I'm so excited because this is a first on the School of Greatness.

Sadia, this is what he brought us here for. What do you think he set this up for?

All right, you guys ready? We have the inspiring Sadia Khan in the house. Who is an incredible-Psychologist and dating coach.one.

Of the best psychologists in the game, Sadia Khan.

And we have Matthew Hussie. Matthew Hussie is a New York Times best-selling author, speaker.

Dating and Relationships expert and Coach Matthew Hussie.

When someone is playing a game, either texting or on dates, what is that saying about them.

They're entering a relationship with a desire to preserve their ego rather than truly connect with that person. Wow, that's interesting.

I could not text you back for three days. And if you're the person who buys into the illusion that that must make me more valuable, then I can raise my value simply by ignoring you for three days.

So then it's self-preservation, but in the process, it's self-destruction. Wow.

Okay. For you, it's that men want connection, but women are so jaded at this point that they're not offering it. Yeah. I have to say that feels like the vast minority of women.

What you're really signaling is, I'm so desperate to be loved that I'll push it away and make you think that I don't want it.

I truly believe in my bones. The more in life you accept yourself and every part of yourself, you see more people as wonderful, not less.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about this special episode. We have two relationship experts and coaches in the house today. We have Sadia at Kahn, and we have Matthew Hussie. Sadia is a psychologist and a relationship coach that works with people all over the world with well over 100 million views on your videos. Matthew Hussie, over a half a billion views on his videos, New York Times bestselling author. And both of them, you both help people navigate relationships, relationship dynamics, social human dynamics, dating scene, people in relationships, going through breakups. So we're going to talk about a lot of these different things today. I'm so excited because this is a first on the School of Greatness. So thank you both for being here. I've known you both for a while. I know personal things about both of you, which I'm excited about. I'm not going to say the things, but I know personal things about both you. And I see the work you do professionally as well. I'm excited to see what unfolds here today. This first conversation is going to be talking about when you're single or dating. And there's a lot of talk about red flags.

You see this almost every title of every video right now, what are the Red Flags? What I want to ask you guys first is about the green flags. Why do people tend to sabotage when they actually have green flags in front of them? With a person they're dating, experiencing, getting to know? Why do some people tend to sabotage that when they actually have someone who's not toxic in front of them? I'll start with the ladies first. When you When you see that or when someone sees that, I don't know if you have girlfriends, they're like, Yeah, he was just a great guy, but I sabotaged it. Why does that happen for men or women? Is it because they're emotionally unavailable? Is it because they've never seen someone in a healthy relationship with themselves before? Why would you say?

I would say that their barrier to intimacy has become their self-esteem. Unfortunately for them, and it happens to a lot of people, they have developed a core belief about themselves, either through their childhood or through adult relationships, where they believe love should be a struggle, it should be difficult, and it shouldn't be smooth sailing. When it is smooth and somebody does show them love and compassion, because they don't have love and compassion for themselves, they start to question the judgment of the person who is showing them love, and they start to think there's something wrong in that person. The smoothness that they acquire in the relationship is something that they're just not used to. They have attributed love to being chaotic, difficult, turbulent. When it's not like that, they just think that they haven't got an attachment. They think, In order for me to be loved, I should be obsessing of them. I should be wondering what they're doing. I should be checking their social media. I should be anxious. When the anxiety is stripped of love, they think it's deprived of its fundamental ingredient when really it's being infused with peace, which they're just not used to.

Wow, that's interesting. I love that we started with this right now. I don't know if that's something that you would relate to or if you agree with or you think there's something else to add there.

No, I think it comes from different places. Familiarity is It drives us so often in life. Familiarity doesn't really care whether something is good or bad, just that it's known. I remember in my 20s, I never used to understand what people meant when they said fear of success because I was like, Why would anyone be afraid of success? Then I realized I probably was afraid of success. Any time things got too hot, any time I felt like everything was a runaway train, I would find myself getting nervous. Why was I getting nervous? Well, because it was just unknown. It was like I'd never gone that far before. I'd never been there. And unknown territory is just unknown territory. When things feel unfamiliar, we get afraid of them. They feel disconcerting, they can feel boring, strange. Our body has a way of searching for what is familiar. I also think it shouldn't be discounted that there are certain feelings that just feel good.

What are those feelings?

Well, it's like eating pizza. Like eating pizza does feel good.

Even though it's bad for you.

There's something that food that are bad for you or substances that are bad for you give you that is a feeling that is quite addictive and you want to chase it. And of course, a lot of us pay the price over time for chasing those things. And I think sometimes we have to acknowledge that there are certain kinds of people that feel good in the very beginning. There is a certain charm, there is a certain charisme that feels really good.

Yeah, inconsistency is addictive.

Inconsistency and even just a superficial charm can be exciting. Someone's at a dinner table and they tell you great stories and they captivate you. There is a like, you want to be amazing. You want to be around that person.

