Relationship Scientist REVEALS 3 CLEAR SIGNS He'll CHEAT (Don’t Miss THIS RED FLAG!) | Macken Murphy

Macken Murphy 0:00 I spent a couple years at Oxford studying infidelity. Narcissism is associated with infidelity. Plenty of people find sexual narcissism sexy, right? So that's someone who believes that they're the best lover ever and is, you know, totally confident in bed. That also predicts infidelity.

Lewis Howes 0:13 Now, Macken Murphy isn't just a behavior scientist, he's a master at decoding the little things we do and say that reveal a lot about our relationships and what we're really looking for in love and life. Macken's insights are going to open your eyes to the complex world of human attraction.

Macken Murphy 0:29 The symptoms of PTSD are so common among people who have been cheated on that some psychologists have coined the term and use the term PIST, post-infidelity stress disorder.

Lewis Howes 0:38 Wow. What is the research that stands out to you the most around love, relationships, and intimacy in a modern world?

Macken Murphy 0:46 The research on what we know impacts success in romantic relationships. So there are very simple things that you can do to improve your romantic connection with someone.

Lewis Howes 0:57 What would you say are the three clear signs that a man may cheat on his partner that he's committed to?

Macken Murphy 1:03 I don't even know if I should share this, but...

Lewis Howes 1:06 Welcome back, everyone, to The School of Greatness. I am very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Macken Murphy in the house. Good to see you.

Macken Murphy 1:13 I don't know about inspiring, but thank you.

Lewis Howes 1:15 Very excited, uh, because I wouldn't say I discovered you, but I found your content before a lot of people knew about you, and I still don't think really many people know about you yet. So I wanna introduce you, uh, from what I saw online. Now, Macken Murphy isn't just a behavior scientist, he's a master at decoding the little things we do and say that reveal a lot about our relationships and what we're really looking for in love and life. So whether you're single, dating, or you're just love understanding more about people around you, Macken's insights are going to open your eyes to the complex world of human attraction. Now, you're a scientist, you're a researcher, and you studied a lot of different things around animal mating theory and history of animal the- mating, but also human mating. And your content on TikTok is what, how I found you, and what made me really interested about the depth of research that you dive into and study on the science of love and relationships. And we were just talking about this before, about a few different key things that people are interested in a lot these days: infidelity, cheating, why people cheat, why it's important for men and women to try to become more beautiful, jealousy, insecurity, all these different things that people are struggling with or trying to understand about themselves and others. And so I'm excited to dive into this. Um, the first thing I wanna talk about is infidelity and cheating.

Macken Murphy 2:47 Sure.

Lewis Howes 2:47 Why do you think people are cheaters or cheat at one point? What is the main cause of cheating that you've seen, and do men cheat more than women?

Macken Murphy 3:00 Okay, well that's a very complicated question. I'll say up front that infidelity in the animal literature is just called extra pair copulation, right? This is, you have your in pair mate, the primary partner, and there are many... People think monogamy is, you know, this kind of unnatural social construct. That's an idea I run up against quite a bit. But monogamy, there are plenty of monogamous animals. I would say that we are a serially mono- serially monogamous species of ape. That's a slightly controversial thing to say, but we're serially socially monogamous. Infidelity, extra pair copulation, right? The, the propensity to have sexual intercourse with people who are not your mate, right? The inclination towards that. That's also part of our evolutionary story. Now, you asked about why people cheat and whether men cheat more than women. Whether men cheat more than women, I'll start on that because that's... I mean, it, it, it's, it's a controversial thing to say on the internet. It would be a controversial thing to write on a blog. But in a human mating behavior lab, right, somewhe- somewhere that actually studies infidelity,

Macken Murphy 4:03 this would be one of the most banal things you could ever say, which is that men do cheat more than women, right? Now, I'm not saying that nobody disagrees with this. I'm not saying that there aren't some researchers who say, you know, you know, "Maybe there's, there's more evenness here," or, "Maybe, maybe women actually cheat more." And maybe in some subpopulations, right, in circumspect socioecologies and in some age groups, maybe infidelity rates vary. But what do we see? Well, we see that, in general, right, women report getting ch- women- heterosexual women report getting cheated on more than heterosexual men, right? So they s- so you ask people, "Have you ever been cheated on?" Women are more likely to say they have been. And then when you ask people, "Have you ever cheated?" Men tend to say, "Yeah, I, uh," you know, more, right? So men admit to cheating more on these anonymous surveys, right? And you can say, "Well, survey data, self-report, maybe, maybe women are more likely to lie," right? But then that's a bit of a silly thing to say 'cause the research that we have on lying indicates that men are more duplicitous, right? Men lie more. I'm not saying it's a big sex difference, but any time someone's tried to look into that, that I'm aware of, uh, it's tended to say, okay, men seem more apt towards lying. And then finally, the final piece of evidence on this, right, when, when we're saying how do we know that men cheat more, is when you look at mate poachers, right? So th- this is, this is the, the other person in the scenario, right? The, the int-

Lewis Howes 5:23 Third party.

Macken Murphy 5:24 Yes, the interloper. When you ask men and women, um, you know, d- have you, have you succeeded... Uh, you know, have you attempted mate poaching? Have you succeeded? For short-term mating, right, uncommitted mating, so there's two types of mate poaching. There's this infidelity that we're talking about, and then there's the second type, which is also infidelity, but it's you're starting a new relationship. It seems to be, at least in Western samples, right, and this is a less studied fact, that women who mate poach have higher success. So when you take all those findings together, right?

Lewis Howes 5:56 So women who are single-

Macken Murphy 5:58 And want to, if they want to take your boyfriend, they'll have, for a night, they'll have more success than men who want to take your girlfriend for a night on average Well, n- that, that's a great segue 'cause we can now talk about ... So, so those are the reasons to think that men cheat more than women. And why is that, right? Why do men cheat more than women? I mean, I'm, I'm somewhat agnostic on the idea that, uh, like it, it's still possible that men cheat more, but one theoretical thing to consider, right? If new research came out that showed women cheat more, I, I'd be open to accepting it. I, I, I'm not c- I'm not emotionally committed to any ideas. But one of the theoretical reasons to expect men to cheat more is that male mammals, right, human- humans are mammals, male mammals have a very powerful benefit from infidelity that female animals can't have, at least in the same way, right? And I d- I, I, I'm realizing just when I'm speaking that I don't think infidelity is a good thing to do, right? I don't think cheating is a good thing to do. Uh, a lot of people, they might, they might clip things I'm saying and take it out of context. And when I'm saying that infidelity is natural, it's evolved, a lot of people are saying that it's inevitable, or think that I'm saying that it's inevitable. It's not, right? Plenty of people, m- probably most people don't cheat. Or that it's good, right? But there are plenty of natural things that are bad, right? Like, I also believe that under, in very niche circumstances, we have psychological adaptations to homicide, right? Or right, killing people. I don't think that murder is okay, but I recognize that mammals sometimes kill each other, right? And, and that there, there are sometimes fitness benefits to engaging in such a risky activity. Don't, please, nobody clip me [laughs] and say that I think homicide's okay. So going back to the topic, right? Why do men cheat more? One of the theoretical considerations that's worth bringing on board is the fact that male mammals,

Macken Murphy 7:48 when they have multiple partners, can increase the number of offspring that they have, right? So for male mammals, to an extent, quantity has more benefits relative to female mammals, right? And, um, you know, obviously, you know, gender and se- sex, these are complicated things that interface in complicated ways. But for the most part, men are male mammals, right? In general, uh, most men would be male mammals, right? And most women would be female mammals, right? And so men have this benefit to multiple mating that women generally don't have, which is that they can have multiple offspring. And this was in our ancestry. So, so I'm a, I'm a, I'm an evolutionary behavioral scientist, right? I'm interested in the evolutionary, the evolution of human behavior, and so I'm looking at, how did this behavior benefit our ancestors? So obviously in a contraception context, having an affair isn't gonna get you more offspring. But because male mammals can have multiple mates pregnant at o- one time, whereas female mammals can only be pregnant by one mate at a time, male mammals can expand their progeny by expanding the number of mates they have.

Lewis Howes 8:51 But that doesn't work in a modern society.

Macken Murphy 8:54 Not necessarily.

Lewis Howes 8:55 Right.

Macken Murphy 8:55 It could. I mean, sometimes that still happens, right? Pe- chi- children are born out of affairs, right? That, that, that, that still ha-

Lewis Howes 9:00 Sure

Macken Murphy 9:00 ... I won't name any celebrity names, but.

Lewis Howes 9:01 I mean, I, I shouldn't say it doesn't work.

Macken Murphy 9:03 But it, but it-

Lewis Howes 9:03 It isn't socially acceptable in society.

Macken Murphy 9:05 No, certainly not. And I'm not sure it ever was.

Lewis Howes 9:07 It doesn't bring har-

Macken Murphy 9:07 Yeah

Lewis Howes 9:07 ... and it doesn't bring harmony-

Macken Murphy 9:08 Yeah

Lewis Howes 9:09 ... in a relationship-

Macken Murphy 9:09 Yeah

Lewis Howes 9:10 ... when that's happening.

Macken Murphy 9:10 Yeah. I'm not saying that, that, that's a good, again, I'm not saying it's a good thing to do.

Lewis Howes 9:13 Right.

Macken Murphy 9:13 But I also wanna note that, so th- that presence of that powerful benefit could be part of the reason why men cheat more, right? Is that they have this additional benefit to infidelity that women don't necessarily have. But there are other reasons. I don't wanna oversimplify it. Like, I, I think a lot of people would hear that and they would say, "Okay, well, let's take that to the bank. Why do men cheat? They cheat because their male ancestors who had affairs had more offspring than their male ancestors who didn't have affairs." Not exactly right, right? Infidelity is a tool that can be put to many purposes for an animal, right? And in humans, it's quite complicated because we also have these complex social structures, right? So yes, some people who cheat are driven by a desire for sexual variety that probably in males help to increase progeny. But other individuals, right, there are individual men who cheat, for example, to mate switch, right? To obtain a different mate.

Lewis Howes 10:05 Mm.

Macken Murphy 10:06 So they're, they're with one woman, and they want to be with a different woman, and the infidelity is the way that they facilitate that. And that's true of women as well.

Lewis Howes 10:12 Why not just break up first?

Macken Murphy 10:14 [laughs] David Buss has a funny quote on this. He said, "Why would you quit your job before looking for a new one?" Right? Why would you dump your partner before seeing what else is out there?

Lewis Howes 10:26 Right.

Macken Murphy 10:26 And so-

Lewis Howes 10:26 You have some security.

Macken Murphy 10:27 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 10:27 You have some, you know, familiarity.

Macken Murphy 10:29 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 10:29 You have income.

Macken Murphy 10:31 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 10:31 You have value from the exchange.

Macken Murphy 10:32 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 10:32 Yeah.

Macken Murphy 10:32 So mate switching is another reason women and men both mate switch, right? And some scientists think that the main reason women cheat is to mate switch. Uh, I, I won't weigh in on that, but that's, that's one, that's one viewpoint.

Lewis Howes 10:43 What is the research saying on why women cheat?

Macken Murphy 10:46 Okay. Well, again, it's similar to men, where we have these many functions, right? So women and men both cheat to mate switch, to an extent. Women and men both cheat to, frankly, get revenge on their partners for infidelity.

Lewis Howes 11:00 Wow.

Macken Murphy 11:00 Right?

Lewis Howes 11:00 Oh, right.

Macken Murphy 11:00 And, and there's some published research that indicates that women might be more likely to cheat for revenge, and it's an open debate as to whether that's a genuine psychological tendency or whether it's just that they get cheated on more, and so they have more opportunities to actually pursue that strategy.

Lewis Howes 11:13 Sure.

Macken Murphy 11:14 Women in some societies such as the, among the Himba of Namibia, right? Uh, the, this is an agro-pastoralist group. They, they have incredible rates of infidelity, much higher than we see in the West.

Lewis Howes 11:26 Hm.

Macken Murphy 11:26 Incredibly high rates of women's infidelity, female infidelity. And, uh, the main reason, based on a

Macken Murphy 11:33 few studies from Brooke Schelza and Sean Pral, uh, who are brilliant scientists, uh, and, and I've spoken to them before, and they were both a pleasure to speak to. Their work indicates that in that socio-ecological setting, the primary reason that women cheat is to obtain multiple investors, right? Now, we see women cheat for multiple investors in the West as well, but it looks a little different, right? This would be the case where the woman is dating one guy, right, and he's, you know, provisioning benefits to her in various ways. But then she's also got maybe, you know, and this isn't a common thing, but maybe she's got kind of a sugar daddy type relationship on the side as well. And it's like You know, boyfriends do lots of good things for you, and so if you have multiple boyfriends, you can have more of those good things, right?

Lewis Howes 12:14 Right.

Macken Murphy 12:14 And that seems to be a primary motivation among the Himba, where, you know, it's, it's a somewhat resource-scarce situation. And so one of the benefits that women accrue through infidelity is they obtain multiple partners who are putting resources towards them and their offspring.

Lewis Howes 12:28 More resources. More safety, more resources, more opportunities.

