Matthew Hussey: The Secret To Building A Perfect Relationship | E142

Steven Bartlett 0:00 Could you do me a quick favor if you're listening to this? Please hit the follow or subscribe button. It helps more than you know, and we invite subscribers in every month to watch the show in person.

Matthew Hussey 0:07 Think of James Bond in real life, barely says anything, not a hint of humanity. This would be a terrible person to have a relationship with, and we've been taught that that's what women want.

Narrator 0:19 Number One YouTube channel in the world for dating... And New York Times best-selling author, Matthew Hussey!

Matthew Hussey 0:25 Let's begin. We have to dispense with this idea that the one exists. Someone becomes the one by what we build with them. Any commitment long-term requires true effort. I had an issue with my head and my ear. It created the darkest moments of my entire life. I'd always found whatever was going on in my life, I could fix it. I couldn't fix it.

Steven Bartlett 0:50 If I removed it, what would I remove from Matthew Hussey?

Matthew Hussey 0:54 Imagine that you're not being judged on anything but how great a chef you are. We spend so much of our lives mourning our ingredients. Don't aspire to have the best ingredients. Aspire to be the best chef.

Steven Bartlett 1:08 So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO, USA Edition. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (instrumental music) Matthew, before we started recording, we were having a conversation about how the thing that gets you your glory, in your own words, can often be your downfall. And it, it always tends to be the case that the start of everyone's journey, especially when I sit here with people that I consider to be anomalies, like you, there tends to be some kind of anomalous, um, situation, or trauma, or exacerbating factor that they can point to and say, "That was probably the, the poke from life, or the thing that happened in my early years that resulted in me becoming the man I am today." Have you been able to identify exactly what that is in your own life?

Matthew Hussey 2:01 I think so, to a large extent. I mean, we had a lot of financial insecurity growing up, and I never knew if everything was gonna be okay or not. For me, it was usually, it started out as a major bid for control. I wanted control over my situation, and, um, I, I remember, we were living in a, in a trailer at one point in my teenage years, and, you know, things were, you know, a certain way at home, and, you know, I, everyone loved each other, but it was, there was a lot of tension, as you can imagine. (laughs) And I, I remember going into school and saying, I'm, you know, "I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do that," and I would speak so forcefully and aggressively about where I was going, but it, and what was funny was, there was a, I remember a girl at school who had never noticed me before. Um, one of the popular girls, she said, "My mum wants me to marry you." And I said, I said, "Why?" She said, "'Cause she thinks you're gonna be rich." (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 3:14 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 3:14 Which sounds, for me, eh, even though it's a fairly shallow thing to say, there was something about that that was interesting to me at the time, because I thought, "Oh my God, I, w- I've never been further from that reality. But from the way I'm talking, someone really believes me."

Steven Bartlett 3:31 Mm.

Matthew Hussey 3:31 "Someone really believes that I'm gonna be something or I'm gonna go somewhere." But at the time, I, it, what it really was, was I was just afraid and didn't want to be at the mercy of, of life. Didn't want to be at the mercy of whatever I had in my head as the, the bad out there that could come and get you if you didn't get control. And I, and I think most of my early adult life was defined by an obsessive need for control.

Steven Bartlett 4:05 When people say that to me, I often presume that that meant something was out of control.

Matthew Hussey 4:11 Well, I think for me as a kid, it was, because I felt like there were problems, when we had financial difficulties, I felt like there were problems I couldn't solve. I wasn't, they were too big. I wasn't able to do anything about them. So as I, as soon as I got the chance to go out there and do something, that, that became a kind of obsession. And I think, by the way, combining that with an insecurity, that I was just desperate to feel special in some way, desperate to feel important in some way. So you know, I defined normal as bad, whatever normal is, and I always felt like I had to do something different. I had to do something that was, you know, when I was a, when I was a, I'd, my dad, when I was a kid, he owned a nightclub. And I was a DJ in that nightclub from 14 years old. Um, he was a DJ when he first bought that nightclub. Uh, he went in there, well, actually the nightclub needed a DJ and they didn't have one, so he started DJing. That was how he became a DJ. (laughs) And um, and then through my teenage years I did that, but, but I didn't just DJ for fun. I mean, I was like, you know, while all my friends were going to parties and doing that kind of thing, I was always the one DJing the party. I was always the one working. I was always the one, when everyone was going home at 2:00 AM, I was going home at 2:00 AM to unload the car-

Steven Bartlett 5:41 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 5:41 ... and all of the equipment, and you know, it, but in my head, I think it was still coming from that place of, it was, it was ambition, but it was ambition I think driven by a kind of insecurity. Control, and I just wanted to feel special.

Steven Bartlett 5:57 What was your relationship like with, with women in your early years? So like, when you're 16 odd years old and you start to get those first sort of...... real, we think they're real, but, uh, real heartbreaks, crushes, romances.

Matthew Hussey 6:11 I was shy. I was, I was qui- it's not that I wasn't ... I was a likable teenager. I was, I was good with people to the extent that I was, I was kind, I wanted to be liked, I wanted to be close to people. I kinda got on with everyone at school. Like, there was no one, there was no group that I belonged to necessarily. I could hang with the guys who played football, I could hang with the guys who, you know, played Dungeons & Dragons. There was no one-

Steven Bartlett 6:42 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 6:43 ... there was no one that I didn't like or get on with, but I, when, if it came to someone I thought was attractive, then it was, I couldn't, I, I could not be my fun self, my best self, my confident self. Then I would kind of freeze up. And that was sort of, in a, in a way, I was, how old was I? I was about 11 or 12 when I first picked up How to Win Friends & Influence People-

Steven Bartlett 7:12 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 7:12 ... off my dad's bookshelf. My dad was always into self-development. So I picked up that book, and I was, I was really immediately taken by this idea that you could be better with people, and that there were skills you could learn that weren't necessarily the things we were being taught in school, that, that really could magnify your impact or the opportunities that you were able to have access to. And as a teenager, one of the ways that that sort of manifests itself is, "Oh, I might be able to talk to a girl I like." So that was one of my early kind of self-development journeys for myself, was just trying to get the courage to be able to talk to someone that I liked. Because I realized early on, "Oh, the, the girl that I'm dating right now chose me. I'm dating her because she happened to be the one who asked me out or, at school, whose friend came and asked me out on her behalf."

Steven Bartlett 8:15 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 8:16 "And that's why I'm dating this person right now. It's not because I went to choose who I liked. It's because someone decided they like me, and I said, 'Well, I'm not gonna have the confidence to go and talk to someone I really like.'"

Steven Bartlett 8:30 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 8:30 "So I guess I'll say yes."

Steven Bartlett 8:32 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 8:32 And that was sort of, I would say that defined my early, m- sort of teenage years with girls.

Steven Bartlett 8:38 When you were in your late teenage years, what, what was your, "I wanna be this when I grow up"? What were you thinking that your career was going to be when you were, say, 18 years old or ... ?

Matthew Hussey 8:47 At one point, I thought, "I'm gonna do this DJing thing."

Steven Bartlett 8:50 Really?

Matthew Hussey 8:50 "This is gonna be my life." And my dream was kind of I loved self-development. I really loved- I, I was 14 when I got taken to a Tony Robbins seminar-

Steven Bartlett 9:03 Really?

Matthew Hussey 9:03 ... in England at the Excel Center, and-

Steven Bartlett 9:07 When- I was gonna say, when I think of the people in society generally that are seen as special and important and have the admiration of crowds, it's definitely the first two things that come to mind is, like, Tony Robbins and DJ. (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 9:20 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 9:21 Do you know what I mean?

Matthew Hussey 9:23 Well, I loved, I loved music. That was something that really is a- i- that's always been true in my life. I've always loved music. Even at my events today, music play a big part and plays a big part because I've just never lost that love. But I also just love ideas. There's nothing more fun to me than just discussing an idea.

Steven Bartlett 9:43 But did you love the in- the attention and the admiration?

Matthew Hussey 9:48 Yeah, probably.

Steven Bartlett 9:49 I know I did. I didn't think- yeah.

Matthew Hussey 9:50 I, I thi- I think I still, there's a part of me that, that can be hijacked by that.

Steven Bartlett 9:56 What are the symptoms of letting the ego drive for too long? (inhales)

Matthew Hussey 10:01 I think, firstly, living in a constant state of never enough, living in a state of fear that you'll never be enough, and feeling, uh, ultimately disconnected.

Steven Bartlett 10:18 From?

Matthew Hussey 10:21 From, from the results of things, from how good things are already, and, and when you, when you achieve that thing, there is a ultimately, uh, a scary moment awaits because it's not, it's not just a numbness. There is a, there is a feeling of total disconnection. And when that happens, panic sets in, and it's a terrible feeling. It's a terrible feeling because it, then you really freak out. 'Cause as long as you're telling yourself, "Yeah, life is really hard now, but when that happens, it won't be so hard," as long as you're telling yourself that, what you have to hold onto is hope. And the hope will drive you even if you're unhappy today.

