Mo Gawdat (2:08)

Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Podcast Host (2:09)

No, it's an absolute pleasure, honestly, for anyone who hasn't read it, it inspired me in such a different way and it brought this clarity to my way of thinking that just sticks with me no matter where I go. Thank you for putting that out into the world. It really is a beautiful piece of work. I think where I want to start, today's conversation is something that I find very interesting about you. So you're a, you trained as an engineer and now you have all these different aspects that you apply your thinking to. I think a lot of us, when we train or qualify in a particular profession, to me, for example, I studied to be a lawyer. It's very easy to box yourself in think. I studied law, therefore I'm a lawyer. I studied finance, I do finance. What I find interesting with you is you almost took this engineering mindset and applied it laterally to something completely different, like Happy. You went from solving X to solving happy. How do you actually free yourself from limiting the way you've maybe been trained to think, or a way that might be natural for you to think so that you actually can apply your talents. In other words, other themes of life.

Mo Gawdat (3:16)

Ah, that's, it's not an easy question to start. Honestly, this is probably one of the big challenges that a lot of people have, you know, struggle with. I, I don't think it's because we get boxed into, into a discipline. I think it's because of many other reasons. One is what will society think of me? What will my mother in law think about me? You know, what will happen to my mortgage, what will happen to my income? You know, we box into a lifestyle that we're, we're familiar with and you know, psychology will tell you that humanity, you know, fears or rejects change more, more than it rejects anything. So, you know, if you're in an abusive relationship, for example, most people will stay because they'll go like, you know what? At least I know this, I know how to deal with it. And it's quite shocking when you really think about it because, you know, most of the time what we found in life was not our plan at all. It was completely a coincidence when you really think about it. The fact that you scored a certain score and then your best friend went to that university and you were living in that city and eventually you end up in something and you just stick to that path for the rest of your life. What you mentioned about my being trained as an engineer, I wouldn't say I was trained as an engineer. I think I was born as an engineer with a deficit of many other things. So my mind is very good with mathematics, very good with algorithms, physics, building things, but it's very weak at other things. And so this is if you want a tax that you pay for being better in something and One of the things that my mind completely struggles with is I don't have any fear whatsoever, which is very unusual. I mean, I, I say that because I, I publicly started to tell the world that, you know, I was born on the spectrum, I see the world slightly differently. And, and so fear is not part of my algorithm at all. You know, I, I, I, I wrote in Solve for Happy that I had one fear, I had two fears. One of them happened, which was to lose a child. And so now I'm, you know, I only had one, which I had to address. And I still believe it or not still, you know, it's conditioning is to deal with that second fear. Having said that, what I'm trying to say is quite interestingly, even fear itself can be addressed algorithmically because fear is sort of a calculated response that has a logic behind it, even though it appears very irrational. You're afraid when you feel that a moment in the future is less safe than this moment. And so when it comes to your career or, you know, what you decide to do with your life, if, if you address why do you believe that changing your career is something that might make the next moment a little less safe? You can, you can actually deal with that. You know, if you, if you're afraid that people will think you're crazy, then maybe you can reconsider the people that you're friends with, or maybe you'll find a way to make them believe that it's not crazy, or maybe you'll ask their opinion and incorporate it in your, in your, you know, choices and so on. But you can deal with, and I have to say, when you look back at life from where I stand, most of the things that we've ever planned, you or I, I don't know you that well, but I can assure you that will be true for you as well, were not part of your plan. So most of the things that make you the person that you are, most of the big successes and actually the big failures as well, just came out of left field and you never really expected them. And if you're in a, in life where you're trying to control everything, you may make it to the, to the, to the end line, you know, but, but it will be very boring on the way and it, and, and you'll miss out on many, many, many chances, I think.

Podcast Host (7:33)

So do you think, I mean, obviously there's a part of this which is unique to you and your experience in, let's just say the lack of emotional experience maybe you have with fear because you look at it as a bit more logically and other algorithmically, whereas for a lot of people it's quite an emotional experience. So do you think if we're, if we're talking, if we go back to kind of what I raised, which is applying maybe a way that's natural for you to think or whether you've been trained in that way and you're going to do something else, do you think it's more giving yourself the permission to do it? Like, do you feel like there was a part of you that when you started to explore this concept of happiness, like, did you almost have to give yourself permission to be more than an, than an engineer or. I know you, you a bit of trading as well. Did you ever have this experience where it was sort of the gap in between you being an author, coming from being an engineer or, you know, how was that experience for you?

Mo Gawdat (8:28)