Macken Murphy 12:31 More everything.

Lewis Howes 12:31 More everything.

Macken Murphy 12:32 Right? So that's one reason that, uh, women cheat, and maybe to an extent men as well. I don't know how common that strategy is in the West, but it's certainly, again, it's important to understand it. It's certainly common there. So there's tons of reasons. And then another one, and this, this is the last one that I'll, that I think I'll mention unless, unless you want more, 'cause there, there really are many strategies. The last potential reason that women have affairs, right, is to couple the, let's say, the indirect benefits of one partner with the direct benefits of another. Right? So indirect-

Lewis Howes 13:00 Mm

Macken Murphy 13:00 ... benefits are, some people call them conceptive benefits or genetic benefits, right? This is, you can have an affair, and this is something that we see in other animals. You can have an affair with a male who maybe has, you know, who's maybe healthier, right? Something like that. And then your offspring will be healthier, and then you can raise those children surreptitiously with-

Lewis Howes 13:19 With the boyfriend

Macken Murphy 13:20 ... with the boyfriend-

Lewis Howes 13:21 Wow

Macken Murphy 13:21 ... who maybe is a better investor, right?

Lewis Howes 13:23 Oh, man.

Macken Murphy 13:23 So that's, but that's, that's not particularly common. It's, you know, in Western pop, I don't want anyone to... It- it's not particularly common for this to actually... I'm not saying that it's not, it doesn't have a profound influence on our modern psychology, right, the roots of this behavior. I would say that, that to an extent it does, right? And then there's a, there's various pieces of evidence for that. But in terms of the actual execution of that strategy, very low frequency. Uh, uh, generally, like, like, uh, I mean, on the internet you hear all this nonsense about people saying, "Oh, the extra pair paternity rate," right? The rate of you are not the father is, like, 30%. And I'm like-

Lewis Howes 13:57 Really?

Macken Murphy 13:57 ... "No, it's not. It's not."

Lewis Howes 13:58 Okay.

Macken Murphy 13:58 "It's not." And nobody, please nobody clip this.

Lewis Howes 14:00 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 14:01 It's, they say it's 30% because they go to paternity clinics, where men who are already suspicious are looking to find out-

Lewis Howes 14:08 From those people-

Macken Murphy 14:09 From those people-

Lewis Howes 14:09 ... it's 30%

Macken Murphy 14:10 ... which, and, and it's like, okay, that's like going to, that's like going to an auto shop to try and determine the rate of car crashes. If you look at general population studies, right, studies where they're, where it's not self-selected in this incredibly biased way, you see rates, uh, more like 3%-

Lewis Howes 14:25 Yeah

Macken Murphy 14:25 ... would be high.

Lewis Howes 14:26 Yeah, yeah.

Macken Murphy 14:26 2% would be more normal.

Lewis Howes 14:28 Sure.

Macken Murphy 14:28 And, you know, generally if you ask a scientist who studies paternity, they'd say in Western samples 1 to 2%. But in some groups it's very high. Uh, like among the Himba, right, again, from Namibia, it's like 50/50.

Lewis Howes 14:41 [laughs] You don't know.

Macken Murphy 14:43 Yeah, it's 48%.

Lewis Howes 14:43 Oh my goodness.

Macken Murphy 14:44 It's 48%. Yeah, but, but, but it's not a you don't know situation.

Lewis Howes 14:46 But doesn't that become-

Macken Murphy 14:46 There's a strange cultural context. It's worth noting.

Lewis Howes 14:48 Isn't it more-

Macken Murphy 14:48 It's not a you don't know situation.

Lewis Howes 14:49 Yeah, isn't it more about-

Macken Murphy 14:50 They do know

Lewis Howes 14:51 ... isn't it more about, like, being raised by a tribe, and the more men that are involved with a woman, the more likelihood they'll help take care of the child as well? Is that part of that?

Macken Murphy 15:00 Yeah, kind of. That's actually, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's about right. It's, and it's not the same setting. I mean, in the West we, there's a debate as to whether it's even analogous,

Macken Murphy 15:09 because in the West when a man finds out, "Oh, the, my, oh my God, my wife slept with someone else and I'm raising that guy's kid," right? That's the end of the relationship pretty consistently, right? That's a disaster. But among this group, it's like, "Yeah, I know that's not my kid," right?

Lewis Howes 15:24 "But I'm gonna raise him 'cause he's right down the street," or, "He's in the tribe," or, "He's in the community."

Macken Murphy 15:28 Yeah, it's, well, it's just a-

Lewis Howes 15:29 Yeah

Macken Murphy 15:29 ... it's just a different, it, it, this is a much more complicated question, and if you're interested in having a really good scientist who could tell you everything about that specific scenario, Brooke Szulca is the one to invite. But you're about right in the sense that it's multiple investors, and that there's, it's complex because there's, there's, there's, and this is gonna be very foreign to people in a Western context, but there's status to be obtained from being a good parent to your wife's affair partner's children, right?

Lewis Howes 15:59 Mm.

Macken Murphy 15:59 And then there's also some complexity in the sense that maybe when these men were younger, they were the affair partner to, you know, and as they age, they're get- getting some of that-

Lewis Howes 16:07 Yeah, yeah

Macken Murphy 16:07 ... benefit back.

Lewis Howes 16:08 Yeah.

Macken Murphy 16:08 Right? So they were on the other side of it them- so they've played both sides of the field. They understand the game-

Lewis Howes 16:11 Sure

Macken Murphy 16:12 ... to an extent.

Lewis Howes 16:12 I'm curious, in the Western society and world, what's the science or the research on monogamy relationships versus polyamory relationships, and which ones are more beneficial, and which ones have more harmony, peace, and, and true love, versus which ones causes more stress and destruction?

Macken Murphy 16:36 Mm.

Lewis Howes 16:37 Is there any science that shows polyamory is actually healthy, creates harmony, abundance with having multiple partners-

Macken Murphy 16:46 Yeah

Lewis Howes 16:46 ... each partner having multiple partners?

Macken Murphy 16:48 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 16:49 What's the science of that?

Macken Murphy 16:51 Well, you could say, given, you know, given the fact that I spent a couple years at Oxford studying infidelity, you could say that I have some expertise on informal polyamory. But formal pol- what you're describing, formal polyamory-

Lewis Howes 17:06 Like, where they're both in on it.

Macken Murphy 17:07 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 17:07 They're like, "Hey, we each have three partners."

Macken Murphy 17:08 That's not really infidelity, 'cause they, 'cause they, 'cause they're faithful to the rules of their relationship.

Lewis Howes 17:12 Yeah.

Macken Murphy 17:13 It's just that their rules are different.

Lewis Howes 17:14 But ev- but it, but based on research, has that worked-

Macken Murphy 17:18 Oh, well, what I was, yeah

Lewis Howes 17:18 ... for people in long-term relationships?

Macken Murphy 17:19 Yeah, so what I wa- what I was getting to is that that is just not my area of expertise. And other academics, you know, I, I, I really don't wanna plant a flag here because a lot of other academics will speak on subjects that they haven't... No, not, not other academics. I, I, that's actually not even the word I'm trying to use. A lot of people, you know, on the internet, right, not necessarily academics, will speak with, will speak as if they're an expert on everything. Whereas in academia, right, if you haven't spent at least a year on a topic, you really know very little about it, right? You're, that, that, that, the, the, there, it's not a quick process-

Lewis Howes 17:57 Sure

Macken Murphy 17:57 ... to learn about a subject deeply.

Lewis Howes 17:59 Right.

Macken Murphy 17:59 Now, if you know about a lot of related subjects, maybe you can get yourself up to speed quickly.

Lewis Howes 18:03 Is there any research that you've come about, whether you're the expert or not on it, in that category of polyamory versus monogamy?

Macken Murphy 18:10 From a societal perspective, when you're comparing groups, it does seem that monogamy comes with tremendous social benefits, right? Uh, it comes with economic benefits. It seems to come with social stability benefits, reduced violence, right? I mean- Monogamy is a game where it's a table where everyone can potentially get a seat, 'cause it's one-to-one pairing, right? If you start mixing and matching, it, it's, it's, uh, uh, uh, it seems that what the end result of opening the door to that is that there's, um, that you get single men who are excluded from the mating market, and those men... I'm not s- I, and I have no political opinions on this, just to be clear. A lot of people sometimes hear facts and interpret them as advocating for a position.

Lewis Howes 18:52 Sure.

Macken Murphy 18:52 I'm just saying that it is the case that if you have tons of single men in an environment who have no romantic prospects,

Macken Murphy 19:03 uh, they're go- prospects, they're going to, they're going to, th- they, they have nothing to lose, right? They, they, they don't have as much of a stake in society, and they also have all this incentive to compete. 'Cause it's like, "Well, I've lost the game anyway." It's kinda like, you know, in boxing, let's say, where it's like you're already down on the scorecards, and now it's like, "Well, I'm gonna lose anyway. Let me just throw some Hail Marys," right?

Lewis Howes 19:23 [laughs] Right.

Macken Murphy 19:24 You become more violent because it's like, "I, I can take these risks."

Lewis Howes 19:27 Right.

Macken Murphy 19:27 And we see that in these, you know, young, single men, I mean, some people call it young male syndrome in my field, [laughs] right? It's like they, they cause so much trouble.

Lewis Howes 19:37 Really?

Macken Murphy 19:37 And-

Lewis Howes 19:38 Yeah, if they're not in a kinda monogamous relationship or committed relationship, or-

Macken Murphy 19:41 It s- that, that's, that's certainly the theory, and in these, you know, uh, some of the work by Joe Henrich is pretty interesting on this. He's, he's, uh, I believe he actually testified in some Canadian thing. Uh, he's a, he's a professor at Harvard in any case, and he's, he's done some of the work looking at the kind of societal effects of monogamy, and-

Lewis Howes 20:01 Interesting

Macken Murphy 20:01 ... you know, he's not, again, just like me, he would be in the business of what is rather than what should be.

Lewis Howes 20:08 Right.

Macken Murphy 20:08 But he has observed, it's like monogamy seems to be pretty good for, pretty good for the goose and the gander.

Lewis Howes 20:15 Right. For everyone.

Macken Murphy 20:17 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 20:17 For society.

Macken Murphy 20:17 For society.

Lewis Howes 20:18 Yeah.

Macken Murphy 20:18 It's g- it also seems to be good for the people involved in it, but one note that I will make is that you might be able to run a study on people in polyamorous relationships and show that they're happier, right? Maybe.

Lewis Howes 20:29 You might be able to, yeah.

Macken Murphy 20:30 You might be able to. I'm not saying that I know of that result.

Lewis Howes 20:32 Right, right.

Macken Murphy 20:32 But that, that, those sorts of results mislead people. Like, um, uh, you really enjoy, um, doing football, right?

Lewis Howes 20:40 Mm-hmm.

Macken Murphy 20:41 And if I showed you, uh, I, I assume, and if I showed you a study that showed that people who play football are less happy, right, it's like, well... Or, sorry, people who don't play football are happier.

Lewis Howes 20:51 Right.

Macken Murphy 20:51 Right? You'd be like, "Well, they, th- th- that doesn't mean that me being forced to quit football or quitting it will make me happier-

Lewis Howes 20:58 Sure

Macken Murphy 20:58 ... as an individual."

Lewis Howes 20:59 Sure.

Macken Murphy 20:59 Right? It's like both people have selected themselves into those populations.

Lewis Howes 21:02 Right.

Macken Murphy 21:03 Uh, a better example might be skydiving, right? It's like you might find out that sky- people who skydive are much happier than the general population, and then it's like, "Oh, we should implement skydiving-

Lewis Howes 21:10 No, yeah

Macken Murphy 21:10 ... and everyone should skydive," and it's like, no, they chose to do that, so they enjoy it. So it could be the same with polyamory.

Lewis Howes 21:14 Sure.

Macken Murphy 21:15 So I, so I don't know if in terms of... So you were asking a question about, like, what's better, and it's like, it may be the case that polyamory's better for some people and monogamy's better for others. That would be my guess.

Lewis Howes 21:24 But it sounds like from your observation, observation that-

Macken Murphy 21:29 Yeah, tentatively

Lewis Howes 21:30 ... mono-

Macken Murphy 21:30 Yeah, from a social perspective, I will tentatively say-

Lewis Howes 21:33 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 21:33 ... that it's probably better for us to pair up and hang out.

Lewis Howes 21:39 Yeah.

Macken Murphy 21:40 Instead of-

Lewis Howes 21:40 And just-

Macken Murphy 21:40 ... viciously competing sexually.

Lewis Howes 21:42 Right.

Macken Murphy 21:43 Um, in, you know, into our 30s and 40s.

Lewis Howes 21:45 Right.

Macken Murphy 21:45 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 21:46 What would you say are the, uh, the three clear signs that a man may cheat on his partner that he's committed to?

Macken Murphy 21:54 There are no clear signs in the sense that... Well, I mean, if you catch them cheating, that's pretty clear. But- [laughs]

Lewis Howes 21:59 But it, like, someone might have-

Macken Murphy 22:01 ... the clear signs that they will

Lewis Howes 22:01 ... the potential that they might.

