The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Searching for the Secrets of True Love With Nate Bagley

His growing feelings of cynicism and frustration with love, led Nate Bagley on a search for answers to the questions of what what true love really is, and how to attain it. The search resulted in conversations with people who were experiencing these things on a daily basis and the start of what became known as the “Lovumentary”

How failing in relationships caused Nate to start searching for answers
The importance of learning to act on your insatiable curiosity
Why Nate’s worst-case scenario actually caused hint o be happy
How being average is more competitive than being extraordinary
The fear of being the person who loves the most in a relationships
Why not settling for average is an important quality in your life
Lessons learned from the relationships that didn’t work out
The lack of roles models in the world for health loving relationships
Why there is on no formula for true love
A look at the secrets of some incredibly happy couples
The willingness to put yourself second in a relationship
Why you must love yourself before anybody else does
A incredible story about a man who was single at the age of 52
How to sustain the “honeymoon” phase in your relationship

Nate Bagley is a mover, shaker, decision maker and fighter. He's also the creator of The Lovumentary

Subscribe for ad-free interviews and bonus episodes https://plus.acast.com/s/the-unmistakable-creative-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Duration:: 58m
Broadcast on:: 17 Mar 2014
Audio Format:: other

As you probably noticed, this month we're bringing you our "Life of Purpose" series and revisiting some of our most transformative episodes, tune in to explore expert insights and practical strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free "Life of Purpose" ebook. What you have to do is go to UnmistakeableCreative.com/Lifepurpose again. I'm Srini Rao, and this is the Unmistakeable Creative Podcast, where I speak with creative entrepreneurs, artists, and other insanely interesting people to hear their stories, learn about their molding moments, tipping points, and spectacular takeoffs. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at Mint Mobile.com/Switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first three month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of detail. Robinhood is introducing forecast contracts so you can trade the presidential election. Through Robinhood, you can now trade financial derivatives contracts on who will win the US presidential election, Harris or Trump, and watch as contract prices react to real-time market sentiment. Each contract you own will pay $1 on January 8, 2025 if that candidate is confirmed as the next US President by Congress. Learn more about the presidential election contracts on Robinhood at www.robinhood.com/election. The risk of loss in trading commodity interests can be substantial. You should therefore carefully consider whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your financial condition. Restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Commodity interest trading is not appropriate for everyone. Displayed prices are based on real-time market sentiment. This event contract is offered by Robinhood derivatives, a registered futures commission merchant and swap firm, exchange and regulatory fees apply. Learn more at www.robinhood.com/election. His growing feelings of cynicism and frustration with love led Nate Bagley on a search for answers to the questions of what true love really is and how to attain it. The search resulted in conversations with people who are experiencing these things on a daily basis and it became the start of what is known today as the love you mentored. Listen in as Nate talks to me about everything he's learned about true love. Nate, welcome to the unmistakable creative. Thanks. It's great to be here. Yeah. My pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. I came across your work by way of a friend of mine and it was interesting to look at what you guys are up to and think, "Wow, okay, I think this is something that everybody needs to hear about." Tell us a bit about your story, your background and kind of how that has led to what you have called the love you mentory. Well, I'm trying to think how far back I should go. This has been a project in the making for several years, at least in my brain. I think everybody has those ideas every so often of those things that they're insatiably curious about, but most people don't act on them. So for quite a while, I've had this idea of what really makes an amazing relationship. What is it that goes into the relationships that people look at and go, "Oh, man, I wish I had that," and I've been fortunate enough to be surrounded by a lot of happy couples growing up, but as I've been dating, I turned 30 next week, and as I've been dating over the last decade or so, I mean, my ultimate goal was to end up in a serious long-term relationship that, for me, I would get married, but that isn't everybody's goal. But I noticed that all of my relationships were not really panning out the way I had hoped. They'd end up in quick breakups or the longest relationship I'd been in was about six months, and I was just like, "What am I doing wrong?" And then I realized one day that maybe I should change my focus from what I was doing wrong to what other people were doing right and see if I could kind of mimic that. Maybe I was missing something. Have you ever heard of, do you know Sean Acre and the happiness advantage? Absolutely. We've had him here as a guest. Oh, he's so phenomenal. So he talks about how if we study what is average, we will merely become average. But he likes to study the bright spots, the outliers, the people who are amazingly happy to find out if he can raise the happiness level of people as a whole. And I kind of wanted to take that same approach, but with couples. So I started interviewing couples and talking to them about a microphone, and I found that other people were having the exact same questions I was having, so I just started asking couples those questions. What is it that made their relationship work? Why were they so happy together? And then I put a few of them online and they were well received, and people were like, "Wow, you need to do more of this," and it's kind of just blown up since then. So that's kind of where we are now, that's the short version of the story. All right, well obviously we're going to make you tell the long version of this story. But before we do that, there's already plenty here that we can work with. So I love that all of this started, and I do want to actually spend quite a bit of time talking about your discoveries and your research, because I think that's the part that is actually quite fascinating, and I'm personally curious about, because I can relate to a lot of what you've gone through. You know, there is something earlier that you said, right at the very beginning. You said that you were insatially curious about something you decided to act on it, and I think that we all have that, but there's a distinction between people who act on that insatiable curiosity and the ones who don't, and I'm really curious, what do you think separates those people? And sometimes also, I can't imagine there aren't hurdles once you act, and that's one of those things. So let's get into kind of how you get yourself to act on insatiable curiosity. Yeah, that's the trick, isn't it? Everybody's got a good idea, but the idea's worth nothing unless you execute it. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. But I feel like there's a certain level of insanity and there's a certain level of kind of brash courage that goes into being willing to walk away from a desk job, walk away from security, walk away from predictability, walk away from comfort, and say, "I'm going to throw myself into the unknown and take a risk," and for me, I literally had to sit down with a friend one day and I realized that the worst possible thing that could happen to me, the worst thing is that I would blow through all of my savings and I would have to move into my parents' basement and be that guy, the 30-year-old guy who's living in his parents' basement. And you know what, the worst possible thing happened, but I'm freaking happy. I did blow through all of my savings, but I got to fulfill a dream and it's turning into the possibility of being a real income for me, a real lifestyle, and not only that, but I feel that I'm impacting hundreds, if not thousands of lives, which is completely mind-boggling. It was the results from me taking that risk initially compared to what I thought they would be compared to what they are right now is just like, "I can't even believe it," and one thing I realized is that there's a lot of competition for average out there. Most people are competing for middle management positions, they're competing for the salary positions, but there's not a whole lot of people competing for the big pie-in-the-sky dreams, and so once you actually take that step and dive into the unknown and really have a goal and work hard at it, the competition for fulfilling that goal is not as rough as it is in the regular workplace, at least that's what I've come to find out. Well, I think that's such a refreshing perspective, the fact that there's a lot of competition to be average, that's so true. Yeah. I don't think anybody sees it that way. They see risk as such a daunting thing, but we had Stephen Kotler here recently, I was talking to you about flow states, and he talked a lot about how risk takes you into a state of flow, and not only that, I think that there's, you know, risk is where people come to life. Oh, absolutely. Like I think that if you're sleepwalking, there's nothing that wakes you up more than taking a really, really big risk. Well I think the biggest risk people can take is to love, to bring a full circle, you know. Love is a huge risk, at least loving big, loving too many people are safe in their love. One of the best pieces of love advice that I got over the last year was from this wonderful lady in Georgia, and she and her husband had been married for over 60 years, they had been around the world, they had done amazing things, and I said, after all of your experiences, what's the best piece of advice that you could give us, or give single people, or people who want the love that you have? And she said, don't be afraid to be the one who loves the most. And I think there's this stigma that if you're the one who cares less, you have more power in the relationship, and we crave that power, we don't want to get hurt, we don't want to open ourselves up, but man, when you can really open up your heart and take that risk and let yourself be loved and to love fully, that's what life is. That's like the most fulfilling thing you can experience in life, is to be truly loved by somebody and to fully love somebody else. Well, let's do this, I think that's a perfect setup. I actually want to talk about what leads you to the conclusion that, okay, I have to figure this out. You kind of touched on relationships that didn't last. I want to get into detail now, which you've heard my show, so you know that I'm going to drill you on all this. Yeah, drill me. Go right ahead. You know, I mean, I can relate, you know, I'd gotten to a point where I thought, you know, I'm like, I'm going to settle, it's inevitable, like, it's going to happen and I'm just going to numb myself somehow from the fact that I have settled and this isn't what I wanted. And you know, that's a line that I have not crossed. And that was my greatest fear is that I would actually cross that line. But what I am really interested in is sort of the evolution of your life as somebody who is single and dating that leads to this sucks. Why can't I figure it out? And what causes you to transition into, okay, I'm going to go figure it out and by asking people who've got it down. What leads you to that point? Talk to us, talk to us about that part of the journey. So I come from a very conservative part of the country. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah where in, at least in my area, in the suburbs of Salt Lake, the neighborhoods are anywhere between like 70 and 85 or 90 percent Mormon. And there's a huge focus in that community on family. And most people get married fairly young. And I was 27 and so two, about two years ago, my youngest brother got married at 23. And I have another younger brother who's 27 who just got engaged. And all of the majority of the people that I graduated high school with were married and had kids. And once you hit about 25, 26, 27 years old in this community, culturally, you're kind of looked at as a weirdo, like there's something wrong with you. Why aren't you married yet that shouldn't you? Like this family is like the number one priority. And if you're not starting one, you're putting something off or there's something weird about you. And that, like, there was a lot of pressure there. And so I was really actively dating because I really, that was something that was important to me at the time was starting a family. And I just kept failing and failing and things wouldn't work out and things wouldn't work out and relationships would fall apart. And I'd be really excited about a girl and we'd go out for like two or three months and then it would fizzle out or we would have a disagreement. And I would be like, this is just not working. And I kind of just reached this point where I realized that there was a growing group of people who were just like me, who had the same questions, who had the same frustrations, but nobody was really giving answers. I don't know if you've had this experience, but, you know, people who are in relationships say, yeah, it takes a lot of work or yes, you just have to sacrifice when it comes to love. There's a lot of sacrifice involved, but nobody ever sat me down and told me what the love and what the sacrifice was. Nobody broke that down into detail. Nobody told me, you know, what that was all about. And because all these other people that were my age kind of were feeling that same sort of, they're feeling ostracized, like I will have some kind of feeling broken. I was like, you know what? I'm sick of this. I'm sick of these vague answers. I'm going to go find my own answers and I'm going to go make people talk to me. And I feel like if I can find answers for myself, then maybe it'll benefit somebody else in my position. And I realized at one point that I wasn't getting any younger, that if I did wait much longer, that, you know, I had some savings built up from being a professional for quite a while. And I had no real