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Matthew Hussey does give a f*** about your relationship

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Published Apr 3, 2023, 8:00 PM

Hey Lifers, 

Today's episode is one that left us squealing with excitement. One of Australia's leading relationship experts (although he doesn't like to be called that) Matthew Hussey! Matthew Hussey has over 488 million views on his You Tube Chanel, and has helped millions of people live happier more fulfilled lives.

 

Today we jump into:

  • The concept of the one
  • Why people stay in toxic relationships
  • The idea of a soul mate
  • Staying in a relationship because you're already so far deep in it and leaving is hard
  • What makes his relationship with his fiancé unlike any other he has had


Britt is phoning it in from Scotland as she visits her long distance boyf, and Laura and Matt are really pushing the old 'three second rule' to new limits

We also talk about the new proposed laws regarding photo editing in France that could see influencers who photoshop spending some time in the slammer!

If you loved the episode, we would love it if you would leave us a review. Te join the conversation you can follow us at Life Uncut Discussion Group on Facebook or life @uncutpodcast on instagram. 

Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because we love love! xx

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders past and present.

Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was recorded on de rug Wallamata Land. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life on Cut.

I'm Laura and I'm Brittany.

And on today's episode, we have the one and only the man, the myth, the legend.

Matthew Hussy.

Now, if you haven't come across Matthew Hussey, he's a New York Times bestselling author Forget the Guy. He has the number one YouTube channel for dating advice with four hundred and eighty nine million views. He's got one point five million followers on Instagram. I've been looking to him for years for dating advice. I love him, I'm obsessed with him, and I'm so excited. I just love him in a non weird way.

To bring him to you today.

We also wanted to talk about some new laws that have come out of France. Now, I know that you might be thinking, hey, didn't I hear this a couple of weeks ago. It's not those laws. It's not the social media and child laws. It's the new ones that they have around influencers.

They have more. They hate us.

They are bringing out laws against influencers where they could go to jail for up to two years or be charged forty eight thousand dollars for not disclosing that they are retouching or editing their photos. And we think it's pretty wild. Let's get into it, and we are coming from cross continents, brit Is currently in Scotland, back reunited with the man who's trying to tear us apart.

All of a sudden that song in my head side a plane, and he will never tear us apart. Yes, I am cross continent, and I am excuse my French because I'm in Scotland. I am jet lagged as fuck. I am so incredibly the most jetlagged I have been ever in my entire life in anywhere in the world.

Well, it's like eleven o'clock over there now it's seven point thirty in the morning here. And this just gives me wild anxiety about how we will ever do this podcast if you were to actually ever consider moving to Scotland. But you know that's a conversation that is not for now.

Put it that way anyway, We're not fine about that now.

Yeah, tell us, how has it been a What was it like the first moment you saw each other after several months apart?

Well, there was no like time stood still, slow motion running. There was no background music as we slow motion rend into each other's arms.

So it definitely wasn't like that.

But I have this like obsession with trying to scare Ben, like hiding all over the house. I go to the lengths of pretending I'm not home. I messy Jim when he's on his way home usually and I'm like, hey, just ducking out for a coffee. I'll prop you back like half an hour after your home.

How old are you.

It's become an obsession because he's impossible to ski.

I went to the next level this time. When he came home. I went outside into the garden. When you have to come out, it's like a little underground cement walkway, which is actually very scary in itself, and I tried to hide in there to scare him.

And that was our first moment. Our first moment was me.

Trying to be like, oh wow, I jump out of the bushes and it didn't really work, but it's been really nice. But to be honest, I feel like I've barely seen him. So when I got here, he had a day off. We went to Edinburgh. We had this beautiful, little romantic day and it was a really amazing first day together. And then he's just gone away playing and he's back to normal scheduling. So I have just been on my own, which is really hard in Scotland because I don't know anyone anymore.

But Ben thought it was very considerate.

He thought he would set me up on like a date, like a friend date, saw some friends for me.

He was like, I'm gonna be gone, but here's somebody and you can hang out with here.

She is yeah.

So he's like, hey, I've sort of become friends with the neighbor Alex, and.

I was like, oh cool. He's like yeah, he's really nice.

We got chatting and he and his partner know you're coming and they're really excited. They looked you up on Instagram and they're always home, like they're working from home. They want to be friends and so they said you can go for coffee, they can take you into town, you can do all this stuff and hang out. And I was like, that's amazing. Anyway, I was getting all ready for this friend date. There's a buzzer on the door and I go to answer it and there's a man standing there and I'm like hello. He's like hi, and he's standing there with a bottle of wine and like a strawberry tart and I was like hi. He's like Brittany, and I was like that's correct. I was like, do you have a delivery? And he's like, this is a sixty six year old gay man and he's like no, I'm Alex and I was like sorry. He's like, I'm Alex from next door. The friend date Alex, Ben didn't tell me.

Is a sixty six year old gay man that lives next door.

So now my two new best friends, my.

Two new best friends in Scotland.

He's just mid to late sixties year old man that I get to go to you have wine with, say they brought me a wine and a cake over for the initial meet and greet date, and now they're my new best friends.

So I was like, Ben, did it occur to you even once? Just to mention that they were nearly seventy? I was like, doesn't matter, does not matter, But in my head.

In my head, I had pictured like mid to late twenties, want to go out, have a party, want to.

Go have some fun.

My favorite part is that he met these people and then was like, you know who's going to get along with them? So well, I'm not even gonna have to give her a heads up. They're gonna jump. She's an old soul.

Anyway, they're my new friends.

I went over, actually I did go over twice today, but the unfortunately they went home today.

So I I'm really going to try and ride this friendship into the sunset.

Okay, how do you cope knowing that when you get there, I mean even though you're on holidays, you're there. Then Ben is training every day and you're not just like, Okay, I came here for you and now you're not here? Can you come home now?

Or are you?

Like? It's fine, but I love being in Scotland in the rain, sitting inside a house waiting for you to come with this year old man.

I'm actually so bored. I don't cope well at all, and I'm very clingy. So like Ben will leave in the morning and I'll message him and I'll be like, are you nearly home yet he's like, I'm in the driveway.

He hasn't even left for the day yet, Like, when are you coming home?

It's tough, but I guess we don't get holidays at the same time, we get a couple of days off together where we're going to try and like explore. But he goes to training, you know, he goes and comes back as quickly as possible for me, and I just do some work in the day.

At the moment.

To be honest, I'm sleeping because I'm so jetlag. So it's okay, But I don't know far out. I don't know how i'd find friends. I might have to start to go to like the old bowls club with my new next door neighbors if I moved here and find some locals, or you would be.

Like every time we have an ask guncut question that comes in, which is like how do I meet new friends? You within like the test drive, You'll have to go out and do all the activities and come back and report on it.

I will.

We're gonna be doing this hard, well only the startup, because we've banked a couple of awesome interviews just before Britt left. But we're going to be doing this podcasts continent for the next two weeks, and then you were coming home because I hate the zoom shit. But well, you know, we deal, we survive, and we thrive. I wanted to tell you about something that happened to me on the weekend, which is not very glamorous at all.

I love when your stories start with this, but I feel like you are never ever going to start a story with I did something very glamorous on the weekend.

Fuck, I don't think I've ever done anything glamorous in my life. This involves Matthew Johnson and one of our wonderful dedicated life is I hope so much that she's listening right now. So over the weekend, matt and I we went down the coast to Kayama. We spent the weekend with my mom and my stepdad down there and like, the kids had a beautiful time. We booked an airbnb and they went swimming in the pool. It was like truly just a glorious lit a weekend with the family. On the way back up, we've had the most trash weather so like the last couple of days in Sydney has been just raining every day, super windy, the Thursday, Friday, Saturday was perfect and then since kind of like Saturday, it's just been gross. Anyway, driving back up from Kayama and we stopped in at the McDonald's and Matt it was teeming with rain and both girls need to go to the toilet. So I was like, I'll take them into the toilet. Matt, you see in the car, let me know what you want. And he put on this ridiculous order and it was like he ordered all his chips and these burgers and whatnot. Fine, So I had the two kids, I've got no shoes on, I have gotten all of his food, and I walk out and it's like pissing down rain as we go to exit McDonald's and I walk out with the two girls and I'm trying to get them in the car, and I've got this fucking bag of food. And then the bag of food gets wet and the bag of food explodes onto the ground, and Matt jumps out of the car and I'm like, I'm yelling at him. I'm like, can you fucking help me with the kids. So the first thing he does is he dives down to the ground like the food is on the ground in the rain, it is wet. He's like, no, he starts picking up the burgers. But you would think he would go for the burgers first, except the chips have spilt out onto the wet ground.

I would have thought he'd go for the girls first.

Actually before the chips.

All the burgers.

To be fair, the girls are kind of old enough to climb into the car themselves, so they were safe. It was a bit of a fend for yourself situation. But so the burgers are on the ground. The chips have cascaded out of the little packet onto the floor. So what does Matt do first? He doesn't put the burgers back in the paper bag that's like disintegrated because of the rain. He bends down and picks up a handful of wet chips off the ground and puts them into his mouth as someone drives past with the window down and goes, oh.

