Speaker 1: Some men are less attracted to successful women because they've
Speaker 1: been told that they need to be more successful. So
Speaker 1: as soon as they meet someone who shows qualities that
Speaker 1: they don't have, motivation, discipline, drive, enthusiasm, they get worried,
Speaker 1: they get concerned. It's a reminder of their own inadequacy.
Speaker 1: It's an insecurity and let's recognize that there are some
Speaker 1: men are less attracted to successful, driven women and they're
Speaker 1: not the right person for you. The number one health
Speaker 1: and wellness podcast set Jay SETI. Hey, everyone, welcome back
Speaker 1: to On Purpose. It's your host, Jay Shetty, and I
Speaker 1: am so grateful to be here with you right now.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in. And today's question
Speaker 1: that we're reflecting on and asking is are men less
Speaker 1: attracted to successful women? If your ambitionous and driven and dating,
Speaker 1: this episode is for you. If you have a friend
Speaker 1: who's single right now who's been thinking about this question,
Speaker 1: this episode is for you. And if you're someone who's
Speaker 1: maybe been in a relationship, maybe you're even divorced, this
Speaker 1: episode could be for you. I think so many people
Speaker 1: are thinking about this topic right now, not enough people
Speaker 1: are speaking about it outwardly, and it's uncomfortable to actually
Speaker 1: dive into it. Like, even when I was thinking about
Speaker 1: making this the episode, I was somewhat scared about it
Speaker 1: because I didn't want it to be misconstrued or misunderstood.
Speaker 1: And so I want you to stay with me because
Speaker 1: I'm definitely going to be explaining why I thought it
Speaker 1: was important to ask this question. And the biggest reason
Speaker 1: why I think it's important to ask this question is
Speaker 1: this is how some of the women in my life
Speaker 1: have been feeling. These are friends of mine who are
Speaker 1: dating right now, are single right now, are looking for
Speaker 1: love right now, They're looking for a meaningful connection, and
Speaker 1: this kind of sation keeps coming up. Now, I'm guessing
Speaker 1: you might have had this conversation with your friend, maybe
Speaker 1: you've thought about it, maybe you've even quizzed some of
Speaker 1: your male friends in your life about it. And the
Speaker 1: reason why I chose it for this week's topic is
Speaker 1: I was talking to he a friend this week and
Speaker 1: she was saying she spoke to a couple of guys
Speaker 1: in the last month, and she's young, she's ambitious, she's driven,
Speaker 1: she's very kind, very thoughtful, and so it got me thinking.
Speaker 1: She said she met a guy her age who after
Speaker 1: going on a few dates, he was vulnerable enough to
Speaker 1: say to her that he was intimidated by her drive
Speaker 1: and would rather be with someone a little more chill.
Speaker 1: He actually said that he felt threatened that he didn't
Speaker 1: have that drive and may never have it, even though
Speaker 1: she never expected it from him and never asked for it. Now,
Speaker 1: first of all, kudos to that man who was able
Speaker 1: to be that vulnerable. It takes a lot of courage
Speaker 1: to be that vulnerable, to put yourself out there in
Speaker 1: that way to admit that, and so I want to
Speaker 1: show respect for that, first of all. And the second
Speaker 1: thing I want to say is, maybe a lot of
Speaker 1: you have heard something like this for a while. Maybe
Speaker 1: you've had men say it to you, maybe you've found
Speaker 1: out through a friend of a friend afterwards, maybe it's
Speaker 1: a thought that crossed your mind. Now, that was one
Speaker 1: guy that she spoke to. She then said that she
Speaker 1: was at a dinner a couple of nights ago and
Speaker 1: she overheard a conversation someone was having with a successful founder.
Speaker 1: He was single and looking, and when asked what he wanted,
Speaker 1: he said he wanted an ambitious homemaker. And she found
Speaker 1: both of these interactions in close proximity to be a
Speaker 1: bit deflating. So the young man that she was dating
Speaker 1: was around the same age as her. He was saying
Speaker 1: that she was too intimidating because of her drive. And
Speaker 1: then she was overhearing this other conversation where this very
Speaker 1: successful man was saying he wanted someone who was going
Speaker 1: to be a homemaker and didn't have their own drive,
Speaker 1: And so it left her with the question are men
Speaker 1: less attracted to successful or maybe even just driven women
Speaker 1: who want to create something? Now, I want to point
Speaker 1: out that when we're looking at this, this for me
Speaker 1: isn't about hating on men or hating on women or
Speaker 1: trying to make either one look bad. I think this
Speaker 1: conversation is about learning to understand why we are where
Speaker 1: we are in what circumstances this is true or false,
Speaker 1: real or not, and what do we do about it? Right?
