I have seen too many of my friends literally waste a decade with somebody. And this doesn't have to look like one night stands and dating. This could be somebody that you're living with that doesn't want to get married. That's right. Or who you keep thinking is going to change your mind on having children with you, and you won't have the conversation. The moving from level two to level three is really about the type of commitment you're looking for.

And level two doesn't just refer to someone who's keeping in limbo in month three, where they don't want a relationship, and you do, it's anyone who can't give you the level of commitment that you're looking for. There are couples that have been together for three years, and one of them deeply wants marriage, deeply wants to have a family, and the other one just cannot make up their mind or says, I really don't want this. That represents a level of commitment you know you need in order to be happy that someone else isn't giving you.

Whoa. That's A really important point because we've been focusing on dating, but you're basically saying that you could be trapped in level two for years because you are in a relationship justifying staying because of the attraction or whatever else, but you don't have the commitment that you deeply in your heart want. Yeah. Holy cow. Let's keep digging into level two.

Yes. And the hardest conversation that you have to have is the one you have with yourself, where you come to terms with the fact that this conversation that you have out loud with them might be the one that ends the relationship. And so we're afraid to have a conversation with them because we haven't had a conversation with ourselves first about what we're prepared to make peace with, about what is most important to us. In our love lives, and this is a model you can use for any part of your life, but in our love lives, in order to change, in order to get a different result, we have to rewire our brain. I put an entire chapter in this new book called How to Rewire Your Brain. Now, how do you do that? When you've been doing things for a certain way for so long, how do you get to the point where you're actually prepared to do something different? The first thing you have to do is you have to make change absolutely necessary for yourself. Now, one of the things I do is get people to the conversations with themselves that they've been putting off year after year after year.

That conversation might be with a 35-year-old or a 37-year-old who finally has the conversation with themselves about How important it is to them to have children. Because it all starts with getting really, really, really honest about that.

How do you make somebody who's in their 30s or even late 20s who is starting to panic about this? How do you coach somebody to have that conversation with themselves? Because we will come in and rationalize. Oh, they might change. Oh, I have time. Oh, I could just do this. Oh, I could just do that. And there is a biological reality. If you are somebody who's one of your biggest life goals is to have a family of your own. And after coaching people for 17 years, you've seen this window close on people.

I've seen it close. I've seen the So protracted grief that takes place for many years afterwards that many of them still haven't been able to process. I've watched the pain. I've had a front row seat to the most terrible pain that people go through. I had a woman at my retreat who just balled up on the floor and was inconsolable because she had spent 10 years married to a man who always said that he would He wasn't sure about having children. And year after year after year, she delayed the conversation, not only with him, but with herself, and missed her window biologically. And then he ended up leaving the relationship anyway. And the grief that she felt was profound. The conversation starts by truly assessing, how How important is this to me? What is it about this that makes it something that I feel is a non-negotiable for me? At least a non-negotiable that I'm going to try for, because even for those for whom it's a non-negotiable, we all know not everyone has it as simple as they think it's going to, and a lot of people find it's impossible.

Well, and I also want to broaden this out because what you're actually talking about is the level of honesty you have to have with yourself to go from level two to level three. If it's not happening, whether that's dating to moving in, or it is living together to engage, or engage to married, or whatever, or trying harder in a relationship, that there is this movement that has to be intentional to get you to the commitment phase. I can see how if you don't even know what the hell you want and you're not being honest with yourself, you wouldn't be able to have the conversation in a casual sex situation of saying, Hey, I just know myself, and I don't want to put my energy into something that isn't actually heading somewhere. And so I just need to check in with you because I'm having a lot of fun, but I know myself, and I prioritize my well-being and my time, and I just need to do the gut check now.

Even to have the conversation lightly and playfully, you need to have a very strong sense of what matters to you, of the path that you're on in life. You have to. Otherwise, you'll never back it up. Anything you do will be a tactic. It won't be a standard.

I think the mistake that a lot of us make is that we look at a person across from us and we think, even if this isn't up to my standards, I can fix this person. I can twist this person. We're not thinking this consciously, but if I can get close enough, I can change this. And that is a tactic that will backfire on you.

Yes.

You've seen it happen over and over again.

The idea that if I get close enough and try hard enough, that they're going to change is a non-sequitur.

What does that mean? That's a big word.

It's a really dangerous assumption to make. I call it the one-day wager. I stake my life, my energy, my time, my most precious resources in the world, the ones I can't get back on the idea that this person is one day going to suddenly change into all of the things I need them to become for me to be happy. The irony is people can change, but they change through hard conversations. And you also find out they can't change through hard conversations because you'll learn, even if they say they're going to do something, you'll learn whether there's progress or not. And if there's no progress, there's your answer. It is a great Jacob M. Broad quote that goes, Consider how hard it is to change yourself, and you'll understand how foolish it is to think you can change someone else.

