Relationship Expert: "Men Are Set Up to Fail" Inside the Male Loneliness Epidemic | EP 5

00:00:00:19 - 00:00:03:05    

Brady 

Melissa Nanavati, I have a question for you. 

 

00:00:03:10 - 00:00:04:14

Melissa 

I'm ready.

 

00:00:04:16 - 00:00:27:13  

Brady

The high performers that you work with, they have all been incentivized to compartmentalize, to move quickly, to be emotionally detached, and to ultimately not really commit or energetically bond because that has led to them being a successful entrepreneur. Eight, nine, ten figures. They did that because they were able to emotionally decouple and not invest and be able to pivot, shift and not care what other people think or feel.  

 

00:00:27:15 - 00:00:36:22

Brady 

So is it reasonable to assume that because people have been trained professionally, to be emotionally detached, that this is impacting modern dating? 

 

00:00:37:00 - 00:00:54:00

Melissa  

100%, it is impacting modern dating and the way that people are engaging with the dating process. Now, one of the core things that I recommend when people are going to the dating process is still to have a list, right? To still be that discerning, decisive person, but have that list be focused on the things that actually make for a long term relationship.  

 

00:00:54:00 - 00:01:05:15  

Melissa  

So character values, lifestyle values and keeping it simple. Because when that list gets really long, you start to get into the superficial, the way someone looks, things that don't actually make for long term bonding.  

 

00:01:05:17 - 00:01:07:19

Brady

You know, like looks contribute to that.

 

00:01:07:20 - 00:01:25:13

Melissa

I mean, obviously you need to be attracted to your partner, but if it's the core filter and foundation of what you're building on, you're on shaky foundation. And the reality is you can actually build chemistry with just about anyone. A lot of the physical attributes that people are attracted to have actually more to do with lifestyle values. Now, I found this specifically with men.

 

00:01:25:14 - 00:01:43:08

Melissa

Okay. They want a fit woman, not just because it's nice to look at, but because it's a lifestyle value alignment. Are you someone who values fitness? Right. And so when you start to look at it through that lens, it feels actually less superficial. And you can still have that level of attraction to someone without it being so strict that you won't date blonds.

 

00:01:43:08 - 00:01:49:16

Melissa

You won't date brunets. Because when we get to that level, that's when you really lose the foundation of compatibility.

 

00:01:49:21 - 00:02:05:17

Brady

So you'll deal with people that like, will come to you with a list and they're like, they've got to be a redhead. They've got to be this in your process, you kind of look at that and go, hey, look like the fact that this list exists is a huge impediment to you finding someone to be with forever.

 

00:02:05:18 - 00:02:19:22

Melissa

Well, the those items are on the list is the impediment. And the list itself, I think, is actually really profoundly powerful. Because if you don't have a list of what you're looking for, you won't know it when you find it. But that list needs to be simple 4 or 5 items that are to do with character values and lifestyle values.

 

00:02:19:22 - 00:02:33:10

Melissa

Anything outside of that becomes preference. Right. So you can prefer to date someone who's a redhead, but if you're using that as your soul filtration mechanism, you're going to miss out on some incredible people that you could actually build connection with.

 

00:02:33:12 - 00:02:53:20

Brady

In our space. Between you, me, all of our friends, we work with a lot of like very successful, high caliber people. And so I kind of zoom out and I go, if they've spent the last 20 years being rewarded for like not needing anybody, does that eventually, like catch up to them because now they're going, oh man, like my life is fulfilling in that I have this business, I have all this capital.

 

00:02:53:20 - 00:03:15:08

Brady

I've raised all of this value and provided. But now I'm like, it's just for who? For me. Like, they want to get into a relationship, but now their entire emotional wiring has been kind of recenter on don't be emotionally attached. And I've seen this a lot. I've experienced it a lot. And so how does someone begin to like, resolve that issue if they've been so emotionally detached, emotionally avoidant.

 

00:03:15:10 - 00:03:21:07

Brady

But all of that then sets the framework for them to be kind of like the worst candidate for dating.

 

00:03:21:09 - 00:03:43:07

Melissa

I mean, one of the biggest things that I encourage people to do, especially before they get into the dating world, is to get crystal clear on what do they want? Do they actually want a relationship? Because like any other goals, these same individuals know that relationships and like anything else, are going to require sacrifice. So the question is, are you willing to sacrifice the rewards and benefits of being single for the rewards and benefits of being in a relationship?

 

00:03:43:08 - 00:03:59:09

Melissa

And if you can honestly say yes, that's a willingness I have, then you can actually start to work on compromise. Like anything else in a business deal, there's going to be compromise. So you have the skills already. It's just a learning to reapply them to our most intimate relationship.

 

00:03:59:11 - 00:04:02:22

Brady

High performers probably don't think they're making too many compromises.

 

00:04:03:00 - 00:04:18:18

Melissa

They don't think that in essence. But again, what is your end goal for any goal that you're striving towards their sacrifices in your life and recognizing that the way you are single is not going to be the way you are in a relationship. So what are the things you're willing to give and take and having more conscious conversations?

 

00:04:18:18 - 00:04:37:17

Melissa

Because what I find typically happens is they start dating someone and then they say, oh, too many changes were too different. And the reality is, if you remember your long term goal and you're willing to have the right kinds of conversations, you can get to a place where you still get to be free, get to do the things you want, but you're now getting the benefits of being in a relationship.

 

00:04:37:17 - 00:04:42:02

Melissa

So it's really about just having more intentional conversations.

 

00:04:42:04 - 00:05:03:07

Brady

There's kind of this trope on the internet where they're like, my goal is to just be the cool uncle that shows up at family parties. They're like, I got burned in dating. You know? It didn't work out, so I'm going to go do my thing. I'm growing my business, I travel, I sleep around, I drink on the weekends, and then I show up to the family party and then my my nieces and nephews.

 

00:05:03:07 - 00:05:18:13

Brady

That is kind of my outsourced enjoyment for having kids. But then I get to give them back. So I mean, you look at that and you're like, you can see how that's a pretty appealing lifestyle to some people, but you've probably seen that even the people that try and run that after a while that probably runs out right.

 

00:05:18:14 - 00:05:38:05

Melissa

100%. I mean, we're wired for connection, and not just connection is in community, but that true partnership is like our basic wiring and basic needs. So yes, you might be getting some of those needs met for a while, but over time, that's not going to give you the same fulfillment. And there's a statistic that says 86% of millionaires are married.

 

00:05:38:05 - 00:05:58:03

Melissa

So if you look at really. Yes. So the foundation of so much success is often having the support at home. And when you take that away, you're actually taking away your ability to achieve greater things, because now you're having to take care of everything yourself. You don't have that emotional support, which is really foundational to get through the hard times of entrepreneurship.

 

00:05:58:03 - 00:06:16:23

Melissa

And you can't vent to your coworkers about how challenging work is or your business partner unless you're married to them, which we both get to experience. But that is a rare case. And so you're actually setting yourself up to not only be lonely, but to perform less when you are avoiding relationships entirely.

 

00:06:17:01 - 00:06:38:21

Brady

So the other side of that is by not avoiding relationships, but understanding your your things that you want, the areas you're willing to compromise on. There always is this area of blind spot compromises that you don't really think you're going to come up on the table. But like the the reality is, is when you date, you are bringing somebody else initially just in the evaluation stage, and they had a different life than you did.

 

00:06:38:22 - 00:06:58:18

Brady

They were raised by people in a place surrounded with friends and made decisions that just had nothing to do with any of the stuff that you necessarily did. So it kind of is like you bring these two people together and you try and, well, what is that process? Do you basically, in an ideal outcome, lay out your lists and see if your compromises can be met and they can.

 

00:06:58:19 - 00:07:07:03

Brady

And then if they don't like, how do you determine if this person checks 60% of my boxes? Is that good? What's the threshold? Is it 80%.

 

00:07:07:05 - 00:07:26:16

Melissa

Like, how many boxes do you have? That's really the first question. And that's where we came back to that original list making process of a couple of things that matter in terms of character. Right. So for me, integrity is really high. And for a lot of high performers, that's true. So identifying what are those character values and then lifestyle values, it doesn't mean we have the same way of doing everything.

 

00:07:26:16 - 00:07:41:15

Melissa

It means. Yes we both enjoy new experiences. That's travel. That's openness. So what are the foundational things that make for a really good life. And then it's not as robotic as showing up with two lists of all right, what are you willing to compromise? Can I go out with the boys on the weekend? What do you want to do?

 

00:07:41:15 - 00:08:04:14

Melissa

But it's evolving that over time. So as you're getting to know the person, ideally they check 100% of the boxes of that very small list that you created. And then from there, it's nuance, it's preference. So it's getting a feel for is this somebody who is open, who is flexible, or who's willing to be flexible because you won't know all the things that you're going to compromise on in the first few weeks, but it's how do you communicate through it?

 

00:08:04:14 - 00:08:11:10

Melissa

And that openness to feedback being one of the core values that you really need in a high performance relationship?

 

00:08:11:12 - 00:08:40:15

Brady

Okay, so the openness to feedback I've seen that firsthand has been probably the reason I'm married now, because in the past I have been so in my own way that like, I couldn't hear feedback from somebody else because it I'd done really cool things. And up until that point, it's because I had believed in myself. And so it's almost like if I make this accommodation, then I'm looking inward, going, well, you must have been wrong in all these other ways.

 

00:08:40:16 - 00:08:43:07

Brady

Like, I don't know why it operates in such a binary, but.

 

00:08:43:12 - 00:08:45:06

Melissa

High performance tend to do this. Really? Yeah.

 

00:08:45:07 - 00:08:45:20

Brady

We could tell me more.

 

00:08:45:20 - 00:09:03:19

Melissa

Why this is really common of. And this the whole saying what got you here won't get you there. Right? So what got you to a certain level of success is having maybe really rigid beliefs or operating a certain emotional state, being really hard and driven. But as you get more elevated, as you increase your own development, you do become naturally more open.

 

00:09:03:20 - 00:09:23:00

Melissa

The most evolved people, the most successful people, tend to be similar in that they have to have a degree of openness to feedback, because otherwise you're not growing. You can't get better, you can't get skilled at something, you can't increase the level that you're operating at. If you are so rigid and you're so afraid of feedback, so you probably got to a certain degree of success, is what I'm guessing.

 

00:09:23:00 - 00:09:27:06

Melissa

And that's when the openness came because you had a strong sense of self.

 

00:09:27:08 - 00:09:30:06

Brady

Yes. But it was almost kind of the opposite to I got more rigid.

 

00:09:30:07 - 00:09:33:11

Melissa

Oh, interesting. In what ways?

 

00:09:33:13 - 00:09:51:13

Brady

I don't want to say it was like my way or the highway, but I'm like convinced that it has worked thus far. And so the Dunning-Kruger syndrome, right. It's like you have this belief that because you're good at a whole, like the handful of things you're good at, it presumes that you're probably good at just about everything else that you do and that your opinion is right.

 

00:09:51:14 - 00:10:08:07

Brady

Yeah. The reason that my marriage works and me and my wife are able to figure so many things out is because we're both so quick to say, I'm sorry I was wrong, and I've never been able to do that before, because in my mind, if I did that, it was like a it was like I got a demerit, like my report card.

 

00:10:08:07 - 00:10:36:06

Brady

My, my net report card kind of went down. And so she'd be like, see, like in my head, I would think, see, I was able to identify a place that you were wrong. Therefore holistically, you were now 96% right. And I've learned that the a lot of my friends that are entrepreneurs also operate this way. But the real superpower came from both of us saying like, hey, I will readily admit when I'm wrong, and if we don't keep like a running score on that, that's where it starts working like crazy.

 

00:10:36:06 - 00:10:37:13

Brady

Well, is not.

 

00:10:37:14 - 00:10:56:14

Melissa

A full ownership. Yeah, radical ownership is what you're describing, both radical ownership and a strong sense of self. You're not going to extrapolate that because you made a mistake. Now you are bad. And that ability to be less binary as you describe it, of not just putting yourself in the good or bad category, is what happens at a certain stage of your own evolution.

 

00:10:56:14 - 00:11:14:14

Melissa

But if you're not moving towards that regularly and pushing yourself and being open to feedback, creating a relationship with another individual that you are spending all your time with not going to happen. And so it is that receptivity to feedback and the willingness to take radical ownership. My husband and I are also always the first to say sorry.

 

00:11:14:15 - 00:11:34:04

Melissa

We say sorry constantly and not because we are wrong, but because we are validating the other person's emotional experience and because we're taking ownership for what we just did. And I think there's a real key distinction here. So oftentimes high performers, especially men, struggle with being told that they shouldn't say they're sorry, but saying you're sorry is actually a form of leadership.

 

00:11:34:04 - 00:11:43:14

Melissa

It's a form of ownership. And so when you can view it as ownership, it really shifts the experience of apologizing and seeing where you can be better.

 

00:11:43:16 - 00:12:12:19

Brady

And then I guess the more of somebody like if I see, let's take a politician or maybe someone whose opinion like I have a lot of podcasters that I look to when they radically change their opinion on something. I admire that because they came into new information and they wrote their perspective, and I admire somebody so much more when they do that, because then I can trust that they're not going to be like digging their heels in on some position, because now they go, I can't back out on this because everybody's up until this point.