Speaker 1: I think a lot of conversations focus on like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: all men are bad, and you know, women don't do
Speaker 1: this and men do, and it's like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to do that. What I want to do is have
Speaker 1: a really healthy, thoughtful, intelligent conversation around what's going on here.
Speaker 1: So the first thing we have to understand is that
Speaker 1: some some men are less attracted to successful women and
Speaker 1: they're not your man. And the reason why this is
Speaker 1: a really important thing to talk about is that there
Speaker 1: may be some men whose ego is affected by a
Speaker 1: more driven successful women. Now let's talk about why that
Speaker 1: is the case. I'm not saying it's a good thing,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying it's right, but why is that
Speaker 1: the case. The case is because traditionally men have had
Speaker 1: to play that protective, supporting role. They've been the one
Speaker 1: who's had to go out and put food on the table.
Speaker 1: They've been the primary breadwinner of the family. So a
Speaker 1: lot of men are carrying around a pressure, an expectation
Speaker 1: of them that society is placed on them, and then
Speaker 1: they're projecting it into this relationship. So it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: projected personally onto you. It's projected because that's how society
Speaker 1: has convinced us that we need to be. And so
Speaker 1: some men are less attracted to successful women because they've
Speaker 1: been told that they need to be more successful. So
Speaker 1: as soon as they meet someone who shows qualities that
Speaker 1: they don't have, motivation, discipline, drive, enthusiasm, they get worried,
Speaker 1: they get concerned, it's a reminder of their own inadequacy.
Speaker 1: It's an insecurity and if a man goes as far
Speaker 1: as admitting that to you, it's definitely not something to
Speaker 1: demean or put down, and it's not something you have
Speaker 1: to date either. I'm not saying, you know, you should
Speaker 1: feel sorry for that person and date. Then. What I'm
Speaker 1: saying is, let's look at why we're here, how we
Speaker 1: got there, and let's recognize that there are some men
Speaker 1: are less attracted to successful, driven women and they're not
Speaker 1: the right person for you. Now, it's important to note
Speaker 1: that the mindset men are less attracted to successful driven
Speaker 1: women is actually an unhealthy mindset. When we repeat idea
Speaker 1: like that, we're repeating a negative, unhelpful thought which leads
Speaker 1: to our unhealthy mindset, which makes us feel that there
Speaker 1: is no man for me that exists unless I diminish
Speaker 1: my drive, unless I become less successful. And I would
Speaker 1: honestly say that when I look around my friends who
Speaker 1: are in happy relationships today, they all want it to
Speaker 1: be with smart, thoughtful women. And I think there is
Speaker 1: a difference between someone who's smart and smart and driven.
Speaker 1: There is a difference. And I would say that a
Speaker 1: lot of my friends enjoy being with driven, ambitious women,
Speaker 1: and they're also driven ambitious men. What I want to
Speaker 1: encourage you to do here is that mindset of maybe
Speaker 1: this guy doesn't exist, Maybe I need to slow down,
Speaker 1: Maybe I need to, you know, become different, maybe I
Speaker 1: need to change. I don't think that's the case. And
Speaker 1: there was a great article by Jenna Birch in Psychology Today,
Speaker 1: and she talked about a study where after looking in
Speaker 1: to the mating preferences of more than five thousand men
Speaker 1: and women in a survey, an anthropologist named Helen Fisher
Speaker 1: wrote that she saw something called the Clooney effect in America. Now,
Speaker 1: this article was in twenty eighteen, and the research found that,
Speaker 1: according to Fisher's numbers, men desire smart, strong, successful women,
Speaker 1: and eighty seven percent of men said that they were
Speaker 1: data women who was more intellectual than they were, who
Speaker 1: is better educated, and who made considerably more money than
Speaker 1: they did, while eighty six percent said they were in
Speaker 1: search of a woman who is confident and self assured.
Speaker 1: So it's just really important to point that out that
Speaker 1: sometimes I think we developed these narratives based on our
Speaker 1: few data points, and we all have confirmation bias where
Speaker 1: we also have another friend who went through the same thing,
Speaker 1: and now all of us are saying the same thing,
Speaker 1: and guess what, it makes us reduce our poor even more.