My god, Laura, I love your podcast.

I'm listening to it right now, And there's Matt hunched over the fucking McDonald fries sort of wet, shoveling them into his mouth like gollum. And I was just sitting there like, I'm so embarrassed by this. Situation, and what did he do? I was like, fucking stop, he goes down for seconds, he eats a second handful off the ground, out of the wet ground.

Yes, Laura, you've committed. He has committed. He's done it.

You're not gonna if you've done one handful of cold, disgusting chips off the ground, as if you're gonna stop at one handful, and that he's already been seen, he's been sprung.

You're gonna eat the whole thing.

No, it's like eating chips in a shower, but worse because it's off the ground, off a public rose. But like, could you imagine two handfuls of wet chips? While I tried to have a lovely conversation with truly the nicest, most excited life where I think I've ever come across. She was absolutely divine and she was literally listening to the episode at the same time. It was very cool.

I absolutely love that.

What are your thoughts on eating from the ground, like the five second rule? Oh, I feel like you wouldn't be that strict on it.

I'm fine, I'm fine. I'll eat shit off the floor, But will I eat it off the floor during a storm? Probably not. I think that that's where I draw the line.

And I think there's a difference between the floor of like your home and the floor of like a public twiter McDonald's car, McDonald's car.

Part you would have thought, because like when Matt gets to the stage of being hungry, we get there so quickly and it's so profound and he needs to eat so immediately that he will literally eat shit off a sidewalk because his hangarness has gotten this so out of control.

I just picture him literally like Gollum. That is so far, all right. I wanted to talk to you about something I've seen in France. I know you've seen in France too, because we've been speaking about it, but neither of us have actually been to France to witness.

That's not what this is, but.

We've seen it. I love that you say this. It makes it sound like you are in France, and it's something that I just witnessed the other day when I popped over to France.

I just witnessed this as I applied a filter to my face and uploaded it to Instagram.

So this is the headline of these news article circling influences in France could face two years in jail for posting a selfie without saying it's been edited.

If you listen to the Pickup Our Best of the episode. A couple of weeks ago, we spoke about some of the new laws that have been passed in France recently around how parents use their children across Instagram, whether they can have their children had their own YouTube channels, and children making money for participating in paid advertising across Instagram. Well, it seems like France has really up the ante across all social media and how people are making money on that platform, because these are some new laws that are being brought in which are around not just parenting now, but around how influencers filter, how they use liquefying tools to change their body shape. There's all different types of ways in which we all know the influencers used to kind of you know, make themselves look better or to better promote a product.

Well, in twenty seventeen, so they sort of have been I guess.

Bread crumbing these laws.

So in twenty seventeen, friends past the law mandating that the disclaimer photography retache. I definitely butchered that, but you have to say on any retouched photograph that you've retouched the photograph, and this has to go online and print advertisements anything that's featured models whose bodies have been photoshopped. So in twenty seventeen you had to say it has been retouched. And I do remember seeing a little bit of a trend in Australia at the time. There are a few models that started to post that, and I don't think that was a regulation. I think they were just starting to do it, like say, hey, I'm going to be really.

Honest in transparency.

Yeah, I'm just gonna be honest and authentic. This shoot was photo retouched, not necessarily photoshop. It's my understanding and you might know law Laura, but it's my understanding that retouched is different to photoshop.

No, I think that's like tomatoes tomatoes. Like, so, retouching is something that you do in Photoshop is a program. It's a program that people use. It does so many different things, but it is the program that is used to retouch photos. So whether you say photoshop or retouching, it is essentially the same thing. But I think sometimes people think of photoshop as being sinching of a waste or removing literally centimeters from your thighs or making your jaw sharper, or you know, getting ready to under eyebags or whatever. I think a lot of people think of photoshopping as being more cutting into I guess a photo and retouching as being applying filters. But I think that that is literally just splitting hairs. They are essentially all done within the same platform, and they are kind of the same thing.

Well, the French government now is proposing legislation which would make it mandatory for influences to a disclose if the photos they've posted have been filtered or edited, and also banned them from promoting cosmetic surgery. So this is actually some statements that have come from the French finance minister. Now I don't know why the fine nance Minister's getting involved in this.

I wouldn't have.

Thought that this was his because they want to make some money.

Yeah, I don't follow this is his kettle of fish.

But he has said that the move will help limit the destructive psychological effects of these practices.

On Internaught's esteem.

And now Internaughts we googled, it just means somebody that spends a lot of time on the internet, which is the next generation let's be real.

So what he's trying to.

Say is we think that social media is extremely damaging for the next generation, so we want to make it, you know, as real and raw as possible and limit those psychological effects.

And the way they think to do that is to put influences.

In jail for two years if they even put a filter on their photo. To me, I think a little bit dramatic. I think that the punishment far outweighs the crime. Do I think that we should be saying that we've filtered things or photoshops. Sure, that's fine, that's one step. But to say, go to jail for two years and have a forty eight thousand dollar fine on top of that, you're never allowed to work again. So if you have been convicted of a filtered photo or a photoshopped photo or promoting cosmetic surgery and you go to prison and you come out, you're banned from social media and you can never capitalize on it again, I think it's a bit extreme.

I mean I read this and I was like, what't somebody think of the influences?

Yeah, you have to, you can't read it not think of that.

Well, I was like, surely this like I mean, it finds an excess of forty eight thousand dollars a two year jail sentence. I was like, surely this is the most extreme version. And now I would like to think that maybe the article is leaning into the like catastrophizing what the sentencing could be. So I think, like, for example, if you know an influencer who has fourteen thousand followers post a filtered photo, I'm going to assume that she's not going to go to prison for two years for doing that. Maybe it's holding people to account who have an immense amount of influence, like say, for example, the Kardashians, who influence millions of people every single day. Maybe they are the types of people that they're trying to put these restrictions on. But I think, for me, when I read this, my instant thought is I do think that there needs to be way more legislation and way more accountability across social media because it is still largely unregulated. We see it all the time. I know that there is hashtag ad, I know that there is paid partnership in Australia. But if people can get around it, they will, And I think also if people can get around being transparent about how they're altering their body. They will. But the issue I have with this whole two year sentencing thing or having really harsh fines on it is that I think so many people who are influencers, and so many people who work in this industry, even though they have influence on others, a lot of their photoshopping of themselves, a lot of they're curating a lifestyle that they don't live and it doesn't exist. It comes from feelings of insecurity, It comes from this place of not being adequate enough. It comes from a place of needing and feeling like they need to be better. So they're living almost a false life through social media. And I don't know whether a jail sentence and a fine is the right course of action to try and get those people to change their behavior, because it's like, if you're somebody who has such little self confidence because you need to change everything about yourself in order to be validated and liked, then I think some sort of rehabilitation around your body dysmorphia would be a much better use and a much more like socially inclusive way of approaching this, rather than being like you will be fined for capitalizing. I think it kind of makes influences seem like they're inherently evil when they don't think that that is overall the intention of most influences. Am I being too kind to the influencers?

I don't know, Absolutely not.

And let's like, actually look at this for a section from a conviction point of view, two years in prison, there's no influencer out there that is maliciously putting a filter on their face.

They're not like, I'm going to put this filter on my.

Face to go and hurt all these people that are following me exactly what you'd have said. They're doing it because they feel insecure. But then there's I guess there's another level of regulation. I know I make fun of it, but how does one regulate it to the powers it being? Look at a photo and be like, I know that chick can possibly be that.

Hot, I'm going to bring her in. I'm calling her in for questioning, like it's so ridiculous.

And I know that photos have you know, this metadata that you can see when something's been changed and uploaded, But how did they see that? Can they screenshot that photo and see or do they have to go and request you to send a photo in does someone have to dob you in? Like, I don't understand how this can happen.

I think it'll work a very similar way to how it does in Australia in terms of the advertising code. So some of you may not know this, but in Australia influencers are held to a seat set of standards. It's the Advertising Code of Standards, and if an influencer is doing the wrong thing, you can report them and it happens a lot. There are so many people out there that are the vigilantes of influencers and they report people for not doing appropriate hashtag, paid ads or you know, whatever it is, whatever code they're broken, you can report someone. So I would assume that this new law within France would work on a sort of vigil anti type situation where it would be people reporting influencers for doing the wrong things and then they'd have to be investigated, and then if they've been found to be guilty of it, it would turn into you know, maybe some sort of fine or sentence or whatever it is. I don't know. I think ultimately more restrictions and regulations are good, but I also think they need to come from people who truly deeply understand social media, and I think sometimes the laws around social media and Facebook are created by people who don't understand the platforms themselves and probably don't understand the users using them too.

Yeah, I'm not sure Bruno, the French Fine Nance minister's quite the man that understands young influencers on social media, but hey, let's give him the benefit of down.

