Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2sHBL8BjWI
the number one reason for breakups is not Finance infidelity it's if you do that there's a 99% likelihood who break up that's pretty crazy when you think about it Paul Carrick Brunson the world's most influential Matchmaker you choose a weak partner not only do you not live as long not as happy more unhealthy but you could literally suffer death so who you choose as the most important decision you could make so I have questions you ready for this what is the state of dating it's a hell of a problem how do you spot a narcissist so the key is to this golden mean thing in your book what is that it's the optimal measure of what we consider to be sexy poor women is the percentage of your waist to your hips so what is the future of dating I know a lot of people would be mad at me for this but you go there if you want to it's like arrange marriages data shows us people in the range marriage have higher satisfaction because and this is often where many people go wrong what should I be looking for in a partner it has come at 10 years of research on this there's five key characteristics that we need one Paul I wanted to go over this thing called attachment Theory because I think I'm in avoidant attachment style I love this topic there's some phenomenal research looking at the number of orgasms that people have based on their attachment style and if they were avoidant the data showed that no comment Moving on but I have to say why though this is important quick one this is really really fascinating to me on the back end of our YouTube channel it says that 69.9% of you that watch this channel frequently over the lifetime of this channel haven't yet hit the Subscribe button I just wanted to ask you a favor it helps this channel so much if you choose to subscribe helps us scale the guest helps us scale the production and it makes the show bigger so if I could ask you for one favor if you've watched the show before and you've enjoyed it and you like this episode that you're currently watching could you please hit the Subscribe button thank you so much and I will pay that gesture by making sure that everything we do here gets better and better and better and better that is a promise I'm willing to make
you do we have a [Music] deal PA last time I had you on my show you were a Smash Hit And I look at the episodes and I can see the retention of every conversation I have the retention is essentially how many minutes of the conversation someone listened to you and you're a really record breaker on our show in terms of retention because the message that you communicate is communicated in such a compelling relatable way but you're speaking to a problem that all of us have in our lives which is this problem of love yes and just I I know your story but there's there's a chance that some people that that have just clicked this don't know your story the wisdom you have what is the experience that you've been on and how long is that experience and what's the sort of flavor and diversity of that experience that has culminated in this wisdom you have about relationship science what have you been exposed to and how long for I spent my first part of my career in finance so I was a researcher in Investment Banking I went off got my business degree you know so I I was on that track and then I switched the track to focus on relationship science and then in the process of switching I had an opportunity to work for two incredible people two billionaires so in the Rel on the finance side it was a gentleman by the name of Enver Yugo who's a billionaire out of turkey and owns the largest for-profit education company in the world and then when I switched into relationship science I had an opportunity of working for Oprah Winfrey right and so these were two billionaires and I say billionaires I underscore that because they were two entirely different people different characteristics different uh setups at home but yet they had the same behaviors and I started to write about those behavor behaviors and by writing about those behaviors I ended up becoming a journalist for USA Today my wife and I launched what was considered to be the largest matchmaking business in the United States and then we sold that in 2017 and that's what ended up allowing us to come to the UK but the heart of what I do is I I'm the world's biggest nerd when it comes to
relationship science I I wake up every morning I'm reading some bit of research I'm going to sleep every night falling asleep uh on some lecture around around relationship science I I think it's it's one of the most undervalued areas and the decisions that we make around relationships are have dramatic dramatic impact on how we show up what happens in our lives what happens to the lives of those around us and what happens to the Lives who come after us our children so these are very important decisions and I think that's the reason why it occupies so much of my thought have you been exposed to any first party data I know that you I think maybe was it Tinder have shown you some data yeah absolutely last year I became the head of global insights for Tinder and what that has allowed me to do is see quite honestly more data on dating that gives me more insight than I think I'd say a lot of people in the world uh i h i co-wrote a a report this year called the future of dating 2023 uh that looks at behavior on the app and also Behavior around the world and I made some projections in there j z is going to have the strongest strong the strongest marriages ever which which a lot of look see face everyone's like what yeah so so I made some bold predictions in there um but uh but but but but absolutely T Tinder that partnership has allowed me some great insights what is the state of dating what is the future of dating in your view I want to know like where we are as a as a people and also I guess understanding where we are we have to understand where we've come from and then from there we can understand where we're going I guess yes yeah let's look back okay so we you know humans 300,000 years ago right started there was no dating it was more so what was called assortative mating which was the selection of other people based on similar characteristics so we would look at someone and say okay you behave similar to how I behave you look kind of like how I look therefore we will mate and the whole objective was procreation that was it in hunter gatherer days and you could take that all the way up into almost the 1800s so Eli finle is a great researcher out of New York and he wrote one of my favorite books the all Oro marriage and
he calls that entire phase the pragmatic phase you were making a a a selection based on the fact that you wanted to live next week right that that was that was why you chose a partner or or the procreation of it but then between the 1800s and the 1960s is what Eli fle calls the Romantic Period this is the period where we began to say okay hold on for a second the Industrial Revolution is happening we're moving into more nuclear fam so we're moving away from our Clans if you will and therefore I'm lonely I don't have my cousins around me anymore I'm working in this job all day this Factory all day so this partner of mine who formerly was all about pretty much just my sex partner now is going to become my friend so this romantic age is where you see companionship rise but still in that phase you're still not receiving all of your value all of all of what you love about a partner is not coming from just the partner or should I say all of what you need in life is not coming from your partner your intellectual stimulation is coming from someone down the street right you have friends at work that you use For Your Entertainment and joy but your partner is beginning to become your companion and that's the second phase right that that's the second phase is the Romantic phase and then in 1960 what you see happening and this is in Western Society is you see what the pill is created you see the uh the the the the the washing machine is created and these inst these these tools if you will begin to free women right we're still living in a patriarchy hands down but in the 1960s you began to see women For the First Time begin to have a little bit of decision a little bit of choice in who they chose as a partner and from the 1960s on you have what Eli fle calls the age of self-expression now the reason why this is so important for us today is because what ends up happening is now you move forward to today what do we want well we want the highest level of well-being as maslo would say you think about maso's hierarchy of needs at the bottom is you just want food you just want shelter you just want to be safe but as you get those things you go higher and higher to the pyramid and the top of the pyramid is self-actualization and this is what most
of us want because most of us are living in a state of privilege we have water we have food we have shelter so we want to be our best selves we want to flourish as Aristotle said we want to flourish so if we want to flourish now then we need a partner who can help us flourish it's no longer about the 1800s or the 1,000 where you just needed a partner to to you know basically have sex with and make sure they could you know protect you like we we're gone from that we now we want self-expression and if we want self-expression we have different Di BS on our partner and that means dating is now more complicated than it has ever been everybody thinks they want Choice men and women we all think we want choice but I I'm quite fascinated by the psychology of choice and how it can result in indecision but also valuing what you've chosen less or more and that's sort of context dependent I think here about arranged marriages and you talk about that in the book and what we can learn from arranged marriages because you know that's a situation where you're given very little Choice yes yeah so what happens there yeah this is a controversial one in in the book and I I know a lot of people are going be mad at me for this but here's what the data tells us that arranged marriages on average last longer and both and both people in the arranged marriage have higher satisfaction now I will also say a lot of people are entering arranged marriages with no decision a lot of arranged marriages um are happening where I would say are amoral right however let's look at why it could be because I think that's the beauty of empirical evidence of research is it allows you to think about the possibility of why and what what can we learn from this one of the reasons why is because when we think we're in love most of us are not most most of us are in this blind state of limerance where we are infatuated with the person in front of us and we really know nothing about them and we know nothing about decision-making and we don't fully trust them the sex is good right and we say Okay I want to spend the rest of my life with this person right what's happening in most arranged marriages is you have a village you have multiple people in your
sphere could be parents brothers sisters friends who have your best interest and they sit and they cohesively decide is this the right partner for you and they're looking at behaviors that you may not be able to see you know I saw this with my matchmaking agency in the matchmaking agency the first thing that we would do when a client would come in is I would interview friends and family co-workers colleagues people you report to to people who report to you previous girlfriends you know love interests and with that I would look for the consensus and and I would I would use all of that to say okay this is who step is he comes in and he tells me this is who he is but I talk to all of these people in his sphere and I understand this is who he is and the reason why we have a hard time understanding who we are is because of cognitive dissonance right we believe as human beings we think that we behave as we think we behave but we actually don't like we we don't what we say we value chances are we don't really value that you know in matchmaking again I would ask what are your values and then they would give me this long list oh you know I'm I'm a Christian uh and I uh Value Health and right so this is what you do and then two days later I'd say okay last Saturday when you were off work what did you do with your time oh I went out and I pigged out I ate all day and then I went to this concert and I did this and I said well where was church in that where was Bible study where was this and what I've noticed is that where we spend that free time where we spend our discretionary money that's what we value so true I've thought a lot about this recently about how what I say should be reflected in how my calendar looks yes and that is the true sort of evidence of me living my values and really what I do value and I think people struggle with this sometimes because what they'll say and rebuttal to that is well I'm just so busy Paul I'm so so busy I've got kids I've got you know mortgage to pay Etc I have to say they are entirely right that we have a finite amount of time but in that they're showing what they value they are showing that they value their kids and their life their ability to live and eat that is a value that is a priority and this is also why I think
our values should be viewed in especially as it relates to like how we allocate our time as a as a list of priorities I this is most important then this then this then this then this because we can value 20 things it doesn't mean we're going to do them because we you know time is finite but values aren't necessarily they're they're not I completely agree it it it should be a level of prioritization right and we should own we should comfortably own what that is yes so if it is time with your children then you value that you know that's what you value stand by that because the more that you can stand by that and erect boundaries around that the happier you'll be the more fulfilled you'll be and you you can spot it in the language because if if I embodied what you just said when someone asks Steve why haven't you gone to the gym my response would would be I had other priorities it wouldn't be I can't right you know I couldn't or it wouldn't be blame it wouldn't be excuses it would literally be the the recognition that there was other priorities that won and that is okay that's okay that is okay but it's so interesting so arranged marriages people in arranged marriages report high levels of satisfaction and stay together longer yeah on on on average and and and and even to to break that down a bit right is you have the the family making the decision right so the family is able to see things that you may not be able to see so that's that's that's one big driver of it the second driver of it is let's look at traditional marriage now outside of a ranged marriages right now and this is Eli finle research 80% of current marriages are more dissatisfied than they ever have been ever and 20% are more satisfied than they than they ever have been now now why is that it's because of what we were talking about previously and that is is that we now want so much more from our partner we we want our partner to be our best friend our lover our Co CEO our running buddy our therapist our therapist right spiritual leader spiritual leader our Netflix and chill buddy like we we want all of this now out of our partner and so what many people are recognizing is they're waking up they're saying you
