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Here is a summary of the transcript from YouTube, slightly edited with AI.
“The Courage to Be Disliked”
I want to tell you about a book I discovered recently that has nothing to do with dating, but has changed how I think about dating in five key ways.
Some of these ways are upsetting — but kind of in the best way. Others are controversial and come with a giant disclaimer. But all of them are fascinating, and I suspect they will radically change the way you date moving forward.
The book I’m talking about is The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga.
It’s a dialogue between a young person and a wise older philosopher who teaches the theories of Alfred Adler — the psychologist who lived during Freud’s and Jung’s time, but had wildly different, sometimes diametrically opposed, opinions to Freud.
1. When Your Present Determines Your Past
The first big idea that struck me is this: your trauma does not shape your life — your goals do.
In fact, the book goes as far as to say trauma doesn’t exist.
Now, I want to be very clear about my position. I believe trauma is real. Very real. It absolutely exists and has a profound effect on people’s lives.
But where I find Adler’s stance helpful is this: Where has my trauma become a way to avoid something that would actually make my life better if I had the courage to approach it?
You might ask the same question.
If you’ve come out of an abusive or narcissistic relationship, you can look back at all the ways that shaped your ability to trust. But you can also decide on a goal that serves you today.
Adler would say that when we adopt a new goal, we choose to focus on different parts of the past. That’s what he meant when he said, “Our past doesn’t determine the present. Your present determines the past.”
When you have a new goal in the present, you start looking for different evidence in your past.
Instead of focusing on how you were wronged, you might focus on the people who were there for you. The people you could trust. The people who didn’t gaslight you. The people who kept their word.
If your goal is avoiding rejection, you’ll focus on the trauma that helps you justify never putting yourself out there again.
The book gives an example of a young woman who can’t talk to her crush because she blushes every time.
Adler’s interpretation? She isn’t avoiding him because she blushes. She’s blushing as an excuse to avoid him. Her hidden goal is avoiding rejection — and preserving the fantasy of “what could happen.”
Once you look at life through the lens of goals shaping your present, you can’t unsee it.
What hidden goals might you be achieving — while blaming your past?
The Love Life Reset
While we’re here together, I want to tell you about something happening in mid-September: The Love Life Reset.
Year in and year out, I work with people who I know can find love — but they’ve become stuck.
Dating can be exhausting. Repeated rejection, the same results over and over, people who don’t put in effort — it creates disillusionment.
Sometimes we lose belief it will ever happen for us.
But we can adopt a fresh way of being. A new mindset that radically changes what’s available to us.
This free live training is about stepping out of frustration and into a calm, empowered approach where you take control again.
If you feel close to dating burnout but still want love — this is for you.
It’s my last big event of this kind this year. Join me at lovelifereset.com.
2. Trust and Confidence
The second idea: we must have an unconditional belief in others.
That sounds dangerous in dating, right?
We’ve all encountered gaslighting, love bombing, misleading behavior, and being ghosted.
But Adler makes a crucial distinction between trust and confidence.
Trust is conditional. It’s earned over time — like a bank requiring collateral for a mortgage.
In dating, that collateral is reliability, consistency, and someone showing up repeatedly as who they say they are.
Confidence, however, is different.
Confidence is showing up on a first date with generosity of spirit. Assuming goodness. Believing most people aren’t trying to hurt us — they’re trying to feel significant.
If we want others to have confidence in us, we must be willing to extend it first.
And yes — many people today have lost that confidence in others.
Getting Back Our Generosity of Spirit
If we know we are fundamentally good — even though imperfect — we can assume the same about others.
Most people are generally good. Imperfect, yes. Influenced by their environment, yes. But not inherently malicious.
Showing up with that energy makes us more attractive.
3. The Courage to Be Normal
Adler says we must have the courage to be normal.
In a world of Instagram profiles and constant attention-seeking, this is radical.
We often try to be special because we cannot accept our normal selves.
In dating, we try to stand out — sometimes by leading with money, status, or impressive gestures.
But when we lead with that, we attract people who want us for that.
The courage to be normal means self-acceptance.
You are fine as you are. There is value in simply being you.
4. Dating Is Not a Competition
Adler said life isn’t a competition. And dating isn’t either.
When we compete, we create enemies, not comrades.
We often see relationships as vertical — people above us or beneath us.
Adler suggests we see them as horizontal. Different — but equal.
We each have strengths and weaknesses. We are all on the same level field.
When we see someone impressive, we don’t need to feel inferior. We can celebrate them without diminishing ourselves.
5. Date as If You’re Dancing
Most of us treat dating as a means to an end — finding “the one.”
Adler would say the destination isn’t the point. The experience is.
Like mountain climbing — even if you don’t reach the summit, the climb mattered.
Dating is dancing.
We don’t dance to get somewhere. We dance because dancing itself is worth it.
Living in a way that invites love — staying open, joining activities, flirting, expanding your world — that’s dancing.
As you dance, you move. You end up somewhere new. But the movement wasn’t the point — the experience was.
Turning Up the House Lights
Kishimi uses a metaphor of standing on a stage with the house lights turned down — able to see the entire theater, past and future.
But when the lights are turned up, you can’t see the past or the future.
There is only now.
When we live fully in the present, we release the limiting story of our past and the anxiety of our future.
The lights are up.
And we are dancing.
If you’d like more videos applying psychology to dating, let me know in the comments.
And don’t forget to sign up for The Love Life Reset at lovelifereset.com. I’ll see you in mid-September.
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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