The only thing I want to add to this though, is I do think that this whole concept around and there was the part that you mentioned, Britt, which was the restrictions around advertising plastic surgery. I saw that and I was like, I kind of do think that within Australia there should be more control. And I say this because we cannot not acknowledge the fact that influencers have so much influence. It's almost like a referral from a friend. You know, you follow people that you think are aspirational, you follow people who have a lifestyle that you idolize, especially the younger generation. And I think that plastic surgery is becoming so unbelievably commonplace that it's become normalized. And I know that for myself. I saw an influencer the other day who had had a boob job after having three kids. And it was none of the process. It was none of the recovery, it was none of the pain, it was none of the bad stuff. I just saw a photo of her looking fire in an amazing dress with her sibly pert boobs, and I was like, Fuck, do I want to get my boobs done? Do I want to get my titties done? And then I realized that the only reason why I was considering this is because I was being influenced by an influencer to get my tits done.

Yeah, but then is that on you or on her? That's not her making you get them done. It's also a level of awareness of what's out there and the availability and accessibility. Now, I think the cosmetic surgery thing is a double edged sword. What I mean by that is I don't know what the better option is. Right If we say to people you're not allowed to promote that anymore, are they then going to want to not be transparent and honest about it? And then is that going to leave the younger generation, not even the younger generation, even our generation law like you just said, you looked at it. Is that going to leave them thinking?

Wow?

Look how naturally amazingly beautiful that person is. I'm never going to be like that. I feel even worse about myself. Or is it better for them to have said, hey, check out my nose job that I got.

This is by before.

And after, I don't actually look like this. I don't know what the better option is. Is it better for people to know the cosmetics surgery is out there inaccessible, or to feel shit about themselves because they know they'll never be like that because I think these people are naturally this incredible.

Well. I think the other big thing is so many influencers get their surgeries for free. So many influencers get it for kickbacks. They get free boobs or free nose jobs in order to do social media pushing. And I think that when you're getting something for free, you're no longer able to be transparent about the process or the recovery. You're really only giving the highlight reel. I think that that should be the part that needs to be more heavily regulated, because I do think that there are so many rules around advertising within Australia, within every country, and it seems like the world of influencing, the world of social media, which we know is a billion dollar revenue stream that influencers are making. I think that that needs to be as heavily regulated as what other corporations are. But it's tricky because it's on an individual level.

Well interesting to see what France does.

Dun, dun, all right, something we have not done in a while, and I'm very excited to bring it back today because it's bloody brilliant is accidentally unfiltered, and we have a cracker. Actually, cracker is pun intended, unintended.

I don't even know what the sun is, but I'm ready for.

It pun unintended. I used to work on a super yot in the south of France and one day I got invited to go to the French engineer's family's home in Marseilles for the weekend that we had off, along with a couple other crew members. All right, flex, I know, big flex, but also amazing.

We had a great weekend.

They're hosted by his family, who were absolutely lovely. Communication was tough as I don't speak French and they have limited English, but we got by. As I was a chef, I decided I should probably make a really nice Sunday meal for his family as a thank you. Now, a little backstory. About two weeks prior to this, I'd had surgery due to a tough couple of years with an anal fisher. The surgery involves botox injection to the area to the buttocks to help it heal. Let's flash forward to this lovely Sunday meal. We all sat around the dinner table, having finished eating and just enjoying relaxing at the table with each other, having a chat without even feeling it coming on a fart. Now, this was no quiet far. As soon as I heard it, I did my best to close that hole off.

But try as I might.

As we all know, botox relaxes the muscles, and no amount of dancing was.

Gonna do a damn thing.

Ten seconds of loud trombone, unmistakable fight echoing out across the table. I was trying to squeeze with all my might, it was doing nothing. I was mortified. All I could do was laugh and cry at the same time. Thank goodness, they saw the funny side. They'll never forget the Ossie girl that made them lunch and ripped one at the table. I could not stop laughing. It's so funny because I've never heard of botox in the anus before, but it's true.

How do you cut off the how do you cut the futt off?

How do you cut the pool off? How do you cut anything off? Why are you getting botox in your bummele.

Well, because you had an anal fisher and anal fishers worse. Trust me, not that I've had one, but I'm saying that.

What is an anal fisher? Is it when there's like a breakage between the wall of your Yeah, so as in the you're intestine wall.

I guess, well, think of a fisher as a tunnel. So some people after birth actually it can tear and they can have like vaginal anal fisher, and so you could almost this is hectic, but like you could pooh out the wrong place, So it ends up being like a tunnel and it can go different places.

That's what a fisher is. So think of it as.

Like a little bridge or a little tunnel that can go places that it absolutely shouldn't be. So in this poor girl's situation, getting getting botox to fix that and the outcome is just like uncontrollable faces that you can't cut off is definitely better.

Do you know what I have the most Before we get into talking to Matthew Hussey, which is truly one of my most favorite interviews of the year. I have a book recommendation speaking about anal fishers.

I was like, okay, this is not book Club.

You just reminded me of it when you spoke about like having a fisher after birth. There is this incredible book. It's quite old now, so many of you probably would have read it or heard of it. But it's called Hospital by the River. Have you heard of that?

Never?

So it's called Hospital by the River. It's about a very famous Australian gynecologist who moved to Ethiopia and she helped to save all these women who had experienced that, who had been outcast from their communities in Ethiopia. It's amazing read it. That's my recommendation.

Do you know what? Those books just make me feel shit? So I'm like, what am I doing for humanity?

Like all I do is talk?

What am I doing? I'm not saving anyone by the River.

Nothing between, nothing. All right, let's get into the chat with Matthew.

I'm super excited about today's guest, Matthew Hussy. He is what I would like to say, the leading dating expert. He's also a New York Times bestselling author, a speaker, a podcast, a coach, and has a particularly honest and authentic, practical.

Look at love and relationships.

Now, Matthew, you have been sliding into our dms asking to come on Life on Cut for many years now, and I'm so sorry.

We've been so busy.

We have finally made tark you today, So welcome to Life on Cut.

Can I just say I really appreciate it. It means the word to me that you finally had me on.

Yeah, we cleared the schedule after all this time, Matthew, if.

You were just to me a favor, and never ever ever look at the message exchange from me to you, because it will look pathetic and desperate be sending you multiple messages being like please come on our podcast dating back to twenty nineteen or something.

So I actually just looked.

Twenty twenty was my first text to you, and you responded and you said you appreciate it. Congrats, I'll speak with my team and see what's possible. And here you made room in twenty twenty three, so thanks, I.

Did see what was possible. Here we are we may.

It have it okay, Well, we're very excited to have you on now. We like to kickstart every episode with our guests by asking them to share one of the most vulnerable times in life, one of your most embarrassing stories. If you could share with us you're accidently unfiltered, we would bloody love that.

I remember you asked me this, Britta and I had a story at the time and I couldn't remember what it was, but the thing that immediately comes to mind was me giving a public speaking seminar. I must have been twenty three, twenty four, something like that. It was one of those you know, back when. I don't know if what it was like in Australia, whether it was a thing there, but groupon was crushing it in the UK at the time.

It didn't really make it, No, it did. My mum was obsessed with it.

But not the UK. I used to live there. It was everyone grouped on. You only lived via group on. Oh, my mom would have liked it.

In the UK then it was this weird time where you could promote something on groupon and get a ridiculous amount of people overnight seeing whatever you had, whether it was like you were giving massages or personal training or whatever, and I was like, I'm pretty good at this public speaking thing. I'm gonna promote a public speaking seminar because I'd been speaking for years at that point, doing what I do now, dating advice, working on people's confidence. So I said, I've never done a public speaking seminar before. I'll do that, and I promoted this thing. I thought maybe one hundred people would show up. We had six hundred people who showed up for this event. The venue that I booked was way over subscribed. We had people standing at the back of the room and there was a whole standing section because we ran out of seats. And I must have gotten it was designed to be a three hour event. I must have gotten about twenty minutes into the event and I was doing my thing. I thought it was going well, and I sometimes curse, you know, I swear in my sessions in my events, less so these days, but more so back then. And there was this one woman in the third row who, in the middle of the event, like twenty minutes in in front of everybody, just shouted at me, excuse me, can you please stop swearing?

For you audacity?

And I mean, who does that in the middle of a live show, like it's not.

It's your show, But how did you respond?

That's what I mean, it was my show. It's like, you can't just do that. You just in the middle of a Broadway performance say excuse me, this is too sexy.

I think the best response there is ma'am kindly fuck off.

Well you're gonna laugh because my version was not so dissimilar to that. Oh, I said, and this was me And I was immediately my you know, when you get a combination of fear and anger and self consciousness and righteousness and all at the same time. I said, I didn't even address this person. I addressed the whole room, and I said, I want everybody to grab yourn and paper, and everyone read the pen and paper, and I said, I want everyone to write this down. Matthew Hussy doesn't give a fuck.

What to power me.

I want to say that I suffice it to say where I am in my life. Now that would not be my response, but back then it was. And I said it, and the whole audience like tensed up, and no one people didn't laugh. They thought there was some nervous laughter, but like kind of the whole audience, you know, raised up, and this gentleman in the same row, but on the other side of the row, said, I don't appreciate you talking to her like that.

Oh no, you've started a riot, sat.

