00:00:00
should you keep secrets from your partner this is big yes and the data shows it will help to increase
00:00:06
satisfaction and lower conflict in your relationship so give me an example of something that I shouldn't say to my partner here's a juicy one
00:00:13
so what about oh even when I say out loud I know py
00:00:22
Brunson is the world's most influential Matchmaker who Blends groundbreaking science research and over 15 years of
00:00:27
expertise to prove that anyone can create shakable foundations for long-lasting life-changing love I read
00:00:33
about this study that says men are approximately 624 more likely to separate if the woman gets terminally
00:00:39
ill yes what is going on there typically it's because there is a low level of satisfaction in the relationship from
00:00:44
not having enough sex for example but this is a major issue cuz 80% of relationships have a lower level of
00:00:51
satisfaction today than any point in history and part of that is because most of what we know about finding and keeping love has unfortunately been fed
00:00:58
to us through lies let's pause there because I want to talk about those myths okay so does having more sex increase
00:01:04
the happiness in your relationship no what about having doubts in your relationship is that bad that couldn't be further from the truth really it's
00:01:11
actually healthy to have doubts about your relationship and this is why what about if someone cheats is that the end
00:01:17
of the relationship brilliant question and quite honestly and then what are the most important qualities I need in a
00:01:22
partner okay this BW my mind so these are the three traits to have a phenomenal relationship number one what
00:01:30
this has always blown my mind a little bit 53% of you that listen to the show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the
00:01:37
show so could I ask you for a favor before we start if you like the show and you like what we do here and you want to support us the free simple way that you
00:01:43
can do just that is by hitting the Subscribe button and my commitment to you is if you do that then I'll do everything in my power me and my team to
00:01:50
make sure that this show is better for you every single week we'll listen to your feedback we'll find the guest that
00:01:55
you want me to speak to and we'll continue to do what we do thank you so much
00:02:01
[Music] good to see you again it's awesome to be
00:02:06
here I'm going to ask you a question that assumes that I don't know who you are okay which is quite hard because I
00:02:11
know you very well but who are you and who are you to write these two books
00:02:17
that I have in front of me find love and keep love well who who am I I'm first and
00:02:24
foremost a husband I'm a father uh I'm a son I'm a brother I'm a cousin I'm an
00:02:30
uncle I'm a mentor I'm a mentee you know I'm all of those things and I feel like those are the things I am first uh but
00:02:37
uh I have a longstanding history with relationships you know I became a
00:02:42
Matchmaker my wife and I launched a matchmaking agency we became one of the largest agencies in the United States
00:02:49
and what's interesting about being a matchmaker is that a lot of people don't even realize that is a career like
00:02:54
there's legit matchmakers there's probably I'd say roughly a thousand full-time match makers around the world
00:03:01
and what we do is we literally match people together for long-term committed
00:03:07
relationships but what ends up happening if you're successful with that is two people enter a long-term committed
00:03:14
relationship and because they've built up a relationship with you they have questions about how do they keep that
00:03:21
relationship how do they keep their love so my wife and I then began to transition into counselors and coaches
00:03:28
for married couples or couples who were in committed relationships so that's where that that started and that went on
00:03:34
for for over a decade and then on top of that I started uh you know I had research Global Research at Tinder which
00:03:40
is a great opportunity for me to look at a very large data set and make predictions as to what's happening with
00:03:47
our relationships uh I host television shows uh reality TV shows which for good
00:03:52
or for bad I think help to spark conversation about relationships that
00:03:58
are needed so doing research there you know I do podcasts like this you know so my life actually is all about
00:04:06
relationships and that's the reason why I wanted to to write this book and that's the reason why I feel qualified to write this book so how long ago was
00:04:12
it that you started doing the matchmaking oh my gosh so 2008 is when I officially began
00:04:21
matchmaking yeah 17 years it was a long time ago the reason I asked that is a
00:04:26
lot has changed in 17 years yes we've been through this Evol ution of dating apps and matchmaking services and things
00:04:33
like Match.com and my question is where do you think we find ourselves today as it relates to relationships like what is
00:04:39
the macro picture how are people feeling the person that's watching this right now that's either single and looking in
00:04:45
a relationship and maybe struggling can you give me an overview a synopsis of
00:04:51
how they're feeling in their head sure sure and why all right this is a great one so we're feeling different things
00:04:58
there's a small percentage of us and I'll go to Eli fle research who wrote phenomenal books but one is called the
00:05:04
All or Nothing marriage that I love and in it he states that if you look at marriages committed relationships that
00:05:12
20% of us have higher satisfaction than we ever have in the history of
00:05:18
relationships and you think 20% one is that's fairly small and do they really have high statisfaction and and I fully
00:05:25
believe this and the reason why is because we have tools you know we have people watch podcast read books watch
00:05:31
television shows we have tools like we've never had before more access to
00:05:37
therapy so 20% very satisfied but 80%
00:05:42
more dissatisfied more upset more confused than ever before and I would say that
00:05:49
those who are not in relationships the pool reflects that as well I think
00:05:54
there's a 20% of singles who are hopeful
00:06:00
and are developing the tools and developing the skills and learning active listening and all these things
00:06:05
and they will and they believe they'll enter strong relationships they're they're very hopeful I think there's 80%
00:06:11
out there that are perhaps hopeless disgruntled
00:06:17
confused dismayed uh you know and and and I would say that that that's that's
00:06:22
the landscape today that being said the reason for that is because we over the
00:06:30
years have placed more emphasis on one partner versus having a
00:06:37
village to lean on so so we're we're leaning more so we're we we're requiring
00:06:43
more from our partners so what that means is that if we're requiring more if we're requiring our partner to be we
00:06:50
want our partner to be our best friend we all want to launch a business and be a CEO right so we want our partner to be
00:06:57
co-ceo or coo we want our partner to be a great parent we want our partner to
00:07:03
come home at night take their clothes off and do backflips in the bedroom
00:07:08
right this is what we want this is what we want so we want now more from that
00:07:13
one person versus 30 years ago 300 years ago 3,000 years ago
00:07:20
300,000 years ago when when humans really began 300,000 years ago so you you you look at all this and you say wow
00:07:27
we want more so therefore for we're going to have lower satisfaction so this is what I believe the the landscape is
00:07:34
today and if we start then with people that are looking for love people that are in search of Love um how are the the
00:07:42
current tools because I see so much online about how
00:07:47
people are disenfranchised with like things like dating apps and they've tried like social media and I've got so
00:07:52
many of my friends who are struggling at the moment they're going on 100 dates a year and they're unable to find anybody
00:07:57
and I I Ponder to myself I go you're going on 100 dates a year you're almost a professional data and you still can't
00:08:04
find somebody it's surely that's not through lack of options or like the top of the
00:08:12
funnel there the sort of exposure is fine but there's something further down the funnel as it relates to them being
00:08:19
able to convert somebody that seems to be off right right but but also I would
00:08:24
argue that it could even stem you you could go deeper to the root right so you
00:08:30
think about attachment Styles attachment Styles I know you've talked a lot about attachment Styles attachment styles are
00:08:35
kind of the hot thing the hot Trend that people are talking about rightfully so I like this and if you think about that
00:08:41
there are primarily three right we know we have secure there's anxious and there's avoidant there's there are other
00:08:48
uh variations but in essence these are the three now depending on who you talk to roughly 50 60% of the population are
00:08:57
secure that means the balance are going to be anxious or avoidant or or or some combination so therefore if you are on a
00:09:06
date and you have an anxious attachment style or you have an avoidant attachment style and you have someone in front of
00:09:12
you who is the perfect match for you they're they're they're taking off all the boxes you could be so anxious or so
00:09:20
avoidant that you push them away or you lay blame to a certain character a
00:09:25
characteristic or a trait that they have that means nothing to the relationship and you dismissed them you you know um
00:09:31
this is going to sound funny but it's sad is do you know what we found when we were matchmaking what the number one
00:09:38
reason why people did not allow someone someone to get a second date with
00:09:47
them they had a velcro wallet velcro wallet are cool though you
00:09:55
change no they're not you can't no no all right so you know what was it was
00:10:00
around attraction so one it was you know physical attraction but in particular it was cuz they they smelled really they
00:10:08
had bad breath halosis right or there was some odor now you can argue that
00:10:13
scent plays a strong role in our partner selection Dr Tara forart talks about
00:10:19
this quite quite a bit right so there there's uh there's a evolutionary biology that comes with scent yes I
00:10:27
agree but to look across from someone and say you know what you you like you
00:10:33
like your breath stinks right and I'm not going to give up the the second date and as a result of your breath stinks
00:10:39
you have long uh fingernails you're you're you're in a track suit right for to to to look at these moments and say
00:10:47
because of this thing I'm going to dismiss you as a partner I think for a
00:10:52
lot of people sounds logical but then for a lot of people sounds ridiculous you know what I mean now how you got to
00:11:00
that point is the challenge if you think it's ridiculous how you got to assuming that because someone has a tracksuit on
00:11:07
because they have long fingernails it dismisses their their um their validity of being a
00:11:14
great partner that is about you that is about you your attachment that is about
00:11:20
how you've been socialized that is about so I would argue that people who are going on lots and lots and lots of dates
00:11:26
and they still can't feel like they can find the right partner the first place to look at is yourself I do Wonder this
00:11:35
because I think the more dates you go on the more reference points of comparison you then have for the next person so
00:11:40
date 101 if you've been on 100 previously you've now got a 100 guys who are maybe all good at one thing and date
00:11:48
101 is going to be compared to the previous 100 on all factors so maybe
00:11:54
date 49 had great sense of humor date 53 was rich date 67 was physically
00:12:01
beautiful now date 101 is going to be compared to all previous dates on all of
00:12:07
those factors and you're always going to find something that is less good at least one factor that is less good than
00:12:13
someone you dat previously and I've always wondered are you like accidentally expanding your comparison
00:12:18
set by meeting more and more and more and more and more people y so I think
00:12:24
this reads to uh Barry schwarz's work uh with the Paradox of choice mhm where you
00:12:30
know what Barry Schwartz did with the par Paradox of choice which is brilliant is that when we're presented with more
00:12:35
options which is in essence all of these dates when we choose one we have a less
00:12:42
level of satisfaction with the choice because we saw that we had a 100 choices
00:12:48
versus if you have three choices and you have to choose between one of those three there's going to be a higher level
00:12:55
of satisfaction as a result a real life example is my grandmother so my
00:13:00
grandmother grew up in I say the bush in the bush in Jamaica okay super super
00:13:06
small town in Jamaica my grandmother literally had five or six options as a
00:13:12
partner now as a result of my grandmother having those options when
00:13:17
she chooses one person there's going to be more value more emphasis even more if you look at the investment Theory more
00:13:24
investment placed in one of those options versus if she had a hundred
00:13:30
options and she makes a a choice that choice with 100 options becomes more
00:13:37
disposable right so this is one issue that we have in terms of giving
00:13:43
ourselves so many options the other challenge with this is when you watch
00:13:48
people date they typically date the same person you know it's typically it's typically the S the same
00:13:55
characteristics even physically you know the the the same I argue that some of the greatest value
00:14:03
that we we can receive in the dating Market if you want to look at as dating Market is to take ourselves out of
00:14:10
our uh our our Market if you will and put yourself in someplace different
00:14:16
right I call this the premium effect so so so an example of this is I had a friend who was a white woman roughly 35
00:14:25
years old who lived in Northern London and she was like Paul I'm dating all
00:14:30
these guys you know I can't find the right one blah blah blah blah blah blah I said 'l look you love art don't you
00:14:37
she said yeah yeah I love art I said all right I want you to take yourself down to the black cultural archives in
00:14:43
Brixton and I want you to go to this you know this exhibit that they're having
00:14:49
and she was like brixon said I said yeah brickton is brickton is cool I go there all the time
00:14:55
right I want you to go there now why did I ask you to go I asked her to go
00:15:00
because the moment that she goes characteristically she's not going to look the same these are mostly going to
00:15:07
be black men and women perhaps even a little bit younger than she is different
00:15:14
culturally right but yet they have the same value in art and their appreciation
00:15:21
for creativity Etc the moment that she goes there what happens some people in
00:15:26
the room look at her like what what she doing here like why is she here those are the close-minded people Carol dwick
00:15:34
talks about this in her book mindset we have closed-minded open-minded those are the closed-minded but how do the open-minded
00:15:42
react to to my friend they lean in what are you doing here and they're curious
00:15:50
and they engage and all of a sudden she opens her network to a whole new group
00:15:56
of people some of those could be romantic interest some of those could be platonic they could be friends so when
00:16:03
we're dating the serial daters especially the hundred people is it's important for you to step outside of
00:16:11
your sphere if you will I want to pick up on something there you said that
00:16:17
white woman went into a black space and in that black space you wouldd be considered a premium because basically
00:16:23
her characteristics make her rare yes right I was just doing some research then and it says that studies and
00:16:28
surveys in indicate that ethnic minorities particularly Asian men and black women often face unique challenges
00:16:33
in dating in both the UK and the US and these challenges stem from a combination of social stereotypes cultural biases
00:16:40
and the preference expressed on dating platforms and the reason I'm asking this question is to it's not a lived experience I have because I'm not an
00:16:48
Asian man although sometimes people think I am there are a group group of people where I don't have a shared lived experience who are struggling in ways in
00:16:55
the western world that like maybe me and you don't understand yeah it no it
00:17:00
definitely definitely you know we we have to understand that we exist in a
00:17:09
highly racist society and a lot of people don't like to acknowledge it don't like to talk about it like to
00:17:15
sweep it under the rug but when it comes to dating it shows up like in this in
00:17:21
this statistic that you're talking about now now let's think about this if you are someone who is not black and you are
00:17:29
interested in a black I'm sorry you're interested in a partner and then you're
00:17:34
and you've had no experiences with black people other than maybe watching some
00:17:40
black people on on television and your parents in your community have said all kinds of crazy things about about black
00:17:46
people and you have all types of negative belief structures around black
00:17:51
people and then and you're a man you're say a white man and you're presented with a black woman on a dating app are
00:17:56
you going to swipe on this person no you're you're you're not because you don't understand how incredible she is
00:18:03
how smart she is how beautiful she is like you don't you have no appreciation
00:18:09
so the reason why they're Swip they're not swiping is their ignorance that's that's that's what it is and that's this
00:18:16
is the reason why one of the most important things we can do is widen our
00:18:23
social groups this is the most important thing I mean it positively impacts our romantic relationships it positively
00:18:31
impacts our life is that we need to have a diverse set of people that we interact
00:18:37
with and truly understand how beautiful how beautiful people who are different
00:18:44
than us actually are is there a bit of a systemic issue here as well because when I was thinking about your grandmother
00:18:49