obligations to like, to a wife or kids or a mortgage. And I was like, it's now or never. I can either take this risk and go find these answers now and do something for the world and do something for myself, or I can put it off like everybody else does and let this idea fizzle and for the rest of my life wonder whether or not I could find those answers. And I just decided to pull the trigger and like, it's been the most eye opening experience of my life sitting down and talking to these couples now. So cool. All right. So a lot of things here. I am really, really happy that you brought up the sort of cultural stigma of being in the community that you're in and, you know, being judged and, you know, feeling a lot of pressure because, you know, as you probably know from some of the conversations you may have heard on the air here, I'm Indian and I'm over 30. I'm 35. Yeah. So you get it. Oh, you, I get it more than you could possibly imagine. And I think that, you know, it's interesting. I think that we make a lot of bad decisions because of cultural stigmas. We make decisions, you know, I always say that this is the part that always, and it's such a hard line because you're torn between two really important things. You know, people that you love and care about, you know, they, you know, I think their intentions are good. Oh, absolutely. And yet what you, you're torn with is the fact that they're not the ones we're going to live with the consequences of the choices that you make. Right. And I guess really, you know, that, that takes me to the question of, you know, how you overcome the cultural stigma and say, you know what, it is what I'm not going to make my decisions based on what other people think. Because here's the thing, Nate, I think you and I both know in any one of these relationships that didn't work out, you could have forced it to get to the point where it fit and you fit square pegs into round holes. And everybody around you got the outcome they wanted, but you didn't. And I want to know why you didn't and how you basically overcome that stigma. Because I think that what you're feeling in that moment, that is a universal feeling for anybody who comes in cultures, who grows up or is in a part of a culture where there is that kind of pressure. You know, maybe, maybe it's, maybe I feel a little too self-important. Maybe I think, maybe I have this like, this, this fictionalized concept that I'm meant to do something big or that I'm, I'm some sort of black sheep and I don't fit in. I know there's a lot of people who feel that way when they're surrounded by the culture that they came from that they don't fit in, they're the square pegs in the round holes. And that's just kind of how I felt for a really long time. I remember coming out of college, I was really, really ambitious and I was working, I was working at a software company and my boss one day told me that my goals were too unrealistic and that I would never achieve them and that I needed to change them. And he's like, you're going to fail, you're going to fail and infuriated me. And I'm like, I, now I will succeed because you told me I was going to fail. And then not a year and a half later, I was working at another job and I had to leave for a new opportunity and my boss, that boss looked at me and told me whatever it is that you do next, I hope it fails. I hope it fails and I've just been, I feel like I've, I feel like growing up and going through living in this society that I didn't always feel a part of and then going through my professional life and having people tell me that I wasn't capable of doing what I wanted to do, added fuel to the fire and kind of validated the fact that like, yeah, I'm different. I'm not going to settle for average, I'm not going to settle for normal. I want big things for myself, I want good things for myself. I want to be in a really passionate, loving, caring, trust-filled relationship. I want to make a dent in the world. I want to influence people's lives and I think that's just part of my character. And then I've tried to kind of imbue that in the people that I come in contact with, whether it's through my podcast or through my blog or through my just friendships or email exchanges, like I want people to know that they don't have to settle for average because I refuse to settle for average. And I think you refuse to settle for average from what it sounds like. And I think that's a beautiful quality. There's too many people who are willing to settle for average and too many people who are totally oblivious to the fact that they are settling for average. Yeah, that is so true. And I think that's an epidemic almost of the culture that we live in because when you settle for average, it's safe. Settling for average is easy. That's the easiest way out of any situation. It absolutely is because it's comfortable. As we talked about earlier, taking that plunge, making that leap, that discomfort, that's where growth in life is, that risk. Life is risk. So let me ask you this. I mean, you talked about the relationships that fizzled out and didn't work out. Were there things, what did those relationships reveal to you? Wow, a lot of things. I think that they reveal to me that people, including myself, are scared to... I was always scared to say no. I was scared to maintain a piece of my identity, to maintain my personal identity, who I was. A lot of times I would sacrifice who I was to try and make the person I was with happy. There was a sense of, I'm very conflict-averse. So whenever conflict would arise, I found that I would panic and typically run instead of confronting it head-on. And I was ill-prepared for a relationship because I never really had anybody sit me down and tell me what to expect. And I think a lot of people fit into that category. I feel like the majority of people base their behaviors off of the examples and role models that they have available in their lives. And there just aren't a lot of really prevalent vocal role models and examples of what a really healthy, beautiful, loving relationship looks like. So we're all basing our actions off of Hollywood and off of a lot of dysfunctional relationships that we see in our lives, whether people are passive-aggressive or manic or codependent. If that's our example, that's how we live, that's what we consider to be normal. And that's what I consider to be normal. And it wasn't until I went out and started talking to these couples that I realized how backwards I had so many important things. I had completely... So I had a glimpse of what was possible, but I had no idea really until I saw it and how far off base and how ill-prepared I had been before for what I now strive for, if that makes sense. Yeah. No, it makes all the sense of the world. So it's interesting that you bring up our lack of healthy role models for healthy relationships. Because I think that that's something I think I see in every area of life. I don't think it just applies to relationships. I think that I think role models and models of possibility are something that we need a lot of. I mean, to me, that's what's fueled so much of ordinary people going out and trying to do extraordinary things, kind of like what you're doing. Yeah, I think you're right. The world needs better examples. That's definitely true. Yeah. Well, speaking of which, let's get into kind of how this evolves into what you