Pod Insights A Bit of Optimism The First Steps to Find Love with Matthew Hussey About this episode Finding love is a journey. We might take some wrong turns along the way.
Matthew Hussey helps people find love, and sometimes, redefine their relationship with love. Matthew is a dating coach who balances practical advice about the art of attraction with the importance of centering our own sense of self in our search for love. Starting as a teenager and working primarily with women, he’s helped thousands of people find romance and create relationships built on values which feel right for them.
I sat down with Matthew to ask him everything he’s learned about love after decades as a dating coach. He shares with me the most common mistakes people make when looking for a partner, what we ought to be looking for, and why our own happiness is ultimately our own responsibility, not anyone else’s.
This…is A Bit of Optimism.
To learn more about Matthew and his work, check out:
his new book, Love Life
his YouTube channel
matthewhussey.com
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 A lot of the work I do is not about saying, go find a boring relationship devoid of chemistry. It's saying, let's take some of these high standards that you have around certain things that aren't always predictors of great relationships and turn them towards areas that make for very good relationships.
0:22 Simon Sinek? I regret having you on because you were causing me stress.
0:27 Speaker 00 I saw a little bit of it on your face.
0:30 Simon Sinek? Okay, let's unpack this.
0:34 Simon Sinek? Looking for love? Well, get ready to throw out everything you think you knew about finding the right partner. Matthew Hussey is a leading love expert and bestselling author who has spent nearly two decades helping people find the kind of relationships that build their confidence and bring them joy. If you're looking for a relationship, in a relationship, or enjoy being single, I've found the things Matthew said to be universally valuable. In fact, he really challenged me on some of the decisions I've made in my own love life. Oof. This is a bit of optimism.
1:11 Simon Sinek? Here's the reason why I think everyone should pay more attention to the work that you put out there versus so many other influencers, quote unquote, with various relationship advice. You have a humility about you and an honesty about you, where you don't want from anything other than to see that other people can find some of the same joy and happiness that you have found, but also to learn some of the lessons that you've learned. And I appreciate that you don't claim to be an expert, but rather you are just somebody on a journey who's got a curiosity and a fascination. And you, in some respect, you've made yourself the guinea pig.
1:54 Speaker 00 Well, that means a great deal. I've admired you, your work, for a very long time. So to hear that from you is, I don't take that lightly at all. It means a lot. I've learned a couple of things about myself over the last few years. One is that I'm willing to sacrifice money to speak about things I really, really care about. Because there's
2:20 Speaker 00 Certain books that I know I could write that would create more opportunities.
2:27 Simon Sinek? Mm hmm. Five ways to meet a better partner.
2:30 Speaker 00 But I have a deep, deep, deep love and connection for the heart of what I'm doing. Nothing brings me more joy than being able to help. I had a woman that came to me, she was in her sixties. This was her first question to me. How do I kill the desire to find love? When she said it, it like I got a ball in my throat because she had arrived at the point where she had decided that the her wanting to find love had become the most painful thing in her life. She said, I haven't found what I'm looking for.
3:11 Speaker 00 I have, I feel invisible. I don't get many opportunities at all. Every night I go to bed haunted by the space next to me, wanting to find love and not finding it. And I'm worried that if I have this desire for the rest of my life, I'm going to be sad for the rest of my life. And I don't want to be sad for the rest of my life.
3:35 Speaker 00 That's a kind of chronic pain, the chronic pain of loneliness, the chronic pain of I wanted to have a family and I didn't have a family in time and now biologically I can't. The grief of life not going the way that I wanted it to go or hoped it would go or thought it would be by this stage. That is my life's work is having those hard conversations.
3:57 Simon Sinek? What happened with the woman?
3:59 Speaker 00 I helped her to see that there was the very physical component to her pain, which was that pang in her stomach, in her chest at night. And that initial feeling of God, I wish someone was there next to me.
4:18 Speaker 00 There was a relationship with that pain that was compounding that pain to an unmanageable degree. And I suffered from, for many years, a kind of chronic physical pain that I had in my head that at times got too much for me. At times I thought, I don't know, I do not know how I'm gonna do this. It made me utterly miserable. And someone really helped me to understand that I had a relationship with my pain.
4:49 Simon Sinek? You're in a monogamous relationship with pain.
4:52 Speaker 00 There was a whole bunch of ways that I was reacting to that pain that was making it way worse. I was measuring my life by the worst moments of that pain, even though it fluctuated. And in her case, there was a story that went along with her pain, that once she started telling herself that story, my life doesn't mean anything because I never got married or I never found what I was looking for in this area. I can never be happy because I haven't found someone. I never will find someone, which was another story. All of these were things that turned her pain into overwhelm. We worry about fear, anxiety, anger. Overwhelm is 100% the most dangerous emotion.
5:38 Speaker 00 Because overwhelm is the crescendo of any and all of those emotions. And it's in overwhelm where we do things we regret. It's in overwhelm where we think we can't manage. And so, a huge part of what I try to do with people is lower the temperature so that it's below overwhelm. Because then you're in power again, and then you can create magic again. And we are not in those moments where the whole story of our life is being reduced to, I didn't meet someone, or I haven't met someone, or I still don't have someone. A kind of singular vision about our lives that is one story.