growing up in that Village in Jamaica that you referenced she would spend a lot of time because of the
00:18:56
nature of how she would meet that person in the vill that other man in the village getting to know him Beyond his
00:19:02
surface level appearance yes so if he lived across the street she would interact with him see his behavior he
00:19:08
might have long fingernails you know but she she gets to learn that he's a kind generous person and he's got a good
00:19:13
sense of humor so she can look past the velcro wallet and the long fingernails but in the way that we've designed
00:19:19
dating in the modern world where most people now I believe are meeting online in some form whether it's social media
00:19:24
or other we're actually purely judging someone in the fingernails we have we make a decision in a couple of seconds
00:19:31
whether this person is comp compatible or not and obviously that's not possible um and I just see I just feel this real
00:19:38
strong sense of um dissatisfaction
00:19:44
frustration and uh desperation yes from
00:19:50
people at the moment as it relates to finding someone yes and I just think the systems that we've built social
00:19:56
networking the screens have have only exacerbated this frustration and
00:20:02
Desperation my question which is somewhat linked to this is really around the old ways of doing things like you
00:20:08
were talking about your grandmother and I was really curious about one subject in particular and wondered if you you
00:20:14
had any data on this which is arranged marriages yes yes are arranged
00:20:19
marriages as successful as the relationships we form today via social
00:20:27
media screens etc etc because you know back in the day we were kind of put together um with somebody
00:20:33
based on I don't know family or economic reasons did those marriages succeed many
00:20:39
of us don't want to acknowledge how successful arranged marriages actually
00:20:45
have been and continue to be really continue to be but we have to look at
00:20:50
the why right now when people hear this they immediately say oh well what about
00:20:56
all the abuse and the dissatis action that happens in these relationships does it happen absolutely but it also happens
00:21:04
in non arranged marriages at significantly High rates so why are
00:21:10
arranged marriages so successful to some researchers they have a higher level of
00:21:16
satisfaction than non- arranged marriages and here's the reason why the reason why is because you have families
00:21:24
coming together and negotiating and determin in whether or not this
00:21:30
particular person fits within their family structure and what does that mean that means that you have literally a
00:21:37
mother a father a grandmother grandfather a brother a sister who come together and they discuss and debate the
00:21:45
characteristics they discuss and debate whether or not this person is an upstanding you know is this an
00:21:51
upstanding human being you know is is this person open-minded is this person going to be resourceful right are they
00:21:57
resilient they debate these characteristics and the reason why it's so beneficial is because the person
00:22:04
getting married is not involved and they're not involved because they would be entirely biased what happens today is
00:22:11
incredibly dangerous what happens today is when we meet someone we typically do
00:22:16
not involve any friends and family we are already infatuated with the person
00:22:21
so we're obsessed with them therefore we can't even determine whether or not they have any
00:22:27
of the traits that we want we are living through our own trauma and we're not even selecting them
00:22:35
typically they are selecting us so we end up sliding if you will into a
00:22:40
relationship that was never right for us to begin with whereas in arranged marriages you have a true debate
00:22:49
happening around whether or not someone will fit within that with within the
00:22:55
life of that individual another example is why my wife and I in a matchmaking agency we pioneered something that had
00:23:02
never been done at least to our knowledge in matchmaking like Stephen if you were a
00:23:07
client of ours you came you would be the perfect client at that time right because we had many men who were uh
00:23:15
incredibly successful professionally and felt as if okay what I'm missing is I'm
00:23:22
missing love I'm missing partnership so if you came to us as a client instead of
00:23:28
me saying all right Stephen tell me what you want right and you give me this long list I know you'd give me a list of like
00:23:33
150 things that you want right instead I would say no no no
00:23:40
you go sit over there I'm not I'm not even going to talk to you instead let me
00:23:45
talk to your brother let me talk to your co-workers let me talk to your exes yes
00:23:52
let me talk to your exes let me get a 360 perspective of who you you are from
00:24:00
the people who you are closest to and I would then build out a profile based on
00:24:05
the consensus of what they're telling me this is so true I've got a one of my best friends
00:24:12
in the world has struggled with a few of my best friends but there's two I'm thinking about in particular but one I really want to focus on he's struggled
00:24:19
in relationships for the last I'd say 15 years and every single time he gets in a relationship as his friend I get that's
00:24:25
not that's not it that's not it and every single time he gets with somebody else I go that's not it either and I
00:24:32
after this last relationship failed I sat with him and I I'm trying not to like you know intervene too much but I
00:24:38
said bro I will know I feel like the same way that he knew when I'd found the right one and he would lit if I was to
00:24:44
dump my current partner he would literally reverse the decision yes he would write an executive order to
00:24:50
reverse the decision because he knows that person is exactly what was right for me in the same way I could literally
00:24:56
draw a picture I could tell you the occup ATI the age of the the right person for him based on knowing him and
00:25:02
him being my best friend for 10 15 years but for some reason he goes for
00:25:08
everything opposite than that right and I've always wondered this I've always wondered like should we be picking our
00:25:16
friends partners for them no I if if as a society we went back to our nearest
00:25:23
and dearest family and Social Circle yeah and I want to emphasize the people who we TR truly love cuz like not all
00:25:29
family's family yeah so if we had that Circle making the decision for us we
00:25:36
would have much higher satisfaction rates in marriages without question or
00:25:41
much higher satisfaction rates in in Partnerships it's because of precisely what you said reading a study here it says a 2012
00:25:49
study published in the Journal of comparative family studies found that couples and arranged marriages in collectivist cultures reported similar
00:25:56
or higher levels of satisfaction over the long term compared to those in love
00:26:01
marriages yes yes go back Eli 80% of our
00:26:06
marriages have a lower level of satisfaction today than than than any
00:26:12
point in in history and and you think about even what we were uh you think about the emphasis that we place on the
00:26:18
individual this this is something that needs to really be emphasized because
00:26:24
the the more that we require our partner to deliver everything to us the higher
00:26:32
their bar becomes the expectation and the moment that they're not meeting that expectation we're we're not satisfied
00:26:40
now they could be delivering on nine out of 10 things but because our expectation is 10 we have low satisfaction because
00:26:47
ultimately that's what satisfaction is is satisfaction is really based on our expectation so what do we do about that
00:26:53
because a lot of people will be able to relate to this idea that their partner is multiple things in their life or that
00:26:59
they feel like they are expected to be their Partners therapist maybe
00:27:05
financier um best friend uh Sports uh buddy on the weekend
00:27:12
to play paddle with um I don't know life coach Etc some people will feel that
00:27:18
pressure while they're also trying to run their own life what' you do about it because you can't come home and say babe listen it's over I'm only going to be
00:27:24
your boyfriend from now on a lot of people people won't like this but we have to lower our
00:27:31
expectation of our partners we really do and and and what I mean by this is first
00:27:37
we have to be begin with determining what do we want out of our partnership
00:27:44
because if we go back and we don't have to go back thousands of years we can literally go back to my
00:27:50
grandparents the decisions were not am I going to get all 10 things from my partner it is three of the the 10 things
00:27:58
and I'll be satisfied with the three of the 10 things why because I have a full community that I can go to of friends
00:28:06
co-workers colleagues people who you know in my running club that I can go to for uh for for other facets of my life
00:28:15
confidence intellectual stimulation whatever it may be so that's where it begins what what do you want from your
00:28:22
marriage then the next step becomes all right are you then prepared to do the
00:28:27
work required to sustain that relationship you know uh the the Gans
00:28:34
who I know you you've had on the podcast and are really the foremost experts in the world around couples therapy right
00:28:41
John and Julie gotman they said something to me that was profound when I was talking to them and that is we're
00:28:47
all compatible with each other and and let that sit in for a
00:28:52
second it's like okay what does that really mean what it means is that if I were to drop you with another
00:29:00
human being on a desolate Island and say that's it it's just the two of you for
00:29:06
the rest of your lives you were going to form a very strong emotional bond and
00:29:11
chances are you're going to form a very strong physical and sexual Bond right why because you are required there's no
00:29:18
other outlet but to make it work with them look at
00:29:25
today we don't feel like we have to make it work there's countless options we can
00:29:30
just leave right and and so the this notion that we are compatible with
00:29:37
everyone I think is profound because what it means is that you can get through that you can you can increase
00:29:43
your satisfaction by putting in the work I um I can totally relate to that I
00:29:49
remember working in a call center once upon a time and I was broke and lonely
00:29:54
and as I worked in this call center it was late rooms call center in cheet Mill in man Chester um I basically like fell
00:30:00
in love with the girl sat next to me in the call center now listen um I've seen her since I think 10 10 years later she
00:30:07
came to one of my meetting greets which is she's called Rosie I literally she's probably the first time she realized I fell in love with her but in the context
00:30:14
of there not being many options and me being a guy that basically had no other options I wasn't going out to my clubs I
00:30:20
couldn't afford it I just fell in love with someone who was in close proximity and I just was really really into her
00:30:26
and it shocked me because objectively speaking had I written down what my type was at that period of my
00:30:33
life I wouldn't have written that but just because we were held in close proximity for long enough I found the
00:30:39
the the attraction yes it the attraction came to be unfortunately that's not the world we live in and in fact one of my
00:30:46
friends who's struggling the most in relationships her job is literally to meet people that's like the the base
00:30:52
premise of her job and she can't find anyone MH and I think part of what we're what what I'm seeing there is we've
00:30:58
described with having too many options but what does someone do about that do they like what's the what's the
00:31:04
actionable thing to do if you live in the modern world and you're struggling to find somebody even though you realize
00:31:10
that if you were held in a room with five total strangers you'd probably fall in love with one of them yeah it's it's
00:31:16
tough right but it always begins with self and self-awareness and I would
00:31:21
literally start at well what is my attachment that will inform an
00:31:26
incredible amount if she goes back and does the work and realizes that she is
00:31:31
avoidant that will begin to fill in the gaps as to why maybe she's been emotionally distant relationships why
00:31:38
she feels like she doesn't need anyone right why people need to jump an even higher bar to be in a relationship with
00:31:45
her start with your attachment and realize that if you are avoidant or you
00:31:50
are anxious you can earn a secure attachment and there's work that's
00:31:56
involved but you can do that and by by the way you can do that without a therapist it's always advisable to go
00:32:01
with therapist but let's face it the wait times for therapists the uh the cost for a therapist they're they're not
00:32:09
and also the number of therapists on a per capita basis is is decreasing so
00:32:15
they're not as accessible as often it we we make it at the mount to see so that's
00:32:21
one is you want to start with self that's one secondly is really get
00:32:26
grounded on the type of relationship that you want and the reason why this is important is because therefore you can
00:32:34
make it clear what your boundaries are when you begin to engage with people
00:32:39
because I always say that if you don't assert your boundaries you can take
00:32:45
well-intentioned people and turn them into bullies just as a result of not asserting your boundaries so in order to
00:32:51
know your in order to assert your boundaries you have to know your boundaries so that's the second piece is
00:32:57
beginning to know okay what do I want what do I want for example there are
00:33:02
hundreds of variations of relationships that you could have today my grandmother
00:33:07
right there was one it was committed relationship committed marriage until
00:33:13
you die that was it now you don't have to be married you could live apart but
00:33:19
be together see each other on weekends you can decide I want we we don't want to have children you can decide like
00:33:26
there are hundreds of variations be very clear on what your what you want
00:33:32
and when I say assert your boundaries is assert what you are interested in right from the
00:33:38
beginning the the these three steps are incredibly important I want to talk about the different variations of
00:33:44
relationships and a lot of the sort of myths that keep us held in the the sort of modern idea of what a
00:33:51
relationship looks like okay but you said something there which I which sparked a thought that I had read in
00:33:56
your book um when you said till death do us part yes I read about this study that says that
00:34:03
cancer research on heterosexual couples found that if a man becomes terminally ill and his wife becomes the caretaker
00:34:11
there was a 2.9% separation rate if the woman is terminally ill and their male
00:34:16
partner becomes the caretaker they leave at a 21% rate which basically means that
00:34:22
men are approximately 64% more likely to separate from a woman woman if the woman
00:34:28
gets sick yes and that was on page 48 of your new book keep love yes what the
00:34:34
[ __ ] is going on there that is alarming shocking and it was so alarming and shocking I had to include the study in
00:34:41
the book for for me and and I wrote this in the in the chapter around love is
00:34:47
conditional and we have to understand that the myth that presents itself is that love is unconditional it is you
00:34:54
know if you find the right person there's no condition that could be true with your children
00:35:00
right your child could go do something heinous and I believe there could or
00:35:07
would still be love for them but that's not the case with our partners and for
00:35:13
us to be aware that there are conditions when we go into these relationships that's the most important so it's almost
00:35:20
a warning sign in particular to women in that chapter to say there there are conditions and unfortunately when people
00:35:27
have gone through and interviewed these men who have left the the the women at at at on on their deathbed and even the
00:35:35
women because it's 2.9% of women leave men even the women who've left the men what they will say is that they're no
00:35:42
longer getting fill in the blank they're no longer getting the emotional intimacy
00:35:47
they're no longer getting the physical intimacy they're no longer getting the you know you fill in the blank and as a
00:35:53
result of no longer getting this thing and the thing is the condition they're out so why men though
00:36:01
600 they're over 600% more likely to leave a termin Le old partner than women
00:36:06
are yeah you know there's a disproportionate amount of the relationship that's placed on the
00:36:14
physical side of the relationship right sex sex yeah you're like Paul say
00:36:23
actually what it is well it's it's not all about sex right it's not all about sex but what it typically means is that
00:36:30
there is a low level of satisfaction in the relationship and as a result of
00:36:36
there being a lowlevel of satisfaction and the low level of satisfaction could come from not having enough sex or not having
00:36:42
the sex that they like it could have could be from there's a you know there's no respect they don't feel like there's
00:36:48
equity in the relationship whatever it may be but because there's already a low level of satisfaction when they go into
00:36:56
a place where the the the the partner is terminally ill they're more ready to
00:37:01
leave right this is normally what you see what you see happen when you see um
00:37:07
a partner leave another partner where you see infidelity happening is you see that there was already a low level of
00:37:15
satisfaction the level of satisfaction in the relationships not only dictate the survivability of the relationship it
00:37:24
dictates the survivability of us there was a study done James coin this this
00:37:30
one blew my mind he pulled 200 patients who had
00:37:37
congenital heart disease right so not terminally ill but as close as you get
00:37:44
to terminally ill and he was able to look at the 200 and he broke down the group based on those who have a high
00:37:52
level of satisfaction and those who have a low level of satisfaction in their relationship two years later the couples
00:37:59