Speaking into that then, what would you say are the most addictive, I guess, emotions that are unhealthy that people get addicted to when they're dating and they're starting a relationship? What are those unhealthy addictions around emotions?

In my personal experience of working with clients that come to me, particularly men, when they come to me and they're in this addictive habit, they get addicted to shallow substances like appearance and sex. Usually when they find... Men. When they find themselves in emotionally abusive situations is because they've placed all of their satisfaction in her appearance and the sexual gratification they receive. It's almost like a shortcut to an ego boost, and they place that on a pedestal, and that becomes their conflict resolution is sex. It becomes their form of status is that she gives them that appearance when they walk around. They don't look for somebody on the same level of them in terms of appearance. They shoot above their shot. They go a bit higher than what they should be going for. And as a result, they become a slave and to her behavior simply because she possesses that sexual quality that they've been craving for a really long time, particularly if they're a man who haven't had access to women throughout their childhood and throughout their life. And so when they do meet a beautiful girl, they allow her beauty to determine their attachment rather than her character.

And that becomes very addictive from a male gaze, in my experience. I don't know as two men, but does sex have that much of a power over them where they can blur their vision on all of the characteristics?

I hate to say this, but I'm of this in the past.

It happens?

Well, I mean, it's blinding for a period of time until it isn't. And when you think that the character is also there, then you're like, Wow, this is unbelievable. But then I personally, just experienced in my past, I was blinded by that, the beauty and the sexual attraction. Then when I realized that certain values weren't consistent with words, they weren't matching, over time, you get disinterested in the beauty. You're like, Okay, well, this is exhausting.

Does it take something to snap men out of that when they're in that intoxicated state? Pain, suffering, heartbreak, sadness, depression.

It's like a disease, whether it be an emotional disease or physical disease. For me, I think it was both. Where it's like I had to just feel like, Man, I don't feel myself. I feel like I'm giving up who I am to try to please someone else, and they're never happy. No matter what I do, how much I change, who I become, it's not enough. It was exhausting. I think that's when I realized, Oh, okay. I chose a certain relationship based out of a wound Everything you were saying was like speaking to my wounded child. It was like, Okay, yeah, no girls liked me when I was younger. I didn't have any attention. Did you suffer with that?

Because you're an athlete, no?

When I was in my teens, it changed. When I was younger, it was like you didn't get the attention. When When I was choosing based out of a wounded me, it was like, Oh, okay, here's this beautiful opportunity or this experience or whatever it might be. And that was captivating in some ways. That was pulling me in, drawing me in.

And it made you forgive other unacceptable behavior in the moment?

In the moment? Yeah. But then after a period of time, it was like, Okay, you wake up. I woke up. Yeah. And I think those lessons allowed me to have wisdom and being like, Okay, well, that's not really everything. Just beauty and sexual connection does not necessarily mean long-term happiness in a relationship. Maybe it is, but there has to be other values and things that match things like that.

It shouldn't be the primary filter, unfortunately.

You're saying that a lot of men that you're working with, that you see, get addicted to sexual connection or beauty first? And attractiveness. And attractiveness first, and how it makes them feel.

Yeah, they'll come to me believing it's some childhood trauma, and they'll think it's that. But really, it boils down to how much of a priority they've made sex and beauty. I know it's difficult in this day and age with the advent of pornography and social media where beauty is the main component of women that we're seeing, but it makes them stuck in a way that they can't explain to themselves. And only when I say, Is the sexual chemistry the best you've had? And they're like, Yes, it's the best I've ever had. The moment I When I hear that, I'm like, That's why it's become your glue.They're addicted to it then.They're.

Addicted to it.

And this is something that I think people should try. If they found themselves in addictive patterns in previous relationships, try being with someone and not having sex for a period of time. Wait as long as you can. I'm not saying wait forever, but wait a month, two, three months. For me, with Martha, we waited for a long time. It allowed me to say, Do I actually want to spend time with this person if we don't have sex? I would want everyone to ask themselves the question, If I did not have sex with the person I'm dating right now, would I want to be with them? Exactly. Or would it be too much stress and trouble?

Would I be addicted to them?

Yeah, exactly. I don't know. What do you see women in your perspective struggling with in terms of the emotional addictions in dating or in relationship patterns? What is that? Is it sex chemistry or are you seeing it's something else with the women you're working with?

I was going to say, I feel like you guys are giving women too much credit. You're letting them off a little lightly here.

It happens on... I don't get access as much to the female perspective, and it's the same you would imagine?

I'm not seeing a huge difference between men and women in this department at all. Oh, wow.

Interesting.

I think that women get attracted sexually. They get attracted to someone's looks, to the health feel. Is it more the sexual or the material or the status that women are attracted to?

Like, here's a A handsome man, a sexy man, or is it more, Oh, he's got status and money, and that makes him sexy?

