Primary Topic
This episode explores Noah Kagan's deepest regrets about not taking relationships and self-improvement more seriously earlier in life, providing advice for personal growth and better relationships.
Episode Summary
Main Takeaways
- Relationships mirror self-perception and improving one's relationship with oneself is crucial.
- Finding a life partner is a significant upgrade to one’s life quality.
- It's important to date around to understand what one truly wants from a partner.
- Optimism and effort are key in finding and maintaining fulfilling relationships.
- Authentic self-improvement and happiness are foundational before seeking a partner.
Episode Chapters
1: Opening Thoughts
Noah discusses his biggest regret regarding relationships, highlighting his journey and the purpose of the episode. Noah Kagan: "My number one regret in life is that I didn't take [relationships] more seriously."
2: Relationship Insights
Exploring self-reflection and past relationships, Noah delves into how personal growth leads to better romantic connections. Noah Kagan: "Making a better relationship with yourself... is gonna change your life."
3: Business and Relationships
Noah draws parallels between business dealings and personal relationships, stressing the importance of understanding personal and partner’s needs. Noah Kagan: "Running a business is the similar thing to dating."
4: Practical Advice
Concrete steps and strategies Noah used to improve his relationships and self-worth, including professional help and personal anecdotes. Noah Kagan: "Do the work is going to therapy and figuring out why you're doing that."
Actionable Advice
- Reflect on personal insecurities and address them head-on.
- Engage in meaningful relationships by improving self-esteem.
- Seek professional guidance or therapy to tackle relationship issues.
- Regularly assess personal growth and happiness.
- Stay optimistic and open to new relationships, even after setbacks.
About This Episode
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We’re back with our 3rd round of our ‘Brutally Honest’ series and this week it’s a deep one. I’m giving advice to my younger self again but this time it’s about relationships, specifically dating– but honestly most of this advice you can apply with adding anyone important in your life.
Now I wish I'd paid more attention to relationships when I was younger, more importantly I wish I’d paid more attention to the relationship I had with myself. My relationships with other people often mirrored how badly I felt about myself. Constructive communication and mutual respect are vital for navigating conflicts and building a strong foundation. Creating your ideal relationship requires effort, honesty, and a willingness to invest in yourself and your partner.
So we’re going to explore everything I’ve learned about how to find the right person to share your life with.
In this conversation, you’ll enjoy 3 BIG things:
What should you look for in another person How to make yourself feel better How similar making money and developing physical fitness are to dating Enjoy these 3 things plus many nuggets along the way.
Check out Mark Manson’s book Models, it helped me a ton to get over some of my issues,
Also check Stephanie Rigg, she’s a certified relationship coach who helped me a lot too.
If you're hungry for more of these ‘Brutally Honest’ episodes, join me as I jump into the time machine to drop some serious wisdom on my younger self. You can hear the first 2 about Careers and Business, that’s episode 346 & episode 348 of this feed!
Sign up for my email newsletter at noahkagan.com. People have been loving my brutally honest advice on a variety of topics. Join 350k+ subscribers at noahkagan.com.
People
Noah Kagan, Mafe, John Ross, Tracy, Mark Manson, Stephanie Rigg
Books
"Models" by Mark Manson
Content Warnings:
None
Transcript
Noah Kagan
What is up, you sexy bastards? It is your boy Caliente, aka Rabbi can't lose, aka Noah Kagan. We are back with our third round of our brutally honest advice series, and this week it is a big one. Now I'm recording this from Sarasota, Florida, and I'm on my baby moon with my new wife. How crazy is that?
What I wish I would have had is advice in my twenties, my younger self, about relationships, about how to be in a better relationship with myself and to be able to find an amazing partner like I eventually did. So if you're single, this is for you. And if you're already in a relationship, I think there's gonna be a lot of really juicy nuggets to help you improve your relationship. Or maybe get out of one. Now this is my number one regret in life, is that I didn't take this more seriously.
Younger, my relationship with others often mirrored how badly I was feeling about myself. And boy, I will tell you, making a better relationship with yourself and figuring out how to be in a better relationship with others is gonna change your life. It is the number one life upgrade you can make, which is being in better relationships. Now, here's three gigantic things you're going to take away from this episode. Number one, what things should you look for in another person?