So now I'm like, oh man, I'm in now, like I've got myself into this. I don't exactly know a way out of it. And I said, he said, I don't appreciate you talking to her like that, And I said, well, I don't appreciate you interrupting my event. So listen, you guys can either stay and take what you feel you're going to get from this, and there will be some things for you to get from this, and if I swear more, just ignore it, or you just decide you don't want to swear in your own lives, or you can leave and I'll have someone waiting for you at the door with your money. But you cannot stay and do this. So the choice is yours. And I thought to myself and nailed it.

Well.

I didn't realize was that everyone in between that woman and that man came together, the whole of Row three. I don't know if it was like a company or it was a whole group of people that came together and when I said you can either stay or you can leave, but you need to make the choice, the entire row stood up and left. Oh my, twenty minutes into a seminar on public speaking, I sent home row three and then what.

What did the rest of them do? Do they clap them out?

No, it was awkward for a little while. The one saving grace was I was like, I got three hours with this crowd, So now this is where you earn your stripes. Is now I've got to figure out away to make this event work. And funnily enough, there were actually some people who came up to me at the end and said that was the best part of the whole thing, Like that moment. They were like, I learned, Yeah, I came to get public speaking advice, and I learned just how much can happen when you get on stage and decide to public speak. So it was like a crash course for people in that moment what not to do, that's for sure.

I mean, it is a power move.

And you would never go to somebody else's show, Like you said, you wouldn't go to a show, or you wouldn't go to a comedy show or a public speaking event. You don't go to tell them how to perform, Like you go to watch somebody perform so good?

Ah, are you going to stand up comedy to heckle people? Though?

Don't you know they heckled a crowd?

But were you someone like a prominent figure at this point when you were going on to group on and like, how did you get six hundred people to turn up to a public speaking event?

Were you somebody yet?

I wouldn't say I was a prominent person. I would say I was a person who I'd gained a decent amount of attention for helping people in their love lives. And you know, I guess yeah. I was maybe twenty three, twenty four at that point. I'd been coaching people since the age of nineteen in one way or another. So by that point I'd been written up about in newspapers. I'd been on some TV shows. By that point, I'd done MTV's Playing Jane with Louise Row. I don't know if you know Louis Row. It was a show on like a five day transformation process for young women. So I was part of that, and so I was starting to become a little more known, But nothing like what's happened since, but it was a time where I was known enough to feel like that something like that was incredibly embarrassing for me. It's going to be hard to live.

It's embarrassing for me to listen to Can you tell us at nineteen or twenty three or twenty four? When your dream these sorts of seminars, public speaking and life coaching in terms of relationships, how does a nineteen year old or a twenty four year old have the relationship experience to be able to impart that knowledge on people to help guide them in their lives.

Well, I never knew what to call myself. I didn't like I've never liked relationship expert, because the arrogance of any kind of title like that has never escaped me.

Strong the intro time I got the rest, I.

Just always I really have always loved this kind of content for myself. I grew up loving it. My parents had the book How to Win Friends and Influence People on their bookshelf, along with a whole bunch of other psychology book self development books when I was a kid. I picked up How to Win Friends and Influence People when I was maybe eleven years old and read it back then, and I wasn't reading it because I was thinking, I can't wait to pass this on to other people. I was reading it because I was a shy kid, and I was both shy and introverted. Still introverted, I just know how to deal with my shyness. But when I was a kid, I was very shy, and it was like I was learning these superpowers about how to relate differently to people, to the world, how to have more impact, and how to make my voice heard, and that was really really empowering for me. So by the time I got to nineteen, it was really just about sharing things that I had found exciting for myself, as opposed to thinking that I was some kind of expert. And my career has just been a series of steps where I've shared things that I really love that have helped me a lot, and more and more people have listened to them over time. I did used to have the insecurity when I was in my early mid twenties, probably even into my later twenties, that you know, what's my qualification? And people would ask me that. I would say, what's you know? So, what's your qualification? And I felt like I never had a good answer other than I seem to be quite good at this. And I don't know how I was to say it, but I've seemed to be quite good at this and people really enjoy it and is helping a lot of people. And by now, you know, over time it was turned from helping hundreds of people to thousands to millions across the world. And at that point you've got this kind of mosaic that you've got of knowledge in your head from having worked with that many people. There as certain point it switched for me and I just went, you know what, Instead of being insecure about my answer, I just would tell the truth, which is that some of us in life are lucky to find something that we're naturally really good at. And I found a thing that I'm really interested in. The more energy I put into it, the better I got. The same was not really true for me about singing, you know, but when it comes to this area of my life, the more energy I put into it, the better I got. I really and I started to get very good, and that was really encouraging to me, and I just I kept going. And now I kind of don't mind if someone says I'd rather have someone who's got a psychology degree or a therapist's license, or that's okay, those people are there too. I use those resources for myself. I have a therapist for myself, like I believe in taking tools and wisdom from wherever it comes. But I always say to people, at least just check out the things I'm talking about or the videos that I have on YouTube, or the programs I have, because we all need a certain voice that breaks through for us. And I might be that voice for you. If I'm not, it might be someone else. It might be an Esta Perel or a Guy Wench or a neck Art Toll or you know. It's it's different for everybody. It's just I think life is about finding voices that really resonate with you.

But at the end of the day, you you have done the time, and you've done the due diligence, and you've done the study. Without you might not have officially been given that certificate, the bachelor degree or the doctorate, but you've you've still done the time. And I think those days are gone now of saying what degree do you have? What qualifications do you have? Because so many inspirational people and successful people that we're looking at haven't done that. They are just people that naturally embody something.

But also exactly what you said, this idea that like it's the cut through so many and I remember, I still remember the very first time. It was my now husband who sent me one of your videos and he was like, I think this guy's onto something. And this was quite a few years ago, and it was the first time I came across your Instagram or your YouTube channel. First thing, I was skeptical because I think as a woman, I was like, how does this guy know so much about women?

I was like, prove it.

And then the more I.

Want it, I was twenty five hours deep and I was like yeah.

And then I was literally so deep in your YouTube channel and I was like far out. There is so much about this and so much in this that like, at what point in your life did you start to realize I really understand not just relationships, but I understand kind of the female dynamic as well as to how we show up in relationships.

Firstly, I really deeply, deeply care about the subjects I'm talking about, and the ones that you hear me talk about less and less are the ones I tend to care about less and less, You know, they're the ones that I'm not as naturally drawn to. You know, someone might come to me and say, Matt, what are the three great texts to send someone for this or whatever? And I'll play along because I have enjoyed giving very practical advice at different points in my career, and I think there's something very useful about that for people. But when it comes to talking about people's healing or dealing with why is it that people go through their lives going from one toxic situation to another? Why is it that they accept less than they deserve? Why is it they don't do what they know they should do or what their friends and family know they should do, Or why is it someone doesn't value themselves or doesn't see that they can increase the perception of their value in other people's eyes by the way that they treat themselves or the way that they create boundaries. Those things are infinitely interesting to me, and I care about them. I really care about them. And I think when you really care about something, you pay attention to it, you really ask yourself why is this happening? You don't just give out kind of bumper sticker logic to things like let me just throw out a fun Instagram quote here that's inspirational. To me, I feel like I could have had a much bigger Instagram account if I put out much more inspirational kind of quotes where they were just like plain inspiration without in the morning. I don't know if I feel like if I'd have been more on the nose with things, I would have done better. But I just I really struggle with that because to me, I'm always obsessed about the nuance of things, like when is that true? When is it not true? For example, when someone says, watch you know, this is good advice. Right when you're dating someone, watch what they do, not what they say. That's good advice that will save you from a lot of bad situations in life. If someone keeps telling you they love you, I care so much about you. I always want the best for you. But everything they do is damaging to you, and they're inconsistent, and they treat you poorly, and they disrespect you, and they cheat on you, they lie, well, their words really cease to matter at that point. Their behavior is telling you everything you need to know about the person. But what would happen with me is I because I've worked with so many people now over fifteen years. I would always hear something that would stop me in my tracks and make me go, oh, hang on, I feel like I need to go back to the drawing board on this. And an example for that piece of advice, which is good advice, is when someone would say to me, but Matt, I'm with this person and they literally treat me like I'm a girlfriend. They take me to meet their family, like We've gone on these amazing trips together. He's big with these gestures, and he spends all his time with me, we speak for hours on the phone, and yet he tells me he just doesn't know if he wants a relationship.

And so many people have experienced that.

Yeah, so if you apply watch what they do, not what they say to that scenario, you're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble because what they're doing is showing you all the right things through their behavior, but what they're telling you is that they don't want a relationship. Well, that to me is nuance. You add a layer of complexity there where you say, oh, well, actually, what appears to be true empirically is that you should follow the rule of watch what they do not what they say unless what they say to you is inconvenient for them to say and wouldn't help them in any way. So if I'm a guy and I want to continue to have this intimacy and this connection and regular sex and all of the things that come from doing that with a person, I don't want to tell you I don't want a relationship because it might hurt what I'm getting. You might decide, Oh, if that's true, then I'm out. So I'm risking the things that I'm enjoying by admitting this. And if you imagine for a guy like that, he feels like he has to say it, or he should say it, or he wants to to keep your arm's length, but it doesn't help his cause. And if something doesn't help someone's cause but they say it anyway, you can believe that thing. Then it's almost like the rule inverts, because now it's like the small print at the end of a pharmaceutical ad. A pharmaceutical ad is this whole commercial where the whole time they're like showing people bouncing in a field who you know, were struggling with back problems, but now they're having a great time and look how great their relationship is, and look how great life is, and it's changed their life taking this back pill or whatever it is. And then at the end of the commercial, very very quickly, it races through the fact that this pill is going to make you suicidal. You might vomit, you might have diarrhea, you might it might ruin your life like it.