I think the myth is that it's just all women go around looking for status and money, and when they When these status walk into a room, they're like, Yes, please. If that were true, then every- I agree with that.rich dude that walked into a room would be the hottest property around. We just know that's not true. A lot of guys who make a lot of money get to that point and realize, Oh, my God, I need help in meeting women. Really? Because I'm not good at it.

They struggle the most.

Yeah, because so many men spend their whole lives trying to achieve a certain level of status or money, thinking that at some point there's going to be a door they're going to open in the money world or the status world. When they walk through that door, all of a sudden, women are going to come flocking. It doesn't happen all the time. Then they find that they're the lonely guy at the party who no one's talking to. It turns out it still matters to be able to go and talk someone. It still matters to be able to carry yourself in a certain way where there's something about you or there's an ability in conversation. Or I keep losing out to the 25-year-old dude, a hot surfer who's broke, who walks into the room and is the one getting the attention. I think there is this myth among men that all our problems will be figured out if we could just make enough money and if we could just get enough status. I think there's this myth among women that Or about women that they're not interested. They're not driven in by charisma and looks and sexiness.

They don't care about those. Men are superficial. They care about those things. Women don't care about those things. Not my experience. My experience of women is that they're just as interested in all of those superficial things that can lure any of us away from deeper values or how someone treats us. It's not to say that there's not an appeal for some people to someone who's got their life under control. But no, I don't think we should let women off so lightly when it comes to being attracted to the superficial.

Interesting. Now, Sadia, you've said that you work mostly with men, or more men seem to watch your content, and you work one-on-one with more men. Matthew, you've leaned more towards working with women, your content towards women, although both of you guys work with any human being in all genders. But I'm curious, Matthew, with you, when a woman has gone through your workshop or maybe watched your content or been a part of your community for a while, and then they say, Okay, I'm ready to go out there and meet a guy. And there seems like a really healthy, good, kind, compassionate, value-driven, spiritual, healthy, conscious man in front of me, and for whatever reason, she's unable to be excited about that. What is that saying about that woman in your mind if she is unable to lean into the green flags of a healthy potential mate in front of her? Does she still need work to do? Is she just not emotionally available herself? What does she need to start the process of doing? So when she sees someone who's healthy, she can actually be attracted to them and work towards building a relationship.

I think it's usually a sign for anyone, men or women alike, that we're not truly truly putting our well-being first. We think the source of our worth is outside of us. We see someone who looks like the equivalent of a VIP nightclub or a VIP waitlist. There is an instinct. There is an instinct we all have. You walk past 10 restaurants and one of them is super busy and they say, We can see you in three hours. We're not available. There's an instinct that says, maybe this is the one I want to eat at. You might have passed 10 places already, but the one with the three-hour waitlist, there's something about that that makes us go, maybe we can hang around for three hours. Maybe it is that good. The problem is that in love and dating, the people who make it feel like there's a three-hour waitlist or a six a month waitlist or they have all the options in the world, they give the impression of being the best meal in town. Interesting. But it doesn't necessarily add up. There's a lot of ways to create that illusion. I could not text you back for three days.

If you're the person who buys into the illusion that if I'm inconsistent with my communication, that must make me more valuable, then I can raise my value, not by being any more in real terms, but simply by ignoring you for three days. It requires zero calories for me to make myself look more valuable in the eyes of someone who's chasing that value.

Or someone who might be wounded and needs that validation.

Or is coming from that place of their model for love is that it is inconsistent? Is that it has to be fought for tooth and nail? Is that scratch is all you can really expect? Also, So again, to talk about those feelings that we get in certain situations, if there's someone whose value we've started to raise in our minds because they've made themselves unavailable, which is a very common instinct. It's a very bad instinct, but it's a very common one that someone's less available, so I start to attribute more value to them. Or if we attribute more value to them when they become unavailable, that we now get anxious because we really want to secure them because they're valuable. And we sit there wondering, how do I secure them? How do I secure them? How do I secure them? Ruminating, obsessing. Even ruminating is a form of investment. Because if you're thinking about how to solve a problem nonstop, the problem feels like it's really important. You're investing in a person, even though you're not with them, you're investing in them in your mind. So at the moment, five days later, after all of that work you've been doing and all of that obsession and all of that fear and all of that anxiety, when you a message from them.

It can be next to nothing. It can be, what's up?

You've got all this adrenaline.

You've been trying to figure out how to solve this riddle of getting them back into your life and you get a two-word message. It feels like the most important thing in the world. Of course, when you get that rush of blood to the head, how can it not feel euphoric? How can it not give you an extraordinary feeling? When you get that extraordinary feeling and those chemicals are released, you go, Oh, my God, I feel so strongly for this person. But you don't feel strongly for this person. You feel strongly for the dynamic. There's a big difference between those two things. It's about, what am I chasing here? Am I chasing a feeling? Am I chasing an idea of value? And what is that value based on? Is it based on someone I think is just rare and difficult to get? Or is value based on how great of a person someone is in my life, how much they actually invest in me, what teammate they are, what energy they are? If we start valuing that more, which deep down derives from us valuing ourselves more, because if you don't value yourself and you just value a feeling, well, you may as well do a bunch of drugs all day.

