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Most of us know all too well that our healthy skepticism over whether someone is right for us is the FIRST thing we’re willing to throw out the window in the name of chemistry and a connection.
In today’s video, my brother Stephen and I provide you with four questions you can ask to determine if someone is a good fit for you . . .
This video is all about helping you look out for “future you” while not silencing the “you” of today.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:00
everyone’s had that situation where you
00:02
know
00:02
that there might be issues in the future
00:04
but you’re enjoying something with
00:05
someone now and you ask a friend and a
00:08
friend says to you you say what should i
00:10
do and a friend says to you well are you
00:12
having fun
00:18
could you ask a few key questions to say
00:21
people always ask is this the right
00:23
person for me how do i know do i just
00:26
need to intuitively feel the butterflies
00:28
or is there something i should think
00:30
about with this person how many
00:32
questions do you need to ask steve
00:34
four according to my article very good i
00:37
haven’t seen this article steve in a
00:39
long time so i’m very curious
00:42
to see
00:44
whether i still agree with the questions
00:46
this is going to be good
00:47
so you think of this one first of all
00:50
do you feel a unique
00:53
sexual attraction to this person
00:57
so i remember reading way back and i
01:00
think it was like a old steve pavlina
01:02
article but it was just the fact that
01:04
look
01:05
couples get into a lot of trouble if you
01:07
don’t choose someone who turns you on
01:09
physically who gives you some feeling of
01:13
animalistic pull towards them
01:16
it’s very hard to get that flame going
01:18
later on so you want to start with
01:21
some kind of unique sexual chemistry
01:23
with that person
01:25
do you feel steve
01:27
that some people
01:31
don’t experience the sexual chemistry
01:34
that they could with another person on a
01:36
date not because
01:38
those two people don’t have it but
01:41
because nerves have gotten in the way
01:44
because a kind of uh over uptight
01:47
so
01:48
feeling of that stuffiness
01:50
of a first date has got in the way of
01:52
the kind of loose playful energy that
01:55
allows sexual
01:57
chemistry to flourish sure there are
02:01
environments where you’ll be more sexy
02:03
there are environments where you’ll feel
02:04
more sexy and you’ll be your you know
02:07
more relaxed playful fun self do you
02:10
feel therefore that
02:13
if you don’t feel it on a first date
02:15
it’s too early to judge because nerves
02:17
could have been getting in the way
02:20
yeah i think a first date alone isn’t
02:23
gonna give you all the info which is why
02:25
if you’re too dismissive
02:28
i think that works against people i
02:31
remember tony robbins
02:33
talking about his wife sage
02:37
and how they started out as friends
02:41
and
02:43
sort of one day
02:46
she
02:47
she teased him
02:48
and perhaps i guess from the story it
02:51
sounded like she teased him in a way
02:52
that perhaps she hadn’t teased him
02:54
before
02:54
but she like teased him about his
02:56
perfect hair and his you know like how
02:58
he was all
03:00
really well put together
03:02
and
03:03
it he he recalls how he was like
03:06
you know he almost gestures as if like a
03:08
like come here
03:10
you know like that response you have
03:13
when someone teases you and you’re faux
03:16
frustrated at them but it’s really
03:18
sexual tension for the first time and
03:21
that that kind of sexual tension that
03:23
gets built through teasing and i
03:25
i suppose i’m
03:27
i’m bringing that example up because
03:30
that it is interesting to note that
03:32
there can be
03:34
dynamics between two people where there
03:37
is a friendship
03:39
and because it’s been
03:42
sort of
03:44
stuck in a certain gear
03:46
oh yeah because of maybe the way the
03:48
relationship started
03:51
you don’t actually know
03:54
what you don’t know
03:55
about how the two of you could be
03:57
together until one person
04:01
decides to
04:03
throw a bolt of lightning into the
04:06
interaction and see what happens now
04:08
there’s no guarantee that when you
04:11
you hit that
04:13