call the love you mentoring. I mean, talk to me about that process. And then I do want to start getting into some of the specifics around relationships. Sure. Well, part of the process do you want to know about exactly? Well, talk to me about how, I mean, you said you just, you know, you start out and you start going and asking couples questions. And you know, obviously my guess is your first thought around this wasn't, you know, I'm going to just continue doing this to find answers. It just, again, you know, you start with insatiable curiosity. And to me, this is exactly, you know, it's very similar to the experience that I've had with building the show and it's one of those things where, you know, the parallel to me is it's, you know, you keep adjusting to what the wave is doing because I think that, you know, when you first, you know, go do the first interview, my guess is you weren't thinking of this huge project that it's turned into. So I'm curious, one about the creative process behind, you know, what you've built and how it's led to what it has. And then I want to start talking about the insights that have been revealed because I think that's the part that is really fascinating to me. And I'm sure a lot of people are very curious about, you know, what have you learned about healthy relationships? Yeah. Well, I think as far creatively, I have fallen in love with the stories. That's what's really driven me is that every single couple, one of the really interesting things that I've learned along the way is that there are as many definitions of what love is as there are couples who are experiencing it. There is no recipe, there is no one solid recipe for true love. You get to decide what that is, what that means to you. And so getting to sit down with dozens, hundreds of couples, and hear them tell their story of how, of what they've decided to create and call love as their own. It's been one of the most incredible things and I started out, have you ever heard the iraglass clip about when you start creating art, you have this taste and your taste is impeccable, but your ability to create something that matches that taste is like super far off. And you have to just keep, like, you listen to your first pieces of work and you're like, oh man, that sucks. So bad. Yeah. So I mean, I was completely novice. I had never really conducted an interview before. I had never, I mean, I have no training in like psychology. I'm no expert in anything. I'm calling myself an anti expert because I literally have no clue what I'm doing. I'm just really curious. And I talked to smart people who do know what they're doing and kind of translate their message through me, but, but yeah, anyway, I started falling a little with these stories and I found that the more I, the more stories I recorded and the more I edited and the more I got used to asking the better questions, the better the project got and the more people enjoyed it. And I started to grow and I started to grow and I had, I had recorded about 25 episodes and they were all fairly local in the West Coast, either between Utah, Idaho and California. And then a mutual friend introduced me to Melissa Joy Kong, who had a similar goal. She has, she wrote a bucket list a few years ago and one of the items on her bucket list was to travel around the country and write a book after she had interviewed like a hundred couples. And I was like, holy crap, like I've already started interviewing couples. You want to interview couples. You want to write a book. I want to do a podcast. I love the female voice on the podcast. If you want to team up, like, let's do a road trip. And so I had built up an audience. We launched a Kickstarter. We raised $30,000. We spent 90 days on the road. We actually met for the first time on the first in person on the first day of our road trip. So it was like, it was kind of like a 90-day arranged marriage between the two of us. I was like, we didn't know really what to expect. We spent 90 days on the road together and interviewed, I don't know, probably like 50 to 60 couples on the way and drove 15,000 miles and met some of the most incredible people in the world. And from that, it's really started to evolve and develop into this really cool project with just some of the most beautiful stories I have had the pleasure of hearing. Spark something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from uncommon goods. The busy holiday season is here and uncommon goods makes it less stressful with incredible hand-picked gifts for everyone on your list on one spot. Gifts that spark joy, wonder delight, and that it's exactly what I wanted feeling. They scoured the globe for original, handmade, absolutely remarkable things. Last year, I found the perfect gift for my nephew, periodic table building blocks. These blocks were a big hit and considering he was talking in full sentences before he even turned two, I'd say that's a pretty good win. They're not just educational, but also a fun way to spark his curiosity. Uncommon goods has a knack for offering gifts that are truly memorable, unique, and make every occasion special. When you shop at Uncommon Goods, you're supporting artists and small independent businesses. When you shop at Uncommon Goods, you're supporting artists and small independent businesses. Many of their handcrafted products are made in small batches, so shop now before they sell out this holiday season. Uncommon goods looks for products that are high quality, unique, and often handmade or made in the US. They have the most meaningful, out-of-the-ordinary gifts they even have gifts you can personalize. From holiday hosts and hostess gifts to the coolest finds for kids, to hits for everyone from book lovers to die-hard sport fans, Uncommon Goods has something for everyone, not just the same old selections you could find anywhere. And with every purchase you make at Uncommon Goods, they give one dollar back to a non-profit partner of your choice. They donate at more than $3 million to date. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com/unmistakable. That's uncommongoods.com/unmistakable for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Uncommon Goods. We're all out of the ordinary. I'm Ryan Reynolds At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot. We charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at Mint Mobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first three month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of detail. Robinhood is introducing forecast contracts so you can trade the presidential election. Through Robinhood, you can now trade financial derivatives contracts on who will win the U.S. presidential election, Harris or Trump, and watch as contract prices react to real time market sentiment. Each contract you own will pay $1 on January 8, 2025 if that candidate is confirmed as the next U.S. president by Congress. Learn more about the presidential election contracts on Robinhood at www.robinhood.com/election. The risk of loss in trading commodity interests can be substantial. You should therefore carefully consider whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your financial condition. Restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Commodity interest trading is not appropriate for everyone. Displayed prices are based on real time market sentiment. This event contract