Now, I have a different approach on this. Number two, how do you feel better about yourself? And number three, how running a business is the similar thing to dating. There's going to be that, plus a bunch more ear nuggets along the way. I can't wait for you to hear this episode.
I love to hear feedback. You can always dm me oah Kagan and let me know what you thought of the episodes. There's a few things I'm going to call out in this episode. You can check out Mark Manson's book. It's called models.
This is one of his first books and it is phenomenal. I love this book. You can also check out Stephanie Rigg on instagram and her website is Stephanie stephanierigg.com dot. She is a certified relationship coach who helped me a ton. Literally.
A few weeks after we had a breakthrough session, I met mafe. Fast forward a year, we're having a baby and in Sarasota, Florida, we're gonna get a sponsor by them. If you're hungry for more of these brutally honest advice series, I'm curious what you think they've been fun to make. I did one about careers and I did one about business. You can see them in the feed at episode 346 and 348.
I've also been sharing emails that break down this brutally honest advice in life. Over@noahkagan.com dot so go check it out@noacagan.com. Dot we also have a brand new site that we launched. If you're looking for Solopreneur tools or you're a creator of tools for small business owners, go to fivetaco.com dot. That's five taco.com dot.
It's a brand new site. We just launched it. We want to make the world's greatest directory of all the tools you need for solopreneurs and their ratings and reviews about them. That's Fivetaco.com dot. Also, special pre show shout out to listener, the codinator.
That is a dope screen name. Howdy, partner. I've been a cowboy all my life and Noah does it like Noah, but for real. First class podcast for anyone starting a business or growing one. No one knows what he's talking about.
And even better, how to effectively communicate it. The codonator. I love you, man. I hope we go riding horses one day. And I love every other one of you gorgeous listeners.
Take 30 seconds right now. Go on Spotify. Go on iTunes, leave a review. It really makes the world a difference for me. It helps the podcast find other people, and I'll shout you out in a future episode.
Thank you so much.
This is my number one regret in life. True story. I wish I took myself and dating more seriously in my twenties. Every one of the relationships I was having were women that I was getting, not necessarily women that I wanted. And we're going to break down.
I'll share a lot of different things in my stories to help you in your own relationship experience, whether you're having a great, successful relationship or you're just starting out to figure it the hell out. By the way, one thing in brutally honest is no one knows what the fuck we're doing out here on this planet. So don't sweat if you're like, I don't know. I don't know what's going on and everyone else does, that means you're in the right place, I think, where relationships started for me, what I think of is that I got cheated on after college, and that's what really started the decline. But if I had to shorten out all of that, it was just 20 years of it sucking until I finally met mafe.
But what it really is that it took me 20 years to find Noah. And that's part of your own journey. And that you're experiencing in your life. So after I was cheated on, I think it made me truly, subconsciously feel unlovable. And why would someone not want to be with me?
And for maybe 1518 years of it, I was always comparing. Like, the person's not as cool as that person. Why can't I be with someone? And my honest subconscious thoughts, what it was always saying was, just have someone that can just be there, and it seems that they like you and they won't leave you. So I overcompensated.
And we do that in relationships. When you have one bad dating person or one bad breakup, you kind of overcompensate on the negative, like, oh, I got to find someone who will never leave. And so I don't think I was ever really fully at peace with myself and at peace with relationships until around 40, 20 years later from that time period. And then I found Mafe. Having a great life partner is one of the biggest life upgrades you can make, period.
Like, nothing else is going to change by the person who you spend the most time with, which is going to be your partner. And being alone sucks sometimes. Sometimes kind of cool, but having a partner who's thinking about how to make your life better, who's looking out for you, who's challenging you in productive ways, you know, my previous partners didn't want me to do YouTube and didn't want me to do social media. They're like, why? Whereas Mafia's like, get the hell out of my face.
Go make some films. Go give some advice. And so finding your great partner is probably the best things you can do in your life besides finding yourself. Now, the other thing I would say there's a lot of different advice around here is that they're out there for you. You know, my buddy John Ross shut out.
