Dec. 23, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
10:01
The Greatest Love Hack!
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Good morning, everybody.
Hope you're doing well.
It's Van Molyneux from Freedomane and Freedomane.com.
So it's a little life hack here.
I just want to give you a little bit of advice from a relatively mature, at least physically, married guy.
I've been married for, I guess, almost 25 years now.
Beautiful marriage.
Love my wife.
And I wanted to give you sort of a hack or a tip about how to have really great relationships.
This is everywhere in the world, not just in marriage, everywhere in your world, business and social and so on.
It's partnership, not hierarchy.
Partnership, not hierarchy.
So if you're going to go into business with someone and you're really good at the tech and he's really good at the sales and marketing, you're both equal.
It's a partnership.
It's not a hierarchy.
And even where there is a hierarchy, when I was out, I managed like, I don't know, 30, 35 people over various points in my career.
And I would say to them, I work for you, right?
So I would say, listen, you're giving up a certain portion of your salary to pay my salary, which means you're paying me as a service provider, which means you should utilize me.
And, you know, if you've got a difficult client, send them to me.
I'll talk them down.
If you've got a tech problem, I might have experienced it before.
I can help you with that.
So I'm a resource for you.
Now, it's true, I have authority, so to speak, but I also have utility.
So you want to look at 360-degree reviews.
So I would give performance reviews to my employees, and they would also give performance reviews to me.
And I would ask them, am I helpful?
How am I doing?
Am I worth it to you?
Am I worth the 5% of your salary that you're paying for my salary or whatever it is, right?
So you want to work as much as possible in life in a partnership rather than a hierarchy.
And the way that you do that is to ask for feedback.
You know, one of the most difficult things in life, it really is a challenge, is to truly imagine or picture yourself outside yourself looking in.
Now, I mean, I'm a sort of public figure, so I get lots of feedback, some of it rational, some of it slightly less rational.
But I'm always looking for feedback.
You'll see me post this on X, you know, how am I doing?
Is there anything I can improve?
What can I do better?
And I ask this of the people in my life, how am I doing as a friend?
Is there anything I can do better as a husband or a father or whatever it is, right?
People I work with.
And I always say people I work with, not people who work for me, because they're not working for me.
We're all working for the customer.
So we're just, you know, different levels of hierarchy in terms of pay and skill, but we're all working for the customer.
So try this in your relationships.
Truly imagine what it's like.
Let's say you get up a little bit later from your wife or your husband.
So imagine what it's like with them sort of sitting at the kitchen table or wherever they are, looking up or looking out and seeing you come down the hallway or come down the stairs.
What is it like for them?
Is it a positive experience?
Do they enjoy it?
Are they happier that you're up and about?
Yesterday I came down a little bit later than my wife and daughter and they were sitting at the kitchen table chatting.
And I picture this.
What is it like for them when I come down the stairs?
Is it a plus?
So, you know, I'll give them a big hug and a kiss and maybe make a joke or two, ask them how they are doing.
And then, of course, let them get back to their chat.
But I need them, really, really need them to have a positive experience of me coming into the room and so on.
So really, really, really work to try to picture what it is like being in a relationship with you.
If you're kind of crabby, what is it like being in a relationship with someone who's kind of crabby?
If you're kind of needy, what's it like being in a relationship with someone who's kind of needy?
If you maybe make too many jokes, like can't really connect with people because you're always on performance mode, what is that like?
Well, obviously, these things would be kind of negative and exhausting.
And I'm sure we all have those things from time to time.
Nobody's perfect.
But in general, what is it like being in a relationship with you?
It is really, really impossible to succeed in life if you don't have the outside in view of yourself.
What is it like being around you?
What is it like being kissed by you?
Do you have good oral hygiene?
Does your breath smell good?
Do you have deodorant?
You know, like just honestly, basic things.
What is it like to look at you, if you've got a lover, to look at you naked?
Is it something attractive, appealing, and so on?
So what is it like being in a relationship with you?
You need to picture that.
And it's a muscle that you need to exercise to have good quality relationships.
Otherwise, the danger is that you're entitled, selfish, narcissistic, and exploitive.