6:21 Speaker 00 Our life is many different stories. There are many different stories that can be started from where we are now. This is not the only story of our lives.
6:31 Simon Sinek? So how is it that you started, you know, sort of, I would expect guys to give guys advice. And those sort of men's groups exist and women to give women advice. How did you become a man giving women advice on on dating?
6:45 Speaker 00 Originally, I saw that.
6:48 Simon Sinek? Like, why not men?
6:50 Speaker 00 Well, I had worked with men. I grew up in this sort of nest of amazing women who I loved. So I always had a really good relationship with women. When I was helping men for a few years, I had women coming to me and saying, why aren't you doing the same thing for us? And my first response was, well, I don't really understand, I don't really know what you're going through. I don't, I didn't even know you were having these issues, you know, I was a naive, you know, nineteen, twenty year old guy. But then I started to pick up books that were designed for women, not designed for men. And I started to read them and my first feeling was, I don't relate to this idea as a guy.
7:33 Speaker 00 There was a very famous book called The Rules, which was really designed for women more than men. There was a line in there that said something like, I hope I'm not misquoting it, but this is, at the time, I read it as, if a guy isn't already talking to you, if he's not like coming over to you, don't go over to him. Like, save yourself the trouble, he's not interested.
7:58 Simon Sinek? That's madness.
7:59 Speaker 00 I had never related to that in my life. In fact, the opposite was true for me. The, the more attracted to you I am, the more likely I'm going to avoid you.
8:10 Simon Sinek? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:11 Speaker 00 So it just, it didn't resonate. And I went, oh, my God, if, if these are the kinds of ideas people are living by, they're going to miss out. They're going to miss out on so many people. And frankly, they're only ever going to meet the loudest guy in the room. And the loudest guy in the room, there's no, you know, not always the best guy.
8:31 Simon Sinek? You know, there's, um.
8:34 Simon Sinek? In the sort of advice giving world, there's a lot of cobbler's children. Divorce attorneys are always divorced. Child psychologists have screwed up kids, you know? But you are happily married. And so, so it gives a lot more credence and credibility when you're dispensing relationship advice than you actually made it work.
8:54 Speaker 00 Well, actually, if I think about my earliest years in my love life, the story of them was me not being that excited because I kind of felt like I was in situations where it wasn't like the person that I really wanted to speak to. For me to be brave enough to go, even if it meant going and getting rejected, just the ability to do something instead of doing nothing, that stayed with me, so much so that my wife Audrey, we met because I went home one year for Christmas. Live in Los Angeles, I went back to London.
9:38 Speaker 00 My friend from high school invited me to his engagement party, which I didn't want to go to. I had other things I wanted to do, like sitting at home in my mom's house and relaxing and just being cozy for Christmas. But I said yes, so I did something instead of nothing there. And then I got there, I actually can't even, I don't think, take credit for speaking to her first because there was a TV and there was a big fight on and I'm a boxing fan, so I was watching the fight, but she came over and stood next to me and asked me what was going on, on the TV. And that was how we started talking.
10:17 Simon Sinek? Ironic, right? That you learned all the skills to go meet the people and yet the person you married is the person that came over and met you.
10:23 Speaker 00 Yeah, it was more, that was more like, she didn't know much about me, but that was more like the advice I've been giving to women for so long, which is that actually there are ways that you can create more opportunity. You don't have to be in the passenger seat all the time.
10:36 Simon Sinek? Do you think that skill set is diminishing the courage to go and talk to a stranger? Because we don't have to. The technology has eliminated the practice.
10:48 Speaker 00 I think, yes, I think it's been eroded as a skill set.
10:53 Simon Sinek? Because that's all it is, is a skill set.
10:55 Speaker 00 Like anything, I mean, you know, being comfortable at a party is a skill set. You know, who didn't come out of COVID and feel more anxious going to a social event for the first time? If I don't socialize for a month, I start to like get a kind of low level feeling of, oh, God, I've got to go here and talk to people. I remember, I really remember being in New York one evening and a guy I just met being like, how would you ever meet someone not on an app? He was like, I was in my twenties at the time, but he was like, the idea of going to a bar and talking to someone? Are you kidding?
11:36 Speaker 00 Like, and I remember thinking, God, what an interesting statement as from a twenty something man. That like the idea of going out to a bar and saying something to someone was unthinkable to him. So I do think that skill has been eroded. And I think that it's a tremendous shame and a tremendous opportunity. Because if you are someone who even has a modicum of an ability to go and make an impact in person, you're way ahead of the curve these days.
12:12 Simon Sinek? What are the most common ways that people get in their own way?
12:15 Speaker 00 We don't gravitate often enough or at all to the kinds of people that actually make us happy or bring us peace.
12:26 Simon Sinek? It's a bold statement. I agree with you. So who are we gravitating to?
12:32 Speaker 00 People that on some level satisfy our ego.
12:39 Speaker 00 People that. We might like to be seen with people that we feel proud of because of what they represent, people we have massive amounts of initial chemistry with.