who had a high level of satisfaction the person in that partnership who had congenital heart failure you know what
00:38:06
they died about 11% of the time so 11% they died but those who had a low level
00:38:13
of satisfaction two years later 45% of them had
00:38:19
died think about that little greater than three times the likelihood of death
00:38:25
because of the low level of satisfaction in the relationship so the satisfaction
00:38:32
in the relationship is the key and this is part of what I've been trying to drive in this book and a lot of my
00:38:37
messaging is that we place too much value on
00:38:43
longevity it's ridiculous when I sit down for interviews typically the top
00:38:49
see and thank you for not asking me this the typically the first two or third
00:38:54
question is Paul how so you've been married for how long how long have you
00:39:00
been married how long have you been married and the idea is that because I've been married for 23 plus years that
00:39:09
I'm successful in my marriage it's ridiculous it's ridiculous the question should be how satisfied are you in your
00:39:16
marriage or in your partnership and so we can't we have to stop putting emphasis U on on the longevity and
00:39:22
really focus on the satisfaction how satisfied are you in your marriage Stephen this
00:39:28
[Music] [Laughter]
00:39:33
is I hate you fing this question no no I am so the reason why I your wife and we
00:39:40
got her answer before so we'll just compare yeah you tell me what she said
00:39:45
you sure you want to know on on air what the reason why I hate trying to
00:39:52
answer a question like this is because so many people are say oh I don't believe I don't believe what this guy
00:39:57
say truly hand on my heart word to my children I have the highest level of
00:40:05
satisfaction with Jill you know with my best friend today than ever ever ever
00:40:11
ever ever ever and I think the reason for this is because of the enormous
00:40:17
amount of work that we put in you know a lot of people don't realize is that when I read a
00:40:24
stat Jill is typically right next to me last night literally last night we're in
00:40:30
the bed and we are talking about the history of marriage and we're debating
00:40:37
Clovis the first of Franks and how he made an impact in relationships we're
00:40:43
always discussing these topics and as a result of having the conversation around
00:40:49
these topics it helps us to be open it helps us to dialogue it helps us to
00:40:54
debate it helps us to have doubt it helps to have trust and autonomy and
00:41:00
therefore it helps us to have this strong level of communication and emotional intimacy that then feeds into
00:41:07
all aspects of our life into our sex life right into our ability to parent
00:41:14
our our our children into our work right all of this feeds from having the strong
00:41:21
connection so the satisfaction is Sky High and this is a topic that it was
00:41:28
funny because I was like I know Stephen does the research so he could have asked Jill I am very confident Jill would say
00:41:35
the same the reason why is because we always check in with each with each other we're always check how are you
00:41:41
feeling right now right are do we feel like we're going in the right direction
00:41:46
you know when I think about do you have strong satisfaction in your relationship the questions that always come to mind
00:41:51
is do you feel safe with your partner do you feel safe do you feel like you can
00:41:57
express your true vulnerability to them right that's one secondly is do you feel
00:42:02
respected you know with John gottman's research number one you know he saw he could predict divorce at 99 plus perc or
00:42:10
90 plus perc because of contempt or disrespect in the relationship so do you feel like you have
00:42:16
respect another one are you optimistic about where the relationship is going
00:42:23
which suggests how much effort and work your part is placing in the relationship
00:42:29
so many of us are hopeless about the the future is because we know our our our partner's not doing anything to to to to
00:42:35
further the relationship so are you nurturing the relationship many of us are quick to
00:42:42
focus on self-love now and nurturing ourselves but the question is how much
00:42:49
nurture are you giving to the relationship because that's a separate entity you talking there about sort of
00:42:56
the pillow talk with Jill about relationships and constantly it being part of the conversation in your household one of the things that I was I
00:43:03
was pondering as you said that is should we spend more time talking about the relationship with our partner because if
00:43:10
I think about the relationship I'm in now we spend a lot of time talking about the relationship um whereas in previous
00:43:16
relationships it was kind of the elephant in the room all the time so we never really had an opportunity or a
00:43:21
forum to ask those questions right about unmet needs or are you happy etc etc and I
00:43:28
just think that probably the missing piece for a lot of people in relationships is they just don't have a
00:43:33
a space in their week where they sit and talk about the relationship itself yes
00:43:39
so so yes should we be speaking more absolutely would it save many
00:43:45
Partnerships absolutely would it increase the satisfaction absolutely do
00:43:50
we not have enough time I would say this becomes our copout like we're so busy
00:43:56
with life think about this I'm so busy with life that I can't give the person
00:44:02
that I plan to spend the rest of my life with time right we have to
00:44:08
prioritize our relationship with our partner we have to prioritize this we
00:44:14
have to figure out when we can build in time to talk and we have to actually
00:44:20
talk about the real things you know I'm willing to bet that most men don't even
00:44:26
realize especially in in in in heterosexual relationships heteronormative uh relationships most
00:44:31
men don't even realize that their partner doesn't even orgasm when they have sex like you look at the orgasm Gap
00:44:39
and you say oh my God you have men orgasming at 95% and women at roughly
00:44:46
65% maybe a little bit higher in in these committed relationships that means that there's a significant percentage
00:44:52
that never orgasm I bet you their partner has no idea no noide idea why
00:44:59
because there's there hasn't been a conversation around it now the issue is a two-way street it's not only the man's
00:45:04
issue that he needs to be aware and have the conversation but she also needs to be able to tell him but you know why she
00:45:11
probably doesn't tell him because she doesn't want herur his feelings she has not she's not been
00:45:19
having an orgasm for the last 10 years so she feels like if she brings it up now it's going to be detrimental to the
00:45:24
relationship so she's trying to protect him right right and or she's embarrassed
00:45:30
or whatever it may be he is completely oblivious and unaware and they never
00:45:35
talk about their sex life a matter of fact their sex life is a script which is typically most people's sex life it's
00:45:40
just a script it's two or three moves that are done man orgasms women woman
00:45:46
doesn't that's it think of how powerful it would be if they could just simply have dialogue and
00:45:53
discussion it's hard to start that behavior though I imagine in your Rel reltionship with Jill you guys are
00:45:58
pretty Advanced right so if you're level one what's level one in karate is it like a white belt oh yeah white belt if
00:46:05
you're like a white belt in this stuff where there been 10 years you and your partner just really don't talk about these things it's kind of always been
00:46:10
the elephant in the room loads of words have been unsa what would you suggest as like a good starting point to to get the
00:46:17
ball rolling in this Direction all right I like this so baby steps so in the book
00:46:22
I talk about how we have to normalize the fact that we will be attracted to
00:46:29
people other than our partner no one wants to talk about that no one wants to talk about you know it's just my partner
00:46:36
that's it I'm not looking at anyone else right are you attracted to other people oh my Sten come on man are
00:46:46
you AB but but absolutely absolutely and not only that and there are different
00:46:53
forms of Attraction you know there's physical there's there's sexual attraction there's there's emotional attraction but to your question of what
00:47:01
do you do if you're level one in your relationship is you start with these baby steps so Jill and myself we had to
00:47:08
start around this topic of Attraction because I had a very hard
00:47:14
time just thinking about my wife being attracted to someone else I couldn't
00:47:20
fathom it the jealousy the anxiety the anxiousness I have an anxious attachment style so so it just it was just fear
00:47:29
right and there there many different things that that that that you can do but I'll give two one is that you just
00:47:36
have to normalize that these behaviors are a part of our Human Experience well
00:47:42
all have physical attraction some of us will have sexual attraction some of us
00:47:48
will have emotional attraction to people who are not our partners if anyone
00:47:53
denies it they are lying okay this is one we have to normalize this we
00:47:59
normalize it then we begin having conversations around it so what my wife and I used to or did around this and she
00:48:05
uh will hate me for saying this but I wrote I wrote this in the book so it's it's it's cool is um we started talking
00:48:12
about celebrities easy low-level way people who are arm length distance who
00:48:18
do you find attracted blah blah blah I saw that my wife as does I think
00:48:24
99.999% of uh women and Men loves Idris Elba she's like Idris is is is is it to
00:48:32
the point where I was like will you leave me for I think she will leave me for it's like she will definitely leave
00:48:38
me for this man but we begin having conversations around it it becomes a bit
00:48:44
of a joke right it is embedded in our in
00:48:49
in the normalization of it and then I begin to do what I call taking my
00:48:56
thought to court take your thoughts to court right whereas I would identify
00:49:01
okay what is the issue what's the emotion it's actually fear if Jill's
00:49:09
talking about someone else she was with it was it was fear but then I and then then I then I draw on that fear what am
00:49:15
I in fear of I'm in fear of her of her leaving me she's just going to leave me right but then take that thought to
00:49:22
court what are the facts that can that that what are the facts that I have to
00:49:29
support or discredit those feelings well I've been with Jill for 20 plus years
00:49:35
right she has never we have a high level of satisfaction it's normal to have attraction right so you take your
00:49:41
thoughts to court and then you could begin to recalibrate your perspective on
00:49:47
the thing so it gets to the point where do you know that every anniversary Jill gets the biggest
00:49:55
bouquet of flowers from Idris Elba I write love Idis Elba so I I'm I'm
00:50:05
writing so I've now it's now it's moved to a point where I couldn't even stand
00:50:10
this idea to now it's it's so normalized I'm I'm it's jokes about it so so it's
00:50:18
very important for us to normalize have these conversations take our thoughts to court and if we are and we have to
00:50:25
realize this and I wrote about this in the book is that it is also healthy to have doubts about your
00:50:33
relationship we're told that if you're in the greatest relationship if you found your soulmate
00:50:39
you should never have doubts myth myth right it's healthy to have doubts but
00:50:45
there are healthy doubts and there's unhealthy doubts if it is a doubt that
00:50:51
is about uh the growth of your relationship that's healthy to express
00:50:57
that if it is a doubt that is predicated in your own fear or your anxieties your
00:51:04
traumas that's that's that's unhealthy so to know that informs you know how how
00:51:12
how how how Jill and I have have tackled that idea of let's normalize a
00:51:17
conversation is this a healthy doubt it is let's build this into to to our
00:51:22
relationship so Jill so uh I know jills
00:51:28
adors ID Ela and she knows I would leave her for Beyonce yeah I mean that's
00:51:34
fair yeah I I just I can just imagine that I've got a certain type of listener who is
00:51:40
more how would you word it advanced in terms of the like belt
00:51:46
you know when I talked about white belts and black belts more advanced in their curiosity their um Intrigue their
00:51:55
willingness to like develop and evolve in the relationship I would bet and this is stereotyping I understand that it's
00:52:01
typically women more than men that are like more open-minded to like learn to grow to deepen the bond I think it's t
00:52:07
typically women more than men I would Hazard a guess that it's more women buying your books than men yes and and
00:52:14
I'd Hazard a guess that when I make conversations about love and relationship it's typically not always because I can kind of see the numbers
00:52:19
but typically more women that are trying to learn to deepen their relationships so I imagine there's a certain person in
00:52:26
my audience that sat there thinking I want to do this I want to have these conversations with my partner I want to
00:52:31
take down some of these walles and start talking about the lack of orgasms I've had in the last couple of years I want to talk about x y and Zed but I know if
00:52:38
I bring this conversation up to Dave Dave's gonna like think I'm weird he's
00:52:43
gonna like roll his eyes and like put the football back on and um and I feel a sense of dissatisfaction in this
00:52:49
relationship but because we just don't have a bridge of communication I feel like I'm faced with a choice now do I just leave this guy or do I just stick
00:52:58
tolerate it and put up with this and that like first step to Bridging the Gap what is it do I turn the football off
00:53:04
and scream at him do I do I send him the link to this podcast I think that's probably the best option I think it's
00:53:09
just keep sharing the podcast I think I think sharing the podcast with everyone you know I think is probably the I'm
00:53:15
joking no no no no no no no laughing I was like I was with you I
00:53:22
was like this is this is it but I thought it's really pushing this yeah yeah he said it five times the
00:53:31
link truly this is the first step uh so say
00:53:36
it's uh it's uh it's lah and Dave yeah okay L's listening to us right now and
00:53:41
she wants to deepen her emotional connection with her partner Dave what does she do she sends Dave a link to
00:53:51
this podcast and she says let's listen to this together let's have a date night
00:53:57
let's listen to this together and let's just talk about what's happening you know what I've noticed with um with one
00:54:03
of the shows that I co-host mared at First Sight UK what I'm so proud about is I'm stopped all the time by men and
00:54:12
they'll say Paul I watch your show with my partner and our kids watch it as well
00:54:21
and we debate what you're saying and sometimes we disagree with you but sometimes we agree with you and I think
00:54:27
this is what we need because just talking about it and having the
00:54:33
conversation around it helps to contribute to awareness which puts you
00:54:38
on the path to developing skills which then allows you to begin to heal and
00:54:46
ultimately that's what therapy is therapy is healing and so having the
00:54:51
dialogue based on this podcast based on a book based on a television show is
00:54:56
truly not just a first step that's a a significant step towards your black belt
00:55:02
I am thinking about the history of relationships I often wonder how many of the rules of relationships that we've
00:55:08
been handed by Society are now invalid or maybe we're never valid so you know
00:55:13
we have these sort of constructs of like marriage and monogamy and um even like heterosexuality all these things that
00:55:20
have been passed to us through religion and through history I was looking at some stats about marriage and it says
00:55:25
that in 2019 marriage rates for opposite sex couples fell to their lowest on record since
00:55:31
1862 that's in the UK and in the US marriage rates have been declining since the early
00:55:38
1970s I I'm not married but I spend a lot of time thinking about whether I
00:55:43
should be or not I actually had a conversation recently with my partner where I said do you want to get married and it was abundantly clear that she
00:55:49
does want to get married but then I asked why and really it seems like it
00:55:54
was really just more for the wedding than then for some kind of legal contract
00:56:00
that we sign with the government so I'm I'm I'm I'm really wondering based on everything we know about history and the
00:56:06
tradeoffs of marriage should I be getting married yes because your partner
00:56:12
wants to is that reing enough but but here all right so um I think the
00:56:19
institution of marriage what you're going to see this is my my my prediction is is that
00:56:27
because nuclear families what do you mean by nuclear family so having um to
00:56:33
well it's interesting there's there's different perspectives now on nuclear family but I look at it as you have two
00:56:39
partners and children and that creates the nuclear
00:56:44
family that becomes an economic unit which drives a
00:56:50
society and as that has disappeared there's been less of a base
00:56:57
to drive Society per many researchers so as a result what I believe is going to
00:57:02
happen as we see right now in Singapore as we see right now in China as we see
00:57:07
right now in Japan you're going to see government heavily involved in
00:57:14
incentivizing marriage and marriage is already incentivized right now in terms of uh you know tax benefits uh being
00:57:22
able to um uh you know leave assets to your partner leave assets to family
00:57:28
members so as a result of the decrease of marriage and decrease of of nuclear
00:57:34
families you will see government step up even more to incentivize so you're going
00:57:40
to see all types of benefits being thrown at people to to to to get married
00:57:46
you know especially as you not only see marriage rates decline but as you also see birth rates declining as they as
00:57:53
they are now your question around what what what should you do is that um this
00:58:00
is a question around values and this is a question that I
00:58:06
believe is very important to have early on now I was saying you know when you meet someone you should lay out exactly
