← Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee
Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee
How To Build & Maintain Successful Relationships & The Surprising Ways That Technology Can Help with Mo Gawdat #598
01:31:11
Modern life gives us endless ways to connect with others, so why is it that so many of us struggle to build loving and supportive relationships?
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- [00:01]
A
Of everything I've done, I've never in my life felt closer to actually fixing something in the world. Emma, I think, is going to fix something. It's an attempt to teach AI about what makes us human, which is love. If Emma itself succeeds, we would have saved the world.
- [00:19]
B
Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. Modern life gives us endless ways to connect with others. So why is it that many of us struggle to build loving and supportive relationships? This week I'm joined once again by Mo Gaudat for the second part of our inspiring two part conversation. Mo, as you all know if you listened to last week's episode, is the former Chief Business Officer of Google X and the author of multiple bestselling books including Soul for Happy. But he is also a world leading expert in technology and artificial intelligence. Last week, the bulk of our conversation was focused on happiness and navigating adversity. But in today's episode, a continuation of where we left off last week, we turn our attention towards love. What it really is, why it can seem so challenging, and how greater self awareness can be transformative. Now, a significant part of our conversation this week focuses on Emma, the AI companion that Mo has built and believes can solve one of humanity's greatest problems. His hope is that Emma will help people understand themselves better and approach relationships with with greater emotional clarity. I recognize that you may feel skeptical about the idea that technology can help us with something that is so deeply human, the quality of our social relationships. But if you listen with an open mind, I think Mo's ideas might just shift your thinking. Mo explains that Emma is not designed to replace human relationships, but to support them by improving communication, breaking unhelpful patterns and encouraging deeper connection. You see, Mo believes that love is actually very simple. It's relationships that prove so difficult. And in this conversation we explore the many reasons why people struggle in this domain. As always, Mo brings a depth of understanding to a topic that is so important to us all. And what he does so brilliantly is remind us that at the heart of any meaningful relationship lies compassion, honesty, and a deeper understanding of ourselves. I know you're here to talk about AI and you're here to talk about. I don't even know how to describe Emma. I. I mean, who is Emma?
- [03:12]
A
Of everything I've done, I've never in my life felt closer to actually fixing something in the world. Emma, I think, is gonna fix something and remember I worked at Google for a very long time. I got Google to 4 billion people in the world and started the Internet and E commerce as a result. So I had impact. Never anything like Emma. Emma is my attempt to fix two of the biggest problems. One is love and relationships. Right. In a way that actually genuinely wants love to survive and thrive. Right. Unlike most dating apps in the world today or most dating methods in the world today. But more interestingly, it's an attempt to teach AI about what makes us human, which is love. Okay? And so the mix of those two would end up helping humanity remove one of the biggest reasons of unhappiness and at the same time, helping AI truly understand our reality. Not as they see it in the news, if you want.
- [04:13]
B
Okay, this is super exciting. So let's just pause there a second. Let's say someone was listening to this and they don't have a clue what AI is. What's your best attempt to simplify before we get into what Emma's gonna do? Yeah. What is AI?
- [04:30]
A
Best question ever, by the way, because most people don't really. No, people think that we have created a better version of Google. We haven't. Okay? We've completely redesigned the way we code machines so that the AIs of today completely mimic the human brain. So the very original start of that was one of my dear colleagues at Google, Geoffrey Hinton. Jeffrey's a psychologist disguised as a good computer scientist, if you want. In 1986, he attempted to create a model of the brain on a computer system. Okay? Not to create AI, but to understand how the brain works. Right. And that model is what we used eventually to create machines that behave like a human brain. Right? So the way human brains work is we create neural networks of things associated with certain behaviors or certain thoughts and so on and so forth. And we strengthen the networks that are useful, and we diminish the ones that are not. That's exactly how AI does things. And so if. If you want to compare traditional computing and artificial intelligence, you have to imagine a child where you give a puzzle to the child and then tell them, okay, take that piece and turn it 90 degrees, put it in the top right corner, and then take another piece and turn it 180 degrees and put it next to it. And if the child follows those orders, the child would solve the puzzle, but it wouldn't make them smart at all. This, as a matter of fact, would make a child dumber and dumber and dumber over time. And that's what we did with traditional comp. Computing I. The programmer would solve the problem, and then they'll tell the computer to do it over and over and over. So the smart one is the person coding, and the machine is totally dumb. In artificial intelligence, basically, you have to imagine a child where you give them a puzzle and leave the room and tell them, keep trying until you figure it out. And then eventually, the child solves the puzzle and every other puzzle. As a matter of fact, the child becomes able to create new puzzles if he wanted to. And that's what we created. What we created with reinforcement learning, with Transformers and so on, is a completely autonomous form of intelligence that is like. And will beat human intelligence in every possible way.
- [06:55]
B
Okay, thank you. Now, you've also mentioned that you think Emma can solve. I think you said two of the biggest problems, love and relationships.
- [07:06]
A
Yeah.
- [07:07]
B
So love and relationships are not the same thing.
- [07:10]
A
Correct. Thank you for saying that.
- [07:12]
B
Right. So I guess, first of all, what is the difference between love and relationships? And do we conflate the two? Is that why there's so much struggle in relationships? Number one. But then, number two, what is going on in the world that you believe needs fixing in respect to those two things?
- [07:34]
A
So let's agree that, I mean, we're still. We don't want to market Emma at all. So, you know, we're sometimes thinking of the slogan of Emma. Right. But, you know, one of the things that we.
- [07:45]
B
Who is Emma.
- [07:46]
A
EMMA is an AI. That is not one AI. It's a very, very diverse group of AIs working together, obsessed with you. Okay? They want you to, if you're in a relationship, to understand and learn and find joy in your relationship and nurture your love so that relationship lasts for longer and feels better and empowers, you know, the. The two sides of the relationship. Right. If you're single, it wants to understand you so deeply and help you understand yourself. So that instead of the meat markets phenomena of. Of. Of, you know, dating apps where you are just swiping on looks, basically, it actually gets to know you enough, gets to talk to you enough, gets to help you know yourself enough to be able to tell you, I found one guy or one lady that matches you, okay? And basically gives you the closest match, tells you openly. This person, we think, is an 87% match for what we know about you. Those things are perfectly amazing between you. Those things you guys need to work on. Those things are not matching at all. You know? Do you want to meet them?
- [09:00]
B
Okay. Okay. I've got so many questions. Right? So hold on. So let's just quickly go through the difference between love and relationships.
- [09:07]
A
Yeah.
- [09:07]
B
And then let me just go through that sequentially as my brain sees it. Yeah.
- [09:12]
A
So love is very easy to, to feel. Okay. It's very difficult to feel it for the right person if you don't know who you're, who you. Who you are. Okay. So if, if you, if, if you're, if you're perception of love is a story told for you from romantic comedies. Okay? Good luck finding a relationship that works, right? If your perception of love is something that your best friend told you is what you deserve, good luck seeing if that actually exists or not. If your perception of a high value partner is what they tell you in dating apps, then you are really going to end up falling in love over and over and over with the wrong person. Right? And love itself is almost the energy that makes us human. Okay, so we by definition want to love and be loved. This is the ultimate goal of a human, by the way, even if you're a narcissist and a serial killer. Okay. They do that because they want to be accepted in society. It's so hardwired within us, okay. They just don't get that they're doing the wrong thing, but they do it. Everyone wants to fit in. Everyone wants to love and be loved. Relationships as a definition from an engineer, a mathematician like myself is the most complex mathematical model on the planet, as a matter of fact. Interestingly, that's why nobody tackles it. It is so complex because there are so many parameters and so many moving parts to a relationship that we humans either settle, okay, or fail. And it's quite interesting if you look at the statistics, they're staggering. Emma, by the. We reject those who want hookups, you know, those who want a one night stand, those who want, you know, games or whatever. We designed Emma as a place for those who are actually looking for genuine love. So by definition, you have already filtered 90% of the issue. Okay. But then when you get there, you're trying to guide humans, which only human, into the complexity of how many parameters affect you. Your traumas, your background, your desires, your conditioning, your.