Drugs might hurt me, but I'm valuing the feeling, not myself. If I value myself, then I think, what do I need to give myself in order feel better? That's a much more conscious and intentional path to take. It's harder, but it's somewhere that leads somewhere much happier. I've had situations, you can take it outside the realm of love life. I've had situations in business or work where, let's say someone asks me to do their TV show or their podcast, and let's say it's just something I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to go on this show. There is an instinct when you get that email that says, call them right now. Call them immediately. Tell them we're ready. Tell them we could do it this afternoon. We could do it now. If they want, I'll get ready. I'm halfway across the world, but I'll fly there tomorrow. There's that instinct. If that opportunity goes away because you didn't do it tomorrow, there's a feeling in us that beats ourselves up and says, See, I blew it, but it was never yours. It was a fly-by-night, drive-by, superficial opportunity. If it can't wait a day for you to email back and a couple of weeks for you to book it in, then you have to decide what your relationship is with opportunities in general.

Do I want to have that relationship with an opportunity where the moment an opportunity comes through the door, I am that opportunity's hostage? Is that the relationship I want to have with opportunity in my life, whether it's opportunity in business, whether it's opportunity in love? And we have to make that decision. I got to a point in my life, and it's not I never get activated in that way because something big can come through and I'll go, I'll feel myself going to that place. But these days, I'm like, What relationship do I want to have with opportunities in my life? Well, I'm never going to be the hostage to an opportunity. That's cool. If it comes through and it happens organically through just normal communication, a normal cadence in a consistent way, and it happens, then wonderful. If it doesn't, then frankly, I don't want to know. Yeah, interesting.

I wanted to ask a follow-up on emotional availability. It seems like women used to be more in society, emotionally available in, I guess, and wanting more relationship and emotionally available and needing more from a man. But I'm curious today from both of your perspectives, who are more emotionally available today? Is it men or women? What do you think?

I think it's tricky to answer because the men I work with, the majority of the time, they're actually looking for something stable, and they can't seem to access it with the women in this day and age. I don't know if what's happened is because hookup culture has made women immune to connection now, they're used to men just coming and leaving and not calling them and not labeling it, that they've always come in it, come into dating with that expectation. When women lose the driving force of the connection, men don't know how to lead emotional connection. As a result, we've got endless broken relationships occurring. I don't know if women are breaking their connection because they want to or because they've been conditioned to because of Tinder and Bumble, which has just created a bunch of people who haven't really got the skills to maintain long-lasting connections or all finding each other and then breaking up with each other, finding each other and breaking up with each other. I've had clients say to me, I met this beautiful girl, and when I met her and we hooked up, she was like, You can go now if you want.

I know you want to go home. And he said, No, I want to get to know you. But she was so used to men being in that state with her that they've taken relationships and seen them as vacations from their real world, and they all get back to their real world once the weekend is over. So I think it's more society has conditioned people to not look for a connection. And because men tend to place the acceleration of connection in the women's hands, and they're so used to it not being that direction, they've lost control of that, and it's now fizzling out for both genders.

Interesting. Do you feel like people actually want to be in a long-term relationship, a committed relationship, or do they want to just have the feeling of a relationship for a weekend and be able to have it with multiple people but never fully go deep with people?

It depends what she values in her life. In this day and age, you can be 22 up until 42. So you can still have vacations whenever you want. You can still live an Instagram lifestyle. You can still go out with your friends. There's no shame in being a woman who's a bit older, not married, no kids. You can still enjoy your life. So if that's something, if she values independence and she values freedom, then she's not going to be looking for connection. She's going to place connection beneath what she values in life. And that's men and women. I would say that applies to both. But if somebody values and recognizes that their root of happiness is their relationships. Their true happiness comes from when they don't need external stimulation, and they don't need vacations, and they don't need all of this, they actually want someone that they can stay home and get bored and do nothing with. If that's what they value in life, it will depend on what they value. And what they value will depend on what they've experienced the most around them. So if they've experienced people showing them an investment, they'll probably value connection more.

But if they've experienced being somebody short-term thrilling every weekend, They'll start to get immune to connection and invested in stimulation instead.

Interesting. What have you noticed or seen around?

I don't know. I find it hard to... For you, it's that men want connection, but women are so jaded at this point that they're not offering it.

Yeah. I feel like they now just go into it with a mentality that this man is probably going to be seeing other girls. He's He's probably going to be liking a bunch of pictures. He's probably going to be dating loads of girls on Tinder. I'm going to catch his dating profile, still be active. So instead of being the idiot in this situation, I'm going to take control and I'm going to replicate his behavior. And as a result, they're almost like, cheat first before being cheated on. That's become the mentality. I think social media has had an impact on that as well. But it's almost like women are like, I'm no longer being the girl that cries over a cheating boyfriend. I'd rather be the one that has a backup boyfriend than be on the receiving end of this humiliation.