00:58:13
what you want this is a very important question to have early early on now in
00:58:18
terms of where you where you are with your partner I would say that if she is
00:58:24
for if she is Pro Pro this and you were indifferent sounds
00:58:30
like it feels like you're indifferent not anti but indifferent yeah I think I'm I'm somewhat agnostic um to it
00:58:39
however I can call out a bunch of downsides to getting married really like
00:58:44
uh well again I don't know because I'm not married so all the married people are like screaming at me right now I know this because they DM me they've
00:58:49
been dming me for many many years since I started the D Co because in some of those early episodes I was really like
00:58:54
not I was really quite against it but um over time I've kind of developed my thinking here I just wonder I can't
00:59:01
understand the first principles as to why having a like government or
00:59:06
religious contract with somebody is going to increase the probability of success in the union of Love um there's
00:59:14
obviously the issue with the prenup situation I actually don't have this concern with my my partner so I think she's um I think you've met her you
00:59:21
you've met her yeah yeah uh yeah from a distance yes from a distance yeah I I don't a concern that she's going to try
00:59:27
and bankrupt me or that I might try and bankrupt her um so that's not really a concern um the whole charade of like
00:59:35
doing a massive wedding I think is a little bit weird I think why can't we just have lots of events over the next
00:59:41
50 years where we bring our friends and family versus like one I've also watched a couple of my friends at the moment who are getting married the the like two
00:59:48
years of pain in heart a can like canceling date nights so that they can afford this one wedding day yeah feels
00:59:55
like highly logical to me I've got one particular friend who is having to cancel so much of their like everyday
01:00:00
joy to save up for this one big event which is stressing them both out and I don't think they're going to have well I
01:00:06
don't think he's going to have a great time at the wedding anyway because he seems so stressed by it all I just I sometimes hear that people can't like
01:00:12
get out of their marriage without having to like file a divorce um thing with like the with through lawyers and going
01:00:20
to court and battling out in court I just think you should be free to leave if you want to leave
01:00:26
I don't know I just think this is a terrible analogy and completely unrelated but like in
01:00:32
football many of the problems we see with my favorite Club Manchester United
01:00:38
at the moment is we've got people on fiveyear contracts who we just can't get rid of and like they want to go we want them to go but because we sign these
01:00:45
long contracts with them it's like incredibly difficult and you now these players have been like thrown in the back room and they're not playing
01:00:51
football and we're like just completely ignoring them because we can't get out the contract yes so I I just think yeah
01:00:57
I hear you I hear you all right can we talk about this yes all right there are many secular marriages so you don't have
01:01:05
to do anything religious related and it sounds like a big
01:01:12
difficulty that you have could could be the the number one is the wedding because but the wedding to me
01:01:19
the premise of it is a public Declaration of your love and to your
01:01:24
point it could be a small as you want it could be as big as you want you could have as many as you want right that
01:01:29
public declaration Could Happen 50 times over 50 years it is up to you so that is you and your partner navigating that
01:01:37
space with regard to getting out of it this is the single biggest change that
01:01:45
we need in marriages marriages in my opinion should be much harder to get into you shouldn't be able like
01:01:52
literally you and your partner could go to Vegas Drive up so a drive-thru you
01:01:58
could have an Elvis Presley impersonator marry you you pay
01:02:04
$25 and you're married it's ridiculous I think that there needs to be there needs
01:02:10
to be hurdles in place there needs to be some type of vetting some type of
01:02:16
premarital coaching counseling so everyone is aware of the commitment that
01:02:22
is about to be made and you have the tools you have skills around Conflict Management Etc needs to be
01:02:29
hard but then if you want out you should be able to get out in an hour it should
01:02:35
be easy drive up Elvis Presley says it's over $25 it's free yeah yeah free right
01:02:43
that's the way it should be but it is the the the the the reverse now you're
01:02:49
right marriage is hard to get out of that's changing there's now the introduction especially in the UK of the no fault right but but that still takes
01:02:56
it still could take 6 months or so there still is a lot of haggle so so I I agree with you there is that it should be much
01:03:04
easier to get out but ultimately what marriage is is marriage
01:03:09
is a declaration of commitment done in a formal way can you not do that without
01:03:17
the marriage like can you not do a declaration of commitment without having to go to like a church or whatever else
01:03:23
and sign documents and stuff I don't know is it not possible I it is you know it is it is so I think I just have
01:03:30
commitment issues I think that's probably what it is yeah I think that's the core of it because you know what's so interesting to me is that you're
01:03:36
already going to well how do I get out of this yeah right and it almost feels
01:03:41
as if there is a fear of committing to someone for the rest of
01:03:49
your life because that that's a massive I mean think about this you're going to commit to someone for the rest of your
01:03:55
life for the rest of your days and what we feel because I've been there because
01:04:00
when I I'm getting anxiety as you say it I'm like [ __ ] know the rest of my life the rest of your
01:04:06
life but think about this the anxiety is the fear of what is not even come yet so
01:04:14
that means that you can now interrogate your thoughts okay you have fear over what
01:04:22
what's the fear but isn't it just a terrible idea to commit to someone till death do you
01:04:29
part because like imagine if I said to you you got to pick a job and then you got to do it forever yes you would the
01:04:36
amount of procrastination that would occur because of the significance of that decision would would basically stop
01:04:42
you picking any job at all because you'd be like I can know I got to pick one and do it forever and you know you'd be you'd become a perfectionist you know
01:04:48
you'd be looking for perfection in every single job and maybe this is in part the issue is that because we see marriage as
01:04:55
being such a final thing that we really have to make sure the pick is perfect is
01:05:01
perfect I agree this is one of the myths right this whole notion of till death do
01:05:06
us part which really was handed to us in religion if you look through Christianity Hinduism even a lot of the
01:05:14
modern day Islamic marriage ceremonies there's some formation of you will be
01:05:20
with this partner for the rest of your life and I think what that does is it actually sets us up for a lower level of
01:05:26
satisfaction it sets us up for complacency oh this is all we get right it instead they can't leave me they
01:05:33
can't leave me so therefore I don't have to try as hard I don't even have to talk to them now yeah I don't have to get to the gym no I can just sit here like
01:05:41
so that is a myth though because we know where where divorce rates are separation rates are we know that there are you can
01:05:49
get a divorce so you can get out she can get out we have to we have to put that to the side but the key is is to think
01:05:56
about when I always like interrogate the fears is well what's the upside what's the upside of having a
01:06:04
partner for Life what what would you say upsides I mean I could also name the
01:06:09
upsides I think so there's a certain sense of stability and focus that comes
01:06:15
when you know that home is kind of locked down so as an entrepreneur in particular I I advise anybody that's
01:06:21
going to pursue a big grueling tumultuous uncertain challenge like building a business business to have a
01:06:26
partner at home um and and I know Sir Alex Ferguson was big on this when he was selecting players for Manchester United he would often inquire about
01:06:33
whether they were in a relationship because if they had a stable home life then they would be much more focused on a training ground and I see that with
01:06:39
myself you need a stable base um if you're single I think as an entrepreneur it can become an immense distraction an
01:06:46
immense distraction because on one hand you're trying to build something over here and you're trying to build something over here I think marriage is
01:06:52
useful as well because when you know that it's hard to get out of it means
01:06:58
that exiting isn't the path of least resistance which means that you you probably will go to therapy first and
01:07:04
you probably will see if you can fix it and figure it out versus just throwing it away yes so it becomes less
01:07:09
disposable yes which means that you're more likely to fight to fix the thing um
01:07:16
and what are the other upsides um I mean the stats right so the stats
01:07:22
around health and wealth all suggest that if you're in a good productive healthy relationship you're going to
01:07:28
earn more money I think it's 4% more a year in a productive uh marriage both
01:07:33
Partners net earn 4% more a year and according to Robert waldinger who came on the show you're going to live longer
01:07:40
so I get it yeah and you're going be healthier you're going to be healthier yeah yeah L less disas come on Stephen I
01:07:47
know you know do you know what it is I'm not trying to throw the marriage out I'm wondering if there's an alternative
01:07:53
which do you know what it is part of me as well if you look at the way I've live my life I've always tried to test the system so school like not going to
01:07:59
school dropping out of University being an entrepreneur there's always been a bit of a [ __ ] you and me to the system
01:08:05
and a real pause in questioning what I'm being handed as the right answer to interrogate whether it's still valid now
01:08:12
okay so like many of the answers I was given you go to university then you go get a job and then you hand out your CV all of these things proved in my life to
01:08:19
just be BS there was a better way so when I I'm approached with a conventional system like marriage immediately I go hm let's interrogate
01:08:27
this thing and I would say I'm with you throw the system out think about just
01:08:34
one thing and you you said this and there's research behind this it's the investment model Right theory so the
01:08:40
more you invest in the preparation of your
01:08:46
partnership in the actual partnership the more that you're investing time res all resources the higher satisfaction
01:08:53
you have that's fact right that's that's that's research that's in essence what you're saying right so that's the way I
01:09:00
that I would approach it is how can I invest as much as I can in this
01:09:05
partnership with this person that I love what is it that predicts a successful
01:09:11
marriage in your view well once again what is success is it to to me success
01:09:18
is high satisfaction High satisfaction is has a strong correlation around
01:09:24
well-being uh Dr Carol riff I think is the OG of well-being she doesn't get
01:09:30
enough credit she created a model called The Six Dimensions of psychological well-being and in essence if we are
01:09:38
working to increase each one of these Dimensions so for example one is having
01:09:44
a vision of your life like what is that Vision that you have for life and the question though is do you feel like you
01:09:50
are actively in pursuit of that Vision if you don't feel like you know what your vision is or you're not in pursuit
01:09:56
of it you're going to have lower well-being right so the higher well-being that you have
01:10:02
individually the higher satisfaction you have in your relationship the more successful your
01:10:08
relationship is all that like fundamental qualities that I should be looking for in a good partner oh yeah I
01:10:16
mean there's a million but the the core the core that I I like to write about is and and I'll actually I I'll even uh
01:10:24
synthesize it you want to have a partner who is aware of their well-being and who
01:10:31
is focused on their well-being this this is this is incredibly important because
01:10:37
one of the most profound re uh bits of research that I I feel like I included in the book is that most of us believe
01:10:45
that having alignment in the values of our partner
01:10:51
is the most successful or is the high is the number one determinant of having a
01:10:56
successful partnership we think it's about values we're told it's about values we're fed values which by the way
01:11:02
goes back to you know where that goes back to religion you know how have you heard
01:11:09
of you need to be equally yolked no oh you haven't heard this you're not reading your
01:11:14
Bibles exp me all right so the
01:11:20
Bible talks about you have to have a partner you have to find a partner who's equ equally yolked what does that really
01:11:28
mean equally yolked comes from oxen right so two you have one Ox here one Ox
01:11:33
here they're tethered together they're plowing the land if they're walking lock step they can plow the land if you have
01:11:39
one going off this way one going off this way you can't plow the land you can't produce so the Bible says you need to have a partner who is equally
01:11:46
yolked pastors then interpreted that over the years to be what values you
01:11:53
need to have a partner who shares your value vales has the same religion has the same accent this is how we became
01:11:59
regimented in class this happened Century after Century after Century
01:12:04
right we get to today you ask anyone on the street we grab 10 people nine out of
01:12:10
10 would say and and we said how important are values nine out of 10 would say values is everything
01:12:17
what values change they change I value things much differently today than I did
01:12:23
10 years ago our values change they're not constant we need to throw away values are they important yes are they
01:12:30
the most important no so therefore let's deemphasize the focusing on finding
01:12:36
someone who matches all of our values instead well-being key are they focus on
01:12:42
their well-being that's one two yeah values is important but you know what what's what's what's equally if not
01:12:48
more is you know what how open-minded are they like H how how how much do they
01:12:53
lean in how how curious are they and then the third is how resilient are they
01:12:59
because having a relationship with anyone means tough times so are they able to bounce back or when things get
01:13:06
tough do they just lay on their back so if you have a partner who's resilient you have a partner who's open-minded you
01:13:13
have a partner who's focused and nurturing their well-being you have a great partner what about ambition does
01:13:18
that matter I I think ambition is a value set okay
01:13:27
e yeah I just wonder because a lot of people would say that they want that in a partner but just by I mean like
01:13:34
running the mental numbers not everybody can be ambitious and people that aren't necessarily hugely ambitious also find
01:13:39
love and keep love but when you ask them on what they're looking for they'll tend to have a preference towards someone who's ambitious or goal
01:13:45
orientated one of the things we talked about kind of in between the lines was how Society has changed and one of the
01:13:52
ongoing conversations in dating at the moment is around how women are struggling to find compatible men
01:13:58
because women are more educated I think there's more women graduating with college degrees now the top 10% of men
01:14:05
seem to be having all of the sex According to some studies that I read a lot of the sex and then there's this bottom 50% of men that are somewhat
01:14:11
disenfranchised because they they're not getting the attention they're probably turning to things like pornography women
01:14:17
are dating up into the right I'm told so women I did read a study that said the
01:14:23
majority of women are still looking for a man who's earning more than them but in a world of equality which we all
01:14:29
agree is a good thing where women are more educated now there's there isn't enough men up and to the right anymore
01:14:35
so there's this sort of disparity between you know what women are looking for but actually what's available in the
01:14:41
market potentially these these these are all
01:14:46
facts however we have to in we have to
01:14:53
interrogate the this this this data but more so I think we have to interrogate The Narrative that's being handed to us
01:14:59
so I feel like the The Narrative that's being handed us today is that you know what the top 20% of men or 10% of men
01:15:07
they're good but the bottom 80% you suck that couldn't be further from the
01:15:14
truth and I think we have to acknowledge and this is where uh you know two things could be true one we live in a
01:15:22
patriarchal society absolutely absolutely
01:15:27
but do we need to extend more grace to our men absolutely we do are men lonlier
01:15:36
than they ever have been absolutely are men confused absolutely right are men
01:15:43
being misled absolutely let's extend more grace to our men what does that
01:15:51
mean that means being aware that we do live in a loneliness epidemic being aware that less than 27% of men
01:15:58
have a friend that they can feel is a confidant that 0% of them now feel like
01:16:04
they have someone who they can go to at 3:00 a.m. in the morning it's being aware of these things it is saying you
01:16:11
know what I um can appreciate other traits and characteristics outside of
01:16:19
how much you earn or how tall you are right these are it's important to be able to understand and and you just
01:16:25
asked me you said where are the most I said nothing about how much money someone makes nothing about how tall
01:16:31
they are right but at the same time what we have to understand is the narrative that is handed to about women is that
01:16:39
all women are looking for the six foot plus CEO right who's making over 100,000
01:16:46
pounds or dollars a year and that is also not the case this study here says