know I can only get like 50% from from my partner of what I want or 60% and many people are not satisfied as a result of that but the 20% are looking at their partner they're using all of these available tools we have we so much incredible data around how to have a successful relationship that if you are putting in the work and your partner is putting in the work you can be more satisfied than ever right and so that's the reason why a small percentage are more satisfied so part of the reason why that group is more satisfied than the average is because the average is not satisfied so if you're in that that sort of 80% of unsatisfied people in their relationships is one solution to that to encourage or facil itate your partner in meeting their needs in other places and I say this because my partner lived in barley for two years and then I was living here so there was this long-distance relationship where there was we wouldn't see each other sometimes for 60 days for two months especially with the lockdowns and all that stuff it was crazy and then we got to that point in our relationship where we realized that one of us has to move if this relationship is going to going to work so does she move to to London from b or do I move my life to Bary okay which is super difficult I was say pretty yeah yeah yeah I quit dragging down I saw the podcast it's like my business is forget All for Love yeah but I I knew that I could never ask her to to move here I could never do that she had to make that decision for herself because I've seen scenarios where there's resentment and all of these things and contempt when you move you you it's almost like you take on the responsibility of that person if you if you tell them to come to your to your neck of the woods yeah and one of the first things I thought about was I'm a bus person and if she doesn't have a friendship group here a purpose here work here then I'm going to be have to be the source of all of those things yes and that's terrifying yes and I tell you for the first part of our relationship when she' moved here I felt like I did have to be those things once she' started her business here and her with her business came a community and it came her own little tribe and her own sense of purpose and I
look over in the kitchen when I come back from work and she's on the laptop in the corner obsessed with her work and I thought God yeah yeah yeah but that's what it must have would have been like back in the day when you were talking about phase two of the history of relationships oh oh yeah I mean that that's that's the reason why it's it's interesting why I mean to to to that original question of yours is that we are in such a complicated state right now because we all have different goals you know maybe in your relationship you know it all it it it already sounds that you and your girlfriend are interested in self-actualization right you you want to flourish yeah you know of course you want to flourish but some people may not want to flourish if you go down maso's hierarchy of needs for some folks it's just about belonging or it could be just about self-esteem or it could be just the safety I just know I have someone with me just the safety so we so we have these different needs and I think that's why one of the most important things we can do for ourselves is to identify what is it that we want out of this world and then unapologetically go after it surround yourself with people who are going after it romantically professionally socially you know find your tribe uh and that's where you'll thrive on that point as well you said about friends knowing you better than you know yourself and kind of by way of that knowing maybe what you should be going for how important do you think it is to listen to your friends when they tell you that this ain't the one he ain't the guy oh man I had a conversation recently with a friend who I Shan name who you know we're all saying to this person listen this ain't the guy and you can see this the Absolut the point is absolutely not Landing you must have seen this a million times all the time all the time all the time if all of your friends are saying this ain't the guy this ain't the guy no matter what it will not work out 100% of the times it it it it won't the the the friend the I think there's certain things that we did with this matchmaking agency that I really think were groundbreaking that was one if you can look at what your friends and family and all of the people who love you are saying and they all say the same thing
that's the truth and how important is it to get your [ __ ] together before you go into a relationship I've always wondered this I've wondered do you go into a relationship and the situation fixes you or do you fix yourself then go into the relationship you talk about this in the book the idea that our satisfaction levels in a relationship will vary based on our satisfaction levels before the relationship yes so this was one of the most enlightening I think pieces of what we're not hearing what we hear in pop culture all the time is if you have shared values that's what makes the strongest marriage or that's what makes the strongest relationship some people say if you have great sex that's what makes the strongest relationship but actually what we found in the research here is if you walk into a relationship and you have a high level of satisfaction that is what gives you the highest level of satisfaction in the relationship so the key is you want to figure out how you could flourish you know on your own on your own Carol riff is one of the people who I don't think she gets enough attention out here in the relationship science space or even in the world right she's a brilliant researcher and in the 1980s she sat down and she looked at every theorist who's written about flourishing and then she figures out the consensus what are all of these great theorists saying about flourishing and well-being and she created what's called The Six Dimensions of psychological well-being and I never hear anyone talk about this it's like the mo one of the most important Concepts ever for us and what she's outlined is that there's six areas we should be focused on if we want to flourish with or without a partner one of them is personal development are you on the path to personal growth are you doing things to develop yourself right number two do you have inspiration do you have a goal that you are Marching towards in life number three is autonomy feeling like you have control over your time next one number four is what's called environmental mastery this is do you feel like the area that you're in physically the area that you're in the city that you may live in the town that you may live in is it conducive to you doing all the things that you want to do
right in life next is having a strong relationship with other people whether it be romantically it could it could be platonically but do you feel like you have connections do do you have friends right and last but not least is a concept that she calls self-acceptance this is very important self-acceptance is knowing the demons that you have inside and being okay with them it's it's it's knowing and acknowledging that you know I'm good but I do have some bad and I accept my bad if you are working towards all of those things all of those six dimensions you will have the highest level of well-being you'll reach self-actualization and to your question this is something that we should be doing with or without a partner and if you could do it without a partner when you enter your partnership it will be that much stronger people that you've spoken to that are struggling in their relationships do you think they have this opinion that the relationship is going to fix their problems yes yeah I I I think we walk into relationships and we think it's the end we think that's check done it's not it's it's it's where the work begins and we have to change this and a lot of this has to do with and you know and I put some of the blame on me you know I think some of this is television you know some of this is is is is the you know a lot of people call it the disne ification you know of of relationships uh we misunderstand and misinterpret our role in relationships how I I fundamentally believe that the number one reason for breakups is not we we hear reports all the time that it's Finance it's infidelity it's no it's none of those things you know what it is it's we pick bad Partners we select the wrong Partners or we don't make the selection at all many of us and unfortunately I see this a I see this a lot with heterosexual women is they allow themselves to be selected opposed to making the choice themselves so so the first part is is are we choosing the strongest partners for us that's one and then once we have chosen the partner then are we working together to help our partner unveil their best self you know the Michelangelo effect and Eli finle writes about this where you know
Michelangelo would never look at a stone and say I'm going to carve this beautiful statue instead he'd look at the stone and say I'm going to unveil this beautiful piece of art this beautiful statue that's in the stone that's how we should look at our partner is that we all have this beautiful statue within us and when you find the strongest partner that allows you to see that you know I know you've had Dr W Dinger on Phenom like he says it in in his research you live longer you're happier you make more money you know you get all of the benefits When you choose a strong partner but if you choose a weak partner not only do you not live as long not only are you not as happy not only are you more unhealthy but but you can literally suffer not just emotional and psychological distress there is a rise of domestic violence that is happening in our in these relationships around the world so you could literally suffer death death by choosing the wrong partner and so it goes to show how important the decision is this this is this is a life or death decision I want to go into all of those things you said about selecting selecting poorly and the life and death death the life and death decision that comes with Psychopaths and narcissists and all that stuff um you know what's interesting is when you say to me that the work starts at the relationship there's part of me that goes oh do you know what I mean because in the movies I was thinking of all these movies I'd seen in New York where there's a Twist there's a turn and then there's a happily ever after and the movie ends and and you think when the movie ends in all of these movies that we've watched for 10 20 30 years you think that is the end you think they live happily ever after I watched the turmoil I watched the battle and then they live happily ever after if that movie was to be extended any movie we've seen romantic movie what you'd then see is another 30 years of like [ __ ] but we don't see that so I was just thinking like where did we get this idea from that the work stops when we find the person yeah it's it's it's it's coming so it's coming from a couple places one is that's where it did stop at one point you think about the pragmatic stage the Romantic stage that was all you needed
you just needed the partner it didn't matter you didn't have to do any work with the partner so so we we have gotten this honestly as a as a society but also it's what pop culture it's what media it's it's it's what it feeds us but I would say don't look at it as hard distasteful work yeah instead here's a better way let's reframe it reframe the negative right is this podcast right Incredible One skill you're probably learning incredible skills doing this one of which I'm sure is your active listening is off the charts now compared to what it maybe was day one now if you thought active listening I'm going to learn active listening during this podcast did you think then it would be grueling I don't think so I think that you probably saw that as a great life skill I can come in here I'm going to not only meet all I'm going to do all this incredible things but I'm also going to develop skills and these skills are transferable to everything I do that's how we should look at our relationship look at it that way you are going to learn incredible skills that are transferable across your life and as you develop those skills the whole Tide Rises you're going to uh develop new skills and and and better Master new skills and then apply those to your business apply those to to your platonic relationship so it it's it's it's a wonderful thing and when you are in a secure relationship it's boring as hell it's boring which is why you know uh not to get myself into trouble but you know when you're watching television and you're watching these shows around Rel relationships uh actually I I'll give an examp I will give an example um when I got here to the UK uh I started on a on a show called slubs go dating and then I very quickly went to a show called Married at First Sight UK and when I was on Married at First Site UK my first series it was a full docu series and we matched couples and it was boring you know why it was boring because they all loved each other they all really liked each other and out of that group of four couples three of them are together today wow right but you ask anyone in the UK did you see that series they'll say no we didn't see that because it's boring and then you change