I have to say that feels like the vast minority of women. Yeah.

Here's where I might be on this jaded end. Because I get the jaded men who have experienced those women, I probably lack access to the ones that are actually trying to just build a nice, healthy connection.

It also feels like an interesting place to pinpoint the issue because I would say that even if what you said is true for the majority of women, which I think is the majority of women are actually quite It's quite the opposite of that. I would still circle back to the issue as one of male emotional unavailability. Because what we're saying is that there's so many... I'm not even sure I subscribe to this, but in that theory, there's so many emotionally unavailable men that they've managed to make the entire population of women cynical to the point where they're now going, God, I'm I so don't believe in the idea of a relationship anymore that I'm just going to mirror that behavior. Do you think- The issue would still lie with men if that was the case.

I would argue it's more that the men that women want. I would say that the tiny minority of men that most women want are the ones that because of the alternatives and the options, they lack the investment. And as a result, the women's experience is all men are like this, but there's so many nice men, just like there's so many nice women. But people aren't giving those people as much as a chance. So it's almost like the popular kids in school are making the whole school look bad.

But aren't men doing the same thing? Absolutely.

I would agree 100 %.

Because if women are going for the top one % of men, men are going for the top one % of women. And both are going to have a harder time being emotionally available than other people, because that's just a natural... When you have choice and a lot of it, then you're naturally going to be more difficult, especially if you You have 90% of people chasing after you. That's going to be a harder place to be available. I just don't know. I don't know that I see a difference between the sexes when it comes to that.

The only thing I would say is even with men, not only are the top 1% going for the top 1% of women, even the lower end, the bottom 1%, are still going for the top 1% through OnlyFans and pornography. So this is soothing their emotional unavailability through pseudo relationships. So it's almost like the mid-range is there, but they're usually spoken for. So women in the dating pool are either experienced the top 1% who have loads of options or the real bottom that have very little options but are so not used to human connection, that they're a bit more addicted to pornography and video games.

The mid-range is more like they're already in committed relationships.

They're the hard ones to find. The ones with relationship skills. They're already in relationships.

They already got kids, they're married.

By that rationale, we're talking about 98% of men are emotionally available.

But you would say that's true.

Or they might be committed already.

I see good. If that's true, if what you said is true, I see nothing but good news there that the vast majority of men are great guys who are emotionally available.

But they may not be what women want. They may not have the skills, they may not have the communication abilities.

They might be lacking other things.

They may not have maybe the financial.

I think height is a huge one. I honestly like you-How big is height for women?

I would say- Really, though, are women that superficial to think that height is that important for them?

Depending on her height and her level of beauty, I I'll just say that sometimes I meet men who are 5'4, 5'3, and they'll say to me, I really, really want a beautiful girl. In my personal experience with beautiful women, what happens with them is they assume every man's super tall because that's all they've ever experienced. They don't know how to compromise on attractiveness because they never really needed to. So they see the world through the lens of, I didn't know, men come in a different size. So they can be very shallow with that. Interesting. But even, unfortunately, I think height is to women what facial beauty is to men. So it has that similar impact. It's not definite, but it has a similar impact.

I mean, you have a lot of women that come to your retreats. Do they say height is a factor for them? Or are all women there that are just like, I'll take a guy shorter than me and it's fine?

I tend to meet a lot of people who have reached a point in their lives where they're bringing a awareness to their love life, where they're saying, I want to meet someone I'm not 22 years old and showing up with this checklist of superficial things.

They're conscious about it. But now they're older, though, and they're like, I can't find a guy. I'm willing to spread my options wider now.

I would say that we all get to that point where we go, Are the things that I once chased, really, do they matter? Do they make any difference to my actual quality of life in a relationship? Height is an interesting thing. If you're a very tall woman, then it's natural, I think, for a lot of women to want someone who's of their height or not drastically different in that sense. But I think a lot of people just get to the point where they go, This isn't the defining factor anymore. In the same way that a lot of guys realize chasing the prettiest girl at school is… I have to grow out of that because there It doesn't make her the best partner. It doesn't make her a great person to spend time with. It doesn't, she might be, but it doesn't… It's not automatic. I think it's a common thing for everybody to start to let go of some of those superficial factors. But I do want to just touch again on talking about who's more emotionally unavailable because my experience of women is that they may There certainly are a group of people on both sides who think they are emotionally available, but are perhaps not.

What makes them that? If they think they are, but they're not?

What makes them unavailable?

What makes them emotionally unavailable?

I think it could be any number of things. I think for some people, they're terrified of just getting hurt. The idea of letting someone close enough to really hurt them is the scariest thing in the in the world.

They want love. They want to feel seen and acknowledged and connected, but they're afraid of it at the same time.

