tell me this until the relationship ended but she was with her sister at the time they left
00:24:21.180the interview went off she said I saw you that day and I looked at my sister when we left and I said
00:24:27.480he is not happy. Like something is wrong. Like he's not good. And I didn't realize just how much
00:24:36.400I was telegraphing that to the people that, that knew me and how much worse energy they were getting
00:24:43.340as a result of me being unhappy. So that I would say is fine saying it's bearable, but you have to,
00:24:51.420the you know you have to look at the true cost of staying where it's comfortable because you
00:24:58.380probably haven't really assessed that if you're still where you are right now okay that's reasonable
00:25:05.180do you think if you're in that kind of situation there's a way to step back to look at the
00:25:10.180situation without you know being in it i mean take a vacation or maybe have some time apart
00:25:16.340and then look at it is there a way to speed up the process of realizing you're not happy
00:25:21.260that's a great question i think that you have to i do think that space helps in whatever form it
00:25:33.020comes you know it's not always easy to just up and take a vacation and get space but maybe even
00:25:39.120just the space of we when we're not happy we we tend to slowly isolate and we stop seeing certain
00:25:49.580friends especially the friends that are telling us things we don't want to hear we stop seeing
00:25:55.880that person gradually or we go and see that person but we no longer talk about our relationship with
00:26:01.140them because we know that if we talk about it they're going to say something that's going to
00:26:05.580upset us it's going to poke at some deep part of us that feels the truth of it and that's not we
00:26:12.040don't want that truth so our cognitive dissonance needs us to distance ourselves from certain people
00:26:19.180I think that continuing to invite is kind of in the same way that people like you and I do, and your dad does, and people who like debate, people who want to hear other ideas, who don't want to be in their echo chamber.
00:26:39.520You have to put yourself around other conversations.
00:26:42.260And I think that that's actually an important thing to do in your relationship.
00:26:46.840If you're not happy, go listen to the people who are pointing out something you don't want
00:26:50.440to hear, hear what they have to say, spend time with those friends and those family members
00:26:54.600do the brave thing of not isolating from people who are pointing out things you don't like.
00:27:03.400Okay, I'm switching I'm switching the topic up a little bit.
00:27:06.240I've seen some clips you have on narcissism.
00:27:10.720Could you tell me how to detect a narcissist?
00:27:13.960i see i feel in some ways underqualified in this area because uh you know i think of when i think
00:27:22.080of narcissism as a psychological term that obviously some people have studied at depth
00:27:28.140um you know i i they obviously can give you the diagnosable traits of a narcissist
00:27:36.640i i i worry about our culture of like we have a culture right now that seems to just diagnose
00:27:44.940everybody with narcissism yes immediately yes uh and i have it in my comment section you say
00:27:50.940you know i can't make a video about a guy doing a selfish thing without the comments being like
00:27:55.140he's a narcissist and i'm like well hang on like we have to be degrees here it can't just be that
00:28:02.000we that we label everyone a narcissist what but but i do think that we all have narcissistic
00:28:08.620tendencies um i think all of us show those things in different moments of our lives
00:28:14.140the question is whether it becomes clinical or is clinical with someone that we're dealing with
00:28:19.700i look for things like can someone actually can someone actually say they're sorry a very simple
00:28:26.640thing but can someone say that can someone say you're right that wasn't what i did wasn't great
00:28:35.300that wasn't a that wasn't a good thing to do or that was a selfish thing to do or can they reflect
00:28:40.900and have the self-awareness of knowing that they did something that wasn't okay or at the very
00:28:48.160minimum was an intensely hurtful thing to do or was ignorant or showed lack of understanding
00:28:56.900and acknowledge that and apologize for that i i've i really and i don't think people who
00:29:03.940don't apologize are automatically narcissists but it's but i do think that it's one of those
00:29:11.100character traits that it would it freaks me out being around people who can't apologize
00:29:16.420because that's fair yeah that then you kind of can't work with that person you you know there's
00:29:24.020people you can be with someone who does a lot wrong but if they can acknowledge themselves