things and you get couples who can still work but there's tension right for a variety of reasons there's tension and then it gets exciting and so one thing that I always say is great love looks boring boring but it feels great you know good love it it feels it it good love looks boring but it feels great men men are struggling it seems I think you know the more and more I talk on this show about dating apps and what it's like to be a man in this dating climate especially one that's become more digitalized than ever before the conversation always emerges in the in the in the com sort of like the comment sections and stuff about men's struggles here because you know these dating apps they seem to be not welld designed for the like bottom 50% of men what is what what are your thoughts on this yeah I'm I'm I'm with you you know what I like about the conversation today is we're finally acknowled it's it's it's okay to acknowledge that you know men are getting crapped on you know I I feel like just a year ago if you said that oh no what are you talking about you know we're still in the patriarchy you can't no men are struggling High suicide rates highest levels of loneliness highest issues around mental health men are struggling and the fact that we can just ex talk about that and all acknowledge okay let's figure out how to deal with this is a good place to begin right but but but now we now we have to begin you know it begins with the awareness and talking about it it extends into creating safe spaces for men to be able to talk I love that what you see now is you see these podcast communities um creating these spaces where men feel like they can be acknowledged and seen and that allows for there to be connection with other men going through those same challenges which creates camaraderie and helps you to uh to to break out of that loneliness so so so we're we're we're on the path uh but we have to acknowledge some of those larger trends that we see I know Richard Reeves uh talks about this quite a bit phenomenal book of boys and men where you can see uh just the levels of unemployment the lower levels of educational attainment uh for for men the high levels of uh of drug usage the high levels of what uh Richard Reeves
calls sedation essentially is uh drug usage uh pornography watching where uh you have a large number of men just sedating themselves out of pain right out of loneliness and so I I think we're in a great place to begin working on the problem but it's a hell of a problem in your book on uh page 72 it says that in the Tinder research you found that one of the main reasons men aren't in relationships is because of rejection yes fear of rejection yes number one and and many people would laugh at that they would laugh at that stat what men walk to me all the time so how is it that men are fearful of rejection but the fact of the matter is that the majority of men report the number one reason why they believe they can't find a significant other is the fear of being rejected think about that and that's not just in person that's online feeling as if you were going to deny me you're going to reject me and to me that speaks to self-esteem to me that speaks to self-love to me that speaks to selfworth and so therefore we have to really evaluate the the the why the the why why is that you know but I think this is such an important point and this is why we have to look back let's look at history why is it the case that the Calvin Klein model or why is it the case that the higher status person gets more interaction if you think back to pragmatic right if you were a woman what did you need to survive uh I needed a mate that would protect me exactly now the protection would come in one of two things and I say that because at some point I'm going to be eight and a half months pregnant and I I ain't going to be able to hunt no you know or forage or I don't know exactly and so so you need to have the protection and the protection came in in one of two ways one physicality right soone just strong and fight but the other was high social status resources which would bring resources which would bring resources and therefore you know you'd have the protection because of that so how long did that continue yeah most of human history most of human history so we have through Evolution this has been indoctrinated into our into our system and what is rarely talked about is so you know there were millions of men throughout history who were not the Calvin Klein not the
biggest didn't have the social status so what happened to them in history do you know what happened to them most of them they were the ones sent to war these were the men fighting for whatever country the the these were the men when you when you watch Napoleon and you see oh my God the Battle of waterl you had tens of thousands of people who's dying it's those men it's not the high stat status men it's not it's not the Calvin kin looking right it's those men were dying and we've reached a point in society where we're no longer fighting Wars like that we're fighting with drones and missiles you have millions upon Millions upon millions of men sitting there saying okay now what about me what about me and this is the problem this is where we are what about men what were they selecting for they were selecting for youth fertility fertility yeah they they wanted youth which which spoke to fertility uh and that ran through time and that's the reason why you see a woman who you know I talk about this in the book there's this golden mean golden mean I read this and it was the first time I'd ever heard of this idea of the golden mean but it was super interesting the golden mean explained why my girlfriend seems to like my shoulders she doesn't care if I get fat I swear to you I asked her one day I was like what do you prefer cuz she asked me she said what features do you prefer on me and obviously I knew that was a trap so I said everything I'm not stupid but then when she asked the question she I asked her the question back I was like what what features do you prefer on me she was like your shoulders yeah and I was like really I was like I thought they said you wanted like I thought women wanted a six-pack she was like she was holding my shoulders she was like your shoulders yes and then I read this golden mean thing in your book and I was like ah yeah yeah that's that's how I I I could you know what's interesting I spot everyone and I almost am calculating golden mean because I'm always thinking as a Matchmaker like I can match that so the the golden mean has stood throughout history and there's a different calculation for for men and women for women the calculation is the difference between waste and hips right so it's the
percentage of your waist to your hips so if on average your waist is 70% of what your hips are that is considered to be fertile right you're considered to be at optimal you know you're optimal for fertilization in in essence and you could see that ratio tested throughout time and you could see that ratio tested throughout culture which is rare to go to an Eastern collectivist society and see something similar to what's happening in a western uh individualistic society and so the golden mean stands through time and the reason why it's so interesting is because you look at like Twiggy in the 1970s I think uh in the UK and you say gosh Twiggy so thin but she still had a 70% golden mean you you look at the you know people talk about the the Kim Kardashians of the world she has less than 70% she's probably like 50% right golden mean and so the golden mean is the optimal measure of what we just consider to be fertile therefore sexy on average and so that hasn't been influenced by you know magazines and media and stuff like that that's just with scientists think that's an eight hum yes they think that that's an eight but it is it is impacted by culture so you go into different subcultures and there might be more of an exaggeration of the golden mean right so maybe it's more than 70% or should I say less than 70% could be what's considered more attractive so it is influenced but on average that is it and the reason why I say that is it is because uh many men would argue oh no you'll say what what are you are you you're you're a breast man you're a leg man like what what what is it like it's a Thanksgiving dinner you know what I mean and uh those could be characteristics and features that you find sexy and attractive but on average this is what will um what will light up most most men and then for me for for women when they're looking at a a man the golden mean is the difference between shoulders and waist and so if you have if your waist is 70% or less than your shoulders then that is considered to be what someone who could protect me that's where that comes from you know and therefore throughout hundreds of thousands of years of of of of of History we get to the point where okay it's sexy why is it sexy I don't know he just look sexy no the reason why
I look sexy is because ultimately back in the day he could have been a protector so that's where that comes from and in the matchmaking Community what I used to do all the time is if I had a client who was you know say a male client and he didn't really represent the the golden mean I'd say put on this this this uh this this Blazer here you know wide shoulder pad Blazer go out there on that date um you know so the golden mean is something that has stood the test of time so many people are going to be doing like shoulder pressing tonight that's crazy that's all you need to do yeah a little bit of shoulder press that's it that's so crazy um but it but it makes evolutionary sense that there is is it proportions the right word that we would associate with fertility or you know protection what's this concept in chapter 4 you talk about the concept of mate value uh yeah this is this is I feel like the whole book now is controvers this this give a quick disclaim this is a another topic that a lot of people want to push back on right mate value is a evolutionary psychology term that is around technically what value do we bring to the mating Marketplace because when you think about uh you know our evolution is that we go on one or two paths in mating we call it dating evolutionary they're calling it mating long-term mating or short-term mating right now short-term mating is a separate Beast short-term mating is literally I want to have sex tonight therefore you're going to look at different characteristics you're not going to care if you can trust the person you're not going to care like you're going to look at what they look like and that really might not mean anything to you that's short-term ating long-term mating is much different long-term mating is just okay I'm looking for a partner for life and part of the calculation that we're doing innately the calculation that we're doing is what do we value the person it's no different than someone saying oh yeah he's a he's a nine or or or she she's a 10 you know 10 out of 10 she's a 10 in essence that's what mate value is but I look at mate value as all of the
ingredients that we bring to the table so yes it is about physically how we look it is about status in our job yeah that's important but it's also about how kind we are it's also about our Behavior it's also about how confident we are when when we walk into a room all of these pieces add up to mate value but the reason why I say it's it's so important to know is because mate value will also change based on the context for example if I take so I keep you're going to be my reference here if if if I take you Stephen and I bring you to Richmond Virginia where my wife is from and we go to a restaurant you walk in everyone is mesmerized by you the moment you open your mouth yeah amazing everyone is where is it [Laughter] rich what a postcode Richmond a note here everyone is the moment the moment that you speak wow I've never heard an accent like that tell me more about you right they're intrigued it's what I call the premium effect that lands on top of the mate value right but we have to understand that there is a value that we assign people when we are mating or dating you conveniently skipped over the one about having kids oh yeah yeah yeah no no but so having kids it goes up or it it brings your value up or it brings your value down now it depends on what your partner is seeking so if you if if you if CH so chances are let's say that you are a woman uh you have children and you are uh you're you're dating a a man who does not yet have children and wants to have children chances are that is going to lower in his eyes on average that's going to lower the that's going to lower your perceived mate value however however if he has children or maybe he's a little bit older or what for for whatever the reason he could look at that as as as as an upside the point there though is that it's the context that changes your mate value and that's very important the context is what changes it so this premium effect you talked about then when you're talking about um Richmond Virginia how can one use that to increase my chance of finding someone to fall in love with and just just give a bit of color on what you mean by the premium effect is it being a scarce commodity in a certain
environment yeah that's exactly or a desirable commodity in a certain environment it it's being scarce scarce okay yeah so when we started the matchmaking agency it was focused exclusively for black women and the reason why is because I felt as if black women were being highly discriminated against in the matchmaking space and so I was trying everything and so I thought you know what I'm going to do I'm going to start putting my clients on dating apps and I will act as them and I saw that they were not getting traction is that statistically proven I'd love to know yeah you know I will say from all of my experience in matchmaking it was that black women got less matches on dating apps less swipes it it in in my time when I was running that dating agency absolutely absolutely hands like hands down there there there was no question why well you know there's lots of reasons one reason is that when it comes to outside of gen Z so if you look at Millennials you look at Gen X you look at baby boomers and at that time gen Z wasn't yet on dating apps we're talking about Millennials and higher we typically choose ethnicity over every other category so ethnicity ended up being one of the first selections of a partner and we would either bring you you know we would either include you or exclude you based on ethnicity jenz has changed this and I'm and I'm so happy to see this genz is the first generation to at majority have interest in everyone so on Tinder for example we see that 80% of our gen Z they are not just open but they have dated someone outside of their ethnicity and I believe that we're entering this new phase of what I call we are we are inter everything we are inter ethnic International interreligious that to me is is is is beautiful but that didn't happen for Millennials it definitely didn't happen for Gen X and definitely not for baby boomer so ethnicity was number one so because of that and because of the pools of uh black men on dating apps of that age range were so much smaller that you saw a very small selection rate for black women so that's what was driving the low low low perceived interest but what I didn't like what was happening is you would see this data come out uh you know black women are not selected or not