So permission is, is, is needed not because of me, remember? So, you know, as a, As a young 25 year old father, okay, fear started to come from very different places. So, so you know what would happen if I left IBM? You know how, you know, IBM was, was the absol at that time? You know what would happen to the kids if I left IBM? Okay. And in a very interesting way, permission in that case, again is a logical conversation. I mean, fear at first becomes irrational, right? And every emotion, fear included, is an emotion that is in you to trigger an awareness that theoretically is aiming for a specific response that's good for you, right? So, so fear is not trying to annoy you. You know, anger is not trying to explode you, okay? These are, you know, emotions that are there for a reason. You know, boredom is not there for you to swipe on social media, right? But boredom is there to tell you that you're underwhelmed with this world. Maybe it's, you know, do something to create a world that's a little more interesting than this one. Right? And, and so when you get an emotion like fear, it's there to tell you, I want us, I don't mind what you choose to do, I just want us to do it in a way that's safe for our future. Okay? And so when I started, you know, I started, I think by now maybe 37 businesses in my life. And you know, early on, because I had my family and I had the kids and so on, I would start the business on the side while I'm doing my 9 to 5 job in a field that doesn't have a conflict of interest with my job. So I can talk about it openly, you know, without being hiding anything, and wait for a moment where that is established enough to be able to start to make that my main nine to five as I start the second thing and the third thing, that's one way of doing it. Another way of doing it is to partner with someone that compliments you in that way. I mean, when I was at IBM, I had a very dear friend called Ahab who sat in the desk in front of me. And the way he did it is he found a partner. They both worked corporate jobs. And he said, okay, you know what, I'm making more money in my corporate job than you. Let's, you know, you leave your job, you run our startup, and I will pay half of my income until we're established. Right. And that kind of partnership sort of addresses the safety issue in the future, you know. And you could think about it this way. Having said that, once again, you know, fear is, is focused on, I'm afraid that something is unsafe in the future. There are other emotions, optimism, for example, that says, oh, but that future could be amazing. Right? And you could actually tell yourself, can I borrow from that emotion? Can I put the fear aside after I've heard it, I've discussed it with myself, I felt it, I've addressed it on a few notes on a paper. Now can I borrow from another emotion? Let me borrow from optimism and say, if I did this right, what would be possible? Okay. And you know, once you start to look at that, you're now balancing this a little bit, you know, you know, fitting in, the need to fit in. Okay. And you know, what will they think of me if I did this? You could sit with that emotion and say, can I make them think of me very positively? I mean, look at you. You're saying that I'm doing something interesting by changing my focus all the time. Having said that, this is again, one of the of the questions that comes up in podcasts quite a lot, but it doesn't apply to everyone. You really have to understand that the fact that you have it within you to be something that's not caged in a, in a, in a monotonous job. Yeah. You may think to yourself that this is actually quite instinctive, you know, instinctual. Instinctive. I am. You know, everyone would want that, but that's not true at all. Okay. There are many people who would actually want and prefer the security of 9 to 5. There are people that will do the 9 to 5 half heartedly because they want to go surf. Right. And what actually really matters is can you allow yourself the time to sit genuinely with yourself? And I always say three questions, right? You know, ask yourself three questions. What if God or the universe was extremely generous today? You know, it would give me absolutely anything that I wanted, right? Question two is, what if there was no consequences to what I choose? Okay? Nothing could go wrong. Whatever I choose, nothing could go wrong, right? And question number three is, what if nobody was going to judge me? What would I choose to do with my life? What would I choose to do with my love life? What would I choose to do with my hobbies and so on and so forth, right? And if you. If you start to see it that way, I'm not saying go ahead and do it. I'm just saying this actually gives an opportunity to switch off your worried brain and speak to your heart, okay? Because your heart will then say, you know what? I'd stop doing this and start doing that. Or, you know what? I would, you know, stop dating this and start dating that. Or, you know what? I'd stop driving this and start driving that. Or whatever, okay? Knowing that is a very valuable set of information, okay? Because for some people, believe it or not, if you tell them, if the universe gave you everything you want and, you know, you, You. There were no negative consequences and nobody would judge you, they'd still, I love my accounting. They still say, I love my accounting job, okay? I just want to be assured that this is going to be my life forever. And if that's true, go ahead and keep it, okay? Not everyone is the same.

Podcast Host (14:30)

Yeah, for sure. There's. There's definitely something to be said there about everyone finding authentically what. What makes sense for themselves. And those are three really beautiful questions to be able to tap, I think, into your heart and away from layers that are often put on top of us. I actually really like that idea of borrowing from other emotions because sometimes, and that's quite a practical way, actually, of looking at something big and overwhelming, like fear, like, can you park it? Not. Not acknowledge it, not sweep it under the rug, but just park it and borrow from another emotion to maybe change your way. You're looking at something. So I guess, and just from even speaking to you briefly now, you know, I've read your book as well, but, you know, you strike me as a very logical kind of person, and so I find it really interesting that some of your more recent projects are in an area which I would say is a little bit illogical, and that is love. So I'd love to know for You. What's been your experience with. With love? Like, do you agree that it is sort of, or can be a very illogical thing? And how is that correlated with the way you actually see the world?

Mo Gawdat (15:36)

Love is not irrational at all. Love is the only rational thing ever. Okay? What I'm working on is relationships. These are two very different things.

Podcast Host (15:46)

Break down the separation for us.

Mo Gawdat (15:48)

So love. So again, you know, we started our conversation with emotions. And in my. Was it my third book, that little voice in your head? I wrote a chapter called the Equations of Emotions, which, you know, everyone was like, what? Why would. But every emotion has an equation. Every emotion follows an algorithm. As I said, fear is a moment in the future that's less safe. You know, envy is. I wish I had something someone else has, but I don't. Right. And so on. And I struggled. And in that chapter I wrote and, you know, but I couldn't find an algorithm for love because love is very irrational, it seems. Right. I continue to work. I write a lot and I don't publish everything that I write. And so I. There is a book that started as Finding Love, then ended up being Finders Keepers that I never published. I wrote six times and I never published. And in Finders Keepers, somehow it hit me on version 6 that love has an equation which is love equals one. Right? Love is.

Podcast Host (16:49)

Love equals one.

Mo Gawdat (16:50)

Yeah. Love is always there, right. It's always felt. You can only block it, right. Or not tune into it. So think of it. A simpler way to understand this is consciousness equals one. So the consciousness is pervasive. It's always there. You can plug into it or you can distract yourself away from it.

Podcast Host (17:10)

Ever present.

Mo Gawdat (17:11)