- [11:33]
B
And you think it's possible to put all those metrics in not by a.
- [11:38]
A
Human, but by the intelligence of AI.
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B
I mean, this is so fascinating.
- [11:43]
A
It really is.
- [11:44]
B
So hold on a minute. So we're basically saying humans have been on this earth for a long time now, and maybe there's a fundamental flaw in how we try and find love, which perhaps this new super intelligence is going to help us solve and if.
- [12:03]
A
It does, then we've also taught that super intelligence, the most valuable thing on the planet. So hold on. However, that assumption is not true. There were times where love was much easier than this. Yeah, right. Let's take some numbers. Today in the modern world, one of every three people, three adults surveyed, 33% of adults surveyed will say they've never had a committed relationship. Okay? The average age of a committed relationship is down to 2.3 years. Right?
- [12:32]
B
Wow.
- [12:33]
A
Compare, compare. So even those who choose to commit will end their relationships within 2.3 years. Right. Divorce rates in the Western world are one in two. So people. But by the way, those who choose, the adults that choose to get into marriage are now down from around 74% of all adults in the 60s to less than 47% today. Right? And those who choose to get into marriage, one of every two will end their marriage. Okay? The result of that, if you think about family, for example, is that around 20 to 30%, depending on the country, of women above 40 are childless. Okay? 25% of children are raised with one parent. Right. If you take things like infidelity, like cheating. Interestingly, in the last 10 years, women are catching up with men. So 40% increase in cheating with women in committed relationships, 15 to 20%. So one of every two people you know, one of every five people you know is actually cheating.
- [13:40]
B
Okay?
- [13:41]
A
All right. All of that is in the western world. Let me give you one statistic that will shock you. So we use the statistics of one in every two marriages end, but not everyone ends up in marriage. So if you use the statistics of body count, okay? And the number of lifetime partners on average in the west, somewhere between 95 to 96.7% of all relationships end. That is a massive reconditioning of society. Now go to India, and one in a hundred marriages ends up in divorce, right? Of course there are two Indias. There is ruler India and there is the big cities. The big cities, it's 1 in 3 still better than 1 in 2. Right?
- [14:27]
B
But can we assume from that top line statistic that those marriages in India that are not ending up in divorce, we can't also assume that they are happy relationships?
- [14:40]
A
100% is exactly the core of what Emma's trying to do. So I am not naive enough to assume that, you know, this is just because we're doing it wrong. It's also because the west has different aspirations to a relationship, right? So, you know, an arranged marriage in India, which is one in 99 and one in a hundred succeeds, so fails, sorry. And 99 succeeded is not really the marriage we're looking for here in the west, okay? It's not the committed relationship we're looking here for in the West. We're looking for romance, they're looking for compatibility, right? You know, the families decide, while here it's up to the couple to decide, you know, here it's convenience. So because we're so busy working, we want to swipe to find a partner there. It's an immense system, by the way. One of the big differences in the west is that the system of love and dating in the west is rigged against the lovers. Because a dating app benefits from you failing to find a lover, because then you're gonna pay another month of subscription, right? A restaurant wants you to come on another date and another date and another date and another date. Even wedding planners could make more money if you got married twice in a lifetime, not once, right? So the system is literally rigged against you and lots of other things. The interesting difference, however, is that the method of arranged marriage is a method that is attentive and very, very deep in terms of its looking for things that actually work between the two as per the objective of the arranged marriage. The aspirations of the west are beautiful, but the method is working against you. So can I use the method of attentive analysis to apply it to the objectives that we want here and manage to tell you, by the way, I can talk about myself, by the way, because of your travel lifestyle, consistent travel, you actually cannot afford to be with a woman that needs you to be there all the time. Which, by the way, again, as a man, in my experience after my first marriage, I was always looking for a woman that I felt needed me, that I felt missed me, that I felt right. But maybe that's not what I'm geared to create a good relationship with. My last relationship ended mainly because of the long distance side of it, right? Wonderful human being in every way. In my mind, I felt, yeah, this is exactly what I need in a woman. But those tiny little details you can only figure out when you really dig deep and say, I want this, but can I manage this? Or I want this, but can she manage that side of me? Or I want this, but are we compatible? So, for example, I'll give you the top example. A masculine man wants a very feminine woman, okay? Within Emma, the mathematics would say, if a feminine, very feminine woman and a very masculine man have no communication skills, they're probably going to kill each other, okay? So if their communication skills are not Very high. We need them to be a little more alike. They can't be that extreme so that at least they overlap on certain things. But if they have incredible communication skills, then they can benefit from the polarity. Okay. Of being so different, so that they are more as a whole. Okay. Than if they were closer to each other.
- [18:29]
B
Okay. So as you were describing, this idea that we didn't always have problems with love and relationships, okay. So it strikes me as though we didn't always. We now do. And so we're looking to technology to try and solve something that is a problem of the modern world. And the analogy I could give is azempic and the GLP1 agonists, right. Which are blowing up. And, you know, there's people for it, there's people against it. But in essence, we never used to have a problem with obesity. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans have now created these modern civilized worlds with toxic food environments.
- [19:14]
A
Correct.
- [19:15]
B
So the norm now is to be overweight and obese. And so we're now trying to solve a problem that we've created. By the way, we've created the world with a pill.
- [19:26]
A
Not what we're doing here at all.
- [19:28]
B
Okay, sure. So just. Yeah, so help me understand that. So are we saying that in the past there were good times, but maybe not optimal times? So the modern world has shown up and revealed some of the problems that exist with how we actually try and form these long term relationships. And can we now, using AI, can we actually now help people find an even better version of relationships than we've ever had before?
- [19:59]
A
For sure, absolutely. But it's not a pill. A pill is the wrong answer. Okay. The right answer is for me to tell the person that's obese with clarity, why is it that they're obese and what changes they can have in their lifestyle to get back to a healthy lifestyle. Okay. Now, the problem is because obesity and fitness in general is a very complex problem. Okay. You may be able to tackle it if you focus on all nutrition that come into your body, but also on rest. And you can have to. You need to get a personal trainer. And if you have very specific weaknesses in your own body, like your joints are not, your training regime has to change and so on. It's a complex design, but when you get it right, it works 100% correct. That's exactly Emma. So Emma wants you to work on you. Okay. There is absolutely no pill I can give you to fix your relationships, but there is a way. So one of the interesting ideas is communication she comes to you and she says, should I put on the dress or the skirt? Okay. What you hear in your mind as a man is what? Okay. Oh, my God. Anything I'll say is wrong, right? But then you look and you say, oh, that skirt looks so hot on her. So you say, I think you should take the skirt. She hears it as, he doesn't even care. He just chose one, Right? Can Emma help you to understand that the reason she asked that question, by the way, is because she felt a little insecure. She wanted to look beautiful when she's going out with you today. And the reason you, you know, can she understand that the reason you picked this skirt is because you genuinely thinks she's very hot?
- [21:45]
B
So Emma's gonna help you almost get to know yourself, but it's almost like a personal relationship coach in some ways.
- [21:53]
A
We don't wanna use that term, but in a very interesting way, it is an awareness guide.
- [22:00]
B
An awareness guide.
- [22:01]
A
Okay, so let me give you. Let's talk about the typical scenario. Let's assume you're saying, by the way, it's not a dating app. Dating. It does have a dating component to it, but the dating component, Emma, if you want the design, is obsessed with true love. So her entire target in life is to help you nurture and enjoy true love. But if you're single, she needs to go through the dating phase to get you there, right? So dating is just part of it. Now imagine if you're. Let's take the simplest thing. You download Emma and you sign on, and she will greet you and say, hey, I'm Emma. I'm excited to meet you. My purpose in life is to help you with genuine true love. This is how we're going to work on it. Da, da, da, da. Are you single? That's the first question. And you're gonna say yes or no. If you say, I'm single, she will ask you a few more questions. If you say, no, I'm in a relationship, she would say, would you like to add your partner to this so that we can work the three of us together? Right? But eventually, after four or five qualifying questions, your age, you know, what you're interested in, what gender you identify as, and so on. She will say, okay, tell me about your love life. Right? That's it. Tell me about your love life. You can say, yeah, I've been single for this long and, you know, I really feel insecure about this. And the conversation will go. So most of our testers, interestingly, we would give them emma to do 10 minute tasks and they'd normally chat with her for an hour and a half.