swiped on or whatever it may be and it would be projected as black women are not desirable which is app like the most ridiculous thing in the world I was like what are you talking about but the reason why is because they were taking these small data sets and essentially claiming this larger narrative based on this small data set and so when I was experimenting with those uh W with with my clients I then said okay what would happen if I put my black female clients onto J date right Jewish date you know and they were not Jewish like they were Ultra Christian right what would happen so I started putting them on J date phenomenal success like phenomenal success phenomenal success there was a percentage of people who responded who were crude why are you here there was a percentage of people who responded who were obviously fetishizing oh I want to do this to you right but then there was a percentage of people who were just curious let's see why did you that's interesting I you're why are you here like let's let's have this conversation and the interactions were plentiful and what I realized there is there was a premium effect being assigned there was a extra value that they got by being the scarce commodity in in this space and so my objective with a lot of my clients was to take them and put them in places where they are few that's so interesting and and we can do that IRL as well we can put ourselves in situations where we're scarce in real life is it going to like a different type of sports club or you know what what what is that yeah so I um I I try this out here I have a friend who lives in hartfordshire she is a white woman friend 30 mid-30s uh completely open to meeting everyone right she's like Paul I'm single I don't know what to do I said all right here here's what you do come on down to South London I want you to go to this exhibit that's happening at the black cultural archives in Brixton and I want you to go down there and you just tell me what happened she went down she was like oh my God it was crazy I met blah blah blah blah blah and and and and the point was that she put herself in a place where she was a quote unquote scarce commodity if you if you want to look at it in economic terms
which I like you know that's exactly what she did and she met incredible people now did she have romantic uh connection there no but she walked out of there with two friends that she's kept in touch with you know for a year plus so think about where your interest lie but where you can step out and be different where you could be unique you can do that in every aspect of your life but you know what the underlying driver is to being able to do that is self-esteem because the higher self-esteem you have the less external validation you need unless you need to conform to the environment exactly even there's some great studies that show that the higher self-esteem you have the less you need to have someone who's traditionally attractive interesting yeah because you start to see all of the value all all the beautiful nature and behaviors of and physicality of someone and you don't need to walk down the street and have everyone say he looks like he he's so beautiful or she's so beautiful you know you have value in that person so therefore you know and and so high self-esteem is indicative of so many aspects of our life and you could show up get that premium effect if you have high self-esteem I've never heard anyone talk about this before and that is so interesting cuz I I was every time I hear an idea I think all at home everyone listening to this will kind of sense check the concept on like friends they know and people they know and I and I would say that of all of my of everybody I know the people that are typically lower self-esteem are those that are most focused on appearances and looks in fact there's one of my friends who when he he called me one day in the gym and said I'm not sure about his current partner um and I like why what's up he goes you know like when I walk into a restaurant with her on my arm I just don't know how it looks literally that's what what he said to me and I remember having the conversation with him like bro you are screwed if that's what you're judging this individual based on how they look on your arm yes but it's a but it's a consequence of his own need for validation from the person he's with and and then it's no surprise that the other correlation you see is
those people are proba still single those are my still friends that are still single the ones that care the most about that that can currently have the most the lowest self-esteem are also the ones that are still missing probably great people for looking at the wrong things there you go that's why we need to be in a state of flourishing ourselves before we go out there because because think if if he was able to just take a breather work on his self-esteem there's so many things you could do boost your self-esteem think of how incredible his next relationship would be facts yeah yeah self-esteem is is really where it's at like it's it's underrated that's so interesting this idea that when we have low self-esteem will care more about how the person looks because they are we believe that they can boost our self-esteem by just being next to them that's crazy yeah and well more so we believe that Society accepts them and we won't be shamed by society as a result of being with them right because we want the validation from society when we have low self-esteem but if you have high self-esteem you say you know what this is my partner and I don't care what you think it doesn't matter what you think I'm happy then you can walk down the street with anyone and if you encountered in your work as a Matchmaker back in the day someone who was low self-esteem what would you suggest them to do would it would it be therapy would was there something small they could do in their life a first step they could take yeah I mean so so what we would do with the agency is we would not even start matchmaking them until we went through months and months and months coaching right now what are some things that you could do practical things you could do it's about practicing self-compassion is a great way to boost self-esteem so that could be journaling that could be meditating that could be exercising it also is about setting goals achievable goals and accomplishing those goals that helps to boost your self-esteem on the pathway to mastering something boosts self-esteem for example during lockdown I started learning the the piano right just started learning it and once I got to phase two of my little piano you know at home tutorial I got a
little boost okay I can do a little thing and then I played uh Wang Clan casuales everything around me I did cream on my piano and just doing that boost self-esteem right so the Mastery of something small self-compassion surrounding yourself with other people who have self-esteem High self-esteem these are some basic ways to help to boost it I I was thinking a lot about this and I said um I said to one of my friends the other day about this idea of keeping commitments to yourself and I think I was talking about it with Chris Williamson as well about the commitments we keep to ourselves when no one is watching feed into our self-image like I think some of us think that self-esteem is what we've like accomplished in Life or what we haven't accomplished in life but if we narrow it right down and zoom right into like this morning I told myself I was going to get out of bed at 9: but I hit the snooze button now it seems trivial but in that one decision to not keep a commitment to yourself you wrote a little line into this the Paul Brunson story which is actually an instruction manual that governs your life and this the line you wrote into that story is I'm the type of person that frequently isn't able to do what I want to do and that's an instruction that you then when you go to work that when you show up when you know you think about your big Ambitions in life it's an instruction it's a line of code written into who you are so I've got really obsessed with this idea of these small commitments and the great thing about small things is they're easy to do and also easy not to do but they're also easy to do but we because they're easy not to do and because they seem small and trivial we tend to overlook them so this idea that like start by keeping these small commitments to yourself that you make could be the the pathway to the big results that we're seeking you know because we look up at these these figures on Instagram and on social media that are like saying earlier like running ultramarathons and they're starting these businesses and killing the game and we go how the [ __ ] did they get up there it must have been one big decision they made it's baby steps you know baby steps and and you said something that I think is very important
within self-esteem and that is is that you've exercised it there's an action it's not just about I'm going to set my goal as going to wake up at a certain time or going to no it's that you have you woke up at a certain time you you you've exercised it this is the key piece and it is it's it's it's about all of those small steps it's about the consistency of the small steps and I think you you've seen this in you must have seen this in your life is that what that does is it builds habits that you then build upon and then what you'll notice is is that the the tasks become bigger and bigger and bigger but you're able to do it because you have the foundation of the smaller task I've often wondered if there's a generation that are kind of trapped between how things used to be which is you know meeting people in your village down at church in real life and then there was this sort of digital surge where most people now meet online I wonder if there's like this generation that are trapped in between the two where they were of a certain age where their everyone around them was kind of meeting um in real life they didn't manage to meet meet someone then the digital age exploded and it's literally like this vertical line up when you look at the graphs just suddenly everyone's meeting online and they don't have the digital skills they don't have the social media they don't know how to like upload a photo yeah but their way of dating this IRL way of dating is now gone out of fashion and no one's doing it yeah and they would roughly be if I had to Hazard a guess at their age they're probably 35 yeah plus now 35 Plus but it's it's the 50 the 50 year olds or should I say the 45 are are getting hit and the reason why is is exactly what you're saying but then what's happened is so the number one age of new daters in the world is age 18 right we see this on the dating apps 18 people download the dating apps they're out on the dating scene but you know what the number two age range is well I know because you said it for 5 yeah right and why it's because of emptiness syndrome ah you and your partner you've had two children they go off to University you look and you say I don't even know you anymore I don't know
you so peace I'm gone and then you break up and then you reenter the dating market and you're like oh my God we we didn't have dating apps when I was doing this and you're completely confused as to what to do but I'm going to tell you something Wild and that is is they end up doing quite well you know why because they show up as their authentic self what we've what we've been learning I think on social media for so long is you know create your representative yeah you go to 80% maybe even 90% of folks Instagram it's just their representative it's it's it's not them right and so on these dating apps Etc it's the representative but a lot lot of these people who have never used an app before they go online they're they they they write down the imperfect profile they they they write they talk about their what they're scared of what what their fears are their vulnerabilities they post the photos without filters right because they don't even know how to use a filter and you think they're going to not do well and they end up doing extraordinarily well because they show up as their authentic self what the data is showing us more than ever is that authenticity is what wins leaning into your quirks leaning into the things that make you extraordinary you know I I I I say this all the time to to to people who I've coached and that is is that think about you right there have been billions of people who have walked this planet before you but no one ever walked this Earth with the same experiences as you or the same skills and guess what right now 8 billion people in the world no one sees the world exactly like you see it no one has your skills no one looks precisely like you and guess what it gets even better because no one who will ever live on this planet will ever look precisely like you talk precisely like you see the world precisely like you so therefore guess what you are extraordinary you are truly special you are truly unique there's no one ever like you so if you only that you win what if I'm an [ __ ] you you well well you know what see are you a narcissistic psychopath [ __ ] like you know what I mean like if you if you if you don't like who you are you don't