00:29:30.280and be aware and and make a commitment to be better or to be more understanding or whatever
00:29:37.000it is that needs to change you can work with that person that's like a partner you can actually work
00:29:42.200with, but someone who can't acknowledge what, what they did wrong or where their flaws are
00:29:48.440and can't apologize. That's a problem. And if on top of that, where, where it becomes
00:29:56.140particularly insidious and a term that's also very much in psychological vogue right now is
00:30:02.900gaslighting. Okay. Can you please, please, please tell me what that is? Because I've heard that so
00:30:10.020many times i've been like i have to look into that everyone's saying gaslighting i have no idea what
00:30:14.940it means so thank you for bringing that up yeah what is that is the it's the term given to
00:30:21.620when you make someone feel crazy for something reasonable a term i should have known rational
00:30:32.280and logical that they are saying you know it's it's making someone feel like they're not not
00:30:39.300saying i disagree with you but but going a step further and making them seem like they're
00:30:44.460completely nuts like if i if if you if you and i spoke three days from now and you referred to
00:30:53.840something in this conversation that i absolutely said and i said i never said that uh and you you0.52
00:31:00.860say what do you mean you you don't i said i never said that you said that that you had this whole
00:31:08.620opinion you made a big thing of it no you completely i don't know where you're getting
00:31:12.220that you completely you're completely off i don't know where you got that if i'm making you see now
00:31:17.540you start to question your sanity and you start to go wait did he say maybe i maybe i did miss
00:31:24.260here am i like you start and the real insidious thing about gaslighting is that it erodes your
00:31:31.280self-esteem and your belief in in your perception of of life you literally and and often people who
00:31:39.500have been gaslighted have the experience of getting out of a relationship and then finding
00:31:47.260out a whole bunch of things about their partner you know it's like they saw this thing they didn't
00:31:52.220like it and they were like wait this seems inappropriate and that seems inappropriate and
00:31:55.680that seems inappropriate and the whole time this person's going you're crazy you're crazy and then
00:31:59.920they get out of the relationship and realizing this person's had it was having an affair all
00:32:03.640along but was gaslighting them the entire time that's that's not particularly spiteful and nasty
00:32:09.300okay so it's it's lying but it's a very specific type of lying where you make the other person
00:32:14.640think they're crazy right okay that's interesting oh i'm really glad i know that now i don't know
00:32:21.720why i haven't googled that before i should definitely know what that what that meant
00:32:25.380it's a word that i've come to kind of hate it's like a yeah i kind of it comes up so much that
00:32:31.240it gets annoying but it is actually a real thing that so many people who make other people's lives
00:32:38.080miserable do yeah okay fair enough what did you say you called it vogue psychology vogue
00:32:45.400psychological vogue psychological vogue that's fun okay um just out of curiosity how are people
00:32:53.940meeting people nowadays like are there certain apps or is it all like instagram dms or what are
00:33:00.160the popular ways of meeting people now that the world got shut down for a few years yeah i well
00:33:05.820the thing is apps were already that was already the number one game in town as far as meeting
00:33:09.980people and and and then you had the people who were on the fence and and like i don't want to
00:33:15.000use the apps i hate the app so they'd had bad experiences they were burnt out from using the
00:33:19.680apps yeah and then of course covid hit and anyone who was on the fence kind of didn't have a choice
00:33:27.660if they were single they were stuck in their house and the apps were the only way to meet someone so
00:33:32.840the app companies it was kind of like it was perfect for them because it just whoever was
00:33:39.820on the sidelines got brought in at that point um and yeah i mean i don't have a problem
00:33:46.620with the apps per se I mean there are definitely problems they create problems as well as solving
00:33:53.060them you know it doesn't do any favors for our kind of attraction circuitry to on one hand it's
00:34:00.940incredibly useful to be able to sit in your pajamas and meet someone in a neighboring town
00:34:07.600like how could you do that before I as an introvert there's a part of me that loves the idea that you