Yeah, it's ever present. Right. And in my assessment, love is not an emotion, is the only emotion that's not of the physical world. Right. And, you know, the idea of why it doesn't follow the logic of the, you know, of the physical world is because in my. It depends on what you believe. But in my belief, it exists between two souls and the two souls that have a sense of belonging in the spirit world, if you want, we'll get together closer in the. We'll try to sort of get the avatars together in the physical world. And so because it's a property or it's an emotion of the spirit world, you know, in a very interesting way, if you look at. I studied almost all spiritual and religious teachings, Christianity specifically is so beautifully describing that, you know, that basically God is love. Right. And it's quite interesting when, you know, Christianity will explain that Jesus will say, I'm within you, okay? And if you're really looking for the kingdom of God, it's in you. And it's so interesting when you understand that, because then love becomes easy. You can only block it. If you unblock it, it's felt. And that was my experience. My experience is I actually really struggle not to love someone. Like, you know, anyone that comes my way. We met an hour ago. I feel love for you. Unless you, you know, you really struggle and do a lot of things and become an Netanyahu, I'm going to struggle not to feel love for you. This is, I think, the nature between spirits now, relationships. Oh, my God. Now we're talking. Now the challenge is interesting because relationships, if you look at it my way, is actually the most complex mathematical problem on the planet, right? And it's complex simply because you're trying to connect endless variables on one side to endless variables on another side. So it's a massive N square problem. You know, basically, let me, let me attempt to explain it briefly. If, if you want to connect two people, let's say you have a team of two people, they'll just connect to each other. But if you have seven people in your team, for them to connect fully, they need 49 different ways to connect. Now take that and apply it to main characters within you and main characters within your partner, right? If you take something as simple as love languages, which comes with five different options on either side, imagine the number of different ways two people can connect on love languages, okay? And, and so it becomes quite interesting that this one parameter could fit or could not or needs to be explained, right? So it, you know, you could be very lucky and find someone who really enjoys giving you love the way you and I want to be loved. And then, you know, you give love the way he wants to be loved. But that is a massive stroke of luck, okay? Or you can not know anything about love languages, and so you'll probably, over time, feel unloved, right? Or you can learn, right? And, and, and there are some things that can be learned and some things that. That cannot. So you can actually adapt your style to give them love the way they want to receive it, but you cannot adapt yourself to receive love the way they give it. You have to explain to them so that they do something about the way they communicate. Now, that's one parameter for every single one of us. If you count the number of ways we behave in life, hundreds of thousands of things describe us, right? And you're trying to now take People, you know, two people with differences that can expand across thousands of parameters and try to get them to be together. At first you get this, you know, toxic cocktail of. Of. No, toxic is the wrong word. Intoxicating cocktail of hormones. You know, you get oxytocin and serotonin and dopamine at the same time, which is the only time a human feels that feeling is during romance, right? It's like, oh my God, I have no idea what's going to happen. Is she going to actually come and, you know, and, and look at me that way or, you know, so you get a little bit of dopamine there. Then you make love and then you're hugging her and there is a lot of serotonin, there are a lot of oxytocin there, a lot of. It's a very unusual phase. Six months of, you know, of honeymoon, if you want. Or say a year, two years, you know, but then suddenly reality hits and you start to look at all of the other parameters. So, so my, my view was, if my task in the world as I defined it to myself, is 1 billion happy, to make people happier, then, because 98.6% of all relationships fail, which is again, very easily mathematically calculated. You know, they give you statistics that 50% of marriages end, but how many relationships don't make it to marriage is what you want to know, right? And so if 96.8% of all of all relationships fail, then how can you be within the three, you know, the 3.2%? Okay? And to do that is actually really, really mathematics. And so what I decided to do is to mix those two talents I have. One is artificial intelligence, the other is mathematics, partnered with a genius, a young man who is, you know, much better than I was when I was 27, a serious geek. And we built an AI that basically helps you understand those things, right? It helps, you know, you not know the partner you're looking for, right? And then if you know you, then you know why you want certain things and then you can actually understand should you want them or not. You know, you can actually understand where on your priority list they fit. You can actually understand what certain little bits that you can change that can make things a lot better for you. You can understand what other bits that you should probably, you know, give up on and so on and so forth and do that on the other side. So, so we call it Emma. And Emma is basically both of those. 1. 1 Is it helps you self discover so that you can be a better person, more ready for love. And so then we match you with someone who's also has become a better person, more ready for love. Not, not like I use, you know, a dating app where you swipe on the meat market, really, you know, looks okay. It's more, more, much more deep than that. But then also it's a partnership app. And which is, I think the reason why I believe it's hopefully going to make a massive difference is most dating apps want you to continue to date for the rest of your life because that's how they make their subscription. We want you to end up finding someone falling in love so that we can actually have work with the two of you as partners to explain all of those little fine tunings in the hundred thousand parameters. Right. And that's really where Emma comes to life. It basically constantly tells you differences at personal level, but also at a polarity level and so on and so forth. And, and in my mind I have to say of everything I've ever done, that's probably the best contribution I've ever contributed to making the world better. It's, you know, it's almost there now, so we will see, you know, in January. But, but it seems to me that this will absolutely make the world a better place.

Podcast Host (25:05)

I think it's very interesting what you're working on and people who listen to this show are already passionate or invested in their own self improvement. And so I think the concept of getting to know yourself first and foremost before you commit to somebody else or before you are ready to sort of open yourself up emotionally to somebody else is, is, is a really nice way to look at relationships. I wonder what your view on this is. If, you know, it's a case of matching the variables as best you can and going through many different parameters. Is it true to say that there are many people that would be right for you and the one, or is it, you know, I think people put so much pressure on finding the one person that's meant for them in this life. But if we're looking at it mathematically and from I guess the way you've programmed this to match people, would it be fair to say that there are many people that could be the one for you?

Mo Gawdat (25:57)