you know that moment with a moment of of
04:15
lightning that that’s going to turn into
04:17
real tension between you
04:19
but
04:20
until one person is brave enough to try
04:24
it’s actually very difficult to know for
04:25
sure whether you do have a unique
04:28
sexual chemistry or not yeah that
04:30
absolutely happens and i’ve ended up uh
04:33
you know i had a girlfriend once who we
04:35
were friends for here we go story time
04:38
here we go we were friends for like a
04:40
year before and something changed in the
04:42
dynamic and we realized we’re attracted
04:45
to each other so that happens but what
04:47
i’m saying is if you’ve been literally
04:49
dating this person beauty and the beast
04:52
don’t i don’t something there that
04:54
wasn’t there before oh i thought you
04:56
were having a go um
04:58
no yeah you know you know the song
05:01
yeah i i didn’t capture her and make her
05:04
live in my castle until she fell in love
05:06
with me if that’s what you mean but that
05:08
you are a beast
05:11
you identify without my chest
05:14
you didn’t say but i’m not a beast
05:17
sorry but my point is my point is some
05:20
people message us saying like i’ve been
05:22
dating this guy for several months and
05:24
don’t feel that chemistry with him
05:26
that’s when you’re in bad territory yeah
05:29
i think that’s safe to say if you’re
05:30
actually dating that person and not
05:32
feeling the chemistry chemistry the
05:34
flame isn’t gonna suddenly
05:37
suddenly appear right number two do you
05:40
find it easy or difficult to get your
05:43
needs met in a relationship
05:45
it doesn’t mean you always get your
05:48
needs met
05:50
but
05:50
how difficult
05:52
is it
05:53
to get your fundamental needs network
05:56
whether it’s for intimacy respect
05:59
emotional connection
06:01
uh intellectual stimulation you know we
06:04
all have certain things we consider
06:06
fundamental needs some things we’re like
06:08
that’s nice and desirable but it’s not
06:10
fundamental but your fundamental needs
06:13
does that only happen once a month
06:16
or
06:17
is it something you can get met without
06:20
a big
06:21
complication an argument a discussion
06:25
i think that’s a big determinant of
06:27
whether you’re with the right person or
06:28
not
06:29
that’s a good one i like that especially
06:32
when they’re your core needs when
06:34
they’re things that are really really
06:35
important to you if you’re someone who’s
06:37
very affectionate and you’re with
06:39
someone who doesn’t want to hold your
06:40
hand walking down the street because
06:42
they just or they
06:44
they want to sleep on opposite sides of
06:45
the bed they don’t actually enjoy a
06:47
cuddle or a spoon in a movie then it
06:50
that’s
06:51
that’s going to be hard it’s not going
06:53
to stop being hard for you right later
06:56
down the line if it’s one of your core
06:57
needs is physical touch
06:59
and it’s not at all important to the
07:01
person you’re with that is always going
07:03
to be a point of
07:05
conflict and resentment and hurt right i
07:09
agreed so next question is is their
07:12
lifestyle compatible with yours do you
07:15
feel okay with how they spend their free
07:18
time now i think of this as not some
07:21
judgmental oh i don’t like your hobbies
07:24
i think of it more as
07:26
like your actual
07:28
lifestyle like your time
07:31
are you with a workaholic
07:33
are you
07:34
with someone who really wants to spend a
07:37
life uh being nomadic and traveling all
07:39
the time are you with someone who loves
07:41
getting drunk at night and partying
07:44
or they want to you know have a bottle
07:46
of wine every night and socialize all
07:48
the time or whatever
07:49
like literally
07:51
how you
07:53
your compatibility how your lives fit
07:55
together
07:56
in terms of what you like to do and how
07:59
you like to spend your time i don’t
08:01
think you need them to be the same
08:04
but
08:04
you need to say am i happy
08:07
with
08:08
the way they carve out their time does
08:11
it work for me
08:13
what do you think
08:16
let’s say you know that your partner’s
08:18
really happy when they’re playing golf
08:21
but you
08:23
have no interest whatsoever in that
08:26
activity the very idea of it bores you
08:28
to death
08:30
totally fine fine
08:32
not a problem would you though describe