want to put that out there you want to you know filter it you know F face tune it yeah trim it cut it expand it I'm with you I'm with you so yes many of us don't like you know various parts of who we are the key is to embrace the good but going back to Carol riffs six dimensions of psychological well-being self-acceptance is to say you know what these three things I do yeah [ __ ] do those three things but do I lay that out no well here's what you in a dating app no in a dating app you lay out what it is that you desire what it is that you are seeking but are you transparent about those things when you're interacting with them absolutely you're transparent because if those [ __ ] traits are part of you it's going to show up in your Behavior so you alert the person ahead of time I'm working on these things I don't want to scare them off no you don't but you want to be your true self but it depends on on what kind of trait we're talking about though so I mean you'd have to give me example okay I'll give you an example I um this is I'm playing a role here okay so people don't clip this and put it on the internet but say that I had a toxic trait where I get Ultra needy and I'm like very jealous and I'm very easily tricked by anything that makes me feel like you're cheating on me or you're you know I'm like insecure from like maybe you know something that happened when I was younger or whatever okay this is good A lot of people have this so you'd be very anxious the sounds very uh typical of of of an anxious uh attachment style so the question is is are you working on it because if you're if you're working on that and you acknowledge that that's someone that that's a great relationship to be in cuz someone is proactively working on their truma but if you tell me this is how I am and I'm doing nothing about it well that's a problem I want this relationship so I can work on it with you no well the best time to work on this relationship is before you're in it goodbye that's pretty much what it is and and but but you know what those are the type of conversations that we should be having how can I work on it before the relationship so say in that case of insecure jealous anxious type does that mean like going to therapy and you when
you say working on it yeah okay great question so let's first say this about therapy I have tons of friends who are some of the top therapists in the world love it but when you look at the satisfaction rate that most people report going to therapists very low very low if you look at the access to therapists or top therapists very hard to get access so most people cannot go so I'm I'm consciously always saying okay it's important to be able to go if you can but most of this work you have to do on your on your own first part is and this is not me to be self- serving here but I think podcasts are incredible in creating awareness but I will say on this particular podcast quite honestly you've had all of the greats within this space all of the greats from we talked about Dr waldinger to uh Gabor mate like you've had all of the greats who will give you a taste of what you need to create that awareness and then you dig deeper you purchase the book yeah you purchase the book and then you do the work in the book Gabor mate all the time he talks about you know what you you should do let's meditate let's Journal like he prescribes he sets it out but a lot of us don't want to do that level of Investigation no way we want quick easy and now and now yeah but guess what you're not going to get to that level of flourishing if that's all you desire like yeah I mean mediocrity is common like being mediocre should I say is common the moment that you can step one level above being mediocre in society today you typically are seen that's how low the bar is it's the same way in relationships but it's also the same way in the relationship that you have with yourself if you do any bit of work you become a exceptionally better for you for your partner just just a little bit of work learn to act actively listen learn to learn to just simply respond which is active listening versus reacting that's a game changer it's this it's this there's this idea of like metacognition which is thinking about your thinking and when me and my partner have a disagreement now I it's almost like I now have this metacognition it's like I'm I'm watching the situation anding the situation and makes such a
big deal my girlfriend was saying something to me the other day and in my head I'm going think about how you're listening make sure you're listening intently make sure she feels Hur that's what my brain is saying now yeah that's it but before it was all like [ __ ] I need to let her know how she's wrong yeah but see this is the work yeah this is the work that we were talking about that you were doing that is work yeah but it's paying dividends it's like the return on investment on learning the skills is infinite it's because I'm sure you take that into your business you take that into uh social situations active listening stepping outside of yourself the the the these skills change your life and to go back to Dr waldinger's work is when you're able to make these small adjustments in your life you're happier less stress you live longer you make more money the the rewards are infinite this old the generation that we said we think might be trapped a little bit in a technological transition one of the things my friends that are part of that generation say to me is that there's just no people left anymore and one of my friends has actually said to me a few times that she needs to put herself in a situation where she's going to meet lots of men where there's lots of men and she gets particularly annoyed when her friendship group don't want to go to the places cuz they're all paired off okay where where they don't want to go to to an envir where there's lots of men does it matter you talk about this in chapter 4 the importance of the sex ratio yes yeah does it matter so sex ratio is huge the best example of sex ratio is look at what's happening in the Farmland so country areas of China where you had the basically the one child policy where you see a heavy number of men so the sex ratio is the number of uh women to men right and so you look look at the number of men there's many more men than there are women in in in China especially in the farm area of China so what what does that mean what that means is that women now have more negotiation power with the men if you go back 40 years you'd have to be buried off by 18 17 16 in some of those areas you would have no say as to who you could now I literally just read an article where you have 30 plus year
old women going into those areas saying we choose whoever we want out here you know we can do whatever we want you have more negotiation power but that also impacts the relationships that then do form for example look at most University campuses that now have majority women at the University campuses what's happening in terms of sex at the campuses off the charts why because you have a small pool of men who say you know what we now have negotiation power there there there's few of us there's all these women out here and and and what's what's happening is the women are looking at the small pool of men and saying okay we only have access to these guys the guys know okay we have access to all of these women so therefore we're going to act a fool you know and what ends up happening is you end you end up seeing how relationships change the formation changes based on sex ratio so looking at some of these macroecon omic you can see how it does impact how a relationship is formed and then what happens in the relationship there's some environments that are and there's some professions that are typically dominated by one gender typically for whatever reason in the book you talk about like engineering degree courses yes so if I was a woman and I would say I was just you know I was 20 years old and I was desperate to find a man going into a engineering degree course would put Leverage on my side yes it's just something to think about you know people choosing jobs and environments to work in if they are really trying to expose themselves to a gender balance that's in their favor we're talking about heterosexual heterosexual couples here then that is something to consider it it is but even that point is controversial right because that point that you just mentioned which I endorse by the way then I'll cut it out it's all controversial no but but the reason why I say that point is controversial but I love it is because what you're saying is you're saying hey young lady you're going off you're thinking about your career also start thinking about your long-term partner at the same time I I feel as if a large narrative that's placed on us in Western Society is knock out the education and the career get all of that taken care of
then once you have all of that wrapped up nicely now you could focus on these other things in life I have sat at the deathbed of two people in my life I will never forget these moments ever what they did is they both said the same things these were you know two different people different times they both died within 24 hours of me seeing them they said this thing life it goes by fast goes by fast the second thing is they begin recounting the the intimate relationships that they had with all of their with with their loved ones you know they're they're they're recollecting this now there's other things that they'll talk about certain regrets wanting to be happier wanting to have done certain things but ultimately it's about I remember the good times with the people I love the most so what's interesting to me about that is there's no talk about their career there's no talk about what they accomplished professionally there's no talk about what they learned in school so does that then mean that the most important facets of our life are the relationships that we form I I would say yes and then if that's the case why don't we focus on those things earlier let's focus on that that's the reason why I love that statement because yes you know I my my sons are 10 and 13 already I'm like look let's talk about your partners let's talk about how you're going to go about doing this because ultimately that will be the most important decision that you make in life so let's talk about kids and dating them we talked about Boomers a little bit there's this word in your book pronounced hyper gamey yeah hypergamy that's exactly what I said hyam hypergamy seeking partners of higher Social Status is notable in online dating what is what is hyper game me yeah yeah yeah and and I want to talk about genz because you said a statement at the start of this conversation about them being the most successful in marriages in your full costing yes yes okay so all right hypergamy is a topic that gets a lot of push back but it is what it is we can't we we cannot um disagree with all of the data and what the and what that suggests is essentially someone who is
Seeking a partner of equal or greater resources men and women well it's it's it's it's it's always categorized as heterosexual women okay seeking a heterosexual man of equal or greater resources and the data that typically people point to is when they look at um degrees college degrees and they look at women in in in online dating so they say okay let's look at um women in online dating across different dating apps and we'll look at all of those with a college degree who is it that they typically swipe right on or who is it that they typically select and on average it's men who have at least a college degree or greater master's degree right and the whole push back that I think ends up happening is you see people say well there it is right there these women are all opportunists that's what they're looking for they're looking for opportunity and I say oh hold on for a second do you realize first that for hundreds of thousands of years this was the structure this was the only structure you needed we've talked about it you must have chosen if you a woman you must have chosen a partner that had equal or greater resources if you wanted to survive to next week so why is it still here or next year well you know why because the patriarchy has not been destroyed it it is it has not been destabilized it's because modern relationships these relationships around self-expression just started in 1960 I mean I I think it's it is fascinating to think that women just began to have choice and remember we're talking about these weird Western IND educated industrialized right Rich democratic nations have just begun to have a bit of choice you know what I mean a bit of choice just now so therefore we're living in a day and age where you you can't you you can't argue against this you know you you when I say you can't argue against it is is you have to understand why that is but the reason why I say I believe that gen Z will have the strongest marriages is I also think they'll have the fewest marriages of any generation marriage is without question on the decline without question you can't argue cannot argue it's on the decline but
what we're going to see is we're going to see a small percentage of people who decide to join in Union in what we're today calling marriage and they will have exceptionally strong marriages because they'll have consciously chosen to go into this Union they'll have the tools and they'll help each other to you know to to self-evolve so and less kids they'll have less kids yeah are you concerned about that the sort of decline of people having kids I'm I'm quite aware of of of some of this data right and this replacement rate this rate of us not having enough children to meet the replacement rate which I think on average is typically like 2.1 right so you think that in the United States or in the UK in Japan where I know this is this is hitting heavy uh really all throughout most of the world but I want to get to where it's not happening but through most of the world what you have is you have people not having enough children to meet the replacement rate what's the replacement rate so that is the number of new births that need to happen in order to replace the Aging dying population ah okay so typically it's it's like it's 2.1 right uh but we're not couples are getting together they're having 1.8 you know or one or one or whatever it may be now what that means is it means precisely what you said and that is is that we will have an older population and as a result of having an older population we won't be able to do all the things that we need for that older population think about the tax base who's going to support the older population in terms of monetary resources physically who's going to be in the nursing homes to support an older population or who's going to be at home or and so the underpopulation is I believe it is a real issue however it gets very political and the reason why I think it gets political and I've seen uh have you heard of uh Neo natalism no in natalism right was that uh so it is when you begin to look at underpopulation based on nationality or ethnicity and when you you begin to look deeper you say hold on for a second the world is beginning to slowly become underpopulated but if you look at Nigeria yeah it's going off it's going off I have no Nigerian friend that