So it depends on how limited your soul is really. You know, I don't mean to say that in a bad way, but maybe some souls will end up find loving one person and other souls will say I love every other soul. Now understand the following love comes from a, you know, the fabric of love in the spirit world is exactly the same. Okay, You Love your partner just from the same fabric of loving your dog and loving your best friend and loving your mother. Right. It's the same love. It's just applied in different contexts, if you want. Okay. So it manifests differently. And so, you know, one of my experiences for sure, is that when a woman came into my life, she deserved my love, and my love continued even after she was no longer my intimate partner, if you want. Right. It just morphed into a slightly different form of love. And love has to, you know, genuine, true, unconditional love that's not of this material world but of the spirit world would have to do that, you know, going through the different phases of it. Having said that, if you're in the spirit world, you're made of love. Right. So if you're connected to your spiritual side, of course, love is not one person. Right. If you're in the. In the material world, in the, you know, the physical world. I have to say Esther Perel speaks about this reasonably vocally. I would say I'd have to say there are two promises, and the whole, you know, the brand of love, you know, unfairly, I would say, is sort of owned more. More by the feminine. It's like, we know love, you guys. Yeah, tag along. Yeah, I don't think that's true at all. I think love exists in two very different approaches, in between the two. But. But, you know, if the feminine is leading love, they'll say, hey, you know what? I want security in the physical world, okay? And security means I don't want to be jumping from partner to partner, not knowing what, you know, what will. What the future will hold for me. So I'd rather have a life that is a little more predictable. I'd rather believe in the one I'd rather believe in forever. I'd rather believe in soulmate and so on and so forth. Ask the same woman, however, and there will be times where she will say, actually, I wanted to experiment more with life. I want to experiment more with myself. I sometimes feel that I'm attracted to others and so on and so forth. That's also true, by the way, for women and men. Here are biological identities, if you want, but, you know, but basically, in whichever gender identity, in whichever approach to life, I. I normally try to look at the feminine and the masculine, which is available in every one of us. If you're more feminine, you'll. You'll will sort of prioritize safety, okay? If you're more masculine, you'll sort of prioritize freedom. And we Keep alternating between them. I call it the sso, SFO spectrum. So. So if you ask, at least that's my work. That's not science, but my work will say that the three top things that the. The feminine side of a relationship will prioritize is she wants to be safe at. On the top. When I say she here, the feminine, not the. Not the main male, female, you know, she wants to be safe, she wants to be seen. And of course, if she is sexually active, she wants O's, right? The masculine has what I call sfo. So he wants to be seen first, which is the number one demand of a man in a relationship is to be respected and appreciated by his woman. Then he wants to be free, and not necessarily free to go and roam around and sleep with 100 other women. If respect is available. Most women will actually. Most men will actually stay forever, right? If respect is absent, most men will go like, so why am I here? Why am I trying? Okay? And that when it becomes. That's when it becomes easy to. To go and fall for another woman, right? But they want to be free because the masculine is supposed to be out in the world building things, doing things, exploring things and so on. So they want the freedom to be able to disappear, okay? To be able to, you know, to. To do something, to follow a passion, to. Right? So s. F. Oh, and of course, if they're, you know, sexually active, they want O's. And. And so when you compare the two, you realize that there isn't really. Sort of like a rule of a soulmate. Okay? There is a rule of what I call seasons. And for some of us, our seasons are longer than others. Right? So I'll give an example, personal example. When I. When I fell in love with my first wife, Nibel. Nibel and I spent 27 years together. We dated for six years. We were married for 21, and we're still together in many ways. I still think of her as one of the best women in the world. We do business together. You know, we. We have coffees and chat about the world together. We parent Aya together and so on. She's a wonderful human being in every possible way. And so Nibel and I, in the 27 years, had to fall in love six times. People don't understand that we go through seasons. My college sweetheart is one form of love that's very, very different than my wife. Right? When she becomes my wife, I was like, so. So where's my college? Where is the fun, outgoing, easygoing, like, why is she talking about Tidy and, you know, and. And toilet seat and all of that stuff, right? And. And then you suddenly go like, okay, so my college sweetheart is gone. This love can end, right? But, oh, my God, I love this new one, right? She looks at me and I'm, like, out at work, and I'm trying and, you know, trying to provide for that new home and so on. And she goes like, so where's my college sweetheart? He was so much fun. We were dating all the time. Time, that's gone. But I like this new one. Then you become father and mother, and that changes again, you know? And, you know, you're going through that right now. You have to change because you have this new, you know, third life. Yeah, third life in your life. And. And suddenly, you know, your priorities are not the same. The time you spend together is not the same. The type of activities you do together are not the same. And you have to fall in love again around that new creature, right? And you. You know, each of those is a season. Each of those is a different nature of a relationship. Each of those is a different partnership. And the real question, if you ask me, is, would we be able to keep falling in love over and over? With Nibel and I, we failed to fall in love the seventh time. It morphed into a different form of love, right? And so. And so can you do that? Can you. You know, can you then acknowledge to yourself and say, but, hey, life is about experiences. And so I find that once again, like we spoke about at the beginning, if you asked yourself openly if the universe gave me anything that I want, there was no judgment and no consequence for what I would choose. I can guarantee you, at different stages in your life, you will want different styles of love.

Podcast Host (33:38)

Okay?

Mo Gawdat (33:39)

Sometimes you will want to explore lots of things. Other times, you will want to be in a stable relationship. Other times you will not want a relationship at all. And I think they're all absolutely okay, you know, And I think we acknowledge. We should. We should acknowledge and live each of them.

Podcast Host (33:55)

I find the. The concept of the different seasons of. Of a relationship is very, very true. I've been with my husband 10 years. We've been married one and a half. We've been together for 10 years. And so from when I was 20 to when I was 30, that looks extremely different. You know, been. We've done business together, we've moved countries together, we've become parents together. There's so much variance in that. If we're looking at that through your, I guess, relationship equation, right, the complex one you're talking about what goes wrong, where you can't evolve into that next season together, what changes fundamentally about, you know, because you were talking about how Emma helps you work out who you are different, those different variables of which are so many. But what then actually changes that doesn't allow you to continue growing together when you have been able to do that for so long.

Mo Gawdat (34:45)

My, my simple answer is a disconnect of objectives, right?

Podcast Host (34:51)

Like common purpose.

Mo Gawdat (34:53)