08:34
that as a difference in life’s inc in
08:36
what if they love to play golf every day
08:40
i think this is where you you decide you
08:42
what are you does it compromise your
08:44
needs if they play golf every day if
08:47
they play golf for three hours every day
08:49
and you’re at work
08:50
maybe it affects nothing
08:53
if it affects hey we never spend any
08:55
time together on a weekend because you
08:57
play golf all day and that’s a real
08:58
problem for me
08:59
you’ve got a conversation i think it’s
09:01
whether the lifestyle fits into yours
09:03
you might love that someone’s ambitious
09:05
or works really hard but
09:07
if their work means that you haven’t
09:09
taken a vacation in five years and they
09:11
have no interest in it and that’s a big
09:14
thing
09:14
you want to spend time
09:16
you know seeing the world together or
09:18
doing fun things
09:20
problem i think the phenomenon of
09:25
people getting to a certain point in
09:26
life where they’ve been used to living
09:28
it a certain way
09:31
and
09:32
they lack compromise once they
09:35
get to a relationship
09:37
that’s something i’ve i see a lot
09:41
is
09:43
if you’ve been single for a long time
09:46
and doing your own thing then you
09:47
haven’t been used to meshing your life
09:49
with somebody else’s
09:51
for sure and there there’s a lot of
09:53
potential conflict and compatibility
09:56
issues that can come up there
09:58
and really i think one of the things
10:00
that defines whether you can be
10:02
compatible or not is your willingness to
10:06
make
10:07
changes to certain ways that you spend
10:10
your time or
10:11
live your life based on the fact that
10:13
you now find yourself in a new paradigm
10:16
one where you are part of a unit
10:18
with somebody else and if you’ve been
10:21
used to not being a unit
10:23
then you can get quite
10:27
quite
10:28
uh
10:30
your ways can be become very set
10:32
yeah you can become very selfish and you
10:35
don’t even realize that
10:37
you don’t even realize that you are
10:38
selfish
10:39
before you continue the video is there
10:42
someone in your life you like but you
10:43
felt them pulling away what can you do
10:46
about it to bring the attraction back
10:48
well i get this question
10:50
thousands of times a month so on the
10:52
26th of january i am doing a deep dive
10:55
two hour master class on what i’m
10:57
calling attraction cpr why people pull
11:00
away and what you can do to bring the
11:03
attraction back now i’m doing this just
11:04
for my members but you can become a
11:06
member by going to askmh.com
11:09
and you can even have a free trial right
11:11
now that includes the 26th masterclass
11:15
so go to askmh.com to find out more or
11:17
click the link in the description you
11:20
don’t even realize that you have ways
11:23
but
11:24
meeting someone can make you realize
11:26
like oh this is that i have all these
11:28
habits i didn’t even realize i have oh i
11:31
have all of these ways of spending my
11:32
time i didn’t even realize would affect
11:35
somebody else
11:37
and and i think that one of the greatest
11:40
determinants of whether two people can
11:41
work together is whether
11:43
they find themselves
11:45
malleable enough
11:46
and they find their lifestyles malleable
11:48
enough
11:50
to create space for somebody else or
11:52
whether there is such rigidity
11:55
in the way that they want to live their
11:57
life that
11:58
there’s not really much space for
12:01
another person and their ways lack of
12:04
compatibility can either take the form
12:06
of we’re very different people and we
12:09
like to do different things
12:11
or it can take the form of
12:15
we
12:16
have very different ideas about how much
12:18
we’re willing to
12:20
adjust in order to accommodate somebody
12:23
else in our life you know if you think
12:25
about a great
12:26
a great parent a great parent is one
12:29
that
12:29
has some malleability and can adjust to
12:32
the fact that there’s now
12:34
a new person in their life that they’re
12:36
responsible for and have to take care of
12:39
and and nurture and
12:41
and help grow
12:43
a bad parent
12:44
is often well i i don’t think this is
12:46
the only definition of a bad parent by
12:48
any stretch but one version of a bad
12:50