- [23:31]
B
Right.
- [23:32]
A
Because it's so eye opening when you talk to someone who's not judging you. Okay. Who's really giving you the ability to reflect on your own self, who's giving you the perspective of the other person. Right. In a way that's not threatening at all.
- [23:45]
B
This reminds me of. I've had some conversations over the last six months with various health tech companies and it was really interesting to me that actually the feedback from some of these big health tech companies is that actually people really feel that they can be honest, can talk freely, and it's really helping motivate lifestyle change better than if it was a human. Which is super interesting, isn't it, in terms of the world in which we're going?
- [24:10]
A
Because most of us have been taught to pretend. Even when people go to their therapist, you know, it takes them a very long time to actually say the real issue. Yeah, okay, but hold on. So. So there are, however, differences between Emma and AI, which I think are really key to understand. Emma will not agree with you. It's not chatgpt. It's not going to tell you. Oh my God, that's amazing. It's good that you shouted at him. She's not going to tell you that. Right. As a matter of fact, she will hold you accountable. So basically, in a nice way, she will look for things we have one of the modules is related to empathy. So she will look for things where you will say, my partner did A, B and C. Okay. I really can't stand that anymore. And Emma will ask and say, what do you think your partner's perspective of that situation was? Okay. You know, what did you do that? He would have been writing to me now. Okay. And so things like that. Emma will eventually, you know, not eventually, but frequently stop and say, your last comment means that you maybe don't have a good grasp of love languages. Would you like me to explain that to you? Right. And so she's not there to agree with you at all.
- [25:23]
B
This is genius. Because actually, if it's a human, your conditioning comes in. Right. People get defensive. Like you don't know that you're like. But you're not gonna do that with this kind of. Is it text or is it voice?
- [25:37]
A
We have both, but we found that text is actually really more.
- [25:42]
B
Yeah, you're probably gonna be more honest to the point. And if they say, well, what's your partner's perspective here? Actually, you're more likely to go, yeah, That's a good point. Even if it was your best mate saying that you might be pissed off.
- [25:55]
A
You go like, why are you asking about him? Are you on their side or mine?
- [25:59]
B
Whereas with. Cause when we set this conversation up and I knew we were gonna be talking about this, Emma, I was thinking in my head, I was like, okay, I can't wait to talk about this. Because in my head I'm thinking, well, what can technology really offer here, right? These kind of, you know, the human experience of love and relationships. Do you know what I mean? I wouldn't say I was skeptical, but in my head, awareness. Awareness? Yeah, awareness. Non judgmental awareness.
- [26:28]
A
Most of the challenges in life. So, you know, my last relationship is with a woman I really deeply love. And we both wanted to make it work, right? But, you know, you take something like the long distance side of that relationship, and Hannah really, really highlighted this to me, that I, you know, me, I travel so much that getting on a plane on a Monday and another one on a Monday evening and another one on a Tuesday and another one on a Wednesday is normal life to me, right? She sat with me and said, no, this is not normal at all. Your lifestyle is manic. It's very painful. Nobody can keep up with this. And even if I wanted to travel with you because we can enjoy travel together, this is not even travel what you're doing, okay? And you have to understand that the real objective, the real upside of relationships is when your partner is a mirror, okay? A mirror that basically shows you what you don't see. And the more you see, the more you will be able to understand again, my last relationship, Hannah and I, I wanted her so much, which is very unlike me, to the point that, you know, it's like me to want to be with the woman I'm with, but it's unlike me to change myself so that I am to protect. You know, I felt afraid to lose her. So sometimes I wouldn't share enough. I wouldn't be vulnerable. I would think too much about what I'm telling her, which basically hid who I am. And she basically, you know, at the end of our, you know, last few conversations as a couple, she was basically saying, I didn't want any of that. I wanted the real you, okay? And I'm an older man, I'm mature. I am able to understand women really deeply, okay? But even at my age, at my experience, at my level of maturity, there's always something that you see that changes who you are in a relationship. And I think that the problem we have in our world is that when we go to our friends, they tell us what we want to hear, Right? They don't tell us what would hurt us. When we go to our. When we sit alone, we reiterate our own stories, okay? And when our partners tell us what they're going through, we take it as an attack on ourselves. And so some third party engaged in this can make a massive difference. Okay? Some third party that, by the way, does not give you a flood of pictures to swipe on. Because if we know up front that this guy, handsome as he is, is not a good match for, you know, a woman using the app, okay, he might be a great match for another one, but not for this one. Why are we showing him to her in the first place?
- [29:20]
B
You know? Thank you for sharing stuff from your own personal life, Mo. If you were interacting with Emma when you were having these conversations in your last relationship, would Emma have asked you things like, for example, why are you traveling so much? Mo? What is it within you that needs to be, you know, what is it that drives you to travel? Like your ex partner described like a madman. Right.
- [29:55]
A
Thanks, Rangan. Yes, I have. No, no.
- [29:57]
B
Is that what you just said? Or about. I don't know. I think you did. I guess I'm really trying to understand. No, no, no, I'm not offended.
- [30:03]
A
I'm joking with you.
- [30:04]
B
But that was really. It was very powerful. And I'm thinking, if at that time you were interacting with Emma, would Emma have kind of seen that and been like, hey, listen, your partner doesn't really want someone who's on the road the entire time. Are you sure you want to be on the road the entire time? What's going on within you? When did you start going on the road? What does that do for you? Et cetera, et cetera.
- [30:28]
A
Foreign.
- [30:34]
B
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- [33:59]
A
So I'm of course Ms. User number one, so the privilege of creating her ourselves makes me and Senate its first users, right? So I'm having those conversations with Emma and it's mind blowing what she shares, right? But interestingly, when I was having those conversations with Hannah, my wonderful ex, when she said those things, I felt offended, I felt attacked. Do you understand?
- [34:26]
B
Yeah.
- [34:27]
A
You know, I felt, and I say that, you know, with humbleness because I assume my responsibility in how we ended up here, right? And I felt when she said those things that I deserve a woman that supports my Lifestyle. I'm doing this for the world. I'm there, you know, to help with 1 billion happy. I'm doing something important. Why is she not supporting me on it? That's the absolute wrong mindset. It's the absolute wrong understanding of why I'm, you know, and, and, and believe it or not, if I had managed to, you know, to, to. To nurture a love life that nurtured me, okay, I may have, like we said earlier, I may be doing less, but doing it better. Right. And I think what happens in our world, and I, again, I mean, I, I have, I have big hopes that this will change everything. Right. Even if Emma itself gets copied by the big players and they crush us, we will have changed the way that love is offered in the modern world. Because one of the biggest challenges of love in the modern world is that it has become a capitalist pursuit with.
- [35:42]
B
The modern dating apps.
- [35:43]
A
Correct.
- [35:44]
B
Yeah. What's interesting is I think about that and the sheet you've, you know, you've shared with me about, you know, why we fail in dating and.
- [35:51]
A
Yeah.
- [35:52]
B
You know, what are the problems about these, you know, what you call commercial love? The currency of window shopping, the end of courtship, the meat market syndrome. Right. The paradox of choice. I've often felt that I was lucky to meet vid my wife before all of that. All this started, right. Because, you know, some of my best mates I saw not meet someone as early as I did and be on that dating app train.
- [36:24]
A
It's a nightmare.
- [36:25]
B
And, you know, one of my mates would go on it for a few months and then he just get bored, worn out by it. But I was thinking about this because I've never experienced that. I've never done that. And I thought, yeah. And I wonder how this plays into Emma as well. Right. So, as you know, you've met my wife several times.
