Justin McLeod ON: How To Fall In Love During Quarantine & Finding “The One” Perfect Partner

Justin McLeod created the dating app, Hinge. The developer shares his intent was to take online dating past swipe right or swipe left to a deeper and more authentic level. Fast forward to quarantine, McLeod believes that authentic online connection is more vital than ever. Listen in to hear Jay Shetty and McLeod talk about navigating the world of online dating, what Justin is doing to stay healthy during this time, and how the app inspired his own love story. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 1:29Jay Shetty?

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• 2:16Jay Shetty?

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• 3:00Jay Shetty?

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• 3:09Speaker 01

  And I'm not saying that you should, you know, just like post, you know, a picture of yourself waking up first thing in the morning. I like, you, everyone wants to put their best foot forward and I'm certainly not against that, but I do think that there's an element of showing the cracks in your personality so that you feel more human and you actually have an in with someone, you actually have something to comment on. Because like, just posting six beautiful selfies, it's like not helping you.

• 3:38Jay Shetty?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you. Thank you for taking out time to listen, learn, and grow every single week. And I deeply appreciate the amount of incredible feedback we've been getting during this time because you know that I've been trying to interview guests and give you insights that are supporting you through this tough time, whatever challenges you're going through. And I really appreciate you leaving the reviews and letting me know which episodes are serving you best and helping you the most. Now, today's episode is really interesting because we've talked about the medical background of COVID-19 and the changes we can make in our life there. We've talked a lot about working from the home and becoming more productive from our

• 4:23Jay Shetty?

  homework offices or whatever setup that you've created. And we've talked about, and we've talked with a therapist about our mental and emotional challenges right now. And today I'm fascinated to actually bring in a new element that we haven't discussed in relation to COVID-19. And that's really understanding relationships, understanding dating, and understanding the space that we all need in our lives, which is the space of love. Now, today's guest knows a lot about that. His name is Justin McLeod. He's the founder and CEO at Hinge, the dating app designed to be deleted. He grew up in Lewisville, KY, and studied at Colgate University. After a few years in management consulting, he attended Harvard Business School and decided to follow his passion for connecting people.

• 5:08Jay Shetty?

  Justin founded Hinge in February 2011 with a mission to create real-life connections. As a romantic and the protagonist of a real-life love story, he was upset by the negative hookup culture dating apps had created. So in October 2016, he relaunched Hinge to create a culture of thoughtful dating. Justin's vision for a more thoughtful experience resonated with millennials and led to the company's user base growing 400% in the last year. Welcome to the episode, Justin. Justin, thanks for doing this.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 5:41Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's great to have you here. And I was just sharing with you before we started the podcast that I obviously never got to use online dating ever. The closest I got to was an app called Hi5, which was pre-Facebook. But a lot of my friends use Hinge. I've helped many friends build Hinge profiles and I've heard several good reviews about the app. So first of all, I'd like to congratulate you on that. And I've also had so many friends reaching out to me at this time, and audience members and our community, saying they need help with dating and connection at this time specifically, when they can't go out on a traditional date. They can't meet up with people, they can't go on those walks or dinners or whatever it may be. And so I think you're going to be super useful to our community and audience today.

• 6:26Jay Shetty?

  Where are you right now, by the way?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm in upstate New York in Hudson Valley.

• 6:32Jay Shetty?

  Okay, nice. And you were just telling me earlier, you've got a crying baby upstairs. You have, how many kids do you have?

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, just one. He's a little seven month old.

• 6:39Jay Shetty?

  Oh, no way. What's his name?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Uh, Oliver, Ali.

• 6:43Jay Shetty?

  That's awesome, man. Congratulations.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 6:46Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I like seeing the toys in the background and everything, so.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:51Jay Shetty?

  Uh, but yeah, today we want to dive into everything from entrepreneurship and your journey to your passion for connecting with people. And I'd love everyone who's listening today to get a bit of insight around dating at this time and maintaining relationships. I think there's a lot of people who not only are spending more time than ever together right now. There are also a lot of people who are spending more time apart than ever before as well. And I think not a lot of people are talking about that. There are a lot of people who are new relationships where they're socially distancing right now. So the first question I wanted to ask you was, I was listening to a podcast you did. And you said you used to believe in the idea of the one, but you currently do not.

• 7:33Jay Shetty?

  What's changed? I'm fascinated about that. And tell us about that thought process.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  I think I just learned through actually being in relationship that um that there's, I think there are many ones for us out there, but I think ultimately we create the one. You know, we, it takes work to create the one and to build that relationship. And that takes um work and vulnerability and all of those things that I think really build that relationship that we all long for. And that I think so many of us believe that because we watch maybe too many rom coms, that uh you just stumble into it. You just stumble into an amazing relationship. You know, like ninety-five percent of a great relationship is just finding the person.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  And then once you do like, but then you just, you know, then it's all good from there. And uh and dating has probably helped perpetuate that myth. And and I actually think it's more like uh it's twenty percent the person and eighty percent the skills and effort in relationship building abilities that you have that actually craft the relationship that you want, that people I think experience as the one.

• 8:46Jay Shetty?

  I think that's spot on advice, man. That resonates so deeply with me. And how long have you been with your wife for now?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Well, it's a long story, but uh so in this current iteration of our relationship, uh five years, a little over five years.

• 9:00Jay Shetty?

  Amazing, yeah.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  But we go back seventeen years.

• 9:03Jay Shetty?

  Oh, wow, that's incredible, yeah, and so I I I love that advice that you're sharing, because I think for so many people, you're spot on, it's like, I'm gonna find the one and then it's all gonna go, you know, uphill and everything's gonna be fine, and you're spot on, it's totally the other way around, and I think that's why we struggle to find the one in that mindset, because we're constantly looking for the perfect person, the perfect partner, who's got everything perfect, which obviously is impossible to find, and then we almost get surprised when we realize that they're not perfect. And then that work's really gonna happen, and that's what we miss out on, so.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Or or they reflect our imperfections back to us, and that's equally scary.