Steven Bartlett 11:09 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 11:10 But when you arrive, and it doesn't work, then hope goes away.

Steven Bartlett 11:15 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 11:16 Matt Damon won the, the Oscar at 27 for Good Will Hunting, and Graham Norton, I always remember watching this interview where Graham Norton said to Matt Damon on his show, "You know, how does it feel? You- when you were 27, and you won an Oscar, something people work their whole lives to do, how did you feel?" He said, "I went home. My girlfriend went to bed or went to sleep." And Graham Norton joked, like, "So you didn't even get laid on Oscar night?" (laughs) He goes, "My girlfriend went to sleep, and I laid in bed, and I, I had this Oscar in my hand, and I just felt so sad because I imagined this, this version of me in kind of in a parallel universe that had worked his whole life to get this."And then realized 70 years later that this wasn't it, this wasn't the thing that worked. Um, and so I think that when- when that ego is driving, and that ego is never fed, it's always hungry, it's always wanting more, um, there is- there is the danger of just constant comparison, nothing ever being enough. And ultimately, any time you do get something you think might be enough, you feel completely and utterly disconnected from the result after the initial high of it, which is no different from a- a drug fix. Here's the hard part, 'cause we've heard this a thousand times. We all think that, "You know, I get it, I get it. When you get money, it's not gonna make you happy. When you get status, that's not gonna make you happy. When you become known, that's not gonna make you happy." We all- we all can regurgitate that, and then five minutes later, we're back to chasing it in our own lives.

Narrator 13:07 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 13:08 And- and what's curious to me is, how do you take something that is a bumper sticker phrase-

Narrator 13:18 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 13:18 ... and turn it into a kind of meaningful, practical way of living and reconnecting so that you don't fall prey to not taking that advice, that we all can say it 'cause it sounds good?

Narrator 13:33 How- how do we do that?

Matthew Hussey 13:34 (laughs) I-

Narrator 13:37 If you had to hazard a guess.

Matthew Hussey 13:39 I'm, I'll tell you, uh, well, I'll- I'll talk about what I do. I'm- I firstly am very aware of the simple things that make me happy. And I- I have them written down. Uh, I was saying to you before we started, I'm a big note-taker. I'm someone who... I believe, Winston Churchill said, "People occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and carry on as if nothing happened." Well, I would say the reason I write so much when I feel something, if I feel something good, if I feel an emotion that I like, whether it's peace or happiness or I feel connected or I feel love for something or someone, I don't anymore just pick myself up and keep going when I stumble over an emotion like that. I- I pause life. And I go, "Okay, hold on. What's happening right now?"

Narrator 14:47 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 14:47 "Why am I feeling this?" I can just kind of treat emotions as an accident, or I can try to bottle them and figure out, "What's my formula for getting to this feeling of peace? I feel peaceful right now. I don't feel peaceful a lot."

Narrator 15:05 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 15:06 "This isn't an..." Like, my tendency is towards anxiety. I don't feel peace a lot. So when I feel peace, I wanna know how I got here. How did I stumble into this wonderful room? And I look at it, I go, "What's going on around me? What was I just thinking about that led to this thought, that led to the thought that... What- what was the chain of thoughts that got me here? Who am I with right now? What did I just do?" Because what I want is a formula for getting back there again an hour from now when life does its thing, 'cause it will. Five minutes later, life will do its thing. I'll read an email, or get a phone call, someone will say something that annoys me, and there it's- there, it's gone. I need a place where I can get back to that, and I need that formula. So I- I call these emotional buttons. I have a list of emotional buttons in my phone, on my computer, and I teach this on my retreat, but it started for m... I, this was selfishly just something I did for me, and to this day, is I'm always suspicious when someone teaches something but you never see them using that thing.

Narrator 16:21 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 16:22 You never see them doing that thing. I, because, not because that makes them a hypocrite, it just, I feel like how important can it be if you don't do it?

Narrator 16:30 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 16:31 I- i- this emotional buttons concept, I live this concept, because it, when I wake up in the morning, what I do is I immediately wake up and I look at these little formulas, and usually there's one thing that kind of triggers that formula. If I can... The reason I call them emotional buttons is because if there's- if there's one idea or thought or YouTube video or person even, a- an idea of a person, if there's one thing that can connect me to that formula, then I can get there instantly. So like, I don't know, um, Ju- Bo- Anthony Bourdain, who- who I really loved, he did jujitsu, and he was really, really into it. I do jujitsu. Most mornings when I wake up and do jujitsu, I don't wanna do it.

Narrator 17:27 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 17:28 I really don't. I'm so ha... Every time I come home from doing it, I'm like, "Oh, I'm so glad I went. That was so good. I'm so... Why don't I do this all the time?" I almost never feel like going, and therefore, I have emotional buttons that get me to- to want to go to jujitsu. I have these little triggers. One of them is a two-minute YouTube video where Anthony Bourdain is being asked about jujitsu.

Narrator 17:56 Ah, okay.

Matthew Hussey 17:57 And he speaks about it, and the way he speaks about it, and because I feel connected to him as an individual, it makes me go, "Oh, I wanna go."

Narrator 18:07 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 18:07 "I want to go." Or, there was a... Rich Roll had a phrase, "Mood follows action."And that one phrase became an emotional button for me.

Steven Bartlett 18:16 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 18:16 'Cause I went, "Oh, mood follows action. That's so great. I don't need- I don't even need to feel-

Steven Bartlett 18:21 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 18:21 ... like going before I go."

Steven Bartlett 18:22 Do you write your emotional buttons down somewhere?

Matthew Hussey 18:25 Yes, yes.

Steven Bartlett 18:25 I- in your notes or something?

Matthew Hussey 18:26 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 18:26 So you say, "Jujitsu, this is my emotional button."

Matthew Hussey 18:28 Exactly, exactly.

Steven Bartlett 18:29 Right, interesting.

Matthew Hussey 18:29 I- I- it gets that specific for me that they become a kind of manual for living for me. Now, the reason I say all of this, even though this might seem disconnected from the idea of, uh, of not allowing ego to rule and being connected to what's important, is, is that this whole concept, what it's really about is being connected in life. What I experienced a lot in my 20s, which was really scary at a certain point, was on paper, I'm doing everything that I thought I wanted to do. I... Uh, when I was a teenager, I was, I was reading self-development books and talking about them for fun. I'd grab uni mates and be like, "Let me tell you about this thing that I just read," and I'd have some very patient friends at uni who would be like, "Tell me more. That's really interesting." I would do that just for fun. At 27, I'm doing it for an audience of millions of people, with a best-selling book and TV shows and all these things. I'm doing this on the most incredible level, this thing that I would do for free for fun, and I can't feel it. Why can't I feel it? What's happening? And I had someone once say to me at the time, "You're disconnected." And at the time, I just couldn't- I couldn't even c- I didn't even know what that meant. I just said, "I don't f- I, I'm not, I don't," I feel somehow like I'm on the outside of my own life. And, and what I've come to truly believe in, at my core, is that so much of life is just about getting connected. When, when we, you know, whether it's Simon Sinek talking about the power of why, or anybody who's saying you need to find your motivation, or... It, it all ends up being about the same thing really, which is, are you connected? Do you feel connected to why this thing you're about to do, whether it's a conversation with a friend or a podcast or going to the gym, do you feel connected to why that's even important to you? Not important in the world and blah, blah, blah, everyone wants to change the world. It, the, the, why it's important to you. What makes it meaningful to you? That level of connection, a friend of mine, Aubrey Marcus, put it, uh, I don't know whether it was his or someone else's, but he put it as being on the inside of the moment. When there's a moment happening, do you feel like you're on the inside of the moment, or do you feel like you're on the outside looking in? And, and every day I wake up and the first thing on, on my, on my best days, there are days where life gets in the way and I rush straight into work, and I always pay the price for that. When I rush straight into work and emails and, and all of that, I pay the price for that. But more often than not, the way I start my morning is to wake up. I get out my emotional buttons, the things th- that remind me what's important to me and what makes me feel good and connect me to those things, and I read those and I write, sometimes I just write them out again. I don't get creative. I just, I just write them out again. And as I write them, I connect to them again. And I play beautiful music. I play music that makes me feel really connected. Usually not with words, just, just a track that's an instrumental. And that process immediately begins my day with a feeling of, of being on the inside of my life, instead of waking up and getting dragged through my day.

Steven Bartlett 22:32 When we think about the things that make people disconnected from their lives or causes them to live on the outside of the moment... 'Cause I was, as you were saying that, I was thinking about the listener, and I was thinking, there's gonna be so many people listening to this now that have, you know, veered off course of alignment. They've been dragged. They're, they're good... Uh, you know, there's something called the, I think it's called the e- excellence syndrome or something, or the curse of excellence...

Matthew Hussey 22:56 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 22:56 ... where you're so good at something that people start paying you more and more to do it.

Matthew Hussey 23:00 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 23:00 And you keep accepting the money. And what you're, what you're not ever asking yourself as you're being paid more and more to do this thing that you are good at or you were qualified in is, "Is it in alignment with myself?" You get 10 years down the line and people have these, like, mid-life crises or burnout because they're so far from themselves.