I wish I said that because that's a good one.

It's just the- It's so true. I want to eat well right now, Mel. Okay. I'm not eating well.

Why not?

Because we're on the road and there's so much good food in every city. And we have been I'm doing a lot of broadcasting, and I haven't been getting to the gym, and I'm not making excuses, but I am as well. And it's just really, really, really been hard. And when I don't train, I eat badly. And when I eat badly, I then don't feel good. But then I'm in a cycle, and that's the cycle I'm in and have been in for the last week. My relationship with food has been a really challenging one. I've been very... Like, food has been an addiction for me since as long as I can remember. And it has been an extraordinarily Very difficult thing to fix. Very, very, very, very difficult. And I'm still working on it. It's an ongoing thing. And I want to change that. I'm motivated to change that. And anyone who goes to therapy knows this. If you decided to go to therapy, that's an amazing step. Now all of the work is ahead of you because you're going to see things you might want to change, and it's going to be really, really difficult to move the needle on those things.

If it was easy, you would have done it already. So now take someone who may not even accept that there's something that needs to be changed. Even if they think there's something that they could change to make the relationship better, They now have to be motivated to do it, and now they have to have the stomach and the resilience and the continued sustained effort to actually go ahead and make that change. That That is an extraordinary assumption to make of someone that we are with. Now, can someone change? Yes. Have you had the conversation with them? Is their progress? Is the progress continuing? You're probably not even close to that level of understanding because right now you're having the conversation about what's bothering you with your friends and not even with the person.

It's true. I'm in level two. I won't even have that conversation conversation about level three. So definitely, I'm not going to talk about the weight. I actually need to... I want to make sure that I get to level four. Because when you have the hard conversation, and is there a mistake that people make when it comes to Level three, meaning the commitment piece?

Thinking love is all you need. Love is not all you need.

What do you need?

You need level four. What's level four? Compatibility.

What is compatibility in your work?

Do we work together?

How do you know? Because a lot of people don't know. They want it to work together. But how do you know if it works together?

Well, I think the baseline is, can we get our fundamental needs What's my needs met in this relationship? There are, I think, lots of luxury items in a relationship, but at the core, can I get my fundamental needs met? You have to ask yourself, what those things are. What are the things I truly need? A friend of mine always dated dancers, and I said to him, You're married now. I said, You always dated dancers. Does your wife dance? He said, Least coordinated person I've ever met. I was like, So does it bother you? Because that was always your preference. He said, Matt, how much of my life do you think I spend dancing? I maybe dance once or twice a year. He said, It literally has no bearing on the quality of my marriage. This person is an amazing partner, an amazing mother. We have the best time together. She's my best friend. Those are the things that affect my life every day.

I'm so glad that we're talking about compatibility, because I believe that this is one of those topics that you don't understand compatibility until you meet somebody that you're actually compatible with, and you go, Oh, wait a minute. This is so much easier. And when I reflect back on prior relationships where I realized now I just wasn't compatible. There may have been a commitment there. We were in level three, but the level four piece, there was no compatibility, even though we wanted to be compatible. And here's how I know. There was always so much friction. Like, everything felt like an effort. There was underlying agitation, whether we're trying to pick a restaurant or making plans on what to do on a Saturday or like those relationships that you find yourself in where everything that the person does irritates you. That's a sign that you're not compatible. When you're compatible with somebody, it's not that hard. Sure, you fight. Sure, there are things that bother you, but it passes so quickly because there's this energetic match. I'm the person that has massive ADHD, and I'm very competitive and hard driving. The reason why I'm so compatible with my husband is probably because he is a very easygoing, very kind person.

If I were with somebody that were more hard driving like me, we'd probably kill each other because there'd be a ton of friction around the energy with us. And so compatibility for me, Matt, really is when it just works. It's easier to tell when you're not compatible because it's hard, and you're always upset with somebody, or walking on eggshells, or you don't think like you can be yourself. I guess the bottom line is that. I knew when I met Chris, he was the one because I realized, oh my God, I can be exactly who I am and exactly who I'm not. I don't have to pretend. I don't have to work hard to be somebody different to make this work. That is what is at the heart of compatibility, that you can be you. And when you find that, you'll know it because it'll be easier than any other relationship you've had in the past because the energy matches.

Love is not all you need.

What do you need? I think the mistake that a lot of us make is that we look at a person across from us and we think, even if this isn't up to my standards, I can fix this person, I can twist this person, and that is a tactic that will backfire on.