Well, they're afraid of the damage someone could do if they got in. For that person, what they need is a level of safety that is actually really hard for anyone to achieve. Because if I don't let you in, and I'm not going to let you in until you make me feel really safe, but you don't I haven't really let you in enough for you to even feel that connected to me. Or, by the way, something happens four weeks into knowing someone where they forget to text you back for a night, which is human and happens. But what was a mistake for you for me, is like an existential threat. Like, Oh, no. I've been getting attached to this person for the last four weeks. They now haven't texted me. They don't like me. What have I done here? And then I say, Well, you know what? Screw this person. I'm not going to text them back for the next three days. Now I'm going to give them that medicine back. And it's not that this person is a bad person. It's just that they're so afraid that it's like, I can't risk you doing the damage you can do that's been done to me in the past, whether as a child or whether in a formative relationship, I can't risk you getting that close again.

That's a desperate desire for love and connection, but it presents as emotional unavailability.

When someone is playing a game, either texting or on dates, and they're playing a game, what does that say about them if they're trying to play a game?

They're entering relationship with a desire to preserve their ego rather than truly connect with that person. It's more important that they appear desirable than then they create something that is desirable between the two of them. If it's a case of somebody hasn't texted me in a couple of days, I'm not going to text them in a couple of days, but I'm going to post a really pretty picture on online. Or if a man is like, Oh, she didn't answer me back or she didn't compliment me, no, I'm not going to give her any compliments. What you're really signaling is, I'm so desperate to be loved that I'll push it away and make you think that I don't want it just so then if you reject me first, I can feel like I saved my soul by not investing too much. So then it's self-preservation, but in the process, it's self-destruction, sadly. And I've been there. We've all been there. I think we've all been there. We don't want to look like the idiot. We don't want to look needy. But I always just say to people that if in the process of communicating your needs, you lose somebody or they think something less of you, you're just filtering out the wrong people anyway.

The right person will appreciate the communication. They'll reciprocate the communication, and you'll build something. The wrong person will be scared or run away or whatever it is, but you don't want the wrong person anyway. So it's a good filtering process. Effective communication is great for filtering out the wrong people.

It's so interesting because when I was starting to date Martha, my fiancée, just early the first date, I was just like, I'm going to share not all of me, but all of me up front. No games? Yeah, no games. Just like, this is who I am. This is my flaws. This is my mistakes. This is the things I'm working on. This is the things I'm good at, all these things. And I was completely unattached to the result. If she likes me, cool. If she doesn't like me, at least she knows who I am. And it was freeing. It felt freeing to be like, Okay, this is me. I'm not playing any games. I just It's like, If you like me, cool. If you don't like me, cool. That gave me freedom to be myself. I think it allowed me to see, does she really like me for all of me of what I'm able to show?

You weren't trying to impress her. You were trying to access a healthy relationship. Absolutely, yeah. That's what the goal should be.

It was almost like if she didn't want to hang out with me again, I wasn't going to be upset or hurt that she wasn't into me. I'd have been like, Okay, this just didn't work out.

I think that comes from you having done a lot of work on yourself to get to the point where you felt pretty accepting of yourself at that stage.

Yeah, I couldn't do that in my 20s.

No, because I think the gameplay originates from this feeling of I'm starting from behind. I'm starting from not being good enough. How can I manufacture a dynamic that is going to raise my value?

How can I show my best self?

Or how can I create a mirage of a self that doesn't exist? Interesting. What am I trying to do by not texting you back for in three days? I'm trying to create this idea of myself as this extremely busy, high demand person, as opposed to the person that I am. And by the way, if I was that really busy, high in demand person, I probably still wouldn't wait three days to take it. It's like, Hey, I'm running from meeting to meeting, but I wanted to say, Hi, and how's your day? Because even if you were that person and it wasn't where your value was, you didn't put your in being a busy and important person, then you still wouldn't be weaponising it. But the game playing is a way to manufacture or engineer a self that doesn't exist, a self that you think would be the most attractive you that you're not really. Whereas you came into your relationship with Martha going, I'm all right. I'm all right. Maybe I'm not perfect, but I'm all right. I Come to think of it, I quite like me. I don't mind myself. If I find someone who likes me for me, that is far preferable to finding someone who's into me because of this mirage I've created that I now have to sustain.

Here's a question for both of you. Both of you give advice to men and women on relationships, but I'm curious, what is the biggest challenge that you had overcome in your 20s in your own relationships One for each of you. That maybe as a pattern, looking back now, you could say, Oh, this is something I did in relationships or when I was single. Maybe I played a little bit of the games. Maybe I did this. Maybe I was emotionally available. But what was the thing that you think held both What have you back the most in your 20s from finding love?