doesn't have like eight 10 brothers and sisters you know and like to this day and if you look at it's not just Nigeria like you look at West Africa you look at different pockets of mostly what's considered to be black populations Brown populations you see that the population is growing you know when I um David McQueen did an exhibit here in London that blew me away was it was at the tape Gallery it was called the year three he took photos of every year three class in London and he puts hundreds and hundreds of photos up in the tape gallery and you walk in right and at that time my son was year three so I walk in and you look at this thing and you say oh my gosh this is what London is going to look like in the future and you know what it is it's mostly black mostly Muslim and I think that what you're seeing in the natalism neo- natalism movement is you're seeing a lot of people who are scared by that and they say to themselves okay what we need to do is we need to figure out how we can produce more offspring of a particular ethnicity or of a particular nationality you've begun to see presidential candidates in the United States talk about this uh it is I think an extremely dangerous category and area to to to to to to to uh to to or or or or an idea it's a dangerous idea to to to put forward in the future it's going to be one of the top issues that that we're debating because if you play that forward not long you wouldn't have to play it forward very long to realize that there's certain races that will be that will once the majority that would then become a minority race oh yeah in the UK it's already been predicted that by I think it's roughly 2050 that you're going to have roughly half or greater than half of the population in the UK be black or brown I'm not talking about uh London I'm not talking about England I'm talking about in the UK that to me is absolutely it's mind-blowing it's mind-blowing to think about that and when some people think about that they're excited by by by by that future they're saying okay this is wonderful but there are other people who hear that and they become very scared and that fear I think is facilitating a lot of
these more extreme ideas that are very very dangerous isn't this cool every single conversation I have here on the DI ofo at the very end of it you'll know I asked the guest to leave a question in the Diary of a CEO and what we've done is we've turned every single question written in the Diary of a CEO into these conversation cards that you can play at home so you've got every guest we've ever had their question and on the back of it if you scan that QR code you get to watch the person who answered that question we're finally revealing all of the questions and the people that answered the question the brand new version 2 updated conversation cards are out right now at Theon conversation cards.com as you'll know if you've listened to this podcast before I'm an investor in a company called hu I'm on their board and they sponsor this podcast Daily Greens which is this powder I have in front of me for those of you that can see that gives you some incredible health benefits your energy your concentration your immunity is now available in the UK for the 91 vitamins and minerals you get from it the adaptogens the daily green probiotics that are within this blend and for the last year or so all of you on this podcast that have dm'd me about this product have asked when it will be coming to the UK it's now here if you're someone that wants to get more greens into your diet then I highly recommend giving it a go not only is it good for you but it tastes good win-win the product was so popular in the US that it's sold out over and over again and I think that's what's going to happen here in the UK so get your hands on it now just give it a try take a picture tag me DM me let me know what you think of it and because I think it's going to become one of your staple products if you're someone that's looking for a green product in your life then I really believe that this will probably become your staple as it has become mine before we get into this some of these key questions which are really things we talked about earlier but like what should I be looking for in a partner and what should I not be looking for in a partner I wanted to quickly go over this thing called attachment Theory because in our last conversation it's one of the
most replayed moments from our previous conversation just to summarize attachment Theory because I think this is quite key to talk about what what we're going to talk about next what are the four categories of attachments in adults yeah all right so uh Mary answorth is really the person that led us to attachment Theory she worked with John Balby but Mary answorth really American Canadian psychologist and let's just talk about the the test that she gave because I think it adds uh context so she essentially would take a a a child and a caregiver and she would take this child she did this did this in Baltimore of all places she would take this child in in a primary caregiver and would walk into a room with the child and the caregiver or she would allow the child and the caregiver to walk into a room and the caregiver would leave and then momentarily come back now if the child saw the caregiver leave there would be distress oh my gosh I can't believe this maybe there's some crying maybe there there's some yelling then when the caregiver comes back if the child immediately soothed okay my caregiver is back I'm okay that was considered to be secure secure attachment now if the caregiver left and came back and the child was distressed when the caregiver left came back and still a little distressed but okay but I'm not sure are you going to leave again don't leave please right the back and forth that was considered anxious anxious attachment then the third cuz at that time there was three primary the third was the caregiver would come back and the child would say whatever you know that was avoidant so these were the three fundamental uh attachment Styles and what her work then LED is to other researchers Sue Johnson Etc to then apply that to how we show up as adults and Dr LaVine in his book attached then starts to write about attachment but I want to say something very important that I've not heard heard I've actually not heard anyone talk about with attachment and that is is that we have to understand that attachment is phenomenal in understanding how we show up as adults and how we relate but we have to understand this is a very Western concept and the reason why I say that is
because there's been some small tests done in Uganda some small tests done in Japan around attachment and do you know what happened when the care Giver in Japan left the the child and comes back that the child would freak out would be under complete distress that the caregiver left and when the child came when the caregiver came back the child would continue to be under duress and stress but that was considered a secure attachment so you think hold on for a second that same child that that would have been an in the US but but that's secure in Japan why is that well the reason why is because when you investigate how the child was reared you realize that in certain areas of the world mostly collectivist or Eastern societies that child the that uh caregiver typically the mother would never leave the child so therefore a secure attachment was always or the child recognized the caregiver as always being there always being there and so that's the reason why the child felt so much distress when the even when when they when the caregiver came back but the reason why I say this is because I think what ends up happening with attachment style and I've I I've seen this in different different concepts that get introduced which are very important but what we see is we always see it through this Western lens yeah we have to realize we're living in a global world right where many of us have lineage or parents who are from different parts of the world and so therefore we have to respect all parts and therefore um it it's just it's it's just important to know that attachment style or you're talking about love language or whatever it may be these are good Concepts but we have to understand that these are not globally applicable they're very narrow um in that regard and you know we for some reason we're all drawn to these when we can just when there's just three and we just pick the one we are and then it gives us all the answers that's makes life much easier than the complexity of the truth yes so let's let's not burst the illusion Paul we like but it's I think yeah I I relate most to this idea of being the an ious
preoccupied one who probably wouldn't care when they came back in the room sorry no I got that wrong yeah you're avoidant yes I'm avoidant yes yeah and but but you know what's interest okay you know what um well since we're on attachment sty I've got to go here is there's some phenomenal research that's been done around attachment style and sex right you ready for this the cameras a second cut the cameras down are they off they're off okay go ahead yeah this this is some phenomen research that that that that blows my mind so um these researchers looked at the number of orgasms that people have based on their attachment style and the type of sexual interaction it is so a one night stand you could probably guess this a one night stand or um uh a one night or let's say a one night stand or casual sex if you are secure or you are anxious you despise that the the data showed that the percentage of people who had orgasms in one night stands or casual sex was substantially low if they were uh if they were secure or anxious but if they were avoidant off the charts why is because the avoidance were like oh man I don't like I don't want the the the emotional connection to it right and I and I think it's important to see okay well attachment Styles it does play into how we interact and why but when you understand who you are you could begin to to shift those patterns I'm sure a lot of people can relate in various ways so you're saying that you're much less likely to have an orgasm on a one night stand if you are a needy or a secure because you just won't it won't be connecting with you you won't be as able to be psychologically safe in that context absolutely just as an avoidant has less number of orgasms in a Friends with Benefits scenario why because you have to give up some emotional intimacy as an avoidant in a friends with benefit situation right and whereas secure would have a slightly higher than they would with with a one night stand so all of this is really about all of this at the end of the day it's about really knowing who you are and why you are knowing attachment style knowing about your traumas in life knowing about your triggers knowing about how you
communicate when you know all of these things you become a master of your environment Marcus Garvey from Jamaica right would always say become the the person who becomes a master of self becomes a master of their environment it always begins with self I've got to dig deeper on this point of sex because it made me ask the question question that does that suggest avoidance in the bedroom will like a different type of sex to a anxious like an avoidant might prefer a sex that is a little bit less intimate right if you know what I mean so uh I'm going to be assuming here yeah but I think this is a topic I I need to study now I'm gonna do I think I'm GNA do a research study on this seriously is I'm willing to bet that an avoidant definitely has different sexual boundaries and different sexual interests than secure or anxious because ultimately what you know what what is driving the avoidant is saying I don't want the emotional intimacy that comes with this event so anything that's driving the emotional intimacy I prefer not to have it right so I would I would willing to better voice like let's not really talk we don't need to talk is it do we need to talk no we don't need to talk about no that's kissing no that's n let's not kiss whereas I I I would willing to bet a secure wants and needs that it's a good study and an anxious oh oh I mean even more so an anxious probably needs two days of foreplay you know before and avoidant just wants a transaction just wants a transaction right let's make it official maybe that's part of the reason you know last time we spoke I was speaking about different sex languages the the way I described it was figuring out that my girlfriend was speaking Spanish and I was speaking like French in the bedroom and we just needed to find a mutual language or I speak a little bit of French he speaks a little bit of Spanish whatever this is a metaphor for different types of sort of sexual preference or fantasy or things that turn you on but maybe that goes to explain why so many couples are struggling in the bedroom because one of them wants a certain type of Sex and the other one's much more emotional sex yes this is such an important topic because I think when you can see
your partner through that lens it's no longer oh my God can you believe it he didn't even want to kiss me like he's a he you know he he's he's this he's he's an [ __ ] but what it could be is that he is severely avoidant this is what he learned from his parents and these are behaviors that can change so let's work on the behaviors like I I I rarely do we have bad people rarely yes we there's a whole cohort of of of the dark tetrad there there are bad people but most people are good but simply have bad behaviors we can work on the behaviors or just different behaviors or different Behavior yeah that's true that's true that's true different behaviors I'm really just pondering this idea of these avoidant cuz I'm an avoidant and none of my fantasies none of the things that really turned me on involve like talking and and like you know that like the the things that you think of which is all about like emotional connection and all that St those aren't the things that I I hold as like fantasies right those aren't the things and I was thinking about how our fantasies are derived from our much of our like trauma and our our our our upbringing and our disconnection and our you know if you were if you were bullied in school I I see this a lot actually I remember it just took flat my head flash back to when I was 18 and I met a guy and one of his fantasies that he was very vocal about was because he he was powerless when he was younger he was powerless in school and so he liked using terminology in the bedroom I remember him saying this to me that made him feel empowered and I remember thinking what a [ __ ] weirdo like at the time yeah because it seemed a little bit sadistic what he was saying but to think that something that happens on the playground can translate right to the bedroom when you're 35 years old and the thing that gives you an erection is pretty pretty interesting it's worth some further inspection it it is I mean how we our experiences at home as we grew up our experiences on the playground our experiences with our first lovers but even beyond that the experiences that our great grandparents had the wars that they were in the Holocaust that they were in the transatlantic slave trade that they were