12:53 Simon Sinek? Those butterflies that you get when you have amazing chemistry with someone and you're like, oh, my God, this is, this person's amazing, right? What I've learned is that all those amazing feelings of attraction are actually dopamine, not oxytocin, because it's the feeling that you found the thing you're looking for. You haven't necessarily built any foundation of anything. So initial chemistry can be exciting and intoxicating, but means nothing as to the viability of a relationship.
13:18 Speaker 00 Really nothing.
13:19 Simon Sinek? It's. So then what am I supposed to listen to? If not the chemistry and the intuition and the excitement and the butterflies? Like, and if not the familiarity, because don't I want to be with a friend who gives me comfort and peace and makes me feel safe? Like.
13:31 Speaker 00 Well, familiarity may not make us feel safe. Maybe that familiarity for us is someone who makes us feel terribly unsafe. Many people find themselves in situations where someone doesn't text them back. And all of a sudden, they want to fight for this person, for someone who's made us feel unsure of ourselves, who's made us feel less confident, who's made us feel more insecure. And yet now my instinct is to fight harder. I'm always very, very suspicious of the phrase, trust your instincts. I had a boxing coach once who told me your instincts will get you killed. He said, when a punch is being thrown at your head, your instinct is to blink.
14:15 Speaker 00 Your instinct is not to slip or to parry or to get in a good position. Your instinct is to blink and squint. You go blind in exactly the moment you need to see. Our instincts in our love lives can get us emotionally killed because we have all sorts of bad instincts. Someone makes me unsure of myself, fight harder. I've decided I like someone after one date, clear the schedule. I'm gonna see them as much as I can in the next two weeks. Drop my friends or that class that I enjoy doing or whatever it is. I'm just, I am all in for this person who I don't even know, who essentially is a perfect stranger.
15:00 Speaker 00 All I know is the impact they have had on me. I don't know their character. The character can only be measured over time. It can't be measured on a date. Only impact can be measured on a date. And so we have certain instincts that really do lead us to make big mistakes like over investing. We do that all the time in early dating. We make our mind up about someone we can't possibly have made our mind up about. We get obsessed with someone where the obsession cannot possibly be an indicator of how right for us they are. I think chemistry is important, but when people say I have high standards, they're usually talking about a very narrow group of things.
15:43 Speaker 00 There are often the same people who say I have really high standards. That's why I never meet anyone. You learn that for the last two years, there've been an on and off situation ship with someone who's been treating them horribly.
15:54 Speaker 00 So what do you mean when you say you have high standards? Do you mean you have high standards for looks? Do you mean you have high standards for charisma? You can't have high standards for kindness.
16:06 Speaker 00 You can't have high standards for empathy because they wouldn't, you wouldn't value this person who's treating you with zero empathy. You can't have high standards for teamwork or for trust or for consistency. So a lot of the work I do is not about saying, go find a boring relationship devoid of chemistry. It's saying, let's take some of these high standards that you have around certain things that aren't always predictors of great relationships and turn them towards areas that make for very good relationships.
16:44 Simon Sinek? I regret having you on because you were causing me stress.
16:49 Speaker 00 Saw a little bit of it on your face.
16:52 Simon Sinek? Okay, let's unpack this.
16:55 Simon Sinek? I get excited when I meet someone I want to spend all my time with them. Younger me, it was insecurity. Like, I better spend a lot of time with this person, otherwise they'll meet somebody else immediately. And so I gotta, I gotta speed up the get to know me process. Older me, it's born out of genuine excitement.
17:14 Simon Sinek? Absolutely, when I get a cold response, it makes me fight for it. And then sometimes get it and be like, huh? You know, like, I fought for this.
17:28 Speaker 00 Oh, when you finally, when you get the person, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:32 Simon Sinek? And I think the hardest thing is not knowing what's right or who's right for me. Because different people bring different energies. Some are exciting, some are calming, some are adventurous, some challenge me intellectually. Some challenge me the way I live my life in the world to go on more adventures. And they all have different kinds of appealing, but who's right for me?
18:04 Simon Sinek? I don't want to date myself. I don't want to date somebody who matches my energy because I'm smart enough to know that balance is good. I want to give something that they don't give, and I want them to give something that I can't give.
18:14 Speaker 00 I once heard Bruce Springsteen talking about what a great show was when he's touring. What, what does an audience want? And he said, the audience simultaneously wants to be surprised and wants to be made to feel at home.
18:34 Speaker 00 And that's what makes a great show. So I've never said this before, but I think there's something really profound to learn about relationships from that statement. Because speaking from my own experience, I've never felt more at home than in this relationship. I've never felt more accepted. I've never felt more like I could truly reveal the parts of me that I thought would always be shameful or that would make someone not want me anymore. And felt like I can say any of those things and I'll still be met with love and I'll still be met with acceptance. And that's the home part for me, but I think the the surprised part is, I suppose, that kind of James Hollis question of will this diminish me or enlarge me?
19:20 Speaker 00 And I think you can apply that to a relationship. Will being with this person diminish me or will it enlarge me?
19:27 Simon Sinek? How much should we listen to our friends and family?
19:30 Speaker 00 I'm hesitant.