• 9:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly, or even that one, plus I found myself doing this a lot, I was reflecting my parents' relationship in my relationship. So it was like, not only was was, yeah, I reflecting my wife, so my wife reflecting me, but we us reflecting our parents, and that just confuses the whole thing. So I wanna hear, uh, what's your favorite dating story? Either yours, or or one that you've heard, or one of your favorite stories about dating?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Oh, we hear so many, and we we had people send us success stories, and we read them every week uh at our wrap. And just heard amazing, one that really uh stuck with me, actually, now that I'm thinking about it, was a um woman in the UK who had lost, I think, one or both of her legs um in an accident, and was really struggling to meet people, and would hide the fact that she um was uh had didn't have uh both of her legs, I think, on her dating profile, and they would meet people, and then it would be awkward, and so she really ended up like celebrating it on her dating profile, which is, I think, is such a big ethos of hinge, which is that.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Bring your full self out there and find someone who really wants the real you. Um, don't look for the validation of getting a lot of likes. Look for sharing who you really are and then focus on the people that are that are really great for you. And she found someone on on Hinge after she did that. And was this success story and it was published in a magazine. That was, I think, like a one that really stuck with me just because it it just told the story of vulnerability and helped show that. Um, it's just, it's what we live for at Hinge is is helping people find those kinds of stories.

• 11:33Jay Shetty?

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• 12:16Jay Shetty?

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• 13:00Jay Shetty?

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• 13:46Jay Shetty?

  You start thinking about the the infinite number of differences that humans have, whether it's physical, mental, emotional background. And it's so hard to be vulnerable in that way. How do you think that you've tried to engineer and create your app in such a way that allows people to naturally be their best, not their best self, but their real self and their vulnerable self and their genuine self, so that people can connect in a real way and save themselves that the games and the time and the energy and the effort that's often wasted in trying to present your best self?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, there's so many things. We say that hinges the app that's designed to be deleted because there's no simple gimmick about like, oh, we just do this one thing and then, you know, that makes our app different. Some of the key ways, one is that we have these things called prompts, which are these short questions designed to help people get into great conversations. And we've really engineered those over time and we've, you know, we started with just kind of our best guesses of what would work. And then we started to, over time, discover the science of the sweet spot between what people are willing to answer and then what actually leads to a great conversation. And there's definitely kind of this Efficiency frontier of vulnerability where like you want to find one that is people are both

• 15:04Speaker 01

  willing to answer, but also people uh you find that the ones that are the most vulnerable are the ones that uh where people aren't willing to answer them are the ones that actually lead to the best conversations if they are. So it's kind of pushing people's edge, reading out the ones that uh we know don't work like my go to karaoke song, which everyone loves to answer, but leads to zero interesting conversations and replacing them with things um like what I'm looking for in a plus one wedding date or some of the more popular ones that really get people to drop in and and and share what's important to them.

• 15:38Jay Shetty?

  And and tell us some more of those good examples like because I think you're so right that the biggest struggle people have right now, and I hear this from friends and and community people all the time, like everyone's saying to me like Jay like I'm on this dating app. I like this guy or this girl and I'm matched with them, but I don't know how to start a conversation. And and I don't know what to say first because I don't want to be the person saying, hey, how are you? Or hey, are you stuck indoors too? Like, you know, it's like

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 16:04Jay Shetty?

  And so so what so tell us about some of those other questions that you have as prompts that help people start those great conversations. And what is it about that question that you've understood through data and these stories to see that has the greatest impact on starting a really meaningful conversation, especially in isolation right now?

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so a lot of them have been in the past. Well, it would have been, now I think we have my ideal uh virtual first date, but my my ideal uh first date, which also just helps get the the momentum carried towards actually like meeting and or video chatting or whatever the case may be. Uh two truths and a lie, ones that are interactive really help as well, where you actually get that beginning of the conversation. We actually just released photo prompts as well to help guide people to choose photos that aren't just six selfies in a row, right? It's showing, you know, uh Uh, diff- asking people to show different aspects of them, like my happy place and things like that, which again, I think gets the conversation started and I, and the real magic,

• 17:05Speaker 01

  like there's no, there's no like perfect opening line. If there were a perfect opening line, then everyone would use it and would get tired, right? So that's, there's no perfect opening line, but I think what is the, the way to approach someone, especially on Hinge, because we don't have the swipe left and right kind of dynamic. You actually choose something on their profile, either a prompt they answered or a photo that they selected to engage with. So you comment on it. And so saying something specific that caught your eye about that photo or about that prompt, that is how you're going to get a unique conversation going. And it's just, I mean, it sounds kind of commonsensical, but it's just, it's how you would interact with someone if you, if you met them out and you'd comment on something in context or something about them, uh, to get the conversation going. And it's really no different on, and on Hinge.

• 17:50Jay Shetty?

  I really like the question actually that you mentioned of, you know, what would be your ideal first date? Because, you know, in psychology, that's forward pacing and, you know, like you said, it's putting people in the mindset of that they're already thinking in that direction. And so you're already creating it in your imagination and in your conversation, which means that it's more likely to happen in reality. And so I, I think that's a great question. And I think any questions like that, that spur action or connection or coming together are, are positive connections, especially right now when all you have is your imagination for a, for a first date as well. I don't know if you saw this video. I, I interviewed someone on my Instagram Live last week. His name's Jeremy Cohen. He made this video of falling in love during quarantine. So he saw a girl

• 18:33Jay Shetty?

  on a roof in New York City dancing and recording a TikTok video. So he put his number in a, and a note on a drone and flew his drone over to her rooftop. And it's triggered like the best love story ever. And like, every person in the world wants to marry Jeremy Cohen right now. Uh, but, but it's, it's, it's that innovation and that creativity and that openness to finding something, something new at this time. What, what kind of pressures are you seeing? Or I guess, how are you seeing people, two parts of this question. What are the first pressures that you're seeing on dating and people starting a relationship at this time? And second of all, how are you seeing usage on the app change and a dating change at this time, especially through the use of an app like yours?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it's definitely changing because right now people can't meet up in person. So I think it's causing people to change their mindsets of how they're using Hinge. So video first dates about as far as you can go. And I think that's actually really changing people's mindsets about the acceptability of video first dating. I think up until this point, people thought that was kind of weird or kind of awkward. But now, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. I think that people are kind of like more open to the idea of video dating. And and anecdotally, and many, many anecdotes I've heard at this point, people really almost unequivocally like the experience. It's almost never as awkward as they think it's going to be. It's great and they they're finding ways to do dates.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Like I heard one where they had a video first date and they they instructed each other on cooking their respective like favorite dishes. So I would like instruct you on how to cook my favorite dish and you'd instruct me how to cook your favorite dish and then you'd sit down and have them together. So people I think are getting really creative with how to continue to date during this epidemic. And it really seems like, I mean, the stories that I'm hearing, people are, thank God, taking it seriously, the social, you know, the social distancing and not actually meeting up and using video dates. So that behavior is definitely changing. People are using Hinge.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Like we're definitely seeing the the messaging is going up and people's willingness, like I said, to do video dates is going up. And so no, I mean, people are feeling obviously alone, especially single people are feeling like really alone right now. And so that's why I think they're reaching out to platforms like Hinge where they can really connect with people.