And I think everybody has those tendencies.
It's easy because we all start that way, sort of solipsistic.
And as babies and toddlers, you only really think of your own needs.
And then as you grow up, you learn to think of other people's needs.
So that's our sort of default position that it's important to work against that by regularly exercising that muscle of what it's like to be around you.
What's it like to interact with you?
What benefit are other people getting from you being in their life?
Obviously, when I do a show, I'm trying to aim to give as much benefit as possible to you, the listener.
What benefit are other people getting from being in your life?
If you've got a wife and her friends say, what's it like being married to you?
Would she say, oh, it's the greatest?
Let me tell you this.
Let me tell you that.
Or she's going to like, it's okay.
You know, it's good.
You know, it's fine.
It's fine.
You don't want good.
You don't want fine.
You want ecstatic.
You want, couldn't have made a better decision.
Light of my life.
I wake up doing jumping jacks of joy to spend time with this person in general.
I mean, you know, obviously we have our ups and downs in life as a whole.
But viewing yourself from the outside in is really, really important.
I really invite you to really develop that muscle in the business world.
If you want people to do business with you, whether it's hire you or work with you or partner with you, then you have to think from the other person's perspective, not to negotiate on their behalf, that's their job, but to say, is the other person gaining value from their association with me?
Is my boss gaining value from association with me?
Are investors, if that's your thing, gaining value?
Are my customers gaining value from their association with me?
To look at it from the outside in is really, really important.
And the other thing to do, of course, is not just imagine it, but to ask those people, what is it like?
How are you enjoying being married to me?
Is there anything I can do better?
Anything that's rubbing you the wrong way?
Because, you know, we all have our little habits.
You see this endless scenes in sitcoms where, you know, two people are sitting in the choir and one guy is clicking a pen and the other person gets progressively more annoyed.
And stop that.
You know, like we all develop, well, can develop habits that can be grating to other people.
And it's to ask them and be open to that feedback.
Get that 360 review.
Relationships aren't that hard to maintain as long as you're constantly checking for the value that you're providing other people.
And they, of course, should either do that or take their cue from you and inquire as to the value that they are providing to you.
But if you're in relationships where you're constantly providing value to each other, that's pair bonding.
Pair bonding is when you get mutual value from each other that you couldn't get alone, that your life is enhanced by the other person being in it, right?
Because if you can't answer that question, why is the other person helping me or advancing me or making me happier in my life?
How is that happening?
Those relationships where you can't answer that question clearly in the affirmative, other relationships that are at risk, whether at work, friendships, social, sexual, romantic, marriage, and so on, you need to be constantly checking that you're providing value.
And the interesting thing is, and I'll just end on this because I'm gritting my teeth to make this short.
But the really fascinating thing about this is that when you start asking, am I providing value for others?
They will start asking themselves, if they're decent quality people, am I providing value to you?
And that is a beautiful place to be.
This habit of looking at yourself from the outside in, which is looking at yourself objectively and making sure that you're providing value, that you're a net positive for other people's lives.
Once you start developing that muscle, every single one of your relationships will improve.
I mean, I'm not trying to brag because Lord knows it took me a long time to puzzle this one out.
But I don't have a relationship.
I don't have a single relationship in my life where it's not a positive on both sides.
Once you start developing that, you weed out the exploiters, you prevent yourself from drifting into laziness or selfishness or exploitation.
And it no longer is a habit that you need to will to maintain.
It's just a way of thinking that ends up with beautiful benefits all around.
And you end up with genuine security in relationships.
My wife and I are completely committed to each other.
There's never going to be a divorce because we are constantly making sure that we're providing value to others to the point where now it's just an automatic process and you don't even really need to think about it.
Like riding a bike the first time, right?
It's really tough.
After a while, you're hands-free and don't even think about it.
So I really, really invite you, you know, write down what is it like to be in a relationship with me.
Try and see yourself from the outside in.
Ask people what it's like to be in a relationship with you.
Figure out what you can improve and we can all improve.
And then ask them to ask you that sort of same question.
That's how you cement real quality, productive, positive relationships in your life that will last you to the grave.