is offered by Robinhood derivatives, a registered futures commission, merchant and swap firm. Change in regulatory fees apply. Learn more at www.robinhood.com/election. Talk to me about the Kickstarter piece. It's funny because from the way you tell it, it might sound like, "Oh, Nate had a crazy idea and satiable curiosity," and somehow that magically turned into $30,000 in Kickstarter. I think you and I both know that's not true. I'm very curious for personal reasons how that piece of it worked and then I want to start talking about the stories around the couples. It was a lot of careful planning. Both Melissa and I have very generous friends and family and a fairly large network of people, and love is one of those things that people just get behind. Melissa did a whole lot of work generating some PR for us and she did a whole lot of planning. We did a lot of planning together and we launched and then we just, honestly, we launched and we hit the road. We didn't even wait for the Kickstarter. We reached our goal on the last day of our Kickstarter. It was a 30-day Kickstarter and we spent 30 days on the road before we even had the money to do the project and we just took the leap of faith. Once again, we're like, "Well, if we're going to do this, we're going to do this, so let's just hit the road and we'll have confidence that people will pull through and get us the money that we need and it happened." I think when people hear the stories and heard what we were trying to do, they were sympathetic and there was also a lot of hard work that went into it. All right, well, let's get into the part that everybody probably wants to know about. All right, let's do this. What is it? You've basically talked to all these couples, so start telling us the stories of the couples you've talked to, what you've learned about love and is your perspective different after all of this? How is it changing the way you see the world? All of that. I'm so curious. Yes, my perspective is incredibly different. My perspective of what love is and what it can be has completely turned upside down. It's interesting. I don't know if you've ever sat down with a couple and you've literally been able to feel the chemistry between them. It's palpable. The energy, the love that they have for each other is palpable. Have you ever had that experience? No. I'll tell you, when you get to sit down, I sat down with several couples and just had an intimate conversation with them about their relationship and it just, sometimes you can just feel it and it is the most bizarre feeling, but it's the closest thing that I can explain to you that it would probably be a taste of what love can be like. I remember specifically sitting down with Ty and Terry, they're a couple in Omaha and they, oh my gosh, they're such amazing people, but we weren't even supposed to interview them originally. We had stayed the night in Kansas City the night before with some friends and they had recommended one of the guys there was like, "Hey, you should stay with my brother in Omaha when you get there tomorrow." Like, okay, so we showed up in Omaha the next day and this kid's brother welcomes us into his home and one of his roommates is like, "Oh, I love what you guys are doing. You should talk to my friends Ty and Terry." And we're like, "Okay, give us their contact information," and we set up an appointment the next day to drop in at like nine o'clock at their house and interview them for an hour. So we show up and we instantly hit it off and 20 minutes, 30 minutes goes by and we haven't even started recording yet. And we're like, "Oh man, we got to get this going. We know you guys have to get to sleep," and we started recording and we wanted to be respectful at the time. So about an hour went by and everybody at that point was like crying and like there's just this really strong feeling of just love and connection in the room and we ended up recording for like two and a half hours and becoming the type of friends that, if you ever, there's a, one of my favorite quotes is from The Muppets. There's a song sung by, I think it's Gondo, and he says, "There's not a word yet for old friends who've just met." And when you get to sit down and talk to a couple about what makes, about their most important relationship in their life, you get to experience what it's like to become somebody's friend, best friend having just met them. So now I'm rambling. I feel like I need to tell you. No, keep going. Keep going. Keep going. This is great. So tie and teary just have this amazing, amazing relationship and they both make it their personal responsibility to make sure that the other person is just happy and fulfilled and feels amazing in life. And I think the best way to kind of articulate the way that their marriage works is to read a quick quote that teary said about tie. And this is kind of how she approaches her relationship on a daily basis. She said, "This is so powerful. It gives me goosebumps every time I read it." But she said, "At the end of tie's life, I want him to be able to do it." To be able to say that teary was the greatest earthly blessing in my life, the best thing that ever happened to me and that I'm a better man because of how she loved me. And that's the goal that I live with every day. That's how I want to love this man. So she wakes up every morning and the first thing on her mind is what can I do so that at the end of his life, he can say I'm the best thing that ever happened to him. And she does it and he does it for her. And they make sacrifices for each other and they show up for each other every day. And it was just evident in the way that they looked at each other and the way that they touched each other and the way they spoke about each other. And I think that's something that they've cultivated over their 30 years of marriage close to 30 years of marriage, but it's something that everybody can have. But it requires that sense of it's a willingness to put yourself second and trust that the other person is going to do the same. Let me ask you this. I think some people may hear that and think, wow, that sounds amazing but idealistic, right? Absolutely. The willingness to put yourself second and the other person first and it takes us back to that sort of power dynamic that we were talking about earlier, what about the people who don't do that and what about conflict? Because I can't imagine even when you're that in love, there's got to be conflict. Yeah, every couple of experiences conflict, every couple does. There's no couple on the planet that never experiences conflict, a varying extremes, but there is going to be conflict regardless. But the difference between the people who experience conflict, who have amazing relationships and everybody else, is that the people like Ty and Terry, when they have conflict, they realize that they're playing on the same team. They're not competing against each other, they're not fighting to win, they're not disagreeing to prove a point, they're disagreeing. They look at conflict as an opportunity to grow closer. So they shared a lot of different experiences. Just throughout, I'm trying to think of a good example. We had one couple who experienced like a child making decisions that they don't necessarily agree with, leaving their religion, or there's people who have experienced incredible financial loss because of bad decisions, or