• 21:03Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I loved what you pointed out there because I think a lot of people forget or they they place themselves in fear that their first date or any date for that matter has to be like staring someone in the face and having a conversation about life. And and when you when you kind of think about like that, you're like, whoa, that's that's pretty tough. Like, when do you do that with anyone? You know, how often do you do that? Or how much would you do that with a complete stranger? And I love the example you gave there, because what we're really searching for is shared experiences. What we're really looking for is an opportunity to have an experience with someone else. So whether you're cooking each other, you're something, or you're doing a workout together, or you're playing a game together, like, I think that kind of stuff just drops the guard and helps everyone feel

• 21:45Jay Shetty?

  so much more comfortable and relaxed, because you're now seeing each other in a real environment. I know for me and my wife, when we first started dating, and we used to love going and doing activities and experiences together. So we would go and do this, you know, like outdoor assault courses, which are like eighty foot up feet up in the air. And it would be so great for us both to like, there were certain things that I'd find more scary and she'd find more scary, and we'd help each other through those. And you start to notice personality traits in a much more natural, organic way, rather than asking someone, hey, what do you like? Like, how do you describe?

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it feels like an interview process or something. Yeah.

• 22:19Jay Shetty?

  Exactly. We all know that interviews, you know, I I feel like dating and interviews don't work in that format, because you say what you think the other person wants to hear, or you're trying to make something up. Whereas, yeah, when I love the example you gave, like, if you're cooking each other's favorite meal, and you're guiding each other through, you kind of learn what that person's like in real life.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. Just like when you start working with someone, you actually find out very quickly whether they're the type of person that you wanted to hire. So I think it's, yeah, I think it's the absolutely the same.

• 22:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's that's really cool. I I love hearing that. I'm glad that more people are are using the app. And I'm more that glad that more people are trying to seek for a meaningful connection at this time as well. I guess, where where are you? How? Tell us about that inspiration behind the app that you had in terms of people seeking meaningful connection, and you thinking that apps were letting people down. Like, where did you? Because was it because you had this incredible love life that you were inspired by love? Or was it the opposite? Like, you were struggling with love? And and that's kind of what led you to this? What led you to this idea?

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Well, I think there are multiple layers of that. On the one hand, definitely, so when Kate and I, so five years ago, I I'd started Hinge back in two thousand and eleven, and I'd originally built it as just another, just like the other apps where it was kind of like swipe people left and right. And because it was predicated on this belief that you just had to find the right person. So if you just went through enough people, you'd eventually hit on the right person and you'd move on. And then actually being in a relationship with Kate, I realized that it's so like it's, that's when I sort of migrated from that belief that, you know, from about you just find the one to you make the one. And then I really wanted to to tear Hinge down and rebuild it to help people

• 24:04Speaker 01

  uh become a little bit more vulnerable and to slow down and to really uh help make their own one. So that was kind of the initial inspiration. And that's why I think the app really does feel more connected. And it's why it is the fastest growing, because I think people are really, really craving that. And that and then as that became our mission, I widened my lens and widened my scope as I looked around and saw so many apps. And now just like, forget dating apps, just so-called social media apps that are not designed to make us feel connected and have a sense of belonging and a sense of community. They're designed to essentially keep us glued at their apps, staring at more ads.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  And uh and I just think that there needs to be much more awareness around the phenomenon of digital addiction and digital wellness and appropriate boundaries for using of these services. Because I haven't heard, I haven't heard anyone say, you know, I've been isolated, but thank God I have Instagram. Like, no, no one is, that's not making feel people feel more connected. That's a, that's a service that feeds on our um vulnerability of needing to have validation. And it doesn't actually make us feel more connected. That I think other apps like simply Zoom and FaceTime are really incredible technologies that allow us to continue to have relationships.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  And so I think people are starting to really feel the difference between what it's like to have a interactive seeing and being seen moment with someone versus a validation, let me put up a filtered version of myself and get a lot of feedback on that. So that's that's kind of the the larger lens of designed to be deleted and thoughts about digital wellness.

• 25:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you you gave a really good example there where you, you know, earlier you were talking about how instead of someone just to put in the comments you're making about other social media platforms where we are just trying to get validation or trying to get likes or followers or get that kind of positive sentiment response to to feel better about ourselves. And you and you spoke about earlier about how with hinge you have, you know, you don't want people to just post six selfies. You want them to show different parts of themselves, whether it's the happy place, etc. What are the other ways in which you're encouraging people? Or how can people think about this? And what practical tips can you share with them so that they feel that they're able to improve their success on a dating app? Right? Like, what what what can people do? What are they getting wrong right now? Or when people have that

• 26:35Jay Shetty?

  kind of limiting belief of this isn't right for me? What have you done differently? Or what can you encourage them to do practically to to be more confident about that approach? Because it's natural for us to just want to post the pictures we think we look the best in. Right? That's the instinct that we've been conditioned for so many years.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And and I'm not saying that you should, you know, just like post, you know, a picture of yourself waking up first thing in the morning. I like you. Everyone wants to put their best foot forward and I'm certainly not against that. But I do think that there's an element of showing the cracks in your personality and in your so that you don't all so that people have a you feel more human and you actually have an in with someone. You actually have something to comment on. Because like just posting six beautiful selfies is like not helping you. Other ways that I think people can help themselves is exploring and following through on their matches. I think so many people at the moment of the first sign of friction

• 27:30Speaker 01

  within a conversation or whatever, they kind of just like move on to the like they go back and try to find more people and more people, more people. And I think that that just leads to this sense of burnout and the sense that these are this kind of internet people. But the idea of really following through with your matches, giving people a chance, letting, you know, I've heard of people who like they're like every single. Uh, conversation, I'm gonna let it get to like twenty messages before I make a decision, no matter what. And those kinds of of strategies really work because so many people that you maybe would have dropped off after three or four messages, you're like, yeah, whatever, I'll just move on to the next one. You have that discipline about moving on. That's why we have uh, in Hinge, something called Your Turn, which just reminds people that uh, the other person was the last person to send the message.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  And it sort of stays persistent to remind you to send back the message to give people like a lot of themselves to give themselves that shot. So that's another way that I think people can really slow down. Um, on Hinge, we limit the number of likes you can send per day. So you don't just get overwhelmed with like match after match after match. You're thoughtful about who you wanna see. Our algorithm is designed in a way that we really only show you people that you have a chance with. Uh, we don't try to show you just like lots of hot people that just get you excited and get you swiping more, but uh, so there's just, there's, like I said, designed to be deleted. There's a lot of ways that I think we design the app so that you will take these slower, more thoughtful approaches.