He told me he met Tracy, and over time, he's like, dude, she's all of my best friends in one, meaning that, like, she's every one of my best friends in terms of, like, who she is as a person in one. And he's like, no, there's someone out there for you. And I was like, fuck off. That's not true. There's no way I could find someone like that.
There's no way. And it was just not a belief. And if I can leave you with anything from this episode, or I'm leaving you with a lot of things, they're out there for you, waiting for you. They're out there thinking, damn, when is she going to come talk to me? When is he going to come talk to me.
They are out there waiting right now, right this fricking moment being like. And really all that is, is optimism. And so I've met a lot of people that are dating or having challenge with dating. Like, I don't have a pipeline. It's like, pipeline's easy.
There's literally a billion people. How many people that are qualified to find you? You know, maybe less than that. But there's a lot of that. They're out there waiting for you.
So have optimism in your experience. So what is all the advice about? Brutally honest advice around that. If I had to give myself brutally honest advice about it, I would say in my twenties, date a ton of people, like, go wild. And it's hard because I noticed this in business when we're doing recruiting and interviewing, you never want to hire the first person you interview.
But sometimes that's the best. And so how do you ever know? And that's the tough part. And I do think just like in interviewing at jobs and interviewing for relationships, you do have to go through a few dates to find understand yourself and understand what you like to be able to find the right person. The best dating advice that from Mark Manson read his book models.
That's fire. Highly recommend. I don't think people are as familiar with that as well as Stephanie Rigg. She's on Instagram, but they both recommend the same thing. And there's all these books on pickup which are really good reads.
But really improving yourself is the number one way to have a better relationship. And when people say this. So Stephanie Rigg is Stephanie. Double underscore. I'm just going to give you your URL.
It's Stephanie. Stephanierigg.com. She's amazing. I hired her as a dating coach and I've also gone to therapy and both of those have really helped. But in terms of liking yourself and working on that relationship, when people say this shit, they're always like, do the work.
I'm like, what is the work? What is this woo woo shit you're referring to? That's called work. Work is the stuff that's hard. And in relationships, let's say your behavior is you keep dating 21 year olds even though you're 35 and you know you don't want to date those anymore.
Doing the work is going to therapy and figuring out why you're doing that and doing the work is actually saying no to the 21 year olds that's doing the work. It's doing the thing you probably don't want to do. But you know that there's a better outcome for you. And so in our own lives and in relationships, do the work. So what I wish I would have done differently is in my twenties, not just taken any woman I could have gotten, but really worked on just liking myself more.
So maybe not drinking as much, maybe getting my own apartment, which I didn't do for my whole twenties, maybe just being more at peace with myself, finally, finally work I like about myself. And it took me, unfortunately, you know, 35 to almost 39 to get to that point. It's not a sexy story where I have an amazing thing for you. It was a lot of, honestly, frustration. I'm sure I wasn't a great partner to a lot of these people.
So it's like, fuck, man, you wasted 15 years not liking yourself and not saying, hey, this person doesn't seem to be a great partner for me. I should end it. I was too afraid to end it, which is a lot of people have very polarizing things about what you're looking for. Now let me be clear. Cause a lot of times you ask someone, I asked a buddy, I said, hey, what are you looking for?
And he's like, funny, attractive, sweet. I was like, that's the normal shit that should be the person. And what I've realized that I wish I would have been more mindful of is more very binary. So let me give you an example. Kids, no kids, super black and white.
Makes it really easy. Religion. Jew, not jew. Muslim, not Muslim. Christian, not Christian, doesn't matter.
But find things that are very polarizing because funny is subjective. So for me, with Mafe, how I ended up being clear on it. And I think one of the biggest themes for me is I try to date more of a woman than dating a girl. And so for women, it's dating a man instead of a boy. The things for me was, do I want to sit down and have dinner with this person?
Because you have, you know, you guys have heard this stuff, but you have a thousand dinners, and if you're not enjoying a dinner with the person, you're, holy shit, it's not going to work out. So that was one. Number two was the kids. Number three was living. So I like living in America and Europe.
And if I had to be with someone who's like, no, we're going to stay in LA. And I did date some people in LA and New York, and they're like, I'm not leaving New York ever. I was like, oh, shit, that sucks. And then the fourth one for me, that is a interesting one to kind of admit out loud is, am I impressed? Do I respect this person?