Macken Murphy 22:02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're looking for red flags.

Lewis Howes 22:03 Yes. What are those red flags that a man may cheat on you?

Macken Murphy 22:07 Well, a lot of these are quite depressing, but one of them is just family history. So infidelity runs in families. There is evidence that it is partially under the influence of genetics, like most behaviors, right? That shouldn't be, you know, uh, a lot of people get up in arms about that. But genes code for proteins and regulatory molecules, and those proteins and regulatory molecules make up and run your brain, right? So it's not surprising that genes have some impact on behavior, and it seems that it has some impact o- impact on a person's individual likelihood of pursuing infidelity, right? So I'm not saying that you should be punitive about this, but in terms of just red flags, it's like, and plenty of people whose dads cheat don't cheat themselves, but it's like if you know a guy's dad cheated,

Macken Murphy 22:52 it's like, well, he's, he's more likely to himself probably.

Lewis Howes 22:56 Interesting.

Macken Murphy 22:56 More likely than-

Lewis Howes 22:57 So it's-

Macken Murphy 22:57 More likely than someone whose dad was, you know, the epitome of faithfulness. And I don't think that that's, and you know, that's gonna be partially social. It's gonna be partially biological, and I, and a lot of people take that as a very controversial thing to say, but I, I, it, it, but the, the, the, the data supports it. Another r-

Lewis Howes 23:12 And so it's really like, okay, if you've found out that their father cheated-

Macken Murphy 23:16 Mm

Lewis Howes 23:17 ... ask them questions about h- what they think about that. Ask them questions about-

Macken Murphy 23:21 It's just a risk factor.

Lewis Howes 23:22 Yeah, it's a risk factor.

Macken Murphy 23:22 Like anything. Right? In the same way that-

Lewis Howes 23:23 Doesn't mean it's gonna happen

Macken Murphy 23:24 ... it doesn't mean it's gonna happen. In the same way that you might, if you found out that, if you found out that, uh, that, that a person's father had schizophrenia, right, they suffered from schizophrenia, you wouldn't say, "Oh, they're definitely going to be schizophrenic."

Lewis Howes 23:39 Sure.

Macken Murphy 23:40 You would just say, "Okay, all else being equal, if I know nothing else about two people, and one of them has a family history and one of them doesn't-

Lewis Howes 23:45 Watch out for this, yeah

Macken Murphy 23:46 ... yeah, that's, that-

Lewis Howes 23:46 Okay

Macken Murphy 23:46 ... maybe the, maybe the risk.

Lewis Howes 23:47 All right, so the family history is the first red flag. Second one?

Macken Murphy 23:51 Past, frankly, just what, what is their normal, what, what are their, what are their actual sexual inclinations? So we see there's this concept in psychology known as sociosexuality, which is essentially a person's propensity to engage in uncommitted mating. And, you know, if someone really enjoys sleeping with people who they just met and loves to have one-night stands and things like that and doesn't, you know, uh, doesn't want to or need to be in love in order to have a passionate sexual relationship with somebody- Those sorts of people who, you know, really love that sort of stuff are going to be more inclined towards unfaithfulness-

Lewis Howes 24:33 Interesting

Macken Murphy 24:33 ... than people who don't. And you might think, "Oh, that, that's, that's kind of peculiar," but it, but it's really not when you think about the fact that most infidelity is, to some degree, uncommitted mating. And so you're asking like, "Hey, do you like other forms of uncommitted mating?" And if they do, I'd say that they're more likely. And b- both of the ones that I've, both of these factors that I've mentioned were talking about men, but both of these, uh, both of these apply to-

Lewis Howes 24:57 For women as well

Macken Murphy 24:58 ... to women as well.

Lewis Howes 24:58 Those are red flags for women that they might cheat.

Macken Murphy 25:00 Well, just in the sense that if you've, if y- yeah, if you're dating two people, men or women, right? And I really wanna emphasize that, 'cause a lot of people make this point, but they only talk about women, a- and it's, it's clear that they're just trying to score points in some weird gender war that I don't relate to at all. Uh, it's just embarrassing to me to watch it. But it is true that, you know, if you're someone who is socio-sexually unrestricted, let's say, you're probably more interested in sleeping with people other than your wife, husband-

Lewis Howes 25:31 Mm-hmm

Macken Murphy 25:31 ... girlfriend, boyfriend.

Lewis Howes 25:33 And that, I guess that goes into, like, the whole body count issue. Like, people talking about body count, and how does that play into-

Macken Murphy 25:40 Yeah

Lewis Howes 25:40 ... if someone has a higher, uh, rate of sexual intimacy with people-

Macken Murphy 25:46 Mm

Lewis Howes 25:46 ... they're not committed to, their body count, whether they're committed or not committed, are they more likely to cheat if they're with me? It's like if you-

Macken Murphy 25:53 Well, yeah. Well, let's talk about it in the most nuanced way possible, because it probably is a proxy based on the information that I'm aware of. Right? There, there is some data on this. Some people have run these, uh, run these studies, and I would say that there probably is an association there. I actually think that it, it would, it would be, it would be overly cautious to say there's not an association there.

Lewis Howes 26:10 Interesting.

Macken Murphy 26:11 Right? But think about the context, right? If someone, if you meet one guy and he's, you know, 19 and has slept with 10 strangers in his first semester at college, right? Versus you meet a 30-year-old man who has had, you know, a few one-night stands and several relationships that didn't work out, like that's still a body count of 10.

Lewis Howes 26:30 That's context.

Macken Murphy 26:30 But those are very different people.

Lewis Howes 26:32 Yes.

Macken Murphy 26:32 Like, if you're asking me w- uh, like, the, the, I wouldn't say that there's any particular reason to be worried that that man is gonna have an affair, right? But if the 19-year-old, I'm like, "This guy is [laughs] kind of out of control."

Lewis Howes 26:42 Right, right, right.

Macken Murphy 26:42 He's, so, so it's really, I would say that body count, and maybe I'm wrong about this, but I would suspect that body count predicts infidelity in as much as body count correlates with socio-sexuality, if I had to guess.

Lewis Howes 26:57 Mm-hmm. And why is it so looked down upon when women, younger women sleep with a lot of men versus younger men sleeping with a lot of women?

Macken Murphy 27:08 It's an interesting question.

Lewis Howes 27:10 And is there any, and is there any science or research that shows how it could harm one of the other genders more or less?

Macken Murphy 27:17 Well, I'll talk about that, 'cause a lot of guys say, "Oh," and this is just wishful thinking. It's kind of a little bit of coping and seething. It's people saying like, "Oh, m- men can do whatever they want sexually, and it doesn't mean anything. But women have to, you know, be chaste and pure." And it's like almost every study that I'm aware of that shows a negative association between promiscuity and relationship outcomes shows the same results in men, right? I'm not saying that there's no studies that show one gender or the other, but in general, if you, uh, have a, if you look at a set of married people and try to find like, oh, does body count predict marital satisfaction or, uh, or, you know, r- r- relationships-

Lewis Howes 27:57 Divorce rates or, yeah

Macken Murphy 27:58 ... yeah, or, um, infidelity, right? Generally, it's like, oh, the effect is found in women and men. So why is it more stigmatized in women versus men in the American West? You know, it do- in the Am- in the w- in the, in America and in the West more generally, I'd say. Uh, kind of an interesting question. And then there are other cultures where it's also stigmatized more on one gender versus the other. And generally it is, the stigma does lean towards women, and it's a complicated question. I don't think I'm the right person to answer it because I don't know. But I will note that it's not because it only matters as an indicator for one gender. That's just not true.

Lewis Howes 28:32 Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Okay.

Macken Murphy 28:35 It could also, to be, to be frank, it could also be that in these societies, 'cause just, just as a note, a lot of people think that only men care about this stuff. But when you do surveys and you ask, you know, questions like, "What's the ideal body count," right? So I think Steve Stuart Williams did a study on this, and you find that both men and women care about it, right? They both care, right? To an extent.

Lewis Howes 28:57 What is the ideal body count?

Macken Murphy 28:58 It's a moderate number generally. Uh, not zero. I, I, there's this kind, uh, uh, and this is in Western samples. But in their studies and also, I, I, uh, I think Alexander from Date Psychology tried to validate this with, you know, his, his Twitter followers and, um, but the Stuart Williams study, I believe it was UK and US, it might just be UK, I'm not sure, but similar results all around. About average, right? So somewhere in the realm of-

Lewis Howes 29:23 What's average? [laughs]

Macken Murphy 29:24 ... uh, uh, somewhere between a few and several-

Lewis Howes 29:25 Okay

Macken Murphy 29:25 ... is generally what we see in these assessments.

Lewis Howes 29:27 Three to seven.

Macken Murphy 29:28 Yeah. A few to several. Sure.

Lewis Howes 29:29 A few to several.

Macken Murphy 29:30 Yeah. So, so-

Lewis Howes 29:30 Under 10

Macken Murphy 29:31 ... people seem to be-

Lewis Howes 29:31 More than one

Macken Murphy 29:32 ... yeah, people seem to discriminate against, and I'm not saying, you know, obviously there are some people who, you know, fetishize virginity and are very attracted to it. But in general, it seems that men and women are a bit put off by inexperience and really put off by too much experience. So it's like if you, and women discriminate more harshly against inexperience than men, right? And they both discriminate quite harshly against, against too much experience.

Lewis Howes 30:02 Over experience.

Macken Murphy 30:02 So the, so the, so the graph, if I were to graph, like, uh, and, and by the way, I don't think that anyone should be, you know, counting the number of people they sleep with so that that way they hit the optimal number, right?

Lewis Howes 30:13 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 30:13 This might help people lie more effectively about how many people they've slept with. But if you were to graph, you know, optimal body count, right? In terms of the average person's interests, it would look something like a wave, right? Where it's like, it starts off, like, not a huge deal to be a virgin, but not ideal. And then it's like, oh, a few.

Macken Murphy 30:30 You know, now, now we're talking about a, you know, normal, healthy, functioning-

Lewis Howes 30:33 Yeah, yeah

Macken Murphy 30:34 ... adult who's-

Lewis Howes 30:34 Someone who's not a loser-

Macken Murphy 30:35 Yeah

Lewis Howes 30:35 ... but someone, yeah.

Macken Murphy 30:36 Yeah, yeah, and someone, someone who has sex.

Lewis Howes 30:38 Right, right.

Macken Murphy 30:38 Just my type, right? [laughs] Yeah, exactly. That, I think that's what people are thinking, is like they don't want someone who's, you know, a complete prude. They want someone who has, you know, a, a, a full sex life.

Lewis Howes 30:46 Some knowledge.

Macken Murphy 30:47 Some knowledge, right. But then after you get past several, then it's, then it's a wave crashing on the shore. It's, it, it really does. It, people, people put or are put off by it. So to, to say that women care, too, I guess it would be interesting. It's like, well, in most of these cultures where women's sexuality is more strictly controlled than men's and more harshly stigmatized are cultures where men have all the power, right? And so maybe if women had all the power, they would start becoming very sexually controlling and neurotic about male sexuality.

Lewis Howes 31:18 Interesting.

Macken Murphy 31:18 Right. I'm not sure that they would. I'm not convinced that they would, but we can't run the experiment, right?

Lewis Howes 31:23 Right.

Macken Murphy 31:23 There, there's no, there's no, there's no way of, of testing that, you know, in a lab that I know of. I mean, maybe some clever researcher is listening and thinking, "Oh, I've got an idea." Um, but it's clear that women care, too, and to a s- and seemingly to a similar degree, similar-ish anyway, and so it's possible that the reason that we see the stigma is just about who has the power. But then, but again, there are... I'm gonna be cautious here and say that there are probably experts on chastity and purity and these concepts who have very fleshed out ideas as to why it's men who are doing this, you know, kind of stigmatizing. But, uh, but that would be my, that would be based on my knowledge that would be my hypothesis.

Lewis Howes 32:00 What's your thoughts on jealousy? Do you feel like jealousy and insecurity is a sign that someone loves you, or is it a toxic, unhealthy trait?

Macken Murphy 32:10 A lot of people do, and this isn't, you know, laboratory studies. This is just living a human life. A lot of people do seem to find some degree of jealousy sexy, right? But jealousy is also b- just because it's like, "Oh, this person really cares about me," like, they really care what I'm d- what I'm doing. But-

Lewis Howes 32:27 Do they really care about you, or are they more insecure about themselves?

Macken Murphy 32:30 Right. My feelings on jealousy is that it's a naturally evolved human emotion, right? It's one of the many pieces of evidence that we are a, let's say, a serially monogamous ape, and I'm not alone in thinking that, by the way. You know, um, Helen Fisher wrote a, a very good book on this and, and there are plenty of academics who agree with me. I also know that there are plenty of academics who disagree and, and think, uh... I saw you had sex with Dawn in the-

Lewis Howes 32:51 Uh-huh

Macken Murphy 32:51 ... in the lobby. Um, so there are plenty of people who disagree with this. But humans have a evolved psychological adaptation to feel jealous when they see threats to their partner's fidelity, right? So it's like if you see a super hot guy talking to your fiance-

Lewis Howes 33:07 Right

Macken Murphy 33:07 ... that might be like-

Lewis Howes 33:08 Want to be protective or something like that.