01:16:52
despite advancements in gender equality resarch indicates that better educated women still tend to prefer husbands who
01:16:59
earn more than they do that's from The Institute for family studies an analysis of online dating behaviors across 24
01:17:05
countries found that women are more selective than men showing a marked preference for men um with high incomes
01:17:11
and education levels which which again proves this up and to the right thing but there's just not enough men up and to the right so there's going to be a
01:17:16
lot of women that are somewhat dissatisfied according to this all right so the challenge if if I'm really
01:17:21
interrogating this is one is it's talking about High educated women so we
01:17:27
know that Highly Educated women are on average dating hypergamous right which
01:17:34
is what you're talking about up so someone who's dating someone who has the same or higher level of Education the
01:17:41
same or higher level of financial resources and why is that because that's the script that Society handed to women
01:17:47
to say the only way you can survive is by finding a man who can deliver this to
01:17:53
you right right that's and and I think we have to accept where it came from it
01:17:59
was this terrible Society of you know what you're not going to be safe unless
01:18:04
you find a man who could provide but you fast forward to to today a large percentage of high Highly
01:18:11
Educated women are dating this way but that's not all women the other part is
01:18:17
yes are women beginning to out earn men and outeducate men absolutely in certain
01:18:23
cities not in every everywhere of the world men on average still earn more income so so
01:18:32
so if you look at at at at the The Narrative that's handed to us you could say well you know what men on average
01:18:39
Still Still earn more but my point is this my point is that I think we all need to re-evaluate what it is that we want no
01:18:46
longer do we need to have a partner for most of us or should I say this is me
01:18:53
speaking out of privilege for many of us in the west no longer do we need to have
01:18:59
a partner for pragmatic reasons if you think about maso's hierarchy of needs
01:19:06
and you just divided it into three categories you would say the bottom the bottom kind of rung is all of our
01:19:13
psychological and physical needs food shelter right then that kind of middle
01:19:19
rung is belonging and connection and the top rung is selfish evolved self you
01:19:26
know we want to be you know we you know well self- evolved living our best self contributing the most that we ever could
01:19:33
to this world marriage and partnership and selecting a partner was largely based on
01:19:39
that lower rung all the way through to the 1960s that's like yesterday if you think about how long we've lived but
01:19:45
it's that Evolution as well because you see the same thing in the animal kingdom with like the orangutang which has like 98% the same DNA as us they still select
01:19:53
for survival factors so I think what's interesting
01:19:58
when you look at uh different mammals and the uh the The evolutionary
01:20:05
biology is that there's lots of similarities but then there's also lots
01:20:11
of traits that are different you know so it's it's one of those where we have to appreciate that as Homo
01:20:16
sapiens we are unique and we live in a structure that we have largely created
01:20:23
ourselves we're talking we're debating about the institution of marriage I mean marriage didn't exist for the vast majority of
01:20:30
our existence but this Golden Rule thing you told me about this yeah and you told me that it's cross-cultural yes so so it
01:20:38
is and this Golden Rule thing please explain it for people but for me that is evidence that there's still an
01:20:43
evolutionary component to selection for men and women and I read I was reading this study that said women um almost 50%
01:20:51
of women prefer to date only men that are taller than themselves while only 13% of men prefer to date only women
01:20:57
that are shorter than themselves and another study revealed that women are most satisfied when they're partner is
01:21:03
approximately 8 Ines taller whereas men are most satisfied with a height difference of about 8 centimeters taller
01:21:08
than their partner so women clearly have a preference here significant amount of them to dating a man that is bigger than
01:21:14
they are yes but all right yes this is so good all right couple things here M
01:21:20
do we have these preferences absolutely it's a lot of this handed us through
01:21:26
evolutionary and our biology absolutely is most of it handed to us
01:21:33
through socialization definitely do we change as
01:21:39
we increase our well-being yes so here's my point if you
01:21:44
were to go back and say Zena look you go back 10 years say Z look would you
01:21:51
prefer to date a man that is taller than you I would say there's a there's a good
01:21:56
chance she would say I would prefer it yes has that been her result no does she
01:22:06
appear to be incredibly happy and satisfied yes right with Tom Holland
01:22:11
that's from my op from from my outside looking in yes why could that have been
01:22:17
the case because she grew up being handed to script she grew up the disn ification of relationships she saw the
01:22:24
The Prince and how large the prince always was in comparison to the princess she saw that the prince was able to pick
01:22:29
up the princess like she saw all these things she believed all of these things and then as she became more mature as
01:22:37
she realized that she doesn't need anyone's validation as she understood
01:22:42
the things and the traits that she loved she was like this Tom Holland guy is hot yeah but is it that is an exception not
01:22:51
because Al Tom Holland's got 30 million in the bank so yeah but but but this does happen you
01:22:57
hear happens but it's it's the exception isn't it it's not the rule it is and you know why also that's the exception and I
01:23:02
agree I'm with you it's the exception because most of us have poor
01:23:08
well-being most of us have low self-esteem most of us do I would argue
01:23:13
most adults have low self-esteem mid to low self-esteem and what does that mean it means that we need the validation of
01:23:22
others right and this is the reason why I always say it goes back to us do you
01:23:27
really think this is the answer to this do do you not believe that there's a big evolutionary component to attraction
01:23:34
selection preferences like because I I'm struggling to believe that
01:23:41
Society is the only reason why we're why we pick certain people and I I do part
01:23:47
of me wonders and slightly worries that we've we've almost accidentally
01:23:53
inadvertently designed design Society in such a way where what we're looking for no longer exists necessarily so we have
01:24:01
to confront this new reality that in fact we're going to have to adjust some of our preferences if we are going to be happy and find what we're looking for
01:24:07
yes I do believe that a large percentage of the decisions that we make have been
01:24:14
handed to us genetically so I'm I'm I'm with that uh and I think the research
01:24:20
suggests that so if you have for example um you know uh I was talking to to Dr
01:24:27
taros wart and talking about you know a woman in the club if she's ovulating or not ovulating just based on that men are
01:24:34
going to be attracted or or or or or or not attracted or you think about scent right really what we're trying to do
01:24:40
with scent the reason why we're turned off with scent is that it's genetic it's that if we end up mating with someone
01:24:48
who has too close of a a genetic mirror to ours the child won't be as
01:24:55
so we need diversification in our in our genetics and we don't realize this but we can
01:25:01
determine that through our scent by being turned off it's it's it's a whole sniff test so does Do genetics play a
01:25:08
role absolutely golden mean we talked about Golden mean where in essence this
01:25:13
is women on average loving to see wide shoulders and a thinner waist and Men on
01:25:21
average loving to see smaller hips uh smaller waist wider hips now can people
01:25:29
debate these Concepts absolutely do they stand up um I mean are there uh
01:25:35
evolutionary reasons for these yes because it speaks to being fertile for
01:25:42
women or it speaks to being uh strong to protect right for a man all of this does
01:25:48
play a role and sometimes we don't realize how much of a role
01:25:55
Evolution has played in why and how we make decisions which is why it's also
01:26:00
important though to understand how the society that we have created as human
01:26:07
beings also plays a role how we were handed you should you need to have a
01:26:13
partner who's the same class as you you need to when you find your partner that's person that completes you when
01:26:21
you find a partner that's till death do you part those pieces were handed to us so there's no wonder why we're confused
01:26:27
we have all this evolutionary uh uh decision-making happening that we're not even aware of
01:26:34
and then on this side we have Society telling us this is the person that we that we should have and this is this is
01:26:39
the reason why and I go back to why awareness is key and understanding how
01:26:47
and why we are gives us a power it gives
01:26:52
us a t autonomy over our decisions so that when you are making that decision
01:26:59
on your partner you can ask yourself you know yeah I would love to have a partner
01:27:05
who's over six feet but how important is that really to me why why do I think I I
01:27:11
feel this way yeah and once you begin to have those debates with yourself that
01:27:16
puts you on the path to making a decision that you're going to be more satisfied with in the Long Haul I think
01:27:23
that's the key and I think the awareness comes from confronting both realities which is on one hand there are some
01:27:29
evolutionary things that are going to make me have a bias towards a certain type of person that has certain attributes even if those attributes
01:27:35
actually um not going to lead to a long-term healthy relationship like [ __ ] boys yes like Charisma and bravado and
01:27:44
confidence is like somewhat attractive but it might not be a great husband and then on the other hand there is tons of things Society has handed me through
01:27:50
magazines and media that have portrayed an image of what beauty looks like that are also just [ __ ] I think
01:27:56
understanding both is the key to that sort of autonomy being able to say actually I understand where that's
01:28:03
coming from in me but I will make a rational prefrontal cortex decision to select something else some evidence of
01:28:09
this The evolutionary basis of Attraction comes in this idea that people who have symmetrical faces are
01:28:15
more beautiful and more attractive across cultures is that true yes so there are many scientists that will say
01:28:21
absolutely but here's what one thing I know definitively about attraction is
01:28:29
attraction to someone else is largely based on your
01:28:34
self-esteem and this is what I mean is that the lower your self-esteem the more
01:28:40
dependent you are on the validation of the public so therefore you will want to
01:28:47
have a partner who is considered to be attractive so if Society if the script
01:28:54
is is that symmetry is it or if the script is um
01:28:59
wearing this type of trainer is it if that's what Society is saying then if
01:29:06
you have low self-esteem you want a partner to look like that because you need the validation of the partner
01:29:12
however whenever you see this is what I this is what I say whenever you see
01:29:17
someone who's walking around with a partner and you think how did those two get together right chances are there's
01:29:24
an element and remember I'm not talking about one has super high income or one has super high status I'm just talking
01:29:31
about you look at at at at a couple and you say they look odd right one of them
01:29:37
could be traditionally attractive one of them might not normally what's happened is that you have someone with high
01:29:43
self-esteem who has no need for the
01:29:49
Public's validation of their partner at all I don't think people talk about this enough but it's so unbelievable true in
01:29:55
fact I know an individual who has a historically low self-esteem and went
01:30:01
through a lot of stuff when they were younger and I remember when they got into a relationship I remember exactly where I was stood in London I remember
01:30:07
the time of day when they turned to me they just got into a relationship someone with historic low self-esteem and they said to me Steve I really like
01:30:15
her but I'm kind of worried this is an exact quote I'm kind of worried like if I walk into a restaurant with her on my
01:30:21
arm is it going to be a good look and I remember saying to this person like if that's the way you're assessing
01:30:29
this person based on how they'll look on your own when you walk into a relationship my God this relationship is
01:30:36
[ __ ] because you're overlooking the actual things that matter the most important things and this person has
01:30:41
gone from one relationship to the next to the next to the next all of them failing as the more time I've spent with
01:30:46
them I thought to myself like it's because their selection is being made through insecurity and low self-esteem
01:30:53
yes just back to back to back to back to back yes it's not being made based on the like the essence of the person the
01:31:01
the other areas of compatibility that matter more over the long term it's that constant like surface level connection
01:31:07
yes and and I think most of us are making decisions based on our
01:31:13
self-esteem did you see this as a Matchmaker you know yes cuz you saying
01:31:18
Rich guys right yeah exactly I you know uh I distinctly remember when I was on previously and and You' ask about like
01:31:24
what was one of the most profound things that that you saw and I never had thought about that question until you
01:31:30
asked it and it was uh these men who were coming who had incredibly low
01:31:36
self-esteem and what it was is these were what I call Lake Bloomers you know it was the the the the
01:31:43
guy who always felt like no one liked you know no one liked how they appeared
01:31:51
they were the quote unquote ugly duckling they they then found the gym
01:31:56
later in life right they they they they found their Mojo later in life they were always studious um they were a bit
01:32:03
introverted maybe shy at the same time um and here they are and when people
01:32:08
walk past them they're like oh my God this guy's a stud like look at look at this guy he's a stud but he never
01:32:14
thought he was a stud nor does he think he's a stud today which is why I say go
01:32:20
back to doing the inner work we would take a CL like that and oppos just saying let's put you on a date we can't
01:32:27
do that we have to begin to work with you so that you realize how incredible
01:32:33
you actually are why can't you just check them on a date if they've got low self-esteem be because
01:32:39
okay we can sit them across from the most incredible match but they won't recognize it because they're making
01:32:45
decisions based on their self-esteem so they're making the decision that your friend made right how will this person
01:32:50
look on my arm when I bring them to the Christmas party opposed to what's their well-being look like or
01:32:58
do we do do we share any values Etc so you can end up taking someone who could
01:33:04
be great for you and push them away or dismiss them or worse you can invite
01:33:11
someone into your life who's not the best placed for you because of a result of your insecurities like a narcissist
01:33:17
like like like a narcissist like a SST like a psychopath like a mellian right
01:33:23
you know there's a distinct group of bad people in the world David bus writes
01:33:28
about this that we have to realize they play on our fears they understand when
01:33:35
someone has low self-esteem low well-being they're attracted to that person why because they're better able
01:33:42
to manipulate them what's our best defense the best defense in any
01:33:49
relationship in life is our well-being it acts as a wall
01:33:54
against all of the bad people in the world and what it also does is it acts as a magnet for the great people in the
01:34:01
world because people with high well-being and high self-esteem tend to
01:34:06
surround themselves and and and understand and even attract people with high well-being and high self-esteem
01:34:12
okay so two personal case studies popped to mind in my friendship group that I
01:34:17
that I'm aware of people that I'm aware of um they are approaching their 40s okay they would both probably say say
01:34:23
that they had low self-esteem they don't feel like they got the time pull to figure out their self-esteem because in
01:34:30
both situations they're like I need to find someone and they're in a bit of a rush I'd say one of them is a male one
01:34:36
of them is a female now what would you say to both of those people approaching their 40s feel like they're in a bit of
01:34:42
a rush one's sort of contending with a biological clock MH um the other just is contending with like social comparison
01:34:49
all of his friends are in relationships and settling down and he's still single both fundamentally have low self-esteem
01:34:56
so the way that they're trying to solve this problem is they're trying to get blow Dres to make themselves look
01:35:03
pretty on the external to attract people in and dating as many people as they possibly can to try and find someone as
01:35:09
soon as possible yes I would tell them you haven't even lived half your life
01:35:15
yet you have plenty of time period but
01:35:20
I've got a biological clock over here you know what I understand that but you
01:35:25
know what's worse you know you know you know what what is what is incredibly sad
01:35:31
is that I've seen a large percentage of people say I have a biological clck I
01:35:38
want to have a child so therefore I'm just going to have a child with with with with anyone what happens what happens what
01:35:47
ends up happening is it ends up becoming a incredibly difficult scenario to
01:35:53
manage because you now are in a partnership with someone who you don't like you don't feel safe with there's no
01:36:00
emotional connection they create stress on you they end up not being apparent to
01:36:06
the child that stress leads to other issues that you may have like autoimmune disease you end up not being able to