a part of all of these intergenerational bits of trauma right all of these things shape how we show up it shapes who you are today it shapes who who I am today and that's why we have to go back and understand this and when you can understand that you can more fully appreciate your partner you know just like you're saying with your friend I think it it's it's it's so great because you're saying okay when I heard this that was it sounded crazy talk but now I understand so we could begin to dialogue about this you know and it's it's an interesting question whether his fetish is wrong and it's needs fixing and it's like yuck or if it's just different mhm and I guess that comes down to whether it hurts anybody yeah guess that's the key exactly filter exactly if if it hurts it's he he's he's in the sadist category uh and and that's something that should be addressed chapter seven of your book is what to look for in a relationship yes now I think this is a really really important subject because this is often where many people go wrong and I went many you I went wrong for many many years by having this kind of list of superficial things we talked earlier about how women are typically on average looking for someone that has the same sort of academic level of qualification as them in various studies and there's multiple websites now where you can go on and input what you're looking for and these websites tell you what chance you have of finding that and I think much of the purpose of these websites is just to illuminate the fact that like it doesn't exist upstairs before I came downstairs the reason I was a couple of minutes late is I was sat upstairs with my friend who's upstairs watching now big fan of yours and I asked them the questions I said can you just tell me what you're looking for in a man okay and there's only five questions that one of these websites asks it says these are the five questions okay do you want someone is married or not married person upstairs said not married okay okay good check check what race do you want them to be ideally and I told them to be honest with me they said white I said okay I said get out how dare you um so they said not married
in white and I said how high and she muled and she muled and she M she was like that and then she said ideally I mean 62 or 63 but you know I guess I should say and then she said 6 foot so I put in 6'2 okay and then I said and then the fourth question is obese or not obese she said not obese and I said what amount of money do you want them to earn she came out with 150k yeah right sounds in pounds in pounds so I converted that to dollars for this website the last question that I asked was about the age range oh man right so what age range do you want the person to be and I believe she said yeah she said 31 to 45 wow okay okay so that narrows it down further and then using data from the 2020 annual social and economic supplement the E the ASC of the current population survey in the united St in the United States done by the Census Bureau of the United States this gives her a 0.046% chance of finding the person there you go how' she how'd she respond it was like that same sound of [ __ ] yeah but I but I think that's important because it go it leads into what we're about to talk about which is what should we be caring about what should we be looking for because listen if we're looking for someone that's You Know Rich tall a certain race you know a certain waistline has a certain amount of money in the bank account and is not married right when we're thinking about 30 plus we're really setting ourselves up for failure in many respects it's really limiting us to a very small pool of individuals we we we are so what is it that you need from all of my research it has come down 10 years of research on this is I think there's five key characteristics that we need one is you need a partner who's emotionally fit that's nowh on those questions I guarantee you she's right now I saying yes Paul I need emotionally fit I think she's going I need a $250,000 no no I'm going to convince her on this emotional Fitness is far greater than any amount of money and here's the reason why emotional fit means that you are emotionally stable you are emotionally intelligent but but let me talk about emotional stability this is this is so important is that in relationships what I often hear people not mention at all is something called
Low neuroticism that's being emotionally stable now what is that that means that when your partner goes through a high or a low or you go through a high or a low you still show up as the same person now why is this important because life is filled with ups and downs constantly I would say that the moment I knew my wife was the one that I wanted to marry her was when my grandfather passed away it was a crushing blow I loved him dearly he passes away she dropped everything to drive me eight hours she went she she she did she went over and Beyond to support me and she never changed her behaviors never changed she was always the same loving person when she lost her job she lost her job when we were dating never Chang changed it was it was demoralizing but she was still kind to me right and and and and so to have someone who's emotionally stable who can go through the lows still remain themselves is incredibly important so you need someone who's emotionally fit that's one second is you need someone who has courageous Vision right and and this speaks to Carol ri's six dimensions of psychological well-being you want someone who feels like they're on the path to something because if you don't feel like you're on the path to something you are stuck in mediocrity you are you you you don't have any drive to get up in the morning right or you you you you there's no assertiveness to to to to how you show up in life so you need someone that has a vision for themselves in in life so so that's very important you know next you need someone who is I call it resiliently resourceful very important when times are hard someone who's resiliently resourceful they can bounce back like yeah I'm going to be knocked down cuz you will be knocked down see you must have been knocked down all the time countless right but what do you do you get back up and you figure out a way how do I take all of these pieces that have been cracked and how do I create a beautiful Mosaic out of those pieces that's resilient resourcefulness incredibly important then you need someone who's open-minded right open mind and understanding ultimately what does that mean that means curiosity and I say this curi osity is one of the sexiest traits in the world curiosity
because if you have a partner who's curious what will they do they want to know everything about you they listen they listen to you and they care about what they're hearing and that allows you to have strong emotional intimacy so that's very important and then last is you need someone who's going to give you compassionate support someone who's going to be there for you you know when you get knocked down I'm right here for you if you have these these traits you have the makings of the strongest partner for you and that person doesn't have to test highly in all those categories they just simply need to be on the pathway to realizing those because if you have someone who embodies those characteristics you have someone who could resolve conflict with you but then what does they say about online dating and dating apps because there's no dating app that helps to illuminate emotional Fitness the courageous Vision the resilient resourcefulness the open-mindedness The Compassion compassionate supportive focus and kindness and empathy that you talk about there's no dating apps that put that front and center I have to make a decision on these dating apps within 0.1 seconds just based on you know does their face look like Paul brunson's do they have shoulders like shet yeah but I mean so it feels like every time I come now I'm pitching you a dating app we should we should do no one would download this dating app though that's the truth yeah see this is why I've written this book right what I'm saying here is that is attraction important yeah it's still important I I I say that there's five fundamentals but then there's also some Dynamics we need we need to make sure that we're physically attracted to the person we need to have the same relationship goals that's important we need to make sure that um you know we can resolve conflict together all of these pieces are important but what I'm telling telling you is without question these five fundamentals are the most important now I believe that as our needs change the technology will adapt to how our needs change think about gen Z for example jenz is saying physical attraction is important but my willingness and desire to be authentic is even more important so already we're changing even on Tinder
we're changing we're allowing more options for people to disclose more and more about themselves so I think that the technology will change as we depict our needs to change as our needs change in your book chapter eight you talk about this and you said the word earlier the dark tetrad yes dark tetrad narcissists they exhibit attractive qualities at the beginning of a relationship right because that's characterized by being sort of self assured like on the surface it seems like confidence yes you know yes there's some great research around speed dating and it looked at who are the most successful when it comes to speed dating and you know who the most successful are two types of people narcissists and Psychopaths they're the most successful at speed dating now why is it the truth what you were just saying they show up as self- assured as confident but you know what else they do they're willing to lie they're willing to tell you anything you want to hear to get what they want because that's their objective their objective is to use you like this cup of of of water right here when I'm done drinking this water the cup is gone I don't need it anymore that's how a narcissist or a psychopath shows up and so that's the reason why they're they're they're Ultra successful is there a certain type of person that's more prone to be attracted to narcissists yes I mean Psychopaths yeah they're definitely there there's there's there's different personality types that enable themselves to a to anyone in the dark tetrad but in essence what it is is in essence it's going to be someone who is not secure and it's going to be someone who has low self-esteem because when you have low self-esteem you're seeking that validation you're seeking their confirmation their affirmation of you and the more that they distance themselves they they distance themselves from you the more you want their affirmation they probably see you as an easy Tona as well they beam right into you and they destroy your life they destroy your life I I I think that the term narcissism or narcissist is one of the most overused words probably like in modern-day dating everyone is a narcissist but everyone is not a
narcissist they're just a bit selfish yep just a bit selfish just a bit of an [ __ ] you yeah just a little arrogant people have narcissistic traits but when you're talking about a clinically diagnosed narcissist that is an extremely dangerous person how many people are within this dark tetrad that you talk about and the dark tetrad is narcissism psychopathy machiavellism and sadism right and sadism absolutely so those those four make up the dark tetrad and on average the estimate is less than 15 15% so less than 15% of the population fall within one of those categories now it's important to say that that category extremely dangerous to the point where a narcissist once a narcissist always a narcissist and so the question always to me is well Paul I found out that my my partner is is a narcissist what do I do well I say if you want to remain in a Rel relationship with someone that is going to continually use you and may learn to manage their behavior but will always see you as an object to use than stay in the relationship but otherwise you have to leave what one of my friends is one of the top experts on narcissism in the world and when I sit down I always say are you sure you can't change if you're a narcissist like I just met he's a great guy like she she she she without question you cannot and she works with with with with narcissists and tells me how she's able to teach them how to just manage what it is that they do but if you are someone and and and your partner is and I'm not talking about they have narcissistic traits you know arrogant Etc I'm talking about they have they've been clinically diagnosed as a narcissist you are in for an extremely extremely hard life with them how' you spot an Nar nist oh my God I me you know so people talk about love bombing all the time but but but ultimately a narcissist objective is to use you for whatever it is like to use you use you use you for for their pleasure they could have some machiavellianism mixed in because a lot of the dark tetrad the characteristics overlap where machiavellianism is about strategy specific specifically for their pleasure so the key is to look at their behavior and to look at their behavior over a long period of time and this is