Might die, but you could be happy run around.

In a field.

And here's the thing. Those are the things that they have to say. They wouldn't say it if they had a choice, but they have to say those things. So you don't necessarily know if any of the nonsense marketing was true. But you know the other things are true because they wouldn't say them unless they had to. So when someone's telling you something that doesn't help them to tell you, that's usually the part that's true, even if their actions are giving you lots of hope.

It's so obvious that it's so important because even me reflecting on my past experien answers, and I mean this is well spoken about in the podcast. I dated a guy for almost a year and a bit where he kept saying you didn't want a relationship, but he was behaving like that and I just wish someone had said it so obviously to me at the time, because sometimes you lull yourself into this sense that like, well, if you wait, if you hope, if you try harder, if you do more, then something will click in them and they will come around and want to be with you.

I've seen that get so many people into trouble. And that's the you know, the short answer to your question is when you spend so much time obsessing over something and you really care about it and you're interested in the nuances, you start to arrive at better answers than the average answers. And that's been my entire adult life, is arriving at that level of nuance that hopefully says it simply, but arrives at something that actually might have taken someone years or decades to arrive at on their own, or they may never have gotten there, which we see in people all the time. They live and die in relationships that make them unhappy.

I'd love to hear your idea on the idea of a soulmate or that we have this one person out there that we're destined to be and then they end up being the one that got away.

And how do we ever replace that person. What are your thoughts on this idea of finding that one, Penguin.

I don't believe in the idea of the one. I think that the person, the ideal person, is a bit like the ideal job. I don't think I'm doing my ideal job or the one job I was supposed to do. When anyone says to me, Matt, you found your calling, I always think I don't believe in things like that. I believe that I've stumbled on something I'm good at. The Japanese term icky guy, I forget. It's the combination of finding something you're good at, something the world needs, something that provides for you, something you actually enjoy, something that gives you fulfillment. And in my work I've found my ikey guy. That doesn't mean to me that that's the only thing that could be my ikey guy. There are many things I think that could have done those four things. And a relationship is the same way.

I think.

We find someone who has the raw materials to be an amazing partner in our life, and then we build with that person. But just like the ideal career, the ideal career isn't found. I don't believe that you two just stumbled into something that is an amazing career for you. You sort of found something that had some core ingredients that made it enjoyable to you, fulfilling, challenging, and then you sculpted it, and you're still sculpting it right now. You're always i'm sure, asking your questions like, what's okay, this part's working and we really enjoy this, but we want to do less of that. How do we make that leap to doing less of that? And that involves some risk, but I think we can do it, and I think you know, and gradually, over time you end up it's something that you have fashioned into an amazing career that other people look at and go, I want your job, and they don't realize that your job is something you didn't find. You sculpted. And an amazing relationship, I believe, is really a lot like that. You find a great person to build with, and it doesn't start as the most beautiful thing ever. It starts as something that has an awful lot of potential, and that potential becomes realized because two people actually demonstrate that they're willing to build together, and then you end up with something extraordinary. But that's why I kind of I understand what people mean when they say love at first sight, but I always find the concept a little bit.

A bit Hollywood fairy tale Disney.

I think it's like some people experience love at first sight, and then it's almost like luck plays a part in it actually working out long term. Like I met my maner on The Bachelor and we are now married and have two children, and it's truly the best relationship I've ever been in, obviously because I married the guy, but I think for me, I got really really lucky and had this. And I would never say that it was like a love at first sight, because you know, I didn't love him.

Then I saw him and I was like, oh, because Matthew.

But that is about it. But I think that for the people who truly strongly believe in it because they feel like they've experienced it, then there must be some sort of luck element, because I know that chemistry can lie. I think so many of us have been in a situations where we thought, oh my god, that's the love of my life, and then you almost hold onto the relationship for too long because you believed so much in the beginning that they were the love of your life, even though it's toxic.

A but love has so many layers. You can't love someone at first sight when you know nothing about totally but what they've been through, their morals, their values, their wants.

For the future.

You can last the fuck out of them, like you can be like I want to get you naked. But I think the idea of this all consuming, all empowering love at first sight physically is impossible.

Yeah, how many things that we actually need for an amazing relationship do we know about someone in the beginning. This is one of the ways that for people who get very nervous when they have a great date and suddenly they're scared to go on the next one because they like this person so much. It's actually a great way of sobering yourself is to realize. Usually when people get off a date and they tell me, Matt, you know this is like the most eligible bachelor. Oh my god, Like I can see they've built themselves up, They've built this person up, they've built the possibility of the relationship up. And I look at it and I go, well, let's run through what you think makes them eligible. I'd love to know what you already know makes them so eligible, And it will be. They're handsome, it will be, they're so charismatic, it will be we had such a great connection that, by the way, is the deepest one that I'm going to mention. Yeah, and it's not that deep. There will be they're super successful, they're financially independent or very well off. There's all these things that go into making them super eligible, and none of those things are the things that are actually going to make the biggest difference to quality of life in a relationship. I can't tell you the number of times someone I've worked with has got that person and then looked in the mirror and gone, what the hell did I get?

Like?

What am I getting here? It's terrible, this is toxic. I'm not happy. This person doesn't care about my needs. This person is selfish. This person doesn't actually see me, they don't understand me. I feel alone in this relationship. I don't get the attention that I need, I don't get the time that I need. And forget how many of those you know, those great qualities you thought you had in the beginning of eligibility, all of the stuff that actually mattered you didn't have. And that's because once we think someone has value, we stop asking ourselves whether they're actually made of the stuff that's going to make for a great relationship, and we just get obsessed with getting them without ever really asking what we're getting in the process. And that's a very dangerous place to be. I believe in this kind of depedestaling process that you should go through whenever you feel yourself getting too carried away, where you ask yourself, write down on a piece of paper, what are the things that I actually want in a relationship, the things that I think would make an amazing partner. Write them all down. You know how this person argues, what making up looks like after an argument, How long it takes for us to make up. What's the level of humility in this relationship. What's the ability of us to say sorry to each other? How does this person treat my family? They don't have to like them, but they have to respect them, and they have to at the very least they have to risk my relationship with them, and that they're important in my life. How much do they try with the various elements of my life all of these things? Write all those down, and then anytime you get too excited about someone, actually ask yourself how many of these things do I have? And I guarantee you you will have so few it will be embarrassing because what you'll realize you've built this up on is this imagined idea of how great this person would be, not what they've actually shown you, and not how much they've invested in you.

And I think also like this idea of potential, we get so exactly what you're talking about. You can get so caught up in the potential of someone, the potential of what you thought the relationship would be, but also not just I guess potential, but this idea of like the time invested in it. So maybe you've spent two years in this relationship and it's still not good and it's not heading anywhere, but thinking, well, I've already spent two years in this relationship. I don't want to throw this away even though it's shit for nothing because being on my own is so scary, or maybe nothing better will come along. How do you coach people through situations where they feel like they don't necessarily want to leave because they're frightened of what's out there, or they're frightened of having even less by being alone.

Yeah, such a great question. That's called the sunk cost fallacy. You know, this idea that you know people do it in casinos. I keep throwing good money after bad because I have to recover my losses. It's an easy way to go broke, and doing it in a relationship is an easy way to go broke on time in your life, and you can get money back. By the way, you're never getting your time back, you know, if you're in your thirties and saying, but I've already invested five years in this relationship and you're thirty five. Now, you're never getting thirty five again. This is the only year you ever get to be thirty five. And the same is true at forty and the same is true at fifty. And so we have to start getting real with ourselves and saying, Okay, this idea that I've invested this much so far, so I should keep going. Is that based on me being happy right now? No? Otherwise I wouldn't be asking this question. I wouldn't be having this conversation with my friends and tortured at night as I think about how I'm feeling about this relationship or how much. My needs aren't getting met, so I'm not happy. So if I stay, presumably it's based on the idea that I will one day be happy in this relationship. So you have to then ask yourself, can I be happy if nothing changes? And if you've got to this point where you're not here because you're being entitled or taking your partner for granted, you're here because your fundamental core needs the level investment that you need from someone in a relationship, those standards aren't being met. So if it stays this way, I can't be happy. And this ask yourself, do I want this pain forever? Forget? Do I want this relationship forever? Do I want this pain forever? And if the answer is no, then the only way you can stay is if you convince yourself that it will one day be different, that there is a level of investment that you're going to put into this relationship that is going to make it shift from where it is right now. And I always ask people what is your evidence for that on? What is this based other than hope? Hope isn't a plan, so what's it based on. Usually when people get to this point, they've already tried a lot they've cried, they've got mad, they've screamed, they've gone quiet, they've withdrawn, they've aggressively pursued, they've done everything to try to get this relationship to be the way they want it to be. What emotion do you have up your sleeve that you haven't shown this person yet to get them to change or to get this relationship to change, And usually there isn't one. People do not normally have a good answer for that. So then we have to say, if the truth is that this person isn't changing, and that's always going to be the part where people trip up is but maybe this person is going to change. If the truth is they're never going to change, the only option that works for your happiness is to leave. Even if the world is a question mark, even if everyone else in the world is a question mark, at least they're a question mark. Where you are, you have to start believing and reminding yourself that where you are is a full stop. Where you are is a period. It's not question mark anymore. You've turned the page one hundred times and it's always the same page you keep reading over and over again. It's no longer a question mark. It's already a period, and oh, but maybe this person will change one day. Anyone who has ever tried to change anything about themselves knows how hard it is to change. It's so stupidly hard that it's amazing that any of us make changes.