Purpose is a big word, right? But you know, if you're dating someone in uni, your objective is fun. So let me. Allow me to step out a tiny bit. And again, part of my work on Finders Keepers that I didn't publish is that we said that love is of the spiritual world. So what are relationship about? Okay, relationships are about something I call perfects. Ppr, fcts. Okay? So it's an acronym just to remind you that we want seven things from a relationship that have very little to do do with love. Love is above and below and around all of them, right? So the first P is partnership. You want someone to do things with you, you know. The second is passion. The R is romance. We love that feeling, right? The F is friendship. The C is companionship. You know those lovely couples that would go out and read the newspapers in the morning and have coffee and no speak a word. And you know the old guys that hold each other's hands but say nothing, right? So companionship. T is tenderness. So the touch, the hug, the. Whether that's version, you know, spiritually or physically or mentally or emotionally, to hug someone, to be there for them. So that's the te. Tenderness. And then S is support, right? We all, despite how the new movements and the new age are trying to say we don't need each other. We absolutely need each other in almost every possible way, right? And so. So, so this is where your needs in a relationship are for quite a bit of every season, one of those or two of them become your priority or your objective, right? So, you know, you could be with someone in your early 20s because of passion. You know, sex is amazing. You have an amazing, you know, time, intimate time together. And. And that's okay with you. You know, he's not, you know, he's handsome but a bit stupid. You're never going to be with him forever, but for that season you're okay with it, right? Sometimes you will want to be with someone for romance when you have a child. It's now all about partnership. Partnership is. We have this new business sort of that we're going to have to, you know, collaborate on and so on. Okay? And so what normally happens is if the. If the two morph from season to season at the same time, from the same objective to the same objective, or at least an alignment of some sort, it's easy to find something again to connect you, right? But if he's still interested in passion and now you're interested in partnership, right? This is when what's amazing becomes less than what's annoying. And because of our brain's negativity bias, you suddenly start to say, but my. My objective from this relationship is this, and he is. Has no clue about it. So, you know, I can put up with that for a week, for a month, for a year, but can I spend the rest of my life with someone who's not even aligned with me on my objective life? Right? And that's when things start to fall apart and you start to. To. To. To nag about things that are actually not related at all. Oh, you're not, you know, you don't see me. You go back to SSO and sfo, you don't see me. You're not, you know, he says, but you're not, you know, passionate about me. You're not turned on by me anymore, and so on, right? You argue in a different space, but the truth is, the objective has been missed. And honestly, sometimes I sit with friends or people who ask me for advice and I say, are you aligned on this? Now, believe it or not, that's exactly what Emma is supposed to do. Okay? Because Emma will take a very long time, we're actually assessing. One of the reasons why we delayed the launch is originally we wanted the first conversation to be three hours between you and Emma, and now we're extending it into a couple of days before we show you any matches at all or give you any advice at all. All because it's so interesting when you just list down the number of things you'd like to know about a person before you say that you even know them, from what music they like all the way to what's their biggest ambition in life. That could be like 60 or 70 topics. Now understand, within those 70 topics, there is so much to be parsed out about what your objective in the current season is. Right? There's so much to parse about out about what your objective in the past season was. Okay? Now, if your objective in the current season is family and his objective in the current season is money, if you're dating, we might as well highlight that up front to tell you hey, by the way, discuss those topics because those topics matter. If your partners. We might as well highlight to you that these are very important topics. With very specific questions. You can connect deeper. You can understand each other. Instead of focusing on the silly nagging, you can somehow sit with him, or he sits with her and say, hey, babe, let's do. On our Saturday date, let's talk about objectives. Like, I feel that we're in a new season. I feel that things are changing. I feel that I'm spending more time and effort and brain cycles on certain things. And it's absolutely okay for you to disconnect as long as you support each other. Right. As long as he says, okay, I'm going to support you in family as long as you support me at work, which, by the way, is a very typical breakup when kids join the organization if you want, simply because he. His parental side says, my role is to provide, I'm going to work more. I felt that very clearly when Ali came to our work world. Her role is. My role is to protect and nurture. Okay. So I'm going to focus on that, which means I have to be close to that place. Right. He's basically pulled out into the world. She's basically pulled into. Closer to that nest, if you want. And it's actually really interesting for him to say, well, you know, my job is to provide so that the nest is amazing. Your job is to keep that. That nest. Incredible. We align. I'm just doing it differently, but it requires a conversation. And I think what we're aiming to achieve with Emma is to enable that conversation on the silly things like, hey, by the way, it's this time of the month where he has the month closing at work. Or she may be not feeling great. Okay, be a little kinder in your conversation. All the way to. By the way, there is a misalignment on something important and requires a conversation.

Podcast Host (41:58)

Yeah. The communication piece is so important to stay aligned as you grow, because you do grow and change and, you know, you don't want to be you. You hear people talk about it sometimes like it's a bad thing, like, oh, they've changed so much, or they're not the woman. It's not the woman I married. Or, you know, passing comments like that you don't want to be with the same person. That was 10 years ago. You know, you want to see. But yeah, you know, someone growing and.

Mo Gawdat (42:18)

Changing definitely is not a woman you married. It definitely she's not.

Podcast Host (42:21)

Yeah.

Mo Gawdat (42:22)

You know, 10 years is a long time when you really think about it, it, you'd be, you'd be bored, you know, senseless, if the person you're with doesn't evolve over, over the years.

Podcast Host (42:33)

Exactly. I know you have a view on AI and where it's headed in terms of it replacing a lot of the things that we do today. I wonder, I mean, I love what you're building. I, I think it's very, very interesting. But I wonder if there's a side of this and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on getting to know somebody and working out if there's alignment. Feels like a very human experience. And so how do you make sure that this tech, this AI that you're building is not contributing to a problem you're trying to solve?

Mo Gawdat (43:06)

So I, I, I acknowledge what you said. I think AI used in the wrong way can be quite detrimental to humanity. Having said that, I think AI using, used the right way can really multiply our abilities leaps and bounds, really, by multiple fold. And the most interesting one is productivity and iq. But that's not necessarily inherent within AI. AI for most of us who use language models is to ask the things that you are a little curious about, but haven't really. It's almost like a journal in a very interesting way, but a journal, responsive journal. Yeah, a journal that participates in, in filling itself. And I find that quite interesting because most people tell me, oh, but AI will again. Being one of the early people that worked on AI in Google and Google X, we were definitely the absolute leaders for all of the years I was there, since 2004, we started to have very meaningful AIs, and I built quite a few of them. And most people would constantly sort of speak about, yeah, yeah, yeah. But these are things that are reserved to humans. These are things AIs will never do. And we would laugh. You know, in my documentary, I have a documentary coming out in January, and I hosted most of the pioneers and the top, top teachers of AI, and one of them was Geoffrey Hinton and Jeffrey, you know, Jeffrey's work really is what manifested this, because Jeffrey's original idea was, I want a computer to simulate the human brain so that I can measure what's happening in the brain. You know, being a psychologist originally and, and so when we bit when he built that, that was used to say, if we can simulate the brain, maybe we can create a brain. Right. And that's what AI is all about. So it's actually identical to the way our neurons work in so many ways that nothing a human brain can do. Will not be to able be done by an AI sooner or later. Now, that also includes, believe it or not, empathy, right? So most people would say, oh, but they're good at iq, they're not good at eq. And I laugh out loud. I'm like, are you kidding me? They're the most empathetic being on the planet. They not only know which video you want to watch next, you know, they know what you don't know about yourself. That's how intuitive they are, how connected and empathetic they are too, to what you actually need. And so if empathy is measured as feeling what another person feels, they're very good at it. Now that is a very interesting character that is not surfaced in today's AIs in a positive way. It's surfaced in a way that keeps you locked into an Instagram screen. And I can use that within Emma in a way that basically says, I hear you. I understand where that is coming from.