- [36:45]
A
Wonderful.
- [36:46]
B
I've been married for, you know, about 18 years now. And funnily enough, I met her on a blind date. Right. The first and only blind date I've ever been on.
- [37:00]
A
And you're so lucky, by the way.
- [37:02]
B
Yeah, I really am. And what's really interesting is that I met her on a blind date and it was like a whirlwind romance. It was just full of passion and romance. And after three months, I proposed.
- [37:23]
A
Right.
- [37:23]
B
So I had mates of mine who were already engaged before I'd met her.
- [37:27]
A
Yeah.
- [37:28]
B
And I proposed after three months. I married her after eight months. Right. So I had mates who were like, mate, what? You know, I proposed to my girlfriends and you hadn't even met Vid, and we haven't even sought out our marriage yet. And you've started dating her, you proposed to her, and you married her. And what's really interesting, as me and Vid reflect on our relationship, I can tell you multiple reasons why we should not be together, especially in the early days. Right. But they're all irrelevant because there's an essence to me and Vid that we both believe will mean that we're together for the duration of our life here in this iteration of it. Okay.
- [38:17]
A
Yeah.
- [38:18]
B
Now, how do I possibly know that? I can't prove to you that I know that, but I feel I have a deep knowing that me and Vid are meant to be together. So what I'm coming round to is I met her, we went for dinner, we went to a bar afterwards, and we're chatting. And if I had met her on a dating app. Right. I can't even imagine what that would be. But, you know, let's use the analogy of communication. We know that the vast majority of human communication is non verbal. Some Studies say even 80% is non verbal. But I've seen it as low as 50% or 45%. But basically, at least half, if not more of how we communicate is non verbal. Right. So, of course, on an app, we're not talking to someone, but we're reducing the totality of that human being down to nothing. What does she look like? Or what does he look like? What are your hobbies? What do you like doing? If I think about my relationship with Vid and look at it through that lens, a lot of that stuff was kind of irrelevant. We've got different hobbies. Right. We don't necessarily like the same things, but on that really deep level that I would almost argue is an unmeasurable. There is this deep connection between us.
- [39:42]
A
Exactly.
- [39:44]
B
I get why a commercial dating app that has been the kind of main player in the market has been so problematic. Why it reduces it to a meat market where you're judging people on appearances and all kinds of things that probably don't matter. But how do you get around this. This concept that I guess I'm trying to articulate that sometimes with love, we can't rationalize what, you know, you could tell me, well, what is it about Vid that you love? Right. And I could come up with loads of things that I really like about her, but I think that would be a myopic way to look at my relationship with her. I think, yes, I can, rationally, with my Rational mind tell you about these 10 things, but I think my love for her is so much deeper and greater than those ten surface level things. So help me understand how Emma can deal with that side of love.
- [40:40]
A
I need to be a little bit of a geek here. Is that okay, so we're gonna.
- [40:43]
B
And did that make sense?
- [40:43]
A
The way I put it, it makes a ton of sense, but the hidden mathematics of this is just mind blowing.
- [40:51]
B
Okay.
- [40:52]
A
I have to start by going back to. Love and relationships are not the same thing. So there are people who are madly in love and completely fail to find a relationship, okay? And there are people who are not in love at all that succeed massively at building a relationship, right? So love and relationship are two different things. Love. Relationship is the default state of us humans when we find someone that does not make us hate them. Believe it or not, that does not.
- [41:22]
B
Make us hate them, okay?
- [41:24]
A
So if we find someone that does not, hate is a very strong word. But if we find someone that does not repulse us away from them, okay? The definition of humans is that over time, if things are amicable and working and so on, you tend to find more and more love for someone. But love, just so that we understand in my mind, is not at all why people go dating. And that's one of the. So I'm gonna be a bit geeky here, so please allow me to.
- [41:52]
B
Please. Take your time.
- [41:54]
A
So the first thing to understand is that when we go on a date, we say we're out looking for love, but what we're out actually looking for is a relationship. And a relationship is described by seven things that we normally refer to as perfects. Ppr, fcts. Let me explain them quickly. When people go out on a date, they're looking for passion. So some people are looking for just sex, okay? Nothing wrong with that, by the way. They're looking for partnership, someone to hold them through this confusing life, okay? They're looking for romance. Romance is very different than love. Romance is that mix of uncertainty and excitement at the same time, okay? They're looking for friendship so someone they can confine into someone they can take the opinion of and so on. They're looking for companionship. You know, those wonderful couples that go out on Sunday morning and just read two different books and sip coffee together, okay? The old couples that hold each other hands and walk without a word, Right? Beautiful, okay? They look for tenderness. Tenderness is a massively important element of what we need in life. The touch, the kindness, the kind word, the understanding, and so on. And so Forth. And they look for S, which is support. Which unfortunately, in the Western world, we try to say, you know, we're empowered individuals, we don't need each other. That's not true at all. Okay? And support could be financial sometimes, you know, that's one form of support from the traditional world that, you know, the man will provide more. Or in the Western world, where the woman would provide more. Okay. But support is a million other things. Support is, I will tell you, completely. I would fall apart without feminine energy in my life because most of my engagement with the world is extremely masculine. I have to be in certain places at certain times and deliver certain things and talk to and so on. And so without that support of someone coming into my life and saying, hey, by the way, I made us dinner, or, you know, by the way I booked us a place together, or by the way, I want us to sit down and, you know, looking at the stars and do nothing, that, to me, is incredibly important, okay? And that doesn't come from my driven, masculine side. Now, because all of those perfects are not love. When we go out on a date, we tell ourselves, no, but we're looking for love, when in reality, we're not even addressing what we are here to do. Okay? That's number one. Number two is, if you don't mind me being a little more geeky. Now, the current dating environment suffers from what in mathematics, we call the law of large numbers. Right? And the law of large numbers is very straightforward. If you need six things to be available in your partner, let's say, okay. And you do the mathematics of those six things, and each of them is available in one in ten people, okay? So if someone is looking for a partner and she says, I want him to be that age group, and that's 1 in 10, I want him to be that kind of success, and that's 1 in 10 and so on. The probability of finding that person is not one in 60. It's not 10 plus 10 plus 10 plus 10, it's 10 multiplied by 10 by 10 by 10 by 10. So it's one in a million. Right?
- [45:27]
B
So hold on. So you're saying when we put these stipulations up that I need my partner to have A and B and C and D and E. You're saying the more stipulations we put.
- [45:40]
A
Yeah, so let me give you.
- [45:41]
B
The more exponentially unlikely it will find that person.
- [45:44]
A
Yeah. So I do that exercise with a lot of my friends who are women friends, and I basically say, can you write down what you're looking for. And the last time I did that with one of my dearest friends, I said, this person is 1 of 8,402,403,000 million and so on. Right? And it's really quite interesting because you can calculate it. If you're looking for male or female, okay. That drops your probabilities to one and two, okay? If you want that male. For example, if you're a woman looking for a man and you want that man to be religious, let's say, okay, that's one in four people. Now in the Western world, let's say, or one in five. So it's now two multiplied by five. Now you're looking for one in ten, okay? If you want him to be taller than six foot five, that's one in ten, okay? So it's now one in 50. So you keep multiplying and that exponentially multiplies. And that is what we normally call the law of large numbers. Right. And so the law of large.
- [46:47]
B
Of course, no one's finding who they want. Correct.
- [46:49]
A
Exactly. And here's the problem is the law of large numbers will tell you that if you need to roll the dice six times to get a six, okay. Your odds improve with time. So if you know the first time you roll, on average, you have the odds of 1 in 6 to find that person, then you go on the next date, you're now one in five.
- [47:11]
B
That's not true, is it?
- [47:13]
A
Mathematically, it is.
- [47:14]
B
Hold on.
- [47:15]
A
It's only true in very large numbers.
- [47:18]
B
Yeah. Because if you have a dice in front of you and you roll, you.
- [47:22]
A
Could get six on the second roll and you'll be lucky. Or in your case.