where it gets fatiguing but important so the studies show that when you are in a committed relationship committed for two years on average and then you get married the divorce rate is substantially lower right we found that the divorce rate is 20 22% now now why is that it's because you've had the opportunity to see your partner in the ups and downs in the highs and lows right to see if they have low neuroticism can they bounce back to see are they using you for whatever their purposes are the challenge is a lot of us see the behavior and decide to stay you know why we decide to stay because that list that you he makes over 100,000 he's over over 6 feet he's this he's that he checks these boxes that mean nothing to my happiness truly means nothing to your happiness it means something to the validation that you're getting from the public but to your actual well-being it's insignificant it's nothing but they check those boxes so therefore I'm going to stay and you're going to stay and this is what you're going to get when you stay you're going to live under duress you're going to feel lonely you're going to feel isolated your cortisol levels are going to go up you're going to get inflammation you're more susceptible to disease you're going to die early you are going to be miserable why it's interesting when you're talking about understanding their relationship history because a narcissist wouldn't tell you but then it got me thinking about this idea of like cheating and infidelity and betrayal in previous relationships and I wanted to ask you this random question which is if you find out your partner has previously cheated another relationships is that a red flag I mean I don't necessarily necessarily uh ascribe to Red hard fast like because I believe that behavior can be can can can can can change so is anything a red flag other than this dark tetrad no nothing's a red flag there's no such thing I think the dark tetrad is is the red flag and no effort is the red flag if criminal history at all I I you know this is this interesting I have plenty of family members who have been incarcerated and who are some of the best people in the world I've met a lot of them actually a lot of incarcerated
people that are morally better more sound than anybody I know than anybody I know I would trust them with my to to to with my child you know um I think no effort is a red flag when you have a partner who says n that therap I'm not going to do that what watch a a video on active listening I'm not going to do that uh what you're talking about we need to do a trust exercise no no I'm not that is a red flag the dark tetrad those are red flags I can't think of any others I had a really random question I wanted to ask you as well which is um if you don't want to do something in a relationship it kind of leads to what you were just saying there if you don't want to do something should you tell your partner so your wife goes to you hey Paul I want to go watch this ballet thing um do you want to come mhm in that moment you have no desire to go and watch the ballet yes right how how does one respond are you asking for for a friend for a friend yeah for a friend oh my God all right no because like something I've been thinking about a lot lately which is like me and my partner have talked about it a lot which is if I ask her if she wants to do something yes should she tell me the truth and go no I don't want to go watch Manchester United play or should she should just come along and do it CU she should be helping me meet my needs yeah all right to answer that question it's really about your history in resolving conflict and have you been able to resolve conflict as a partnership in a healthy way because what we what ends up happening in relationships is let's say before she asked you about Manchester United right you've had a disagreement but the disagreement was not resolved and there's pain on her side pain on your side well she's going to learn and it will be reinforced to not be truthful with you because she knows that you as a couple have an inability to resolve conflict and therefore she wants to protect herself and often times what ends up happening in relationships is that patterns toxic behaviors patterns are reinforced time and time and time again so you get to a point where of course you can't tell each other the truth
because the moment that you do it's it's a it's a it's there's an explosion that's why it's important you have to build a great relationship is just like you're just adding a layer on top of a layer on top of a layer on top of a layer very thin a piece of paper and every time that you're able to do something good as a partnership every time you affirm your partner she affirms you you resolve conflict whatever it may be it's another layer that's added to to to that partnership and as you're growing and you're growing it affords you the opportunity to be more bluntly transparent to the point where I walk out my wife's like why you have those leather trousers on like those are ridiculous like we're at the point where we can in a most blunt way you know be ridiculously authentic with each other and it's because we have Stacks and stacks and Stacks and stacks of previous Foundation of History so I can't immediately say walk out and be ultra transparent because I don't know what the history is but if you have a strong history and you're able to resolve conflict in a healthy way then you are able to be even more transparent it's you know relationships are this constant balance of checking in understanding your partner's feelings affirming what those feelings are understanding your desires what your feelings are ensuring that there are affirmed it's constant it's constantly moving which is why I always say it's like the the the marriage there's never stagnation in a or in a partnership you're never just this you're either growing or the relationship is dying like there there's no in between [ __ ] there's no in between but it sounds like it's growing sounds like yours is growing I know it is growing it is growing because do you know why it's growing because of the thing you said earlier which is because of effort and because both parties care to put in the effort so there must be so many people I would Hazard a guess that the majority of people are the 80% that you described earlier you said there's 20% that are happier than ever and 80% that are less satisfied than ever I would Hazard a guess that there's an 80% of listeners out there now that are in a relationship where they realize that the effort is gone and it went they don't
know when it went maybe it was when they had kids and work became really really busy but at some point along the way effort became de prior ized yeah and there was a belief that things would stay the same even without nutrients and water and sunlight yes you know what I mean but there's no nothing in nature can grow without continual nourishment of some form so chapter nine my last question okay in chapter nine of your book you talk about John godman's Four Horsemen yes what are the four horsemen Okay so John gotman phenomenal I'd say one of the top researchers on what it takes for a marriage to sustain itself and he analyzed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of of of couples and he actually would break them down into six second increments because he would he would he would videotape them and he would look at how they interact with with each other and he determined that based on how they interact with each other is in indicative of if they will stay together in a relationship and he identified these four uh attributes if you will these four types of interaction that suggest you know what things are a little shaky and one of the four he if he sees with 99% accuracy he believes they will break up so what are they one is criticism one is defensiveness a third is stonewalling but here's the biggest and I see this a lot contempt if you have a partner who shows you contempt as Dr gotman would say there's a 99% likelihood you you'll break up as a couple now why is that the reason why is because real contempt suggests that you are on a whole another level than your partner it's a level of disrespect you're saying to your partner you're no longer on my level and you can seek contempt show up in these small six-second increments you you're watching a couple you know I see it all the time I see couples um arguing and you see the eye roll the Look Away the look back in just those moments One partner is saying you're not even on my level like you shouldn't even be my presence right when you see that level of disrespect coming from your partner you know they don't they don't respect you they don't value you and so the the the Four Horsemen of of the Apocalypse
is is is real and it's something that we need to be aware of because when we're aware of these things we we we can witness are they showing up with our partner or are they showing up with us where does that contempt start what is the seed that grows into contempt it it it could it could start from a myriad of places you know I fundamentally believe it begins with us selecting bad Partners you know it begins with us choosing a partner that we have very little hope of completing the Finish Line with you know what I mean and so we are not on the same page in terms of our relationship goals maybe we don't share the same values um you know our partners not kind to us we can't resolve conflict and then every small interaction there's another hairline fracture another hairline fracture another hairline fracture and it grows most relationships don't break up because of one incident they break up because of hundreds of small little incidents that happen over the course of time and you get to a point where you cannot take it anymore that's how most relationships break up so how do we stop those small incidents then compounding into a divorce is it is it about conflict resolution oh yeah the the top reason why most researchers will say that we break up or we divorce is they'll point to finance or they'll say infidelity or they but really what it is to me what I believe it is is it's our inability to resolve the conflict about those topics so so so conflict resolution becomes one of the key drivers towards a highly satisfied relationship but it begins before that it begins with us reflecting on us doing the woow woo work and saying am I happy like when I wake up do I wake up with a smile on my face when I go to sleep like am I content am I happy with where I am at life do I do I feel like you know I'm not where I want to be but but do I feel like I'm on the pathway if you're answering yes to those things you are in a place of satisfaction which means that your light is on which means that I guarantee you the people in your life their light is on you're meeting more people you're interacting with greater people you have a greater ability to meet new people meet people who share those same desires and their light is on as well
if your light is not on and you're checking boxes then you're most likely going to meet someone and their light won't be on but they're checking boxes so you're already starting in a place where your relationship is doomed to fail Cheryl Samberg 2014 her book uh leanin when she wrote that book it blew me away because she she said who you choose as a partner is the most important career decision you could make then a couple years later Warren Buffett comes out in his uh documentary and he says who you choose as a partner is the most important decision you could make and when I heard that I thought to myself W this this is interesting because I was seated in finance and I thought it was about my network and education and who you know but really as I began to look at the people who were the most satisfied in my life it was always the people who had the strongest Intimate Relationships Paul we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest the question left for you is what things are you doing that are contributing to keeping you stuck or stopping you from progressing in the way that you would like oh wow I I still fight with feeling that I I feel like I'm the underdog all the time and I think there's so many things that I overanalyze that I shouldn't be but I I'll I'll give you an example and this is this is uh this is real and and I know people can empathize with this is you know sometimes I'll I'll talk to someone and I'll say you know are are you responding to me that way because I'm a black man is that why are you responding to me that way because I'm American are you responding to me that way because I'm whatever you see me on tele like I'm always second guessing what I'm hearing and I think it's because I view myself as this Underdog maybe not worthy not enough that I am overanalyzing the positive is that it gives me extra drive and extra assert and extra I'm going to go kill it because because of that but the downside is that I think I'm creating barriers and roadblocks and maybe they're just asking
me the question because they're curious you know maybe they're genuinely interested and that's the reason why the question is being asked like maybe I am I'm I'm it's it's I'm I'm adding adding too much to to what it is I'm I'm I'm overthinking it but I think all of this is holding me back I would like to be able to just more so free flow with life and not think of it as chess I think of it as chess you know and I want to think of it less as chess chess is is uh is is exhausting exhausting yeah Checkers is so much easier Paul thank you you've um you've written a unbelievably great book and the accessibility of this book the Timeless of this book and the um the wisdom that is PED into all of these Pages both qualitative and quantitative research over you know the the amount of incredible people that I know of that I dream of having on this podcast one day that you've cited in your work in this book is phenomenal and at the very end of the book you have some actionable elements with this um yes wonderful long-term relationship satisfaction scale yes which means that you can turn all the wisdom that you've heard on this podcast today but also all the book all the wisdom in these pages into something actionable and this book is really actionable that's one of the amazing things about it you learn and you and you know you go right back through the research and the history of humans and technology and Match.com and all of those amazing things but you're left with actionable advice on how to make changes in your life um and key takeaways as we see at the end of the chapters what a wonderful timely book what an important one because as often is said the quality of Our Lives can be determined by the quality of our relationships and this is exactly what this book Endeavors to do and does so well yes so thank you Paul for gracing our our show Once once again it's always an honor I could speak to you for [ __ ] hours so we're gonna have to do this again sometime but I I I deep I deeply appreciate it is an honor to to be here and uh love the conversation thank you do you need a podcast to listen to next we've discovered that people who liked this episode also tend to absolutely love another recent episode
we've done so I've linked that episode in the description below I know you'll enjoy it [Music]