And the question didn't have to change somebody. I mean, I don't think you should.

Why would you date somebody that you feel like you need to mold into the person you want to be with, that's compatible with you, with your argument styles or your love languages, or what you want for the future. I think that that's a bit of a ridiculous statement, and it does come down to maybe this will be the best I get, so I'll take it now, and then I'll try and pottery mold it into something that looks like a beautiful vase that I want to put in my house. That was the weirdest analogy I've ever done. I love that you don't necessarily say the answer that people want to hear, or the diplomatic answer. You say what you truly believed might offend somebody. But there's one particular thing that I want to talk about. We wrote a book last year, we Love Love, and I did reference this from you in the book, so I do hope it's still your opinion. It's surrounding sex on a first date. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because we do get a lot of questions about this, and it is controversial. The idea of, of course it shouldn't matter, be sexually free, do whatever you feel in the moment, and we truly believe that. But I did hear you speak a little bit about the fact that maybe it's okay to work on the relationship first. So I'd love to hear your opinion on sex on the first day if you're looking for a relationship.

Sorry, I should add in.

Which is where to me it starts to become not controversial anymore, because controversial is when you're making a judgment about a gender for having Because that's where all the controversiality comes from. Is there's this idea that if you imply that a woman should wait, then it's not progressive and it's regressive. But I want to remove that from it, because the truth is I'd say exactly the same thing to a man. I wouldn't say a different thing to a man about this. I think that you have to just say if I'm not being intentional and I just want to have fun, Then go have fun, Like, go enjoy yourself. Who cares? As long as you're keeping yourself safe, then go enjoy yourself. But if you're being intentional as a man or a woman, we have to ask ourselves, what's the best path for me to get to where I want to go? And I know that there was a time in my life where I realized for myself, oh, I don't know that I'm doing myself any favors by hooking up with someone quickly. And I learned lesson a little late, to be honest with you, Like, I kind of feel like I wasn't even like I wasn't being intentional for a long time, and I didn't even really realize that I wasn't. I told myself I was looking, but I wasn't really willing to sacrifice anything in the looking. I was still like, but I just want to do whatever feels good. And what feels good is like you're on a date with someone and you like them, and you're like, why not let's just go home together? This feels good, But doing what feels good might not serve what you actually want. Do you imagine, Like, what is a lot of love bombing.

You know.

Love bombing is a term that's become bigger and bigger these days, and it's used to describe that person who tells you all of these grandiose things and does all of these big gestures and makes big promises very early on and then essentially doesn't back it up. Right. They do all of that and then they just disappear. That's love bombing. Well, love bombers tend to be really high and impulsivity. For a lot of them, there's this feeling of I don't care about the concept. I don't believe that every love bomber is just manipulative. Some are. There's a very dark side to some people where it's like, I'm going to say all of these things just to manipulate you into giving you giving me more than I would be getting from you at this stage organically. But some people love bomb kind of almost unintentionally because they feel something. They're on a date and they have that feeling that we've all had at some point in our lives where we think, oh my god, I love this person.

Yeah, you've already.

Planned a wedding before the main meal comes out, You're like, oh my God, this is my humor.

Yeah, And some people who get accused of love bombing are just the people that said everything out loud that the rest of us keeping our minds for a few more dates, and then they can't back it up. They wake up the next week and they're like, oh my god, why did I say all of that. I didn't even know this person. I'm now realizing they're really annoying. That happens to people a lot. And so if you remove the word sex from it and just say how quickly am I moving with someone that I don't know very well? How quickly am I telling this person I've never met anyone like you? You're this is the greatest date I've ever had. We're like full of chemicals and we're so excited and someone shows potential and it is like it's intoxicating. So I don't blame people for that, but we have to understand that acting on our feelings all the time can actually have consequences, and sex itself can really interrupt our perception of who this person actually is and how close we really are to this person. It makes us feel close to someone, it makes us feel like not everyone. Some people don't feel close all through sex, which is another problem because if you're someone who does feel close through sex and someone else doesn't, then you've already got this mismatch now because you've done it and now you're feeling bonded and they're not, and you think they're in the same place as you, but they're not. But at the end of that, you can do it because it feels good, and now think, oh, we're like having sex. We're quite close. We're moving fast, but things moved fast.

It's so manipulative, and it makes you think sex is a gas ladder trademark.

No, it's a good phrase. It's good, but it's true. And that's why it's almost worth saying to people. Look, do you lose anything by taking a beat? I'm not saying and by the way, I don't want to as I'm saying this. It's really important people understand I don't care. I don't care how quickly you have sex with someone like. I'm not coming from any kind of conservative place. I'm not coming from a religious place. I'm not a prude. I love sex. I've done it all in my lifetime, so I'm not just dging what someone else is doing in theirs, Like, none of it comes from any of that stuff. For me, it only comes from hearing from so many people who do things that don't actually serve them. And that's especially true if you know that sex can be very distracting for you or intoxicating for you, or it can make you feel like if someone doesn't then follow up, it's going to make you feel used, and it's going to make you feel like you've given more than you wish you had. Like that's a good principle, by the way, is don't give more than you're willing to lose. If you're happy to have sex with someone and they don't call you after that, then have sex. But if you know that you have sex with them and it doesn't go anywhere, it's going to make you feel really badly about yourself, then wait because if that's how you feel, that's going to come out after sex in a kind of desperate feeling of I have to hold on to this person now because I can't bear that feeling that we have sex and then they disappear.

No, and it's not like you just said, It's not that you believe that people shouldn't be having sex on the first date. Because we've done it, I think people can do what they want as well. My current partner Ben, we slept together on the first date, thought it was going to be one night stand, wasn't.

I also think it comes from this idea and I know you touch on a Matthew, but it's like we live in a very sex positive society at the moment, and like it's had a real renaissance, especially female sexual empowerment, and this idea that if you were to say, don't have sex on the first date, that that's almost then shaming somebody for being in touch with their sexuality. But I do think by only leaning into that side of the story, we neglect this idea and coming back to again what you said, this idea of intention and this idea of well, if it's not sex that you're looking for, then maybe that shouldn't be the first main priority of what it is that you're developing with someone.

Look, I want to restate this because it's important. If I had a guy in front of me and I knew he was serious about finding a relationship and he happened to go on a date tonight with someone he really liked, and as he was leaving that date and figuring out whether to try to take that person home for the night or go home. I'd be like, if you want a relationship and you actually had a great date and you like this person, go home.

By yourself, flesh line, flesh lige.

Because what's going to be gained from speeding up the process right now? Like, name one great thing that will come from this? Okay, fine, It will might feel spontaneous and in the moment, but it might also have her misinterpreting you as a player. It might have her seeing you as just someone who does this all the time. It might have her see you as someone who's not that serious because you're not really trying to get to know her. It might have her seeing you as someone who's impatient. Like, there's lots of misconceptions that could come from that and what comes from it. That's good, you have a fun time to But your biggest goal isn't to have a fun time tonight. Your biggest goal is to find a partner, so you have to start going. Is the priority to find a person that is compatible with me? Or is the biggest priority to have as much pleasure as possible in the short term? Those will change your decision making. And I also want to say the delicate balance to strike is never ever, ever, ever, ever do I want to give women the impression that sex is their power, Because if you think sex is kind of this valuable thing that you've given up, then you've lost your power the moment you have it. That framing of it is what has women a lot of the time acting like their power has dissolved the morning after. And if you think that's true, you will start behaving as someone with no personal power the moment you've had sex, and you'll lose it all, not because you had sex, but because you start behaving as someone who's given up their biggest card. That part of it. I really make sure people never ever feel it's more that again, if you remove the word sex from it and you just say any kind of investment or effort, everything is a kind of investment.

Right.

If you didn't know someone in business, and someone came up to you on the street and said, Hey, could you sit down and plan my business for me, and you said yeah, I'll spend the next week with you, it would be strange. It would be like, wait, but I haven't done anything for do I have to pay you? Is that. Is there a reason you're giving me this much time and energy. This hasn't been earned at all. So it's true in every part of life. If a guy showed up on a first date and at the end of the date he said, Hey, I just wanted to tell you I liked you so much from your profile that I bought you a new car and is waiting outside. So at the end of the date, the keys are yours. Like here it is if.