• 28:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, I I like those ways because I think, I think online dating does require some discipline. Like that commitment of going back and forth on messaging whenever I view someone in the process of of a conversation and I'm like, God, that guy's like messaging you like seven times. How have you not replied? You know, it's like, and and and I'm trying to figure out why people in my life, friends that I know are not replying, like what's blocking them? And half the time, it's like they don't feel they're interesting, or they don't think they're interesting over message, or they feel like they don't have anything interesting to connect with. But if you're prompting them with questions and prompting them with ideas of things they can do, I I think those are smart ways to get people encouraged because I think that's half the battle. Half the battle is people feeling like

• 29:38Jay Shetty?

  they feel they're not going to be as interactive on on message as they are in person. But right now, we're all being forced to, right now, we're being forced to be our most interesting selves through digital, uh, as opposed to having any other way to to pull that off.

• 29:56Speaker 02

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• 31:57Jay Shetty?

  How have you been finding that actually you're probably doing a lot of interviews right now, not in person and on Zoom and on FaceTime. I don't know how you manage your team every day. How are you finding communicating digitally is different personally than communicating physically when you're with someone?

• 32:16Speaker 01

  It's, I think one of the biggest things is you don't have the, we'll say like the dead time that you get when you're just hanging out with someone, you know? Like it's like if there's a pause or it's like the end of the conversation, there's just kind of like, okay, well, okay, it's the end of the conversation. You don't just kind of like hang out, right? It's like you would on a walk or if you're out at a, at a meal with someone. So certainly I think there's that, there's this kind of pressure to like keep the dialogue going. So that's tough. You just don't get the, you don't get the full person context. I think that that is, that's what I'm finding. Like certainly with running Hinge, we can still have video calls and have meetings and share documents and the collaboration tools are amazing.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  And I will say that overall productivity, we're not really missing much of a beat yet. But it does feel in a way as a CEO, like I'm flying a little bit blind. Like I really feed off the energy of the team and knowing, you know, who's feeling what and walking around the office and talking to people. And not being able to sort of do that is, is tough. But we're trying to find ways. We're doing lots of things at Hinge that, that we can adapt, like changing our Slack statuses, for example, to our emotional states versus our like, like whether we're vacationing or sick or work from home, right? Because that's not even, those don't even mean anything anymore.

• 33:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  So we changed them to like happy, lonely, stressed, so that we can actually, if I can't see you walking around the office, like pulling out your hair, I can at least see like a little emoji with the head exploding and I know to check in on someone because they're stressed. So there's things like that. There's, and finding ways to have the more social connection during the day. I think that's another really, really important thing. We actually just launched something called the Warm Up on Monday mornings, where at nine thirty, everyone checks in on Zoom, we do a A short meditation and then we, I don't know, maybe, maybe people don't know this, but Zoom has a thing called breakout rooms, which is really cool. You can have, if you have forty people in a Zoom

• 34:19Speaker 01

  call, you can break them out into like groups of two or three or four and then come back together as a group. And so we'll give them prompts about, you know, how are you really doing, uh, giving them a chance to talk about things that are just not their daily work. So they can really connect as humans with one another.

• 34:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, those are great tips. I know a lot of our audience is having a shift from work from home and many have their own businesses anyway, and many of them work inside huge organizations and, and many of them just, you know, flexible lives. And I think you're so right that the tools, tools are great, but it's good to have these habits kind of that you've set up, like your nine thirty AM calls or I, I love the one of having the emoji to represent how you're feeling that day because I, I think that's so true. Like when you're working in the same space as someone, you can see someone's mood on their face. So I think you're spot on about that. How's it been for you? Like you've obviously got a seven month old son who's, who's in this new world, you know, you and your partner, you're, you're living in the same home right now. How many of you are in the same home? Is it just three of you or is it more?

• 35:18Speaker 01

  There's more. Well, so we are, I'm, I'm, we're in upstate New York.

• 35:22Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  And, uh, we're, but usually we're not. So we live in Brooklyn. So we got a house in upstate. So that's, that's where we are right now. And we've got, um, yeah, it's Kate and Ollie and myself. Um, and we actually brought our, our, um, childcare person as well. Because it was just too hard to commute and to deal with the.

• 35:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. How are you, how are you finding it as a couple living at home with a young child? Like what are you doing? As a couple, what are you doing as a family to help kind of get through this time? Because I think a lot of parents are finding it difficult, obviously for obvious reasons at this time of being with their kids all day, obviously a lot older than, older than yours as well. But also couples are spending a lot more time together as well. So what, what have you kind of found in, in the real life home situation that's helped your relationship right now or that you're using as a, as a technique or skill?

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, building some normalcy and boundaries, I think, is really important for us. Like, knowing when to put work away and when work is on uh is really important. So we have a routine where we just get up in the morning. Uh, we do a yoga class together, we go for a walk with with Ollie. Uh, we're like down to the Hudson River and back every morning. So we have that like morning commute moment. And then we sort of cook breakfast, listen to the daily. That's all the news I want to know. And then and then and then we and then we go to work for the day. And then we close out at the end of the day and take another walk as sort of our evening commute. And then we actually just hang out with each other for the rest of the night. And um but listen, I've got it super easy.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  We're really, really lucky to have uh someone here with us who can help with Ollie. I I can tell you that my uh I work with a lot of people. Uh, my fellow leadership team who's who's still in the city and they don't uh with people commuting back and forth every day. And that is, that's a whole nother league of being able to do double parent duty with one or two kids alone while also trying to work. And it's really, really hard. And I don't, it's, I think people are just having to step back a little bit from their work duties, which is totally.

• 37:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Fine.

• 37:33Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. And I I I think you're, I think what you've shared is is true regardless of situation of just having some sort of rhythm and routine in the day. Of having a change of environment, whether that's visual, if you can go outdoors, or even if it's internal and just shifting up the environment in your home. It's it's so useful to just feel that movement, to feel that routine throughout the day, changing it up. Because otherwise, you you can feel that you're in the same room for the whole day. And and that, I feel, brings its own strain on the relationship. So one thing I've been recommending to a lot of people lately is if you're used to not working with your partner and not being in the same room all day. It's okay to have space during the day. It's okay to be in your own work zones or work corners or work desks, whatever it is that that works for you.