Macken Murphy 33:09 Yeah. You're like, "No, this is, this isn't, this..." I mean, you, you seem like a totally secure guy, but you might be sitting there thinking, "Well, this isn't ideal," right?

Lewis Howes 33:15 Right, right.

Macken Murphy 33:15 Um, and same, and same for her. You know, you go to an event, and you know a bunch of girls want your autograph or whatever. Um, she might be, you know... And she seems like a very secure person as well.

Lewis Howes 33:25 Yeah.

Macken Murphy 33:25 But she might be internally be like, "This is not, this is not the ideal situation."

Lewis Howes 33:28 [laughs] Right.

Macken Murphy 33:29 And that is, that is a evolved psychological adaptation to, in your case, protect paternity and-

Lewis Howes 33:34 Yeah

Macken Murphy 33:34 ... in her case, protect investment. So, you know, if... A lot of people don't understand the evol- like the evolutionary psychology of men's jealousy is very clear. It's a clear story. If someone else is sleeping with your girlfriend, you might end up raising a kid that's not yours, right? So that's a pretty clear narrative. Everyone understands it.

Lewis Howes 33:48 So we want to protect that. Yeah.

Macken Murphy 33:49 Yeah. It's like, "Oh, I don't want that to happen." So jealousy is natural. On the woman's side, right, there's no chance that her... In n- in, in, in most cases, there's no chance that he is going to be pregnant, right? So she, she's, she's not too worried about that, right? She's, uh...

Macken Murphy 34:07 But what she is worried about is that if you're out, you know, sleeping with other women, maybe you end up raising those kids, taking care of her, taking care of those kids, and then she's left alone with a baby and nobody, nobody around.

Lewis Howes 34:16 Interesting.

Macken Murphy 34:16 So both sexes have strong reasons to feel jealous, and those have deep roots in our evolutionary biology.

Lewis Howes 34:21 You're in a relationship. Do you feel jealous ever?

Macken Murphy 34:24 Yes. [laughs] But, but I also, I will say this, that the, that the research really helps.

Lewis Howes 34:28 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 34:29 Because it's like... No, genuinely, 'cause I'm like-

Lewis Howes 34:31 Here's the thing. I wanna, I wanna give you... I mean, y- you're what, 26, 27?

Macken Murphy 34:34 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 34:35 I'm 40, almost 41.

Macken Murphy 34:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 34:37 I would say every relationship I was in from, I don't know, 16 to 35, I was jealous.

Macken Murphy 34:45 So I'm gonna grow out of it.

Lewis Howes 34:46 At different levels. I'm not saying you're gonna grow out of it. Um, it was one of the hardest things for me to actually overcome. Now I'm just gonna speak from personal experience. I don't know if this backs any data or research or science that you've seen, but what I do know is being jealous was a horrible thing to feel. It never felt good for me. I never felt empowered and excited by it. It caused more stress and anxiety, and it probably had me saying things that I shouldn't have said in my relationships, acting in certain ways I shouldn't have acted in, in... Nothing horrible, but nothing benefiting me. There was no benefit ever in the relationship for me being jealous. Now you might be able to say, well, you know, having a little bit of jealousy and saying, "Oh, who is that guy?" And showing that you care that they were talking to someone else, maybe there's some slight benefit for that. But just like you said, like, you know, someone in a boxing match who's like outmatched and know they're gonna lose, that builds, and you start throwing-

Macken Murphy 35:47 Yeah

Lewis Howes 35:47 ... haymakers later.

Macken Murphy 35:48 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 35:48 That is not a fun picture-

Macken Murphy 35:50 Yeah

Lewis Howes 35:50 ... in a relationship.

Macken Murphy 35:51 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 35:51 Sometimes hard to get back.

Macken Murphy 35:53 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 35:53 Uh-

Macken Murphy 35:53 And also it doesn't... Everyone is... A- and I'm not a terribly jealous person. I'm just acknowledging-

Lewis Howes 35:58 Right, right

Macken Murphy 35:58 ... that I have that emotion.

Lewis Howes 35:59 You have jealousy.

Macken Murphy 35:59 I have that emotion-

Lewis Howes 36:00 Yes, of course

Macken Murphy 36:00 ... like everybody.

Lewis Howes 36:01 I get it. I get it.

Macken Murphy 36:01 To an extent. Uh, I certainly don't have, you know, morbid jealousy or anything like that, but, but, you know, I mean, the, the green-eyed monster sometimes, sometimes visits.

Lewis Howes 36:08 Of course. [laughs]

Macken Murphy 36:08 The... But what I will say is that, um-

Lewis Howes 36:12 Let me finish my thought-

Macken Murphy 36:13 Yeah

Lewis Howes 36:13 ... then you add to that.

Macken Murphy 36:14 Please. Actually, yeah.

Lewis Howes 36:14 Let me add to that.

Macken Murphy 36:14 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 36:15 So the jealousy that I felt never added any benefit to the relationship, and it only made me feeling more insecure and anxious. There was a time when I was about 34, 35, 36, in that time where I noticed the jealousy started to leave my body. Like, I stopped Being jealous if this person was going to be with someone else.

Macken Murphy 36:39 Mm.

Lewis Howes 36:40 There was something that flipped inside of me. Um, [clears throat] and I was in another relationship after that where I had zero jealousy, z- that I can think of. Maybe there was l- moments, but it wasn't, it didn't come out as, like, jealous acts. And I remember thinking to myself, something switched inside of me. I don't know if it was the time, the season of life, the experiences of different relationships I've been in, the agony and pain that I felt by having jealousy in, in 20 years of my life before that. But something flipped, and I just said, "If this person doesn't wanna be with me, what, what's the point of me being jealous or insecure? If they're gonna move on and leave, it's probably gonna be painful in the moment, but it's gonna benefit me in the long run."

Macken Murphy 37:23 Mm.

Lewis Howes 37:24 So I just got to a point, you know, in my relationship with Martha now, when I started dating her. She's a very famous ce- celebrity in her country and done 40 movies, and lots of-

Macken Murphy 37:33 Her DM requests are probably horrifying.

Lewis Howes 37:35 Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't look at that stuff.

Macken Murphy 37:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 37:36 But yeah, I mean-

Macken Murphy 37:37 I'm kidding. I've never-

Lewis Howes 37:37 Yeah, I'm sure she's got tons of men who have lots of money, who are s- you know, sexy, charming, who have big businesses, who are celebrities, that are, were reaching out to her before me, and I'm sure some still reach out now, right?

Macken Murphy 37:50 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 37:50 She doesn't engage in that. But if she didn't wanna be with me, it would be the greatest gift that she would give me by moving on quicker than staying with me longer-

Macken Murphy 38:00 Mm

Lewis Howes 38:01 ... and then, and then cheating on me or ending it later.

Macken Murphy 38:04 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 38:04 And so I'm like, "If you wanna be with me,

Lewis Howes 38:07 it's because you're committed to the vision of our relationship and what we can build together." Now, that doesn't mean I just get to be a sloppy human being and stop caring about her and stop investing in time and communicating and loving her-

Macken Murphy 38:19 No

Lewis Howes 38:20 ... and speaking life and abundance into her. So I'm constantly developing self as a man and as a human being to build confidence, to, to be my word to myself, to add value to society, to be desirable to myself, but also to her. And if that's not enough for her, then we shouldn't be together. And so the jealousy thing just doesn't add value to the relationship from my experience.

Macken Murphy 38:46 I completely agree. I think that's all very wise.

Lewis Howes 38:47 [laughs] I'm not saying you should just, like-

Macken Murphy 38:48 Yeah

Lewis Howes 38:48 ... cut it off right now, but I-

Macken Murphy 38:50 Yeah, no, no, no, and I don't, this isn't something that I struggle with particularly.

Lewis Howes 38:53 Yeah, yeah. That's good.

Macken Murphy 38:54 It's, it's, uh, it, it's, it's not a, it's not a huge part of my life. But I was just, I was just meaning that-

Lewis Howes 38:57 But you acknowledge you have some-

Macken Murphy 38:58 ... that I have the emotion-

Lewis Howes 38:59 Yes, yeah

Macken Murphy 38:59 ... like many people do. Do you engage in any of the playful jealousy that we discussed? The kinda, "Hey, who was that guy?"

Lewis Howes 39:04 No.

Macken Murphy 39:05 None of that.

Lewis Howes 39:05 No.

Macken Murphy 39:05 None of the jokes.

Lewis Howes 39:06 No.

Macken Murphy 39:07 Interesting.

Lewis Howes 39:07 I'm trying to... I, I mean, maybe there was once or twice where I was like, you know, "Where do you know that guy from?"

Macken Murphy 39:13 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 39:14 Where, like, like, someone came up to her-

Macken Murphy 39:15 Yeah

Lewis Howes 39:15 ... like, "Just curious," like, "Oh, is this someone you dated in the past?"

Macken Murphy 39:19 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 39:19 "Or someone who was hitting on you before?"

Macken Murphy 39:20 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 39:20 Just more of, like, who is this person?

Macken Murphy 39:22 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 39:23 But not from a sense of, like, "Why are you talking to this guy?"

Macken Murphy 39:25 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 39:25 You know?

Macken Murphy 39:26 Oh, no, no, never.

Lewis Howes 39:26 Yeah, yeah.

Macken Murphy 39:26 Never me either. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. That's, that's not my personality.

Lewis Howes 39:29 So, but no, I don't. I don't know why.

Macken Murphy 39:30 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 39:31 I don't. I think I-

Macken Murphy 39:32 Yeah

Lewis Howes 39:32 ... again, I had too much pain and suffering by-

Macken Murphy 39:34 Yeah

Lewis Howes 39:34 ... experiencing... No, I probably have a lot more jealousy than you.

Macken Murphy 39:37 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 39:38 I wasn't as evolved as you.

Macken Murphy 39:39 Yeah, it's, it's... Well, it sound, it sounds, it sounds like you, you really suffered from it. I, I've, I've, I've been quite lucky. Um, I've also heard, I don't know, I mean, I think that a little bit of playful protectiveness-

Lewis Howes 39:52 Uh-huh

Macken Murphy 39:52 ... if it's in that spirit-

Lewis Howes 39:53 Yeah, yeah

Macken Murphy 39:54 ... I think that, again, some people find it quite sexy-

Lewis Howes 39:56 Sure

Macken Murphy 39:57 ... and, you know, quite stimulating. That it's like, "Oh, wow, this, you know, this-"

Lewis Howes 40:00 I get that.

Macken Murphy 40:00 "This, this woman wants me so badly. This, this guy wants me so badly. They don't want anyone else to talk to me."

Lewis Howes 40:04 I get that.

Macken Murphy 40:04 But the, but as long as it's in that, not-

Lewis Howes 40:05 But where does that go to?

Macken Murphy 40:06 But if it's not... Yeah, but that's, that's with the very strict provision that it's like it doesn't lead to controlling and-

Lewis Howes 40:14 Exactly

Macken Murphy 40:14 ... strange behaviors such as going through the DM requests.

Lewis Howes 40:16 And, yes.

Macken Murphy 40:17 Such as, you know, going through, you know-

Lewis Howes 40:19 Give me access to everything.

Macken Murphy 40:20 Yeah, sure.

Lewis Howes 40:20 Where are you every two hours?

Macken Murphy 40:21 Location.

Lewis Howes 40:22 All that stuff.

Macken Murphy 40:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why didn't you call me last night, et cetera.

Lewis Howes 40:24 And I think that's, you know, it's, it's a slippery slope.

Macken Murphy 40:27 For sure.

Lewis Howes 40:27 It's like-

Macken Murphy 40:27 Yeah

Lewis Howes 40:28 ... okay, I'm gonna drink a glass of wine once a week, and then I start having twice a week, and then two glasses of wine a night, and then it's like, now I'm an alcoholic.

Macken Murphy 40:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 40:36 So it's, okay, it's make sure you manage that, I think-

Macken Murphy 40:39 Yeah

Lewis Howes 40:39 ... is the, is the thing. Otherwise, I just think that's a lot of relationships struggle with too much jealousy.

Macken Murphy 40:45 Yeah. Yeah, I mean-

Lewis Howes 40:47 From my personal experience.

Macken Murphy 40:47 Yeah, yeah. For sure.

Lewis Howes 40:48 I don't have the science behind it, but-

Macken Murphy 40:50 Yeah

Lewis Howes 40:50 ... I'm curious, when do you know when you've been dating someone that they are actually in love with you? Are there clear signs that someone truly loves you?

Macken Murphy 40:59 Such a good question. So I spoke to the world's leading expert on it, and I, and I'll, I'll flag here as well that I'm a very, let us s- let's call it the earliest career researcher possible. I'm, I'm a PhD student. Everything that I've said in this conver- You know, I've, I've done some research myself. We've run a couple studies and, you know, one of them's in the write-up phase, one of them's under peer review. You know, I'm active as a peer reviewer and go to, uh, speak at academic conferences, et cetera, but I'm still very, you know... Even though I'm an active researcher, I'm still very early, so everything that I've said so far, it's the work of other people, right?