00:34:14.620don't have to actually leave the house to meet people have you taken just wait side note have
00:34:19.760you had a personality test done i have to ask you this because i have so many people who come on
00:34:24.280they're like yeah i have millions of followers but i'm introverted really are you sure yeah
00:34:30.860if you saw my life you wouldn't question it okay i i am really like
00:34:37.460uh i'm i really enjoy my own company and i'm i'm someone who when people ask me i just know from
00:34:48.560the evidence of my life that i very much have to be cajoled and persuaded or persuade myself
00:34:54.720into doing things that involve other people um i and i love people i really do i love people
00:35:02.420i i love being on stage because there's a separation i i get like away from the people
00:35:10.240yeah i can you know and i find the part of an event where everyone comes and says hello to me
00:35:17.560and it's lovely i don't i'm not complaining at all but the part where there's a line of people
00:35:23.140coming over to me i find in some ways harder than the time when i'm on stage um nothing i heard
00:35:30.680Stephen Fry once say like there's nothing he hates more than a party and and I sort of relate
00:35:38.220to that and that's not to say like I I had there are certain parties I'm at and I'm like I'm having
00:35:44.040the time of my life this is great but normally that's because there's great music and I like
00:35:48.100dancing it's not because I'm so enjoying all of the small talk I'm having with random people at
00:35:54.400this party that to me if my if my like mom or someone is like invites me to a wedding of a
00:36:00.080family member i don't really know that's my nightmare okay i'm i'm convinced that's funny
00:36:07.040because i i would say i care for people but i don't really like people but i'm very extroverted
00:36:12.740like the average person i i don't get along with very well or something but i i like being around
00:36:18.940interesting combination so wait you very difficult yeah care for people but you you don't like them0.81
00:36:25.480i don't really it's very it's been like difficult since i was a teenager i was like oh fuck i hate
00:36:30.760people but i really like being around them and i'm caring if i care if there's suffering
00:36:36.200but i think maybe it's just irritable i think perhaps i'm just slightly irritable
00:36:41.840yeah i would sort of describe myself a little bit yeah like that too i do you if i saw you at a
00:36:51.120party would do you think that i would experience you as as uh not liking people easily or do you
00:36:59.940think you'd come across as very warm and friendly and kind yeah very warm and friendly for sure
00:37:04.860so you just i do it's just a weird it's a love-hate relationship i think i maybe just don't
00:37:09.440appreciate people whining about things i think if i really needed to pinpoint it it would be that
00:37:14.720anyway i don't know how we got sidetracked into that i like hearing about it it's interesting
00:37:19.820okay okay but i do but i do i do understand where that question comes from because that's
00:37:27.540yet another thing where it seems popular these days for everybody to say they're an introvert
00:37:31.660and i i have the same i have the same feeling a lot where you go are you really an introvert or
00:37:38.000is it just that sometimes you like to be alone and you're calling yourself an introvert yeah
00:37:42.200i think are different things i think there are some people who are actually introverted though
00:37:46.260and end up growing a following because they're super open and sometimes if you're a super open
00:37:51.580individual that kind of covers your introversion uh you usually don't have someone that's like low
00:37:57.240in openness and introverted and then they'll hang around other people but sometimes being high in
00:38:03.080openness can make you look like an extrovert right yeah i love i love sharing ideas with people
00:38:10.100i don't love the initial conversations where you are talking about nothing and and i also
00:38:16.360i really love i really love spending time with like one or two i like i have three or four
00:38:22.760really close friends in la and i love spending time with them i but when someone i don't know
00:38:30.580very well asks me somewhere i have to come and by the way some of the best experiences i have
00:38:35.460from saying yes so i i'm not saying i don't ever do it i sometimes i get myself to say yes because
00:38:42.120i'm like i'm all i never regret expanding my life and expanding my circle and bringing new people
00:38:47.760into my world but i my god do i have to do a persuasion mission on myself to get myself to do
00:38:54.500it okay interesting do you know anything about the the love languages is there anything to that