I always had a lot of male friends, and it was a blessing and a curse because they were so open with me about everything. And men in their 20s, they're young and they're enjoying life, so they would have lots of girls on and stuff like that, and they would always tell me what they're doing. So they'll say, one of the tricks we do is we put her as my WhatsApp picture, but I might text other girls, but she feels calmer in that moment, or I text her on a night out, but I do what I want, but she feels calmer when I say that. So I'd know all the soothing techniques might have a malicious background to it. So I would go in, assuming men, their ways of soothing you and connecting with you has a malicious intent towards it.

They were still off dating other people or talking to other girls.

It was just to pacify you. It's not true. So maybe it speaks of the men I used to know and hang around with, but that would be their play. They would know this is how you work with them. So what would happen is I would always have this mentality as, You can't fool me. I'm Sadia. You can't fool me. I know everything. So the problem would be is I would go, I would meet people with the intention of showing them that I'm more intelligent than they think I am. So my process would be to prove how you can't trick me. So I'd look for clues, connect dots that aren't there, but it wouldn't be a genuine Why don't I just try and enjoy this connection and just see what's going on and just trust the intention? Instead, it's like, No, I know this means... And you're trying to prove to them how smart I am about human connection whilst not actually creating human connection. Interesting.

It's almost like you could have been with the nicest best guy who really loved you and wanted to show you the best of him, but you were like, There's something behind the scenes that you're doing.

I would try and check what online behavior they've got, what last seen on WhatsApp, and then connect some dots in my head and then assume the worst and then think, Oh, well, at least Just by assuming the worst, I can't get too attached. And then I'm so smart. But secretly, I'm craving the connection that I'm pushing away.

When did you realize that was a behavior or a pattern of yours that you were able to say, Okay, let me separate myself or start to heal or process from this and start shifting it?

I thought it would be a permanent condition. I thought that I've just been ingrained with it. But I do think having a secure partner, their level of transparency and their level of security in themselves, and that attitude that you demonstrate with Marsha was, Look, if you're going to play games, you're most welcome to leave. I'm not going to beg anybody. But if you want to have a good human connection, you are most welcome to take a seat on my table. Meeting somebody with that mentality made me realize I don't need to come into relationships with all this defense and armor in my back pocket. I can actually put the weapons down and actually enjoy the connection and trust the connection and also having a life I like living with or without the connection. When I felt like this was going to be my identity and being married to this person is going to be my identity, it would mean that I would almost become an investigator, and this relationship would be everything, and I need to figure out X, Y, Z. But when you have a life worth living outside of the relationship, it's like whatever's in darkness will come to light at some stage anyway.

And when it does come to light, I will still be fine. I'm still who I am. I've still got a life worth living. So it's a combination of finding a secure partner and having a life worth living outside of the relationship.

And if something happens where he's unfaithful or out of integrity, it will come out on its own. You don't have to be constantly investigating to try to say, I got you.

And the main thing is if they do come out with that mentality and they are cheating, whatever, they're not the person I fell in love with. I'm not missing out on anything. I know it would be painful, God forbid, if it did happen. I know it'd be painful. But part of me, the person I loved is no longer existing. So it's okay, what am I attaching to anymore? And we let go. But it's just going to redirect you. So before where I just think it's all encompassing and it would ruin my life, I'll still have a life It's worth living. And this person is not worthy of that life worth living if they show me to be that person. That's interesting.

Okay, before I follow up more on that, I want to ask Matthew, what was the biggest struggle that you had?

Did men do all of those tricks that I did? Or is that more of a girl thing? Do all of what tricks? Do men ever do checking online and when they're lost on WhatsApp?

I think it's more... I'll speak from my personal experience. I think it used to be anxious and be more jealous and be like, Oh, what's she doing? Why is she out with this girl, this guy? Be more anxious or jealous. But I wasn't like, You're doing something. I know it. I connected the dots and you're chewing on it.

It's no investigation.

It's just if it's there-Yeah, it's more insecure.

I think there are probably a decent number of men who will investigate when you write that behavior off.

For you, what was the thing that you struggled with in relationships or dating?

I think I had a habit of staying in in relationships that perhaps I didn't, I knew weren't right for me long term, but I stayed because I was insecure and I was afraid to be on my own and really struggled to... My worth was far too tied to whether I had someone in my life. I obviously hurt people that way because you stay in situations where you are inevitably going to end up hurting someone, but you don't feel brave enough to get out.

To end it, yeah.

Then, of course, when they do eventually end, you haven't fixed anything about yourself. Instead of going, now is probably the time that I should work on this instinct I have to immediately go out and find someone new, I immediately went out and tried to find someone new because I wasn't brave enough at point in my life to really confront the real work that I needed to do, to be okay in my own company, to really like myself.

Would you wait for her to break up with you or would you just end at some point?

No, I would typically get to a point of ending it.

But after far longer than you should have. Yeah.