 

00:12:12:19 - 00:12:47:18

Brady

I held this view, and if I walk it back, I'm flip flopping. It's like, no, I think the amount of things that you don't know in this life that exceed the amount of things that you do know. And so if you're constantly looking to get more context or get another frame of reference on one subject, whether it's dating or it's business or the war in Iran or whatever politics, if you get new information, I think it's really wise to update that and then get rid of the little gremlin that sits in your head that goes, if you change your mind, they're going to know, like they're going to think less of you.

 

00:12:47:18 - 00:12:49:15

Brady

It's like, why does that even happen?

 

00:12:49:17 - 00:13:10:23

Melissa

So we are wired for survival. And what you're describing is a survival response. So we in our brains treat physical physical pain and rejection the same as emotional rejection. And it's only when we can be in a more elevated state, when we can be in a regulated state, that we actually can receive feedback without it. Meaning I am being rejected from the tribe and now I'm going to die, right?

 

00:13:10:23 - 00:13:28:08

Melissa

So that's why social rejection is so scary. And that's why some people find it so scary to ask someone else on a date, because in their mind, it is the equivalent of being kicked out of the tribe if they get to know. Right? So there's a survivalist instinct, but that's where we have to train in the emotions that we are afraid of.

 

00:13:28:09 - 00:13:49:18

Melissa

So if you're afraid of feeling wrong or rejection, be in space is spend time with people that know more than you and practice being wrong. Practice being rejected. One of the key things that I did around, like I call it, my rejection therapy that I did leading up to meeting my husband, was actually spent six months where I did not allow myself to lead the gym until I talked to three people.

 

00:13:49:20 - 00:13:50:16

Brady

No kidding.

 

00:13:50:16 - 00:14:05:12

Melissa

It was one of the most painfully embarrassing experiences of my life, because I went to a spa to ask a man to take his AirPods out, to ask him a question, but I didn't have a question ready, so I asked him how to use a bench.

 

00:14:05:14 - 00:14:06:08

Brady

Good recovery.

 

00:14:06:09 - 00:14:24:23

Melissa

Yeah, yeah. And if that doesn't get you over being rejected, I don't know what will. But so incrementally practicing that moment of rejection, asking for feedback more regularly if you find it challenging. And so doing these things and just making these little practices and little deposits teaches your nervous system that you're not going to die by being wrong or rejected.

 

00:14:24:23 - 00:14:33:15

Melissa

And so it sounds like you got to a point where you could actually be wrong. And that turning point is what allowed you to have more growth and a deeper connection.

 

00:14:33:15 - 00:14:36:11

Brady

So we as a species have evolved quite a bit.

 

00:14:36:13 - 00:14:37:06

Melissa

In some ways.

 

00:14:37:06 - 00:14:53:15

Brady

In some ways we haven't. We are still very much operating in that tribal mindset, which is kind of we referenced that all the time. It's the hunter gatherer has evolved and kind of got a tribe around it. And therein lies security and safety. Our brains are also evolutionarily evolved to focus on danger more than just about anything else.

 

00:14:53:15 - 00:15:14:19

Brady

That's why the news works so well. You go, hey, danger over here, and it'll hijack your attention. 10 to 1 over charity drive for puppies with leukemia. You know, it's like, whatever. That's, you know, but no, like a four car, you know, pile up. I got to know what that is. So that that evolution to attention in that process of evolution, the interaction with other people, attachment styles have emerged.

 

00:15:14:21 - 00:15:29:04

Brady

And as I understand it, there's like basically four. And I feel like I've oscillated between a few of them over the last maybe 10 or 15 years of me being adult. What are the four attachment styles and then which ones do you see pop up the most in high performers?

 

00:15:29:05 - 00:15:48:10

Melissa

So the primary ones are secure attachment, which we all want to get to a point where we actually take in information as it's meant, without creating a whole lot of more stories around it. So we are able to actually take in information and connect with people without projecting negative stories about it. And then there's anxious attachment, which is something I used to deal with quite a bit.

 

00:15:48:10 - 00:16:07:15

Melissa

And that is where you are constantly creating stories of being left and being abandoned. Right? So you perceive any lack of communication or even good communication negatively. So you're all viewing it through this negative lens. Then you also have avoidant attachment, which is what it sounds like when things get too intimately close, you back up and pull away.

 

00:16:07:15 - 00:16:28:05

Melissa

And then there's also, I believe, the fourth one you're referencing like a mix of anxious avoidant, which is also very challenging to deal with. And so when you have all these attachment styles, these are primarily created by your relationship with your caregivers, your parents early years. But you can be intentional and you can shift your attachment style to, say, a secure one through a lot of like, intentional practices.

 

00:16:28:05 - 00:16:44:17

Melissa

For me, it was neurofeedback, but there's a lot of different ways to be able to shift it. But even just having awareness to what your attachment style tendencies are allows you to shift it. Now, the one caveat I want to say is anytime I talk to people about attachment styles, the problem is they tend to say, oh, this is what I am and this is who I am.

 

00:16:44:18 - 00:16:45:14

Brady

Like self-diagnosed right.

 

00:16:45:15 - 00:17:03:18

Melissa

Then and then they don't believe they can change. And the problem with these labels is they can limit you, but they can also imprison you if you're not careful. Because whatever labels we ascribe to ourselves, we start operating more in. So if you just say, I'm just an anxious person all the time. What are you telling your brain?

 

00:17:03:19 - 00:17:21:13

Melissa

Right? Our brains always listening to us. So that's why I say, with the caveat that even in my work with clients, I don't get too deep into attachment styles. It's something that we talk about briefly, and then if there's something specific in terms of actions, of how it shows up, we work through it. But thinking about it in terms of how do I tend to behave?

 

00:17:21:13 - 00:17:27:19

Melissa

And knowing that those behaviors can change is really what's the most empowering part of understanding attachment styles?

 

00:17:27:21 - 00:17:36:11

Brady

Well, high performance. So high performers are emotionally ambivalent. So that would probably signal, hey, for the most part they have an avoidant style.

 

00:17:36:13 - 00:17:37:17

Melissa

You'd be surprised.

 

00:17:37:18 - 00:17:38:04

Brady

Okay.

 

00:17:38:05 - 00:17:57:15

Melissa

So I've also seen a lot of high performers struggle with anxious attachment because when they get home, they're exhausted. What do they want? They want to feel connected if they've been on high alert all day, that can sometimes translate into the dating process or their relationship. So I would say it's not exclusively avoidant, but I've seen a lot on the anxious side of things.

 

00:17:57:17 - 00:18:06:19

Brady

Wild. And they have more success year over year. If they're they have that foundation at least at home though, which I so I did door to door sales for five years.

 

00:18:06:20 - 00:18:08:15

Melissa

Oh wow. Okay. You learned a lot.

 

00:18:08:16 - 00:18:25:12

Brady

I learned a lot. And you know, when you do these you deploy out in teams. So I was in Portland and Kansas and there would be like 20 of us. They'd rent out kind of a block in an apartment complex. And we'd lived there all summer. So the guys on our team would be 20 salesmen, and we're all in this one apartment training every morning.

 

00:18:25:12 - 00:18:42:22

Brady

Here's how you deal with this. Here's how you scare people into hating spiders, whatever. And the guys that were on the team, there was a spread of just a bunch of young single guys coming from college like me. And then there were usually a half dozen married guys, and almost always the married guys outperformed. And we would all it kind of became like this like trope.

 

00:18:42:22 - 00:18:56:19

Brady

It's like, well, yeah, of course, like you got someone, you got to bring it home. And I kind of dismissed it for a while. And then I saw that consistently. I was like, no, like the more incentive you have to go out like it's a brutal job. No one wants to talk to a solicitor.

 

00:18:56:20 - 00:19:16:08

Melissa

100%. And I would say a potential nuance to that too, is yes, there was greater reason. But the other reason is they probably weren't putting on as much of a front. They weren't worried if they were going to run into an attractive woman. Right. You're not in a seeking state. So I think that also has to do with it because you're more regulated, you're not as anxious.

 

00:19:16:09 - 00:19:31:07

Melissa

Right. And thanks to mirror neurons, the other person, if you're a bit nervous, what happens? Yeah that makes the other personal a bit nervous. So if you're really confident, you're secure at home. You have a great relationship. You're not going to show up with the type of energy that's going to be off putting.

 

00:19:31:09 - 00:19:55:21

Brady

Yeah, that makes sense. Well what the rejection thing to yeah, you touched on that. And it's like that hit home because I as a door to door person couldn't care less because if they rejected me on the doors, it's because I'm a salesman. But to contrast that, I have never cold called a woman before, ever. And I was so in my head about because I'm like, it was like they would reject me and my some offering like a snapshot assessment.

 

00:19:55:21 - 00:20:17:00

Brady

They'd be like, oh God, no. You know, and I couldn't live with that now. I could do it all day as a door to door person, because they were rejecting me as a salesman. But to take like the snapshot assessment of me and like, run the risk of that person rejecting that, I couldn't do it. So therefore, my entire adult life, I never just went up and talked to somebody.

 

00:20:17:02 - 00:20:23:05

Brady

Never. And so I don't know how common that is, but I imagine at the time, like, I mean, it worked out now because I'm married, the love of my life.

 

00:20:23:05 - 00:20:23:19

Melissa

But.

 

00:20:23:21 - 00:20:35:18

Brady

I also don't think I could have like broached that. Whereas there's a disparity where people can do that and they tend to have more success in the dating process as a result of being kind of indifferent to rejection. Right?

 

00:20:35:19 - 00:21:00:05

Melissa

I would say to some degree. But really, again, what you're describing is domain specific skills. And that's what I always say is that you can be really courageous in business, but bringing that same courage to your relationship takes practice. It's like a muscle. It's like a completely different muscle group. If you want to think of that analogy, like, if you're not training corps and you're just doing bicep curls all day, you're not going to be able to do a sit up and holding, you know, stress, right, whatever that may be.

 

00:21:00:05 - 00:21:25:17

Melissa

But if you practice the skill and the correct arena, you're going to develop that skill. Because I find a lot of even excellent negotiators and men specifically struggle to have hard conversations at home because it's domain specific and the skill set. Yes, there's some that translates, but the the way you engage in a hard conversation in at home is going to be different than at work and making sure you're both in a regulated state, like there's a lot of steps that are different.

 

00:21:25:17 - 00:21:29:23

Melissa

And so practicing the skills in the correct domain is really key.

 

00:21:30:01 - 00:21:49:06

Brady

So what is regulated state in that context like because sometimes you're going to talk about something because it is now bubble up to the surface. So I mean obviously there's a few instances where you probably should have checked it before then, but there you are. That's the situation. How does how do you what does an ideal regulated state look like to sit down and have that conversation?

 

00:21:49:06 - 00:22:11:17

Melissa

Well, you actually said one of the key parts, which is sit down to have the conversation. So when we are standing up, having hard conversations, even biologically, we're going to either run or we're going to fight. But if you're seated, it's much easier to stay in a regulated state. One of the other key things I always encourage people to do is place a hand on your partner's hand or leg because it releases oxytocin, which is one of the key bonding hormones.

 

00:22:11:17 - 00:22:25:19

Melissa

So it helps you remember that you're safe, that you're on the same team, and to actually stay in that regulated state. So there's not something that it looks like. But, you know, the feeling of when you start getting that surge of energy, right, the nerves, like your hands get sweaty or they get cold, you're getting this rush of energy.

 

00:22:25:19 - 00:22:34:06

Melissa

That's when you want to take a deep breath. That's when you want to make sure you're in a relaxed, seated position, and that you're maintaining some sort of contact with your partner.

 

00:22:34:08 - 00:22:35:03

Brady

And that works.

 

00:22:35:03 - 00:22:48:19

Melissa

It does. It's made a huge difference. Even in my own marriage. I can tell when one of us is not being regulated, our voice might start to come up and I'll just place a hand on his leg or his hand. I'll be like, you have to hold my hand. And then we both start laughing because it's it's said kind of intensely.

 

00:22:48:20 - 00:23:06:21

Melissa

Yeah, but it does. It makes a huge difference. And even pre framing the conversation to say, hey, I want us to remember that we're both on the same team when we're going to have this conversation, because it may seem obvious, but it's not in those moments. And remembering that it's always you and your partner versus the issue, not you versus your partner.

 

00:23:06:23 - 00:23:11:00

Brady

It probably tends to just default to that for a while to you versus your partner.

 

00:23:11:01 - 00:23:29:22

Melissa

Yeah, because that's what we're innately do. Maybe we saw both our parents or other people around us, but when we bring that level of intentionality to I'm going to remember that we're on the same team. And this is not even if it's a behavior that I want the other person to change. It's not them, it's the behavior. So when we can do some of the feedback and the way that we say things right.

 

00:23:29:23 - 00:23:37:01

Melissa

So avoiding statements of permanence, avoiding words like always, never, we never want to say never.

 

00:23:37:03 - 00:23:38:01

Brady

You always do this.

 

00:23:38:02 - 00:23:53:08

Melissa

Yeah. And so what does that also do subconsciously that tells the person that that's the behavior that's inevitable for them. So you remove the possibility when you use these statements of permanence that they can even change. And you're not giving them the gift of assuming positive intent. Wow.