And really, the word I think about is do I admire. That might be subjective to some people. And let me be crystal clear. I'm not saying mafe or the partner I was looking for how to make a lot of money. I'm not saying that they had to have multiple degrees.
I'm not saying that all this different stuff, but thinking about what are the criteria for you, where as you meet someone, you can be honest with yourself, and you could think, is this a red flag, green flag or yellow flag? You want to have zeros and ones so you can really find the person you're looking for. Other advices, and brutally honest advice is, you gotta be where the fish are. So, you know, in the beginning, it really mattered for me, or I thought it did. I never actually dated a jewish person, but I thought I'd date a jewish person.
So I went to Israel, I went to New York. It's called marketing. I went to LA, and it turned out the jewish thing wasn't as important to me even as well. Let's take a non religious one. Let's say you want a date and you're in your era, and you're like, man, I can't find attractive people.
Change it. My buddy David Kadavy, he moved to Colombia to find a solid wife for himself. So for me, I'm not surprised that I met my wife and partner in Barcelona. There's a surprising amount of attractive people there. So for yourself, you might need to change venues.
You know, one thing my relationship coach Stephanie said was that you do have to let go of one branch to go to the next branch. So you have to be ready. Like, if you're still seeing your ex, if you're still partying too much and doing these things that maybe aren't aligned for a healthy relationship, that's okay. Enjoy that. Embrace that.
Don't guilt yourself about it, but embrace that. Or if you want to be ready to relationship, you have to let go knowing that there's going to be a better branch out there for you. And it is out there. My brother gave me one brutally honest advice years ago. This is 15 years ago.
He's like, if you couldn't have sex with that girl, would you still be with her? I was like, no. He's like, well, maybe that tells you something about what you're there for. And I was like, damn, that's good advice. Yeah.
And then a few other lines. I remember I was engaged for a brief period of time. And I got engaged reluctantly, and it's my responsibility, and I feel really guilty about it. I felt guilty for about two years after we broke up. So I was like, was I doing what I wanted or just doing what I thought I should do?
And that's true for a lot of parts of life. And there's a few people. My buddy Chase, my buddy Chad. And it really stuck with me. And one of the things Chad said is like, are you getting what you're getting, or are you getting what you want?
And I was like, oh, man, that stings. Ow. God damn it, Chad. Why you guys say shit like that? To mean I was like, no, this is.
It's good. You know? It's good. But we all know the voice in our head. And as a kid, we never sequestered, that.
We never suffocated, that. We listened to it. We played with it. And as an adult, we know the same, but we try to drown it out sometimes. So I like that.
Are you getting what you're getting, or are you getting what you want? And the other part in this dating thing, my buddy Chase said, are you running down the aisle? And it was, damn, that was another good one, too. So if you're engaged to someone, are you running down the aisle to get married? And I will tell you, with mafe, I feel like I'm the lucky one.
I think she feels the same, hopefully. But I'm like, how did I trick this woman into being with me? I am so amazingly lucky. And we've had moments, and I'm going to not share my private stuff with her, but we have moments where I've gone to her where I'm feeling vulnerable and I'm feeling worried. If I share this with her, she's going to be upset, and she's just empathetic, and she's willing to have a conversation.
Whether it is really hard. I'm like, God damn, I'm lucky. So if I had to summarize in this category, we're talking a lot about dating. You have to know what you want, right? It's like going to the restaurant.
You kind of have to look at the dishes, try a few out, and eventually you have to order something that's more of a buffet. But you have to know the dish you like. And even before that, what we're all seeing with all this dating stuff is you have to like yourself. And if you don't, guess what you're in control of, that you can change your fitness, you can change your looks, you can change your geography, you can change your work. You can change your mindset and attitude.
That is all in your ability. Yeah, in my twenties, I think I was trying to date with a cool story. Like, oh, I met at work. Oh, I met at the airport. Oh, we met through blogs.
Oh, I met through the hospital. And someone asked me, do you care about a good story or a good relationship? And I was like, I'd rather have a good relationship. They're like, maybe do that. I was like, damn good advice.