Matthew Hussey 23:16 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 23:16 But the temptation or the money or the, the applause was able to drag them away. Um, from your, from your personal experience, what was it that was dragging you out of alignment? We talked a little bit about e- ego there, but was there anything else that we haven't covered where you go, "That is the thing that keeps drifting me off course"? It's interesting 'cause I remember, uh, I was thinking as you were talking as well about the study about the impact money has on our motivation, and you can take a task as you- you know, you're, you're a kid and you liked doing personal development.

Matthew Hussey 23:43 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 23:43 You can take a task that someone once loved doing, and when they introduce financial remuneration in the studies, people's motivation to do that exact same thing drops.

Matthew Hussey 23:54 It's mad, isn't it?

Steven Bartlett 23:55 Mad.

Matthew Hussey 23:56 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 23:56 Makes no sense.

Matthew Hussey 23:57 Well, there's a, um, there's a study that involves two rats. One of them is on a wheel that it controls. The-

Steven Bartlett 24:08 Right.

Matthew Hussey 24:08 ... the rat can run whenever it wants to run. There's, that's rat A. Rat B is on another wheel-... but Rat B's wheel is hooked up to Rat A's wheel.

Steven Bartlett 24:22 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 24:24 So, Rat B doesn't get to decide. Rat A, whenever that rat runs, Rat B's wheel moves-

Steven Bartlett 24:33 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 24:33 ... and Rat B has to run.

Steven Bartlett 24:35 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 24:36 They're both doing the exact same amount of exercise.

Steven Bartlett 24:39 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 24:41 But the results of the experiment are that Rat A has all of the markers associated with the... All the positive markers associated with exercise. Rat B has all of the negative markers associated with stress.

Steven Bartlett 24:58 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 25:00 They're both running the exact same amount. They're not do- one's not doing more exercise than the other, but one is choosing-

Steven Bartlett 25:06 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 25:08 ... and the other one is having to. When we start to think that we're no longer choosing, when we're now having to do something, could be the exact same thing that we were doing before. We used to be Rat A. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 25:25 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 25:26 But now, 'cause it made money, and with that money, we went and bought a house, and we got an expensive mortgage, and we got the car, and we did this, and we did that. Or we just have the expectation now, because our identity is built on earning that much money. So it might not even be the stuff that's weighing you down, it's your identity that's weighing you down, and the perception you want other people to have of you or retain of you. That, now, has turned you into Rat B. You're no longer choosing this thing. So I'm fascinated by that idea. And, and I think that as much as there will be people in life listening to this who have maybe grown tired of what they're doing and therefore have concluded that they need to do something else, sometimes that's true, sometimes it's reconnecting with what you do from a different place. And there are a lot of people that have convinced themselves that happiness lies in a career change, happiness lies in them going in a different direction. And we, when we do that, we glorify everyone else's job. We think, "Everyone else does a better job than me. Everyone else has something more exciting going. Everyone else has something that... Oh, I wish I was where that person is." But that's not true either. There was an imagineer at Disney who, who, uh, was one of the main imagineers responsible for a lot of Animal Kingdom in Disney World, and he got asked, "Do you ever not feel excited about a project you're given?" And he said, "Sure." He said, "But my job is to find what's exciting about the project I just got given." And I think there's something important in that because we're often seeking passion elsewhere instead of creating the passion where we are. I'm not saying every job is made equal in terms of its ability to allow you to do that, but I do think that, um, there's a lot more room to, there's a lot more room to experience passion within the confines of where we already are than we think when we're constantly trying to change our environment to make things better.

Steven Bartlett 27:49 One of the three lines of like, I guess, business, but life in general, and also with relationships is... And I really wanted to ask you this 'cause it's something that I've seen in my DMs from people s- People sometimes message me about relationships, and one of the things that I find concerning when I meet someone in their personal development journey or in my DMs talking about their boyfriend or in other facets of business, is when I identify a lack of s- personal and self-responsibility. Whe- You meet certain people in life where they just can never seem to take responsibility. They never wanna, like, look in the mirror and ask themself the question, "What role have I played in this?" And I, I sat with Lewis in London on his podcast a- about a week ago or two weeks ago or something, and, um, one of the things that really astounded me about Lewis was when he said something about his ex-partner, even if it was... It seemed like a fault on the surface, he would say, "And that's on me-"

Matthew Hussey 28:37 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 28:37 ... and then end the little, the, the paragraph with why he was responsible. Even if it was like, you know, "She wouldn't let me have females on my podcast," or something like that, then he'd say, "And that's on me." And I remember thinking, "Damn, this guy's gonna go far."

Matthew Hussey 28:52 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 28:52 So what role have you seen that per- taking personal responsibility has on the, the positivity of your outcomes in dating, life, business, and everything in between?

Matthew Hussey 29:04 Well, I think that, to start with, it, it makes you a much more likable person.

Steven Bartlett 29:09 Amen.

Matthew Hussey 29:10 Uh, the idea of extreme ownership is, uh, in some ways powerful, but we all know there are things that have happened in life that ha- are not our fault at all. There are things that we... Trauma we have experienced that it would be insulting to say that we have to take responsibility for these things. Uh, it would be sinister in some cases to suggest that. But if we can get into the habit of genuinely saying, you know, "How this, how this is affecting me is something I can take responsibility for, and if I do, it actually gives me a shot at feeling better about this thing, it actually gives me a chance of improving it..." Because if I, if I say I'm powerless, then I can't have it both ways. I can't say, "I'm powerless and none... I, I, I, I have no responsibility over I- how I feel," and then make it better. I have to say-"Okay, this thing is happening. It's not... That it's happening is not my fault. That someone is making my life really, really difficult right now with what they're doing, their behavior, their abuse, their whatever. That is not my fault. But I wanna get really curious about how I can handle this in a better way, in a more productive way." And the, one of the thing, our mutual friend, Lewis Howes, who you're talking about, one of the beautiful things about him, both in front of the camera and behind the camera, is that he is, Lewis is not a complainer. Lewis is someone who, he'll talk about the things that, that he's struggling with right now, or he'll talk about the things that he's trying to work on, but it's never from a place of being the victim. It's always from a place of, "What, what can I do?"

Steven Bartlett 31:19 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 31:19 Which I think is different. People, I think, uh, what, part of the problem for a lot of people is they conflate the idea of ownership with fault, and, and that takes us into some really dangerous territory. It, it's not your fault that something's happening, but you can take responsibility for how you, how you turn that into art. I, I thought about, um, I've thought about confidence a lot in my career and the injustices of confidence, right? Because the, the, we are not distributed things equally in life. We are not distributed things equally at birth. We're not distributed opportunities equally. You know, it's super easy for anyone who's objectively decent looking to talk about h- you know, how easy it is to go and approach someone or do this or do that. And you're like, "You cannot even imagine-"

Steven Bartlett 32:20 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 32:21 ... "what it is for someone who has been rejected their entire lives." They are starting from a completely different position than you in their confidence. It's so easy for someone to say, "You just need to be confident." Okay, start from where I'm starting from, and then tell me that.

Steven Bartlett 32:37 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 32:37 You know? With the, confidence is a really, it could, again, it can be a very insulting concept, but I do believe that, that there's a, I, there's a TV show called Chopped, and I, I probably, I'm not familiar with the show, but so I'm probably gonna get wrong the concept. But in my head, the concept of this show is very, very interesting from the point of view of confidence. I think the chefs get given different ingredients. So you, you're, it's like just lucky dip. What do you get? What's interesting is if you get a basket of ingredients and I get a basket of ingredients, we're both getting judged on what we make of those ingredients. In that format, it's what are you able to do with what you have, and what am I able to do with what I have? And I think there's something really fascinating about that, because we spend so much of our lives mourning our ingredients, do, really being upset or frustrated about what the ingredients are that we were given. Imagine that you're not being judged on anything but how great a chef you are, 'cause that show isn't about ingredients. It's about chefs. Well, imagine life isn't about ingredients. It's about chefs. Don't aspire to have the best ingredients. Aspire to be the best chef, and the best chef is gonna be the one who can be the most creative with the ingredients that they have. I, I'm fascinated by that, because if I apply that to my own life, I just go, "Whatever thing that just happened I wished didn't happen, whatever thing that's happened to me this year that is so painful, so devastating, so whatever, whatever that thing is, it just became a new ingredient in my life." I can either judge myself on my ingredients, which if I do that, I'm always at the mercy of the next thing that happens in my life. Something cataclysmic could happen in my life and, and I lose everything, and then what? I'm gonna judge myself and my life on my ingredients. It, to me, it's always how great of a chef are you. Ingredients are luck of the draw. Uh, uh, being a chef is something we can continue to get better at our entire lives, and it's actually the antidote to whatever happens. If you're a great chef, you can cook something out of whatever you have.