 

00:23:53:10 - 00:23:56:10

Brady

So a lot of neural linguistic programing, it is. Are you studying.

 

00:23:56:10 - 00:24:18:11

Melissa

That to some degree? Yes, there's a good deal of NLP, but it's more about pre framing and how you actually come to a conclusion by also validating the other person's emotional experience. So it's more in the validation. That's really kind of the key to getting to resolution versus the NLP. The NLP can help at the onset of it, but the foundation is really making sure both people feel felt, seen, heard.

 

00:24:18:12 - 00:24:38:07

Brady

Because when you don't, you're typically not operating with your full faculties. You're in scarcity. It's us. It's me versus you. Because if I don't feel like I'm going to be seeing hurt or identified, you know, you're not going to extend that grace either. So how do you do that? If in an asymmetric relationship where one person's really good at doing that but the other person isn't?

 

00:24:38:09 - 00:24:42:13

Brady

How have you resolved that? Because I imagine more than one of your clients is probably identified like that.

 

00:24:42:14 - 00:25:05:07

Melissa

I would say nobody is at the same level of being able to communicate about hard topics in any relationship. There's always going to be someone that's leading the emotional, regulated state, whatever that may be. So really, the key for that is remembering that your job is to model the behavior you want to see, introducing them to new frameworks, to new approaches, and making sure that you start by validating them so they can really actually hear you.

 

00:25:05:07 - 00:25:27:16

Melissa

Because all friction really originates from wanting to be understood and not understanding either the other person's experience or not feeling understood. If you really think about it, that fight, that tension comes from a hey, but this is my experience. And so when you can remember that the other person has a different lens of reality and that your thoughts are not truth, your experience is not even truth.

 

00:25:27:16 - 00:25:43:17

Melissa

It's just your perspective. That's how you're able to quickly get on the same page. So one of the key things that I do for those couples is to actually help them remember that their experience is not truth, it's just an experience. And it's added on with all these stories and these constructs based on how things went in the past.

 

00:25:43:18 - 00:26:05:02

Melissa

Now, does it mean your experience is true to some degree, but two people can be in the same room and have a completely different experience. Now you put them in a relationship. The same is still true. Earlier you said, you know you're meeting this person who has completely different upbringing and beliefs and all that. We have to remember that when we're having these conversations and actively step into the other person's shoes by saying, what did you hear when I said that?

 

00:26:05:06 - 00:26:28:01

Melissa

Can you tell me back? Like what? What did it sound like? And often it's clouded with all these extra layers of story. Right. So I said, take out the dishes. He heard I'm not enough, but that's real. And so when we can start to vocalize the stories that we're actually hearing, instead of the words that are being said, you can help the other person rewrite it and say, that is not at all what I meant by that.

 

00:26:28:02 - 00:26:32:19

Melissa

Here is what I meant. And that's how you quickly get people on the same page.

 

00:26:32:21 - 00:26:52:18

Brady

So typically one person has to kind of initiate. I would just call the out the obvious. The receiving partner could kind of feel like they're being lectured or instructed, like not condescending but like almost talked down to it's like, hey, well, let me try and elevate your framework. No one wants to be on the receiving. Like, what do you mean, elevate my framework?

 

00:26:52:19 - 00:27:12:21

Brady

The hell are you? You know, it's like, how do you how do you do that? Because there's like the here's the clinical, prescriptive way of doing this. And then it's like, okay. Yeah, let me just totally try that out verbatim. And then the other person can be like, what canned response is this? You know? So I mean, you have to find this more like human and then it's going to be built up on ideally you've got years at that point.

 

00:27:12:23 - 00:27:21:22

Brady

And so there's all these, there's a thousand stories compounding at that point. So when someone just shifts gears and they're like, well, what I'd like to try and do and you're like, why are you therapist? What is that?

 

00:27:21:22 - 00:27:42:10

Melissa

Yeah. So a lot of the first times people have these hard conversations using a five step framework that I created called brave, I will actually facilitate it for them. Right. So now you have an objective third party. And so you don't have to say, hey, you've been talking about this wrong or we've been handling this wrong. So they get live practice of actually working through an issue with the assistance.

 

00:27:42:10 - 00:27:58:13

Melissa

Like, hey, share what your ask is, okay, share what your validation may be. And so they're getting that kind of live feedback. So it's not putting them at an uneven level. Right. So they're both learning it in real time how to navigate it. And then if you are the one to say picking up a book with this framework in it.

 

00:27:58:14 - 00:28:14:20

Melissa

The key is just getting you both in a in the right state. So B stands for begin within. This means getting crystal clear on what is the objective that you have for this conversation. Is it to break a pattern, get more support, to feel deeper sense of connection? But most of us go into these conversations just simply wanting to be understood.

 

00:28:14:20 - 00:28:36:02

Melissa

We just want to be heard. We're not actually looking for a solution. So that starting point is finding that. What is it that I'm looking for, getting crystal clear on it, getting into a regulated state. So this may mean taking a few deep breaths, going for a walk. And then R stands for requesting a time. So you are asking, hey, when's a good time to have a conversation about something small?

 

00:28:36:06 - 00:28:38:04

Melissa

No matter what it is, you always say something small.

 

00:28:38:04 - 00:28:43:20

Brady

I was going to say that seems really specific, because that's going to trigger just about anybody. Like we need to talk. That's the thing you.

 

00:28:43:20 - 00:28:48:17

Melissa

Don't want to say. We we need to talk, but say, hey, there's something small that's been on my heart that I'd love to chat about.

 

00:28:48:18 - 00:28:49:17

Brady

Even if it's not small.

 

00:28:49:18 - 00:29:03:21

Melissa

Does not matter because it's only as big as you make it. If you make it a big deal. Right? That's all the pre framing NLP stuff. You say this is going to scare you. What are you doing? You're bracing right. If you say this is small different different response.

 

00:29:03:21 - 00:29:04:13

Brady

Interesting.

 

00:29:04:13 - 00:29:25:06

Melissa

And then A stands for ask and affirm. So you're starting by saying hey, I love you. We're on the same team. You know there's something that's been on my heart. My one request is x, y, z. And then you give them a chance to respond. And then based on what they respond back with, you hear their experience. So V stands for you and validate and you validate their experience.

 

00:29:25:08 - 00:29:46:08

Melissa

Right. So oftentimes especially when we're frustrated so is the other person they've had a negative experience to. So what do we need to do. We need to say I'm sorry that wasn't my intention. You know I'm sorry that this had this impact. And remembering that validation does not mean agreement. It simply means apologizing for the impact. That's all validation is.

 

00:29:46:10 - 00:29:50:19

Brady

Which is the opposite of what other people will do. It's like, I'm sorry you chose to get offended.

 

00:29:50:19 - 00:29:51:06

Melissa

Exactly.

 

00:29:51:07 - 00:29:52:07

Brady

That's the crappiest.

 

00:29:52:07 - 00:30:15:06

Melissa

That is the worst response. And that is not validation. But it's it's and you're not taking ownership for their feelings, but you're apologizing for the impact. Just like if you bumped into someone at the grocery store, would you say, I'm sorry? Yeah, exactly. Because of the impact. It's not the intention, it's the impact. So when you say you're sorry, it's really about just validating and taking ownership for the impact.

 

00:30:15:08 - 00:30:41:17

Melissa

And then he stands for ending with action. Right. So you end this whole conversation with what is 1 or 2 changes you're going to make and the other person is going to make, because we have to enter these conversations with radical ownership. Now, the through line for all of this framework is have the conversation seated. Have it while you've got a hand on your partner leg and whatever it may be, and maintain that because it's immediately going to put you both into more of a parasympathetic state.

 

00:30:41:17 - 00:31:05:12

Melissa

So more rest and digest versus that really activated ready to fight. And that's really the foundation of the framework. Like, yes, this is going to take practice the first time you do it. Probably not going to go that well because you're not used to it and neither is your partner. But if you are modeling and leading by example, you're going to find yourself in a much better process of getting to resolution, because that's the the part that's missing from most frameworks about having these hard conversations.

 

00:31:05:13 - 00:31:22:03

Melissa

There's no implementation plan, there's no action plan. And as high performers, we love implementation plans. We love setting targets and goals. But that's actually how you make change. Otherwise these conversations go nowhere. You have the same disagreements. Nothing changes because you're not talking about specific actions.

 

00:31:22:05 - 00:31:39:05

Brady

High performers also have a pretty high divorce rate. Yeah. So do you imagine this is that's the reason. I mean, if they're not willing to sit there, come to the table and kind of humble themselves, you know, or, or come to that resolution, it just it stacks up stories and then over time, you know, there's nothing actionable from it.

 

00:31:39:06 - 00:31:43:07

Brady

And so you just get this, this, this divide and it just doesn't end.

 

00:31:43:09 - 00:32:02:21

Melissa

I would say that's an aspect of it. So all friction and relationship can be categorized into one of three buckets unmet needs. Right. Because we're not actually telling the other person what we need from them. And we're building up all this resentment and friction over time, unseen efforts. So we're feel like we're doing the most, but we're not being knowledge for it or unresolved issues, which is what we just touched on.

 

00:32:02:22 - 00:32:27:04

Melissa

Right? So any of these arguments, disagreements that haven't actually found resolution, but when you pile all three of those together, you have a lot of resentment. And that's where I see relationships really fall apart, especially for high performers, because they're used to being self-sufficient. So they don't ask for what they need. They have a tendency towards martyrdom. So they're doing all this extra effort and then not being praised for it because they didn't tell their partner they were doing all this effort.

 

00:32:27:05 - 00:32:28:02

Brady

Interesting.

 

00:32:28:04 - 00:32:31:15

Melissa

And it's really, really common, especially among high achievers.

 

00:32:31:15 - 00:32:33:14

Brady

Martyrdom. I've never heard that.

 

00:32:33:16 - 00:32:48:16

Melissa

Yeah. So they're being the martyr, right. So they're they're making all the effort and they're like, but I'm the good person. I'm working so hard for the relationship in all these ways. But you didn't tell your partner. They didn't ask you to do those things. And it's noble. But now if you're going to hold resentment over it, that's where the issue comes.

 

00:32:48:18 - 00:33:15:01

Brady

Whoa. That dynamic. So, I mean, you and me and my wife, we worked together. I was the most couples don't totally, you know, so you get a high performer and they go out into the private sector and their job and their business, they built and they're doing all these things. And there's just like a fundamental, like you can't know what their person's life is like day to day and whether the spouse is got a more traditional rulers raising the family or they have a job that's somewhere else.

 

00:33:15:02 - 00:33:36:21

Brady

The majority of people, it seems like living like totally different lives and then have to kind of come together and reconcile that. I don't know how I could do that. That seems like a like a nightmare to me. So in your field, what are some of the common issues that come up where they're not working together? And then what are usually like the themes that you've introduced that like resolve it fastest, like, hey, get on the same page.

 

00:33:36:22 - 00:33:53:08

Melissa

So the majority of the couples that I work with are not working together. So I would say even almost all of them, one of them is either staying at home or they have their own job. And to your point, I personally find it easier to work with my spouse. People always ask the opposite. They said, how could you work with your spouse?

 

00:33:53:09 - 00:33:57:14

Brady

Every time people are bewildered and I'm like, you should ask yourself why you couldn't.

 

00:33:57:15 - 00:34:14:19

Melissa

And there's a lot of pros to it because it's you have a shared goal and a shared mission, and you to your point, you naturally get a window into their world every single day. Now, for the couples that don't have that, it is having the intentional conversations at the end of each day, not just what did you do today, but how did you feel about it?

 

00:34:14:19 - 00:34:31:16

Melissa

Mapping the other person's internal world is key, so at any given time, we have kind of like a map of our partners world in our mind. And it's easier when that map is created just because you're in the same place. But when you're not, you have to work hard. Who are the key players in that person's world when you're not there?

 

00:34:31:17 - 00:34:52:07

Melissa

How do they feel about them? What's the context? And so getting that map and intentionally having conversations about not just what do they do, but what is their experience of it. So you can know, oh, I think they have a really stressful meeting coming up this week. So I'm going to go get them their favorite sweet treat like thinking ahead like that only happens when you have a stronger map to their internal world.

 

00:34:52:07 - 00:35:10:10

Melissa

And then actually doing it very clinically and having a I love a good worksheet. So I give up my clients a lot of worksheets, and one of them is like, what are the things that you like when you're stressed? Do you want me to give you space? Do you want a surprise? Do you want me to plan things like what are those things?

 

00:35:10:10 - 00:35:30:02

Melissa

So you plan for those stressful times before they happen? And that is a really powerful way to just understand your partner. Not for the intention of mind reading, but so that you can at least have a sense of what would they need or want in this time. Of course you still ask, but having that baseline of understanding helps you show up as the best, most supportive partner you can be.

 

00:35:30:04 - 00:35:49:12

Brady

Okay, so there's a researcher named Robin Dunbar. She did this research that says that humans are built to maintain genuine emotional bonds with about five people, and the brain has really the emotional real estate to only have about 150 people max. You know, your community back to the caveman days. It was the people in your cave, maybe your little network of caves.

 

00:35:49:12 - 00:36:14:08

Brady

But for the most part, this is all that we have, the aptitude, the range for. But then in the context of like modern dating, dating apps give access to thousands and thousands of people and you can then hit buttons to now like date in other states or even in other countries. So it's like the scope of like what you had access to compared to like when my parents were dating, you're my grandparents, you had your local community, you had your school.