01:36:13
show up as your best self for the child the child sees this and they they have a myriad of issues as a result of you
01:36:22
wanting to beat your biological clock I say this I understand the desire to have
01:36:29
children I get it I wanted my wife and I tried for eight years a lot of people we
01:36:34
we we went through IVF you know I get it to this day we still pay for our embryos
01:36:41
to be frozen it's like it's one of those where I understand the desire to have children what age were you oh my God it
01:36:49
was probably 16 years ago when we started IVF we were early to to to IVF
01:36:57
we um and by the way even before the 16 years we had tried like naturally to to
01:37:03
have a child we went through one year of Cycles
01:37:09
unsuccessful we end up we ended up losing one of our losing a child right
01:37:16
um devastating absolutely devastating and then we then have a cycle that that
01:37:22
works which which is our first son Kingston and then we have a cycle that works fairly close after our Second Son
01:37:29
uh Liam but one of the unold stories about IVF and I and I wish people talked
01:37:35
about this more is that you may still have eight embryos six embryos that are
01:37:41
still viable we have nine embryos that are still viable and so what do you do
01:37:47
some people will donate them to science some people will have them destroyed but there's other folks like my wife and I
01:37:52
that are thinking know these are lives that we've created like what are we going to do and so we have paid to store
01:37:59
them so every month since we began our Cycles we have paid to store them now
01:38:06
from what I uh uh some people have told me that there there limitations in certain countries around how many years
01:38:13
you can actually uh store your embryos but it's such a grueling decision to
01:38:19
have to make um and um and it's it's it's it's it's one that that we made
01:38:26
so I understand the desire to be a parent I fully do how old were you and
01:38:32
Jill when you decided to do IVF I say this because you said 16 years ago you
01:38:38
look about 30 yeah yeah I mean yeah I mean this is the thing is everyone's like well how old are you what a lot of
01:38:43
people don't realize is I this year 50 so you were about 34 35 yeah uh I would
01:38:49
say I was about 30 yeah I was mid-30s and Jill was same mid-30s okay yep and
01:38:57
you've been training for eight years so quite honestly we had been trying so we
01:39:02
got married uh when I was 25 right uh we started trying shortly
01:39:11
thereafter because I've always wanted to be a father always and so very quickly
01:39:18
after we got married we thought you know children as us will have it and it just
01:39:26
doesn't happen that way and what we began to see is that one of the
01:39:32
challenges was around the stress that we had in our lives and how
01:39:39
we were unhealthy as a result of the stress and and the impact that was having on our inability to have
01:39:47
children did it cause a strain on your relationship when you went through these
01:39:52
struggles with fertility absolutely you feel like you know the script that I
01:39:57
felt was handed to me and this was a script is that you're a
01:40:03
man and if you can't have a child you're not a man that was the script that was
01:40:08
literally I remember being at the barber shop right when I had hair when I used to go to the barber shop um and that was
01:40:15
that was the idea you know you'd have the guy who was like I've got eight kids you know and and as a result I'm the
01:40:22
manliest man in the room and I would leave thinking my God I can't I can't
01:40:27
even have a child like what what's what's the issue and then you begin to think okay you know
01:40:33
um um what are all the factors and you begin to go through the test and you
01:40:39
begin to your point and you've already done this is you see there's a multitude of issues and for some
01:40:47
people they're incredibly fertile and it takes boom eight times but for others
01:40:55
and I'm in the others it takes years you know um but I will say this
01:41:03
and this goes back to the investment Theory the more that we invested in the
01:41:09
pursuit of having children the more the desire increase and then now the level
01:41:16
of cherishing our our boys is on a whole another I think because of that
01:41:21
experience is on a whole another Lev I can imagine it really tears relationships apart this issue of
01:41:27
fertility in children especially if the results come back I was super scared when them sperm analysis came in and
01:41:34
they like sent me the email with password on it I was like oh my God if imagine if I open this document now and it says that my spam are like not not
01:41:41
good like she's going to leave me you know that's what you kind of think yeah and I'm sure she she might have felt the
01:41:46
same way she might have there might have been a doubt in her that said if if her results came back and it was bad then
01:41:51
maybe I would leave or something OB I wouldn't but um I'm sure it tears a lot of families apart a lot of relationships
01:41:59
apart this these issues of fertility yes and and and that's why it's so important
01:42:04
for us to spend more
01:42:10
time in determining whether or not we feel like we have the right
01:42:16
partner before we decide to commit to them before we decided to have to have
01:42:21
children with them which is a massive decision before we decide to move house or move into a
01:42:28
house our partner our our partner is often life or
01:42:37
death for us the selection of our partner the selection of our partner is
01:42:43
I truly believe the most important decision that we will have because of
01:42:49
all these things that it that it dictates that we've talked about so having more emphasis on who that partner is and
01:42:55
the dialogue upfront is so incredibly important you know you think about this is like the top uh the
01:43:05
Gans you know they talk about how 69% of problems in a relationship will never
01:43:13
be resolved 69% never be resolved that's scary that's scary what does that mean
01:43:19
that means that you have to learn how to manage it so that means that you have to have a partner who has Superior conflict
01:43:26
management skills and so do you if you can't if your partner doesn't have that
01:43:31
you are in for a world of hurt wouldn't it be great to have determined that before you decide to have a child with
01:43:37
someone because once you have a child the level of conflict is going through the
01:43:43
roof I umum I had some stats that show that in terms of mental health a study
01:43:48
published in nature showed that unmarried individuals have a 79% high risk of developing depression compared
01:43:55
to their married counterparts maybe I should get married but also Research indicates that strong social connections
01:44:01
like a romantic relationship can increase longevity significantly and a comprehensive study analyzing 43 data
01:44:06
sets revealed that the quality of one's romantic relationship is a significant predictor of overall life satisfaction
01:44:14
High relationship satisfaction correlates with increased happiness and well-being um and the stats go on and on
01:44:20
and on and on even financial implications which is quite quite staggering yeah I I this is a bit of a
01:44:26
different question but um we talked a second ago about self-esteem and how if someone came to you in your matchmaking days and they were like Keen to form and
01:44:33
find love one of the first things you'd say is like we need to work on the self-esteem but if a man comes to you
01:44:39
and they are let's say you're one of your sons okay Kingston is that your
01:44:44
oldest yes that's my oldest Kingston goes that listen what what should I be
01:44:49
doing to increase the probability now that I find and keep a partner what work
01:44:55
can I do on my own now like do I need to hit the gym do I need to read a book
01:45:01
what do I need to do do I need to go out and earn money and I want the honest answer that you would say to Kingston when no one's looking you know what's
01:45:06
Wild is I've already started talking to Kingston about this okay because we work out together on the weekends uh and I'm
01:45:12
shocked at how strong he's getting he's 14 uh all the time I tell him King
01:45:18
Kingson King surround yourself with great people
01:45:23
that's it surround yourself put yourself in proximity to people who have healthy
01:45:29
relationships to people who have high satisfaction in their relationships it's no different than in business you want
01:45:35
to succeed surround yourself with folks who are succeeding in business you surround yourself with those people and
01:45:40
what you begin to do is you begin to observe their habits you see their skills you adopt their habits you adopt
01:45:48
their skills you understand where the boundaries should be what is a healthy
01:45:54
doubt what is an unhealthy doubt you learn all of these behaviors by simply surrounding yourself with good people
01:46:00
this is the key as you guys know whoop is one of my show sponsors it's also a company that I
01:46:06
have invested in and it's one that you guys asked me about a lot the biggest question I get asked is why I use whoop
01:46:11
over other wearable technology options and there is a bunch of reasons but I think it really comes down to the most
01:46:17
overlooked yet crucial feature it's noninvasive nature when everything in life seems to be competing for my
01:46:23
attention I turned to whoop because it doesn't have a screen and will armed the CEO who came on this podcast told me the
01:46:30
reason that there's no screen because screens equal distraction so when I'm in meetings or I'm at the gym my whoop
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doesn't demand my attention it's there in the background constantly pulling data and insights from my body that are
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ready for when I need them if you've been thinking about joining woop you can head to join. whoop.com
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CEO and try whoop for 30 days risk-free and zero commitment that's join.
01:46:54
whoop.com CEO let me know how you get on myths yes we talked about a lot of
01:47:02
myths today and your book contains 21 different myths um I won't go through
01:47:08
them all because I think people should buy the book and read them all and we don't have enough time to go through all of them but just picking out some of the
01:47:14
ones that really stood out to me okay uh one of the myths that you say in your book is that more sex equals a happier
01:47:21
relationship is that true does having more sex increase the happiness in your relationship
01:47:29
no no now here's the investigation of
01:47:36
that studies show that couples who have a high level of satisfaction in their
01:47:44
relationship they have a high amount of sex but it's not as a result of the sex
01:47:50
that gives them the high satisfaction it's the high satisfaction that gives them the high amount of sex so the
01:47:56
challenge is that we have to reframe and we have to stop thinking that just because we're having a lot of sex it
01:48:03
doesn't mean that we have a great relationship I see this happen all the time especially I'm Married at First Sight a couple sits down the first thing
01:48:09
they say is oh Paul I don't need any help we're having sex like rabbits first of all lions have much
01:48:16
more sex than rabbits secondly is that doesn't mean you have a great
01:48:21
relationship the fact that you're having lots of sex it tells me nothing so the the the myth is that if you have
01:48:30
lots of sex it means you have a healthy relationship but could you be in a sexless relationship and also be
01:48:37
extremely happy you can many people many people are in that space you've met people that are like this yes there are
01:48:43
a significant percentage of people that are like that especially as we get older
01:48:50
you have couples in their 80s who've now reached a point where the
01:48:56
desire for sex is not there maybe it's once a year and I know everyone in their 20s
01:49:02
30s 40s even 50s like oh my gosh once a year this is crazy but if you have a
01:49:08
couple you know you know uh there are two different desires here there's one is called a spontaneous desire and one
01:49:14
is called a responsive desire now there is a gender difference here most men
01:49:20
even if if you look through the ages all the way up to' 60s '70s they have what's
01:49:25
called a spontaneous desire which means that they are ready 24/7 they could just
01:49:30
go they they they need no emotional turn on in order to have sex they just get a hard on sat there hard on demand okay
01:49:39
pretty much whereas as women get older
01:49:46
typically they require responsive desire what is responsive desire they want some
01:49:52
emotional connection some emotional currency they want some safety they want
01:49:57
a conversation and not just one but they want to have a buildup of that emotional
01:50:03
currency in order for them to have a responsive desire to the sex in order to have sex so there's different desires
01:50:11
when you talk about sex um and I think that more discussion needs to be had
01:50:16
around responsive desire and the importance of building what Dr Karen
01:50:22
gurnie talks about is as emotional currency to build up that connection
01:50:27
with your partner so it's almost emotional currency is almost like putting deposits in the bank account
01:50:34
right if you if you're if if there's an empty sexual bank account and you just go to your partner and you say I want to
01:50:41
have sex in other words I want to make a withdrawal there's nothing there you're getting nothing literally you're getting
01:50:46
nothing however if you are placing deposits in
01:50:54
what is that that is just wanted to send you a text to to tell you you know how much I do love you to I appreciate how
01:51:01
well you take care uh of the kids um uh I can't wait for us to have date night
01:51:08
tonight uh you know just to watch the movie and have wine right these
01:51:14
deposits hugs kisses with no requirement
01:51:19
of of of sex you know I often talk about 30 second hug and I gave you a 30 second
01:51:24
hug once why don't you look happy about that no it matters it's important deina
01:51:32
does the same she's a really exceptional hugger yes she's very good so the 30 second hug I talk about the sixc kiss
01:51:39
and so many people respond back well if if I gave my husband a 30 second kiss he'd think that se sex is at the end of
01:51:46
that no we need to normalize these things that's putting emotional dep
01:51:52
deposits into our partner so then once it's built up then you can go make your withdrawal right and and so um yeah sex
01:52:02
needs to be looked at it I think more and more from the standpoint of
01:52:07
responsive in spontaneous desire desire management term that I
01:52:12
talk about with my friends sometimes um should we spend more time apart in our
01:52:18
relationships we we live in a society now as you said where we're becoming more and more individualistic which means that there's more demands being
01:52:23
placed on our partner to be everything and if they're everything surely they're less attractive because if they're our
01:52:29
counselor our therapist our accountant or our best friend there's it seems like logically then they wouldn't be as spicy
01:52:37
yeah if if they are everything we set ourselves up with a very high stakes
01:52:43
relationship because the moment that they don't become everything they could be 99% of everything but the moment
01:52:51
they're not 100% we're disappointed but also like if this person is
01:52:56
like my emotional support in so many areas of my life they are my friend they
01:53:02
are my uh co-founder of my company I wonder if the the spice you know they
01:53:10
say absence makes the heart grow fond I wonder if the spice is going to leave the building the the spice can but there are
01:53:18
other I think more challenging issues that that can arise and I'll give you my example because I fell into this right
01:53:25
so I uh reached a point in my marriage where my wife was everything to me she
01:53:32
was my co-founder we were running a matchmaking agency we spent nearly all of our time together we were co-parents
01:53:39
uh right we were uh if I had a a a a business question a platonic question a
01:53:45
romantic question I would go to her uh it got to the point where I saw myself
01:53:51
disconnecting from my Social Circle I used to go uh to I had season tickets to
01:53:57
to to watch basketball I would stop doing that stop watching my NFL football on the weekends because it was just
01:54:02
spending time with with with you know with with Jill and the boys and I realized very quickly that what was
01:54:08
happening is I was investing everything into my wife and my family and the issue
01:54:16
is that and this is this is what happens with so many people is that I had had no
01:54:23
other confidence in my life I had distanced myself from from almost
01:54:29
everyone and the issue from from that is is then I'm bringing no value into the
01:54:34
relationship because I have no no other relationships that's ultimately what that means is when you have other
01:54:41
relationships when you have other friendship circles you're learning new things you're bringing novelty into your
01:54:47
relationship you are adding spice to your relationship I wasn't doing any of that that continued for quite some time
01:54:52
this this is one of the reasons why I got involved with football here is that
01:54:58
being involved now with a with a with a football team in England has allowed me
01:55:04
an outlet outside of my family and even outside of my Social Circle that I was
01:55:11
building here that is entirely different right it's it's it's a different group
01:55:16
of PE it's a group of people who I had not come across in my walks of of of
01:55:21
life who I love and adore and learn so much from and I have a sense of
01:55:27
enjoyment and because I have a sense of enjoyment there I begin to have more purpose in my life I begin to have more
01:55:36
joy in my life and the more joyful I am about my entire life I can bring that to
01:55:42
my relationship and help to boost that that that relationship and and so it's almost like you know if if you think
01:55:49
about uh if you're an electrical battery right and you're charging and you are
01:55:55
the battery how wonderful would it be to be able to get a charge from 8 sources
01:56:01