19:31 Simon Sinek? If I let my parents choose everyone I dated.
19:33 Speaker 00 I know.
19:33 Simon Sinek? I know the ones I know the ones they like. They like the ones with the big personalities.
19:38 Speaker 00 Yeah.
19:38 Simon Sinek? Well, that that. Every girl that I ever brought home that my parents fell in love with had a big personality.
19:42 Speaker 00 Yep. I think my mom has that too. My mom, she could be charmed. And that's a dangerous instinct because now your mom's falling for the same thing you are.
19:53 Simon Sinek? Yeah. And the awkward shy ones, my parents are like, no, we don't like that one.
19:56 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:57 Simon Sinek? We don't like her.
19:57 Speaker 00 Yeah.
19:58 Simon Sinek? I'm like, because she's awkward and shy. You know?
20:01 Speaker 00 I think when you feel like you're really growing with someone and when you feel like you actually make a really great team, it's one thing to observe someone in isolation and go sexy person, charismatic person, successful person, like this person's great. Look at them go. But I don't think that's the same thing as me and this person make a really great team together. Like, we take care of each other. We've got each other's backs and we function really well together. I talk about in my book, the four levels of importance in any relationship or in any situation with a person. The first is admiration and that's just where we admire someone.
20:46 Speaker 00 We may not, they may not even know we exist, but we just think they're great.
20:51 Speaker 00 The second is mutual attraction and that's the point of chemistry and connection.
20:55 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
20:55 Speaker 00 The third is commitment. That's when we're actually saying yes to each other.
21:01 Speaker 00 And the often overlooked part is compatibility is do we actually work together? You know, it's one thing to say yes and to commit to each other, but does it work? Do we function well together? And that's.
21:17 Simon Sinek? I've had a lot of failed relationships with really good people, like really, really amazing human beings who with a couple of exceptions, I struggled to say anything bad about anybody I dated because they were good people. That's why I dated them. It just didn't work as a relationship, but they're good people.
21:34 Simon Sinek? And, you know, wrong time, wrong place, wrong maturity, wrong circumstances, whatever it is, but so that's, that's an interesting one.
21:41 Speaker 00 I also think that there's a thing that happens to us as we get older, it can be a bit dangerous, which is that we feel the need now to justify all of the no's
21:58 Speaker 00 that we've handed out in the past, all of the times we said, hmm, not quite right. When we're looking for someone today, the stakes feel almost impossibly high because it's like now I have to find someone who makes sense of the people that I have decided not to be with. And I think it could raise the stakes massively of the person we eventually choose.
22:26 Simon Sinek? So much of what you say makes sense. And I think those four things are brilliant, but a lot of what you say I'm struggling with because there's paradoxes involved that I can't trust my instinct. I can't worry about chemistry on the first few times. I can't give too much too soon. I can't chase someone and give a lot of energy upfront. I have to consider. Am I growing or am I diminishing? Which really you only discover in time. So there's that rub, which is I could, how do I even know? I have to feel safe. I have to feel at home.
23:12 Simon Sinek? And sometimes you have that feeling and that feeling goes away, or sometimes that feeling comes later. And what I've been guilty of is projecting safety because I want it so badly. I say a couple of things, I get a couple of good responses, then I project a level of safety that I don't have. I've done that. And so much of what you say is so insightful, but I, how does one start?
23:34 Speaker 00 For all of this, there's more nuance when you get into it because these, the paradoxes you're seeing are very like that.
23:41 Simon Sinek? Well, human beings are messy, right?
23:42 Speaker 00 What makes it so challenging. But it's what's forced me to make distinctions that I think if you, if I only started what I was doing, doing what I was doing last year, I wouldn't have made certain distinctions. But I've had to make those distinctions because the very contradictions and paradoxes that you point out there are very real to me. And I've come across them again and again. For example, a phrase I used to say a lot, I still believe in it today, but it needs nuance. A phrase I used to say a lot was, don't invest in someone based on how much you like them. Invest in who invests in you. And that's a very important idea.
24:24 Simon Sinek? Say that again, because that is exceptionally good.
24:26 Speaker 00 Don't invest in someone based on how much you like them. Invest in who invests in you. Invest in someone based on how much they invest in you. That is a very, very important idea. And if we just did that, we would save ourselves from 80% of the heartbreak that we're ever going to experience in our lives. Now, there's a problem with that idea. The problem is if both parties go into the situation with that in mind.
24:56 Speaker 00 We're in a standoff. Who goes first? I don't know if you're going to invest in me yet, but I have to invest a little bit. Otherwise, I'll never know.
25:05 Simon Sinek? Or what if they both read your books and take the advice and both invest? And so you get a false sense of investment because they're following a strategy and it feels good. And so I'm investing somebody who's investing because they have following the same strategy as me, but.
25:22 Speaker 00 Well, I think for me.