 

00:36:14:08 - 00:36:35:15

Brady

That was your dating pool. That was it. And then technology made it to where you can be in Arizona and talk to someone in Ohio or someone in Dubai. And now dating is this massively broadened thing. What does that scale and access due to a human brain and their ability to try and build attachments?

 

00:36:35:20 - 00:36:55:23

Melissa

Well, say that if you are exclusively using digital for dating, and I know many people have met through that, there's great statistics on that. But you are robbing yourself of like true connection and dopamine, right? So you are throwing your dopamine receptors way off. You're teaching your brain that very little effort equals high reward, which is what social media does.

 

00:36:56:00 - 00:37:20:19

Melissa

And less scrolling really messes up our perception of dopamine and what we need to actually achieve higher levels of excitement and joy. So if you're scrolling a lot, it may not feel as exciting when you finally meet the person, and there's a lot of danger to that if we're not conscious of it. So one of the core things that I always recommend to people who are single is to go back to our caveman ways and go out and meet people in real life, because you will get a read on someone much quicker than you will a dating app.

 

00:37:20:19 - 00:37:40:19

Melissa

It also forces you not to simply filter only on a photo, right? So you're getting pheromones. You're getting the experience of them. You're going to hear them, talk to them, see how they engage with the world. So going back to the old school ways of actually meeting people at events, there's also a resurgence of speed dating these days, which has been really interesting.

 

00:37:40:19 - 00:37:55:18

Melissa

I have a current coaching client who actually met the girl that he's dating through a speed dating event. No kidding. So you're getting these quick little conversations and you're getting more of a read on them, and you're also not getting like that analysis paralysis, like so many options that you're inundated and now you just don't do anything with it.

 

00:37:56:00 - 00:38:15:08

Melissa

Because what I find is a lot of especially high performing men, a you don't have the bandwidth for it, but B, you're getting on these apps, you're scrolling for hours, and then you get disillusioned with it, and then you set it down and you don't come back to it for weeks or months. But if you're consistently making a rule and a system for yourself of getting into a new environment every single week, which is what I recommend, it's bite sized.

 

00:38:15:09 - 00:38:32:17

Melissa

Go to a different coffee shop, go to a different gym, go to a different event, and make an intention to talk to a couple people while you're there. Right? They don't have to be the one and don't put that kind of pressure on it. But if you're consistently putting yourself in new environments, inevitably you're going to meet like minded people.

 

00:38:32:18 - 00:38:38:11

Melissa

You're going to meet the right kinds of people that could maybe even have a friend that could end up being your partner.

 

00:38:38:13 - 00:38:41:03

Brady

You said, Jim, coffee shop. I noticed you didn't say bar.

 

00:38:41:06 - 00:39:02:02

Melissa

Yes. I didn't say bar because what is the context that someone's in there? They're usually intoxicated. You're not getting a full version of what that person is like now. Bars. Absolutely. People can meet there. But usually the culture of bars is not one of long term relationships. You're not going to see as many high value people spending all their time in bars, especially especially high performers.

 

00:39:02:06 - 00:39:13:03

Melissa

I mean, they can be, but it's it's more rare. So go to a health club, go somewhere where you're going to meet someone in a sober environment. You're going to get a much more authentic experience of them.

 

00:39:13:04 - 00:39:28:12

Brady

So that kind of points to intentionality in dating, because a lot of people are not they're not dating for the long game. And so their their ability to just like, okay, so the dopamine loop of swiping is structurally designed the exact same way as gambling.

 

00:39:28:12 - 00:39:29:04

Melissa

100%.

 

00:39:29:05 - 00:39:47:11

Brady

They've done that. They've used it with haptic feedback, sound effects, all of these things. And they've learned it from casinos because you can keep people in there forever. And so the dopamine feedback loop of like swipe right, swipe left. There was this wild study that came out where women on dating apps would swipe right on 4.5% of men.

 

00:39:47:12 - 00:39:49:00

Melissa

I'm not surprised by this at all, because.

 

00:39:49:04 - 00:40:20:15

Brady

Contrast was that men swiped on 43% of women. So you have this insane disparity between how women qualify, like what they would want. And it's almost 10 to 1. And so you have this, like this disproportionate access to thousands and thousands of people. But because evolutionary evolutionary dating strategies changed a lot. Yes. But also some of it's very similar, like women have a higher imperative to be specific with who they date because it could result in a kid.

 

00:40:20:16 - 00:40:38:05

Brady

Whereas like men have a lower they have lower skin in the game, the stakes are a little bit lower. And so their ability to enter the dating landscape, they're just kind of there. And so they'll go to a bar, they'll really go to anywhere that they can get a little bit of acknowledgment. So the dynamic between how women date and how men date, it's shaped quite a bit.

 

00:40:38:05 - 00:40:59:13

Brady

And then if you throw on this layer of dating apps and online dating culture and just kind of this about face style, like what I see a lot now is that people are not ever going to settle if you ask them, because the the next best option might just be around the corner, it might be on the next dating app, it might be if the I don't know if they're called cards, but like if they refresh for that week or whatever.

 

00:40:59:17 - 00:41:12:10

Brady

So it's like people tend to hold out because they're convinced that they'll just find something better. How are you reconciling that? Because high performers also have the same. We hold high standards for ourselves. Yes. I'm not going to settle. Yeah. You know.

 

00:41:12:11 - 00:41:35:22

Melissa

And not settling, but settling on what? Because I'm guessing when you say settling, you mean on height? On physical attractiveness, it's rarely someone is saying, I'm not settling on character values. And so what I have found, especially with this current dating culture, is you're 100% accurate. There is a huge disparity. Dating apps are incredibly hard. If you are a man that is not above six feet tall, it's impossible.

 

00:41:35:22 - 00:41:51:19

Melissa

You're not going to get matches. So what do you need to do? You need to get out in environments where you can meet someone in person, and you can both experience each other's energy. Because what I found, at least especially working in my clients and in my own experience to, is you are far less shallow when you're in person.

 

00:41:51:21 - 00:42:08:18

Melissa

That shallowness comes because you do have that buffet because you're just endlessly scrolling, right? It's almost not real because you're disassociated from who is the human on the other side. But when you're in person, when you're talking someone face to face, it's hard to say that's not a person. I'm going to swipe to the next one. Maybe they're really funny.

 

00:42:08:19 - 00:42:15:00

Melissa

Maybe the other person is very intellectually stimulating, but you're not going to experience that over a chat feature on an app.

 

00:42:15:05 - 00:42:31:12

Brady

Well, you can block people too. You can ghost them like that. That's probably added a really weird layer to the social dynamic is if you have a human, even if you know for a fact that this person, there's nothing there, there's no correlation. Like it's just it's not it. You're still going to treat them like a human most of the time, unless you're a total sociopath.

 

00:42:31:18 - 00:42:56:09

Brady

But when you have that layer between my phone and their phone, you can just unmatched. You can block, you can ghost. And I've seen that change how everybody interacts with each other. Because if you can block somebody, their digital hologram or representation is just gone. So you do get to this like people are just like commodities. Like it's really easy to disassociate from that other person being a human.

 

00:42:56:09 - 00:43:07:04

Brady

So the range of that looks like you can just move through people like inventory, you know. But then the other side of that is, you know, you can quickly like, like people will do what is it called, love bombing.

 

00:43:07:04 - 00:43:07:12

Melissa

Yeah.

 

00:43:07:13 - 00:43:26:05

Brady

Oh yeah. So there's a lot of weird phenomenon that have emerged where people will, like, get on dating apps just to get like a dopamine rush. Then they want to hit someone with, like, a love bomb and be like, oh my gosh, I'm so into you. Just because they like the short term high of like, meeting this new person and all these connections and the serotonin, but then they destroy it and then they move on and they go back again.

 

00:43:26:07 - 00:43:50:02

Brady

I have seen pretty concrete data where over time, that process reconditioned your brain to disassociate from like things that lead to safety. So like looping over and over again, matching with people, hooking up with people, all of that rewires. It's oxytocin. And then what is the other chemical vasopressin. Vasopressin.

 

00:43:50:03 - 00:44:10:18

Melissa

So vasopressin is the one that's responsible for that long term bonding experience. But you're not getting that because you're also not having well in some of these cases like the hookup culture, you are having physical intimacy with the person, but there's no longevity in connecting with them. And so that's where vasopressin comes into play. So oxytocin is one of the key kind of like love bonding hormones that you're experiencing.

 

00:44:10:18 - 00:44:32:02

Melissa

But then you also have things like dopamine, which we've touched on, which is the reward system in the brain. And then you have serotonin, which creates that kind of like mood stabilizing effect. And that's activated through positive social interaction, getting outside sunlight, exercise. So you really can only create all of the chemical experience in person. That's not something that can happen digitally.

 

00:44:32:02 - 00:44:52:00

Melissa

You can't get Vassell digitally. And so over time, if you're only experiencing people online and digitally, you're robbing yourself a feeling that actual connection, but you're getting spikes in, say, dopamine, and now you think in person is boring. And that's the problem because you're getting these highs from being online and then in person, it doesn't feel as easy.

 

00:44:52:01 - 00:45:08:20

Melissa

You actually have to put in effort to connect with the person. So that's why I really encourage people, especially if they've been stuck in a cycle of like dating apps, which I went through that when I was dating before I met my husband, I actually went on over 101st dates before we ever met, a lot of them through dating apps, sun, through friends, setups like you name it.

 

00:45:08:20 - 00:45:28:11

Melissa

I tried it and what I found is that getting off the dating apps and actually just meeting people in person made me more realistic, and it allowed me to connect better with people and actually filter for those values, because I wasn't filtering on purely looks. Interesting because there's no way not to. Those apps are designed, it's primarily the photo, and then you get name and age.

 

00:45:28:13 - 00:45:31:19

Melissa

What else do you have? Yeah, yeah, that's about it.

 

00:45:31:21 - 00:45:51:09

Brady

So on the topic of hookup culture, what have you seen how it overlaps with high performers? Because again, they're incentivized to kind of be emotionally decoupled. And so if you've got this emotional like this, this physiological precedent where you know, they're men, they're dominating, they do they want sex, they want to get that fulfillment. But they're also able to like, like emotionally decouple from it.

 

00:45:51:09 - 00:46:05:21

Brady

And if you do that enough, when you finally are ready to have a real relationship, you've now kind of rewired your brain to just associate that not with, oh, I do that as an act of permanence with one person. It's like, no, it's just kind of this thing that I do here and there. What are you seeing?

 

00:46:06:00 - 00:46:24:09

Melissa

And so what I'm seeing, especially in working with men and I have like a dating accelerator program that there's a good number of high performing men in. The ones who are actually ready for the program are like, okay, I have intention now, generally haven't dated in a while, they haven't hooked up with people in a while, and that has helped them reset their experience of what they're looking for.

 

00:46:24:09 - 00:46:44:05

Melissa

And now they're ready. Right. So because if you're getting needs partially met, we don't like to change innately on a biological level. We don't like change. Change is scary. Change means possible death. So if you're getting needs just enough met, it's unlikely that someone who is currently hooking up with people time and time again is suddenly going to say, I'm ready for a long term relationship.

 

00:46:44:10 - 00:46:56:06

Melissa

It's going to take some time of being away from that culture, focusing on yourself and really getting that internal clarity of like, what am I actually looking for? That's not a short term high that allows you to move into that space.

 

00:46:56:08 - 00:47:07:07

Brady

So you've seen that the second someone is ready to go and actually have a qualitative human connection that presumes they need to have a cooldown period.

 

00:47:07:07 - 00:47:23:10

Melissa

A little bit. Yeah. Or it's rare that I've seen the other way around. So it's rare that someone goes straight from like hooking up with people frequently to suddenly ready for long term relationship. And the challenge is a lot of times, especially the women that they're going and having these experiences with are like, I can change them, right?

 

00:47:23:11 - 00:47:34:12

Melissa

So one of the most challenging and damaging things for especially women in our current culture is thinking that physical intimacy equals long term relationship interest.

 

00:47:34:14 - 00:47:35:01

Brady

Yeah.

 

00:47:35:02 - 00:47:51:07

Melissa

And so that's where you have this mismatch of experiences. That's really difficult. But I'm not saying it's impossible. But I've rarely seen someone who's been out there on the streets, so to speak, a lot, suddenly ready for long term relationship. Usually there's a cool down period, at least in the people that come to see me.

 

00:47:51:09 - 00:47:52:21

Brady

And that's primarily men.

 

00:47:52:21 - 00:47:54:18

Melissa

Primarily men. Yes.

 

00:47:54:20 - 00:48:13:21

Brady

Well, in a lot of men, too. They get passed over because they're either not six foot or so. Then, like, you don't know if you know this, like Tom cruise is like five foot five. Yeah. It's so is that Efron. And so it's like they went and decided like, okay, well I'm not going to, you know, squeeze my bones, get another, you know, six inches of height.

 

00:48:14:03 - 00:48:32:20

Brady

And so they have to go and through their career endeavors or through their success. You know draw. They have like an asymmetrical approach to how they get success in the dating sphere. So for men that like do get passed over, they get evaluated on all of these heuristics that are not their content of their character like amazing people.