Someone problem math.

No, britt, you would think, this is this guy's this this is the creepiest thing I've ever seen.

Away, very very.

Quickly, you drive away as fast as possible. It would freak you out because but if someone did that for you years in in a committed relationship, you might think, oh my god, what a beautiful grand gesture. So we have to start saying if I want people to put value on things, I have to put value on them myself. Whether it's I love you as a phrase, whether it's sex, whether it's my time, whether it's introducing you to key people in my life, whether it's inviting you to my birthday party of six friends and you're going to be the seventh person at this table. Like, if I just invite you after a date because I'm like, you seem awesome come to my private, intimate birthday party with people I've been friends with my whole life. It's not going to come across like you value you those seats at that table. But if someone's got close enough to you that you now say, hey, I want to invite you to this thing. It's all my close friends, but you've become a special person in my life. I'd love you to be there. That's now going to mean something. So it's about what you want things to mean. That's a personal decision for all of us, men and women.

Matthew, I wanted to ask you for somebody who understands the workings of relationships, and I would assume as well, you have had a clear idea of what you want for yourself in your relationships. Have you ever felt pressure, I guess like pressure in your own dating life or pressure to have things perfect. I would think almost having so many tools, it creates even more of a problem because I would feel that people might think that they don't measure up, or that they're having to perform almost like you actually dating person like you in your previous dating life. I know that you're happily engaged now with beautiful fiance, but did you ever find pressure in your own dating life to kind of get it right? I guess, especially when you're then speaking to everybody else about dating.

I did feel that feeling that people sort of have around Christmas where their grandma is asking them if they've found anyone yet, and you know, they're like, well, no, I haven't, and then people say, well why not, why haven't you found someone? You know? Like that that feeling that a lot of people get at the family dinner table. I felt an element of that, but just from globally a million people.

No pressure.

I remember stumbling across you, and I remember when I was speaking to Rebel about you. I was like, surely this guy's got to be the best human in the world to date because you know every aspect well, it seems like you know every aspect of everything there is in a relationship.

You have the best advice.

I imagine every woman that's ever dated you would just been like fucking bingo, this is gonna.

Be a breeze.

No.

I think the opposite. I think it would be like fu fu fuck h like over analyzing God I'm gonna fuck this up.

Nah, He's going to be analyzing Bee and then.

It's gonna think I'm crazy.

It's like kicking back, like he's got this.

No.

I think it probably was from a point of view of having tools about, you know, that I'd learned over time about how to have a great relationship with a person. That was the most powerful part of it. And that's the part I wouldn't take back for anything. The perception of it was only bad really because someone could only come in either not being themselves because they assume I A'm analyzing things, which anyone who knows me and is close to me will tell you is like it's so far from who I am as a person. You know, how you meet certain people you know like you I don't know. I've never been interested in matchmaking anyone ever am a coach. But when you meet matchmakers, and even in their spare time, they're like, oh, I think that person, that person would go well together, and it's like they're doing it all the time. They're always thinking about it. For me, it is the opposite with friends, family, girlfriends, whoever. Is always been the thing that I'm like, this doesn't enter my personal world at all. If anyone ever asks me for advice, that's a different thing. I will never if you're a friend of mine and you come to me for help, or if you come to me with something going wrong in your life. I'm never giving unsolicited advice because I just want to connect with people. But that wasn't necessarily everyone's perception. And I think that probably some people were maybe two in their head, or their expectations were too high and they was severely disappointed by the person they ended up dating. You know, and my fiance herself will kind of tell you all sorts of stories about how we had to work through things, and there were things I thought I had dealt with and I hadn't dealt with, and I was learning on the job, so to speak, and so I don't know, and I love it that way. It's meant that we've been able to grow together and learn together. And I think that's what makes someone great for us, is that you meet a person who encounters your stuff right, and hopefully we have a decent amount of our stuff either worked out or at least we have an awareness a whole, we have a sort of our arms around it a little bit by the time we meet someone, yeah, yeah, and then there's always going to be things we haven't worked out. Like this idea of you have to have your own stuff figured out by the time you meet someone is bullshit. No one comes to a relationship for having figured out all of this stuff. No one comes fully healed. No one comes like when I met so and so, I became the most confident version maybe, but you still had stuff and you still hadn't worked it all out. I love when married people look back and they that you know, when they like tell their friends who are still single, you need to learn how to be okay on your own first, or you need and you're like you were on your own for five minutes before you got married.

I love this because I think so often we tell people like you need to have every think sorted for yourself before you can show up in a relationship. But I think relationships can be not that they're going to fix you or heal you, but I do think you can meet somebody who the things that might have been inflamed in another relationship, they will not inflame those things, and they may work with you to bring out the best qualities in you. And I think you can grow to heal in a relationship. I really hate the saying that, like, you have to love yourself before anybody's gonna love you, because I think it tells people that if you are going through periods of self doubt or periods where you don't have that confidence in yourself completely, that therefore you're unlovable.

It's a very black and white almost saying. I think it's about what you just said.

It's the intention and knowing when you go into a relationship knowing the stuff that you still have to work on, the awareness, I should say, the awareness of what you need to work on. I know when I just got into my relationship not that long ago, five six months ago, I knew the shit that I was taking into that.

I laid it out pretty early. I was like, hey, this is.

Something you know that's happened to me in the past, and I have boundaries around this, and just so you know, this angle might not be easy, you know, like, and I put it out there and it was fine from the get go. He's like, thanks for letting me know. And then we work around that and we work together. No one goes into a relationship as a whole, perfect circle, whole perfect pizza. There's always like a slice that's been taken that's so right, Peperoni.

You, I just I want a book of your analogies and met Yeah. I think the right person is someone who, when they come along, we find ourselves and our parts that get inflamed, we actually find them soothed by the way that person handles those parts of us. And so often in life we find ourselves with someone who just agitates the parts of us that are already inflamed, and then we blame ourselves for that, and we think that we're doing a horrible job, and we go, oh, why can't I just feel safe? I wish I could just be the kind of person that could feel safe. But often we find ourselves with someone who's not safe, and we're trying to feel safe. And that's the worst possible eventuality for someone who's already got stuff going on, They've already got trauma, they've already got things they're trying to heal, and now they're trying to do it in an environment with someone who's not safe to begin with, someone who's already saying to them, I just don't know if I want this. I don't want a relationship and they're like going in and out of this situation with this person. And meanwhile they'll come to me and say, I just wish I could feel confident with this person. And the thing I'll say to them is, you don't feel safe because you're not safe.

It does exit button.

Yeah, it doesn't mean that you're never gonna feel unsafe with someone who is safe. There are going to be times where you meet the right person and there'll still be moments where you feel unsafe, and it won't be because there's real danger. It will be because there's perceived danger. But in those moments, the right person tends to have a healing effect that tends to have a soothing effect. They bring us. You know, if you want to talk attachment styles, if we're anxiously attached, I believe that the right person brings us more to the middle. The wrong person mutates our attachment style to its worst possible version of it. Blame ourselves for that totally.

I mean, we could speak to you forever, but I know you're a busy man, so we'll we'll wrap it. But I do want to know what are your personally, your core foundations for a success for a healthy relationship. And in saying that, how did you know your fiance was the one?

Sorry? That was a really deep just.

A quick one to end on such as wrap it up, tell us the perfect relationship and why do you love your to wrap it What is the key to life?

Yeah?

Literally, I know that the thing that has meant the most to me. Aside from there are certain baseline things I feel we need, like loyalty, teamwork, We need someone who is actually committed to us. You know when you have those baseline things that give you a feeling of safety and you say, well, what takes a relationship from feeling safe? And I mean that in a positive way, in not a derogatory way, what takes it from being a safe relationship to being a great relationship? I know that one of the big things, perhaps the most important thing for me, has been feeling seen and feeling like, oh this person. That was one of the things to answer your question about my fiance. That was one of the things that Audrey did that was so special for me is that I felt, I truly felt like I could be myself and I could reveal new parts of myself, even the parts that I thought would not be impressive, the parts that I thought would be embarrassing, the parts that I thought were kind of weird or too quirky, or to just the parts of myself that I wouldn't say in a YouTube video because I'd feel like, oh, that's just a bit too people aren't going to get that, that's going to be a bit strange, or you know. I could say those things and it just made her love me more. And the things that weren't manly, the things that I had worried if I showed those to a woman, they would it would be emasculating, It would be too insecure, It would be perceived as weak and ugly. They didn't push her away, And you know, I think the paradox is we can't be those things all the time, because then we really might end up driving someone away because we're only being one version of ourselves, or only being the negative version of ourselves, or the sad version of ourselves, or the weak version of ourselves, or the vulnerable. But I felt like I could let her into those parts of me, and she both saw them, She really saw me, and I would I would see that in little moments. I'd see it in little moments like a morning routine that she thought was super ridiculous that I would have that was actually important for me to be in the right state of mind for the day. It's not like a public ritual that I would do in front of other people, but it's like something that allows me to feel emotionally in the right place for the day. She would learn those things and just think that's such an interesting and lovable quirk about you. And then like I might wake up one morning and she had set up the room for that for me next door so that I could go and do it because she knows it's important to me, even though she wouldn't care about doing that thing at all and never will. Like when I arrived next door and she'd set up the room in that way or done, I'd be like, oh my god, she knows me. She knows me, and she accepts me, and so I think that's one of the most important things a person can feel. And the other thing I just want to say, because I think is a really important lest I sound like I'm saying all you need for long term relationships is to be seen. We also have to accept human behavior, and human behavior is you know, Esther Perell talks about the difference between love and desire in her book Mating in Captivity, which is an important read for anyone who's serious about making a relationship last. And love is this the coming together of two people and all the ways we want to close down the space between us and get each other in our pajamas and live there forever. And desire exists in the space between two people. You know, Love is constant and stable and wants to join, and desire is a fickle bitch. Like desire is that moment we see someone across the room and they're dressed up and they look good, and they don't feel like they're else, and they don't feel like a sure thing. The irony of desire is. Desire's mission is to get you in your pajamas, so that once you're in your pajamas, if you stay there too.