Put that in the book. In terms of good dating books, I mentioned a few earlier. The other one, I would say is Laurie Gottlieb's marry the case for settling for mister good enough. I read this book. She's a phenomenal writer.
And it's just about how a lot of times we're trying to over optimize for the perfect, perfect person. And there's an amazing person out there, but it's hard to have perfect, right? Because we're not perfect. Only AI is perfect. And that's not even true.
That shit sucks still. But I really like that book about just being more okay with yourself and being more okay to find a partner that could be good, you know, really treat you well, you know? And it's interesting, a lot of times when you date, I think in my twenties, and it's been a while, you're like, oh, I need sparks. I need fire. I need to have some crazy moment.
Oh, my God. And then when you get older and you don't have that, you're like, oh, this might not be it. And you're like, no, no, this could be it. And I like to think of, if you think of it a graph, right? What if your relationship looks like Warren Buffett's stock market investments, where it's like nothing happened for 40 years, really?
And then it's like, exponential. And I like to think maybe it doesn't take 40 years, but each year it's getting better and better and better. There's a great quote. I think it's Esther Perel or one of these people. And she says, if you want variety in dating, date one person.
Oof. And that was spicy because you do these dates, man. I remember being on dates a few years ago, and you tell the same story and you tell the same things, and you're just like, akai, you know, it's so much more interesting. And you get variety when you actually have to learn about what did they eat at lunch at school, like, what were their favorite family vacations? And you really get a lot more variety around that.
What have you learned about how to talk to your spouse? How to have difficult conversations early on with my wife, spouse is a weird one. I learned that. I really appreciated that we didn't scream and yell when we argued. I think how you argued tells a lot about a relationship.
We had a few difficult moments, which is inevitable, right? I think it's kind of a good thing in relationships. I think there's probably two sides of that. And I noticed that when we'd have really good, hard conversations, we weren't screaming, which I definitely did in the past. Both sides, we were listening, we were trying to understand, and we were trying to get to some resolution.
That was really different. I gotta tell you, a part of it that was kind of interesting is that when we went on our first date, it wasn't a great first date. And this is counter advice for y'all. I know it's brutally honest. We didn't have a great first date.
Right? And again, you know, it's supposed to have all these sparks. If you don't have a great first date, what the hell? But we kept communicating. And I think this is kind of the.
When I said one of my core things that I looked for was that we just kept texting and messaging on Instagram. And I was like, wow, I really. At the end of the 30 days, I was leaving Spain, and I was like, she is definitely someone I'd be just curious to get to know better. And so with yourself, like, especially if you're, you know, maybe a little bit older, maybe thirties or late forties, give a person a second chance, at least. Unless it's so obvious, a no.
And I would say, yeah, we kept getting to know each other and it was just getting better and better. But our first date wasn't great, right? And we even had a brief breakup in the middle of a relationship. And it's gotten better and better and better and better. And so, one, there's no straight line relationship.
That's just bullshit. And some of my favorite relationships I've admired from outside have broken up. Some of the relationships that I thought of shouldn't broken up have stayed together. So the whole point of that is no one knows what the fuck's going on. And so don't worry about other relationships.
You can use those as role models, but just start thinking about how do you create your own best relationship with yourself and this other person? What is the work I had to do on myself? Oh, fuck. I don't even want to admit that out loud. When people say do the work.
I want to share more what I had to do. One, if I'm still dating and partying, which I was doing a bit, how does that make me available or make me interesting to someone who would actually be serious? They're not. They would think I'm not serious because I wasn't. So that was something I was definitely had to work on, which is like, all right, if you're dating and you know it's not the person, you should not see them again.
And that is hard, right? Especially because it's fun, it feels good in the moment, and it's not necessarily gonna get you where you wanna go. And I think with dating, one of the things I've been thinking about in dating, but also business, is, what are you saying you want and what's your behavior? What do you say you want and what is your behavior? So, if you say you want a wife or you want a husband or you want something, but your behavior is to the side of that, something to think about.
So one, less partying. Number two, was being happier with myself. And so I went to therapy with a guy. I don't wanna call him out. Cause I think he was getting too busy now, but I was just going to therapy, and he's like, how do we have you be more happy alone at home without anyone?