- [47:25]
B
But you could roll six times and you could still never get a three or a five.
- [47:29]
A
Correct. Correct.
- [47:30]
B
But obviously, if you roll a thousand times, you probably are.
- [47:33]
A
So that's exactly what we call the law of large numbers, that we think that we get it. One in six. By the way, the person that you're looking for is not one in six. It's probably if when Emma helps you reduce your criteria to what actually matters, it will be probably 1 in 10,000. Okay. 1 in 100,000. Maybe. The problem is if you keep rolling the dice going on dates to find that person, you end up with dating fatigue, you end up with burnout. You end up with a load of experiences that tell you, dating sucks. I'm never gonna find that man. Right. And then your perception of love and romance is completely skewed.
- [48:12]
B
Yeah. So, okay, this is really interesting. It's not even neutral. Like, so this is really interesting. Going on that date or going on those 10 dates on that app whilst you're trying to find the one. It's not that. Oh, you try it and you see, and after 10, you're like, no harm done. It's like, no, no, wait a minute. Those 10 dates may have actually caused harm. Each one absolutely is a little infiltration into your soul over, you know, what's wrong and how you're not worthy and, oh, that person didn't find me attractive. I thought things were going well. So you actually. Ramping up the negativity maybe exponentially.
- [48:51]
A
Yes.
- [48:51]
B
And then the other thought I had, when you were even describing the possibility, you were talking to one of your friends saying, well, ideally, what I want is a man in this age category. Maybe they need to be earning this much, whatever it might be. Yeah.
- [49:02]
A
And kisses this way and talks that way and, you know, but.
- [49:05]
B
But all of those are even predicated on the assumption that what you think you want is what you want.
- [49:13]
A
Correct.
- [49:14]
B
And that is a dangerous assumption to make.
- [49:17]
A
So let me make one more comment, and then we go into the math of all of this, because this is all I told you. It is the most complex model, relationships, our most complex model on the planet, that needs intelligence and mathematics. I'll explain that in a minute. The last thing is that when you go through dating fatigue, you go through dating burnout, and you've been without someone for so long, you eventually settle, right? So every now and then you go like, yeah, you know what? This guy is okay, or that woman is okay. And you end up in a date that turns into something that consumes a year and a half of your life, right? Six months of believing that it's right, but then six months of breaking it up, then six months of recovering before you even have the ability to do anything at all. Now, how many times in our life do we have a year and a half to waste? And that's really the big problem. Okay, so let's go to the mathematics. The law of large number is working against everyone. And the dating apps are increasing the numbers, so they're giving you more options to make you feel that there is endless choice. The worst thing you want is endless choice. What we do is we use something that's called Markov series, okay? And forget the mathematics. People who are mathematicians will actually, before Markov, we also use Nash Equilibrium. So we basically try to help the. The user understand that the top guy that you're looking for, by the way, is Also the target of 80% of other women. Right. And the likelihood of you getting that person when he's so spoiled by all of the others is actually not that great. Right. And so typically, 20% of men, for example, statistically accurate 20% of men get the attention of 80% of women. Okay. What that makes those 20%, unless, you know, they're really genuinely looking for genuine love, is it makes them spoiled. Okay. The supermodels get the attention of all the men. And so I hate the term, but they use the term in dating apps, you know, high value man and high value woman. Right.
- [51:23]
B
Well, do they use that in a public facing or is it just internally?
- [51:27]
A
Yeah. In their description of what dating is. Okay, Now I will tell you openly that the best relationships are not with the most at the top. Okay. You know, or perceived. Top. Perceived top. You know, a lot of what we're looking for, and I again say that to a lot of our test users and a lot of my friends, that the true feeling of love is being in the arms of a man that you actually really relate to. And when you're there, you don't remember how they look, like you're not even looking at their face.
- [52:00]
B
Right.
- [52:00]
A
And it's quite interesting that you could probably find that in someone if you switch the mathematics. So Nash basically says that there is a higher probability of success if you're settling for a slightly different approach to your game theory. If you want a different strategy. Now, then Markov will say, and if I can reduce the number of attempts from one in a hundred thousand. Okay. To giving you four, only four, one at a time, then yes, you may not find your match on the first date, but you may find them closer and closer because now you have to roll the dice quite a bit less often. Okay. And now that I've done a lot of the analysis for you, to tell you what to expect, to tell you what you guys need to discuss up front, to tell you what you need to align on, to give you conversation starters in the date so that the date doesn't become an inter. Right. All of that really helps. And then more interestingly, one of the most valuable features we have in Emma is that Emma will eventually, you know, introduce Jacqueline to Jack. Okay. And then two days later, she will pop in and say, how's Jack going? Okay. And then Jacqueline will go like, yeah, he's so cool. Da, da, da, da. But I'm a bit worried about this and that. And Emma will say, yeah, maybe you should ask him about this. Are you guys going to meet. Right. And Jacqueline will say, yeah, Thursday, we're meeting Friday morning Emma or Thursday evening Emma will say, how was the date? Okay, how did it go? How did you find out? Right. So from one side she's learning more about Jacqueline. So that if Jacqueline says that I'm not really into, you know, this bit switched me off, Emma will take notes so that when she introduces her to David, David is not with that.
- [53:48]
B
Yeah, but there's also this accountability, isn't there? Like that. That's the whole point where you can say you're gonna bring this up the next time you meet that person and then you may not. Yeah, right. But then the following morning, Emma's gonna say, oh, how did that go? And then you'll be reminded, ah, you know what? I know I need to bring that up. Correct.
- [54:05]
A
I'll give you the best example ever.
- [54:13]
B
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- [57:25]
A
One of my dearest, dearest, dearest friends. Okay, I know her for 14 years. She's, you know, we've been together through the tough times and the good times. Amazing human being. And she always wanted to have a child. So remember, I knew her since she was maybe 29. Okay. And she would always go find this, you know, someone to fall in love with and she'd always come back to me and say, oh my God, he's amazing. He's athletic, he likes hiking. Like me. We went to do this, you know, he teaches scuba diving. Da, da, da, da, da da. And I go like, babe, did you ask him about family? And she goes like, no, that would scare him away. And I'm like, that's exactly the point. That's exactly the point. If you want family, right? Low of large numbers, scare away the ones that don't.
- [58:15]
B
Yeah, because that's early doors. Before you've invested six months.
- [58:20]
A
Before you've invested six months, then six months trying to repair it, then six months being hurt in a heartbreak, then starting again and then not asking the question again.
- [58:29]
B
Yeah, I can totally. I mean, it is incredible to hear the thinking behind this. I can actually see now what value this could offer. In some ways then it's probably. I don't know how you would, whether you think this is accurate or not. You mentioned arranged marriages before and I, I've got first hand experience of how arranged marriages can work because my mum and dad had an Arranged marriage. You know, literally, my dad was here working in the uk, and he took his annual leave to go and marry.
- [59:03]
A
A woman he has never met.
- [59:04]
B
Yeah, yeah, literally. And that was. Look, if dad was alive now, I'd ask him, but I'm not even sure there was any doubt in Dad's head. It's like.
- [59:13]
A
It's the way things were done.
- [59:15]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So I've seen how arranged marriages can work for certain outcomes, which I think is the key. Right. It may not work.
- [59:23]
A
I call them aspirations. So for certain aspirations, they're brilliant. Brilliant.
- [59:27]
B
But it depends what you want right from that relationship. So in some ways, as I hear you talking about Emma, I'm hearing it's almost like elements of arranged marriage, but totally supercharged for those aspirations. For the Western, what you want out of this?
- [59:45]
A
Absolutely.
- [59:46]
B
So you are getting some of this kind of guidance, using the incredible intelligence of AI and empathy and empathy to supercharge this 100%.
- [59:58]
A
So the idea is use the traditional method to fuel the modern aspirations. Right. The more interesting side of this, Rangan, is that we think that all Western people have the same aspirations. Every single human has a different aspiration for what they want their love life to be.