Steven Bartlett 35:21 It's such a re- such a powerful analogy, and it really, really did like, yeah, I, I sort of do what you probably do when you hear an analogy. You kind of test it from multiple scenarios, and it really stands up. And I was thinking then again about when we look into that basket of the ingredients we're handed, if we, if we believe that the ingredients we were handed are inadequate or inferior to the, the chef stood next to us, we're probably also gonna prepare the meal with a certain level of pessimism that's gonna result in a worse dish anyway. And the, the, the agony also of looking over at someone else's basket of ingredients and going, "Fucking hell, they got the rib eye. Look at me." And that, you know, 'cause we, we both know the negative power of comparison and how it can drive down performance, belief, confidence, and all those things, but it's a beautiful, beautiful analogy.

Matthew Hussey 36:00 And sometimes-

Steven Bartlett 36:02 Love.

Matthew Hussey 36:02 ... im- imagine if you took pride in being able to still make, even if you knew like, "This ingredient is, this one sucks."

Steven Bartlett 36:09 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 36:10 Like, "There's no getting around it."

Steven Bartlett 36:11 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 36:11 "These ingredients I have right now suck." But you took pride in, "Look what I can make-"

Steven Bartlett 36:19 Out of how-

Matthew Hussey 36:20 "... out of this."

Steven Bartlett 36:21 Yeah.

Matthew Hussey 36:21 I get you made something amazing with your truffle salt and your-

Steven Bartlett 36:24 Yeah.

Matthew Hussey 36:25 ... you know, your caviar and your uni. Like-

Steven Bartlett 36:28 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 36:28 I get you did something amazing with that. No shit.

Steven Bartlett 36:31 Yeah. (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 36:32 "Look what I just did with kelp jerky."

Steven Bartlett 36:36 (laughs) Yeah, it's a, it's a real p- powerful, um, analogy for privilege as well, isn't it? Of pri- you know-

Matthew Hussey 36:45 100%, because you, you, then you realize, "I'm in a different game altogether." This is why comparison is so insidious, because w- what, what am I gonna do, compare myself to someone who got a completely different basket of ingredients, and say... And by the way, the basket of ingredients isn't just what you got in life in terms of circumstances, or parents, or whatever, education. Your basket of ingredients is also what you got here.

Steven Bartlett 37:19 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 37:20 You have a sharp mind.

Steven Bartlett 37:22 Thank you. (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 37:24 Now, you've no doubt honed that mind, you've respected it, you've honored it by reading, and by educating-

Steven Bartlett 37:31 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 37:31 ... yourself and do all of these things, but you also started with a sharp mind.

Steven Bartlett 37:36 Yeah, probably. I'm really, it's funny 'cause I'm really bad at math, English, and everything. I'm good at the thing I honed, but you're right. I definitely had a predisposition for-

Matthew Hussey 37:43 But your speed of, like, you hear something, and you... I've watched you in, in, in interviews, and when you talk, your speed of how you assimilate-

Steven Bartlett 37:52 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 37:52 ... information-

Steven Bartlett 37:53 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 37:54 ... and draw patterns, you're good at pattern recognition-

Steven Bartlett 37:56 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 37:56 ... which is why, from a philosophical standpoint-

Steven Bartlett 37:59 Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Matthew Hussey 37:59 ... there's a strength there, right, because you're good at pattern recognition. These things, you just won the lottery on that one. Like, with your brain, you just happened to win the lottery on that one, right? That-

Steven Bartlett 38:14 This is gonna be my confidence button.

Matthew Hussey 38:15 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 38:16 (laughs) I'm gonna get this clip. I'm gonna go on here, "You won the lottery on this."

Matthew Hussey 38:18 That's right.

Steven Bartlett 38:19 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 38:19 It's a 60-second emotional button.

Steven Bartlett 38:21 (laughs) Yeah.

Matthew Hussey 38:23 Those ingredients extend to everything. They extend to everything. You, you can have grown up in the most dire circumstances, but have a sharpness of mind that other people can't even relate to, and for that reason, you've, if you know how to double down on that thing, anything can happen. I love the idea, and I think that everyone could benefit from a kind of acceptance of just, "I'm starting from where I am." Forget starting from when you were a, a baby, and y- you know all of the circumstances you were born into and so on. I'm talking now. Forget what's happened. Forget everything you've done. "Oh, I had a great brain, but then for 10 years, I did a bunch of drugs, and then I hurt myself, and then blah, blah, blah." Whatever. Doesn't matter. I think about it like this. Imagine that you woke up into your life right now, and your only job was to make the most of that life. So forget the years that Steven has already had. You're 29 right now. So forget the 29 years that have already happened. You, this brand new soul, is waking up this morning into Steven's body at 29 with whatever his opportunities are and whatever his problems are. It would be awesome. You'd be so happy for the opportunity.

Steven Bartlett 39:44 I'd be f- I'd honestly terrified. Do you know why? Because I'd lose the lessons as well. And then I think, I literally was thinking of this soul coming down, getting my credit card, and going and buying a Lamborghini.

Matthew Hussey 39:59 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 39:59 (laughs) Like, I literally was like, "He will go back to the club." (laughs) "He'll buy five pop."

Matthew Hussey 40:04 No, no, no.

Steven Bartlett 40:04 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 40:05 You start, you start with a 60-year-old level of wisdom. Let's say that.

Steven Bartlett 40:08 Okay, so I keep the wisdom, but I get-

Matthew Hussey 40:09 You keep the wisdom.

Steven Bartlett 40:10 ... everything. Fantastic.

Matthew Hussey 40:10 It's so funny. I s- I was having this conversation with, with, uh, my fiance the other day, and we were like, "We would not go back to our 20s for any amount of money in the world." There is nothing...

Steven Bartlett 40:21 (sighs)

Matthew Hussey 40:21 I would not take, I would not want those extra years back if it meant that I didn't have the lessons that I have today that have brought me more peace-

Steven Bartlett 40:31 Isn't that bizarre?

Matthew Hussey 40:31 ... than I had then.

Steven Bartlett 40:33 Yeah, yeah, Mo Gawdat sat here, and he said he, when, when he wa- he was the head of Google X, he said that when they did the eraser test, which was asking people if you could erase the most traumatic experience of your life, these are really horrific things-

Matthew Hussey 40:44 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 40:45 ... w- but in erasing it, you'd erase the lessons that came with it, 99% of people said no. And it's the same thing. It's like, I wouldn't even go back to being younger if it meant that I'd lose the last 10 years of lessons, as you said.

Matthew Hussey 40:56 Yeah, because you, w- you, you erase that trauma, and, and you want to because, my God, who would wanna go through that? But you're playing roulette with your wisdom.

Steven Bartlett 41:05 Yeah.

Matthew Hussey 41:06 Who wants to take that gamble?

Steven Bartlett 41:07 And some trauma, not all of it, gotta be clear there, some trauma is a consequence of a lesson we had to learn, and so if you were... so life will probably have to teach you that lesson again. In my, my case, whether it's heartbreak, or whatever it is, or failure, it was a lesson I had to learn about the nature of the world and people. And if you remove it, then I'm gonna have to learn it again. That means more pain, so-

Matthew Hussey 41:28 And, and that, that trauma that you went through, even if it wasn't a result of something that you needed to learn, may have been the catalyst for you to learn something that is going to prove essential for something you've yet to experience.

Steven Bartlett 41:45 Amen.

Matthew Hussey 41:46 There are things, for me, that have prepared me for the rest of my life in some way, that I, I, I, I had an issue with my, um, well, I have an issue with my head and my ear. That bothered me. To say it bothered me is a s- i- is ridiculous. It, it created the darkest moments of my entire life.

Steven Bartlett 42:18 Not tinnitus, is it?

Matthew Hussey 42:19 Well, I have tinnitus.

Steven Bartlett 42:20 Right.

Matthew Hussey 42:21 It's, but it's not tinnitus alone.

Steven Bartlett 42:23 Okay.