How do we help you not distract yourself with drinking? How do we have you just be happy with just Noah? And Noah's good enough. And then, you know, it's still an ongoing thing where I want more money or I want more fame or I want more. And it's like, dude, it's enough.
Chill the fuck out. But some of that's also what's helped me get here, that defense mechanism. And so, for yourself, like, how do you feel happy alone? How do you practice that if you're with someone or not? You're like, okay, I'm still doing pretty damn great.
If someone came along, that would just add more in. So, definitely going to therapy was a huge shift in that. I definitely read a lot. You know, these books that I'm talking to you about. When did I know that mafe was the one?
I was actually in the bathtub. Yeah, I was in the bathtub and thinking, what an amazing person we've had. You know, it's been about a year. And I was like, man, what a great person to spend life with. We go back to some of the core things about, like, they want kids, they want traveling.
Do I admire them? You know, when you hear a lot of couples we fell out of love. You know, relationships take work. I think one of the best things I did with our relationship, we took a connection course by Joe Hudson. Highly recommend.
I think it was like a $1,000. It's expensive, but it was highly vulnerable and very intimate in us being able to talk and create a deeper connection. You know what I've realized with all this shit in life? This is the crazy part about advice. Everything is effort.
Like, if you want your house fixed, you have to put in effort. If you want to be healthy, you have to put in effort. If you want money, you have to put in effort. If you want a relationship, you have to put in effort. And one of the things that I wish someone would have told me is that I thought, when you get the wife in this, the one that it's just like, here's the dish.
See you later. It's like, no, there's still more work to do, but the work is actually pretty fun, and it's still something to keep evolving, right? It's not something you just get and you stop, right? No garden keeps going without water. And that's the same with the relationship.
It takes an effort to keep maintaining it, moving into, like, when I knew that mafe was the one for me. We were at cabo and one of our friends weddings, and I remember we both joked how I like to be married for five years, and then every five years, you have to renew it. I was like, wow, I like that she's an open minded thinker, and we can have this kind of conversation without someone just being, no, you'll be married forever. I'm like, dude, forever is really long. Like, most people are never doing nothing forever.
I don't think that's proper English. So why are we doing this relationship stuff? And it was just cool that we at least have that conversation about it. And I think when I knew that she was the one, I was in my bathtub, and I was just, honestly, I just committed. I know that sounds a little crazy, maybe too simplistic, but I think a lot of times in life, you can outthink yourself.
But I said, this is an amazing person. We have a lot of the same values. I love how we look at life. I could see us spending at least the next five or ten years together. Who knows what that's going to even look like?
So I can commit today, and I'll just keep committing every single day. And I just each day commit and show up. You know? I would say what's helped us in our relationship to this day is feedback. I'm still making mistakes.
You know, there's days where I'm working too long and she's like, can you just come fucking chill? Or, hey, why do you have your phone on? And a lot of times I just say, hey, can you just tell me what's going on and why you were bothered by that? Not saying I'm agreeing with all of it, but, yes, I do. I agree with all of it.
I'm sorry, but I'm listening, and I'm like, hey, you know what? You're right. And I can get better. And I think she appreciate. I don't know.
I probably should ask her. I think she really appreciates that, that I'm willing to listen and I'm willing to improve. And so in your own relationship, whether you're single, you can ask your guy friends about how you can improve to be better for a relationship, or you're already in a relationship, go get some feedback. And I think that's definitely what's helped us stay successful. We just got back from our honeymoon.
We went on an rv trip. And I would say what was fascinating about the honeymoon is that you're with that same, only that person for a week, and we were in an rv. So we're not only alone, we're in a box for a week. That's a good relationship test. So your first or second date, go get an rv with someone else.
And it kind of blew my mind in relationships, and this is my own insecurities or vulnerabilities, is that from my partner? She just wants to be with me. That makes me feel uncomfortable, and that makes me feel like, do I want to be with myself, or should I just be busy biking or making business or making content or whatever these things are? And it was nice that all I had to do was be with her. I was like, okay, can we just go for a walk?
And then it's also okay for me to share how I feel. Like, hey, can I listen to a podcast while we walk? And she's not judging me or getting mad, but just being like, sure, that's okay, but how come do you want to chat sometimes? And then we actually just have a good conversation. We end up just talking about those kind of things for the whole walk.