• 38:16Jay Shetty?

  It's, you don't have to sit on the same couch and do every.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  No, definitely not.

• 38:20Jay Shetty?

  Right. You have to, you have to have breakfast, lunch and dinner and watch a movie on that same couch every day together.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:27Jay Shetty?

  That's not healthy for for any relationship. And so don't feel pressured that now we have to spend all our time together. I think it's okay to recognize, like you said, you know, we have our commute, we have this feeling, we have this experience, some of it together, some of it not. I think I think that's really healthy to recognize. And and same with what you said, that. If work or something has to take a backseat while you're shifting and adjusting or whatever it is, because right now such a, you know, it's something that's affecting absolutely anyone and everyone, it's so important to make those adjustments and not judge yourself and kind of carry that guilt. I think a lot of people right now are feeling guilty for not being the perfect partner or the perfect parent right now.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  No, I don't think anyone can be the perfect anything right now. So I think a little self compassion is, yeah, that's right.

• 39:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you mentioned meditation there. Tell me about your journey with mindfulness and meditation. Is it a big part of your life? Is it something that, how long have you been interested in it? And yeah, I'd love to explore that.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Um, for uh fifteen years now, I guess. Uh, so it started for me when uh actually going through uh uh drug and alcohol rehab and twelve step programs. That was kind of my introduction to mindfulness and to a different way of looking at the world that eventually led to yoga and yoga teacher training and going off and doing ten day Vipassanas. And so I've I've been on that journey. I do find that just the consist, like ultimately what matters is the consistency of the practice, even if it's only five minutes in the morning, um, is really important. That's kind of, I, my, my journey's evolved

• 40:07Speaker 01

  a lot of over time. I think that like the meditation, like the daily practices and those things are great. I don't do them every single day. I wish that I did. Um, but also I've even found now where I am that uh I sometimes, if I'm really good about the practices, you know, my daily journaling and meditation and yoga every morning, those can also be, it also becomes like a distraction, like a checkbox thing. You know, it's just like, oh, I checked off the three things and it, then it becomes its own like goal oriented obsession about like doing it. And then I'm just, I'm taken out of myself just as much as I would be. So it's, it's, I do those practices, but really the practice is always being in

• 40:50Speaker 01

  the practice. The practice is, is, is taking a breath.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Throughout the day, noticing when I'm getting agitated or where I'm going into my head or I'm spinning out and uh and then like coming back down, being aware of my breath, being aware of how I'm reacting to Kate and and to Ollie and to all that stuff. And I'll tell you that like having a seven month old is like the ultimate meditation because you're you just it can be, right? You if you're if you really pay attention to this little person, they're telling you so much all the time and you're following their energy and they want to go over here so you follow them over there and and you can just kind of that that becomes a total like meditation dance practice in itself, basically.

• 41:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. No, I I couldn't agree with you more. It's it's it's hard when the one practice that's meant to be freeing becomes your prison. Like it becomes the thing that's like, you know, you you become imprisoned to almost of that habit and the routine and the timeliness and and it needs to be giving you that freedom and the spontaneity and the expression and the growth. And so, yeah.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, you start to get an ego about it and then you've got to you create all this rigidity about it and then it's and then it's and then you've totally lost the the purpose of it. And so like like wearing it like, you know, just being a little bit loose with it and I'll and giving myself an opportunity and following my energy in the morning and I don't want to do it every morning and sometimes I just want to like have a cup of coffee and, you know, do like dive right into work sometimes. But um so, yeah, it's finding that it's helpful to have the routines and to fall to them, but also not become uh religious about them, you know?

• 42:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you you said you've encouraged your team to do as well. So is this something that the company does every single day or multiple times per week? And and how's that really helped? How's that helped people in the company right now and and before as well?

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're finding our rhythm with how to do it right now. Well, like I said, we just instituted this Monday morning warm up where it's a meditation uh and then a sort of personal check in with each other. Uh, we're offering uh a digital yoga class to everyone tomorrow for the first time and we're going to see how the digital yoga class experience goes. And uh we're just experimenting, we're just seeing what what works. And what's interesting, I think, is that it'll be it's. You know, moments like this where everything changes and our context totally changes shakes up our thinking in a way that it'll be interesting to see what persists beyond uh even when we return back to our our working lives. I'm excited to see like the warm up, for example, that we do on in the morning. It sounds on Monday mornings.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  I think should just become a thing that we do. Like, why weren't we doing that before? And uh so I think and and it's definitely changed my relationship with my belief in work from home. Like I am realizing that and you don't want to be doing it five, you know, five days a week for for six months at a time. But but certainly like a couple of days a week, really, I think it makes sense for people. So it's just changing a lot about how we're thinking about business and I'm sure how a lot of people are thinking about business.

• 43:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, speaking about that, you know, I I want to ask you about this, like as an entrepreneur and founder of, you know, an app, you don't actually have social media or Slack or email on your phone, right?

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 44:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, how have you, how did you make that decision and be how have you stuck to stuck to that through the growth? Because I feel like that may have been an easier decision in the beginning or was it like, you know, it's, yeah, sometimes in the beginning it feels like, oh, yeah, we can do this. But then as you know, as your success has grown and I'm sure your life's like incredibly busy and you have a crazy schedule and how have you stuck to that decision and and how useful has it been and what benefits have you gained from it?

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Insanely useful. I, you know, um, I don't think it was an ever an easy time to do it. So I don't think there's ever an easy time to do it, but uh it it actually becomes. Now I don't even think about it. Like now it it's just the it's just my routine. It's how I do it and I don't even think about it. But I just find that if I have Slack and email on my phone, uh, I will get into checkbox, you know, reactive mode where it's just like, oh, respond to this incoming message. Respond to that email. I'm like, and then that's just like all I do with my free time and I don't step back and give myself room to

• 45:20Speaker 01

  think bigger about strategy or allow those moments of like thoughts to bubble up um about. Just ideas or things that I wanna do or longer term things. I just, I have no space for that kind of thinking because I'm just like, what email did someone send me? I've never really been a social media person that's just never called to me, but I certainly was like supremely addicted to Slack messages, right? Like, it's like, someone, someone sent me a Slack, is something going on? What do I need to catch up on? And I just so much rather do that in bulk, once or twice a day. I'm like, in my e- the email inbox, like, once or twice a day, if that, I'm like, I'm more blown, you know? And, but I just don't,

• 46:02Speaker 01

  yeah, it's just, it's, it allows me to be in like proactive mode. Waking up and journaling, instead of waking up and reading Slack and the news, is like, just completely changes the trajectory of my entire day. And it puts me into like focusing on the important things and not the urgent things.