25:23 Simon Sinek? You know what I mean? There's like an intellectual investment is an emotional investment. Like I can intellectually do something because I think it's more likely to yield what I'm looking for. Or I can feel it and it feels natural. I'll give you a real life example. I met a couple at a, they were at a wedding, I was at a wedding. They were a wonderful couple. They're clearly in love. In fact, I think they've now engaged. They said to me, when we hug, we make sure to hug for at least whatever the number was, 20 seconds, because that's when the oxytocin releases. And I was like, I mean, okay, sure, you know? And I'm a cynical idiot, cynical bastard, even though I know a lot of the science, I'm
26:04 Simon Sinek? still cynical. And I was talking to her and she says, can I give you a hug? I'm like, yeah, I'd love a hug. And we start hugging and I said to her, you're counting in your head, aren't you? She goes, yeah. I'm like, stop, we're ending this hug right now, right?
26:21 Speaker 00 Yeah.
26:21 Simon Sinek? You've intellectualized an emotional connection, right? Here's the great thing about human beings. Human beings, they know, they can feel, right? We're social animals. Like this is all inbuilt. I said, we're going to do this hug again, right? This time, do me the favor and just don't count, just hug, just be in the hug, right? And we hugged and it was beautiful. I don't know. Maybe it was 15 seconds, maybe it was 20 seconds, maybe it was 25 seconds when it started to feel like magic. And I stepped back and said, how'd that feel? Did that feel fantastic? She said, yeah. I'm like, no counting required.
27:00 Speaker 00 I resonate so much with what you're saying.
27:02 Simon Sinek? And I think this is part of the problem with the work that I do and the work that you do and the work that others like us do, which is we're explaining things to the point where people are following the advice intellectually, but they're forgetting that the relationship is emotional.
27:21 Speaker 00 My feeling about all of this is exactly the same as yours. I always hated my own work for that. Like, I think of like sex therapists. There is an irony that we all know intuitively to be true. That it's both helpful if you're in a relationship where you need therapy around sex and intimacy to get help.
27:49 Speaker 00 But also by shining a light on it, there's something immediately unsexy about that. And that we're now going to have to get over that hurdle. That we've talked about the fact that there's an issue. And now that's in the room. It, it doesn't make things bad advice, but it does mean that you can, you can intellectualize things to the point of like, you've pulverized them into nothingness.
28:16 Simon Sinek? But I think that's the world we live in. I think that's the world we live in of, you know, 30 second TikTok videos and reels and stories and all for terrible reasons, which is, you know, well-intentioned people are trying to help, but they're also counting the clicks, the views, the, the forwards and saves, you know? And, and the incentive structure is all screwed up in the advice giving world.
28:36 Speaker 00 But I think you, you find people that make sense to you. And it's going to make mentors really important, who you decide you vibe with and who you listen to, because you're gonna connect with someone who you're gonna, you're gonna hear the authenticity in what they're saying. Like, to me, the other side of the equation of the don't over-intellectualize it is that.
29:01 Simon Sinek? I can't stop thinking. Like, I over-intellectualize everything.
29:04 Speaker 00 I'm the same way. I, I over, I'm hyper rational, hyper logical. I'm also very sensitive and emotional, but I like breaking things down.
29:13 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
29:14 Speaker 00 For me, as a single person, I made choices that consistently led me to more anxiety and consistently led me in directions that weren't right for me, either because I was...
29:26 Speaker 00 I just wanted to be with someone instead of no one. Well, I think that we live in a world today where there truly, whether or not it's true for us or not, truly feels like there's endless options.
29:40 Simon Sinek? We go shopping on dating apps. We're shopping for people. It's Amazon.
29:43 Speaker 00 And.
29:43 Simon Sinek? You're scrolling, you're scrolling through the products on, on, on the shopping app.
29:47 Speaker 00 And once you're done there, you, there's Instagram. And once you're done there, there's Hinge. And once they're done there, there's like, you could just keep going to a new platform and being presented with what feel like constantly better options. This person's got more of this, that person's got more of that. And we end up with this kind of composite in our mind of the person we want that is built on all of these different inflated standards. It gets really dangerous because it starts to miss the point of what actually makes us happy. Like, I sometimes think of people going from east to west in America and how, like, at some point, every person had to say when enough was enough.
30:30 Speaker 00 Like, one person would say it in Chicago, and another person would say it in Montana, and another person would say it in Seattle. And it's like, when do you decide this is home? Do you keep saying that, well, they have mountains over there? Or if we keep going, we might find an amazing ocean? Or it, it, at a certain point, what makes a home a home is that we actually put down roots, you know?
30:59 Speaker 00 FOMO being something that is a kind of a bit of a joke, because by definition, anytime we're doing anything, we are by definition, missing out on practically everything. So worrying about the party you missed tonight? You, why aren't we worrying about every event on earth we're missing tonight? We're always missing out on basically everything. And the same is true in our love lives. There's plenty of people that would be awesome to marry. There's a lot of them. And I think that there is this feeling of if I don't make the choice, everything is still possible. And that's exciting. There is something exciting about that.
31:39 Simon Sinek? Versus saying, actually, you're gonna miss out on all of it anyway?
31:42 Speaker 00 You're gonna miss out on everything.
31:44 Simon Sinek? Whoever you settle down with, you're gonna miss out on everyone else.
31:47 Speaker 00 Everyone.
31:48 Simon Sinek? I promise you. And I promise you, whatever you wish your partner had, I guarantee you, somebody else has that.
