- When attracting a partner
we've all been taught to create lists.
Lists of what we want in the person that we want to attract.
And so here is my list,
before I got married, before I met Irene,
is, you know, she's smart, she's successful,
she loves to camp, she loves football,
she can joke but she's not too vulgar in her jokes,
she's sexy, she's athletic.
And you can tell, it's not just one page here.
There's another page, and then another page,
and it just keeps going, and going, and going, and going.
And the very last quality is she doesn't exist, okay.
So we all want everything when it comes to love.
We want it all. We want all these qualities.
And yet when it comes to love we've gotta ask ourselves
why are we in this relationship in the first place?
You see, there's a bigger reason why I believe
we're called to relationships and love.
It is not to get what we want,
but what if it was to grow into who we're meant to become?
What if relationships were the great
spiritual evolution training ground?
It was how we grow as spiritual beings on this planet
and one of the best places I know that we can do that
is in loving relationships.
So today I'm gonna share with you exactly what to do
with that thousand point list that we all have,
and more importantly,
give you the only dating advice you will ever need.
Check it out.
(bright upbeat music)
Hey, this is Mat Boggs and I'm the founder
of the love and relationships division
here at the Brave Thinking Institute
where our mission is empowering people
to create and live a life they love.
And that includes your love life.
So if you like this video,
I encourage you to click that subscribe button
and click that little bell because every week
we bring you new content to empower you in your love life.
Have you ever found yourself
not wanting to tell people that you're dating
because you know what's coming if you do, right?
They're gonna give you advice and it's usually bad advice.
And their advice, well, it's good meaning,
it's always based in their own experience
and who knows if it's universal or not.
The other week I was on a coaching call
and one of my clients shared with me that the advice
that I gave her on that call, she said,
of everything that she's received
that one thing changed everything for her.
If there was one piece of advice,
it all boiled down to this.
And here was the scenario for her.
She was dating this guy. She really liked him.
And she's got a big old list of qualities.
She wants all these things, just like we all do.
Like, we all want someone
who's got a million amazing qualities,
'cause if you're gonna pick someone
to be a life partner with you, you want someone amazing.
So she had her amazing list and it was all these things.
And through the program we helped her boil it down to five.
If you could take all of that
and turn it into your top five must haves,
what would you put on the top of the list?
And so the guy she's dating had all top five.
And now she's kind of assessing some of the other things
and she was like, "Well, I really like him.
And he's sexy, and he's fun,
and he's caring, and he's open hearted.
He's all these things,
but he doesn't have a master's degree.
And that's one of the things on my list.
It's not a top five, but it's on there.
And he doesn't have a big 401k
and saving and financial security is on my list,
but he's an entrepreneur, he owns his own business."
And ultimately her question was,
"Should I stay or should I go?
Should I lean in and really explore?"
'cause she was right on the fence
of really starting to care about this guy.
And I shared with her a story
from a movie called "Evan Almighty."
And I said, "There's this great scene
where Morgan Freeman is playing God and he's talking about
the purpose of opportunities in our life.
And this is what he says."
- If someone prays for patience,
you think God gives them patience
or does he give them the opportunity to be patient?
If they pray for courage, does God give them courage,
or does it give them opportunities to be courageous?
If someone prayed for the family to be closer,
do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings,
or does it give them opportunities to love each other?
- Huh.
- Well, I gotta run.
Lot of people to serve. Enjoy.
- And so I explained to her that Morgan Freeman scene,
and I said, "You have set an intention
to experience love in your life,
to deepen the love in your life
through this loving relationship.
And so these qualities that this man doesn't have
that you want him to have,
is this an opportunity for you to expand
your compassion and your acceptance?
In other words, is this an opportunity for you to grow
or is this an opportunity for you to stand for what you want
and say, 'This isn't what I want.
I'm gonna go find something different.'"
And I took her through a visualization.
I had her tune in and at the end of that visualization
she was crystal clear and she said,
"Wow, this is an opportunity for me to grow."
She said, "What I really want is a relationship
that's loving and accepting
where we love and accept each other fully."
Isn't that ironic?
How could you have a relationship
where you wanna love and accept each other fully
with someone who's perfect?
There's no room to accept anything in that case
'cause they're perfect.
And yet the opportunity to love and accept someone
comes through the imperfections,
through when they don't have something
that might not be what you want.
And the difference is we're not talking about settling here.
We're not talking about getting into a relationship
with someone that you really don't feel attraction for,
that you're really not into,
that you don't have a connection to.
See, she was attracted to this guy.
She felt connected to this guy.
She felt emotionally connected, mentally connected.
It was some of these specific things
that she had declared, a 401k specifically,
or a master's degree that he had earned
that she says, "Wow, if he doesn't have those,
can I make room in my heart to make welcome
the man who's got the qualities that I want
but maybe not in the way that I want them?"
And so she leaned forward
and is exploring that relationship.
And I'm so proud of her for tuning into
what she's called to be in this world.
A greater expression of love.
So if I could boil down all the dating advice
I've given over the last decade
and come up with the single greatest piece of advice,
the single greatest idea, or thought, or concept
that would serve us moving forward in our love lives,
it would be this.
Be the person who leads with the question,
"How can I grow in my capacity for love in this moment?"
Another way to say that is, "What would love do here?"
Sometimes love would open up and accept
and have more compassion and understanding.
Sometimes when you ask,
"How could I grow in my capacity for love?"
It's not just for the other person,
but it's loving yourself at the same time.
And loving yourself means standing up for your truth,
holding a boundary, right?
Stating a standard.
It means not moving forward in the relationship
because you know you're settling
and if it's not good for you,
you know it's not gonna be good for them
because love always wants the highest good for both people.
But to realize that relationships
are a training ground of growth.
It's there for our expansion of our own hearts.
So to ask the question,
"How can I grow in my capacity for love in this moment?"
When you lead with that question, it leads to ideas.
It leads to insights and it leads to guidance
that will move you forward in the direction
of a more loving, more beautiful, more joyful,
more rich relationship than you've ever imagined.
So that's my advice.
If I were to boil it down to one question
or one piece of advice,
it was how can we grow in our capacity to love?
My question for you is,
if you could give one piece of love advice
that would help someone move forward
in the direction of the relationship they wanted,
what would it be?
Go ahead and post it in the comment section below.
I'm gonna love checking out your strategies, your advice.
I hope this serves you. I appreciate you.
Thanks for watching. I'll see you soon.
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