people who have experienced infidelity, or who have experienced just seasons of depression. Robin Hood is introducing forecast contracts so you can trade the presidential election. Through Robin Hood, you can now trade financial derivatives contracts on who will win the U.S. presidential election, Harris or Trump, and watch as contract prices react to real-time market sentiment. Each contract you own will pay $1 on January 8, 2025 if that candidate is confirmed as the next U.S. president by Congress. Learn more about the presidential election contracts on Robin Hood at www.robinhood.com/election. The risk of loss in trading commodity interests can be substantial. You should therefore carefully consider whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your financial condition. Restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Energy interest trading is not appropriate for everyone. Displayed prices are based on a real-time market sentiment. This event contract is offered by Robin Hood derivatives, a registered futures commission merchant and swap firm. Exchange and regulatory fees apply. Learn more at www.robinhood.com/election. The couples who can look at those opportunities as a rally point, as an opportunity to come together and overcome the challenge together rather than blaming each other and finding fault and making sure that the other person knows that they were the ones who screwed everything up, that's the difference. Even though they may not agree on something, they're still playing on the same team. This is the part of the conversation I was really curious about because I think that let me ask you this, based on that, obviously the conflict is always going to be there. There's what you call the rallying points and the things that mold people into who they are for 30, 40, 50 years. Some people are broken by those experiences, right? Some people are totally destroyed by those experiences. Did you get a chance to talk to any people who were totally destroyed by those experiences, who were actually broken? Who had been, yes, absolutely. What did that reveal, what kinds of insights did that give you guys? I think the most interesting thing that I learned that I wish everybody in the world knew about love is that love starts with you. You cannot give something you do not have. If you don't love yourself first, if you don't take care of yourself first, if you can't make yourself happy, there's no way on earth that somebody else can make you happy. I think there's too many people who enter into a relationship and they say, "Oh, I hate myself. I don't think I'm pretty enough. I'm not good looking enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not funny enough." If you will just love me, then everything will be okay and it fixes everything. I've realized that if you can't love yourself first, first of all, you won't be able to give the love necessary to have a really healthy relationship. Second of all, you won't be able to receive the love necessary because think about being in a relationship with somebody and they just love you to the extent that it's almost unbelievable. It's almost too good to be true and you start to doubt whether or not they're sincere. This white knight comes in and sweeps a girl off her feet and if she doesn't love herself and she doesn't believe she's deserving of that love, she starts to doubt that worthiness and then all of a sudden she starts to self-sabotage. It is too good to be true and then she won't accept the love and then it turns into this impossible situation where he's trying to give, he's trying to give and obviously the roles can be reversed but no matter how much he gives, it's never can be accepted because she doesn't feel like she deserves it and it can ruin a relationship. All of the people that I talk to that have incredibly healthy, happy relationships have been through a period of darkness, if you will, where they had to learn to love themselves and they had to go through that self-discovery phase of what is it that makes them happy, what is it that they can do for themselves to make sure that they don't need to rely on somebody else for validation to feel like they are worth something and sometimes they go through that when they're in the middle of their relationship, sometimes it requires going through like a divorce or a really serious breakup that's a wake-up call but the most fundamental thing about experiencing a truly healthy, loving relationship is that you have to be able to love yourself first, you have to be broken down. There's this guy named Jim in Boston that was single for over 50 years and he was one of the most incredible guys we met and he was single for 52 years and he had been friends with this girl in college but at the end of college they were kind of interested in each other but he wanted to go to Boston to work for Harvard and she wanted to go overseas so she did and she got married and she had a kid and then several years later her husband passed away and they had always kind of kept in touch, she and Jim and she ended up coming back to the States, they reunited and instantly they kind of just decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together and one of the things he told me was that marriage he said marriage will break you, a long term relationship will break you down, it will completely destroy you but the beautiful thing is is that it builds you back up into a better version of yourself and that just blew my mind to hear somebody who had been in you know a lot of people aspire to be in relationships but they aren't willing to wait 50 some odd years for the right one to come along and he told me that he's like you know I had kind of given up on the idea of being married, I was going to be, I was happy being single, I had found a way to be happy with myself and I was happy with the life I had and then when this woman came along it could change everything and I don't know, it made me realize one that it's worth waiting for but two, man he had himself figured out you know and then marriage helped him rediscover himself once again and has made him into an even better man than he ever could have been by himself so amazing yeah so let me ask you this, you know one of the other things that is always interesting to me is sort of the, you know the end of the honeymoon phase of any relationship right, I mean yeah you start out and it's like you're just completely infatuated with each other, you can't get enough of each other and then it becomes normal like you know it becomes part of your everyday life and so obviously that goes away but I mean is there a way to keep it like what did you learn about that? There absolutely is a way to keep it and I will tell you about that right now, I actually just sat down and had a really long conversation with two sex therapists and they talked to me about, there is that state of some people call it Twitter patient or limerence but that honeymoon phase is where all the chemicals and hormones are going crazy in your body and you're just totally sexually attracted to each other, you feel this wild chemistry and you're right that the monotony of life sometimes hits us and we let that die down and the chemicals do wear off you know and basically what they told me is that that phase the honeymoon phase that state of limerence fades for everybody but passion, having passion in a