Podcast Host (46:01)

From.

Mo Gawdat (46:01)

Okay? You know, and you'll, you'll be blown away in some of our testing at how she would point out. So, you know, things that are so interesting. Like, you know, you'd be talking about how frustrated it is that you are with, you know, something I struggled with is sometimes a woman in my life is very unpredictable, right? And she would go like, well, I actually think that this is a challenge you may not be aware of, which is, is a lot related, a lot more related to your way of setting boundaries, right? Because it doesn't make a difference if you, if your woman is unpredictable or not. What makes a difference is where is the line beyond which your boundaries are protected, right? And, and, and that comes out of absolute left field. Like, that wasn't even part of the conversation. Emma. Okay? And I, I love that bit when she goes, like, would you mind if I coach you a little? And I'm like, like, okay, I'm like freaking 58. Why do you want to coach me? And then eventually she says something like, can you try to use those three statements to set a boundary around those things? Right. I find that incredibly, incredibly useful. Now, there are other characters around Emma that are not typical AI at all. One of them is, she doesn't want to please you. She's not chatgpt. Okay? So we design, we designed her as this a best friend that will actually tell you this that your best friends will not tell you.

Podcast Host (47:24)

That's good to know. Because I was thinking, what if you have like a narcissistic style personality or someone who's feeding it just Maybe not the whole truth or just what it wants to hear or how it wants to present itself. Does that detrimental then to how?

Mo Gawdat (47:37)

100%. But so. So there are two safety valves on that. One is Emma itself is designed to push back. So. So she will say things like, well, I need to ask a few more questions, or have you noticed this? Or where does this come from? And so on. So this is one. The other is, which I found fascinating, is that unlike other dating apps, Emma will figure you out after the first date, right? Because actually after the first match, because we could show you someone and you would go like, like, no, no, I don't like that. And Emma will say, why? Just tell me why. So I can be better in matching you next time. And then suddenly you'll say, ah, but he's not six foot one. And we're gonna go like, okay, so tell me a little more about six foot one. We haven't. We don't. We don't know about this. Okay? So this is one area. The other area of it, which is extremely interesting is after the date, right? Emma is. Emma's designed as your best friend. She. So she will go like, like, how did it go? Right? And then you say things and she may be able to say, oh, no, no, you don't understand. It's. This is because he is that way, okay? Or interestingly, she would say, oh, that might be because you're that way. Okay? But here's the interesting thing. If he ghosts you, Emma will ask a couple of days later, how's Jack? And, you know, and you'll say, oh, he ghosted me. Me. Okay? And then she will go to Jack and say, what's up with this ghosting stuff, right? And we have this very unusual approach of we really don't want you in the community if you're not a good candidate, okay? If you're not committed to this. So if. If, you know, if upfront Emma asks you and says, what kind of relationship are you looking for? And you say, I'm looking for hookups, we'll say we recommend Tinder, right? We literally don't want you in the community. And so this is one thing. The other thing is she's temporal. Which is very, very, very interesting for AIs today. AIs are not fully aware of time. They're. They respond to you when you, you know, prompt them. Emma is temporal, so she will risk. She will prompt you to do things at certain points in time. Okay? So, you know, if. If you meet Hassan and Hassan is interesting, and you know, you, you're going out on a date on Thursday, Thursday morning. Morning, she'll say to you and him, hey, by the way, here are some very interesting talking, you know, conversation starters between you, okay? Things that you may want to investigate and so on. So, so you just think about those, you know, those ideas of being the one asking the questions, not the one being asked the one. The one that is going. Going to push back, the one that's going to bring multiple AI percept perceptions together and so on and so forth. From a design point of view, maybe it's unlike anything we've. I've, at least I've seen before. But from a spirit point of view, that's what it's all about. What it's all about is it is a tool for introspection that allows you to constantly revisit your beliefs about love and relationships in a way that allows you to constantly improve as the athlete that you are in a relationship if you want, which actually is really most relationships that work, or at least that ends amicably if you want, are relationships where everyone constantly learns and improves. Right. Doesn't mean they're bad people to start, okay. But that they have that willingness to say to themselves, hey, you know, I've. I was born a wonderful child and conditioned the life. Conditioned the hell out of me, okay? And now I'm a, I'm. I'm a lost navigator trying to find not my way in life, which is what the west sells to you. You trying to find that child back. The pure, you know, simplest example of who I am. And, and if you can find that child back and find someone that loves that child, relationships become effortless.

Podcast Host (51:37)

Effy. Yeah, I love that. And it does put the onus back on you. And, and it's a really nice reminder that you are. You have to take accountability for yourself in a relationship. You can't take for granted that you, you've matched with someone you maybe even married or committed long term, maybe even have kids with them. And that's it. Like, it is something that you both need to actively work on. So I do like it from that approach and I want to bring in something from solve for happy into this conversation. I hope I do it justice by explaining a piece of the book that's really stuck with me, which is your happiness equation. And that is your happiness is basically equal to an event and your expectation of that event. So quite simply, you give the example in the book. Always sticks with me. If it rains and you're someone who wants to go to the beach. I believe this is how you set it out. And you're someone who wants to go to the beach. You know, the event of raining is going to make you unhappy because your expectation was to go to the beach. If you're a farmer and it's drought season, obviously your expectation is met and therefore you are happy. And so one of the things I wanted to ask you in the context of relationships before we go back to Emma is how do you navigate that equation from the point of view of how do you manage your expectations or know whether you're managing expectations or whether you're lowering expectations? Because I think a lot of people feel, especially if they're, you know, on this search for the right person, the aligned person for them that has shared values, shared goals. If we're looking at that equation, how do they know they're not lowering their expectations?

Mo Gawdat (53:06)

How would you know your expectations to start with? So, so you see, this is the problem. We live in a world today where social media makes romantic comedies and propaganda and, you know, Valentine's Day advocates and dating apps and everyone. Everyone's working against you, right? Everyone's telling you that a love story is all about a, a knight in a shining armor. Yeah. Prince Charming has to show up. I can't even be out there. Like, he has to go through the, the hoops to find me. Right? And. And believe I cannot even count the number of friends that I have that believe that. Right? And you tell her about. But can you at least sit in a cafe, you know, just so that he sees you? And she goes like, but then where's the romance in that? Right? And it's quite interesting. And by the way, the opposite is true. There must be a belief on the masculine side that is also stupid, if you don't mind me saying. Now, here's the point. The point is, once again, love is very easy to find. You can feel love for anyone. It's relationships that need to be built and constructed. And, and so when you start to look at one exercise I do with my friends when she's struggling to find love, is I say the opposite of that first exercise we spoke about. I say, okay, God is very generous today. Nobody's judging you, and no consequence for anything that you wish for. Can you write down, what kind of man are you looking for? Okay. By the way, I use examples of that side because I'm a man, so, you know, I'm speaking like a man. But the opposite is always true. Okay? And so she would sit down and write you know, 25 things. And I go like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. God is very generous. Nobody's judging you. Write anything you want, okay? And, you know, some of them write 85 things. That's what I want in the man I'm looking for. Or, you know, the man would write 50 things in the woman he's looking for.

Podcast Host (55:09)

For.

Mo Gawdat (55:10)

And some of them don't make sense at all. Like, I want him to be outgoing but loves to stay at home. I want him to be very successful, but never really goes to work, and so on and so forth, right? Now, here's the mathematics of it, okay? And the mathematics of the law of large numbers is staggering, right? If you're looking for five things, okay? And just for the simplicity of the math, those five things are available in one of every five men, right? So if you take the first thing only, you have to. To see or maybe, you know, come across five people for one to have that, right? Now, if. Then if you want him to also have the next one, you need to find five of him, right? Because then one of them will have the next one. Does that make sense?

Podcast Host (56:02)

Yes.

Mo Gawdat (56:02)

Right.

Podcast Host (56:03)

And so the web is built.

Mo Gawdat (56:04)

So the web is really interesting because if you're looking for the first attribute, it's 1 in 5. The second is not 1 in 10. It's not 5 plus 5, it's 1 in 25. The third is 1, you know, it's 1 in. Yeah, so it's. It's basically 5 to the power of. Yeah, right. And so it's the third is 1 in 125, and it continues, right? 100 and, you know, 1 in 625, and so on. And so sometimes if you have 12 attributes, this is 1 in 8 million people, okay? And I'm not saying. You asked me, you know, do we compromise? And I'm saying it, you don't compromise. But if you're willing to roll the dice 8 million times, you suit yourself, okay? There are ways where I would suggest that you go on a date. There was a. I hosted someone on my podcast who did 100 dates in a year. Right. And. And, and basically, yeah, she made sure that two dates a week and 100 dates a year and basically said, I'm not going to date anyone until I find I do the 100. Right? Yeah, great. If. If you want to go through 100 people, then in. In a year, then it's two a week. If you want to go through a thousand people in a year, then it's 20 a week and now reality starts to hit you. You okay, Do I want to go through 20 dates a week or do I want to limit my expectations to the top seven? What do I mean by limit? My expectation limit. My expectation is you have to understand what, what are your deal breakers versus what are your nice to haves, like your priorities? It's not, it's not just priorities. If I told so. So one of the of the most interesting aspects on dating apps, this actually statistically is quite correct, is that 90% of women ask for a man that's six foot or, or taller. I'm five nine, poor me. Right? But that, but that's interesting because you know what that means. You're limiting yourself so much. I think the statistics is like 1 in 12 or something like that. Okay, now add that to, by the way, you want a man not or a woman or you know, a bisexual or whatever, that limits you further to say one, one, you know, in 25, then you want them to be of a certain income bracket. Now they're one in a thousand and so on. And, and very quickly, you're running out of opportunities just because you've told yourself, I'm never gonna date someone who's not one, who's not six foot or taller. Right? Now if you go back and tell yourself and, and I use something that I call the swap test, okay. I say, okay, on your list, you want someone who's 6 foot foot or you want someone who is tender. Okay, if I gave you one that is five foot nine and tender or one that is aggressive but six foot, which, which would you choose? Right? And when you, when you keep doing the swap test, you'll very quickly find that six foot goes down. Right? Goes down. Because he could be six feet but aggressive. He could be six feet but, you know, rude. Or he could be six foot feet but a failure. He could be six feet but a serial killer. And you know, you just, you know, if serial killer is number eight on your list and you know, you just simply keep quickly, you keep shifting them down, right? And my advice is to tell yourself, here are deal breakers. I'll draw a line here. For example, for me, a belief in God really matters. I, I, you know, I, some, I need someone who spiritually believes there is a divine being. Why? Because it's a very important topic to me. Right. If that doesn't exist, I will really struggle. Yeah, okay. But I also want someone who is, you know, passionate about her, her hobbies. Okay. Because I need to be passionate about my hobbies so that I can have more space for my hobbies. It's not necessarily important. Maybe she's not passionate about her hobbies, but. But she understands the concept of space. Right. I don't have to be that prescriptive on certain things. And when you start to see it that way, suddenly you start to realize that there are things that really matter and things that actually don't. Okay. And if you write down the things that really matter, I want my husband to be a good father. I want my husband to be respectful. I want my husband to be available when I need him, whatever. Okay. Then suddenly the toilet seat is not on that list, and it's a question of a conversation you have with yourself. Okay. If the toilet seat on this is not on my list, should I bring it up every time I see his face or should I bring up the other things that he's very good at that are necessary to me in my heart so that I don't say those annoying things when I see his face? Okay. And it's really a work that you do with. You do about. And by the way, if of the top seven things, five are not present, what are you doing with this person? Right. But if the top seven things are meeting your expectations, but number eight isn't, ask yourself how realistic is it to find someone that has all eight? Because that additional one, if it's available in one in 20 men, you take your current probability and multiply it by 20. Right. That's very, very, very difficult to find.

Podcast Host (61:30)

Yeah. I'm glad you explained that because I think sometimes, you know, with. With all the stats and the complications behind relationships that we talked about today, I, I would never want someone to feel disheartened by the probability of them finding someone. I think it's more a case of your work is to understand yourself best.

Mo Gawdat (61:47)

Yeah.

Podcast Host (61:48)

And then also that best places you to then assess whether someone's a right fit for your life and where you want to take your.

Mo Gawdat (61:55)

So very, very important. Thank you for, for bringing this up. You are going to be disappointed because no human is perfect. Okay. It's just a question of choosing what you want to be disappointed in.

Podcast Host (62:07)

Yes.

Mo Gawdat (62:07)

Right. And by the way, if some of the things that you're disappointed in can be teachable. Right. My, my biggest advice, by the way, is do it the opposite way as well. Right. So when you, when you're, when you're criticizing the person that you're looking for, can you allow yourself to criticize yourself for what he's looking for? Can you. Can you simply say, look you know, I love those seven things about him. There are four things I don't really love, but I don't mind. There are four things that I don't really love, but we promise to work on together. And there are four things that I can live with. Okay. I don't like, but I, you know, but, but, but I will have to force myself to accept them right now, flip it over and say, but what are his seven things? Okay. Am I offering those seven things? Do I even know what his seven things are? Did we ever have that conversation of what his dream woman is? Right. And what are the four things that I'm not, but I'm willing to work on? Right. And it's actually quite interesting. I. You. I always had in. In my relationship this habit of if I ever wanted something to. To change. Okay. First of all, I would never point it out as something that's wrong with you. I would point it out as something that would make my life a lot better. Right. Which, by the way, is your choice. You can choose not to do it, but I just want to tell you that this is something that would make my life a lot better if you spoke to me in that way, not this way. Right. And by the way, that also means that if you don't do it, it will make my life worse, which changes the ROI of this relationship. ROI is a very interesting term here. We can come back to it again. Having said that, I would. I would say if. If you, if you did it, it would make my life a lot better. But this is not done randomly on a Wednesday afternoon. It's done on the Saturday Review, if you want, or Saturday Date, where we sit together and we talk about everything. And if I asked for something and I said this would make my life better, by definition, I would ask you to tell me something I can do that makes your life better, because then it's fair.

Podcast Host (64:09)

Yeah.

Mo Gawdat (64:10)

Right. And. And if, you know, in that case, it doesn't feel like I'm constantly nagging for you to change your life. It feels that we're working together, together on things so that we both enjoy our life together. Okay. And. And one of the most interesting aspects of this is if you ask me for something that would make my life, Your life, better, and I can't do it, the fair thing to do is to say, I don't know if that's within my capacity. Maybe I don't have the skills for it, or maybe I have reasons why I don't want to do it, or maybe, whatever. Okay? And again, it's all about communication. It's not Europe, an annoying piece of whatever. It's, hey, you know, last week, think about this this way. If one of the things that Emma will help you do is can you get together every Saturday and start a conversation by the 10 things you loved about him last week? Okay. Can you then can talk about the one thing that you wished was different? Can you allow him to tell you the 10 things that he loved about you last week? Can you then allow him to think, to mention the thing that you wish was different? Okay. Can you work on plans together? So if you want me to change that one thing, can you remind me if I do it? Nothing annoying there. It's not like I should know it. It's a habit I've acquired over the years. If I do it, can you show me me? You know, can you tell me without, you know, assuming that I want to annoy you? Just tell me, hey, by the way, you did it again. And I'll just take that and work on it. And then can we stop all of that and go make love or go have, you know, coffee or go have a wonderful time? Because that's what gets the relationship to be closer. It. It's active work. And I think this is what most of us, if we. If you find someone that has your top seven, I promise you, you hang on to them. Okay. Because they're very, very mathematically rare to find. Okay. And the rest can be worked on.

Podcast Host (66:00)

And what I love about this is everything we've spoken about that comes to mind, or I guess we're very proactive in doing when it comes to looking for someone is relevant to continue doing throughout a relationship.

Mo Gawdat (66:09)

Oh, it never ends.

Podcast Host (66:10)

And, you know, there's. There's so many other things I want to talk to you about, but we are out of time today, so I'm gonna have to bring you back on for a part two. But I can't wait to see the.

Mo Gawdat (66:18)

Documentation people ask for it because otherwise we may have bought that.

Podcast Host (66:21)

No, I'm sure. On that note, if there are any questions, please drop them in the comments below. If you've enjoyed this podcast, make sure you drop it a like. But I definitely want to have you back on the show whether people want it or not. So thank you very, very much for your time and all the wonderful things you've shared on the show today. I really appreciate you and your work and I'm really grateful that we connected.

Mo Gawdat (66:41)

Thank you. Thank you for supporting me. I ask, I ask everyone to go to Emma love.

Podcast Host (66:45)

Yes, I'll put a link to it.

Mo Gawdat (66:46)

In the show notes. I think you'll absolutely be amazed by it. The biggest challenge I have with Emma is unless you're on it, your match will not find you on it. So I need people to be there and thank you for giving me the chance to talk about something I'm so passionate about.

Podcast Host (67:01)

My pleasure. Well, you got an audience of all self aware, interested people here so please go check out Emma. I'll put the link in the show notes. And thank you again.

Noah (67:18)

Hey, it's Raj and Noah and we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.

Raj (67:26)

Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.

Noah (67:28)

But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.

Raj (67:37)

We'll be talking to experts in the their fields who are definitely doing things right so the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.

Noah (67:46)

Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.

Raj (67:53)

And for the first time ever, we're going to have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do them better.

Mo Gawdat (68:02)

Love you.