Yeah, me too. Probably if I was being honest with myself, There would have been things that I maybe would have said in the first place. This just isn't... Not that... Wonderful people. I've been lucky to have relationships with truly remarkable, lovely people, but I wasn't right for them and they weren't right for me, but I was not brave enough to do anything about that. I think as well, even the part of me at that time that may be judged, Well, they're not right for me because of this and because of this and because of this. Even the things that I decided were not right for me were also signs that I hadn't really accepted myself because I truly believe in my bones, the more in life you accept yourself and every part of yourself, the more you start to see, you see more people as wonderful, not less. I don't subscribe to this idea that when you do work on yourself, your pull shrinks. A lot of people say that like, Oh, I've just done so much self-growth that it's hard to find anyone anymore because no one's done as much self-growth as me.

Or your circle gets so small and they brag about their lack of connection now that they've healed.

Yeah. I always found that to be really strange because for me, any work I've done to give myself more compassion and make more space for what I've seen previously as the hideous, detestable, contemplable parts of myself has always made me make more space for other people. Because I go, Oh, God, if I can accept these things about me, I better accept them about you, too. I think there was a time in my life where I couldn't make space for those parts of me, so I just denied them. But of course, when you then see them in other people, you go, Yuck, that's not. What's that? I don't want to That's not for me. But what you're really saying is this part of me isn't for me. I hadn't figured that out for myself yet. Even when I say that person wasn't right for me or whatever, even then there's a I'm not saying I would have been ready or that they, on a fundamental level, would have been the right person for me, but the reasons I might have been telling myself that they were wrong were often a judgment that came from me still Still judging myself in really nasty ways that I hadn't figured out yet.

It makes for a bad combination when you're judging people too harshly and deciding reasons not to be with them based on those judgments. At the same time, you're too afraid to be alone and do the work to accept yourself because that will have you just jumping from one relationship to another to another to another.

It's a bad cycle. I'm sorry to interrupt, but, Matthew, you were coaching in your 20s as well? At the same time, while dating?

I was making YouTube videos since 19.

Oh, wow. Okay. 19, 17 years. Did that aid your dating experience or just did you manage to compartmentalize the two?

No, I think it was probably negative, really. I mean, it's not a desirable place to be, is it? To be as a career, making videos every week, helping other people. But while you're already feeling shame for things you haven't figured out.

But you're teaching others.

And you don't you can be vulnerable about the things you're still working on. I don't think everyone who helps other people needs to have every single thing figured out. But if you haven't given yourself space to be honest about the things you haven't figured out, then you're in trouble because you're having to live this very private world of shame over here, trying to figure things out in private, which makes it hard because when you figure things out in private all the time, you don't get support. I think over time, One of my favorite things about my relationship with people in general, whether it's my audience or the audience watching this, is that very honest relationship of I can truly be myself. It doesn't take away from the things that I know, but it adds color and complexity, and it certainly takes me off of any pedestal, which these days I'm all too happy to be taken off of. It's one of the best things about it. But there was a time where the way I was in my public life mirrored the way I was in my private life, which was that if I were to share with people some of the issues that I struggle with, my audience, the people that know me, won't love me anymore, or they won't want to listen to me anymore, or they won't be connected to me anymore.

But that was the same struggle that I didn't know I was having at the time, but was in my private life, which is if I speak this insecurity to the person that I'm with, if I truly get vulnerable about that and I stop playing the hero in the relationship or in the dating process, then this person will very quickly go off me and they won't be able to hold space for Matthew, the complicated person who is sometimes heroic and also is sometimes pathetic. They won't be able to make space for those two things. They'll just see me as pathetic from now on.

When someone isn't willing to share their vulnerabilities or insecurities in a relationship and they only show their best self, can you have a truly healthy relationship, do you think?

I don't think you can have a very connected one. You can't ever really feel like anyone knows you.

That's the problem. In my experience, it leads to a double life. It leads to a person having one persona that they present to their loved ones and a completely double life. And the double life is not even their true self. The second person isn't their true self. It's actually a release from the first person that they're pretending to be, because when you're pretending to be somebody, it's very exhausting. So it's almost like wearing a mask the whole day. And a bit like when you're tired from work, you might do something extravagant just to relax. So what happens is because they're wearing a mask in their relationships, when they take the mask off, they still don't go down to their baseline true self. They actually go more to their vices because they need a release. So they go more down the double path where they might lead to affairs. It might lead to a completely different type of affairs with a completely different person that ignites a completely different feeling. They're almost just running away from their their true self. So nobody gets to access their true self, even themselves. And then they don't know who they really are, but they look for different people to escape who they are and just find different identities and different people.

So it really leads to a confused identity. It's very draining for people who can't be themselves with their partner. I'll see people who are super successful. Maybe they're a doctor or a surgeon, have a married life, kids, everything. But because maybe they can't be themselves with their partner, they find themselves either addicted to drugs or addicted to escorts and prostitutes and doing finding themselves in environments that are completely not where they want to be. But that double life has taken such a toll on them that they need an escapism.

I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at luishouse. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness. Com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.