 

00:48:32:22 - 00:48:54:00

Brady

It's just like, oh, you know, it's what is the dynamic? It's the 8020 rule. So typically 80% of the dating market is gravitated towards the top 20%. And that either is based on height or looks or it's they're an athlete, they have a business. They've got kind of the groundwork. And so they have a very appealing storefront. And so, you know, like reasonably so.

 

00:48:54:05 - 00:49:10:18

Brady

And so it kind of creates this really weird asymmetry in the dating market. And with that come a bunch of weird things. And then it's compounded by dating apps. And then it's compounded by people like kind of getting less social. People don't want to go out anyway. So there's like they have they're not able to go and talk to three people at the gym every day.

 

00:49:10:18 - 00:49:28:22

Brady

That's crazy town. Most of them couldn't do that. And so you get this weird shift where the replacement rate now is like the lowest it's ever been in the US. Marriages, people are waiting till they're 30, sometimes 40s. What do we do when all of this trend line shows that it's not it's not positive like the net outcomes?

 

00:49:28:23 - 00:49:34:20

Brady

Yeah. There are people that have met their spouses through dating apps. But I would say on the margins it's not been good for society.

 

00:49:34:22 - 00:49:41:19

Melissa

So one of the first things is to step out of the limiting belief that it's not possible to meet people these days and they don't want to congregate.

 

00:49:41:20 - 00:49:42:15

Brady

Step out of them.

 

00:49:42:16 - 00:49:57:10

Melissa

Yeah. And really, just people still have to go to grocery stores, right? We all do to some degree. I mean, unless you're getting things delivered. But if you're single, it's likely you're still going to the grocery store, you're still going to be going to places and doing the hobbies and things that light you up, especially if you're a high performer.

 

00:49:57:10 - 00:50:12:14

Melissa

So now the key is don't just go to those places once. Become a member, join a club. Join an environment where you are going to consistently interact with people, because there's also a research to show that the more time we spend with an individual, the more attractive they become to us. Universally.

 

00:50:12:14 - 00:50:13:16

Brady

Interesting, yes.

 

00:50:13:16 - 00:50:27:16

Melissa

So if you are consistently going to a dance class, if you are consistently going to a health club and seeing the same people time and time again, it doesn't matter if you're six foot or five, seven, five, five, whatever that may be, over time, you're actually going to become more attractive to the people around you because they're seeing you more often.

 

00:50:27:16 - 00:50:44:15

Melissa

And then on top of that, setting up the conditions to be the best version of yourself, right? So confidence over everything is actually what makes people attractive. There's a lot of research to show to that. You can have a really attractive woman, a less attractive woman, but whoever is more confident is going to be perceived as more attractive.

 

00:50:44:17 - 00:51:02:06

Melissa

So working on ourselves from the internal state, how we're showing up, the types of questions are we sparking curiosity and cool in conversations when we first talk to people, not just asking them what their job is, how is their day? Asking someone what's something exciting that you're working on? What's something that's lighting you up currently? What are you most excited about?

 

00:51:02:07 - 00:51:20:09

Melissa

So you're having these sparks of interesting conversation with new people. You are going to see more attractive in the process. So we can do this through conversation. We can do this through energy in the way we're showing up our own level of confidence. We can also do this through setting ourselves up in the best conditions possible, taking care of our physical body to the best of our abilities.

 

00:51:20:09 - 00:51:36:18

Melissa

And so when we are setting up all the conditions, your height is ultimately not going to be the key determining factor. If someone spends enough time with you. And the same thing for a woman, right? So we're taking care of our physical appearance, yes, to the best of our abilities, but it's more about that internal state and having the right kinds of questions prepared.

 

00:51:36:19 - 00:51:52:09

Melissa

Don't go in blindly like I did talking to that gentleman at the gym and ask him how to use a bench. Not the best opening question, but if you preplan some questions, have some things in mind to to spark interesting conversation, you are going to be more attractive to that person.

 

00:51:52:11 - 00:52:05:20

Brady

It seems like the cognitive legwork of literally pulling a notepad out of your desk and just writing out some questions and kind of like, oh well, like, I don't know what I would ask. Well, okay. Have you like trying it out there? Is AI now.

 

00:52:05:21 - 00:52:10:04

Melissa

What's an interesting question? I can ask a random person that I meet in a grocery store.

 

00:52:10:06 - 00:52:19:09

Brady

Yeah. Five years ago, it's like, okay, you'd have to find a book, or you'd have to go to the Blue Links and go through ten articles. But now AI will literally give you like the perfect response anyway.

 

00:52:19:10 - 00:52:38:15

Melissa

Exactly. But having that kind of foundational prep work done so that when the opportunity presents it yourself, you're not backing away from it. And that's where I do think getting in those rejection reps, if you want to call it that, is so important, and making them domain specific, not just I do sales at work, but I'm going to talk to people that I find attractive on a regular basis.

 

00:52:38:16 - 00:52:45:23

Melissa

Even if that means getting rejected. In fact, that should even be the goal because it's going to teach you that it's okay to be rejected.

 

00:52:46:01 - 00:52:49:09

Brady

Which is probably good for you just in all areas of your life.

 

00:52:49:10 - 00:52:54:21

Melissa

I mean, the confidence shift in myself after those six months was indescribable.

 

00:52:54:22 - 00:52:55:06

Brady

Really?

 

00:52:55:08 - 00:53:15:02

Melissa

Yes. Because I was no longer concerned about whether or not I was going to be picked. So operating ulcer from the place of being the chooser, not the chosen. That's one of the key mindset shifts for people who are single. When you go on these dates, or when you even engage with people in just regular conversation. The goal is to be the chooser, not the chosen.

 

00:53:15:02 - 00:53:38:08

Melissa

And it's kind of like if you're having a sales call, right? So you're going to sell to someone, you really need the sale and they can tell that's not attractive, right? You don't need them as a client. Very different. That's being in the chooser seat, not the chosen. Because the the truth is, even though our dating world is challenging right now and there's no doubt that there's been more opportunity, but it's also more challenging than ever.

 

00:53:38:09 - 00:53:48:08

Melissa

It only takes one. There's no other game where you only need to win once. You can get rejected by everyone, but you have that one person that doesn't. That's your person.

 

00:53:48:10 - 00:54:12:11

Brady

So in your purview, what are the most important differences in how men and women's brains are wired when it comes to this? For intimacy, for conflict resolution? Like there are core fundamental differences. And some aspects of society are like, you can't look at a man like, no, they're the same, which is crazy. Obviously not. But there are evolutionary wiring that attenuates every single thing that they do.

 

00:54:12:12 - 00:54:31:13

Brady

And one example is you saying like, be the chooser, not the chosen. Well, it's like women are typically the gatekeepers of that decision. You know, unless you're in kind of this high status where you've got, you know, women are all going, I'd love to be on your jet. I'd love to go on your trip to Dubai. You know, these outlier, like, call it 10% or whatever the percentage is.

 

00:54:31:14 - 00:54:43:11

Brady

For the most part, women are the ones that do. Either. They're the ones being asked, right? They're the ones that either say yes or no. And so what is what is the wiring differentiators between men and women when it comes to dating.

 

00:54:43:11 - 00:55:07:11

Melissa

So our brains thanks to neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity can change and evolve. Right. So we can change and grow. So when I say that men and women's brains are different, this is not meaning they can't become more similar over time, right? It's how we train our brains. But innately, women from birth have more neural connections between their right and left hemisphere, meaning they're able to see complex pictures.

 

00:55:07:11 - 00:55:24:13

Melissa

Systems immediately take in information. That's why there's almost like a running joke. And married couples, like a woman, notices all the things that are out of place. The guys like what's out of place or what changed, right? Because innately, we have more neural connections between our right and left hemisphere. Now, you can train this and grow this over time, but that's just the foundation.

 

00:55:24:13 - 00:55:42:09

Melissa

And even in the womb, if they've done studies where you could actually tell if it's male or female, because the women's prefrontal cortex, the thinking mind, is more developed from birth. So it's kind of a joke that women are smarter than men, but to a degree, our brains are actually a little bit more developed innately. And so what does this mean?

 

00:55:42:10 - 00:56:05:14

Melissa

And even in a biological level, men have tendency to solve through action. Women have tendency through solving, through vocalizing, having the conversation. So men are more innately wired to lies. Now, the practice for men to be able to to come to resolution is to practice over communicating, verbalizing more than they normally would, to say their male friends or just in general.

 

00:56:05:14 - 00:56:25:17

Melissa

And it's that practice of verbalizing more often, being more honest with what's happening in your internal world. Not just more direct, but more honest about what's happening that can actually start to close that gap. Now for women, it's also understanding that, generally speaking, when a man says, I'm fine. He actually means it. If a woman says I'm fine, probably not fine.

 

00:56:25:17 - 00:56:46:12

Melissa

And so it's a bit of a running joke, right? And not to get into gendered stereotypes, but to some degree there's an element of truth to it. And so when we recognize that not only are we different people with completely different experiences, but our brains are different, they're innately wired different. So we have to overcommunicate what our experiences, what the stories are that we're creating in our heads so that we can get on the same page.

 

00:56:46:12 - 00:57:00:23

Melissa

And that's really the key foundation when we're thinking about how our men and women's brains different, it's how we're innately wired to communicate. It is not how you will communicate forever. So we have to make more conscious choices. And that's really the key.

 

00:57:01:01 - 00:57:27:19

Brady

Wow. This rocks. We covered the brave framework to what we already cruise this. Okay, so what about when like two high performers are in a relationship together? Because I say the traditional dynamic is the man goes out and does the job, builds a home. Well, lo and behold. And I don't know if it was, you know, the Rockefellers or whoever it was, but you can get twice the taxable income from a household if you have two people working.

 

00:57:27:19 - 00:57:46:08

Brady

So in some capacity they're both going to be high performers, you know. So what are some of the dynamics for those sorts of people who are wired for independence and performance, but then have to somehow set those things aside, become vulnerable and like, meet in the middle and then maybe, you know, default back to their roles. How do they do that?

 

00:57:46:10 - 00:58:08:08

Melissa

Really? The key is remembering not only that are your two different people, but that true emotional mastery is when you are not just purely in the masculine, purely in the feminine. Right. So there's a lot of talk about like polarity and men should do this, women should do this. We all possess masculine and feminine energy. And true emotional mastery is when you are able to consciously choose which one you're going to engage.

 

00:58:08:14 - 00:58:26:09

Melissa

Now, when this comes to like a home environment, right. So one of the key things to do is to say like, hey, I would like you to take the lead on this instead of assuming that the other person should, and being able to relinquish some of that control and practicing having the conversations of this is like maybe your area that I'd love for you to do.

 

00:58:26:09 - 00:58:54:14

Melissa

You have expertise, focus, lead on, but it's more about playing to strengths. So not really seeing it as, oh, everything has to be compromised. But how do you best play to each other's strengths? Maybe one of you is more skilled at something. Maybe one of you just cares more about something that's done in the home. And so really thinking of it from a playing to your strengths and the fact that you both possess that feminine and masculine qualities is really the key, because we get really hung up on masculine means always making decisions all the time.

 

00:58:54:15 - 00:59:07:21

Melissa

But that's not the case. You can be a very masculine man, and I'll use my husband as an example. Who is a marine, polar explorer, endurance athlete, peak performance coach. Like you could not put more masculine things in one box.

 

00:59:07:23 - 00:59:13:20

Brady

He pulled 400 plus pounds across Antarctica just to prove it and then did a well, that's just one example.

 

00:59:13:20 - 00:59:15:23

Melissa

But he's learning for hours on a stair master like.

 

00:59:16:00 - 00:59:16:22

Brady

He does for funsies.

 

00:59:16:23 - 00:59:17:08

Melissa

For fun.

 

00:59:17:08 - 00:59:18:18

Brady

He's the guy's guy.

 

00:59:18:20 - 00:59:37:05

Melissa

Exactly. But he is one of the softest, sweetest people behind closed doors. Right. So being a masculine man does not mean I have to be hard all the time. It's actually the ability to be soft and kind to your partner. Right? So the way you engage with your partner, whether you're a man or woman, should be absolutely different than the way you engage in the business world.

 

00:59:37:06 - 00:59:38:10

Brady

Or is literally anybody else.

 

00:59:38:10 - 01:00:02:14

Melissa

And with literally anyone else. Yes, in so many ways. And so the real emotional mastery is being able to see it as I have these qualities. Is this the time that I want to focus on being more masculine and having the conversation of, do you want me to take the lead on this? Great. But we forget to have these conversations, and then we get irritated as high performers when the other person doesn't take the lead of expecting that you were going to get to lead on it.

 

01:00:02:14 - 01:00:16:01

Melissa

So just really, it all boils down to having like conscious, explicit communication about what you want from the person in front of you and then hearing what they want from you. Because it's when we start making these assumptions that we both lose.

 

01:00:16:05 - 01:00:34:18

Brady

It's assumptions for sure. It is always in the assumptions. Yes. Like you're like, oh, I just assume that you would know that I want that. Okay, well, I'm not a mind reader and this is you state the obvious. But then our patterns are like behaviors clearly indicate we think the other person's mind reader.