opposed to one right maybe the the one is not working today and therefore you you you don't get charged up but if You'
01:56:06
have eight if you're getting charged eight different sources right it hires the likelihood of you being charged up
01:56:14
um to uh you know to to to live your best life and I think this is where the attachment Styles comes into to play
01:56:20
again because I think in my relationship I'm maybe a little bit more of on the avoidant side and she's maybe a little
01:56:26
bit more on the anxious side so I think there's a desire in me to like space Freedom explore Wonder um she has that
01:56:32
too of course but I think I just I have it a little bit more so it can sometimes feel like she's pursuing yes the the
01:56:41
quality time and I'm maybe pursuing being on my own yes which causes this
01:56:47
sort of dysfunction or this this imbalance I guess some couples who are both anxious I don't know if they get on
01:56:53
but no I mean what happens most of the time is anxious find avoidance oh okay yeah so
01:57:01
th those are the two that that end up matching and it's very important to work for for you both to work on an earned
01:57:07
secure one of the best ways to do that is to surround yourself with couples who are secure why is it that anxious
01:57:15
relationship attachment Styles go for avoidance you'd think they'd go for anxious right and and we should probably
01:57:20
pause to Define what these attachment Styles mean sure sure so uh out of Mary
01:57:27
answorth and John bulby uh research uh which you know buby from the UK answorth
01:57:33
from from Canada the whole idea is is uh it was something called The Strange situations test which examined the
01:57:42
relationship that we have with our first caregivers and those who had a secure
01:57:47
attachment is where your caregiver was really always there for you so in your
01:57:53
time of need your caregiver was always there to to to be of support anxious
01:57:59
which a large percentage of the population is is is anxious anxious is where your caregiver was there sometimes
01:58:05
other times they they weren't this is is very prevalent in Immigration communities first second generation
01:58:11
especially second generation immigrants where your uh parent was working you know they're out hustling multiple jobs
01:58:19
and they're there for you sometimes but they can't be there for for you all the time and then you have avoidant avoidant
01:58:24
is when the caregiver wasn't there so you had to learn to self Soo you end up
01:58:31
seeing a large number of very successful business people are avoidance why because they've
01:58:39
learned to be self-reliant
01:58:44
anxious turn tend to be more of the what feels to be needy right secure I'm I'm
01:58:50
okay you know I'm I'm okay about myself now why does to to do anxious and avoidance end up matching because the
01:58:58
anxious feels comfortable in Pursuit that's their that's our because
01:59:05
I'm that's our that's our disposition and I think I'm I'm earning more of a of a secure but our my natural inclination
01:59:13
is that I'm comfortable in Pursuit and avoidant is comfortable
01:59:18
being pursued because you have an opportunity to
01:59:24
connect but then create the distance you know when you want to so you end up seeing many anxious and avoidance come
01:59:32
together and it's important to recognize that so you've already recognized this which is half the battle is the
01:59:39
awareness now you can begin to develop the tools to become more secure that's
01:59:45
difficult that's the work it's difficult isn't it I think Step One is obviously awareness because then you can start
01:59:52
start to sort of catch yourself out and see yourself when you're exhibiting certain behaviors and really start to question them that's kind of what I do
01:59:57
now as an avoidant I when when my partners like looking for attention and
02:00:02
looking for you know making those bids for attention as they call them I observe what they're doing I observe how
02:00:09
I feel about it I and I then rationalize it um above both of those observations
02:00:17
in a different way so I'll rationalize it as I love this person so much and if they need some attention now just play the game Steve just give them what they
02:00:23
want whereas before I'd be like why are they annoying me
02:00:29
mean yes but I have to do that every day like as many of these podcasts as I've done as many times I've heard about
02:00:34
attachment Styles it's still an ongoing battle yes and I think this is important because sometimes we believe that we're
02:00:40
fixed or cured because we have information that we're going to act upon it at all times but the wiring is so
02:00:47
deep it it is and it it is it is a Continuum it it never ends
02:00:52
and to your point is this is the work the work is that mental energy right
02:00:58
that you had to go through uh you you're doing uh this uh uh thing Dr Julie Smith talks about it metacognition is really
02:01:04
what you're doing having the thought about the thought and
02:01:09
that is tiring Tire exhausting it's exhaust to do that all the time is exhausting but that's the
02:01:17
price that you're paying to have the relationship that's the work yeah and
02:01:23
she's worth it yeah people that listen to this podcast will know that like you know when I talk about marriage and stuff it's not um anything to do with
02:01:30
her in particular in fact she's the person that's made me want to get married she's the person that's made me agnostic before I was against it now I'm like it doesn't really matter if she
02:01:36
wants it then I I don't really care um so I'm saying all of this in spite of the fact that I believe I'm with the
02:01:42
perfect person yes and when I say perfect I mean Perfectly Imperfect as well yes as as I am to her but I just
02:01:49
couldn't imagine ever finding anyone better so I'm saying all of this in spite of that just in case anyone was wondering and I genuinely mean that like
02:01:55
I wouldn't say otherwise I'm not saying that just for the sake of it I my friends know this too my friends all believe and I believe that she is there's no one I'm ever going to find
02:02:01
that's better than her yes um few more questions that I had that
02:02:07
came emerged from reading your book which by the way is superb thank you I have to say it is published by flight
02:02:12
books and there's probably some kind of disclaimer I have to give for the ASA com for me but um so that's hasht ad but
02:02:19
um one of the ones that was quite provocative to me me is this
02:02:26
question should you keep secrets from your partner this is big
02:02:33
yes so many people are like well don't say that this is crazy what you're
02:02:41
saying there are quite a few studies on a concept called selective disclosure
02:02:49
and a matter of fact one of I think the most provocative compelling studies on
02:02:55
selective disclosure looked at uh you know many many couples and one couple or
02:03:02
one one group was told to be entirely transparent to your partner so tell them
02:03:09
everything every issue every concern that pops into your mind tell them right
02:03:15
that's full transparency then the other was selective disclosure now what is selective disclosure there rules to
02:03:21
selective disclosure one is is that you share information that's relevant right
02:03:27
you share information that considers their emotions information that considers
02:03:32
their boundaries information that acknowledges
02:03:37
the future of your relationship that is timely and the tone is very important
02:03:43
how it's delivered that's selective disclosure so this group was told to do that what do you think happens at the
02:03:50
end of the result at the end of the experiment everyone in the transparent
02:03:55
group they've killed each other no I'm I was going to say Jesus no no no they
02:04:01
they haven't killed each other but the group that had selective disclosure has higher
02:04:06
satisfaction less conflict more autonomy in their relationship so it's very
02:04:12
important to know that what I say secret is is I'm saying you have to
02:04:18
selectively decide and I think selective disclosure is a concept we should spend
02:04:24
more time thinking about so give me an example of something that I shouldn't say to my partner okay so well once
02:04:31
again it depends what your partner's boundaries are right so so you discussed these boundaries you know all these
02:04:37
things but but but just generalizing I'll give an example so your partner always leaves the cap off the toothpaste
02:04:45
always it annoys you it annoys you right it annoys you
02:04:52
however you know your partner is going through a lot of stress at work they're working on a new
02:04:57
project is it the right time to bring up the fact that the cap annoys
02:05:04
you probably not probably not here's a
02:05:09
juicier one your ex slides into your
02:05:14
DMs and wants to congratulate you and it's platonic it's
02:05:21
congratulations you respond back thank you that's it nothing
02:05:28
more look at you speaking from experience was it on the new book what
02:05:34
was it on what did she congratulate was it the podcast congratulations on your new
02:05:40
podcast thank you arive delet block right it's like
02:05:45
thank you right so boom you know your partner
02:05:52
is working through a trauma around jealousy is it do you run home and say
02:05:58
so and so sent me this message probably not right so selective disclosure means
02:06:04
that you're taking into consideration the relevance of the information their boundaries their emotions Etc try to it
02:06:11
it truly is a concept that I believe will help to increase satisfaction and lower conflict in your relationship I
02:06:17
think that's super important uh because a lot a lot of the narrative has just never lied to your partner and it's it's interesting cuz all of those things
02:06:23
you've said have happened to me in my relationships before where an ex slides into your DMs and I'm literally sat with
02:06:28
my girlfriend and my the ex is just saying oh love this or something and you like almost panic because I'm like I don't want to lie yes but at the same
02:06:35
time what's the point in me stopping this moment to say something that's irrelevant and you know
02:06:41
um interesting very very interesting it's an important Insight you you're
02:06:46
talking there about diminishing conflict and I am I was recording some stuff over the week weekend where I was thinking
02:06:52
about relationshipss and one of the things I've really come to believe over time is that the
02:06:57
the the best predictor of a long-term relationship is what how you are at conflict resolution yes and there's this
02:07:04
quote that I love that I've never forgotten that says You can predict the long-term health of a relationship by
02:07:10
whether each cut heals to 99% or 101% does your conflict make you
02:07:15
stronger I love that and in the big thing that I noticed in this relationship versus my previous relationships is there was this in built
02:07:23
natural conflict resolution system based on who we were as people okay and I say
02:07:28
that because like she doesn't want to shout she doesn't want to scream she wants to listen I don't want to shout I don't want to scream I want to listen
02:07:34
which meant that from the first moment of conflict we were able to resolve it and move on yes whereas in previous
02:07:39
relationships it was like two people that were just broken records trying to get their point across at the other
02:07:44
person yes almost trying to win yeah you know so one is I love that quote I love
02:07:49
that and what I found and I age our ability to and I say you know I I I'm
02:07:55
careful with using the word management now opposed to resolve given the research from the Gman around how uh 69%
02:08:04
of these issues won't be resolved but but managing the conflict there's two ways that we typically try to manage it
02:08:11
one is we try to win the argument that is the route that is
02:08:17
always going to lead to a low level of satisfaction the other route is to try
02:08:23
to gain understanding about why your partner thought
02:08:28
that so so so it's just simply I just want to understand right should you
02:08:35
apologize absolutely should you always apologize all right so so here here's what the research shows this is well I
02:08:42
will say this I uh when I was writing the book I was writing a chapter on
02:08:47
apologies and I go to Jill and I say Jill how many times a month do you think
02:08:53
I apologize to you and she's like H you only apologize like every other
02:09:00
month so she's saying that I apologize about six times to her per year and I was thinking oh this is terrible because
02:09:08
the data shows the most successful Partnerships there's an apology every
02:09:13
week on average once a week and what I realized in the Trap that I fell into
02:09:20
and I think a lot of men fall into this is the threshold in which we believe we
02:09:25
should be apologizing so something will happen in the relationship and I'll
02:09:31
think what I need to apologize for for that it's just like it it is what it is you know so for example I mean the the
02:09:38
trash is is always a big issue in my household right so I'm supposed to take the rubbish out or take the trash out
02:09:43
and sometimes I forget okay I forget I don't think it's apology worthy to
02:09:49
forget to take it out but but I realize that's my threshold but to my wife that
02:09:55
is a I mean there's World War III and there's not taking out the rubbish so
02:10:02
that's a major issue so her threshold level is different so part of what I
02:10:07
learned in investigating this chapter is for us to be so in tune with our partner
02:10:12
that we understand what their threshold is and we meet them at it I had an
02:10:18
incident in my relationship a couple of weeks back maybe five six weeks ago where I didn't want to apologize because
02:10:27
I wasn't sorry because I didn't think I did anything wrong okay and I'm I think
02:10:32
I am actually quite quick to apologize to my partner I've I've apologized this week I've probably apologized last week
02:10:38
for something but it was a really interesting moment we're actually in um like relationships counseling therapy or
02:10:43
whatever we've been for since the start of our relationship been doing this we've been through like three different therapists and I looked at the situation
02:10:50
of effectively and arrived at the conclusion that in the future I would not have done anything different so I
02:10:57
arrived at the conclusion that an apology would actually be disingenuous like I'm I would be apologizing for
02:11:02
something and probably setting a new standard in our relationship that I know I can't me in the future so I I
02:11:09
explained that and said I don't I don't want to apologize because I wouldn't mean it in this situation and I wondered
02:11:15
whether there's any Merit in that like does your apology genuinely have to be sincere or are you just doing it just to
02:11:20
keep the peace you're you're doing it only when it's sincere but how we're
02:11:26
doing it is very important so in in the research that I found only 50% of
02:11:32
apologies are actually effective right what constitutes an effective apology
02:11:38
there's a system that I I've created called Arc okay a acknowledge
02:11:44
acknowledge what happened yeah so for example I am sorry that I interrup
02:11:51
interrupted you genuinely sorry right that I'm sorry that I interrupted you
02:11:57
two is remorseful and I apologize for the fact that you may feel
02:12:04
undervalued or not listen to as a result that's the remorse and then the C is the
02:12:10
commitment and in the future I'm going to try to um you know pay more
02:12:18
attention when we're having these conversations so that I'm not interrupting you right so this is this
02:12:24
is the the kind of you know what I call Arc method but the idea is to make it effective is to acknowledge what
02:12:31
happened be remorseful for the emotional impact that's the key and that's where I
02:12:37
wanted to come with with yours and then see is what's your commitment for the future that makes it a comprehensive
02:12:43
apology so in your situation perhaps what you did
02:12:49
objectively you would do in the future but you are remorseful for how it made
02:12:54
her feel so I'll give you some context I was basically working on something very
02:12:59
very important I was going through it and I told her previously I'm going to be going through this thing I need to be
02:13:06
working on this thing it's very very important she knew the every single detail of this project I was working on
02:13:12
okay she knew the the deadline she knew the significance of it profound and one thing I'd learned probably from doing
02:13:17
this podcast and speaking to you was that assume people can't read your mind yes so brief them yes and like if you're
02:13:23
going to be a bit strange if you're going to be a bit focused let them know ahead of time so I'd sat her down and said listen for this period of time here
02:13:30
I'm going to be a bit weird and I'd asked her to lower her expectations on me okay which I think is a pretty like
02:13:37
Forward Thinking thing to do and within a short period of time we had had uh a
02:13:45
disagreement a moment of conflict because upon like while I was working on this thing
02:13:52
on the third bid for attention I had seemingly ignored it which caused a
02:13:57
spiral and I hate when you ignore me and I'd said listen I told you I was I sat you literally sat you down night before
02:14:03
and in the morning and had a conversation with you just to tell you what was going on and how I needed to focus on this thing yes so I thought the
02:14:09
reason why I didn't want to apologize was because I thought I did everything I thought I was supposed to do like I thought I was like i' let the person
02:14:15
know told them exactly what let them in on it let them know what was going on in my nervous system let them know what was going on in my mind and we still ended
02:14:22
up in this like situation where there was a bid for attention and I wasn't quite there but I literally said I'm not
02:14:28
I'm probably not going to be very present right now yes so I thought well what could I have done in
02:14:34
future like what more could I have done Y in that situation so I thought maybe I shouldn't be apologizing here because I
02:14:41
actually don't know what commitment I can make to so then do you just not apologize
02:14:46
then you just didn't apologize so we were in theer we were in like a the coup's therapy thing okay so I was
02:14:52