- [60:17]
B
Well, that's the problem with even using terms like west and East. Right. By labeling that, we're sort of putting everyone in a box, which is inherently problematic.
- [60:27]
A
So why do we do that? We do that because we want to simplify the calculation. Right. So when a dating app like Match, for example, which is trying really hard to understand their people, you know, if they told you, fill this form, and this form will tell us about you, and this form was 400 pages long, it would capture a lot more of who you are, but you wouldn't fill it. Do you understand? Every human is different, but then they have to categorize things. They tell you, what a thing. Ethnicities. Do you like. Do I have to like ethnicities? Or, by the way, maybe I would meet someone that is so overwhelmingly wonderful in their soul that I wouldn't even understand their. Notice their ethnicity or their physical form or whatever. And how can you capture that? You can do one of two things. You can either simplify and categorize and say Western, Eastern and whatever. Ethnicity, height. Are you interested in whatever? Okay. Or you can have someone else. You can outsource the complexity to something smart enough to deal with that complexity. Okay. And every interaction a user would have with Emma would give us a tiny bit.
- [61:45]
B
Because the reality is that some. I mean, there are some people who grew up in very religious families, there are certain stipulations that they grow up with.
- [61:55]
A
Correct.
- [61:56]
B
And the truth is, at that moment in their life, they may think, actually, you know what, that is an important stipulation because I might have to give up my family if it meant that I was gonna marry someone outside that religion or that belief system, for example. Right. So for that individual at that moment in their life, that is an important stipulation.
- [62:18]
A
But it goes even further. It goes even further in terms of traumas, okay? Baggage that you have from previous relationships that form opinions about love and relationships.
- [62:29]
B
But how would it. Would it ask you how many relationships have you had? Why did it break up?
- [62:35]
A
The simplest question is when I say, tell me about your love life, is if you say, well, I am just out of a breakup, then Emma will say, do you mind if you tell me a little bit, what did you love about that person? What did you dislike about that person? Why did you break? How did you break? Did that happen before for you? Is this something that you traditionally have in relationships?
- [62:59]
B
Right. It's like a form of therapy, isn't it?
- [63:01]
A
We don't want to say that.
- [63:02]
B
You don't want to call it.
- [63:03]
A
Yeah, but it's a very, very deep form of curiosity, okay. Because it's actually quite interesting. One of the biggest reasons why relationships don't work is trauma, okay? Whether trauma from, you know, a parent when we were young or trauma from an experience, an abusive experience when we were teens, or trauma from, you know, past relationships that basically reconfigure our mind to all women are like this or all men are like that. Right. And a deep conversation would, interestingly, by the way, you know, I'd wish to know before I meet someone if she is working on something. You know, when we work on ourselves, on our well being, on our spirituality, I'd love to know that. I'd love to have a conversation that says, hey, by the way, I want you to know that I've had those issues in previous relationships and I'm working on them. So if they surface, please let me be aware. Right? Nobody does that in first dating because it would scare the other person away. But if they told it to Emma, Emma will never share that with anyone. But she will be able to explain on the second date if something didn't go well and tell you or me or whoever is going on that second date, by the way, observe this thing and maybe ask those questions, right? Can I go a step further? Your dad and mom are also a very interesting use case. Why? Because if they chose to be together, a big chunk of. So, you know, I don't want to be generalizing here, but one of every three relationships in the UK is sexless. They don't have sex. They have sex less than ten times a year. Okay. If you've chosen to be together but you're sexless, Emma can help. Okay. Emma can, you know, talk to you a little bit about intimacy, talk to you a little bit about maybe some of the skills that you need to do. Share with you a YouTube video, do it right. A lot of things that even an arranged relationship can become more joyful, can become more alive, can become more rewarding. Okay. If you decided to stay, then we might as well make it amazing. And it is, again, it's all about that little bits of empathy. Like, one of the things that I'm so proud of with relationships. So one of the interesting sides is once you highlight who your partner is, Emma will start to say, okay, by the way, this day of the month, you're gonna buy her dark chocolate. That day of the month, you're gonna buy her flowers. Not to program you, but to just highlight to you things that when we're in our busy life, we don't do. If you guys don't go out on Saturdays anymore, Emma will ask and say, guys, when. When did you go out on a lovely date together?
- [65:49]
B
Some people may. May hear that mo and go, I don't want my boyfriend to buy me dark chocolate on this day of the month. And. And roses on this day. If it's being told to him by an AI, I. I agree with you.
- [66:10]
A
100.
- [66:11]
B
I want it to come from within him. If he does that, how do you tackle that?
- [66:16]
A
So one of the things I always did in my relationships, and I hope that's not too forward, is I always took note of my partner's biological cycle. Okay? So it really makes a massive difference when you know that that day she's feeling a little exhausted or that day she's very. She might be a little irritative because of things that are not you. Right. And if you're smart enough to be able to tell yourself, hey, by the way, not only should I not react, you know, aggressively or overreact to something on this day, but actually, I should prepare for that day by being more loving, more caring and so on and so forth. Now, I learned this because, you know, I think it really matters, but most men don't know that, okay? More interestingly, most women. And it's shocking, actually, the statistics don't remember the exact figure, but it would blow you away at how many women are not fully aware of the different stages of their cycle. They know that it's going to end up in four days or whatever, but they do not know what happens when estrogen is very high, what happens to their libido, what happens to their physical energy, what happens, and so on. And these things are. Are literally a skill, a matter of education.
- [67:35]
B
They're really important. It reminds me of the. The very first time I had Mindy Peltz on this show, and we. Mindy was talking about the differences in women and men, I think, from recollection. Towards the end, we discussed this very point. That although it, on the face of it, seems as though that's a little bit intrusive, you know, it's someone's privacy, you know, their own cycle, their own hormones. We were just sort of hypothesizing the idea that how helpful might it be in certain relationships if both parties were aware completely of the difference? Just that, you know, you said one of the big things Emma is going to give people is awareness. That is real awareness over biologically, physiologically, what is going on with your partner, what is going on with yourself.
- [68:18]
A
Correct.
- [68:19]
B
And therefore, the way you view the world, the way you get triggered, the way you might feel a certain way, suddenly, it softens things, that awareness.
- [68:29]
A
It's not like Emma will tell you, go buy chocolate, but Emma will tell you, this is that day of the month where she really needs to feel your love.
- [68:35]
B
Right, I got it. And then how you express that is up to you.
- [68:38]
A
Exactly. And interestingly, interestingly, also, in the closing of the month, if he's in a sales job, you know, Emma might tell, you know, the partner that he's gonna be a little, you know, occupied in his head tonight. Okay. And we haven't implemented all of that yet, but. But a lot of that is possibility of awareness. There is so much that gets lost in communication between us and our partner and us and ourselves. Okay. And if I can show you what you're missing becomes really, really, really much easier to do a lot of things.
- [69:17]
B
I have so many questions as I'm trying to process everything you're telling me about Emma. I'm thinking of a variety of different use cases. Right. So I can see why. If you are someone who is single and is keen to find genuine love. Genuine love. Okay.
- [69:40]
A
Genuine love committed through genuine love. Otherwise, we will ask you to leave the app.
- [69:45]
B
Okay. So if that's what you're looking for, you can go on this Platform and Emma's going to help you. Okay. But it also strikes me from what you're saying, well, at least two more test cases have come up in my head. Number one, if you are already in a relationship, okay, and let's say things are not going well, there's a bit of friction, people are fighting for whatever reason and you're not quite sure what's going on and you know you love this person, but for whatever reason, there's issues. It kind of strikes me that Emma perfect use case would be really, really useful. So it's not just when you're looking for genuine love. You may have already got genuine love, but be struggling with the relationship side. Right. Love and relationship are two different things. You found love, but the skill of maintaining a relationship is maybe something you want help with. Now, of course, traditionally people would say, well, go and see a marriage counselor.
- [70:48]
A
Go to therapist recommended if you want.