 

01:00:34:19 - 01:00:53:03

Melissa

All the time. And that's not just for men. It's not just for women. We expect. Because this is what I would do, that this is what you would do. But you are not me and I am not you. And that's part of the beautiful part of being in a relationship. So when you can see that as an advantage and not a disadvantage, is when you remove so much of the underlying tension and friction in relationships.

 

01:00:53:07 - 01:01:15:15

Brady

So neuroplasticity kind of seems to be the saving grace here. As we get older, our brains are slightly less flexible, but for the most part you can learn a new skill or in a new language. You can also learn a new modality or a way of thinking. You can extend grace. You can reconsider something. You can let weeds grow over that old path that used to go and just not go that way anymore.

 

01:01:15:16 - 01:01:41:05

Brady

So. So these systems can be recalibrated. So if you're a high performer and you have run the gamut and you just you travel and you have no ability to attach to somebody, you can't imagine a world where you're in a committed relationship. Neuroplasticity is ultimately going to be your saving grace because you can. But what's crazy is, like a lot of people kind of think that they can't get out of it because we are hijacked via the dopamine system.

 

01:01:41:05 - 01:02:01:17

Brady

Like you think about your experience on Instagram as an example or TikTok. Yes, these are very sophisticated tools that know exactly how to hijack your neurochemistry. And you can let an hour fly by an A. You're not going to remember anything you just watched and be. An hour just flew by because they understand how to hijack your your neurology and they do the exact same thing and dating.

 

01:02:01:17 - 01:02:16:21

Brady

And so you just kind of a lot of people get in these loops and they can't get out of it. I mean, I remember for the longest time I was like, I was I would talk to somebody for like two weeks and lock in and just be very centered on that. But then in the back of my mind, I was like, I'm, I'm missing the field.

 

01:02:17:01 - 01:02:29:20

Brady

And it was the weirdest thing. It's like, but then the second you get back on a dating app, it's not good. And like in the back of your mind, you kind of know that you're like, oh, like, it'd be so interesting to see what's out there. And then every single time you get on there and it's so underwhelming.

 

01:02:29:22 - 01:02:45:11

Brady

But there is something about the dopamine that like, it's not to that and you go, no, like what's out there in the field. And it's just it's not what you think it's going to be. So people can rewire their neurology. How do they what are the first steps in doing that. You'd mentioned a cooldown. Yes. Like just put it all away.

 

01:02:45:13 - 01:02:55:02

Brady

Lock yourself in a room, go monk mode. Like don't go to a health club and just meet people the most. Like austere way. What are the steps?

 

01:02:55:04 - 01:03:16:01

Melissa

I mean, one of it is the cooling off period, but that cooling off period doesn't mean don't meet people. It means meet people in person again, get the reward system activated through the mechanisms that it's going to be reactivated through when you're actually in a relationship by having novel experiences in person. So yes, we can say the cooling off period is good, but ultimately you need to bake in novel experiences.

 

01:03:16:01 - 01:03:28:16

Melissa

In your dating experience, if every one of your dates is at the same restaurant, your first dates, same restaurant, same lighting, you're sitting across from the other person. There's no physical touch. You're not moving. You're not outside. How are you going to create chemistry?

 

01:03:28:17 - 01:03:29:05

Brady

Interesting.

 

01:03:29:06 - 01:03:50:15

Melissa

How are you going to create that sensation of dopamine? So go for a walk after a meal, after a coffee, go someplace new that's new for both of you. And having that newness is how you actually activate dopamine in a sustainable way. Because when you're just swiping, that's the unsustainable. That is the version of dopamine that is quick hit that is not based on any effort or energy.

 

01:03:50:16 - 01:04:11:16

Melissa

And relationships are effort and energy. So are any goals that you're doing in life as a high performer. So you know how to get high reward dopamine, right? Not the low quality, bad, cheap dopamine, so to speak, that we don't want. So it's getting back to the basics, getting in person, having new experiences with a new person. And that's how you're going to start to rewire that.

 

01:04:11:16 - 01:04:29:01

Melissa

And I have even experienced that myself for a while. I was going on days and I thought, oh, there's just no chemistry. I'm not doing anything that creates chemistry. I'm not being flirty, I'm not being fun. I'm not making jokes. So being conscious about the way you're engaging with people on dates so that you set yourself up for conditions to have a better experience.

 

01:04:29:01 - 01:04:43:09

Melissa

The same is true in long term relationships. If you are going to the same restaurants with your partner, you never get out of your routine. Over time, your dopamine is going to plateau and you're going to think, oh, honeymoon phase is done. It's not. You just stopped putting in effort.

 

01:04:43:11 - 01:05:04:06

Brady

Wow. Okay, so like anything else, you want to also become the person that would catch the attention of the kind of person you're looking for. It's like, well, if you're not putting in the time, if you're not trying to enrich yourself neurologically, you back to the thing about like a lot of people socially, they go, well, just go to the bar and meet somebody.

 

01:05:04:06 - 01:05:13:12

Brady

You have a very specific view on that because you said that it's an intoxicated state. And so it kind of sets the whole thing up on a shaky foundation. Is that kind of the issue?

 

01:05:13:13 - 01:05:14:04

Melissa

Yeah, absolutely.

 

01:05:14:04 - 01:05:18:20

Brady

But like a ton of people have met their spouses. I mean, I like how how I Met Your Mother.

 

01:05:18:22 - 01:05:19:15

Melissa

Perfect example.

 

01:05:19:16 - 01:05:25:11

Brady

I despise that show. Yes. I find it so vile. And it's like there's funny moments. Whatever.

 

01:05:25:15 - 01:05:26:20

Melissa

Funny, because it's horrifying.

 

01:05:26:20 - 01:05:31:03

Brady

It's horrifying. Like, you've got Neil, Neil, Patrick. I don't even know what his character's name.

 

01:05:31:04 - 01:05:31:19

Melissa

Yes, I don't either.

 

01:05:31:20 - 01:05:47:04

Brady

He's like the hookup artist. That's his thing. And so it's like, it's this like, dude, I don't know, this dilutive. Oh, you just do this and then you go home with them and you move on. You have this like, it's like shows like how I Met Your Mother, where everybody meets at the bar and it's there, you know, our friends or whatever.

 

01:05:47:04 - 01:05:58:11

Brady

And they just kind of make it this thing. And I'm like, I find it so divorced from fulfilling reality because there's sitcoms. Obviously, they don't have to bake in what it feels like to come back home from like that.

 

01:05:58:12 - 01:05:58:19

Melissa

And the.

 

01:05:58:19 - 01:05:59:13

Brady

Emotional.

 

01:05:59:15 - 01:06:06:11

Melissa

The emotional hangover yond the the physical hangover, the emotional hangover of this short term dopamine. Yeah. Yeah.

 

01:06:06:13 - 01:06:12:16

Brady

Well, it just changes the way that you approach things, right? Like you have a depletion of your oxytocin, your ability to pair bond changes over time.

 

01:06:12:16 - 01:06:13:16

Melissa

100%.

 

01:06:13:18 - 01:06:31:14

Brady

You know, and I don't I don't even I guess you can get that back. But I mean, people don't realize these sorts of things before they go out and kind of like live their life the way that they do. And then you kind of find out, well, at certain point, like the bill comes, do you know? So I mean, you have to go into that place, work on yourself, identify what you're what you're really looking for, right?

 

01:06:31:17 - 01:06:41:03

Brady

Not just to be picked or to, like, have a moment. But it's like if you're looking for a long term relationship, you got to set yourself up so that when that moment comes, you were ready. You don't want to miss that.

 

01:06:41:04 - 01:06:50:01

Melissa

100%. And with that too. One of my favorite activities to have people do is once they make their list, ask themselves. Am I this list?

 

01:06:50:02 - 01:06:51:06

Brady

Am I? This list?

 

01:06:51:07 - 01:07:08:15

Melissa

And if the answer is no, that's your roadmap for doing that interpersonal work, for doing that work on yourself is am I all the things that I want in my spouse that I want in a future partner? And if the answer is no, I'm not high integrity. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm not doing whatever these things are.

 

01:07:08:17 - 01:07:26:19

Melissa

That's your place to start, because it's really hard to say that someone who is of this caliber, of all these amazing things that I want, should choose me, who is almost none of them. And so if you're really struggling in the dating world, that's a beautiful place to begin. And that was actually what I did to start working on my chronic anxiety.

 

01:07:26:19 - 01:07:42:08

Melissa

I wanted somebody really secure. Does a really secure person want to date somebody who is struggling chronically with anxiety and makes up tons of stories? No. And so that was my place to begin of like, I have to become this list. And only once this list, I am this list can I really go forward with it.

 

01:07:42:10 - 01:07:56:20

Brady

Once I am the list, I can go forward with it. Yeah, I don't know what that is. If people are just painting painting with broad strokes here. But like a lot of people have kind of what is it like six foot four in finance wise or whatever.

 

01:07:56:23 - 01:07:57:09

Melissa

There's a whole.

 

01:07:57:09 - 01:08:12:16

Brady

Song and it's just like a wildebeest, like saying this and you're like, you got to work on yourself. What are you saying? I'll just say what it is like. Yeah. And people are, like, very disconnected. They're like, they expect all of these things, but then they themselves are not lifting where they stand or becoming the kind of person that that ideal person would want.

 

01:08:12:16 - 01:08:31:13

Melissa

Exactly. And that's that's the foundation. And it is mind boggling. I actually spoke at a recent event where I encouraged women to be the first one to ask a man on a date, and I said, what's the worst that's going to happen? You're going to flatter him. You're going to build the skill because there's such a high expectation these days on men to do everything.

 

01:08:31:13 - 01:08:48:02

Melissa

We both want equality and we want men to lead absolutely everything all the time. Those two things do not work. They don't. And so that was my encouragement. I mean, even my own husband, who does all these hyper masculine things, was terrified to ask a woman on a first date. Had I not asked him, we would not be here today.

 

01:08:48:03 - 01:08:49:01

Brady

Holy.

 

01:08:49:04 - 01:09:04:07

Melissa

And that doesn't mean that I destroyed the polarity. And that was the feedback that one woman had said, oh, I just think the men should have to ask. And I said, cool. But men are set up to fail. When you say they always have to be the initiator, but then also don't initiate all the time. And it's confusing.

 

01:09:04:07 - 01:09:21:09

Melissa

And so where I think that there's a misunderstanding is that polarity means I can never lead and I always have to be submissive. That's not the case. All I was doing was opening the door so that he could then take the lead in the relationship. But that's all we're doing. And from the beginning of time, women have actually been initiating.

 

01:09:21:11 - 01:09:41:11

Melissa

Really way back when, women would drop her handkerchief in a way to tell the gentleman that I'm interested, and he'd say, hey, ma'am, you dropped your handkerchief, right? So from the beginning of the time, women have actually been opening the door on dating and relationships, but now we have been very confused about polarity, meaning we can't express interest first.

 

01:09:41:12 - 01:09:50:15

Melissa

Now, does that mean you lead the whole dating process? Absolutely not. It's a give and take. But if you're not opening the door, you're missing out on a lot of potential people.

 

01:09:50:17 - 01:10:03:14

Brady

Wow. Yeah. So to those high performers, if 86% of the millionaires in the country are married, that should at least be your North Star, if nothing else, because some people.

 

01:10:03:14 - 01:10:04:07

Melissa

Are for the money.

 

01:10:04:08 - 01:10:23:17

Brady

Just let's just start there. Like baseline incentives. Yeah, like finding a true relationship. It will drive you in ways that maybe right now you're hitting a certain limit. But your limit is kind of kicking in and you're like, well, I'm just kind of doing it for me or whatever. And then there are those few people that can power through it and become, you know, titans of industry just because they're built different.

 

01:10:23:17 - 01:10:36:15

Brady

But for the most part, people really do need a reason behind why they build something. And there's probably no better reason than being like, if nothing else, I'm building it for my family, I'm building it for my spouse. And so there's like a real drive to do that.

 

01:10:36:16 - 01:11:00:07

Melissa

And there's a communal responsibility, right? That if you're just by yourself, you make very different decisions. But when you take someone else into consideration, it's going to be a greater motivator. But also your relationship can be your greatest force multiplier for success. And that has been shown time and time again in the research. Like if you look at every person who's accomplished big things presidents, titans of industry, most of them are married.

 

01:11:00:07 - 01:11:19:15

Melissa

If you sidestep the money conversation, most of them are married, and those relationships serve as that foundation. Even looking at Kobe, Kobe credits his wife and being able to be the level of success. And so yeah, and so it's incredible to see, like no matter the industry, having that secure, safe place to land at the end of the day is going to help you as a high performer.

 

01:11:19:15 - 01:11:40:11

Melissa

So if nothing else, doing it for your own goals and success is a great initial motivator to take a look at this area that maybe you're scared to. Because if you're used to being great at everything and your skills are domain specific, what is going to be the hard thing to do? Look at the messy drawer that is your love life, and that is going to be your greatest access to personal development growth.

 

01:11:40:11 - 01:11:51:18

Melissa

There's no greater mirror and you can attest to this too, I'm sure, than being in true partnership. There's no greater mirror for where you need to develop, what you need to do and what is possible.

 

01:11:51:20 - 01:11:53:11

Brady

The messy draw.

 

01:11:53:13 - 01:12:03:15

Melissa

The messy draw I used to call my love life my messy drawer. I did for like a decade when I was going all the way. It's like, this is my messy drawer. Everything else I got on lock. Love life, messy drawer.