• 46:19Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it sounds like a smart move. I, I literally didn't have a social media account until twenty fourteen. And, and then obviously my life is very different now because my, my work exists on, on every platform and, and that's my world, so. But, but I remember those days when, when I didn't have that. And so now, I've just trained myself to not wake up to my phone and not go to sleep to my phone. And that's been a really useful, healthy habit. I remember when I first tried to build that habit, I would lock my devices in my car outside, so that I could, I couldn't have them before I went to sleep. And when I got up in the morning and I, at that time, now I wake up naturally and let my body wake me up. But before I used to have, I ordered this Timex alarm clock from Amazon and it would wake me up.

• 47:04Jay Shetty?

  And it was just, you're so right. Like, the clarity I feel, even now, if I'm traveling and sometimes I have my phone there, the clarity you feel not waking up and being reactive, being shocked into being awake, getting news the moment you wake up, getting, you know, a thousand and twenty-three notifications the moment you wake up. It's just much to process. So I can totally see why, as a founder, it's a, it's a brilliant decision. And I'm glad that you're sharing that with the world because hopefully it will help more founders and, and more CEOs allow themselves to recognize that it's, it's not business critical to have it on their phone.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Um, which, no, it's really not. It's just, it just takes the, it takes the, a moment to align people around what are the sort of. Like service level agreements around different forms of communication, right? And people know that like email for me is a twenty four hour kind of experience. And Slack is like a, you know, it could be four to six hours. And if you really need me urgently, text me. And that's just the agreement that I have with the people that work with me. And, you know, I actually, I don't get that many texts. You know, like, you know, like, I guess I'm just not that important. But there's just not that many things that are like that urgent. I can't wait a few hours if someone needs me.

• 48:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 48:22Jay Shetty?

  You, you say one of the most important skills of an entrepreneur is resilience. And, and I feel like right now that's a skill that people really, really need. Because, you know, everyone's resilience is being tested. Tell, tell me about a time when, when you feel your resilience was massively tested and you started to realize its value. Because what I often find with resilience is that it gets stronger when it's tested. It gets, you know, it proves how we prove how powerful we are and how much pain we can deal with. And how much potential we have when we're put into tough situations. Because otherwise you don't know how. So tell, tell me about something that, that brought that to you and why you place resilience as the top quality of an entrepreneur or one of the most important ones.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  I mean, definitely managing the, the turnaround reboot in twenty sixteen was, was really, really, really tough. Because we, it started off with having to let go half the company, which was already like, you know, we weren't, we're in a great spot. And I, and we just couldn't restart the company with thirty people around the table. So letting go of half the company was very tough. And then not only that, but I, I went to the team and I'm like, I believe there is an answer here. I don't know what it looks like. We're gonna have to figure it out. And it took a while. And I will say that like, you know, when it came June, so like six, seven months in to this reboot. And we still didn't really have an answer of what this new dating app was gonna look like. Uh, it just like.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  The, you know, with the team starting to feel anxious, I saw like Moses leading people around the desert and everyone's like, where are we going? Like, what are we doing? Like, and that can be really, really hard and running up against, you know, the end of our funding and, and, you know, the existential threat hanging over your head, but like this whole thing could fall apart. And I'd spent the last, at that point, seven years or yeah, six, seven years uh working on this. And to watch it like, you know, very nearly all crumble was just incredible amount of stress. And uh, that is, I think, when those routines really do serve me, serve someone.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Um, it's, it just helps uh widen context. So that your, your ego doesn't become so identified with your, your project that it's all that exists. You know, like, cause then it's like, I like literally if this, you know, I mean, literally feeling suicidal at points just because my company was not going to work out. And the morning journaling, the morning yoga, reminding myself that I'm like a human with a body, a physical breathing thing that gets pleasure from just, you know, like breath and sensation and touch.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  And the journaling and just like getting all the thoughts out of my, on my brain and the meditation and just like taking a moment, like those kinds of things. Those are like become a, a literal lifesaver, I think, in, in those moments. And so I think having routines and rituals during, during moments of, of high stress are, and when the resilience is really called are like, that is the key.

• 51:36Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I think that's going to help a lot of people right now because I know a lot of people have let to, let go of half of their teams or, or many employees. And I know a lot of people who are in that position right now where they, you know, they, they feel that their business could completely not exist after this time or at least be very weak. And you know, it's it's not unnatural for people to get really negative thoughts during that time and and fall into depression and and challenging habits. And so, yeah, I think that's great advice and great insight around, you know, you're going to fall into a habit during this time. And it's it's your choice and your resilience that's going to push you towards a good set of habits and routines and practices, as opposed to a negative habit

• 52:20Jay Shetty?

  that's going to pull you down. Because you're going to fall into a habit. We always do, right? It's like when things are tough.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:25Jay Shetty?

  You are going to go to one or the other. And it's finding that fight and finding that resilience in yourself to push yourself towards the the positive habit that you know has long term benefits. And it's incredible. It's incredible. Sorry, Karen, go on. You're gonna say something. I don't wanna.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Well, I was just gonna say, you know, I left out the I think the best habit that I've learned the value of more recently. Ironic for someone who has a connection app, but reaching out to people. I mean, I think that I always and as a sort of founder and soul founder was like, if I'm feeling bad, like I will like go meditate and I will journal and I will do yoga. But, you know, reaching out to someone, I think is something that so few of us do as like a stress reliever. But that is like the number one thing and having someone that you can reach out to. And again, you don't have to look cool in front of, but that you can just be like, I'm going through this really hard thing and feeling awful. And I don't, I don't need a solution. I just need someone to listen.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  I have I have a men's group that I meet with every Monday night. And that's just like a, that's like a really great thing that I have in my life. Or just like really drop in and check in about how you're really doing. And that's, I think that is like one of the best routines that you can have during this time.