relationship is a choice, it's not a reaction, it's not something that happens to you, it's something that you choose and I'll give you some examples of this, there's one couple that we interviewed in San Francisco, Rahul and Sarah and they said that every night before they go to bed they look at each other in the eyes regardless of whether or not they're fighting or on really good terms or exhausted or what but they look at each other and they say I love you and you're my best friend and they said that has helped them keep their relationship in perspective for the decades that they've been together or there's a story of Josh and Jenny Solar who live in Kansas City and this is one of my favorite stories that I've heard along my journey and they were driving a couple of months ago, they're driving down the road and it starts to rain cats and dogs and Josh pulls the car over, he and Jenny and our three kids are in the car and he says Jenny get out of the car and he's like, if she looks at him and says what, he's like get out of the car and she's like it's raining, I'm not gonna get out of the car and he's like come on get out of the car, we're gonna make out in the rain and he turns around to the kids and he says kids do you want to get out of the car and play in the rain and they say no and he says okay that's fine, then you can see here and watch me and mommy kiss and he chose in that moment to rather than keep driving or even complain about the rain to make a memory, to create an intimate moment, to create passion in his relationship. This is the same couple that every night they wash their dishes together and send the kids off to do homework and when they're done washing the dishes, they have a playlist of slow songs that they turn on and they dance like two or three slow songs together in the middle of their kitchen. There's another couple I talked to a few weeks ago who they decided that in their marriage every time that they part ways, they kiss each other for 10 seconds or longer. So rather than just giving each other a peck they make out and they have chosen to keep the passion in their relationship through their actions and to invite that intimacy into their life rather than, I think there's a lot of people who, you know, they're tired or they're too busy or they're not in the mood and they reject the advances of their partner and they make excuses as to why the chemistry is not there anymore. But coming full circle back to these sex therapists, one of the things that they said was that, and this is interesting, I didn't know this before, but men experience desire before they experience arousal and women on the other hand, this is generally speaking, this is not a universal law, so I hope people don't get worked up about this. But for women, oftentimes it's the opposite, they don't experience desire until they experience arousal and so I think there's, I've seen a lot of complaints and heard a lot of complaints from men who get rejected when they try and make advances on their partner. And it's because like women don't realize, sometimes women don't realize that they want to be intimate until like they've leaned into it a little bit, you know, they get a kiss on the neck and they reject it and say, I'm too tired or do you get a kiss on the neck and you kind of go, okay, like let's see where this goes, you know. And so I think to keep that passion in your relationship, I know it's 100% possible because I've witnessed it. I haven't experienced it for myself, but I've witnessed it in these stories and in these couples and what it requires is a level of awareness and a level of intentionality. You have to intentionally make it a priority to keep passion alive in your relationship. It doesn't just happen, but it is a choice you can make and it's a powerful choice. I mean, but it's definitely something that you have to choose. It doesn't choose you. So. Well, you know, I love this because I mean, the things that you talked about, it reminds me so much of, you know, a lot of what Sean Acre talks about, right? I mean, why I love Sean's work is that it is the most pragmatic happiness advice I've ever heard. It's always, isn't it? There's no, you know, dropping acid in, you know, some foreign country or meditating at an ashram in India or, you know, selling everything you own. It's in, you know, simple day-to-day things. And you know, I mean, that sounds to me from what you've discovered a lot of that happens in relationships as well. Absolutely. It's simple, daily choices. The choice to be grateful. You look at John Gottman of the Gottman Institute. He wrote the book, the seven principles that make marriage work, incredible book. But one of the things he says in there is that gratitude is one of the most important principles that you can practice in a relationship. And people, I mean, people get used to being provided for, they get used to being taken care of. And we forget to thank the people who are most important to us in our life for the things that they do on a daily basis. You know, thanks for emptying the dishwasher. Thanks for going to work. So we have, you know, put food on the table. Thanks for making the food that is on the table. And it constantly expressing that gratitude is one of the easiest, simplest ways to keep passion alive in a relationship and to maintain a really strong friendship. I don't know any person who doesn't like to feel appreciated, but we, that's one really simple thing that goes a really long way that we just let fall by the wayside. You know, it's amazing how simple the principles are, but that it doesn't necessarily make them easy. Yeah. And so it's funny because I think that, you know, some of these things just have to become habits. They have to, you know, and that's, that requires, you know, a commitment to change on, you know, your part. Like when I'm, you know, when I, even when we talk to somebody about changing their behavior in any aspect of their life, it's kind of like, yes, it's not going to happen instantly. It's not like you hear something on the podcast and suddenly magic happens. Right. You know, a lot of these things are things that cultivate it over time. You're planting seeds. And as you, as you water those seeds, they grow. Absolutely. So if, so if you're a single person right now, like I, I'm single, I don't know how single you are, but we're not going to talk about that on the air. No. Okay. That's fine. But, but single people often think that, oh, like when I get into a relationship, then I'm going to change my behavior or the, these things will just come naturally to me. And one thing that I've really been focusing on personally, because I am no expert when it comes to love, you know, I'm just leaning from these people who have it figured out is that I need to start cultivating those things now. The happiest people who are in relationships, if you took them out of their relationships, they would still be incredibly happy because they have learned the simple practices that bring happiness into your life. They've learned to be grateful for the people that surround them. They've learned to serve other people because that service brings a sense of fulfillment and a sense of connection. They've learned to, to trust other people and to be open to love and to open to new experiences and spontaneity. And those are the things that now, now that I've realized that's