00:39:00.940yeah i well i i think any kind of heuristic that that makes people love a model they love
00:39:11.980like the five love languages really effectively created a model by which people could put a
00:39:18.600an easy language to the way they are so you know the you know you can say oh i'm you know
00:39:29.520touch is my love language my number one love language or you know quality time is my number
00:39:35.420one love language and it kind of it just gives you this nice neat framework to put to the way
00:39:39.460that you are and I think those things are very useful when applied practically in a relationship
00:39:44.560because it allows you to ask a simple question it gives you a language to kind of look at
00:39:48.760communication with your partner you can say ah so my partner is more that you can even ask them
00:39:54.600which what would you say is your love language and by hearing them out and by maybe even observing
00:39:59.240because sometimes people will tell you it's this but then you realize they light up every time you
00:40:02.840do this so it's like oh actually probably this is more your love language you can then actually
00:40:07.680serve them better and be a better partner so i think that it's very useful from from that point
00:40:12.400of view but of course models you know it's like the there's you know the other model that people
00:40:17.440quote a lot is attached the the book about different attachment styles and that's can we
00:40:23.460get into that slightly i haven't heard of that i don't know the book about there's a there's a book
00:40:27.600put attached which which references different attachment styles there's insecure you know
00:40:32.360there's anxious attachment style secure attachment style um and avoidant and the the idea is that i
00:40:40.640suppose it the kind of the the caricatured version of it would be anxious attachment style needs a
00:40:47.080lot of love and validation and reassurance uh and it's worried someone's going to leave and
00:40:51.660abandon them the secure attachment style is just very comfortable in their skin um doesn't react
00:40:57.380you know to arguments in a way where they immediately feel like if you have an argument
00:41:01.720oh my god you're going to leave me um they're they're they're secure in the relationship and
00:41:07.240in themselves and in their ability to perhaps even deal with it if the relationship goes away
00:41:11.500uh the avoidant is someone who is you know literally any when things get too intense
00:41:21.020too intimate when they feel too much commitment when they will feel like all of that what that
00:41:26.500could entail they they need their space they need to to create distance so that they can feel like
00:41:33.080they can breathe um and none of these things the idea of this i suppose is that none of these things
00:41:40.800are inherently just a bad thing and it's not that we should spend our lives trying to change our
00:41:48.000attachment style but we should at least understand our attachment style and figure out how to work
00:41:54.540with it and also help our partner understand how to work with it and ideally choose a partner who
00:42:00.440soothes rather than agitates our attachment style um but but again like that's a that's a useful
00:42:09.640model but where it gets confusing is you can be you know life isn't as simple as this is your
00:42:20.080attachment style yeah because a we grow and evolve but b you can be really secure attachment
00:42:29.080style in one relationship yeah because you're in a safe relationship and then you can be in this
00:42:34.240passionate wild crazy relationship with someone who is constantly making you feel anxious and
00:42:40.120insecure and and is like you never know what's coming around the corner and all of a sudden you
00:42:44.860find yourself anxious all the time and you go i've never been this person in a relationship before
00:42:49.720what's happening to me right now so it changes even between relationships okay that's what i was
00:42:54.720going to say it sounds like a toxic relationship and a not toxic relationship potentially um how
00:43:00.540how do you judge if a relationship is healthy if you end up getting into one of those passionate
00:43:06.260relationships where your head over heels in love with somebody but you're also kind of anxious all
00:43:11.140the time trying to please them how do you know when that kind of relationship can be good like
00:43:18.920is the passion a bad thing sometimes how do you identify when it's a good thing i know that was
00:43:24.620a whole bunch of questions but well the problem is that when that when it's good that's like
00:43:32.140it feels the best i mean it's like the you just took a hit i mean you kind of did just take a hit
00:43:39.960of something you know you have in those moments all these chemicals flooding your brain and