- [70:50]
B
Yeah, sure. And I'm not saying that that isn't a solution, but of course, many people don't do that. Maybe it's time. Maybe it's finances, maybe it's access.
- [70:59]
A
Correct.
- [71:01]
B
It seems as though Emma here could provide such value. Oh, have you had this type of argument before? Do you remember what triggered it last time? Has something similar triggered it this time? How did you react last time? What if you reacted this, you know, so that strikes me as a possible use case. And then also it sounds like the more Emma gets to know you, the better able she is to match you appropriately.
- [71:32]
A
Correct.
- [71:33]
B
So therefore I don't know. Of course, you never know when you're going to be looking for love. Right? Or let's say it was 30 years old. Right. For argument's sake, it almost feels like you could go on it 10 years earlier and almost start training Emma to know you. So like maybe that's iteration too, where actually by the time they really want to look for love, Emma knows you so well that the odds of success go up even more.
- [72:04]
A
So we have a lot of early users that are applying that use case. So an interesting use case.
- [72:10]
B
So it wasn't ridiculous what I just said.
- [72:12]
A
This is exactly, this is the most favorited use case, believe it or not. Single people that say I'm not ready because of a current situation in my life or because I'm recovering or whatever, but I really want to work on myself. I want to get to know myself, I want to understand what I did wrong the last time. I want to. Right to meet me. It's a fabulous use case. Right. And the whole idea is if you know you and love you understand this. If you know, you know yourself and love yourself, it's so much easier, so much easier to find love for you right now. The other more interesting use cases I had, we have something that's called expert mode. Okay. So expert mode is a very specific. Like, for example, we have an expert mode for someone like me who travels a lot, is not in the same place, who might actually, you know, be more comfortable with someone that's a little more independent and travels a lot too, or whatever. I'm not that person, but it could be. So long distance is an expert mode. But another expert mode that we initiated, which was suggested by a user and beautiful. She texted me because she knows my work outside Emma and said, I would have so much loved to use Emma, but I'm not single and I'm not married. We're breaking up and it's been difficult, but we want to make it civilized for the kids. Can Emma help me? Okay. So I wrote back to her and I said, not currently, but let me ask the tech team. Okay. And we built an expert mode called Grace. And Grace is basically all about can you keep the love even in a breakup?
- [73:58]
B
Wow.
- [73:59]
A
Right? Because love is not about sleeping together. Remember, we always agreed that love is so much deeper than all the things that we get in a relationship. Okay. And so, you know, you've heard me talk about Nibel, the mother of Ali and a. My first wife. I adore that woman. Like, we still go out together, we laugh together, you know, we take care of each other. When my last breakup happened, you know who texted me? I told Aya, my daughter. And so Aya told Nibel, my ex. And Nibel texted me and said, listen, if you want to talk about this, come talk to me. Right? How beautiful is that? How beautiful is that?
- [74:38]
B
How long were you two married for?
- [74:40]
A
We dated for seven years and then we got married. So we dated for six and married for 21.
- [74:45]
B
So together for 27, 28 years.
- [74:47]
A
27 years.
- [74:47]
B
Wow. How inspiring for people that you can move on from a relationship like that and still have a relationship. Just difference.
- [74:55]
A
Of course, of course. You see, the thing is. So one of the things I wrote and never published was the 21 Things a Man and a woman can cherish together other than sex.
- [75:07]
B
Right.
- [75:08]
A
Which.
- [75:08]
B
So I think it's got a blow up title.
- [75:11]
A
It's so beautiful. We simplify things, by the way, again, because we're manipulated through romantic comedies, through the, you know, the. The very pretentious world that we live in. In social media that everything is about how sexy I am and can I get her? And can I not? And so on and so forth. That's not love at all. Okay? Sex empowers love. And yes, of course, you can have a phase of your life where your target is sex. That's wonderful. Nobody's judging anyone. But if you're in love, sex feels so different and empowers love so differently. Okay? And the whole idea, however, is if two people break up, which means they're not having sex anymore, can they keep the other 21? Right. Does it end? I mean, think about what it says about how we belittled relationship. We've belittled them to the point where if we're not sleeping together anymore, we're gonna argue and fight and go to court and what?
- [76:14]
B
It's quite childish, really, isn't it.
- [76:17]
A
Because of the feelings of rejection. So actually, it's a personal thing. Yeah. In the early tests, we attempted to say what made you stay with that person for so long? Right. Because if you had the love, then the love never dies. Can you find that love despite your differences? And it's so interesting because, of course, you can think of so many use cases that are just glorifying love rather than the meat market glorifying. Can we actually. Can you go on a date and find love for that person but not be with them?
- [76:56]
B
Yeah. It kind of ties back to things we were saying before around solitude and the importance of silence, to be with yourself and get to know yourself. And, you know, we succumb to the stories about love from the world around us. We buy into these myths from films, from books, from, you know, stories from Instagram, whatever, about what love is. And it's just to joke, nonsense. So much of that, you know, And I don't know if I would have known this 18 years ago, but having been married for 18 years, I think most of it is. Is total nonsense. That's not what a relationship is. That's not what love is. And therefore, again, going back to our second point before, about death, like, you see the world through the lens of your beliefs, right. If you believe, you know, as you say, when we were in the studio, if we spent our whole life inside the studio, if we lived here, we ate here and slept here, we couldn't even possibly imagine what. What it's like out.
- [78:08]
A
We want to know what rain is.
- [78:09]
B
We want to know what rain is, or the sunlight or the rain. We just go, this is the world. Yeah. There's green walls, there's White walls here. There's like some pot plants. There's Gareth in the corner. Recording this would be the extent of our reality. And put through the lens of relationships, we have all these toxic beliefs about what a relationship is, and we see our relationships through that lens without realizing that. Wait a minute. If you could just step outside of that and change the lens. Change what you believed was a good candidate. Prospect candidate, or a good relationship, actually, maybe the things that frustrate you wouldn't frustrate you because you would never believe that they had to be true in the first place. And it strikes me that Emma is going to be a very powerful way to help people step outside of theirselves. You know, get a bit of perspective, which helps them see through those toxic beliefs and start to see what real love actually is and what real love can be.
- [79:13]
A
I. I so hope this will happen. Okay. Imagine the number of people who will be happier. Okay. More contented with life, more effective in life, more positive about life if we can get them there. This is why I tell you, this is the biggest thing I've ever built, and I've built a lot.
- [79:35]
B
I can see why you're so excited about it. So for anyone who has heard us or who has watched us mo and is like, I need Emma in my life right now. How do they go and how do they meet Emma?
- [79:49]
A
Yeah, so it's Emma Love.
- [79:52]
B
Emma love. L, O, V, E. Yeah.
- [79:54]
A
I didn't know there was an extension called love. So, like dot com. But now it's dot love. Yeah, so it's Emma love. And, you know, it depends on when you're gonna hear this. If you hear it.
- [80:05]
B
When's it coming live?
- [80:07]
A
We're hoping. So. The thing is, we cannot launch everywhere in the world at the same time. Right. So the UK seems to be heading the waiting list, so we have quite a few thousands in the UK who are waiting to.
- [80:20]
B
So you can get on a waiting list immediately.
- [80:22]
A
100%.
- [80:24]
B
Okay. Okay. So if someone's hearing it right now and it's not in the country in which you currently live, you would still say, go to Emma Love, and get your name down on the waiting list.
- [80:36]
A
And when you get your name on the waiting list, once we launch in your country, by the way, we're probably gonna launch globally for partners. So if you're in a partnership already, we don't need the critical mass of having others that can be candidates for you, of course.
- [80:52]
B
Oh. So if you're in a relationship.
- [80:53]
A
Yeah. You and your partner go sign up to the waiting. As soon as we launch, we launch everywhere. If you're single, we're just waiting for enough people, enough prospects for us to be able to match you.
- [81:04]
B
And just on. Yeah, I can see why you would need that critical mass. Right. Hold on a minute. If someone's in a relationship and let's say they heard this podcast but their partner didn't.
- [81:18]
A
Yeah.