And. And I've seen so many ways of relationships working out. And Mafi, for me, is, as I said earlier, is really a woman versus a girl, right? So it's an adult versus a child. And I think if you're an adult, you're feeling like an adult, which means you feel responsible for yourself, not just financially, which is how I used to always feel.
I'm like, I'm responsible financially but not mentally. And the more you develop that and the more as you start interacting and dating other people, you will find an adult. But you do have to say no to all the other things that maybe are not adult like or not aligned to what you want. And I promise you, you will find it out there. It's probably worth it to invest in your dating profiles.
Like, 80% of people meet on these dating apps. So if you're going to do it, take it seriously. You know, like, get the good picture. Ask the person you're trying to attract. Don't ask your same sex people.
Meaning if you're a guy, go ask female friends. What do you think of this profile? Because that's your customers. Because a lot of guys put fish and stuff like that. I think Mafe liked my profile because I put I'm really into chocolate chip cookies, which is true.
I love power cookies. I think that's the only reason she responded to me. And now we're about to have a child. So chocolate chip cookies work, you know, take your dating profile seriously. Yeah, I feel so fucking lucky.
And I'm hoping you're feeling lucky in your relationship and if not, you will get there. And I'd love to hear some of inspiration on maybe this episode really impacted you to take yourself more seriously and realize that you can get that out there. It's definitely available. You know, I wouldn't pressure myself at 18 to go get a wife right away. I would pressure myself from 18 to 25.
Really just being, hey, I don't think I'm going to get married at this point, but I really want to work on really enjoying it and liking who I am. That doesn't mean just indulging in partying, in drugs and food and success, but just enjoying who I am and liking who I am and being open to interacting with a lot of people. And then at some point after you feel like you've interacted with enough, I think 25 is pretty arbitrary, but seems like a good point. Then say, all right, I'm going to take this more seriously. And I will tell you, when I said, hey, I'm going to take dating and myself more seriously.
Truly, it was like six weeks until I met Maffei. And I've heard that from a lot of other people. You know, you're successful in business and we do want to replicate that in relationships, but it's very hard to control humans. And sometimes the mystery can be fun and being excited that the unknown is out there and it will present itself when the timing is right. Thank you to everyone who ever dated me, who put up with me, who tried out Noah Kagan to give me feedback and help me become the person I am today, the man I am today.
And I hope all the people I've dated are at great places as well. You know, I would say just in closing, I will say I wake up in the morning and I see my partner and I see her face and I'm just at peace with all of it. And just like she's sleeping and it's nice for me. And I see her just happy in her dreams or wherever her mind is. And I do wish I wasn't so hard on myself.
And even now I look back like, damn, you were really tough and on myself during those periods, I'm sure not great in these relationships. Like, I didn't have stable housing, didn't like my work, didn't like my locations, and being okay taking time and patience and grace to ourselves in these very major areas. But I will say life upgrade. Number two. Number one is yourself.
Number two is this relationship stuff and finding someone. Cause it really impacts every other area of your life. If you're not happy at home, you're not gonna be happy nowhere else. And I wish you luck and excitement out there and share with me some of your relationship stories. I love you guys.
Have a nice relationship. That is a wrap. I hope you loved the episode as much as we did making it for you. Before you go, sign up for my newsletter, Noahkagan.com dot. We have an exclusive email each and every week.
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Next, text a friend. You love them. Yo, dawg, let's go get some enchiladas together. Also, slide in my DM's. Let me know what you think.
Oahkagan. I love hearing from you. You can check out markmanson.net and stephanyrig.com. They have amazing advice on life and in dating specifically. Stephanie over on Instagram is just total fire.
Finally, a couple shout outs to the amazing team who helped make this happen. They get adjacenodcasttech.com for doing the podcast editing. Thank you to Jeremy, Cam, Sylvie, Jay, Diego, and memo from the dork team. Y'all are amazing. Have a day.
What's your favorite? Salsa. Sometimes it's like, I want that burning hot ghost pepper stuff that, like, just makes you run right to the bathroom sometimes, you know? I got. I got a corn and bean one lately.
Pretty good, pretty, pretty good.