Lewis Howes 41:31 Yeah.

Macken Murphy 41:31 And that's, that's part of k- kind of my mission, let's say, as a person, is like-

Lewis Howes 41:34 To share this information

Macken Murphy 41:35 ... I love my field. I love the researchers in my field, and I want all of their voices to be heard on platforms like this. So I spoke to Helen Fisher, who is someone who definitely doesn't need my amplification. She's, she's very famous. Um, but she's, I would say, the world-leading expert in romantic love. Understands it top to bottom, right? And what she told me is that the best proxy that we have, right?

Macken Murphy 42:01 So there's all these symptoms of romantic love, but the most, you know, if we're talking about in love, like acutely in love, the symptom that you're looking for is obsessive thinking. Thinking about them all the time. Other things include, you know, special meaning, right? So their car is now better than all the other cars. Their shoes are, the way they tie their shoes is s- so spectacular, you think it's adorable. Those sorts of, you know, imputing special meaning. That's pretty common with people who are in love. And there, and love is also really best understood as, and this also comes from her work, really best understood as three brain systems, right? There, there's, there's lust, which I don't think I need to explain. There's Let's call it passionate love, romantic love, right? This acute honeymoon phase style love-

Lewis Howes 42:49 Yes

Macken Murphy 42:49 ... which generally lasts, you know, if things go really well, could last maybe four years, if you're lucky.

Lewis Howes 42:55 If you're a long distance relationship [laughs] .

Macken Murphy 42:56 Maybe a little longer. And the final form is attachment. So that's, you know, when you're settled down with someone and you want that to, to last a long time. And there's, there, you know, there, there's even a, there's even an, the, the those feelings of stability and connection and, and deeper meaning. And, you know, those passionate love feelings go away, and some people think, "Oh, what a disaster. I wanna keep them." But I mean, those passionate love feelings come with a lot of what we were just talking about, right? They come with a lot of jealousy, they come with a lot of the, like, do you really want your life to be categorized by obsessing over a romantic partner for 40 years? It's like there's more important things to be doing. A few years of that, I think, it's about right.

Lewis Howes 43:37 Mm-hmm.

Macken Murphy 43:38 Than other things.

Lewis Howes 43:39 If someone, um, is in a relationship with someone right now, and they've been cheated on by that person-

Macken Murphy 43:45 Mm

Lewis Howes 43:46 ... but they've chosen to stay with them-

Macken Murphy 43:47 Mm

Lewis Howes 43:48 ... man or woman, do you think it's possible based on research or science that you've studied that that relationship can work, or that they can be faithful after infidelity?

Macken Murphy 43:59 I think we all know couples who have survived infidelity.

Lewis Howes 44:02 Mm-hmm.

Macken Murphy 44:02 Right? And there's the kind of trite aphorism, best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. To an extent, that does seem to apply here. It's not the best predictor, but-

Lewis Howes 44:15 Mm-hmm

Macken Murphy 44:15 ... Kayla Knopp and her colleagues did a longitudinal study of people i, i, in relationships, so to say. And l, I believe it was Kayla Knopp, I'll, I'll have to double check that after the show, but there was a study in any case that, that, that looked at, okay, what were, what, what, what's your relationship history, right? What, where, where are you coming from here? And then watched, you know, how did the, how did this relationship play out? And excuse me if I'm misquoting the stat. I read this, I read this study two years ago. But I believe it was that people who had cheated in their past relation- you know what? I won't say a specific number. It was, but it was a multiple more likely. It wasn't like they're 10% more likely, it was like they're three, three times more likely to cheat again, right? Than someone else taken-

Lewis Howes 45:02 Right

Macken Murphy 45:02 ... naturally. Right. And that's previous relationship to current relationship. But I would say that it's like you gain so much information. Plenty of people don't cheat. Plenty of people never cheat their entire lives, right? Plenty of women, plenty of men. Maybe even most. And so if someone does that to you, you've just, they've just given you, as you might say, a gift of giving you all this information about them as a person.

Lewis Howes 45:24 Right.

Macken Murphy 45:25 And I'm not damning cheaters. Plenty, plenty of, you know, psychologically normal, good people make mistakes that they consider mistakes immediately, right? That happens. But this idea that it's like you can, there are pl- you know, there are plenty of fish in the sea, and you want to choose the one fish that already did that to you? You know, I, I, but I would, I would say that this is, that I, and speaking about this, I'm talking a lot about, I'm thinking in my mind because of my own age, I'm thinking of, you know, young relationships-

Lewis Howes 45:52 Yeah

Macken Murphy 45:52 ... where hitting

Macken Murphy 45:53 reset is pretty easy.

Lewis Howes 45:54 Right.

Macken Murphy 45:54 And finding someone new.

Lewis Howes 45:55 But if you have 10 years of relationship and context-

Macken Murphy 45:57 And you've got a family-

Lewis Howes 45:58 Yeah, it's different

Macken Murphy 45:58 ... and all this context, it's a little different. So I'm not making any blanket recommendations, I'm just saying that you, if, if someone has cheated on you, yeah, they're more likely to cheat on you than a random stranger on the street.

Lewis Howes 46:08 Do you feel like Gen Z is cheating more than other generations?

Macken Murphy 46:14 I don't see any evidence of that. I, if anything, young people are engaging in less risky sexual behaviors across the board.

Lewis Howes 46:22 Really? Why is that?

Macken Murphy 46:23 It's interesting. I mean, that is something where I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to email you some names that you could talk to about that. Some people call it the mating crisis.

Lewis Howes 46:32 What is the mating crisis?

Macken Murphy 46:33 That, you know, people aren't mating as much [laughs] .

Lewis Howes 46:36 Why, why is that?

Macken Murphy 46:37 Well, there's a bunch of different theories. It's, it's not my area of expertise. I, I'm sure you can sense that I, that I'm kind of uncomfortable speaking about it.

Lewis Howes 46:45 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 46:45 'Cause I think it's a little bit, I'm very tentative about it. I'll just say that.

Lewis Howes 46:51 Right.

Macken Murphy 46:51 Like, this idea that it's, that it's even a thing-

Lewis Howes 46:54 Uh-huh

Macken Murphy 46:54 ... or that it's a bad thing.

Lewis Howes 46:55 Right. Right.

Macken Murphy 46:55 I mean, is it such a bad thing that teenagers are having less casual sex? Is that really something that-

Lewis Howes 47:02 Right

Macken Murphy 47:02 ... is that a problem that needs to be fixed?

Lewis Howes 47:03 It's probably a good thing.

Macken Murphy 47:04 Is it such a problem that people are-

Lewis Howes 47:06 They're waiting

Macken Murphy 47:06 ... waiting longer before having sex for the first time? I don't know. I, uh, a- and that's not the o... I, I, I'm, I'm probably dumbing it down. That's certainly not the only thing that people talk about the mating crisis. People talk about, you know, um, various subcultures formed around, you know, the state of not being able to mate and that sort of thing. And I'd appreciate, I appreciate that for some people, the mating market is probably especially hard now. But the, you wanted to ask about why it's happening. Well, one component that a lot of people who are experts in this talk about is the fact that there's risk reduction across the board, right? So it's not just that they're having less casual sex, they're also drinking less, smoking less, da, da, da, da. Another factor that you'll hear about is that in some ways, there's a, in some specific ways, and I'm being very careful here 'cause it's, again, it's not my area of expertise. I've heard other people who are experts say that there's somewhat more social conservatism in some ways. Using that word very carefully. I'm not saying that Gen Z is super right-wing, I just mean that they are, in their social behaviors, more conservative, right? And so they might be less interested in getting super drunk on a Friday night and finding a random person at a club to-

Lewis Howes 48:15 Mm-hmm

Macken Murphy 48:15 ... get naked with, right? That's, that's a, that's-

Lewis Howes 48:17 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 48:18 You know. For a lot of people, that's a, that's a relatively wild thing to do, and they don't do it often, if they do it at all.

Lewis Howes 48:23 Right. Have you ever been unfaithful in previous relationships and-

Macken Murphy 48:27 [laughs] No, I haven't. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 48:31 Yeah, I guess the follow-up question would be, how do you know you could change, uh, if that had happened in the past, where you could still be a faithful person moving forward, knowing that the statistics are You know, you're more likely-

Macken Murphy 48:46 Yeah

Lewis Howes 48:47 How do you change behavior in someone who has?

Macken Murphy 48:49 Well, one encouraging piece of advice is plenty of people in Kalin and Ops study, and I really hope it's Kalin and Op now, 'cause I've said it twice. Many people in that study who cheated in their previous relationship didn't cheat in the next one. Right? So it's not doom.

Lewis Howes 49:04 Right.

Macken Murphy 49:04 It's not that whole once a cheater, always a cheater thing. It's like that's a, that's a good saying, and it's probably true in many cases, but it's not true in all cases.

Lewis Howes 49:10 Interesting.

Macken Murphy 49:11 But what you're asking, again, keep in mind that I'm a, I'm more of a what is guy, and I, and so the, I, I, I feel like that's, that's quite a deep spiritual question to say, "How can I change," right? And, and move forward. Um, and it's one that, you know, I don't have any personal experience with. Uh, and so I, I haven't walked that road, and I also don't know of any data in terms of, uh, uh, therapeutically helping people who have that. I would say, though, that it's hard to imagine therapy because it's not a pathological behavior in the sense that

Macken Murphy 49:48 it's, as we spoke about at the start, animals also engage. Animals in socially monogamous species also engage in high rates of extra pair copulation. Right? They also have affairs, right? So the closest, our closest rel- our closest socially monogamous relative, the gibbons, they're the species of ape. They have really long arms. They swing from the trees. Very hairy, but they look like us otherwise. They're quite close relatives of ours, all things considered, and they also engage in monogamy, right? They're, they're very beautiful creatures. They pair up. They go into the trees. They actually sing duets. It's very romantic.

Lewis Howes 50:22 Really?

Macken Murphy 50:23 Yeah, and the singing seems to be kind of the, the gibbon version of posting each other on Instagram for humans. It's like, "We're, we're together, just so everyone knows." Um, but it's also about territorial defense and social signaling and whatnot. And you know, scientists did an experiment that they really couldn't get away with in humans, where they, I, I believe this was Reichard. They just watched them, and they were like, "Are they?" And they counted every time they saw them have sex, and they were like, or engage in intercourse, or copulate. And they said, "Okay, how many times are they mating with their partner? How many times are they mating with someone else?" Right? Someone who's not their partner. And 11% of the time they were cheating. Right? Which is much higher than humans.

Lewis Howes 51:05 Wow.

Macken Murphy 51:05 Right. So treating it as, I'm not saying that every behavior that occurs in other animals occu- occurs in humans, but, uh, we see documented rates of extra pair paternity across the animal kingdom, across socially monogamous lineages. And so even though it's not necessarily a good thing to do, and so it's pathological in that sense, maybe it's morally pathological, from a psychological perspective, we all evolved to have these urges. It's just a matter of whether you choose to succumb to them.

Lewis Howes 51:34 What about if someone has been cheated on in a previous relationship? What should you look out for in dating someone who has been cheated on by someone else?

Macken Murphy 51:45 Well, that's a really good question. Gosh, you're really, you're really nailing these questions. This is, this is good.

Lewis Howes 51:49 I'm trying to set you up for the success of the rest of the interviews you'll do with the hardest questions up front. [laughs]

Macken Murphy 51:54 Yeah. No, I think these are excellent. And, uh, and-

Lewis Howes 51:58 Is there any research on that or how to approach-

Macken Murphy 51:59 Oh, yeah

Lewis Howes 52:00 ... or how to approach-

Macken Murphy 52:00 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 52:01 ... a potential partner-

Macken Murphy 52:02 Yeah, we can talk about it. Yeah

Lewis Howes 52:02 ... where in the first few days they say, "You know what?"

Macken Murphy 52:05 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 52:05 "I've been cheated on a lot in my past."

Macken Murphy 52:07 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 52:07 "And it's a big concern of mine."

Macken Murphy 52:08 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 52:08 "And I have a lot of worries. You're not gonna cheat. You're not gonna do this." You know, or someone who's had that type of trauma.

Macken Murphy 52:13 So you're already, yeah.

Lewis Howes 52:14 How should you approach entering a relationship with someone who's been cheated on?

Macken Murphy 52:17 Well, you're already signaling, it's, it, it's very perspicacious of you to notice that, uh, in your imitation, you're performing reassurance seeking, which is a behavior that's very commonly exhibited by people who have been cheated on. Right? So, you know, you go through your ro- roma- this is like a typical kind of romantic career. Everything, you know, you're, you're dating someone in high school, dating some people in college, da, da, da, da, da. And then you're, you're never even thinking of the possibility that you could get cheated on, and then you, you know, see a text pop up on your partner's phone, and it's like, "Oh, my gosh." And then you find out, whatever, da, da, da, da. And that's a traumatic event for many people. I mean-

Lewis Howes 52:53 It's a betrayal.