• 53:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. I'm really, I'm really glad that you highlighted that. It's so true. It's, you can become so stoic and and just, you know, believe that you can deal with all your own issues and no one else can see them. And, and especially right now, I think the need to reach out. And like you said, someone that you don't need to impress, or you don't need to behave a certain way with someone that you can just like strip yourself and be honest and genuine and let go. I think that's, yeah, that's, that's for real. That's definitely going to help so many people right now. And. Yeah, please, please take that advice. I think it's really, really easy to give that advice and it's hard to take it. And so, you know, I can hear when I'm here just to speak right now, it's like I can tell that there were times when you've avoided it. As you said yourself, but.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And that's when those, even if you're really bad at it, then then make it a day, then make it a daily habit until it becomes more natural. But I have a friend, Jared, who who sends a, every morning when he wakes up, he sends a message of gratitude to some random person in his network. And it just, it just starts a conversation for that day that he can check in with someone and just tells them what he appreciates about them. Which I just think is like such an amazing, amazing thing. And he's one of the happiest, most connected, most people, people I I know in my entire life. And it's probably because of that.

• 54:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I love that one. And who doesn't like being checked in with or who doesn't like receiving a message of gratitude? Especially when there's.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 55:03Jay Shetty?

  Attache. Ninety nine percent of the people that reach out to us and ninety nine percent of the people we reach out to is with a specific request, ask or agenda. And when someone requests or asks or proposes something with zero agenda, it's so fresh. It's like, wow, like, really? You just thought about it? That's it. You know, and that's like the best feeling when you know that that's, you know, when when it's like, oh, we should do this partnership together. Or we should do this deal together, or will you invest? Or all those conversations like that never feel, even if it works out successfully, that never feels me as meaningful as someone just messaging you, hey, I was thinking about you.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I appreciate this thing about you, you know, something that they love about you. So.

• 55:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, I love that. And that's, that's, that's really, really great advice. Tell us about, I want to go back to what you said at the beginning. Tell us about this seventeen and five year relationship journey with with your partner right now.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 55:57Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  That's a, that's a whole story. We met, we met in college. We met her first day of college, my first day of sophomore year. And I mean, this could be a very long story, but but I I had just gotten out of rehab. I was, I was a crazy person back then. And and we met and we were just like polar opposites. I was like this crazy party kid and she was this like never been kissed, like girl from Catholic school. And we, but we just had this spark and and we were kind of on and off through college because I was, again, this crazy party kid and wanted to. Have new experiences and I just like wasn't ready to just like be with someone. And so we ended up breaking up at the end of college.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  And eight years went by before I saw her again. And during that interim time, I started Hinge. Because four years in to that, I just thought, you know, I'm never gonna find someone as great as Kate. And I wanted like the one, right? I thought like she was the one and I let I screwed it up and I'm never gonna find the one. And so I started Hinge and four years later, um, on that old version of Hinge, uh, I still hadn't um, go one and uh, I was inspired by a writer from the New York Times who wrote a profile on me, who had a very parallel story to mine. And she ended up with her

• 57:23Speaker 01

  uh, person. She found him 20 years later and realized they should have been together. And she's like, you can't make the same mistake. Like, she's not married yet. And she was engaged to another guy living in Switzerland, uh, a couple of months before the wedding. And I flew over and asked her to call off the wedding and move back to America with me, which she did. So that was the, um, that's the very short version of of that story. And it got turned into like a modern love episode on on, um, it was a modern love column in the New York Times. And it got turned into an episode on the uh, on the uh, the Amazon series and Dev Patel plays me, which is like the most surreal.

• 58:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Experience. Yeah, yeah.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  It was weird thing, but it's great.

• 58:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's awesome, man. Yeah, no, it's it's I think everyone loves loves hearing about a love story and and it's it's great that we're trying to use technology to have more meaningful connection and and solve the the challenges that are there and really glad that you're you're trying to make that happen. You know, I think there are so many people out there who are deeply seeking love. What are you? What is your hope for people who approach an app like Hinge? Like, how should one approach it? Because I think that's, you know, in in at least in my world, and when I'm advising and guiding people, whether it's personally or online or through the podcast. I find like our approach to whatever it is that we want, whether it's love or success or whatever it may be, is so

• 58:52Jay Shetty?

  important, sometimes even more than the action we're about to take. It's the intention and the the approach that we have. What's the? I wouldn't say the right approach, because I think there are multiple, but what's your recommended or suggested approach that you're seeing people be more successful when it comes to online dating, when they approach the app in a particular way?

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a, there's a story that comes to mind when you say that, which I remember this study about these people, they were studying unlucky people versus lucky people. People would describe themselves as lucky and people would describe themselves as unlucky. And they did this study where they handed them a newspaper and they're supposed to count how many, do you know this, do you know what I'm talking about? Supposed to count how many photos are in the newspaper. And the unlucky people took on average, like fifteen seconds to count how many. And the lucky people averaged like three seconds. And why was that? It was because like on the second page, it said in really big print, like there are this many photos, you can stop reading now.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  And, you know, the people who are lucky are people who have that awareness, that spatial awareness of like, of, you know, they, they're not so narrowly focused on like, it has to be this way. Like, I have to find these photos and that's what I'm gonna do and like, that's my world. And I think so many of us approach dating like, I have to find this type of person and it has to be like this and it's gotta feel like this and, and I wanna meet them in this way and we're gonna, and it's like, and when you, when you put everything into like that narrower box, you're setting yourself up for failure. And I think when people approach it with a much more open mindset, with not clear definitions around what exactly they're looking for. Like, for example, there's, you know, there, this was in Christian Rutter's book, Dataclism,

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  but about data and online dating. But it talked about how people who set preferences, like set themselves up for failure, especially hard preferences around like whatever age or ethnicity or things like that. Because almost always people end up with someone outside of those preferences if they give themselves that shot. And so that, I think that's the biggest thing is, is not thinking you know what you want or what you need going into it and allowing yourself to be open and to be surprised. I think that's the number one thing that allows people to be to have a successful dating life, not only because I think it helps you find your person faster, but also because it allows you to treat every connection as a who knows what, you know, maybe a best friend,

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  maybe a business connection, who knows, like if it's like that idea that like either this person is like the person I'm gonna marry or garbage, you know, like that's like that that is like not uh like that's that's gonna lead to a really like lonely existence, but if it's just, hey, this person, who knows where it could go. Um, I think that that's that's another really reason that.