Matthew Hussey 42:23 It's, um, it's a thr- it's a kind of a pain and a throbbing that, that rides up through my ear and my head. It's been very traumatic because there were times when I was, there were times when I couldn't...I couldn't imagine... I didn't know what I was gonna do. It robbed me of all of the joy in life. I, I couldn't, I couldn't experience any joy. I was so... It was so centralizing, this pain, this chronic pain. And, uh, I would go through cycles of every time there was some new treatment that I thought could help, I would get some hope, and that hope would give me a momentary kind of, for a couple of weeks or a month before the treatment, I would feel uplifted. Even though I would still be in pain, I would feel like there's this thing that's gonna work, and I'd talk about it to friends and family. Oh, no, I'm, I'm... They'd be like, "How's your head?" and I'd be like, "Well, it's bad, but, but I'm gonna go and do this thing." And I did so many different things, and every time when it didn't work, I would, I would plummet even deeper. And, and it got so dark that I didn't know... I thought, "Oh, I can't, I'm not signed up for this. I can't do this. I can't, I, I cannot do this for another 50 years." In my head, it was the closest I'd ever been to suicidal without truly going there in a practical sense. It was a kind of conceptual thought, where I thought, "I'm, I can't, I don't, I can't sign up for this for the rest of my life." And because I had friends that I love, family I love more than anything in this world, staff, a company, all of these things, I had a big life, there was never a real option. It was never like a real thing that I'd considered. But I remember the thought that that triggered was, "I am just gonna live for the people that I care about now. I'm just gonna live for other people. Whether it's my audience when I make a video, or whether it's my family, or whether it's my team who rely on this company for their living, I'm gonna live for other people, because I c- I don't experience joy anymore. This just, this robs me of everything in my life. I'm always thinking about it 24 hours a day." There would be 15 seconds when I'd first wake up in the morning where I'd forget that I wasn't, that I was in pain for just a brief moment, and then it would rush back in and I'd remember. For me, it was the first brush in my life with anything... It was my first brush with something that my ingenuity, my determination, my ambition, my intelligence, my problem-solving could not... I'd always found whatever was going on in my life, I could fix it. I couldn't fix it. And in that sense, it sort of became my first brush with mortality, because I went, "I, I, I just have to, I have to somehow learn how to make peace here." And in doing that, and, and there's a whole conversation to be had on how I did that, but in doing that, I've now learned to deal with something that I know in one form or another is gonna come up again and again in my life. It may not be in the same context. It might be through the death of somebody I care about. It might be through some other circ- traumatic circumstances I can't even picture right now that are gonna happen to me. But I know that in the process of handling that trauma, I have become more robust in my ability to deal with all manner of chronic conditions in life that there isn't an easy answer to.

Narrator 46:37 If I removed it, what would I remove from Matthew Hussey?

Matthew Hussey 46:43 I, I mean, so, so much. I, it would remove an extraordinary amount of empathy. Look, chronic conditions can come in the form of physical pain, but they can also come in the form of emotional pain. And, and there are people that, when they talk about being depressed or when they talk about struggling with anxiety, there's a chronicity to that that they are dealing with that is incredibly hard to understand if you've always been able to make things go away. There, there is something about a thing you can't make go away that brings you to your knees and truly, truly humbles you. And, and so it wouldn't just take away an enormous amount of empathy. It would take away an extraordinary amount of humility.

Narrator 47:40 Mm-Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 47:41 To lose that would be to lose, I think, the most powerful parts of who I am today.

Narrator 47:49 Do you still have the, the pain now?

Matthew Hussey 47:52 Yeah. But I, I, what I learned, and this is true for many people with chronic pain, is that there is an emotional component to it. And so, the way that I relate to it is, has the ability to either make worse that emotional component or reduce it. The, the pain is always there waiting to flare up. And some days it's at a four, some days it's at a nine. When it's at a four, I can get on with my life. When it's at a nine, I have to almost do the opposite. I have to practice immense self-compassion, because I'm like you. I'm like, "I wanna wake up every morning and get after it, and there's so many things I want to do," and that's like until fault.I pack my days and I'm always trying to... And what it taught me was how to slow down and not beat myself up for slowing down. Because there were days where I was so miserable with it, that I had to learn how to just be okay with being miserable today. I'm so unhappy with this today. This is so affecting, that I can't do that piece of work that I really wanna do. I can't get that thing done. I don't wanna hang out with people. I don't wanna... It... And once I let go of all the expectations of myself on that day, and said, "You know what? Then fuck it. Let's just be in pain today," once I did that, that would impact the emotional component of it. Because now I wasn't, I wasn't upset about being in pain, and I wasn't stressing about being in pain, and I wasn't beating myself up for being in pain because I felt like I'm, I'm... It would even sometimes go to the core of me being a man.

Steven Bartlett 49:52 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 49:52 I'd be like, "I'm weak. I'm deficient somehow. I'm not this... You know, I don't feel able." And that, that made me feel like an elderly person in a 30-something's body.

Steven Bartlett 50:06 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 50:07 I was like, "What's wrong with... This is..." So then I would beat myse- All of this, by the way, is just making the pain flare up. So when I flare up emo- when emotions flare up for me, it goes straight there for me.

Steven Bartlett 50:19 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 50:20 And what I learned is, oh, that's interesting, because the game now is, can I control stress or anxiety or self-judgment or any of... shame? Any of these things? Can I control these and get a handle on them and reduce them? Because for me, there's a very literal consequence to them going up, and there's a real benefit, there's real treasure to be had in being able to get a handle on those things. So that, again, was a gift.

Steven Bartlett 50:58 Very few people will be able to relate to the chronic pain, um, experience that you've had. But people will be able to relate to how their out-of-control emotions have an impact on their broader immune system. So when we get stressed, we get ill. Like, for me, in my life, when I was running my, my company, I, I would get ill-

Matthew Hussey 51:15 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 51:16 ... so rarely that when I did, I would know the email or the situation or the cash flow issue that had caused it in the preceding 48 hours. I'd go, "Ah, fuck. Yeah."

Matthew Hussey 51:25 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 51:25 You know, and then I'd get a cold, right? So it happened, like, twice a year, and it would always be, typically it would always be when we had a cash flow problem. Um, is there anything you've implemented in your life to get, to get control of your emotional sort of stress response that life, you know, will, will, um, cause because of whatever's... because life happens? Whe- whether it's meditation or something else, just to bring yourself back down to a place of peace?

Matthew Hussey 51:48 One of the things that's important to me is to recognize that the actually what I need to be happy is not, it's not actually that impressive.

Steven Bartlett 52:02 What is it?

Matthew Hussey 52:02 You know, if I get to... I have, um, a certain s- I call them my criteria. My criteria are the things that need to happen every day for me to feel like I'm living a good life, and therefore my head hits the pillow and I feel like today mattered, today was a good day. And I've distilled that down to, uh, a few key words. Create, move, learn, connect, appreciate, and contribute.

Steven Bartlett 52:45 Interesting.

Matthew Hussey 52:45 And I really thought about those as, like, my, my personal formula for happiness. Uh, the reason that those words sound quite vague is because I actually have m- many, many different ways of achieving any of them. Right now, I'm writing a book. It just so happens that every day I write is contributing to the goal of producing a book. But even if it wasn't, it still ticks my create box.

Steven Bartlett 53:14 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 53:14 Every day when I sit and write for 45 minutes or an hour, I tick that create box in my criteria. Now, it doesn't matter whether I'm writing a book or making a video or doing something else that's creative, I just have to tick that box. I don't, by the way, have to tick it for six hours a day. Uh, there's diminishing returns.

Steven Bartlett 53:34 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 53:35 If I do it for one or two hours a day, I tick that box. Movement or move, I typically, I do jujitsu or I do, uh, boxing or I'm in the gym. But I could even... If, if you and I went for a hike tomorrow, I'd meet that movement box with that. There's multiple ways of achieving our criteria, but it matters to me immensely, it's everything that I do meet them each day.

Steven Bartlett 54:05 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 54:06 And an unhappy life for me is one where I don't... where too many days in a row I didn't hit those criteria. It has nothing to do with how big my book deal is, or how many people watched a video today, or, uh, you know, it... All those external things that are stressing me out, because in that moment when I'm stressed I've convinced myself that that's what really matters. What helps me is stepping out of that game altogether and stripping my life back down to the absolute basics. If today I call my mom or my brother and have a, a, a nice conversation to connect-If I go spend an hour doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu, if I, uh, write 500 words, if I learn something new from a book, if I help someone, that's my contribute. If I help someone, I've done what I need to do to live a good life. All the rest... And none of those things are dependent on how well everything is, is going in my life. And that, that to me is really liberating 'cause it means all the stress that I'm creating is, is self-imposed.

Steven Bartlett 55:30 One of those boxes was connect.

Matthew Hussey 55:32 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 55:32 And you have connected with someone-

Matthew Hussey 55:37 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 55:38 ... who's actually sat in the room. I am... You know, you historically have not posted a lot on social media about your relationship situations. You've been, as you said in your own words, on that wonderful proposal announcement post you did-

Matthew Hussey 55:50 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 55:50 ... you've been quite a private person. One of the lines in that, that, um, post you did when you announced that you and Audrey had become engaged was, "And finally, thank you for teaching me how to love in a way that I was too scared to before."

Matthew Hussey 56:04 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 56:05 I found that quite intriguing.

Matthew Hussey 56:09 I, I think like a lot of men, I struggled with genuine vulnerability. W- we all have our fake version of vulnerability. The, you know-

Steven Bartlett 56:26 Yeah. (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 56:26 ... it's the version of going into- for a job interview and saying, "I, my... Well, what's your biggest weakness?" "I, I work too hard."

Steven Bartlett 56:34 Yeah. (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 56:34 Everyone's got their PR version of vulnerability. It's vulnerability if, on some level, it just makes me feel like I'm expressing a part of myself that you might not like, or you, you know, I can't control your reaction to this. And I have been in relationships in the past where I had revealed an insecurity.

Steven Bartlett 56:54 Like?

Matthew Hussey 56:56 I was jealous of somebody, you know. I'd felt threatened by somebody else. And it was fed back to me that that was unattractive. And in my mind, that st- that kinda stuck. I think there is a, especially in a lot of men, there is a kind of, there's a kind of double thing going on in their head where they go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that's really important, but I'm not saying that 'cause if I say that, she's not gonna think I'm cool anymore.