31:53 Speaker 00 Somebody else has it. Like, it's, and I, and at some point, I think we have to decide what, where, where our peace is, is gonna lie.
32:03 Simon Sinek? Okay, so gratitude is the thing we're talking about here, which is going into a relationship the same way we should be going into life, which is, like, I, I, I don't believe in bucket lists. To me, a bucket list is a list of things I haven't done. Right? And so I'm forced to look at the things that are missing in my life. That's what a bucket list is. So I live my life with a reverse bucket list, where I will write down something I've done, or an experience I had, or a place I visited, that I never thought I'd ever have the opportunity to do, and it was magical, and then I write it down.
32:33 Speaker 00 That's great. I love that.
32:34 Simon Sinek? And I will look at the list of things that I've done, and the people I've met, and the experiences I've had, and every day I go, oh, my God, my life's incredible. I keep adding to it. That's insane. I should be done. You know? And I, so I think what you're talking about in a relationship is instead of looking for the things that are missing, and knowing that somebody else has them, to also say, or to replace that with, look at the things that I'm getting, and other people can't give me those things. Because just as you are missing out on everything, other people are missing out on this. And if you can't be grateful, then maybe this is the wrong person for you.
33:10 Speaker 00 A friend, Dr. Romany, who's an expert on narcissism, she says, the moment someone says, what is it about this person? What do you love about them? The moment you find yourself saying, I don't know, there's just something about them, you're in trouble.
33:24 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
33:25 Speaker 00 Because it shouldn't be hard to talk about the incredible qualities.
33:32 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
33:32 Speaker 00 And the incredible character of the person that you've decided
33:35 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
33:35 Speaker 00 to spend your life with. Someone who has the raw materials for a great relationship with you, and vice versa, I see it like it's a plot of land.
33:46 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
33:48 Speaker 00 And we often make the mistake of really overvaluing the land, and
33:56 Speaker 00 A relationship isn't a plot of land. It's like the, it's the castle the two of you build on that land. And it's all of the ways that the stone gets weathered over time.
34:07 Simon Sinek? It's not the house, it's the home.
34:08 Speaker 00 Yes, what you invest in it is the fact that the two of you have this incredible thing you've built together that becomes, it actually does become one of a kind. Because the two of you, only this combination of these two people could have made this.
34:23 Simon Sinek? Made this. So here are some of the things that I'm getting, right? Gratitude in the relationship and looking for the things to be grateful for rather than the things that are missing. Teamwork, which I love, that we will build this, we can break this. We have the opportunity to, to make it whatever we want and build however we want to build it, which I think is magical. One of the things that I'm, that I need you to, to wax Phil's apple clan is confidence. Is it correct that we first have to find confidence and love for ourselves before we can find love for another? Or can the right partner help us find that thing that has been elusive even to ourselves?
35:00 Speaker 00 Both. I, I don't think you, you don't get to show up with zero ability to connect to yourself or to love yourself and to just give someone else the responsibility. But I'm not a big fan of like this thing that goes around where it's like, you have to have done the work on yourself before you ever meet someone else. You have to be happy first. I'm like, give me a break. How many?
35:27 Simon Sinek? It's an impossible standard.
35:28 Speaker 00 How many people do we know that are in happy relationships that absolutely were not enlightened people on the day they met their partner? Like, it's kind of an insult to people who are actually out there and single that we keep telling everyone, you just haven't done enough work. Like the rest, all the rest of the world who's married, Kate, who met Brad at university at 21.
35:50 Simon Sinek? Yeah, yeah.
35:51 Speaker 00 They'd figured it out, like, and they're still married and that's because you just, you're not enlightened enough yet. I have a real problem with that idea.
35:59 Simon Sinek? It's a tricky one because you could be insecure in a relationship and the relationship can be highly functional. Or can you not? I mean, we all have insecurities.
36:06 Speaker 00 Yeah, we all have insecurities. We can be insecure and the relationship can be functional. But it doesn't mean the relationship wouldn't be a lot stronger if we worked on those things.
36:18 Simon Sinek? Can I answer my own question? And then you can tell me if I'm right or wrong.
36:21 Speaker 00 Yeah. And then I want to tell you something about confidence, because this is like, you're on to a whole passion for me right now.
36:28 Simon Sinek? It's okay to be insecure in your own relationship. You're always going to have insecurities in your relationship. The thing that makes the relationship, one of the things that makes the relationship work, is that you're open and vulnerable with your partner about those insecurities. And if you attempt to hide those insecurities from your partner, that's when the problems will arise. But I think to have a successful partnership, to be able to sit in that very uncomfortable space, even with someone we love, and say, I need to tell you about me and what I'm insecure about and what I fear, even if it's completely nonsense, that's what, you know, most of them are irrational.
37:05 Speaker 00 And it's very freeing to be able to do that.
37:07 Simon Sinek? If you have a safe partner.
37:07 Speaker 00 If you have a safe partner. And if you learn your partner's not safe, that becomes a kind of filter for the right or the wrong relationship. My relationship now, I can be very, very honest about these things and I'm met with love. I've had relationships, I had one relationship where I said, something made me insecure that night. And the response I got was, I find that really unattractive.