00:43:43.860and it's you are you are quite literally on a high and so it's some it's the best and then
00:43:51.860it goes just as far in the other direction the the nadir of that is just gruesome when all of
00:44:01.360a sudden you're worried they don't love you or that they're going to leave you or that how will
00:44:05.540I ever survive without this person it it then feels like it's death so to me you know you've
00:44:15.920you've already put someone in a position that you're making your happiness far too dependent
00:44:22.120on them and you're probably overvaluing them you know that you're in order to feel that way
00:44:29.880in order to feel just sick with love you have to be overvaluing something
00:44:37.340you have to be because this isn't the only great person in the world
00:44:43.960there are other amazing people on this earth there you didn't you you weren't that lucky
00:44:51.260that you found the only awesome person there is and and they decided to like you them liking you
00:44:59.740isn't unique because guess what? They like you because you're attractive. They like you because
00:45:05.840you have great qualities. That's why they like you. It wasn't an accident. You didn't, you know,
00:45:10.580you didn't win them in some charity auction where they were like, well, I guess, you know,
00:45:16.300I'm going to love this person out of charity. Now you, they, they like you because there's
00:45:20.960something attractive about you. That's not unique to them. Other people are going to feel that way
00:45:24.560too and the attraction you feel for them isn't that unique either there's there are going to be
00:45:30.660other amazing people in this world if you can stay open to them that alone should be some kind of
00:45:37.620antidote to that love sickness because we realize that what i'm doing here is i'm deifying this
00:45:45.880person and and now this behavior which really sadly becomes a departure from ourselves
00:45:55.160you know when we're serving up grapes and wine to this deity that we've created and we're doing
00:46:01.540anything we can to please them and go out of our way for them and bend over backwards and
00:46:06.180relinquish our own standards in order to be closer to them or to see them on their terms
00:46:12.280all the time or constantly compromising our calendar to suit theirs and yeah we're at that's
00:46:18.920not us it's like an it's like a super nice person like the the person who's super nice all the time
00:46:26.260who's like effectively effectively nice like they're they're you know it doesn't make sense
00:46:33.420how nice they are all the time and it doesn't come from kindness it comes from ego it comes
00:46:38.340from wanting everyone to love them that's not real either and the person who's a people pleaser
00:46:42.560in a relationship you're literally not being yourself so now the person that this person is
00:46:48.180with isn't even you it's a it's a completely different fabricated person and and if you were
00:46:55.700in power you wouldn't be acting this way so you feel like you're not in power so in order to have
00:47:03.040some kind of power i've got to make this person reliant on me or dependent on me or i've got to
00:47:07.760do something crazy and wild and keep this person energized and interested that that's not a
00:47:13.920relationship you'd want for the rest of your life so we almost have to like when we feel that way
00:47:18.760take a breath and say if i can't truly be me in this relationship
00:47:24.440then this is going to be a really miserable life so there's no point white knuckling it right now
00:47:31.560to hold on to them because i wouldn't want to live that way for the rest of my life so let me be me
00:47:36.820right now a great me but let me be me and see if that's enough for this person and if it's not
00:47:46.220enough for this person then i don't need to worry i didn't lose what i thought i lost and that's the
00:47:53.000great fear the great fear is we're going to lose something we were supposed to have this person's
00:47:58.400amazing and they're the best person i'll ever meet and this i'm supposed to be with this person
00:48:03.300not if not if it doesn't work out you're not like if in year two someone breaks up with you
00:48:08.740it wasn't supposed to be a five-year relationship doesn't matter what you did
00:48:12.620but it doesn't matter what you were trying to someone by definition the person who leaves you
00:48:19.300was not the person you were supposed to have it's like it literally becomes an act of
00:48:24.140of science fiction to say they broke up with me but that was my person evidently not
00:48:33.300I like that. Is there any way to have a relationship that has those highs without having them also have the lows? Like, or is that kind of passion, just toxic, always?