• 1:01:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I I I love that because I think you're so right. We we write our story before we fall in love, like you've already written your version and then you're now trying to find the version that matches that version and that's impossible because you made this up as opposed to letting letting yourself find someone and that creating its own story, whatever that looks like. And and yeah, I I can definitely see that there's so many parameters and barriers and boundaries around how to find the one or the right person. I'm glad we started with that. So Justin, this has been great, man. It's been great talking to you today and I'm I'm really glad that we got to speak so much about your story, your journey, your insights. I think some of your advice was really useful today, whether

• 1:02:24Jay Shetty?

  it's for people in relationships, working from home, entrepreneurs, and we end every episode with two little segments. One's called fill in the blanks. So we'll start with that. So I read a sentence and you fill in the blanks. So you fill in the last word. So here here's the first of the five. The most important decision we make is.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  The person that we choose to spend the rest of our lives with.

• 1:02:47Jay Shetty?

  I agree. Uh, if you want a thriving relationship, always.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Uh, show up with honesty.

• 1:02:57Jay Shetty?

  Only stay in a relationship with someone that.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Loves you for who you are.

• 1:03:05Jay Shetty?

  Lack of connect-

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  And not who you could be.

• 1:03:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, true. Don't date someone's potential, right? Lack of connection makes us?

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  Uh, crave validation.

• 1:03:20Jay Shetty?

  All great dates start with?

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Uh, a, uh, an opening line. I mean, it's just, it's that first, you know, every, every great journey starts with the first step. And I think that that's, that's true with dates as well.

• 1:03:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, awesome. So this is your final five. These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum. So they're not answers. So you can go to one sentence, but no one, no, no more than that. So, uh, what if you-

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  For one word, though? Am I fitting for one word or just one-

• 1:03:55Jay Shetty?

  If you can do one word, that's amazing. No one has ever done it. So if-

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  Oh, wow, okay.

• 1:04:00Jay Shetty?

  If you want to do it, you are, you are by all means welcome to, to do it. Uh, if you could create a law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  I mean, I could just say love, right? Uh-

• 1:04:19Jay Shetty?

  It has to be a law, though. It has to feel like-

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:23Jay Shetty?

  I'll give you a good, you know, all right, go ahead.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  No, no, no, go ahead. Give me an example, but I'm-

• 1:04:27Jay Shetty?

  I'm giving you an example. So I asked this, so the best, I don't know, that's too much pressure. I'm gonna let you say it.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  No, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Um, sorry, the law that everyone in the world would have to follow.

• 1:04:39Jay Shetty?

  That everyone in the world would have to follow, what would that law be? And as law language-like as possible in terms of, you know, it needs to sound like a law.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Um, no one's ever asked me that question before. I would say, for me it'd be, well, I got, okay, I can't give you a whole soliloquy. Uh-

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  When arguing with someone, you have to state their case first.

• 1:05:11Jay Shetty?

  Nice, that's good. Yeah, that's a great answer. That's a great answer. I love it. Awesome. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. That's a very unique. We've never had that answer before. So that's great. Okay, awesome. Second question. What have you been chasing in your life or had been chasing in your life that you no longer pursue?

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Other than validation.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  But that is the, I mean, that's the clearest answer that comes from me. Like the need for just more and more people to like, like me and tell me I'm okay versus just feeling the need to go along. Yeah.

• 1:05:45Jay Shetty?

  Great. Awesome. What do you feel is the biggest misconception about your app?

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  That we're just another, just another dating app. That we're just another thing because we approach it truly from a different perspective. Like, I just can't tell you how different it is to be, have your top metric be how many great dates are our users going on each week and do everything you can to increase that number versus growth, retention, engagement.

• 1:06:19Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I think the biggest question people always go like, oh, can you find real love on an app? Right? It's like, can you really find, I'm sure you've been asked all the time and you know, it's, that's kind of the big question. And it's like, I don't think there's anywhere where you can't find love. Like, to me, it's like, why not? Right? It's like, if you're asking the question why, it's like, why not? There's, there's so many random places that people connect and fall in love and find the person that they're with.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the answer is unequivocally yes. I mean, more people meet on apps than any other way now, today.

• 1:06:49Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  It's the most popular way to meet. And it's just, it's just the beginning of, it's the first 0.01% of your relationship, you know? Then the rest of the 99.99% is up to you.

• 1:07:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Two last questions. What is the one thing you believe 100% when it comes to dating that others disagree with you on?

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  That it's not the person, it's the skills. I mean, it's the it's the relationship skills that you have. I mean, that I think is the biggest probably uh iconic classic view that I hold on dating and relationships.

• 1:07:28Jay Shetty?

  Cool. And the fifth and final question, what was your biggest lesson learned from the last 12 months of your life?

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  Uh, the biggest lesson learned for me is really I've learned, also lesson, the skill that I've developed the most is how to be a coach uh to help other people get to the right answers versus try to get to the right answers myself. I think I'm, you know, I was much more of like a critic and a debater and a pusher versus a coach. And the value of coaching, which gets you to a better answer and makes people feel more inspired and happier. It doesn't drain their energy is just like, the value of that is infinite.

• 1:08:15Jay Shetty?

  That's awesome. Amazing, man. Thank you so much, Justin. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so glad that we could share parts of your story and insights with my audience today. And I hope that many of you will, if you're feeling like you need to connect and looking for a new way to connect, then definitely check out Hinge. It's um I've definitely got a lot of friends using it. I know a lot of staff using it, a lot of team members using it all across the world. So uh yeah, highly recommend it and check it out. And um yeah, hopefully it will help you find find love and find connection. And like Justin said, sometimes it's not love, but you find another form of connection or friendship or whatever it is. Didn't expect and that's always uh always something not to underestimate, you know, connections.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:08:57Jay Shetty?

  Thanks, Justin. Did I did I not ask you anything you really want to share or anything that's on your mind right now that you'd like to share with my audience?

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  Well, the last thing that's on my mind is just that, I mean, I know this is a specially difficult time after your layoff or have been laid off, but Hinge is hiring. So if you're in New York. Definitely check out our jobs page. We have about 15 open roles right now, so.

• 1:09:16Jay Shetty?

  Oh, amazing. Tell us some of the roles. Tell us some of the roles.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  The whole gamut from engineers to product designers and product people to content moderators. If you're just looking for a $20 an hour stay-at-home job. So there's, there's a lot.

• 1:09:31Jay Shetty?

  Amazing. Okay, that's great. Yeah, please, please, please go and check that out. Anyone looking for work. That's awesome. And thank you for sharing that with our audience. I really appreciate that.

• 1:09:57Speaker 03

  Mr. President, my company formed me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 1:10:08Speaker 04

  Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:10:14Speaker 05

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death. That's what.

• 1:10:18Speaker 04

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:10:21Speaker 05

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:10:23Speaker 04

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.