Macken Murphy 52:54 Well, it i- well, I'll even go so far as to say traumatic, just because it's certainly a betrayal. But to take it to kind of into the psychological space, PTSD is generally a term only assigned to physical threats, and it's kind of unclear whether you can really categorize infidelity that way. But the symptoms of PTSD are so common, right? Th- th- such as reassurance seeking, ruminating, et cetera, are so common among people who have been cheated on, that some psychologists have coined the term and used the term PIST. Right? Post infidelity stress

Macken Murphy 53:26 disorder.

Lewis Howes 53:26 Wow.

Macken Murphy 53:26 Right? My advice here would be to proceed with caution and understanding and goodwill that you're dealing with someone, if you don't know what that's like, you're dealing with someone who is dealing with something quite, um, quite severe. And this is another thing that I just want to know. I mean, I see, I mean, you might be mercifully tucked away from this corner of the internet, but there's a whole corner of the internet right now that's like, "Men cheating is fine. Women cheating is not."

Lewis Howes 53:51 Mm.

Macken Murphy 53:51 And it's like we, we've, we've done the research on this, and women who get cheated on are often severely traumatized. Right? Like about half of women who, and in some studies, more than half of women who are paired with men who are unfaithful exhibit these symptoms. Right? So to saying it just callously like, "Oh, it's different," you know, or some nonsense about, you know, a key that opens many locks versus, you know, some, some stupid platitude. And it's like what a, what a careless thing to say about the, uh, about the feelings of the women that you're with. And-

Lewis Howes 54:21 Right

Macken Murphy 54:21 ... you know. I just wonder like do these men even have mothers, the way they, the way they speak-

Lewis Howes 54:24 Wow

Macken Murphy 54:24 ... about these things.

Lewis Howes 54:25 Wow. I'm curious what is, what we should be more cautious of, getting into a relationship with someone who cheated before or getting into a relationship with someone who's been cheated on.

Macken Murphy 54:38 Well, I would be more cautious [laughs] about, or be more cautious about the worried about. But it depends what your concerns are. If you're worried about being with someone who's completely

Lewis Howes 54:49 Like if someone's got PISD-

Macken Murphy 54:50 Yeah, and they're struggling with that

Lewis Howes 54:51 ... and they're, and they can never trust the person they're with, and they're always-

Macken Murphy 54:54 Yeah

Lewis Howes 54:54 ... stressed and anxious, and they're always ruminating, and reassurance, and where are you? And-

Macken Murphy 54:57 Yeah

Lewis Howes 54:58 ... that's not attractive after a while.

Macken Murphy 54:59 No, it's a huge issue.

Lewis Howes 55:00 And you're like-

Macken Murphy 55:01 It's a huge issue

Lewis Howes 55:01 ... you might feel exhausted and you'd be like, "I don't wanna be with this person."

Macken Murphy 55:04 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 55:05 If they can't trust me, if they're always checking where I'm at, if they're always calling me saying-

Macken Murphy 55:08 Yep

Lewis Howes 55:08 ... 'FaceTime me. Where are you? Who are you with?'

Macken Murphy 55:09 Yep.

Lewis Howes 55:10 'Who is that person?' That's not a, a sexy quality-

Macken Murphy 55:13 No, it's not

Lewis Howes 55:13 ... in a mating partner. And so is that a bigger red flag if someone who hasn't dealt with... I'm not saying it's okay what they went through-

Macken Murphy 55:20 Yeah

Lewis Howes 55:20 ... but they haven't processed and, and started to heal that.

Macken Murphy 55:23 Mm.

Lewis Howes 55:24 Is that more of a red flag versus someone who, you know, in their previous relationship cheated on their partner?

Macken Murphy 55:31 You've made some good points here. And, uh-

Lewis Howes 55:33 Gotta do some research on this.

Macken Murphy 55:34 Yeah. Well, it... 'Cause my gut reaction was obviously I don't wanna e- I'm, I'm thinking about-

Lewis Howes 55:39 The cheater. Be cheated on.

Macken Murphy 55:40 Yeah. I'm like, "Oh, I don't wanna be cheated on," so I'm gonna go with that, but, uh, you've brought up a good point. Uh, I don't even know if I should share this, but there... Okay. In, I believe it was in the same study that I'm referencing, um, about, you know, once a cheater, always a cheater, that kind of thing. Uh, there's also indicative evidence, and it, you know, it's just one study, so let's not...

Lewis Howes 56:04 Yes.

Macken Murphy 56:05 Let's not go to the bank on it. You're re- really, you wanna look for, you know, cumulative bodies of research when you're assessing-

Lewis Howes 56:10 Sure

Macken Murphy 56:10 ... a finding. But there's indicative evidence that people who have been cheated on in the past are more likely to be cheated on in their next relationship.

Lewis Howes 56:20 Oh, man. That's crazy.

Macken Murphy 56:20 Now, that's a disturbing finding, and you might think, "Well, that doesn't make any sense," right? Uh, how could, how could that affect my probabilities? And I'll give you a couple examples that could be... Not saying that this has been studied enough to make conclusions, but if you're the sort of person who is attracted to narcissism, let's say.

Lewis Howes 56:43 Mm-hmm.

Macken Murphy 56:44 Plenty of people find narcissism quite sexy.

Lewis Howes 56:45 Good luck.

Macken Murphy 56:46 Right.

Lewis Howes 56:46 Yeah.

Macken Murphy 56:47 It's... But narcissism is associated with infidelity. Plenty of people find sexual m- narcissism sexy, right? So that's s- someone who believes that they're the best lover ever and-

Lewis Howes 56:56 Mm

Macken Murphy 56:56 ... is, you know, totally confident in bed. That also predicts infidelity, right? And so you're attracted to a trait, and that sh- makes you, that predicts your partner selection. And then the types of partners

Macken Murphy 57:09 that you're attracted to, you, you happen to be cursed by being attracted to covariates of infidelity.

Lewis Howes 57:14 You got a bad picker.

Macken Murphy 57:15 You're a bad picker. Another thing would be just physical attractiveness. If you really prioritize that, people who are more physically attractive tend to have more options, tend to be-

Lewis Howes 57:22 Yeah

Macken Murphy 57:22 ... um, more interested in, in suitors, et cetera, tend to be less satisfied in relationships. So if you're really interested, if you're really prioritizing like, "Oh, I just wanna date the hottest girl possible," it's like maybe that's why you keep getting cheated on is because you're not thinking about deeper qualities. And then so, not to victim blame, but it could be picking, and then it... I, I hate even saying this, but it could possibly be what you're talking about. I know of an anecdotal case where I know, I know a woman who told me, she was like, "My boyfriend was c- accusing me of cheating so much that I actually just did it." Like she was-

Lewis Howes 57:52 Wow

Macken Murphy 57:52 ... being falsely accused so much that it was like, "I'm gonna be, I'm-"

Lewis Howes 57:55 "Might as well just do this."

Macken Murphy 57:56 Yeah. It's like, "I'm the bad-"

Lewis Howes 57:56 "He's not gonna believe me either way."

Macken Murphy 57:57 Yeah. "I'm the, I'm the bad guy regardless of what I do, so what's the point in being good?"

Lewis Howes 58:01 Yeah.

Macken Murphy 58:02 You know? So, so I'm not saying that that's what causes it, but I'm saying that there's a w- Some people hear that, they hear, "Oh, if I was cheated on in my last relationship, I'm more likely to be cheated in the, my next relationship." And they just think, "Well, that, that couldn't be true." And it's like, well, there's actually several ways that it could be true. And-

Lewis Howes 58:15 Wow

Macken Murphy 58:15 ... we just talked about two.

Lewis Howes 58:17 Gosh, this is so fascinating. You know, I, I really think about when we choose out of a wound, you know, you're talking about you're attracted to narcissism. Maybe there was something, your parent, one of your parents had this trait and it was attractive to you, or just maybe it was unattractive, but you're trying to fix that parent or whatever it might be. But when we, when we at- are attracted based out of a wound, a psychological wound, it typically ends up having more challenges and problems we need to overcome in that relationship, 'cause we're trying to fix someone. We're trying to, we're attracted to them, and then we wanna change them.

Macken Murphy 58:51 Mm.

Lewis Howes 58:51 As opposed to being attracted and saying, "I accept you for who you are. Obviously we're gonna grow and evolve, but I accept the personality, the values, the qualities that you have." And I think if we haven't healed something within us, we're gonna keep attracting that thing that chemically, sexually s- stimulates us and makes us feel something.

Macken Murphy 59:14 Mm.

Lewis Howes 59:15 But then we're gonna also be afraid of it, or we're gonna be needing reassurance on something. So we're attracted, "But you're not gonna hurt me, are you?"

Macken Murphy 59:22 Mm.

Lewis Howes 59:22 As opposed to, "Oh, I see you for the whole person that you are. I've asked all the questions. I'm allowing my gut to also have intuition and be like, is he being honest, and is, is she following through on what she's saying, and it, you know, is there congruency?"

Macken Murphy 59:39 Mm.

Lewis Howes 59:40 Then you're able to choose based on the whole person versus, "Oh, I'm just getting this chemical feeling by what I see or what I'm attracted to." What's your thoughts on that?

Macken Murphy 59:51 I think you put it quite well, and I don't, I don't have much to add.

Lewis Howes 59:53 Yeah.

Macken Murphy 59:53 I, I, I would also note that with my specific example, narcissism is interesting because there are very good reasons to be... So narcissism pretty consistently pred- has a small effect predicting attractiveness in general.

Lewis Howes 1:00:09 Really? What do you mean by that?

Macken Murphy 1:00:10 Meaning that if someone's super cocky versus someone who's average cockiness or insecure, right, the cocky person generally has a slight competitive advantage in, like, a speed dating setting.

Lewis Howes 1:00:21 More options.

Macken Murphy 1:00:23 I think it's more-

Lewis Howes 1:00:23 More attractiveness.

Macken Murphy 1:00:24 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:00:26 Got it.

Macken Murphy 1:00:26 So, and you can talk about why that is, and one of it is just that who doesn't wanna be around someone confident, right? And also it, it gives you this veneer of being able to take care of yourself and others. And I think that some people... I think that, I think that, to be honest, it's like I'm, I'm not saying that I'm, that I prefer that. I don't. But I do understand

Macken Murphy 1:00:50 that a trait that is in some ways negative, narcissism, uh, in many ways negative, actually, I'll be frank- In certain environments, and maybe such as a speed dating study, you sit down with someone and they sit down at the table, they're full of confidence, they're relaxed, they want to chat with you, they want to flirt with you, and they're, you know, taking all your compliments in their stride. That's a lot of fun to be around. And so it might not be that that person is wounded and choosing, you know, sexual narcissists, let's say, but

Lewis Howes 1:01:19 They haven't spent enough time with them yet. Spend time with someone, get to know them before you commit.

Macken Murphy 1:01:23 Yeah. And maybe, yeah, I would say that my... So, so this podcast is very big on, you know, helping people add value to their lives, improve, and, and I'm not really much of an advice person. But I will say one piece of advice, that if, if you find yourself getting cheated on over and over and over again, right, if you're, if you're listening to this, it, it would be worth taking a step back and saying, "Look, it's not my fault that this happened, but what can I change about my future behavior to avoid this happening again?"

Lewis Howes 1:01:46 Right.

Macken Murphy 1:01:46 And I think one set to look at changing would be in picking. It's like, okay, well, I keep getting cheated on. Who am I, who am I, who am I dating? Well, I'm only dating hot narcissists, let's say. Right? I'm only dating, you know, this is socially, socio-sexually unrestricted party animals, right? Mm, maybe I can pick someone more settled down, more reliable. And maybe they don't have that same sexy cockiness and party atmosphere, but maybe they're, they're gonna be more reliable. And then on the other end, the, the other set of things, so that's choosing, and then maybe there's al- also, I mean, humans naturally perform a suite of mate retention behaviors, right? It could partially be a skill issue. It's like you're, you're creating an atmosphere that pushes people away in your relationships. And it's like, how can I create an atmosphere that w- you know, uh, very much like you were saying earlier about your kind of jour- personal journey with jealousy. We're creating an atmosphere where people want to stay.

Lewis Howes 1:02:39 Yes.

Macken Murphy 1:02:39 As opposed to creating a cage that they're, they feel trapped in.

Lewis Howes 1:02:42 Yeah, exactly. From all the research that you've done, again, you're early in your career, but you've done a lot of research and studies, um, and, and you've dived into the research from a lot of other people.

Macken Murphy 1:02:54 Yeah, that, that, that's accurate. Yeah. I mean, I've done... I, I, again, I've done two studies. I'm known not for... Like if I g- uh, I was telling you before, it's like if I go to an academic conference, nobody's coming up to me trying to talk to me about, you know, like, "Oh, I really liked that study." They, they want to talk about TikTok and the-

Lewis Howes 1:03:09 Right. Sure, sure, sure. But all the research that you've done and studied other people's work-

Macken Murphy 1:03:13 Yes. Yeah, yeah, of course.

Lewis Howes 1:03:15 Um-

Macken Murphy 1:03:15 You did years and years of reading. Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:03:16 ... what, what is the research that stands out to you the most around love, relationships, and intimacy in a modern world?