Steven Bartlett 57:30 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 57:31 I've spent a lot of time curating this sexy, alpha, cool image that has attracted this person. You really think I'm gonna jeopardize that by showing an actual weakness?" Something that... And I'm, again, I'm not talking about the weakness of I cry in movies. That's not vulnerability.

Steven Bartlett 57:51 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 57:51 That, you know that's gonna be cute. You know that she's gonna see that and go, "Oh my God, he's sensitive too." That's not vulnerability. Real vulnerability is, this is something that I never really wanted anyone to see, and, and I'm taking a risk that when you see this, you're gonna still think that I'm what you want.

Steven Bartlett 58:24 Are you, have you got something in mind when you say that? Like, w- you had a conversation with Audrey and you think, "Nah, this is one of the things where I wouldn't normally have had the safety."

Matthew Hussey 58:31 I think that, for me, times when I was anxious, I would normally bottle those up and keep them to myself. I wouldn't express what I was anxious about or what was doing that to me. Times if we were arguing where I wouldn't really be honest about why I was upset-

Steven Bartlett 58:53 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 58:54 ... I'd give the kind of strong version of why I was upset.

Steven Bartlett 58:59 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 58:59 The, the PR version.

Steven Bartlett 59:00 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew Hussey 59:01 But I wouldn't give the real reason I was upset that went to the core of me not feeling enough-

Steven Bartlett 59:06 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 59:06 ... of me not feeling good enough, of me feeling scared, of me feeling like something was being triggered that I didn't know how to handle. Sometimes even when I was in pain, and there would be other situations from my past where I would kind of not wanna reveal how much pain I was in with my head, because I was worried that someone might determine this is not... I can't... U- uh, I don't wanna deal with this. So I'd kinda keep it to myself. For a lot of guys, their experience of growing up wasn't one where being vulnerable would've been rewarded. And then you add onto that the additional layer of, as a guy, we've been culturally led to believe that being the caricatured alpha male, that's what women want. And some of our experiences have confirmed that. We lost out to the guy in high school who was much meaner than us and who we knew was not a very nice person, but he had his pick. And that, that's quite scarring for a guy-

Steven Bartlett 1:00:18 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 1:00:18 ... 'cause you go, "What does that mean?"

Steven Bartlett 1:00:20 Yeah.

Matthew Hussey 1:00:21 "What do, what do I... So I have to be more like that?" And so we close parts of ourselves down and, and then s- and then, you know, God forbid you come across or have a relationship with someone who confirms that.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:34 Yeah.

Matthew Hussey 1:00:34 Now you really feel like, "I need to be that guy." And, and it can take a lot of rewiring and deconditioning to get to a place where you go, "Oh, the... If I keep, if I keep being this way, I'm actually gonna attract... I'm just gonna continue to attract people who do value the wrong things, who are looking for an Instagram..."... man.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:00 Can you do that from the jump, though? I was just thinking about some of my friends in my head, and I was thinking, "They're gonna hear that." And I know some of my friends who are actually probably scared of, especially at the start, in the dating phase, of laying it out. So they come, they put the makeup on, they get the hair done-

Matthew Hussey 1:01:16 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:16 ... they go get the tan, whatever. And their objective is, "I just need to keep this fucking person."

Matthew Hussey 1:01:20 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:20 "And I believe the way to keep them is just, you know, keep trying to be that sexy perfect."

Matthew Hussey 1:01:25 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:25 At what point do you go from sexy perfect to, "Listen, I'm, you know, pretty fucked up in a number of ways"?

Matthew Hussey 1:01:32 I think that we have to, there's a way to... Firstly, vulnerability in the beginning of dating isn't-

Steven Bartlett 1:01:42 Sexy. (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:01:42 Re- well, vulnerability is, is, can be really attractive, but not in a way where you f- expose all of your wounds and the things you don't like about yourself instantly.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:54 And offloaded, I guess.

Matthew Hussey 1:01:55 Exactly. The- there's a, you know, it's fine to talk about something that you're working on or in a, even in a playful tone, s- a kind of nod to something that you're not very good at. But that's not the same. I remember being on a TV show in Australia where I, there was this one woman who, she was an amazing woman, but every time she went on a date, sh- it would just be a kind of all on the surface, laughing and just on the surface, on the surface, on the surface, on the surface.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:29 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:02:29 And I was like, "Part of the problem is, these guys that go on dates with you, by the end of the date, they don't feel connected to you in any way. And the reason they don't feel connected to you is because there's no real vulnerability at that stage." So I said, "The next date, I want you to actually connect and be a little vulnerable." Now, what she did with that advice is went on the next first date and told the story of her dad getting in a car accident that changed her whole life in a really awful way at the time. And I was-

Steven Bartlett 1:03:06 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:03:06 I had to say at the time, "When I said vulnerability, I didn't mean go and tell the story of the worst thing that's happened-

Steven Bartlett 1:03:13 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:03:13 ... to you in your life." Vulnerability can be paying someone a compliment.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:20 Mm.

Matthew Hussey 1:03:21 Because in a way, when you pay someone a compliment, you're handing them a little power, right?

Steven Bartlett 1:03:24 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 1:03:24 Not in a bad way, but you're saying like, "There's something great about you, and I'm acknowledging it, and now you know that I think that you're great in some way."

Steven Bartlett 1:03:31 Mm.

Matthew Hussey 1:03:32 Or it can be laughing at somebody else's, his joke. Or it can be talking about something that you really enjoy doing that's a little bit nerdy, that you, you know-

Steven Bartlett 1:03:42 Mm.

Matthew Hussey 1:03:42 ... I might not put on social media all the time, but it is something I actually do in my spare time that's kinda geeky. But I love it. Sometimes, or even if it's not geeky, if it's just something you're super passionate about and you talk about something with passion, that's a vulnerable act. To s- to express that you're passionate about something is vulnerable, because they may not think that thing is cool or, or even just to be passionate is to be vulnerable. You might think that my passion is too much or you might think it's silly or... So you could be vulnerable about the right things early on. And the more someone gets to know you, the more you can kind of let them in on some of the things that you struggle with. Vulnerability isn't necessarily revealing all of our insecurities all at once. And one important reason for that is because when we tell an insecurity... If I tell you something I don't like about my face, I'm telling you what to think about my face.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:47 Hm.

Matthew Hussey 1:04:47 I'm not letting you have your own opinion of my face. You can take the view that there's some part of your body or there's something you're s- you're not a fan of in yourself. You can take that opinion, but you don't get to be the opinion for everybody else. The reason we're saying it is because we're almost trying to beat them to it. You know, "Uh, let me just tell you that I don't like this thing about myself, because then I'll feel better that it's out in the open." But I'm presupposing what you're gonna think about it.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:18 That's an awful quality people have, that self-disparaging thing. It's really insidious in many ways. I-

Matthew Hussey 1:05:23 And that isn't vulnerability. That's a different thing from vulnerability. Vulnerability can be acknowledging that there's something that you don't like about yourself all the time. That can be an act of vulnerability. But you have to suspect yourself if your instinct with someone you don't know that well is to immediately go to that place.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:43 I've been in relationships where I felt like my partner was trying to fix me.

Matthew Hussey 1:05:48 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:48 And it really is a shitty feeling for men. I think it really emasculates us as well, right? We wanna be, I guess, perfect. We wanna just make our, our woman happy. And I've been in relationships where I felt like she was trying to fix me.

Matthew Hussey 1:06:01 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:01 And it fucking sucked.

Matthew Hussey 1:06:03 That's a rough situation to be in, for sure.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:05 It's really... And I had, I had a conversation with her about it, where I was like, "By the way, when you, when you do that thing where you try and corrects- correct me constantly, what you're actually also doing as a consequence is saying that I'm not good enough."

Matthew Hussey 1:06:17 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:17 I remember having that conversation with her. Fortunately, she was someone that could really listen. But women, I think women and men... I only can speak from the perspective of women 'cause I've only ever been on the receiving end of it from women.

Matthew Hussey 1:06:28 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:28 But, um, what do women need to know about that, of this? 'Cause a, a lot of them do it. They, they meet someone. He might be d- doing this. He might be down the pub too much. He might be, have this bad habit, this thing. What do they need to know about this desire they have sometimes to try and fix us? Does it work? Where does it lead?

Matthew Hussey 1:06:45 Well, I think people have to suspect themselves in the beginning if they're choosing people that they're not aligned with in the first place. Th- th- that, I think, is a, the, the fixing thing is often a big symptom of the fact that-... instead of choosing a partner, you chose a project of some kind.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:08 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 1:07:08 Right? And now, I'm unhappy because I needed these things from the beginning, but this person isn't doing them. But I knew that in the beginning. It's not like I suddenly found out that he enjoys going to the pub. Our first four dates were in a pub.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:24 (laughs) yeah.

Matthew Hussey 1:07:25 You know? The guy likes a drink. I, I knew that in the beginning.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:29 And does that mean there's a certain level of acceptance that's required when you meet someone?