37:32 Speaker 00 Simon, it destroyed me. It like really wrecked me.
37:37 Simon Sinek? Yeah, yeah, of course.
37:38 Speaker 00 For me at the time, I was like, I'm never, ever doing that again.
37:43 Simon Sinek? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
37:44 Speaker 00 That's the last time. Like, I could have cursed Brené Brown's name. I was like, Brené Brown's all about vulnerability. This doesn't work for us.
37:54 Speaker 00 You can't use this as a man when you're in a relationship. And of course you can, and she's right, but I was with the wrong person.
38:01 Simon Sinek? Of course.
38:01 Speaker 00 And that's not a lesson that you always learn at the time, because you turn it inwards. And you say, oh, I'm the problem, or I am gross. I am tragic.
38:10 Simon Sinek? I have to stop doing this or being this way.
38:12 Speaker 00 Like, what's wrong with me? This insecurity is really unattractive.
38:16 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
38:16 Speaker 00 But I, the thing, I think that's really important in relation to loving ourselves, because that's a very, very overused.
38:27 Speaker 00 Idea is the loving ourselves thing. It's a, it's become very trite. I was fixated on that for a very long time because I was not someone who was good at that. I never really connected with that idea. I got it. I'm like, I get it. Love yourself. Never any real emotional connection there for me. And I needed a more robust model for that. Otherwise, I was never going to be able to connect to it. And for me, loving myself, and this is what I tell people these days, is you can actually make it very, very simple.
39:07 Speaker 00 Which is firstly, if I like people, if I care about people, then I'm a citizen of the world. There's no reason why I should treat myself worse than I would treat anyone else. Forget treating yourself better for a moment. There's no reason why I should treat myself worse if I care about people. The reason we treat ourselves worse, by the way, is because we apply a romantic model to loving ourselves. We, in the romantic model, we fall in love with someone because there's a sense of mystery and excitement and space between us and all the things Esther Perel talks about. We want to close down that space and we want to grab on to someone and, you know, what we do romantically in love.
39:52 Speaker 00 And we don't need help with that. It just happens to us. When it comes to loving ourselves, that's not natural at all for most of us. And the reason is because the romantic model doesn't work. If familiarity breeds contempt, who would you have more contempt for than the person you've spent every minute with? For your entire life. Your entire life, right? You know every one of your flaws. You know the worst things you've ever done. You know all of your bad points on a level of detail, microscopic detail, that you'll never know about anyone else. So it's really easy to hate ourselves. And for anyone who's listening to this, I want to, if you really struggle to love yourself and you find it really easy to hate yourself, welcome to the club.
40:36 Speaker 00 That's like a, that to me, that's the normal state of affairs for someone that you've had to room with for your entire life. If we take away the romantic model and we look for a different model, I think there we find the basis for actually loving ourselves. Which, like I said, starts with, I'm one of those.
40:54 Speaker 00 Eight billion people in the world. So there's no reason to treat myself worse. Could there be a reason to treat myself better, though? And if so, what would it be? And the way I've come to look at that is that we are the only person who's been given the job by nature, by God, whatever you believe, we're the only person who's been assigned the job of taking care of the human that is us. No one else on earth has been given that as their primary job. There's one human that it's your job to take care of. And that's you. When we start to look at it through that lens, it changes things.
41:38 Speaker 00 It's a bit like the way a parent is with a child. If you ask a parent, why do you love your child? Most parents will not say because they got an A in English literature last week and they're really gorgeous and they dress well. And they'll say, what are you talking about? That's my son. That's my daughter. They're mine.
42:00 Simon Sinek? Do you know what's really funny is how honest people are with about their kids as well? Like, like, I mean, you hear parents talk about it. And especially somebody who doesn't have kids, it's really funny to hear, which is like you look at their friends and be like, oh, my God, that kid's a really good looking kid. My kid's kind of funny looking. It's like, you know, it's like, like, yeah, like people haven't romanticized that their kids are the most gorgeous kids. They haven't. They know that there are other kids who are more talented, smarter, more athletic, better looking.
42:26 Speaker 00 But the difference is this one's mine.
42:28 Simon Sinek? This one's mine.
42:29 Speaker 00 This one's mine.
42:30 Simon Sinek? And I think that if we can have the same this one's mine love for a kid where we can completely say, not the smartest kid, not athletic at all, by the way, my kid's got two left feet and two left hands, you know? And I love when parents talk with absolute love about the imperfections or the comparisons of their kid versus the other kids.
42:51 Speaker 00 Which is amazing if you think about like, if we could apply that to ourselves.
42:54 Simon Sinek? And yet I wish we could do that to ourselves.
42:56 Speaker 00 Oh, my God. And, and, and you can, because guess what? You never had a choice.
42:59 Simon Sinek? Right.
43:00 Speaker 00 You didn't get to go to the buffet of humans and choose one. You got given, this is your human. You've never got the chance to choose otherwise.
43:08 Simon Sinek? Just like no parent gets to, gets to design their kid.
43:10 Speaker 00 No.
43:10 Simon Sinek? You know, other than the partner that they choose, I guess, is some element.