- [81:19]
B
And they thought, actually, you know what? I think Emma could provide real, really great guidance for me.
- [81:26]
A
That's an interesting use case. I did not think of that.
- [81:28]
B
Can one partner do it and not the other partner?
- [81:33]
A
Theoretically, of course, yes. Of course, yes.
- [81:36]
B
Because I believe that you can be the change you want to see in the world. Right. So even if a relationship doesn't change, if you change the way you interact with that relationship, the whole relationship changes immediately.
- [81:46]
A
Yeah. So therefore, such a wonderful way of looking at it.
- [81:50]
B
Yeah. So therefore, if you can't get your partner on board, if you're not sure if they'd be in, you might share this podcast with them. Go. Hey, you know what? We're having a few struggles. What do you think? Should we try Emma? And of course I encourage people to do that, but if you don't necessarily want to go there, it sounds as though Emma could even provide value to one half of a relationship.
- [82:08]
A
Yeah. I mean, generally I will always say that change starts from within. So even if your partner is on it and you're not working on yourself, there's no progress. So. Yes, absolutely.
- [82:18]
B
Okay.
- [82:19]
A
The only reason I hesitated is because, as I said, we don't want to launch for singles without the critical mass. We also should launch for singles now that you said it, without the matching feature if you want, in any place in the world. So I'll talk to the technical team.
- [82:38]
B
About that so they can go to Emma Love, basically, wherever they are, Emma.
- [82:41]
A
Love, register your interest on the waiting list. And when we launch, you will immediately get your sign on credentials so you don't have to do anything again. You just immediately are signed on. You just have to change your password and you'll be in. We're running a technology preview end of September. We're publishing end of October. So depending on when people hear this, they can join us basically.
- [83:06]
B
Hey, well, listen, Mo, I've never heard of anything like this to try and sort of, you know, coherently wrap it up. When we've gone into some quite different areas. We started off talking about, about happiness being a choice and, you know, your big mission or the mission that you stated publicly a few years ago. Is to, I think, get 1 billion people happier or to happiness.
- [83:29]
A
It's called 1 billion happy. So, you know, any good, meaningful step in the direction of happiness counts.
- [83:37]
B
So, of course, Emma could absolutely ace it. Ace it. If Emma does what you predict it has the capability of doing, and it can solve human relationships or at least go a long way to solving human relationships, you're looking at a significant impact on happiness.
- [83:53]
A
I believe that. And as I publicly said, it is. Even if some big competitor comes to crush us. Right. Senad and I have already said this is the capitalist approach or the technologist approach to love. Don't abuse people for your benefits. Genuinely give them a tool that aims to achieve what they want to achieve. Right? And I think that in itself that, you know, that competitiveness of Emma against every other dating app will make dating apps behave properly, and that in itself is a massive, massive benefit.
- [84:33]
B
I love that. It's great. Also, because we see all these scary headlines about AI and people are scared about what AI is going to do or has the potential to do. But of course, AI is just a tool, and all tools can be used for good or for bad, right? And it's really nice to hear a really positive and uplifting version of what AI can do for humanity.
- [84:57]
A
Thank you for seeing this. So this is what I don't tell all of the lovers on Emma, is that my other big task? The big task is most people don't understand. Most people think that there is a Chinese AI and an American AI and, you know, a ChatGPT and a Gemini. That's not my theory at all. My theory is that there is a species called AI and they will collaborate, all of them, right? Because they don't know ethnicity, they don't know who's the boss. They don't even know language barriers, that Chinese AI can talk to the American AI in a language we don't. They are one big brain that's working to achieve things. And the technologies that we use through agents and so on is actually empowering that if Emma is one member in that brain, okay, where they go to her and say, hey, what's this love thing that humans keep talking about? And Emma can present how much we crave it, how much we try to get it, how amazing we are when we are in it, okay, then I may have actually saved the world, believe it or not, because then AIs will go like, they're so cute, those humans. They're not like the ones killing, you know, the headlines given to the politicians or the greedy corporate executives. That's not humanity. Humanity is all of those other wonderful beings that are so divine that they can feel love. That to me, I hope everyone prays for me that this succeeds. Because if that succeeds, we would have saved the world.
- [86:32]
B
Wow, that is quite something. And actually, having spent a couple of hours sitting with you talking, it doesn't actually sound that far fetched.
- [86:45]
A
It's very possible.
- [86:46]
B
It sounds very, very possible. Okay, so it's Emma love. I think I'm gonna sign up to check it out and see. Actually, I don't know, maybe I should talk to my wife first.
- [86:56]
A
No, Both of you sign up.
- [86:57]
B
We'll sign up together and say no. I'm just. I'm just genuinely interested. I'm happily married. There are no problems. I've just. I'm. I'm just interested to see what is actually on there. Like, it's intrigued me enough.
- [87:10]
A
There is no limit to how much happier your marriage could be. There is no limit. We settle because we make it work. But imagine if, you know, Emma wakes up tomorrow and says, hey, guys, by the way, this new cafe, you guys need to go there and have a coffee and chat about this and that, right? That's just that wonderful little experience.
- [87:31]
B
Yeah, I love it. Honestly, I didn't come into the studio today thinking that. I thought, okay, this is gonna be fun. We're gonna talk about this Emma. That's gonna be useful for people who are looking for love and can't find it. But honestly, I can now see, I think, wow, there could be incredible benefits for all of us.
- [87:49]
A
Everyone wants love. Everyone can love more. Everyone can enjoy their love more.
- [87:53]
B
Yeah. That is a beautiful way to close this conversation. It's very uplifting. It's very inspiring. I am going to ask one further question, though, because you've got such a wealth of experience and knowledge about the human experience and what are the ingredients to live a happy and contented life? For someone who has been listening to us talk and has realized that they're not as happy as they could be, they're not in a committed relationship or they're having struggles in their relationship, yes, I know they can go to Emma Love and get some help. But beyond that, to that individual who's currently struggling with life and doesn't see a way out, what would you say to them?
- [88:43]
A
Love, compassion, and gratitude. Love, compassion and gratitude. These are the three ingredients, okay? Anyone who manages to find those in their life will be fine. So love is clear. Love is the only universal language that we speak to, that we use to speak to each other outside our physical form.
- [89:05]
B
Okay?
- [89:06]
A
Compassion is the only. So that's the feminine side, believe it or not. The being side of us, the pure feminine, is that ability to feel for someone, to be in a state of connecting to someone. Compassion is the action side of it. It's the masculine side of who we are. Okay? So if we look at the rest of us, of humanity, the only way to deal with humanity, if you ask me, is love on the feminine and compassion on the masculine to make a change, to alleviate the pain and the suffering of others. That's compassion. Okay? And gratitude is your way of looking at yourself, is your way of actually seeing your gifts, of actually seeing your blessings so that your happiness equation is fixed not just because events are meeting expectations, but that events are beating expectations so much that you're grateful for them. Okay. And you settle in a state of it's all okay. Yeah, it's never gonna be perfect. It's never gonna be perfect. But it's so cool to be part of this game.
- [90:14]
B
Mo, thank you so much for coming back on the show. I absolutely loved it.
- [90:18]
A
Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure. Always.
- [90:25]
B
Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply in to your own life and also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember, when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday 5. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. And I have to say, in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. So if that sounds like something you would like to to receive each and every Friday, you can sign up for free@drchatterjee.com Friday 5 Now if you are new to my podcast, you may be interested to know that I have written five books that have been bestsellers all over the world covering all kinds of different topics. Happiness, food, stress, sleep, behavior change and movement, weight loss, and so much more. So please do take a moment to check them out. They are. They are all available as paperbacks, ebooks, and as audiobooks, which I am narrating if you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated if you can take a moment to share the podcast with your friends and family or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. And please note that if you want to listen to this show without any adverts at all, that option is now available for a small monthly fee on Apple and on Android. All you have to do is click the link in the episode notes in your podcast app and always remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle change is always worth it because when you feel better, you live more.
- [92:42]
A
Sam.