Matthew Hussey 1:07:34 Well, I think that we have to, we have to, um, to a certain extent say, "Am- am I at peace with who this person is today? Because if I'm not, why would I get into a relationship with them? I'm literally getting into a relationship on a wager that they're gonna become what I want." What are the chances of that?

Steven Bartlett 1:08:00 It goes back to the point we were saying about this inauthentic initial connection when you, you kind of, you don't really show who you are, um, and you might also have a presumption that the bits you don't like about them, you're not gonna mention it just yet, or you're, you're gonna kinda let maybe n- twelve months in, you're gonna start mentioning that that's really a big problem to you, but you connected inauthentically from the start. So, yeah, I just, I just, I'm just totally thinking about my own experience of that. And the other part of it was hugely my fault in the sense that I would compromise. So say that I loved watching the football and she didn't want me to watch the football or whatever, sure, fucking turn the football off for the first couple of months just to keep happy families.

Matthew Hussey 1:08:39 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:39 And then this resentment starts building-

Matthew Hussey 1:08:41 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:41 ... in you where you go, "I fucking miss the football, and you're the reason I can't watch it." You know what I mean?

Matthew Hussey 1:08:45 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:45 Again, that's like I was inauthentic. I wasn't honest.

Matthew Hussey 1:08:47 And we all, in some way, are prone to that. We, we are trying to, we're trying to oil the joints-

Steven Bartlett 1:08:54 Yeah.

Matthew Hussey 1:08:54 ... of, of early dating so that everything moves in this nice, smooth, romantic direction. And, and we kind of, if we're not careful, we do end up playing a part that we think will just create the most energy.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:11 Hm.

Matthew Hussey 1:09:12 The most good energy, the most romantic energy. I, I think that what I've learned as a personal lesson is that I would judge things very quickly in people without trying to understand what was behind them. Like, why, why is this thing important to you? Why do you like doing this? What is it about this thing? What... Because it's very easy, when someone's different to how we are, it's very easy to decide what that means.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:48 (laughs) Yeah, amen.

Matthew Hussey 1:09:49 To decide what the intention must be behind that.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:53 Yeah.

Matthew Hussey 1:09:53 And then to judge someone on that. And one of the things that I think would help people, because it's very easy to say, "Well, date people who you already like the way they are, and don't date people or don't go any further with people that do things you don't like." That's a oversimplification that... What I would say to people is, "There's always gonna be differences between you and the person you date. There's always gonna be things that you..." I'm not talking about things that you genuinely, ethically abhor.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:28 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 1:10:29 That, that's a problem, right? But if someone is doing things that are different than what you do or what you enjoy, take a moment to be curious about that thing. What is it for them about that thing that they really like? What does it represent to them? What's driving them there? Why are they that way? I have found that to be an immensely connecting experience because you may do something different to me, but why you like that thing might actually resonate with me-

Steven Bartlett 1:11:07 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 1:11:08 ... in terms of why I like this thing.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:10 Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 1:11:11 I might find that we're actually, at the core, quite similar, even though the way those values or those desires or those needs are represented on the surface is different. And I think people give up a lot of great people because of their immediate judgment of the differences because they haven't actually sought to understand the, the connections that are under the surface.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:37 I had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast. My girlfriend came upstairs yesterday when I was having a shower, and she said to me that she tried the Huel protein shake, which lives on my fridge over there, and she said it's amazing. Low calories, you get your 20 odd grams of protein, you get your 26 vitamins and minerals, and it's nutritionally complete. In the protein space, there's lots of things, but it's hard to find something that is nice, especially when consumed just with water, and that is nutritionally complete and that has about 100 gr- calories in total while also giving you your 20 grams of protein. If you haven't tried the Huel protein product, do give it a try. The salted caramel one, if you put some ice cubes in it and you put it in a blender and you try it, is as good as pretty much any milkshake on the market, just mixed with water. It's been a game changer for me because I'm trying to drop my calorie intake and I'm trying to be a little bit more healthy with my diet, so this is where Huel fits in my life. Thank you, Huel, for making a product that I actually like. The salted caramel is my favorite. I've got the banana one here, which is the one my girlfriend likes, but for me, salted caramel is the one.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:39 What's your longest relationship? Ever. Proper one.

Matthew Hussey 1:12:46 Two years? Two and a half years?

Steven Bartlett 1:12:48 Mine's roughly the same.

Matthew Hussey 1:12:50 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:52 You don't know what it's like to go 50 years in a relationship, right? Are you not scared on any level? Do you not have a fear of boredom?

Matthew Hussey 1:13:02 I have humility about...... long-term relationships.

Steven Bartlett 1:13:06 You've just got a fiance as well. That's a, as you wrote on that caption, a forever commitment.

Matthew Hussey 1:13:10 Right. I have massive humility about commitments like that, in the sense that, like I said to you earlier in this conversation, I don't pretend to know about things I don't know.

Steven Bartlett 1:13:24 But do you personally have a fear of boredom in your relationship? 'Cause I, I don't ... she's gonna listen to this. I, I wonder. I think, "Well, I've n- I've only ever done two or three years, so what, how do you get 30 years in and still have the spice and the, you know, I love her?" You know?

Matthew Hussey 1:13:39 Well, I think that, firstly, it's, you, you have to look at ... I almost take it out of the context of relationships and say, there's lots of areas of life where y- you could say, "How do you not drink or not get high and not eventually find life boring where you need to do that?" But then you also know if you're drinking or getting high, there's a cost to that, right? It's a, there's an actual cost. It, it makes you feel like crap afterwards. There's a hangover. And, and so you, there's a price to pay for that. I don't think of it just in terms of, will I get bored? I, I, o- I'm always thinking in terms of, okay, but what's the other option, and has the other option ever worked for me? Now, the answer to, has the other option ever worked for me, is no. I- I got to a point in my life where I felt like I have empirically proven that this thing doesn't work.

Steven Bartlett 1:14:49 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:14:49 Casual relationships don't make me, they, they don't make me happy. It, there's a, you know, it literally is just a feeling followed by hangover, and that was, became reliable in my life, where I just went, "Oh, this doesn't work." For me to continue down that path would be literally that definition of insanity. I'm, what, I'm gonna be, I suddenly am gonna find the right set of casual flings that's gonna make me happy? It just, it's nonsense. I got to a point in my life where I, I saw ... Two things happened. I met someone who had everything that I could ever want in someone that you would build with. Not to mention the obvious stuff, the chemistry, the, you know, the fun we have together, and all, all of those things were all there. I'm not one of those people who, you know, when people talk about, like, a relationship as if chemistry's overrated, you just need someone who's a great teammate or whatever. I, I don't think chemistry is overrated. I think an absence of chemistry can be dire and will hurt you. But those things were there, but what was also there is I thought, "This is someone that I can really build with, and I'm in a place in my life where I want to build," because there's so much more that can come from building something here. There's so much more that can come from the beauty of what gets built than just ... Like, for me, dating was like resetting every time. It was like, go, build a, lay a couple of bricks down, and then move on again, and reset-

Steven Bartlett 1:16:42 Too important.

Matthew Hussey 1:16:42 ... reset, reset.

Steven Bartlett 1:16:43 It's like renting. (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:16:44 It, yeah, it was like-

Steven Bartlett 1:16:45 How much do

Narrator 1:16:45 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:16:45 ... rent's been? Yeah, it was like there's nothing. Yeah, every time you leave, I'm, I'm back to, to the same place. Now, there's nothing wrong. I, I have no judgment on any of that. If someone's enjoying being single, if someone wants to do that, if it makes them happy, I have no judgment anywhere. I'm not ... I don't wanna be an evangelist for a long-term relationship. I can only speak to what feels good to me in my life and what feels like ... I wanna be careful. Not just what feels good, but what I actually believe is a, is a path to a more meaningful life, to a happier life. And I truly believe that is the path that myself and Audrey are on, is she could be single, and she could, like, she's a beautiful person. Everyone loves being around her. Everyone loves her company. She could be out there having a ton of fun. She could be out there having all of this excitement. She could ... But she also is someone who value, she is very, very big on valuing the things that lead to long-term happiness, not short-term pleasure. And I always wanna be in a relationship that is, you know, has pleasure in it. I don't, you know, I don't wanna ever settle for a relationship where you say, "Well, I'll sacrifice that because I have all of this other stuff." But, you know, I, I do believe that it's, it takes, I think that takes effort. I don't, I'm suspicious of anyone who says, "When it's right, it's easy." I, I'm suspicious of that, because to me, anything, anything long-term, any commitment long-term requires true effort.

Steven Bartlett 1:18:28 My last

Steven Bartlett 1:18:29 question, then. So on that, in that example of you and Audrey, I'm trying to get, so I'll tell you the, the, the basis behind my question. I'm trying to understand if we have to be in the right pla ... And this goes back to what, my point about s- s- sort of personal responsibility. If we have to be right when we meet this person-

Matthew Hussey 1:18:45 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:18:46 ... or it's just a case. 'Cause they'll be a lot of people listening to this going, "Okay, I've just not met the right one. I've not met my Audrey, so I'm just gonna keep waiting."