Long, there's no desire. Now the suit's desire.

So I'm a big believer in maintaining those two things in a relationship. And I think that relationships suffer because people come to think love is enough, and love, on its own, it can overcome an awful lot, but it's not enough to make us want to stay on its own. And that's the trick is not just making an environment in a relationship where it's good to stay, but continually helping ourselves and our partner want to stay well.

I mean, we spoke to esther recently and it is an incredible episode. We read the book, it was great. We went and saw her.

She's so great.

Oh she's so great.

But it sounds like what I just took from you then, is it's not just that Audrey gave you the space to be you, but she went the next step and encouraged and embraced you being you. So she didn't just say I see you, and you know, I'm accepting that you do this. She went one step further and she was creating the room for you to go to have a weird ritual you.

Lean into your crazy mathew. Here it is, here's a whole room to do it in.

But I think that's really important. It's not just about locks the door shoes. I don't have to want to yeah totally. It's so important to do that and say not just like oh I see you, that's cool, you do you, but to feel like you're supported in what you're doing.

That's such an important distinction you just made because you're right, that is the distinction. It's more than acceptance. It's a leaning into the way that person is, and that's it. That's got to be one of the most beautiful things you can do for a person. And that, by the way, is where desire comes from.

Right.

Love wants us to be one. Desire kind of wants to feel like they're the other so that I can bring them closer. So don't lose the things that make you the other you, not in a bad way, but in a good way. Don't lose those things that give you a sense that you are your own entity and that there's always more to be discovered.

And like the pajamas and a sutany to meet her way, like suit jacket on top of charms on the bottom.

I feel like I've got no credibility in this area because living in LA I've sort of taken to wearing only clothes that feel like pajamas regardless of where I'm going.

That's also parenting where I'm att Matthew, thank you so much. This is i mean, a long time coming.

Again.

I'm so glad that you could finally make the time for us here at life uncut because you've been on the hit list, not just from us, but from the listeners for a very long time. Every time we've put it out there, just so you know how loved you are down Under every time we put it out for guests, as always, Matthew Hussey, Matthew Hussey.

If you're ever going to do a group on tour in Australia, like, let us know Sydney is your group on tour again, we already discounted, but we'll definitely tell everyone that's happening.

Group is cursed. I have such a wonderful time anytime I'm in Australia. There is something special about our audience there, and I want to thank you both for having me on and sharing your platform with me, because I know you're wildly successful what you do and you have a massive audience and I really appreciate it, and I always feel a special connection when I go over there. It's always crazy when we say we're coming to Australia. The rooms sell out so quickly, and I've always just so appreciated it because people they want to learn, they want to grow, and they've been really really kind to me over there, so I appreciate you having me, and I hope we can do it in person sometime. And I also say, by the way, for anyone who's listening to this who wants to kind of continue your journey with me, but you can always come and watch my videos on YouTube every week for free. But I have an actual coaching membership for anyone who says, how do I actually get coached by you? And in all of the things that you teach, And it's called the Love Life Club, And I'm pouring energy into this thing this year. We have amazing master classes, we have speakers in there who are experts in their areas. It's just a really amazing place to be right now. And you have an entire community of people all over the world who are on the journey with you. A lot of people feel very alone in these things, and you are part of an app that has its own in book community, and people make friends. They don't need to be on Facebook or anywhere else. It's all inside the app. And it's just a really it's a special thing and it's helping a lot of people right now. So if anyone wants to come and do it, it's you can literally do it risk free. There's a fourteen day free membership right now for a trial that you can come and just check it all out at join lovelife dot com.

All right, you guys know that we never finished an episode without our suck and our sweet, our highlight and our low light of each and every week. Now, Britt, I feel like we all know what your sweet is, but you know, humor us.

Okay, I'm trying to think of a sucker that I haven't told you yet.

Jet lag.

Yes, the jet lag is so bad.

But I guess my suck is probably like that my new friends next door and you sixty five year old friends seem to be too busy for me because I went around like two or three times a day and they weren't there. So they're either screening me and not answering the door, or they're just actually too social and too busy.

But I'll try again tomorrow.

So that was my suck that I tried to have a friend date today a couple of times and they blew me off.

My sweet would be that I've.

Obviously it's just one big giant sweet, big big giant sweet. Actually, I'm gonna say, I'm just gonna put this out there. I get so many messages about how tall Benn is. Yes, Benni's very tall. Just on the record, I think he's just shy.

Of six foot six.

So now you all know that you don't have to message me every day saying how tall he's Ben.

He's six foot six. He is a giant. So yeah, my sweet is a big sweet.

It's just been here obviously and seeing Ben again.

My big sweet is his height, My very big big sweet see is that my boyfriend is six six.

No, I was like, it's a big sweet because he's a giant. He's a gentle giant.

It's so cute. We love seeing you so happy. My suck for the week is that I have gotten back into exercise. I have ferociously gotten back into exercise. Why is that just because I feel like it's time. It's time? Interesting, Yeah, shut out you. You know exactly why, and I'll share that with you guys later on. But I've ferociously gotten back into.

You're going into the BONDI miss BONDI competition, aren't you.

It's time to get back on the stage in a bikini.

I have decided I want to enter a bikini competition. That's exactly what's going on, So I'm training really hard for it now. Guys, counting my macrons? Is that what it's called macron macros? MACARONI is the suite counting my macro.

Rooms your macros? I think you might have seen macros, you idiot.

I can confirm I'm not doing a bikini competition, and I'm absolutely not counting my macros. But i am getting back into fitness and my fucking hip flexes. Holy shit, I didn't even know that that muscle or ligament existed and that it is. I'm dying. I can't even walk up a stair going to the toilet. I have to lower myself onto that thing.

Oh, you're at the early stage where you have to put your hands on the side of the toilet and take all the weight through the palms and then like lower the body.

But let me tell you there's in the next I don't know a couple of months, I'm gonna be so ripped and I know no one cares. Already are and have abs in my head. They're gonna be like ripped everywhere. I'm like, oh, and you're gonna be like eh, And then that's gonna be my sweet but we're not there yet. Well, my sweet for the week is that last night I went out for dinner with my girlfriends, who they're like one of my closest group of friends. They've been friends with them for ten years, and we had a little birthday celebration. Brit you're too far away. We've missed my birthday celebration. Now we're gonna have to do something. And like, I know, June, but it was really cute and like, I know, it's April and it's already weeks past, but it was just nice to see them, and my sister came and we just had dinner done at Sean's Panorama. It was lovely. It was so love it.

Yeah, I did see a little cocktail photo with your sister and I was like, that's weird.

What are they doing.

They never go out, we never go out, We never got I get to see these girls like literally four times a year or five times a year, and it's always for one of our birthdays. And that's pretty.

Much like, yeah, I know the group. They're a good group of girls.

They're the best. They used to meet my little mulrat friends when I owned that's so bad. But I don't mean it the way it sounds. We used to own shops together down in Westfield and it was like this tiny little kiosk store marketplace and we all owned shops next to each other, and we used to call ourselves mull rats because we'd be down in Westfield's in the fucking artificial light with no sunlight. So yeah, it was just it was such a nice evening Sunday night, all the girls, like no boys were allowed, and we just got to catch up and it was beautiful. And that is it from us, guys.

If you guys loved this episode with Matthew Hussy as much as we did, this has been on the list.

For so long.

But if you think one of your friends or someone you know might benefit from this, please I was about to finish the episode, Please.

Tell you mum, don't do don't talk to your friends.

Please share it with your friend. We definitely feel honored to have recorded with Matthew Hussey and it was a bit of a flex for us.

Square Fang Gelly.

Like we said, we've been trying to get him one for so long, but oh, he's just honestly, he puts into words in such a simple way things that I feel like so many of us have experienced for years, just having someone be like, this is why, and then you go, oh, I wish someone had told me that ten years ago. So obvious took me so long. Well, anyway, guys, if you love the episode, as Britt said, jump on. You can also leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, join the Facebook group it is Life and Cut Discussion group, or the Instagram It's a Life on Cut podcast.

And you know the drill, So your mum to your dad, tell you don't tell your friends, and shit, I love because we love love

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