 

01:12:03:21 - 01:12:05:05

Brady

What does a messy drawer look like?

 

01:12:05:05 - 01:12:15:02

Melissa

We all have one messy drawer, right? Like you have a metaphorical messy drawer. It is. I haven't figured out how to be the best version of myself here. That's what I describe as your messy drawer.

 

01:12:15:04 - 01:12:18:22

Brady

Okay, so I haven't figured out how to be the best version of myself.

 

01:12:19:01 - 01:12:19:15

Melissa

Yes.

 

01:12:19:21 - 01:12:36:05

Brady

Yet? Okay, but you can. In the process of starting to make that messy draw like the pens go on that side, the batteries go over here. So you start gaining a little bit of ground. Okay. How far along does your messy draw need to be before you decide that you're ready to kind of put yourself out there?

 

01:12:36:11 - 01:12:55:14

Melissa

Fantastic question. I think the biggest key is, are you consciously or unconsciously bringing in all your old baggage into everyday experience? Are you going in with a negative lens? And that is one of the key things like, yes, you want to be somewhat healed, evolved, grown, but we're never going to be 100%. And so many of those lessons come through being in a relationship.

 

01:12:55:14 - 01:13:14:04

Melissa

But if you can consciously say, I've got some old stuff that is going to cause me to behave a certain way, and you have the awareness to not only say it for yourself so you can choose differently, but be able to share that with the other person. Like one of the big things going into my marriage was that all my previous relationships, I had been cheated on.

 

01:13:14:05 - 01:13:14:15

Brady

No.

 

01:13:14:18 - 01:13:33:12

Melissa

So I was bringing some big baggage into that. And so early on in dating Akshay, I had told him, I said, you know, you going on this hike all the time with another girl is kind of triggering to me. It actually has nothing to do with you, but I just need to share it because the last guy that cheated on me cheated on me with his hiking partner.

 

01:13:33:14 - 01:13:36:14

Brady

Well, you can see the overlap there. It's absolutely trigger.

 

01:13:36:14 - 01:13:55:19

Melissa

Absolutely. But being able to say this is not you, this is my stuff, but let's talk about it and let's figure out how to work through it together. So when you are at that point in your evolution that you can say, all right, I'm not just unconsciously being run by all my past experiences, you know what your stuff is and you're making active strides in in not letting it control you.

 

01:13:55:20 - 01:14:15:10

Melissa

Currently, I would say that's when you're ready. You don't have to be perfectly healed, but you need to be at a point where you can communicate about what you've been through in a way that is not emotional dumping. Now, the key between emotional dumping and vulnerability, which is something that is a little bit complex emotional dumping, is when you share an emotion experience that you're still inside of.

 

01:14:15:11 - 01:14:39:22

Melissa

So let's say, oh, my last relationship really messed me up. You're still inside it. You're not taking ownership. You're looking for validation. Now vulnerability looks like, you know, I've really learned that loyalty is really important to me because of my past experiences of being cheated on. That's taking ownership of your experiences. So a lot of times, if you're in a still in a state where you're emotionally dumping every time you go on a date and you're like, these are all the bad things that have happened to me, right?

 

01:14:39:23 - 01:14:59:12

Melissa

And you're waiting to be soothed by the other person. That's not the space that you want to be dating from. You want to be dating from a space where you can be vulnerable, which is sharing what you learned based on a past experience. So insight story and then invite them to share their experience so you can say, hey, I learned this from my past relationships, whatever that may be.

 

01:14:59:13 - 01:15:09:14

Melissa

What are some core things that are important to you? That's how you build connection without emotionally dumping on someone. And that's really the key distinction.

 

01:15:09:16 - 01:15:32:02

Brady

This presumes that someone is evolved enough to do that, and there's a lot of people that are like, in order for me to really identify my issues, I got to go to Peru and do ayahuasca in a sweat lodge with a shaman. Most people are like pretty far away from that conclusion. They're not looking at the thing, observing it, and then identifying these baggage.

 

01:15:32:04 - 01:16:00:07

Brady

This baggage was bringing with me triggered these responses. They're still in it. They're still like it's too close to them. And so they can't just emotionally separate. Like, this is a very self-aware thing that you're talking about. And as much as if you if you pulled 100 people and you ask them, are you self-aware? Like all of them would say, yes, but then in action you would see in this case, like you would you could use some qualifying language and be like, tell me about, you know, this instance like, oh yeah, everybody treats me this or whatever, like, okay, that's not very self-aware and maybe or there's levels to this.

 

01:16:00:08 - 01:16:20:06

Melissa

Right there is, there is. And so if you're listening, you're probably a little more in the category of actually self-aware. So think through this is a great thought experiment or activity or pull out your journal or whatever that may be, and write down like, okay, what are the past experiences that are like really triggering to me? What did I learn so that you can speak from a place of ownership?

 

01:16:20:07 - 01:16:35:07

Brady

Okay. So again this is prescriptive. This is very helpful. Say this one more time. Yeah. So if you're looking to improve your self-awareness and be a more viable person because you're trying to get into dating, the first thing you got to do is own your shit. How do you do it?

 

01:16:35:08 - 01:16:40:05

Melissa

Yeah. So I always say the trigger is the gift, which is a radical take on that.

 

01:16:40:08 - 01:16:41:12

Brady

It doesn't feel like it figures.

 

01:16:41:12 - 01:16:57:09

Melissa

You know it doesn't, but it is. Use it as your compass. It's your way to see, like, what is my shit that I still really got to work on. So if you're thinking about, okay, what are my triggers as it relates specifically to dating and relationships like, oh, I avoid when it gets too intense, whatever that may be, right?

 

01:16:57:10 - 01:17:21:01

Melissa

So bringing awareness to what that trigger is will by itself make it so that you don't react the same way and then write down what do I want to do instead? So when I feel triggered from x, y, z, what do I want to do instead? Or what did I learn from it? The what did I learn from it is key in being able to share with that future person that you're dating how to navigate it, and then you can co-create when you're in the dating process.

 

01:17:21:01 - 01:17:37:04

Melissa

What does that look like now? It doesn't mean that person is not responsible for your trigger, but at least they can bring some awareness to it, and so can you, so that you're not behaving unconsciously. And that's really the key is. So if you're looking to get in the dating world. Am I ready? Am I not you at least aware of what you're triggered by?

 

01:17:37:07 - 01:17:43:17

Melissa

What you do currently? What would you like to do instead and what the lesson was?

 

01:17:43:19 - 01:17:48:02

Brady

There are so many people in the dating pool that are so unconscious though.

 

01:17:48:04 - 01:18:10:08

Melissa

And that's why I love working with high performers, because you do this level of awareness when it comes to running a business. In being at high place in your career, like you're having to evaluate yourself and how you're showing up in these environments constantly, now it's just turning that same focus, attention, awareness to how you are personally. So you have those skills now you just have to practice it in the new domain.

 

01:18:10:10 - 01:18:34:01

Brady

So you really have to buy for gate this between the way that high performers date and interact in court, it's kind of a totally different game for someone that's more unconscious. I think it's kind of it's crude to be like, oh, someone with a lower IQ, because that's not really the best metric for that. But like the heuristic that you really want to say is like someone that is a high performer, typically their entire life is downstream from their self-awareness.

 

01:18:34:02 - 01:18:54:09

Brady

And so if their business is going really well, that's because they probably have a lot of internalized awareness, like, okay, if I've got this issue, it's going to affect my business. I need to resolve this because nothing matters more than growing and scaling. And so they themselves are in this active pattern. This learns pattern of constant recursive self-improvement.

 

01:18:54:09 - 01:19:10:18

Brady

And you, all of our friends, our shared network, all of us are very fixated on recursive self-improvement. We're trying to do it constantly. Yes, we think we've got it all figured out. We can then remind ourselves, no you don't. There's a blind spot for a reason. That's why we call it a blind spot.

 

01:19:10:19 - 01:19:12:07

Melissa

Find the gap. Fix the gap.

 

01:19:12:08 - 01:19:12:22

Brady

That's the gap.

 

01:19:13:02 - 01:19:28:06

Melissa

That's constantly the cycle that we're in and in our work life now. It's just applying it to this other area. So if anything, that should hopefully give you a baseline of confidence. You do this in another area already. Now it's just translating those skills.

 

01:19:28:08 - 01:19:48:07

Brady

That is what drew me to my wife is like she has this very high level of cognition and she's this very active, recursive, self-improvement self learner. And to just like if I candidly like, I compare people where they were just very unconscious or they really had no drive or no initiative or no desire to see how they were their own stumbling block.

 

01:19:48:08 - 01:20:20:21

Brady

It was like the least attractive thing I've ever seen. They could be in 11 out of ten, and it's like, you don't see how all of your patterns are really just kind of like stimulus reaction. And as humans, I think that the most important thing for us is kind of like how how far can you evolve yourself if we all have the same brain and we've got this like range of environment and upbringing and people around us like those are going to more or less shape your outcome, but you've got people from the worst parts of the world that have just decided, I'm not going to be a product of my environment, I'm going to

 

01:20:20:21 - 01:20:37:03

Brady

defy the odds. And then they go and have a rag to riches outcome. So it all of us kind of have the same tools in our head, even if we're not at the same starting point. It's the willingness to then look inward. And that's probably why most people don't do it, because that's crazy uncomfortable.

 

01:20:37:04 - 01:21:00:10

Melissa

Oh, absolutely. Like I say, trigger is the gift very serenely. But that was not a fun process. It is not a fun process, but the end result is worth it. Short term pain for long term goal, short term pain for long term outcome and growth. And we're used to thinking like that as a high performer. So to me, a high performer doesn't have to do with necessarily intelligence, but it's a growth orientation and it's exactly what you described.

 

01:21:00:11 - 01:21:17:07

Melissa

So if you're somebody who's listening to podcasts constantly, if you are consuming new information, there is a desire for growth and change. So inherently you already have the building blocks, so to speak, to make these change, to grow, to actually become the type of person that can sustain a long lasting relationship.

 

01:21:17:09 - 01:21:23:22

Brady

So in a nutshell, the heuristic you look for in a dating partner should be someone that is interested in growing and changing.

 

01:21:24:00 - 01:21:28:14

Melissa

If you are a high performer and you would like to date another high for Palmer, yes. Okay.

 

01:21:28:14 - 01:21:28:22

Brady

Well let's.

 

01:21:28:22 - 01:21:29:21

Melissa

Flip that oriented.

 

01:21:29:22 - 01:21:36:01

Brady

Yeah. Are there people that are drawn to someone that has no interest in growing, no interest in changing? I mean, someone is that.

 

01:21:36:02 - 01:21:54:15

Melissa

Some people are very adverse to growth. And those people I would not call high performers. And so the people that are adverse to growth, if you are somebody who is growth oriented, that is not going to work because you are never going to grow and change at the same rate as someone else, especially in partnership. But the goal is that you both have that same focus, right?

 

01:21:54:16 - 01:22:16:06

Melissa

You've got you're looking in the same direction of where you want to go. Now the pace is going to vary for each person, but if you have somebody who isn't looking ahead that they're like, I want to just stay safe and stay here. And that, unfortunately, is most people, which is why there's even a term high performer. So yes, you absolutely need to look for an orientation towards growth when you're looking for a partner.

 

01:22:16:06 - 01:22:18:15

Melissa

If you're a high performer.

 

01:22:18:17 - 01:22:28:07

Brady

What if a high performer is outpacing his partner or she's outpacing her partner? How do you how do they reconcile that, especially if they're already married, right.

 

01:22:28:08 - 01:22:29:12

Melissa

Because asymmetrical.

 

01:22:29:12 - 01:22:46:16

Brady

Growth, you know, one of my business partners, William, he has this training called upgrade. You've met William, you know, and one of the strangest things that happens is usually one spouse will go to his training, and it's usually the spouse that owns the business. So nine out of ten times it's it's the man. He'll come to this training.

 

01:22:46:16 - 01:23:11:12

Brady

And for 4 to 6 days he'll go in and out of hypnotic states, deep trances, installations, curriculum, neural linguistic programing. And what happens is, is the the mechanistic pattern or the stimulus response. It all gets completely rewritten. People come out of those trainings like completely different humans. And the issues that introduce, they get introduced because then they go home and their partner didn't go through this massive rewiring.

 

01:23:11:17 - 01:23:29:16

Brady

And so William will tell people all the time like, hey, it's really good to do this as a couple, because if one of you comes through this radical evolution in this like huge transformation, you're no plasticity is just like light. Like, if I put a sensor on your head, it'd be a Christmas tree, but then you go home and your partner's, like in the same place they were last week.

 

01:23:29:18 - 01:23:34:10

Brady

You know what happens when out performers kind of start to outpace their partners? What do people do?

 

01:23:34:11 - 01:23:51:03

Melissa

So the thing I always say is you're never going to grow and change at the same rate as another person. That is inherent to asymmetrical growth, which you experience, especially in those kind of like high pressure environments where it's going to be a really big, quick transformation. So you need to if you're not going with your partner, give them a heads up.

 

01:23:51:03 - 01:24:06:00

Melissa

This is the potential outcome. This is the potential growth and change so that at least you pre frame going into it like I'm going to come back a different person. But hopefully you love me even more right. And the goal is not always to be at the same pace. But decide what are the areas that you want to have growth together.