parent is one that is unwilling to
12:52
compromise their life
12:56
now based on another person having
12:58
entered it
12:59
so and i think the same can be true of a
13:02
of a relationship compatibility for me
13:04
really is being accommodating it really
13:06
is
13:08
being like i’m okay with what this
13:10
person does and likes doing
13:13
and i’m not going to be the person who’s
13:14
like
13:16
oh i don’t want you i want you to not
13:18
spend time doing that that’s why you
13:19
know i don’t want you to do that that’s
13:21
probably not gonna work it’s probably
13:23
better
13:24
if you can accept what they prioritize
13:26
now which is why you gotta be really
13:27
careful with what you’re getting into
13:30
well i think a distinction that you’ve
13:32
made there or that needs to be made is
13:36
the just the difference between
13:39
not wanting to spend your time the same
13:41
way they want to spend a decent
13:43
proportion of theirs which i don’t
13:44
necessarily think is a problem
13:47
no and
13:49
not
13:50
genuinely having genuinely having a
13:52
problem
13:54
with the way they spend their time
13:56
having a real lack of respect
13:59
for how they spend their time right
14:01
that’s that to me is
14:04
you know you don’t have to like that
14:05
your partner likes golf
14:08
you just have to if you if you truly
14:12
think that that says something about
14:13
them you don’t like if you if you cannot
14:16
respect that that’s how they like to
14:18
spend their time then that is revealing
14:20
of a difference in values not just a
14:23
difference in the way that you spend
14:24
your time
14:26
yes
14:27
number four
14:28
do you both want the same things in your
14:30
future
14:32
and have the same vision for the next 5
14:36
10
14:37
15 years
14:40
now this comes with the caveat that i
14:42
don’t think everyone has a 10-year plan
14:44
for their life that isn’t how we tend to
14:47
think most of us
14:48
but
14:50
if the idea of having some shared vision
14:52
with someone for that period
14:55
scares
14:56
the living daylights out of you
14:59
that’s probably a problem
15:02
steve i was listening to
15:04
the sam harris podcast recently and
15:07
there was an episode about time
15:10
he was talking with a time management
15:11
expert or i should actually backtrack on
15:14
that the guy has an issue with a lot of
15:16
time management literature i’m not sure
15:18
he wouldn’t call himself a time
15:19
management expert but he wrote a book on
15:21
time called 4000 weeks
15:24
and
15:26
he described the difference between
15:27
being and doing
15:30
and how
15:31
when we’re raising kids
15:34
we
15:36
we have to enjoy the moment with our
15:38
kids we can’t just think i’m just
15:42
raising my five-year-old right now to be
15:44
a respectable teenager or i’m just
15:48
raising my 15 year old right now to be a
15:50
respectable hard-working adult because
15:52
if you do that you’re always just living
15:54
in the future of
15:55
of what they’re going to be you’re never
15:57
actually enjoying what they are
16:00
uh you’re not enjoying the being
16:02
you’re just enjoying the doing for some
16:04
end or you’re just doing the doing for
16:06
some end result
16:08
and and the end result is always a
16:10
receding horizon because every time you
16:13
get there
16:14
there’s some other thing that they need
16:16
to become after that you’re never living
16:18
in the moment and when i was listening
16:20
to this i thought about this on the in
16:21
the context of relationships and it
16:23
relates to what you just said
16:25
because
16:27
what you’re talking about here is that
16:30
whilst
16:31
you can be enjoying someone’s company
16:34
right now
16:35
and you can be enjoying the chemistry
16:37
you have with them right now
16:41
it’s dangerous
16:43
to be doing so
16:45
if you have
16:46
wildly different
16:48
ideas about
16:50
what a
16:51
well-lived future is
16:54
because the the the being with someone
16:57
right now is getting you very very
17:00
invested
17:02
you’re spending time and energy with
17:04
someone and going further and further
17:06
down a path with someone that of course
17:08
is denying you
17:10
the ability to go down that path with
17:13
somebody else
17:15
and so there is an opportunity cost
17:19
and
17:20
is going to land you in a
17:23
massive heartbreak later