00:48:47.680i think that we want to check ourselves you know when we're when we're feeling when we're feeling
00:48:59.420immense joy and appreciation and and love for somebody it has to be tempered by the fact that
00:49:06.000i would be okay even if i didn't have this like this is amazing but but i should always be feeding
00:49:14.580my life in a way that makes my life amazing and myself amazing. I don't mean like you have to
00:49:22.240achieve so that not measuring it by some just external standard of achievement, but
00:49:27.280I have to keep building myself and how proud I am of myself in life anyway. So that if this goes
00:49:35.040away, I'm still left with someone I really love and am proud of. And I, you know, there are parts
00:49:42.320of my life that give me sort of giddy highs sometimes when I'm going on stage when I'm
00:49:47.100touring when I'm that that when I make a great video and everyone loves it and I'm like you know
00:49:52.240I find myself you know I always have to suspect myself when I didn't just read the comments
00:50:00.600once but I went back for more five times today to see what the new ones were like if I was just
00:50:07.540trying to get a temperature on whether the video did well or not did it resonate with people
00:50:11.260then i'd go check read some comments and be like oh this is really resonating people are really
00:50:15.880enjoying this that's great that's informative but if for the sixth or seventh or eighth time today
00:50:22.040i'm going back and refreshing to see the next five comments the next 10 now i have to suspect
00:50:28.520myself because i know already i'm setting myself up for a fall i know that if now here's the danger
00:50:36.820now i'm making videos every week if i get too attached to the validation i just got from that
00:50:44.660video that's going to inform my next video now my next video i'm not creating because i really feel
00:50:53.100like wow there's this new thing i really want to say that i think is going to help people
00:50:57.480i'm making i'm trying to make a video that gets as many great comments as the last video
00:51:02.500and now i'm departing from myself yeah and and what's authentic already you can apply that same
00:51:08.000thing to a relationship uh that's how people get stuck in echo chambers too because they make
00:51:13.820something and everybody loves it whoever their audience is absolutely loves it and they're like
00:51:17.900oh well if i just keep doing that it'll just keep working and then i think that's how people get
00:51:23.000stuck without wanting to piss off their audience ever and then like you said yeah they stop being
00:51:28.920is truthful right i always liked even though he might be you know have some severe mental
00:51:35.880health issues i also liked kanye for that reason i always loved that i like every album i always
00:51:42.620truly respected him as an artist because every album he brought out risked losing everyone that
00:51:49.840came with him on the last one like he just made unique things artistically instead of pandering
00:51:55.380to the last thing he made i always thought that was unbelievably brave yeah i agree or he's or
00:52:00.620he's just wired for that and it's not something that's easy for the rest of us to replicate
00:52:04.740apart from you who seem to have no problems ever going up to someone attractive and asking them out
00:52:10.680this is true this is very true okay you might be wired like kanye in the best way oh god
00:52:18.500i hope not it's definitely possible uh maybe the worst way too
00:52:23.200okay how do you learn if you've how do you learn to be emotionally vulnerable with somebody
00:52:31.580like tell them things that you're worried they might find out about you
00:52:35.680and then they won't like you anymore like there are there slow ways you teach people to start
00:52:41.120opening up instead of pretending they're perfect well i think there's a few practical considerations
00:52:46.800so emotionally vulnerable doesn't mean lay everything out on the table the first time
00:52:52.020you meet someone I also tend to do that though right that that can be you know by the way if
00:53:02.460you are able to pass off that emotional vulnerability with sufficient charm you
00:53:08.440probably can get away with it really early but but just kind of spilling your guts to someone
00:53:14.880you just met and and sharing and sharing and sharing things that maybe they don't yet have
00:53:21.720the context for yeah risks actually quite a lot of misinterpretation um and also it it kind of
00:53:31.900does ourselves a disservice if we don't start at least by by talking up the things that are great
00:53:39.200about us i i mean i sometimes i've i don't talk very much about like you saw how uncomfortable
00:53:45.580i am in the introduction when you ask me you know where have you i know the introduction i gave
00:53:51.140myself in this podcast was sort of too humble so now people who don't know me who follow you
00:53:59.160that's a problem don't actually realize how great i am but that's because of me and my i go i like
00:54:06.200quickly shrug off like yeah i had a new york times bestseller and millions of people follow me and
00:54:10.380blah blah it's like i i'm actually in some ways doing myself a disservice because because it might
00:54:16.940I might have people's ear more if I started by saying, well, I did this and then this thing
00:54:21.260happened and then this impressive thing happened and whatever. So on a date, the same thing can
00:54:26.780happen. We want to put our best foot forward in the beginning, but vulnerability as we progress
00:54:32.960and letting people in bit by bit and seeing how they react to that. If someone reacts with
00:54:38.820immediate copious amounts of judgment, then that's a bit of a red flag. And if you point out
00:54:46.940hey, that feels really like you're judging me
00:54:49.620and that's sad because I was just trying