Matthew Hussey 1:18:52 But what, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:18:52 But what I see a lot is, um, I met my girlfriend, actually, three years ago. We dated for a year and broke up. I was totally not the right person, well, for all the reasons I said, immature, not willing to communicate. If she said something and it was an issue, I thought, "This isn't perfect, so it's not worth it."Um, I had all of those faults in me. We took a year out, I did a lot of work, came back, and I genuinely will marry this person. We genuinely have gone through those things. So I think timing is an issue, but largely because sometimes, like, we're, we're, we haven't done the work.

Matthew Hussey 1:19:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:19:21 We've gone through life bla- I've just, I'm too picky, I've not found the right one, all of this bullshit.

Matthew Hussey 1:19:26 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:19:27 What would you say, uh, what would you say to that? About the self-work we need to do, so that when you do meet your Audrey, we're also ready to receive them?

Matthew Hussey 1:19:36 Well, I, I think we have to dispense with this idea that the one exists. I think that's really, really important. I don't think the one exists any more than the one true career exists. Uh, I think that we, someone becomes the one by what we build with them. Now they have to start with the right raw materials, as do we. You can't just, not anyone can be the person we do that with. But the person who becomes the one is the person that, I mean it sounds so funny, but is the person that becomes the one.

Steven Bartlett 1:20:14 (laughs) Mm-hmm.

Matthew Hussey 1:20:14 You know what I mean?

Steven Bartlett 1:20:16 100%.

Matthew Hussey 1:20:16 I- if it, if you go the distance with someone, they were the one. If you don't go the distance with someone, then they weren't the one. They weren't, th- th- this idea that there's one person for you in the world that you're supposed to meet is silly to me. Uh, uh, because it, it gets into all these ideas of love at first sight and, you know, I just, uh, we came to each other ready-made to be each other's person. I think that's an insult to the amount of work that a long-term relationship actually takes. And, and I think that we get so terrified of making the wrong decisions in life that we avoid the decisions all together, and that's a form of commitment phobia, is avoiding the decision because you're so terrified that you're gonna make the wrong choice in a decision that feels so high-stakes. I, I never, um, I realized I never, I always used to kind of, when I was younger, friends of mine that would get tattoos, I'd be like, "You're insane."

Steven Bartlett 1:21:29 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 1:21:30 "You're crazy. Why would you put something on your arm that you can never take off again?" That, i- every fiber of me said, "That's a terrible idea." I had never enjoyed anything for my whole life. I'd never, I, I can't point to a piece of clothing I've always liked.

Steven Bartlett 1:21:53 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:21:55 So why would I think, why would I have faith that I'm gonna tattoo something on my arm and I'm still gonna like it 20 years from now?

Steven Bartlett 1:22:02 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:22:02 That freaked me out. And what I came to realize, not with everyone who gets tattoos, there are plenty of foolish tattoos out there. But what I did realize is that actually a lot of the people that I knew who got tattoos just had a different relationship with the idea of permanence. W- I, I knew someone with a lot of tattoos and she said, "You know, there's just, the meaning changes over time." She was a client of mine who said, "I, over time, it, they come to mean different things and they kind of evolve with me." And so in a way, though to you it may look like the same tattoo, to me it's, it, it's always evolving, in its meaning and, and what it represents.

Steven Bartlett 1:22:48 That's actually what someone said to me, because I, I was telling them I was gonna ask, one of my team in the room, uh, that I was gonna ask, ask you this question and he's been in a marriage for some time and he has kids and he said, "Well, you have different relationships with them over time, you f-" and the adage of you fall in love with them over and over again in different ways-

Matthew Hussey 1:23:02 Right.

Steven Bartlett 1:23:02 ... is the-

Matthew Hussey 1:23:03 It, it, it, it, I couldn't agree more. A- and I can't speak as somebody who has done it already.

Steven Bartlett 1:23:10 Hmm.

Matthew Hussey 1:23:11 I can only speak as someone who I've realized that my relationship with the idea of permanence has not been a very productive one.

Steven Bartlett 1:23:28 Has it been an, it, for, for me it was definitely an insecure one, and a scar- a fearful one.

Matthew Hussey 1:23:33 Well I think that, you, you know, there's a, Oliver Burkeman who I th- you may have met, I think you maybe interviewed Oliver Burkeman. He-

Steven Bartlett 1:23:39 I did, yeah. He's-

Matthew Hussey 1:23:40 Yeah. He, hi- hi- his book, for anyone who's struggling with, with being ready for commitment, is a really powerful book. You could read that book as a dating book. Uh, because he, he talks about the, the issue of deciding, deciding to do something and then the thing that we decide on, we resolve to make that as good as we can make it. Because by definition, you can't experience all of life. You can't experience every man in the world. You can't experience every woman in the world. You can't, like, it, you can't. So when we're trying to, what he describes it as is almost a fear of our own mortality or a lack of acceptance of our own mortality. He talks about it in a time management sense, that the fact that we're trying to cram so many things into our day is really a representation of our lack of acknowledgement that we're gonna die.

Steven Bartlett 1:24:34 (laughs) Yeah.

Matthew Hussey 1:24:35 Right? I keep telling myself I'm gonna do all of these things that I'll never get to, but it's because I can't come to terms with the fact that I'm gonna die and I'm not gonna get to do even a quarter of these things I'm planning to do. 'Cause if you really understand how short life is, you know you're not gonna go to half of the countries you wanna go to, so you better start picking the ones you really wanna go to. However, that mak- that seems to make the stakes of every decision really high. Right? This is Burkeman's point, that it makes the stakes of every decision really high, and that would make us even more decisi- e- even more indecisive. My God, if you're already telling me that I have to carefully select the books I'm gonna read 'cause I'm only gonna get to read 1% of, of the books that I ever even want to read, let alone the number of books out there, then-Uh, "How would I ever choose what book to read next when I know I'm only gonna read 60 more in my whole life, or 100 more in my whole life?" What he says, which is so compelling, is that there's, there's no one right book. There's no one right country. There's no one right person. There's the person that, uh, there's the person we in- we decide, we resolve to make the best relationship with. There's the country we decide to make the most of living in. There's the job that we decide to make the most of. And the way I think about it is not, people settling is a very, um-

Steven Bartlett 1:26:03 Loaded. (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:26:03 ... emotive, loaded word.

Steven Bartlett 1:26:05 Yeah.

Matthew Hussey 1:26:07 I used to write in people's books, when I signed, when people would bring me on tour a copy of Get The Guy. I used to write as standard, in the front of their book, "Never settle." And I now look at that and I'm like, "I don't think that was strong advice."

Steven Bartlett 1:26:27 Hm.

Matthew Hussey 1:26:28 I don't think that was strong advice, because what I did was demonize the word settling, which self-development tends to do.

Steven Bartlett 1:26:38 Hm.

Matthew Hussey 1:26:39 It's all about optimization.

Steven Bartlett 1:26:40 Hm.

Matthew Hussey 1:26:41 Never settle. And I was coming from that kind of maximizing, optimizing, self-development place. But there's a difference between settling for and settling on. Settling for says that you had a standard that you accepted less than. Settling on says, "I'm gonna put my focus and my energy on something, and it's gonna be extraordinary because I'm gonna make it extraordinary."

Steven Bartlett 1:27:16 And it sounds voluntary, doesn't it? Whereas for is kind of like you were given that.

Matthew Hussey 1:27:21 And for is like, "I gave up."

Steven Bartlett 1:27:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew Hussey 1:27:23 Settling on is, "I made a conscious decision. I settled on living in London. I didn't settle for living in London, I decided I, this is a great city. Yes, there are many other great cities, but this is a great city and I am gonna make living in London incredible for myself. I'm settling on living in London." And I, for years, I noticed in my language, even though I've been living in LA, in LA for 10 years, anytime someone would ask me, "So is LA home?" I'd go, "I don't know."

Steven Bartlett 1:27:56 (laughs)

Matthew Hussey 1:27:56 "I might leave. I, I might, next year I might not be here. I'm not sure. We'll see." I've been doing my job for 15 years. I clearly, in pr- a practical sense, do not have an issue with commitment. I've been doing what I do for a very long time, most pe- more, longer than most people do any job. But if you'd asked me, in general, "Do you see yourself doing this for your whole life?" I'd say, "I don't know. I mean, we'll see." Now, that's okay to build in flexibility, but not if it's a way of ever avoiding settling on something. Because when we don't settle on something, we actually rid ourselves the opportunity of making it the best it can be. And, and I rem- when, we were going through a time recently where we were talking about, "Should we stay in LA or should we go somewhere else? What, you know, what do we think?" And we kind of thought about all different places we might go, and we did this whole n- exercise, this mental exercise of thinking about all of these places we could live and would live and so on. We ended up settling on LA, and we came right back to where we started but, but we both said, "Actually no, we wanna be here." And what was really funny is the moment we decided, "Okay no, we're gonna