17:26
if as it turns out that person meant it
17:29
when they said
17:30
i don’t want kids
17:33
or i don’t want marriage
17:35
or
17:36
i want to spend my life
17:38
traveling from country to country every
17:40
two months and never want to settle down
17:42
anywhere
17:43
and so
17:44
i you know steve when i listened to that
17:46
episode i kind of i had this question in
17:48
my mind which i think i’ve just resolved
17:50
in listening to you
17:52
the question in my mind was
17:54
you know what do you say to people who
17:57
because we’ve all everyone’s had that
17:58
situation where you know
18:01
that there might be issues in the future
18:02
but you’re enjoying something with
18:03
someone now and you ask a friend and a
18:06
friend says to you you say what should i
18:08
do and a friend says to you well are you
18:10
having fun
18:12
are you enjoying it and you say yeah and
18:14
they go
18:15
then then do it what’s the big deal stop
18:19
over analyzing it if you’re having fun
18:21
and if your heart feels good then just
18:24
do it
18:26
now you could say from either a romantic
18:28
perspective or even interestingly you
18:31
could say from a mindfulness perspective
18:34
if you are enjoying it now
18:37
then
18:38
don’t obsess over the future be in the
18:41
moment and enjoy what it is now and a
18:44
lot of people
18:46
get into relationships
18:48
and get their heart very tied up with
18:51
someone
18:52
in the short term who may not be great
18:55
for them in the long term or may have
18:56
wildly different goals in the long term
18:59
so does that mean that you should get
19:01
out of a situation that you’re enjoying
19:03
right now just because
19:04
you may not end up in the same place in
19:06
the future
19:08
and i think the role that we have to set
19:10
for ourselves is
19:12
i have to enjoy
19:15
what i’m doing in the moment now
19:19
unless what i’m doing
19:22
is going to create massive
19:24
future pain
19:26
for me
19:29
in other words if the moment i’m
19:31
enjoying now
19:33
is going to be responsible for many many
19:36
unhappy moments
19:38
in the future that i can avoid today
19:42
by not doing this thing now
19:44
that’s something we have to listen to
19:47
and and what you’re saying in question
19:50
number four which is what was the exact
19:52
wording of it
19:54
do you both want the same things in your
19:56
future and see yourself being able to
19:59
give the same amount to the relationship
20:01
in five ten
20:02
fifteen years
20:04
right what you’re saying is
20:06
don’t be so busy enjoying the chemistry
20:09
and the fun and the attraction now
20:12
that you ignore
20:15
a massive amount of pain that’s coming
20:19
that’s gonna
20:20
be
20:22
really it’s a it’s an act of
20:25
what do i want to say it’s a it’s an act
20:28
of recklessness
20:30
and ignorance towards a future you
20:35
if we take the view that we should do
20:37
things today
20:38
that are
20:40
that our future self will benefit from
20:43
will thank us for
20:45
one of the things that’s going to be a
20:47
very cruel thing to do to our future
20:49
self because every al throughout our
20:51
lives we go through many different
20:53
us right many many different use over
20:56
the course of your life
20:58
it’s a cruel act
21:00
to a future you to do something that
21:02
feels good today that’s going to cause
21:05
her
21:06
a ton of pain
21:08
and ignoring the fact that somebody sees
21:11
a wildly different future
21:13
ign than the one that would make you
21:15
happy ignoring the fact that somebody
21:17
isn’t willing to give what you are
21:19
willing to give or isn’t even willing to
21:21
admit that they want to sign up
21:23
to all of that
21:26
it
21:27
may be something that feels good today
21:29
but it’s something that’s incredibly
21:31
cruel
21:32
to a future
21:34
you
21:35
this next video i have for you is really
21:38
really important
21:39
click here to watch they want to come in
21:41
and make you fall in love with them as
21:42
quickly as possible because that’s where
21:44
they get their validation and once they
21:46
feel validated once they feel like ah i
21:49
did it i made them fall for me look how
21:52
wonderful i am they can then move on
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
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