 

01:24:06:00 - 01:24:22:03

Melissa

And is one of you okay with being the learner? Right. So you just got all this information to so is the other person interested in learning about this one thing that you just went through? Hopefully because they love you and they're excited about the things that excite you, but if they're not, that's where the pre frame is really key.

 

01:24:22:03 - 01:24:40:20

Melissa

And also knowing that like you don't both have to be on the same spiritual journey, maybe you need to be able to communicate really well about another category of things. You need to be on the same growth pattern in different area, so you don't always have to grow and change at the same time. But the key is making sure that the other person doesn't feel threatened, that you don't think less of them because they're not on that same path.

 

01:24:40:20 - 01:24:58:05

Melissa

And then you also model the behavior and the version of you that you want them to become. Because ultimately, we can never change another human being. We can't. We can set up the best conditions where we're not being condescending in the process and putting them down, whether or not they feel threatened is up to them. But we can set up the best case conditions.

 

01:24:58:05 - 01:25:03:02

Melissa

If I come in and say, hey, I've done all this work, why haven't you? That's not going to be received.

 

01:25:03:05 - 01:25:04:00

Brady

That's pretty combative.

 

01:25:04:01 - 01:25:22:02

Melissa

Exactly. But if I say, hey, I did this thing that I'm really excited about and had all these changes, can I share it with you about it? Very different. So it's the way you're communicating about the experiences you're having. It's the modeling aspect of it. So am I modeling this new version of myself and does that inspire them?

 

01:25:22:02 - 01:25:30:22

Melissa

Am I bringing them up with me versus pushing them down for not being on the same path? So how we engage with our growth matters more than the fact that growth is happening.

 

01:25:31:00 - 01:25:52:16

Brady

Wow. So in the context of, let's say, a high performing husband and this dynamic is like, it's him, it's his business. Let's say they go through this incredible arc of growth in their in the company. And so they go from seven to a nine figure business. That person's fundamentally changing. Is that what do they then go to their partner like the wise thing.

 

01:25:52:16 - 01:26:11:08

Brady

What would they do in that situation. Like, hey, our business is going from 7 to 9 figures. We have to change the way that we do almost everything or how we think or whatever, because in that, in that gap, there's a lot that that changes and shifts kind of forever. Yes. So how do you prep your partner for growing with you?

 

01:26:11:08 - 01:26:16:10

Brady

Because, I mean, that's that's a pretty gnarly jump. And I'm imagining a lot of your clients have gone through some version of that.

 

01:26:16:11 - 01:26:34:21

Melissa

Yes, absolutely. I have one client in particular. I believe he's like a ten figure business. Right. So it's like, this is this is wild to see the kind of growth between where they were and where they're headed. But really it's that what we spoke about a little earlier, which is keeping your partner in to your mapping of what's your internal world like?

 

01:26:34:22 - 01:26:54:15

Melissa

Like they should not find out that you're jumping from a seven figure to a nine figure business after it's happened. But if it is, that's going to be the experience. If you're saying, hey, we're on this big growth trajectory, here's how things need to shift a little bit at home. Can we get into alignment about what you need so that I'm not letting your needs fall by the wayside so that we're on the same page as we're going through this huge acceleration of growth.

 

01:26:54:15 - 01:27:13:22

Melissa

And isn't this so exciting? This is happening for our family. That's a very different conversation. So bringing them into what's happening in your business world, in your internal world, well before it ever occurs, so that people aren't caught off guard when you're going through these big jumps and phase of growth is really key. If you want to take a moonshot, you got to get your partner on board with that moonshot.

 

01:27:13:23 - 01:27:32:08

Melissa

You got to be sharing the selfless why and the selfish why. So what does this mean for us as a couple, and what does this mean for me individually? And now you get the buy in. So getting consistent buy in from your partner, especially in big phases of growth, is how you create that rock solid relationship even while you're going through big expansion.

 

01:27:32:08 - 01:27:46:09

Melissa

So your partner doesn't have to be running a seven figure, a nine figure business to understand. But if you're doing a good enough job mapping your internal world, communicating about needs, having conscious conversations throughout the whole process, it's not going to be a sudden shift for them.

 

01:27:46:11 - 01:28:05:21

Brady

Wow. Okay. Very last question. With the high performers that you have worked with and coached and advised, how do they approach raising a family and children? What are some of the the really like outstanding things where you go, oh, I'm going to do that when I've got my kids.

 

01:28:06:03 - 01:28:30:05

Melissa

Yeah. So there's one particular CEO that I'm thinking of and him and his wife both worked in the business very similar, and they raised three incredible kids. And what they did is they prioritized a family culture within the business and making sure that they were giving their employees the ability to spend more time with their family, giving parental leave, giving that space to really say, like, these are key developmental years.

 

01:28:30:05 - 01:28:52:03

Melissa

And so what I've seen that's been really cool is they actually bring the kids into their business. They make them apart, give them a view into their world. So they're not trying to keep their kids completely separate from the things they're working on in building. So it's that, again, internal mapping that they're also exposing their kids to. And then the other really key thing is that these parents are also modeling what repair looks like.

 

01:28:52:04 - 01:29:05:10

Melissa

They're not just letting their kids see the shiny version. Like if a disagreement occurs, they're also letting them be present for how they apologize. They're modeling all the skills of like, relational courage very, very early.

 

01:29:05:12 - 01:29:09:11

Brady

Wow. Yeah. Because the tendency is to kind of like, insulate the kids.

 

01:29:09:13 - 01:29:10:04

Melissa

And treat them like.

 

01:29:10:04 - 01:29:11:06

Brady

Kids, treat them like kids.

 

01:29:11:06 - 01:29:30:01

Melissa

But just like your spouse, like you will rise to the occasion if people give you that ability. So if you're telling the kids that they're capable of having more advanced thought, they're capable of making decisions for themselves, like if you're teaching those skills early. And that's even what I really credit my parents for doing, too. Like they treated me like an adult since I was a kid.

 

01:29:30:02 - 01:29:46:13

Melissa

They didn't do the baby talk. They didn't do any of that. They were constantly telling me about really advanced things, like they were letting me read things way past, like the grade level, like my dad was teaching me advanced logic when I was 13, like unreal. And they set me up for so much success because they treated me like an adult.

 

01:29:46:13 - 01:30:02:05

Melissa

And kids, just like adults, will rise to the occasion. So if you tell your partner you're smart, you've got this. I really believe in you. That's very different than saying, oh, this is the level you're playing at. Even if you believe that, that's the level giving them the opportunity to rise to the occasion, people naturally will.

 

01:30:02:07 - 01:30:25:23

Brady

That's like just it's linguistic discipline. Yes, it's so important, said the imperative. And that is so until you start doing it, you don't realize how often you'll sabotage your own self or you'll you'll characterize your world by how irresponsible you are with language. And Williams got this bit where it's like our words do not describe the world that we're in or around.

 

01:30:26:00 - 01:30:48:19

Brady

They define it. And so, like a big one I had to learn was I would self-deprecating and to kind of maybe like drop everyone's guard around me and be like, oh, you know, I'm just an asshole sometimes. And then that became the unconscious pattern because I'm saying this out loud, and then the background app, the background processes would go, oh, I didn't know that that was on the menu.

 

01:30:48:20 - 01:31:14:14

Brady

Okay. So we're doing that now. That's the protocol. Therefore all of these unconscious patterns are just going to rise up constantly in interactions. And so if you're doing that I guess you can do that to a partner to a spouse or business partner to your kids. So like linguistic discipline for me is literally where I watch my entire life change and go a completely different direction because I was careful about what I said, to the point where, you know, we try not to use the word don't.

 

01:31:14:19 - 01:31:22:03

Brady

So all like, I don't want this to happen, but you have to. The easiest one is like, I don't think about a pink elephant. Yeah.

 

01:31:22:07 - 01:31:23:01

Melissa

What are you thinking about?

 

01:31:23:02 - 01:31:42:10

Brady

The pink. And so it's like your mind has no real ability to to negate something. So if you say, hey, you know, don't think about this pink trunks elephant stomping down the road, you have to invent it and then try and cancel it out. And so we do that with I don't want to fight with you, you know, I don't want to get sick.

 

01:31:42:10 - 01:32:04:12

Brady

I don't want my family to feel distance. Like you're inventing those situations and the linguistic discipline. It's actually really uncomfortable. You have to force yourself to then go, what is the opposite of that? I don't want. I want to get along with you at all times, and it'll feel like canned and awkward. But I don't know if it's just a trait for like, English, but for the everybody does this.

 

01:32:04:14 - 01:32:19:12

Brady

Like I see it constantly. Everyone is so fast to describe the thing that they don't want, and more or less often they tend to get that anyway, because the the taking that thing of what is it you don't want? You have to grab it and you have to flip it the other way around and go, okay, well, what does that mean?

 

01:32:19:12 - 01:32:30:11

Brady

It means you want this, articulate that. And if you are that, you're drawing it into reality. It's probably the reason why you say, like, hey, bring out a notepad and write it down. You're bringing it into reality.

 

01:32:30:12 - 01:32:53:10

Melissa

100%. And I will say to that, this doesn't mean you can't ever make jokes or can't ever make jokes at your expense. But if that is your primary operating system for how you're describing yourself, to your point, it's going to shape your experience, right? I think humor and play is so important. And if anybody heard our internal conversations between my husband and I, they would be horrified because we are constantly bantering and laughing.

 

01:32:53:10 - 01:33:13:04

Melissa

But that's not how we're consistently describing each other or ourselves. And that's not the identity that we're describing ourselves, because words both matter and they don't. And so the key is being able to hold it loosely. Right? So being aware of like when you're just saying something consistently and when you're believing it to be true. So you could probably still make a joke occasionally.

 

01:33:13:04 - 01:33:27:05

Melissa

But if you're consistently saying it and you're like, this is there's there's some truth to it here, then it's going to start to become embedded. But you can make the occasional joke. It's just having that hypervigilance, I think initially is really helpful because most of us are speaking unconsciously. To your point.

 

01:33:27:06 - 01:33:29:18

Brady

Wow.

 

01:33:29:19 - 01:33:47:06

Brady

I couldn't have said it better. That is fantastic, Melissa. Not about where can people find you if they want to work with you if they want to? I mean, you just had a Ted talk. Thank you. You're everywhere. Your parents is on podcast. It's everybody's trying to just sit down and have some time with you. So if they're listening and they'd like to find you, they'll view at home.

 

01:33:47:06 - 01:33:48:02

Brady

Where do they do it?

 

01:33:48:02 - 01:33:55:23

Melissa

So on Instagram is the best place in terms of social media at Melissa not a body. I'm sure it'll be linked in the show notes because I have a long last name to spell.

 

01:33:56:02 - 01:33:58:09

Brady

Yeah, yeah, you don't look like a non of audio.

 

01:33:58:11 - 01:34:18:12

Melissa

Yeah, it's too funny. Yeah, my maiden name was so much easier to spell, but on YouTube you can find me at Peak Performance love and then website is also Melissa Nanavati. So if someone is wanting to reach out, if they want a formation about coaching or a group coaching or any type of programing, that is all on my website, as well as a lot of free resources and links to my Ted talks and other talks as well.

 

01:34:18:12 - 01:34:19:08

Melissa

So thank you.

 

01:34:19:09 - 01:34:48:00

Brady

Yeah, well and we before we started rolling, we were talking about how people specifically have sought you out because and this is not like a critique of all therapists, but a lot of times therapists or marriage counselors for some reason tend to to skew a certain direction in these conversations. And men have specifically sought you out for relationship marriage advice, high performance advice, because they know that you have an objective framework and they're like, you're like, it's a principle part of it.

 

01:34:48:00 - 01:35:09:03

Brady

So they go, if I am 100% to blame, you're going to point it out. If there's if there are portions here, you've got a framework that actually identifies it and creates actionable steps. So I know for the high performing friends and men, people that I know, if this is something that people are looking for, they got to work with you because it's been cool to already see your clients on the breakthrough that they've had.

 

01:35:09:06 - 01:35:26:15

Melissa

I really appreciate that. Yeah. And what I love to about working, especially with high performing men, very action oriented future focus. And that's exactly the way I work with clients. It's not endlessly rehashing the past, it's how do we want to engage with each other moving forward. Here's the framework and approach and then also making it work for you, because it's going to be individualized every time.

 

01:35:26:15 - 01:35:33:13

Melissa

But really what I provide is just that objective third party that is able to facilitate some of those harder conversations.

 

01:35:33:15 - 01:35:42:20

Brady

Yeah, that's why a lot of men won't do is like, let's just like wallow in the past and just rethink it a thousand times. You're like, that's a humongous waste of time.

 

01:35:42:23 - 01:36:00:00

Melissa

That's true for both men and women because it's easier, right? So we create specific grooves in our brain. We access the same thoughts, neurons that fire together, wire together. And so if you're just used to doing that, and that is normal until you learn a new way of doing it, it's really hard to get out of it.

 

01:36:00:00 - 01:36:04:18

Brady

Wow. Well, anyone that works with you is lucky. Thank you so much for being on forge today.

 

01:36:04:19 - 01:36:07:17

Melissa

Thank you so much for having me. This has been a blast. Yeah.