Macken Murphy 1:03:26 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:03:27 And what is the research where you know data proves something that you still need work on personally?

Macken Murphy 1:03:34 And you know what, I actually think I can do a blended answer here. So this is partially coming from Helen Fisher, right, who we mentioned earlier. It, it would be nice to give her a shout-out. But also, you know, other disciplines. The research on what we know impacts success in romantic relationships, right? So there, there are very simple things that you can do to improve, you know, your romantic connection with someone, right? Uh, uh, some obvious ones are, you know, have more sex, say nice things to them, flirt with them, uh, but also touch them in non-escalative ways. Let's say cuddling is very good for you. You know, being more, you know, physically generous in the sense that, you know, maybe you're in the kitchen with them, giving them, you know, giving them a kiss on the back of the neck or something like that. Those things seem to really improve everyone's satisfaction, both yours and theirs. Being, being very romantically

Macken Murphy 1:04:29 generous, even with someone who you've been with for a long time. These... And it's, and it's interesting how effective it is from a subjective perspective if you've been in a long relationship. Just be like, oh, I can kind of, I can force it a little bit. I can be like, "I'm gonna give this person a compliment just for no reason right now," and watch how it changes your relationship. You feel better, they feel better. And that's, you know, that's a, a, you met Tim, obviously. That, that's part of what we're doing at Couply, right, where we're really trying to... So Couply is our app that we have where you and your partner both download it, and what we're trying to do is to integrate some of the science of what makes a successful relationship into that, so that the advice that we're giving, right, and the, and the activities that we're providing are ones that can actively lead to good outcomes between couples. Now, in terms of things that I need to work on, right, I think... I mean, that, that's quite a personal question, and it's int- uh, but, but-

Lewis Howes 1:05:27 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 1:05:27 ... I'll, I'll, I'll say that-

Lewis Howes 1:05:28 I'm getting personal with you

Macken Murphy 1:05:29 ... uh, I've underestimated the importance of physical attractiveness to romantic love, right? If you're in a relationship, you cannot just take your foot off the gas and start looking like a slob and hope that they'll stick around for your personality. Uh, that might be the world that we want to be in, but a huge component of being in a relationship and showing up for them is doing that, right? And-

Lewis Howes 1:05:53 Is taking care of yourself.

Macken Murphy 1:05:54 Yeah, it's taking care of yourself, right? And, and really not just at a spiritual level, but also at a physical level. It's like y- we see that people in relationships tend to invest less, less in their physical appearance, but investing in your physical appearance is-

Lewis Howes 1:06:05 How important is being physically attractive in a long-term relationship?

Macken Murphy 1:06:10 Well, in short-term relationships, very important. It's the most important thing probably.

Lewis Howes 1:06:13 To attracting the person.

Macken Murphy 1:06:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in speed dating study, you know, we all in our surveys and questionnaires, we say, "Oh, I want someone who's honest, generous, loyal-"

Lewis Howes 1:06:22 Kind.

Macken Murphy 1:06:22 "... kind," et cetera.

Lewis Howes 1:06:22 Yeah, yeah.

Macken Murphy 1:06:23 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:06:23 Smart.

Macken Murphy 1:06:24 Yeah, smart. Yeah. We talked about that before the show a little bit. But in behavioral studies, depending on the study, physical attractiveness comes out as really important.

Lewis Howes 1:06:35 As the number one factor?

Macken Murphy 1:06:37 In, in a speed dating paradigm, right? So speed dating paradigm, you get people in the real world to meet-

Lewis Howes 1:06:42 You get 60 seconds with a person.

Macken Murphy 1:06:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:06:44 So you're gonna be like, "Am I physically attracted-

Macken Murphy 1:06:46 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:06:46 ... to this person or not?"

Macken Murphy 1:06:47 Yeah. But it's also kind of funny, 'cause we see it in vignette studies as well, and physical attractiveness seems to have an effect on people's perception of your personality. That's a very-

Lewis Howes 1:06:53 Really?

Macken Murphy 1:06:54 ... well-established psychological finding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's called, some people call it the halo effect, which is more extrapolatable, and it's not exactly what we're talking about here, but it's related, which is this idea that- If you're, you know, if you, if you, uh, uh, and this is kind of a caricature of it, but it is, but it is broadly true that it's like, okay, well, which of these photos is sexiest to you? And it's like, "This guy or this girl." And then it's like, now, which of these biographies paired with the photos has the best personality? It's like, "Also this guy," [laughs] you know?

Lewis Howes 1:07:20 Right, right, right.

Macken Murphy 1:07:20 So, so, uh, then there's also things where attractive people are consi- are perceived to be more intelligent even though they're probably not.

Lewis Howes 1:07:27 Really?

Macken Murphy 1:07:28 Yeah. Attractive people are perceived to be funnier, even though they're probably not. Uh, attractive people, you know, they get all these career benefits, but the, the main benefit seems to be in mating. I mean, m- attraction, being attractive isn't just about attractive mates, right? And we can talk about that more, but in attracting mates, it i- it is a, it is a, it is a tremendous advantage. Uh, attractive people have more mates, more desirable mates, more committed and doting mates.

Lewis Howes 1:07:52 Hmm.

Macken Murphy 1:07:53 The only way that I'm aware of that you can plug in attractiveness and see, oh, this is actually a disadvantage, is that more physically attractive people tend to be less satisfied in their romantic relationships.

Lewis Howes 1:08:05 Why is that?

Macken Murphy 1:08:06 Well, uh, I mean, it depends on the study.

Macken Murphy 1:08:08 I'm not saying that that's a consistent result, that it's like we, this gets found every time, but there is some indicative evidence that more physically attractive people are less satisfied, and that if you manipulate their perception of their own attractiveness, you make them think that they're hot [censored] , then they are, like, more interested in other people and that kind of thing.

Lewis Howes 1:08:24 Wow.

Macken Murphy 1:08:24 Yeah, they give you-

Lewis Howes 1:08:24 'Cause they keep looking for the greater option.

Macken Murphy 1:08:26 It's harder to be happy with your choice of meal when everything's on the menu, right? And if you're super hot, you got more choices, right? Uh, th- that would be, that's what other people have said about this, is it's like, it's kinda hard to settle down when it's like people are constantly interested in you, that sort of thing. But again, it could be that this, I mean, again, this isn't like a, this isn't what we call, what we might call, I mean, no one in academia ever uses this phrase, but, like, settled science, right? It could be that more studies are done. And, and for anything that I've said in this podcast, it could be the case that future studies are done-

Lewis Howes 1:09:04 Sure

Macken Murphy 1:09:04 ... and this turns out not to replicate or, or doesn't seem to be true. But based on the evidence that I'm aware of, right, initially, it does seem to be that physically attractive people have a harder time settling. But other than that, it's, it's, it's just win after win after win. The, the people, more people will be interested in you. Those people will be more interested in you, and they'll also treat you better. They'll be, they'll be-

Lewis Howes 1:09:26 Wow. So what about-

Macken Murphy 1:09:28 ... less likely to cheat on you, more interested in giving you gifts, all that stuff.

Lewis Howes 1:09:31 Interesting. Interesting.

Macken Murphy 1:09:31 Yeah. Tons of, tons of connected findings here.

Lewis Howes 1:09:34 What's the downside of being extremely physically attractive?

Macken Murphy 1:09:37 Well, that's one. And other than that, it just, uh, it just seems to really help, right?

Lewis Howes 1:09:46 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 1:09:46 It's like you get paid more, people think you're cooler, you, people think you have a better personality, uh, people think you're funnier. There's a, there's a really funny study where they played, you know, they, they, they asked a bunch of people, they're like, "What would you bring to a desert island?" Right? And that's a great... If you're a funny person, that's a great opportunity to be funny, right? And so they brought in a bunch of people, and they said, you know, uh, "Speak into the recorder," right? "We'll video you. What would you bring to a desert island?" And some people, you know, they were funny. Some people weren't. They showed people just the audio, right? And I'll, I'll be very careful here so I don't mess this up, 'cause it's kinda complex. But with just, basically, they did an audio only condition and a looks and audio condition, so you can see who's speaking. And the unattractive people became less funny once they could be seen, right? And the attractive people, um, were more funny in the video condition.

Lewis Howes 1:10:41 What are the pros and cons to a woman or a man dating above or below where they're currently believed they're at in the league sense?

Macken Murphy 1:10:52 Well, the benefits of dating someone out of your league are pretty clear, right? It's like most people like to date hot, funny, intelligent, fun people who have money and are willing to spend it on you, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. And the benefits of dating someone who's hotter, funnier, richer, more intelligent, uh, better mental health, physically healthier. The benefits to, to that, it's like, okay, I, I get it. I get why you wanna do that, and I think that probably everyone listening does. But the costs are more insidious in the sense that they're not immediately apparent, and they might follow you through the relationship. So that hotness, for example, might matter upfront, but to you, but maybe it doesn't matter as much to you 12 months down the line when it's like those initial kind of high lust feelings have maybe cooled down a little bit, and now it's like, you know, uh, [laughs] you're, you're out at the bar and having to deal with the fact that girls are approaching you. Maybe that stresses you out, right? Maybe you haven't done the internal work on jealousy yet. Or maybe

Macken Murphy 1:12:05 they've got a wandering eye because, you know, they've been with better, and they could do better, and they're getting, constantly getting opportunities to do better, right? So I would say that the benefits of dating someone above your league are quite clear to everybody, and that's why people sometimes pursue it, but the costs are that this is going to be someone who's very likely harder to keep. 'Cause, and look, people who can do better generally do do better, and can you really blame them, right? And so if you're gonna go out of your way to try and date someone who can do better, that maybe isn't the most strategically prudent move, right? It might be, it might be best to, I mean, uh, David Buss, who's the most cited evolutionary psychologist in history, he, I tend to agree with him that the best situation is that you think, and I believe he said this in his book, When Men Behave Badly, is that you think- And I hope I'm not misquoting him. You think that they can do better, but they can't, right? So you think that they're out of your league, but you're actually wrong about it, and they basically think the same thing about you, right? So you're in a position where it's kind of crossed misperceptions where you think, "Oh, they're just the greatest mate ever. They could have anybody," and they think the same thing about you, and both of you are wrong. But-

Lewis Howes 1:13:30 Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Macken Murphy 1:13:31 Well, it's a good thing in the sense that you're gonna be very grateful for them and think that they're fantastic, but you're not gonna have to deal with the costs of them going elsewhere because they actually, they're grateful for you, too.

Lewis Howes 1:13:39 So both of you thinking, "Oh, I've really leveled up."

Macken Murphy 1:13:42 That's exactly what I'm trying to say.

Lewis Howes 1:13:43 That's the key. That's the key.

Macken Murphy 1:13:44 You summarized it much better than I did.

Lewis Howes 1:13:45 [laughs] Right.

Macken Murphy 1:13:46 Yes, is that you are looking across the bedroom, looking across the dinner table, holding their hand on the walk and thinking, "Gosh, I'm lucky. I r- " Yeah, exactly. Like, "I am just... I've hit the lottery here," and you're wrong, right? That's probably the best-case scenario.

Lewis Howes 1:14:00 As a behavior scientist on these topics, where do you struggle with allowing data and analysis and research and science that you're constantly studying versus being in the moment in a relationship with your partner? Do you have any struggles of just allowing yourself to be, feel, experience without thinking, analyzing, managing science in your mind at the same time?

Macken Murphy 1:14:33 I mean, people have a very hard time believing this, but I really do put it, for the most part, put it all aside and just follow my heart.

Lewis Howes 1:14:39 Really?

Macken Murphy 1:14:40 Yeah. It's like I... Yeah, I, I think this stuff is very interesting, and some of it is helpful. But for the most part, it's... I'm a, I'm a man with real emotions, and those emotions drive my behavior, and I f- I follow them pretty consistently. I'm not the sort of person who's like, "Oh, well, let me, let me calculate based on my data-

Lewis Howes 1:15:05 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 1:15:05 ... you know, what I should do here."

Lewis Howes 1:15:07 Right.

Macken Murphy 1:15:07 Uh, I'm... I, I've made tremendously illogical decisions because I was feeling strong romantic emotions, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Lewis Howes 1:15:18 Right.

Macken Murphy 1:15:19 And I've also-

Lewis Howes 1:15:19 You went a way... You went against data.

Macken Murphy 1:15:21 Yeah, I would say so. I mean, I, I, I w- I, I, I-

Lewis Howes 1:15:25 And it's, and it worked out.

Macken Murphy 1:15:27 Yeah, and I also think that that would be... I would say that this stuff is very fun to think about, and some of it is really useful. But for the most part, just fall in love, have a great time, and don't sweat all this. You know?

Lewis Howes 1:15:41 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 1:15:42 A lot of people, they hear me talk. I he- I get people in my comments all the time saying this, uh, you know, "Macken Murphy's the most depressing man on the internet."

Lewis Howes 1:15:49 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 1:15:49 And I'm like, uh, you know, this is genuinely. It's like this is, this is like... Uh, people, people say very negative things from the perspective of like, "I can't stop watching this, but it's making me very depressed." And it's like, here's my... Here's the analogy that, that comes to mind, right? I... So I like explaining things, right? And I like understanding them, but it doesn't...