telling the therapists this to see what they their perspective was and they didn't they I think they kind of sided
02:14:57
with me really I think they started with me and then my partner ended up apologizing which is quite rare because
02:15:03
I typically think that I should apologize oh my gosh okay well so I may have a different take then okay please
02:15:10
one is you have you're clear that your
02:15:15
partner is anxious yeah she knows she's anxious so you're aware that as a result
02:15:21
of her being anxious there's a higher level of reassurance that she is going to need while she is working on healing
02:15:28
and becoming earn earn detached but people never really heal you never I
02:15:34
never heal you well you know what healing is continual yeah the question
02:15:40
though is can she get to a place of being secure absolutely happens to many people so she's in the process of
02:15:46
evolving into secure so while she's evolving into secure you have to give her that benefit of the doubt that she's
02:15:51
going to need a little bit more on the reassurance front that's one secondly is
02:15:57
if you did sit her down you explain all these things what also could be the case
02:16:02
I'm not saying this is but what also could be the case is that there's not enough emotional deposits that she
02:16:11
currently has in the account I think that's fact so as a result of there not
02:16:16
being enough she's checking in for for the for the uh re Assurance so being
02:16:22
aware of those two things the fact that she has an anxious attachment she's
02:16:27
developing secure but she has anxious so she'll her threshold is is is higher for the need or lower for the need and you
02:16:34
may not have given enough emotional currency early on it makes sense to me
02:16:40
that she would kind of check in and and and there would be a bid now given the
02:16:47
fact that you're head down you're focused you acknowledge the bid and you specifically said you chose to
02:16:54
ignore the bid the third one it was the third bid it was the third it wasn't it
02:17:00
was I actually didn't feel like I not it I looked up and smiled but she was 100 meters away from me okay and she and
02:17:07
then I okay I'm GNA be completely honest okay because I'm there's no point me bullshitting this is good this is okay okay so I I looked up I smiled and then
02:17:14
I got up and walked across and I picked up my headphones and I came back and
02:17:21
s [ __ ] up when I say I know I [ __ ] up no I
02:17:27
know it's worse than I thought I thought the two I thought there were two separate incidents I thought it was the
02:17:34
smile and then I thought maybe if I put my headphones on I could focus no no you
02:17:39
you need immediately after this you need to go apologize [ __ ] yeah you you know I I thought there were two separate
02:17:45
incidents I thought look up smile H and then I need to go get them headphones
02:17:51
because because I need to focus on writing this thing no no when when a bid comes through when a bid comes through
02:17:59
we know Goins talk about this all the time when the bid comes through is it's important to affirm the bid but this is
02:18:06
a great opportunity to discuss what affirming a bid is you know what would
02:18:12
in that moment what would have been enough for her to feel reassured have that conversation maybe it she would
02:18:19
have said if when you right before you picked up the headphones a hug or a kiss on the cheek
02:18:25
would have been great I would be good right and so to be aware of what it
02:18:30
means to be reaffirmed is is is is so important or should I say affirmed is so important so in this case I would a if I
02:18:37
were you I I would apologize and do that investigation
02:18:43
around what affirming means because everyone needs to be affirmed you know
02:18:48
differently I'll apologize to her promise but no it's a good I'll actually I'm seeing her tonight so I'll just let her know that I've got a slight
02:18:54
different perspective on it now I love it um let's go for one more myth okay
02:18:59
okay let's go for two more all right um because this one's a prevailing one that I've been exposed to in my relationships
02:19:05
should you go to bed angry at your partner this is perhaps the most
02:19:11
believed myth period we always hear
02:19:16
this just apologize and it's not just in romantic relationships you know I
02:19:22
noticed this all the time when I was in school when I was when I was younger is if there was a disagreement or an
02:19:29
argument the teacher would say just apologize right I I played football uh American football and you know the coach
02:19:36
would say just just just you know just just swipe it like Ju Just make up like
02:19:42
and you think about that and what we're saying is that if you appear to be in
02:19:50
Harmony you have a great relationship but we know that's a falsehood in
02:19:57
actuality the key is that if you are able to fully manage what is happening be aware acknowledge make adjustments
02:20:04
around the conflict then at that point you are living in a true harmonious
02:20:10
relationship in a healthy relationship so whenever people say oh we got into disagreement just make up before bed I
02:20:16
think that is some of the most disastrous advice you can have why because you're going to be dist like you
02:20:22
just get into an argument you're going to be entirely distressed entirely distressed and then what kind of
02:20:28
response are you going to give you're going to give the worst qualitative response that you can will you reconcile
02:20:34
what's happening absolutely not a profound study around this researchers
02:20:39
divided two groups of people one group they showed distressing images to
02:20:45
terrible images terrible right and the other group they say they showed the same image
02:20:51
however the second group was allowed to sleep for 8 hours at the end of 8 hours
02:20:58
so what group one can't sleep group two saw the distressing images they can sleep at the end of the eight hours they
02:21:06
then track the reaction to the images what do you think happens the group that
02:21:12
didn't sleep that didn't rest that didn't get regulated they report a much higher level of distress around the
02:21:19
images the group group that is reporting back that had sleep they're regulated they're able to look at the images
02:21:27
differently they're not it's the same image but they're not as distressed the point here is that the best thing that
02:21:34
we can do to give ourselves regulation is a cooling off period sleep on it so
02:21:40
you should go to bed angry you should go to bed angry and when you wake
02:21:45
up resolve it the brain does wonderful things in in your sleep doesn't it it really helps to sort of pack things and
02:21:52
and make sense of things and rationalize things better but also obviously it's regulating hormones and the and the Brain in a way which I guess will make
02:21:58
you make more rational decisions the next morning not from the amydala but from the logic centers of your brain
02:22:05
exactly exact rest is is a superpower and we don't use it enough last myth
02:22:12
then if someone cheats on you okay is
02:22:18
that the end of the relationship no or at least it doesn't have to be it
02:22:24
doesn't have to be uh I I I've referred to the Gman a lot and I think the reason
02:22:30
why is because you know they really did starting in the 1970s
02:22:36
change couples therapy right where couples therapy primarily between like
02:22:42
the 1950s and 70s was about these interventions when your relationship was
02:22:48
doomed and and and it was about to be over so it was a last ditch effort was to go to these therapists but the Gans
02:22:55
came along and said no you could build these skills you could build these these these these tools to help you all the
02:23:00
way through your relationship no matter at what stage you're in but they also spend a lot of time in what I call these
02:23:06
these these these these existential um um issues like cheating and from their
02:23:13
research they show that 70% of people who go through uh their process can end
02:23:19
up having a higher level of satisfaction the key though is around the ability to
02:23:27
truly forgive your partner and what I say all the time with infidelity whether
02:23:32
it may be emotional infidelity or physical infidelity is go see a professional
02:23:38
first especially if you've built what you consider to be something
02:23:43
profound and special with your partner they believe it's profound and special and in particular they want to fight and
02:23:51
you have an awareness for how special it is go see a professional because seeing a professional literally can put you
02:23:57
back on track to have a phenomenal relationship question I didn't think I was going to ask you but I probably
02:24:03
should ask you based on that because we're talking about infidelity what about digital
02:24:08
infidelity only fans only F well so I mean is that infidelity does that count
02:24:13
does pornography count as infidelity well long story short is it depends on who you ask most people that I talk to
02:24:20
qualify that as infidelity if you're not disclosing to your partner that you're
02:24:27
doing it so if you were out here on only fans or or a a full pornographic site
02:24:35
and you do not disclose to your partner that this is something that you do
02:24:41
that's infidelity that's cheating right if it's something that you disclose you
02:24:47
have a conversation about then then clearly it's not right so for some people they will say that's still it is
02:24:53
in my opinion if you were not disclosing that to your partner it is I'm reading
02:24:59
some stats here and it says that about 80% of men view porn on their
02:25:06
own um and roughly 35% of women reported to watching
02:25:13
pornography on their own so watching on your own
02:25:21
without your partner having any awareness of that for for many people that would be
02:25:29
or or or I I believe many people would consider that infidelity with a quarter of men
02:25:36
reporting that they conceal their pornography consumption from their partner and nearly a third of women
02:25:41
Express concerns about their partner's pornography use yeah yeah you know this is why I I think
02:25:49
it's so important we have to normalize it almost goes back to
02:25:54
normalizing being attracted to people we have to normalize
02:26:00
this because with the attraction there's emotional there's physical and there's
02:26:05
sexual attraction and we have to understand that this is a part of Being Human this is what we've been given and
02:26:14
the reason why one reason why that we hide it is because Society likes to shame us and say oh no once found your
02:26:20
partner you should never have eyes for anyone else and part of that is what the script that's been handed to us and we
02:26:26
talked about religion having impact on this and we have we have to normalize these conversations because when we do
02:26:32
we'll have higher satisfaction because we'll realize that you know like you
02:26:39
turn around and say oh my God like my partner does this too you know what I mean um so it's incredibly important for
02:26:46
us to normalize this concept around having an a level of attra raction outside of our
02:26:52
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or if you're in a supermarket you can get it at tesos or Holland and Barrett or in the Netherlands at Albert Heine and those of you in the US you can get
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it on Amazon is it ever productive in a relationship to be overtly jealous like
02:29:00
to be babe where are you texting when are you coming home like that kind of jealousy where you're like expressing
02:29:05
the jealousy so so so that level of overtness in your jealousy I would say is is is dangerous and it speaks to your
02:29:16
insecurities and this is why I always say like because that goes to doubts in the relationship and you know there are healthy doubts if if the question is
02:29:22
around growth of the relationship that's healthy if it is about a fear based on an
02:29:30
insecurity that's unhealthy Paul this is a exceptional
02:29:36
book this is an exceptional book um really it's exceptional because it confronts some of the biggest myths that
02:29:42
I think hold us all back from being able to keep love and in many respects find love in our relationships so I highly
02:29:48
recommend everybody who's listening right now check out the link in the description you can get a copy of this
02:29:53
book on pre-order it'll be out a week from now roughly on the 6th of February I believe it comes out the 6th of
02:29:59
February 2025 and it is the book probably the only book you'll need um in order to
02:30:05
increase the probability drastically that once you find that person you will do the very difficult maybe even more
02:30:12
difficult thing of being able to keep that person um because I like many people listening Once Upon a Time
02:30:18
thought the game was to find them and now I've been in a relationship for some time I realized that that's actually
02:30:24
when the work begins and that's what these 20 this this book that debunks these 25 myths really helps us to do in
02:30:31
a way that is so accessible so um actionable um and really strikes at the
02:30:37
heart of a lot of society's BS to be quite Frank um it's published by flight books which I probably have to say for
02:30:43
legal reasons which is our publisher as well um but nonetheless I read this book and you're this is the reason why I
02:30:48
wanted to speak you today cuz it's really essential book and there's a lot of mass media social media propagated
02:30:55
myths that I think are really standing in the way of most of us Paul we have a closing tradition on this podcast where
02:31:00
the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for and the question that's been left for you is what experience did
02:31:09
you have around age 10 to 13 where you discovered your own power to get things
02:31:15
done without your parents being involved I know right away right away when you said 10 to 13 I
02:31:22
zeroed in to me in New York in Long
02:31:29
Island on a bus on a school bus getting my head smashed in to that school bus so
02:31:40
I was uh our family was one of the first black families to move into this all
02:31:47
Italian neighborhood um in Long Island New York and uh there were a lot of
02:31:55
people who you would put into the to the bully category and there was one person in particular that
02:32:02
really was was was was trying to get to me and time after time he would taunt me
02:32:08
he would say certain things uh he had control he was like the bully of the bus and I had no friends on this bus and he
02:32:15
would literally sometimes like smash my head into the the the glass as he was
02:32:21
walking out and the bus driver would look and never stop never say anything and I remember that but you know what
02:32:28
every day I got back out on that bus and a lot of the times that he was smashing
02:32:34
my head it was because I would say something to him as he was walking out or he would be outside and I never
02:32:40
forget like he would walk off the bus and I would still flick him off right
02:32:45
and he would get back on the bus smash my head in the next day
02:32:51
I I hit him again and I learned how resilient I am I'm a resilient guy
02:32:56
resilient right I keep you you you push me down I get right back up Maybe not
02:33:01
immediately but I'm definitely getting back up and so that was what I learned
02:33:07
and that was without having uh you know my parents involved that was just me it's crazy how you can remember that so
02:33:13
quickly I I love how uh that question was posed because you know it it focused on the lesson yeah you know know from
02:33:20
from um from from that moment and it's interesting because I've thought about
02:33:25
that moment many times but I've never thought about the lesson until this question you know and so it's empowering
02:33:32
to look at it from that perspective but it's interesting because you chose an empowering lesson oh do you know what I
02:33:38
mean so that's like the choice you made there I was reading this book called the courage to be disliked I don't know if you've read that book no but it
02:33:44
basically says that what happened the first chapter in it anyway says that what happened to us in our past doesn't
02:33:50
determine our future in fact we choose how to take what happened in our past to
02:33:57
serve a current goal so that thing that happened to you on the bus you've chosen
02:34:04
to take the goal of like it's going to make you resilient today and you've said to yourself now I'm a resilient person
02:34:10
because I get back up now someone else could have said they could have chosen today to
02:34:17
adopt a like a victim mentality and they could have said I'm always the one that
02:34:23
gets picked on yes and that's just my luck yes and that would serve a current
02:34:29
goal of an image that you want to maintain and construct today now the image you want to construct is you
02:34:34
you're the type of person that gets back up so anyway the power is within you no that's brilliant it really is Paul thank
02:34:41
you everybody please go get this book it's an incredible book and it's probably the definitive book on this subject and that pulls on so many
02:34:47
different reference points from PS experience as a Matchmaker to a lot of the science to the interviews you've now
02:34:52
done it's an Incredible Book keep Love by Paul C brunon 21 Truth for a longlasting relationship thank you
02:34:59
brother thank you thank you do you know that 80% of New Year's
02:35:06
resolutions fail by February it's because we focus too much on the end goal and we forget the small daily
02:35:12
actions that actually move us forward those actions that are easy to do are also easy not to do in life it's easy to
02:35:17
save a dollar so it's also easy not to making one small Improvement each day one tiny step in the right direction has
02:35:24
a big difference over time and that is the 1% mindset which is why we created the 1% diary a 90day journal designed to
02:35:32
help you stay consistent and focus on the small wins and make real progress over time it also gives you access to
02:35:38
the 1% Community a space where you can stay accountable motivated inspired along with many others on the same
02:35:43
Journey we launched the 1% diary in November and it sold out so now we're doing a second drop head Toth diary.com
02:35:51
to grab yours before it sells out again I'll put the link below
02:35:56
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02:36:07
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