what's important as a single person, I'm trying to cultivate in my life, you know, I'm trying to be a more grateful person. I'm trying to like express gratitude to the people who are truly important to me. I'm trying to look for an opportunity to serve somebody every single day. And when you cultivate those habits in your life, not only are you a happier person, but you're so much more prepared for a relationship down the road. And if you are in a relationship now, like create a list of things that, that make you happy and things that you can do better and start taking them off a list every single day, you know. And I think that's those little things when people start to really believe that that's what makes a difference. And they start to invest in them on a daily basis. I think you'll see a lot of relationships either turn around or get raised to a level that they didn't even think was possible. Well, speaking of your own personal experience, I mean, I think that's where we're going to turn this now and really start wrapping things up from here. I mean, what, yeah, I mean, obviously you've gotten a lot of perspective and insights and I'm curious kind of how it's altered your own behavior and your own dating experiences. I mean, come on, Nate, you didn't think I was even though I won't talk about mine, I'm definitely going to ask you. Oh, I see how it is. I'm going to twist my arm. Yeah. Well, it's definitely changed. One of the most interesting things that I heard along the way, I can't remember this guy's name, but super interesting guy, he was a pastor at a church in LA and he said that you play for the league you practice for and there's a lot of people out there who are willing to play in the little leagues and because that's what they practice for. But there's only a small handful of people who are practicing for the World Series. And I think for me, my dating behaviors have changed in that I've started practicing for the big leagues where in the past I was just kind of like satisfied with whatever came from the long. I was happy to bat in the little leagues. Now I'm looking not only to create myself into an all-star who can play at the World Series, I'm looking for somebody else who's got that mentality as well. And it means that the pickings are a little bit slimmer, so which is probably why I'm still single, but I'm happy being single and I think I'm more prepared and more able to recognize the right one when she comes along. So I don't know if that gives you the detail you want, but… No, that's more insufficient. We're not going to drill you too much on your personal life. No, I really, Nate, I mean, this has been really, really cool. It's been a really eye-opening look into a subject that I personally am incredibly curious about because I didn't go into this expecting to come out with the formula for love or a ton of answers. I mean, I think that what you have given us are insights and questions to ask ourselves, which I think that that's really one of the most important things you can do. I'm realizing so much of this is a personal and internal journey as well. Right. You mentioned early on in the podcast that one of your biggest fears is that you're worried about settling and I've been thinking about that as we've talked a little bit and I just wanted to encourage you to think about really the only way you can settle is by selling out on yourself and by letting yourself compromise. I think settling and love is really when you put a cap on the amount of love you're willing to give. I think each one of us has unlimited potential for love. We are the vessels of love and we can give so much love. We can give an infinite amount of love and I think when we decide to settle it's because we filter ourselves, we put a cap on the amount of love we're willing to express and give and granted you need to wait for the right one and find the right person but once you do, don't be afraid to go big and I don't think you'll regret it. You know what Nate, I'm not going to ask you any other questions because I think that makes a poetic way to sum up our conversation, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share some of your insights with our listeners here at Unmistakable Creative. I really wish we had been able to air this on Valentine's Day, the timing would have been so beautiful. It would have been beautiful wouldn't it have, but every day is a good day to love so I'm sure whenever this air is it will be great and thank you for doing what you're doing for the world man. I love what you guys are doing and I think it's a beautiful thing. Yeah. Well thank you. I really, really appreciate that and for those of you guys listening, yeah I know this has been a little different than what we normally put on the air, I hope you really enjoyed it and we will wrap our conversation with that. You've been listening to the Unmistakable Creative podcast, visit our website at unmistakablecreative.com and get access to over 400 interviews in our archives. Have you ever felt a twinge of worry about AI taking over your job or diluting your creativity? Well what if you could turn that fear into creative fuel? We've just published an amazing new ebook called The Four Keys to Success in an AI world and this is more than just a guide. It's a deep exploration into the human skills that AI can't touch. The skills that are essential for standing out and thriving no matter how much technology evolved. We're talking about real differentiators here like creativity, emotional intelligence, critical thinking and much more. Inside you'll find actionable insights and strategies to develop these skills, whether you're a creative person, a business person or just simply someone who loves personal development. This isn't a story about tech taking over, it's a story of human creativity thriving alongside AI. Picture this AI as your creative co-pilot not just as a tool but a collaborator that enhances your unique human skills. The Four Keys ebook will show you exactly how to do that and view AI in a new way that empowers you instead of overshadows you. Transform your creative potential today. Head over to unmistakablecreative.com/fourkeys. Use the number four K-E-Y-S that's unmistakablecreative.com/fourkeys and download your free copy. [BLANK_AUDIO]

How failing in relationships caused Nate to start searching for answers
The importance of learning to act on your insatiable curiosity
Why Nate’s worst-case scenario actually caused hint o be happy
How being average is more competitive than being extraordinary
The fear of being the person who loves the most in a relationships
Why not settling for average is an important quality in your life
Lessons learned from the relationships that didn’t work out
The lack of roles models in the world for health loving relationships
Why there is on no formula for true love
A look at the secrets of some incredibly happy couples
The willingness to put yourself second in a relationship
Why you must love yourself before anybody else does
A incredible story about a man who was single at the age of 52
How to sustain the “honeymoon” phase in your relationship

Nate Bagley is a mover, shaker, decision maker and fighter. He's also the creator of The Lovumentary

Subscribe for ad-free interviews and bonus episodes https://plus.acast.com/s/the-unmistakable-creative-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.