Macken Murphy 1:16:14 So I... So when I'm eating an apple, right? I'm eating the apple, and I'm not thinking, "Oh, the, you know, the sensations in my mouth feel good because my primate ancestors benefited from fruit sugars in such a way that the ones who liked it reproduced more than the ones who didn't like it." That would be a crazy thing to think.

Lewis Howes 1:16:33 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 1:16:33 I'm just eating the apple and having a nice time, right?

Lewis Howes 1:16:37 Right.

Macken Murphy 1:16:37 And in the same way, when I'm, you know, having a cup of tea with my girlfriend and we're just kinda talking through the day and, and, and having a nice time, I d- the data couldn't be further away from my heart.

Lewis Howes 1:16:52 Wow.

Macken Murphy 1:16:52 It's just not impacting me at all.

Lewis Howes 1:16:54 That's cool, man. That's good to know that Macken Murphy is, uh, a human being.

Macken Murphy 1:16:59 Yeah, I mean-

Lewis Howes 1:16:59 Not just a human thinking-

Macken Murphy 1:17:00 I know

Lewis Howes 1:17:01 ... analyzing scientist.

Macken Murphy 1:17:02 Yeah. I think that TikTok favors me coming across as a robot, um, which is fine. But it's, well, it's just the one minute of me talking about data super fast that, that makes them say it.

Lewis Howes 1:17:10 Right, right, right, right.

Macken Murphy 1:17:11 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:17:11 That's great, man.

Macken Murphy 1:17:12 I have no feelings.

Lewis Howes 1:17:13 Um, this has been awesome and fascinating, Mack, and I'm ex- I'm, I'm excited for your journey, where you're at. I know you're still kind of just really getting started with, um, your own research and your science and things like that. But, uh, the content you're putting out there I think is inspiring a lot of people, even though you say it's depressing more people.

Macken Murphy 1:17:30 Well, I don't know. I don't know if it's depressing more people.

Lewis Howes 1:17:32 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 1:17:32 I just know that there's a contingent, especially it seems... I mean, my, my audience is mostly women, and then there's this contingent of men that watch as well, and then there's this contingent of young men who are struggling on the mating market-

Lewis Howes 1:17:44 Uh-huh

Macken Murphy 1:17:44 ... who they just see my data, and it's just more evidence that they're screwed in their minds. And I don't, I don't think that's necessarily true, but, uh, you know, in some... Like, if you're an unattractive man scrolling through your feed and my face comes up and I'm like, "Attractive men have more mates, more desirable mates, more committed," that's, that is depressing. I get it.

Lewis Howes 1:18:00 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Macken Murphy 1:18:01 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:18:01 Um, well, you got this app called Couply, which is essentially-

Macken Murphy 1:18:04 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:18:05 ... helping couples. It's not about people that are trying to get in a relationship.

Macken Murphy 1:18:08 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:18:08 It's people that are already in a relationship to maintain and improve their relationships.

Macken Murphy 1:18:12 Yeah, exactly.

Lewis Howes 1:18:13 And you're an advisor in this, and you're helping-

Macken Murphy 1:18:14 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:18:14 ... kind of create some of the curriculum in there as well. Uh, but this app is already out. Is that right, where people can-

Macken Murphy 1:18:19 Oh, yeah, totally. So basically, the concept of Couply, right? There- there's all... There are so many apps that try to get you into relationships, right? And this is an app that's geared towards trying to help you stay in one.

Lewis Howes 1:18:29 That's great.

Macken Murphy 1:18:30 You can think of the mating market like a revolving door where people are getting kind of pulled from the single pool and thrown into the dating pool constantly, right? And if you think that people being in loving, romantic relationships is a good thing, right? If you, if you actually like that, which I do, then you want more people to go in and less people to go out.

Lewis Howes 1:18:50 Right.

Macken Murphy 1:18:50 And a lot of people right now are working on the in problem. So most people are in relationships, and then there's this pool of single people, depending on your data set, but it's, it's a minority of people. There's this small group of single people, right? Not small, sizable minority of single people, and there's a bunch of apps and products that are just trying to push people in ostensibly. Maybe they're not trying to do that. I, I won't say either way. But there are, you know, these dating apps and dating websites and, and, you know, pickup artist courses and things like that, that it's like, "Stop being single," basically. And then there's all these people here who basically have no help at all. Like, it's like there- there's the, there's the, you know, couples therapy if things get really bad, but for the most part, there's just not that many tools, right? Certainly not on your smartphone. And so what we've done with Couply is we've created an app where, which I've- I've- I've just come on board as, you know, scientific advisor, part owner as well, where you and your partner download the app, and you both, you know, participate in quizzes to get to know each other

Macken Murphy 1:19:51 better, right? You take courses as well to understand how to improve your relationship, deal with things like jealousy, which we mentioned. And what I've been brought on to do partially is just to bring the science of human mating behavior into the app so we can actually help people in a data-informed way. I'm not saying that... It's- it's partially experimental, but just trying to actually say, "Well, what is likely to really help people in relationships?" So, y- to give an example of, you know, one of, one of my colleagues, one- one really important thing for couples is, one really strong predictor of relationship satisfaction is sexual satisfaction, right? So couples that, I- I don't think it should be a surprise to anybody, couples that are having great sex tend to be happier with each other, right? And so one thing that, uh, you know, Tim Johnson, my CEO, has done, is bring on, uh, Dr. Tara, who's, you know, the r- real "sexpert," right? And she's gonna be helping in the app in a similar way to me, just to improve people's sex lives, right? So bring in fun, sexy quizzes, and things like that, and courses and classes. And what we're hoping, right, is that this will make, this will make mating better for the people who are paired, right? Because pe- the people who are actually mated.

Lewis Howes 1:21:02 Yes, yes.

Macken Murphy 1:21:02 Um, rather than just trying to come up with a new way to swipe your thumbs and meet people.

Lewis Howes 1:21:08 It's great, man. Couply.

Macken Murphy 1:21:10 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:21:10 They can get it anywhere on the App Store or whatever if they, or the- the App Store on iPhone or Android, everything like that.

Macken Murphy 1:21:15 Yeah, yeah. And it's got a, a pretty large usu- user base already. I think we're at, like, 400,000 users.

Lewis Howes 1:21:20 Wow, that's great.

Macken Murphy 1:21:20 So it's, it's, it's definitely established.

Lewis Howes 1:21:21 That's awesome.

Macken Murphy 1:21:21 But, um, looking to take it to the next level with some science. We're playing around with AI as well. It's, it's gonna be interesting.

Lewis Howes 1:21:27 Very cool.

Macken Murphy 1:21:28 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:21:28 Couply. Make sure you guys check out the app. Um, couple final questions for you, Macken, but I want people to follow you. TikTok is your main spot. MackenMurphy, I believe, is still your main place.

Macken Murphy 1:21:39 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:21:39 Although you've got, um, a lot of different places people can follow you. But is that where you think they should go to first or mackenmurphy.org? Where should they connect with you?

Macken Murphy 1:21:47 I think that the safest thing to do would just be to Google my name and just kind of follow wherever you land. I mean, I know that, you know, I'm mostly on TikTok. It's true. That's a very, you know, Gen Z space, and I'm really grateful to that group of people for boosting me in this way. I mean, obviously, you know, I- I'm not a, I'm not a famous academic. I'm really, you know, it's- it's science communication. I- I do, I am a scientist. I am an active researcher, but it's really the science communication that's, that's another, so I'm very grateful to that group. Yeah. So TikTok would be fine. But if you're... I mean, you messaged me, you, uh, when I had, like, 700 followers on Instagram-

Lewis Howes 1:22:23 Yeah

Macken Murphy 1:22:23 ... I think. Um, Instagram is growing as well, and, uh, YouTube is tiny, and I have no idea why.

Lewis Howes 1:22:31 Yeah. [laughs]

Macken Murphy 1:22:31 But I'm- I'm on all of them.

Lewis Howes 1:22:32 You're on all of them, so follow you, check you out everywhere. Uh, this is a question I ask everyone at the end of my interviews, and maybe this will change in the next five, 10 years for you, um, because you are so, um, young in your life still, but this is a question I ask everyone. It's called the Three Truths. So I want you to imagine a hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you wanna live. You know, you could be 80, 100, 200, whatever, but you get to live your life exactly how you design it and envision it. Uh, and everything you wanna create, it comes true, personal, professional. But for whatever reason, everything you create in your lifetime from here moving forward, it has to go with you to somewhere else. We don't have access to it in this world, this conversation, any books, podcasts. Anything you ever create, we don't have access. Your research, all of it will be gone. Hypothetical. But if you could put yourself in, into your future self and imagine those experiences happening, living the life you wanna live, and on the last day, you could only share three lessons with the world, and imagine you've experienced this life, what

Lewis Howes 1:23:42 would be those three truths that you would leave behind?

Macken Murphy 1:23:45 Oh, man. This is a really tough question. I'm very conscious of the fact that, you know, I'm young, and, uh, I don't necessarily have the sort of, the sort of wisdom [sighs] that would-

Lewis Howes 1:23:57 This may change, obviously, but what do you think you're at right now, and what do you think your future self will wanna share?

Macken Murphy 1:24:04 Okay. One piece of advice that's been really helpful to me is to, at least in terms of, at least in terms of how you behave, to try and, to try and live in accordance with your values as opposed to the vicissitudes of your base emotions and chance thoughts. I would say, too, a- and this isn't original. I- I- I can't remember who, who this comes from, but it was also very influential on me. I'm gonna be kicking myself afterwards.

Lewis Howes 1:24:41 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 1:24:42 But someone said i- in a book that I was reading, they said to think more about cultivating your obituary virtues as opposed to your resume virtues, and that had a profound influence on me. So thinking more in terms of what- what are people gonna say when I'm gone versus what I'm, what am I able to say in a job interview. And then I guess to keep it appropriate to the topic that we've been talking about today, I would say that the person you pick, uh, most people, we're- we're in a Western context. I know that you've got a global audience, but I would say that most of your audience is probably Western. The vast majority of us are going to As you have recently, pick someone, enter a very serious romantic relationship, and try to stay with them forever, right? I would say that that choice, I'm not the first to say it, is probably the most important one that you make.

Lewis Howes 1:25:43 Mm.

Macken Murphy 1:25:44 And then how you interface with them, that, that, that's, that's the probably the most important relationship you'll have. It's certainly the one... I mean, most of us, our parents will pass away about, you know, halfway through life, and our children will grow up, leave the house, et cetera, and it's like the, the person who's likely going to be with you throughout that time is your romantic partner. And so careful with that choice, and then really think of it like a skill that you want to be excellent at in terms of-

Lewis Howes 1:26:11 Mm

Macken Murphy 1:26:11 ... um, maintaining that. And I say all these pieces of advice with the caveat that I'm, that I am a newborn baby.

Lewis Howes 1:26:16 [laughs]

Macken Murphy 1:26:17 And, uh, and I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Lewis Howes 1:26:19 I think it's great wisdom, though.

Macken Murphy 1:26:20 And none of it comes from me. All of that is, uh, all of that is trying to cite other people.

Lewis Howes 1:26:25 I love it, though. Um, before I ask the final question, Mack, and I wanna acknowledge you for being an academic researcher, a scientist in academia, but, but bringing this to the masses. People in science and academics that are doing great work, but they're also not putting themselves out there for many other reasons, and I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, but I just wanna acknowledge you for finding research that can be helpful and beneficial to individuals for their personal lives and their relationships to improve, and doing it at a research-based way, sharing with others to support them. So I really acknowledge you for, for starting this journey. It takes a lot of courage, especially coming from academics. I know a lot of academics don't wanna be on social media, resist it, they shy away from it, so I'm glad you're doing it, and I encourage you to continue to do more. So congrats on everything, man.

Macken Murphy 1:27:20 Thank you.

Lewis Howes 1:27:20 Um, final question, what do you think is your definition of greatness at this, this age in your life?

Macken Murphy 1:27:27 Uh, r- I really admire people who have real success in the home in the sense that they're-

Lewis Howes 1:27:32 Mm

Macken Murphy 1:27:32 ... I, I, I, I, I just really look up to that, people who, you know, have their family life totally together. Uh, that, that to me... Yeah, I mean, you know, status, money, these things are very flashy and awesome and fun to chase. But in terms of what I actually look up to, it's... I, I, I love it when, and really respect

Macken Murphy 1:27:53 and admire it when someone has sorted it-

Lewis Howes 1:27:56 Mm

Macken Murphy 1:27:56 ... uh, inside their own home.

Lewis Howes 1:27:58 There you go. Macken. Thanks, man.

Macken Murphy 1:27:59 Cheers, brother.

Lewis Howes 1:28:00 Appreciate it.

Speaker 1:28:00 I know I have an issue with jealousy. I'm trying to work on it, but at the same time, the person doesn't have to break their back to make sure I feel soothed, okay. I pick consciously, I pick really well because I know that's a wound of mine, but I also learn to embrace and trust the process