43:13 Speaker 00 Which is where comparison becomes silly for all of us. Cause it's like, what do you, what do you, did I have a chance to be Simon? No, I only got the chance to be Matthew. So my job is not to worry about what Matthew doesn't have. My job is to give Matthew the best life I can possibly give Matthew because Matthew is my responsibility. And my job is to make Matthew as happy as I can make him. And if I was making Matthew as happy as I could make him, what would I do today? And if you ask people that question, if I was, if it was my job to take care of this human, to make them happy, to keep them out of harm's way, to keep them away from unnecessary suffering, to put them in the line of sight of people who actually want the best for them.
43:58 Speaker 00 What would I do for them today that is different from what I did yesterday? And the number of people that, having asked that question, would say, well, today I wouldn't text that person back is vast because yesterday, their primary directive was not to take care of their human. Yesterday, their primary directive was to try and get an instant feeling of gratification or satisfy ego or feel comfortable or feel in that moment like, oh, I'm just doing something that feels familiar or, but you don't necessarily do any of those things when you actually care about someone. The same way that a parent doesn't give their child everything their child wants
44:40 Speaker 00 because they actually are vested in their child's happiness, not in what's comfortable for the child every day or what the child thinks they want every day.
44:50 Simon Sinek? It's such a great metaphor, such a great little trick. This is your human, what would you do to look after it? Because it's very easy to be objective.
44:58 Speaker 00 Yes.
44:59 Simon Sinek? It's very hard to be objective about ourselves, but it's very easy to be objective about others. It's not, I have to take care of myself. It's I have to take care of, of that kid.
45:07 Speaker 00 I have to look after my human.
45:09 Simon Sinek? I have to take, look after my human, my Matthew, my Simon. It's, it's quite brilliant, actually.
45:15 Simon Sinek? What are you doing for the next nine hours? You want to keep talking because this is brilliant?
45:19 Speaker 00 I can't, yeah.
45:19 Simon Sinek? We can do a 12 part series. I'll tell you a really funny story and then we're done. I promise to anybody who's still clinging on. It's very often a woman will say to a man, what are you thinking? What's sitting there watching TV? Quiet moment. Woman will turn to man and say, what are you thinking? And the guy will say, nothing.
45:40 Simon Sinek? And we've all said it. And what we mean is nothing of consequence. But we say, nothing. And the number of people we accidentally make insecure. Because how can you be thinking? Nothing is it something I said, is something I did? Is this something with a relationship? And then this, and then you're sitting there just watching TV. And there's a whole. So I don't know what's going on next to me, but it'll come out in a day or two and it won't be pretty. Right? And so somebody gave me some advice a long time ago. Which is answer the question. Literally, like if they say, what are you thinking? Actually, the thing that you think is of no consequence. Actually say what you're thinking. Let them in on it.
46:26 Simon Sinek? And I remember I'm sitting next to my girlfriend. She goes, what are you thinking? And I told her exactly what I was thinking in that moment. And what I was thinking in that moment is, I wonder if the remote control will work if I point it backwards instead of forwards.
46:42 Simon Sinek? And she said, that's what you're thinking? And she went, never mind. And everything was fine.
46:49 Speaker 00 I have, it is so funny you say this.
46:51 Simon Sinek? I told her exactly what I was thinking.
46:52 Speaker 00 I do exactly this, exactly this. And it, it's the source of so many ridiculous moments. It reminds me of like Gareth in the original British office.
47:03 Simon Sinek? Yeah, yeah.
47:04 Speaker 00 Where he gets asked like what he's thinking. And he says, I was thinking, I was wondering if there'll ever be a boy born who can swim faster than a shark.
47:15 Speaker 00 That's what will happen if I point the remote
47:19 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
47:19 Speaker 00 in the wrong way. But you're right, because this is exactly...
47:23 Simon Sinek? Like, my mind wanders.
47:24 Speaker 00 Yeah.
47:25 Simon Sinek? And it thinks about ridiculous things. And I just say them now. If somebody asks me the question, "What are you thinking?", I will tell you exactly what I'm thinking in that moment. And you will be very disappointed.
47:34 Speaker 00 Yeah. But you won't be insecure.
47:36 Simon Sinek? But you won't be insecure, because unknown is worse than bad news.
47:40 Speaker 00 Yeah.
47:41 Simon Sinek? You know?
47:41 Speaker 00 Yeah.
47:41 Simon Sinek? So if I tell you something bad about the relationship, at least we can talk it through. But if I tell you nothing, I don't know where you're taking that narrative. On that note, Matthew, thank you so much. This has been an absolute joy, an absolute education. I wish you and your work to be nothing but out there and I hope you have great success helping people the way you want to help them.
48:02 Speaker 00 Thanks, Simon. Thank you for inspiring me over the years. And I sincerely hope we get to do it again.
48:07 Simon Sinek? I look forward to it.
48:15 Simon Sinek? If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simoncinek.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by Lindsay Garbenius, David Ja, and Devin Johnson. Our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Rudeuschen.
Previous Dr. Mark Hyman: To Live Longer You Need... Next The Secret to Happiness with Harvard professor Robert Waldinger Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated