There’s a mistake nearly all of us make in early dating . . . and it’s something we don’t even realize we’re doing. When we get nervous, we naturally slip into one of two masks as a way to protect ourselves against rejection.

In today’s new video, I’ll show you how one simple change can not only hugely increase the connection you feel with someone, but also take the pressure out of early dating. Don’t miss it!

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Are you finally ready to get back out there in your love life? Then there is one big mistake that I want you to try to avoid.

Before we go any further with the video, I just wanted to let you know that I have something really special coming up this month. And just in case you’re really busy in your day and you’re just going to catch the first two minutes of this video, I don’t want you to miss this.

On March 19, I am doing an event called The Love Life Reset.  You can sign up for free at lovelifetraining.com. It’s a one-hour training that I am doing for all of you out there who, over the years, have told me that you want more advice from me—for people who are in a different stage of life and trying to get back out there, who feel like dating has changed, who feel like they’re confused or scared to get back out there, or maybe even feel invisible at this stage of their life.

This is for you. And I am really, really excited about it. I think this is going to restore hope for so many, I think it’s going to make the process of getting back out there manageable, and it’s an approach that’s not going to rob you of your peace in the process.

So come over to lovelifetraining.com; sign up for free now. It’ll take you 15 seconds. Even if you don’t watch the rest of this video, at least that will be in your calendar for this month. And if you are going to continue to watch the video, I’m happy because this is a good one.

And, now, the video.

Now, making this mistake is the most natural thing in the world, and we have all done it. Because it’s not a conscious mistake that we make. It is a byproduct of what happens when we get nervous in early dating. And who doesn’t get nervous in early dating, especially if we’ve been out of the game for a long time? I know so many of you who watch my work have been in a relationship for a long time, and that relationship has ended. Many of you were in a marriage and have been through a very painful divorce. And maybe some time has elapsed and you’re finally ready to get back out there. 

But having been ready to get back out there, you find yourself in a world that feels confusing, it feels like dating has changed, it no longer resembles the landscape that you once knew, you feel like you’re in a different season of your life, so you’re not sure if people will respond to you the same way, or you fear, as your friends tell you that you will now be invisible, that you won’t be attractive to the people that you want to date, who are all looking for someone younger—in a different stage of their life—not someone like you.

How could these things not make us nervous? How could they make us not want to show up with some kind of armor in place, some kind of defense against what we believe will be the worst effects of getting back out there again: confusion, rejection, and a feeling of worthlessness? And when we get this nervous, we make the big mistake—and that is bringing to the table an inauthentic version of ourselves. 

Now, most of us don’t go into our love lives being intentionally inauthentic. What happens is our nerves have us playing roles that make us inauthentic. And I think of them like this: our favorite weapons. When we go into dating, we all have our favorite weapon.

Now, for one kind of person, the weapon is impressing, and the impresser, as I like to think of them, goes into dating trying to show how great they are, how accomplished they are, the big shot that they are in their career or their life, the place they’ve arrived at in their life, their knowledge, their intelligence, their wit, their independence. They’re trying to show the other person how impressive they are. And it’s a very common thing that I see where people say to me, “Matt, I feel like I keep intimidating people. People keep telling me I’m intimidating. Or that it seems like I don’t need anyone, and that’s what’s turning them off.”

Now, it’s okay to intimidate a few people. If you’re an impressive person in general in life, you’re always going to intimidate a few people. But if you’re intimidating everybody, that’s a pattern, and that’s worth looking at. And usually the reason that we’re intimidating people is because we’re going into our love life trying to impress.

Why do we do that? It’s a bid for control. We know that if we can show ourselves to be someone who is independent or impressive in a whole bunch of ways, that it will give us some kind of power in the dynamic. It will put us in the driver’s seat. But a problem with that is we end up not really connecting with anybody. So it backfires.

Now, the other weapon I see a lot of people relying on is pleasing. So, this pleaser goes into a date trying to be as accommodating as possible. It’s very different from the impresser. It’s the person who is always asking questions, because they want to be polite and ultra-curious because they want to show that they’re generous with their energy, and that they’re giving that other person space to just talk and to show who they are and to be impressive.

It’s like you make someone else impressive, right? You laugh at every one of their jokes all the time, or you’re constantly trying to make them feel comfortable. You fill every silence. You may find yourself speeding up because, as the pleaser, the worst thing in the world you can do is create an awkward environment where anybody would be uncomfortable, so you try to manage all of those silences and make sure there never is one.

Maybe someone asks you a question, and as the pleaser, you think, “Well, I don’t want to take up too much space or be obnoxious with how much I’m talking about myself. I don’t want to be indulgent.” So, you throw it straight back to them. You give a quick answer and then ask another question of them, passing the microphone right back to them to be the star of the date.

Now, I often hear people who play this role say, “I go on dates with people and they never ask me any questions. How do you solve the fact that they’re not curious about me?” 

What I find interesting about that is these people tend to precipitate this complaint by always making the other person the star, by being overly accommodating, by never really sharing a lot about themselves or taking the microphone and having a moment in the spotlight on the date.

So, how do we get out of this mistake? What can we do as a different approach? I want to change your intention going into a date. I want to change it from impressing to connecting, from pleasing, to connecting. Connecting should be the ultimate goal for all of us in our love lives—authentically connecting by being us and bringing our real selves to the table and looking to discover their real selves. Because, by the way, there will always be someone more impressive than you. On any of the things we think we’re impressive on, there will always be someone who’s more impressive. But a connection between you and another person is a unique thing. There’s a special thing between the two of you. And that’s what makes a great relationship. It’s not a relationship between two very impressive people.

One of the things that makes a relationship special is an incredible connection between two people. So, how do you create that connection? Well, the good news is—and this is the great pressure valve—when we’re just trying to connect, all of the weight of trying to impress someone gets taken away. We don’t need to do that anymore. We get to show up authentically. We connect by creating “me too” moments, by saying things that are honest and authentic and vulnerable and flawed and just real that makes someone else go, “Me too!” . . . and having those moments when they say something real and authentic and vulnerable that make us say, “Me too.”

 And by the way, the more you do that, the more they feel permission to be their authentic selves as well. 

We connect by actively listening to someone. When someone tells us something about themselves, we really listen and we look for the moment where we can express genuine empathy or curiosity.

Let’s imagine that someone tells you that when they were young, they moved a lot. A small detail for them to say. They may not spend any time on it. But your ear, as you’re actively listening, picks up on the fact that there’s something interesting about that to connect on.

Now, let’s imagine how those old roles played out with this person. The impresser hears that this person moved a lot as a kid and immediately sees an opportunity to trump that with a detail of their own. “Oh, well, I know how that goes. I had parents in the army. I was never not moving around as a kid.”

The pleaser just asks a bunch of follow-up questions like, “Oh, that’s really interesting. So, where did you move to? Oh, you went there? Oh, wow. So, what age were you when you finally settled down in the place that you’re in right now?” Because the pleaser doesn’t want there to be an awkward silence and just wants to keep the conversation moving so everything is comfortable for everybody.

But the connector sees an opportunity to connect. This person says, “I moved around a lot as a child,” and the connector says, “That’s really interesting. I have a similar experience and I know that was really challenging for me. Was it challenging for you? I imagine that must have been really difficult. What was it like?” So, the connector has not only related by showing that there’s something about the story they can relate to, but they’ve used it as a chance to dig deeper on what that must have felt like for that person.

Connecting is just showing up as yourself and allowing your humanity to be expressed and seen and vice versa. For me, I know that I’m so much more at peace these days when I show up to a big podcast or TV show. It’s not that I never get nervous, because I do sometimes still get nervous. But because the way I show up is different from the way I would show up in my 20s, I feel more at peace.

 In my 20s, I know I was showing up to impress. And these days, I feel much more that I’m just showing up to connect. I’m showing up to connect with the host. I’m showing up to connect with the audience. I just want to make a real connection. And if I don’t, then maybe that audience wasn’t right for me. And that’s okay. But more than ever, I’m just trying to find my people. I’m trying to find people who connect to what I’m saying, who relate to what I’m saying, who find it useful. And if this person doesn’t find it useful, that’s okay. There will be someone who does.

 Showing up to just connect has really changed the way I approach not just my personal life, but it’s changed the way I show up in my career. And the connections I’m forming are so much deeper as a result.

 What I like about this for you, this idea of showing up authentically and connecting instead of impressing or pleasing, is that it takes all of the pressure off. You don’t have to have all these nerves about getting back out there. You can just say, “You know what? My only job is to go out there and authentically present myself and take a genuine interest in who they authentically are, and to try to create a space where they feel safe to do that.”

 Isn’t that an interesting change? Instead of going, “How can I be impressive?” it’s “How can I create a space that makes them feel safe to authentically be themselves?” Now you’re on to something special.

 Now, look, there’s still going to be rejection as there is for any of us who are going out there and attempting something in life. But at least you won’t be rejecting yourself either by taking yourself out of the game altogether and avoiding this part of your life, or by showing up as someone other than the person you really are. And isn’t it kind of exciting to go out there as your authentic self and to see what that person might be able to create?

 I know that over the years, so many of you have been following me and my work with great interest, but there’s been a part of you that is struggling because you don’t feel like you’re in it and applying these things in real time. You’re kind of on the sidelines having been through some really difficult things in life, having just come out of a marriage, and the really traumatic difficulties of what have been some messy divorces in our audience, and you’re trying to figure out, “How do I get back out there? What does this actually look like for me? I’m scared, I’m confused, and I need help.”

 And you want that help, because you feel like love is really, really important to you despite the fact that the idea of dating again feels like a special kind of hell.

 Well, I wanted to address you. I’ve been listening, I’ve been paying attention, I know that there are so many of you out there, and I wanted to create something that was really for you, tailor-made for you.

 So I’ve put together a brand-new hour. I’m calling this event The Love Life Reset, and this hour is dedicated to anybody who is in a season of their life where they are trying to get back out there, entering a new chapter, and trying to take the baby steps to do that. 

And this hour, I think, is going to be really comforting for you, it’s going to restore hope, it’s going to bring you a sense of peace about how the process can be and that it doesn’t have to be this big, scary thing. And I’m excited to walk you through the steps of that.

 So we’ll do it together in this hour. I am doing it as a live hour. We’re going to be doing it this month on March 19, and it’s going to be completely free. All I want you to do is show up. So, an hour of your time. The way to sign up is to go to lovelifetraining.com. It will take you 15 seconds.

 And if you know anyone, if you have friends or people in your community who also need this, please send the link to them as well so they can sign up themselves. And we’ll get a huge, huge gathering of people from all over the world doing this together. There’s going to be thousands of us. It’s a virtual event, so you can do it from anywhere in the world, watch on your laptop or your phone, and it’s just going to be an amazing hour together to set you up for a more confident and enjoyable approach to your love life for the rest of the year.

So, come join us. Go to lovelifetraining.com to sign up for free and I’ll see you there. Thank you so, so much for watching, and I can’t wait for this. I’ll see you soon.