Speaker 1: We now go out look looking for who's going to
Speaker 1: confirm that belief, right, That's what happens. We kind of
Speaker 1: look to who confirms our belief. Let me give you
Speaker 1: a really simple example about this. If you're thinking of
Speaker 1: getting a specific car that you really like, you're now
Speaker 1: looking for other people to confirm that belief and say,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I really like that car too. So
Speaker 1: we're constantly looking for people to confirm our beliefs. And
Speaker 1: so we may surround ourselves with a group of people
Speaker 1: who all say men are just not attracted to successful,
Speaker 1: ambitious women, and we keep reaffirming that belief when the
Speaker 1: study shows the opposite. And it's interesting. It's called the
Speaker 1: Clooney effect, of course, because George Clooney with a male
Speaker 1: who's extremely talented, smart, ambitious, thoughtful, And it's just an
Speaker 1: interesting thing that we often see these rumors or doubts
Speaker 1: we have spread faster than some of the statistics that
Speaker 1: come out for it. Now, it is important to note
Speaker 1: because I thought it would be interesting to look at
Speaker 1: the facts of what's happening as well. And when I
Speaker 1: was looking it up, it said that back in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: only eleven percent of Americans twenty five or older had
Speaker 1: bachelor's degrees. That number has gone up every decade to
Speaker 1: roughly thirty eight percent in twenty twenty one, according to
Speaker 1: the data from the Census Bureau's current Population Survey, and
Speaker 1: the jump since twenty ten has been especially sharp. This
Speaker 1: research said, and one of the big drivers has been
Speaker 1: that more women are completing their four year degrees, and
Speaker 1: in the last decade, women surpassed men in college completion.
Speaker 1: So when you look at it from a college perspective,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that college isn't the only way to
Speaker 1: show ambition or success. There are plenty of people who
Speaker 1: are not going to college and doing exceptionally well, but
Speaker 1: to use it as a marker, we're seeing that women
Speaker 1: are completing degrees more than men. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: the Census found that the number of women with degrees
Speaker 1: was about three points higher than the figure for men,
Speaker 1: is thirty nine point one percent for women compared to
Speaker 1: thirty six point six percent for men, and The reason
Speaker 1: why that's so incredible is that back in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: about eight percent of twenty five plus women had bachelor's degrees,
Speaker 1: and that was six points below where American men were
Speaker 1: at the time. So the insane rise of women being
Speaker 1: educated and completing their degrees has had a huge impact
Speaker 1: very recently, and it's something that I think a lot
Speaker 1: of men are having to mentally catch up with. I
Speaker 1: think that's the point, right, It's like there's been consensus
Speaker 1: in society around roles. There's been a thought process around roles,
Speaker 1: and all of those are being questioned rightly, so, all
Speaker 1: of those are being looked at and reevaluated rightly. So,
Speaker 1: but what's happening is that it's taking a while for
Speaker 1: people to catch up with that, for people to understand that.
Speaker 1: To give you an example as to how far behind
Speaker 1: we are compared to where the age education is. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, female founded companies received two percent of
Speaker 1: all venture capital investment. Let me just say that again.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty two, female founded companies received only two
Speaker 1: percent of all venture capital VC investment. Female founded femtech
Speaker 1: companies received twenty eight percent of venture capital funding compared
Speaker 1: with thirty eight percent for male founded femtech companies. So
Speaker 1: the reason I'm talking about this is for us to
Speaker 1: realize how society is shifted maybe a narrative, maybe in
Speaker 1: us asking the right questions, maybe in us having the
Speaker 1: right thoughts, but it hasn't yet shifted mentally, emotionally, and
Speaker 1: it hasn't yet shifted financially. And so when you look
Speaker 1: at that, we have to realize that when you're out
Speaker 1: there dating and you're finding some confirmation of the belief
Speaker 1: that men are less attracted to successful women, you may
Speaker 1: find it because there's all of these reasons as to
Speaker 1: why it's been set up that way. One thing that
Speaker 1: I think is really really important to note. I think
Speaker 1: it's really important to be with someone who has the
Speaker 1: right balance between you. Don't want someone who's threatened by you.
Speaker 1: That doesn't lead to a healthy relationship. Maybe you saw
Speaker 1: the movie fair Play last year on Netflix. If you haven't,
Speaker 1: I recommend watching It showed what happens in a relationship
Speaker 1: with confused roles and competition and insecurity and where that leads.
Speaker 1: And I mean it shows a very dark version of
Speaker 1: where that can lead to. But often those are the
Speaker 1: emotions that people are feeling inside. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you don't want someone who just wants to bask in
Speaker 1: your glory. Right, It's a really interesting balance that you're
Speaker 1: looking for. You don't want someone who's like basking in
Speaker 1: your glory and just you know, a groupie, And at
Speaker 1: the same time, you don't want someone who's threatened by
Speaker 1: it either. I think what we're all looking for is
Speaker 1: someone who allows us to be our best self, who
Speaker 1: appreciates us, who acknowledges it. But what that requires is
Speaker 1: both people to have an understanding of what they're both pursuing.
Speaker 1: In my book Eight Rules of Love, I have a
Speaker 1: dedicated chapter to this, and if you haven't read the book,
Speaker 1: you can grab a copy on Amazon or wherever you
Speaker 1: get books. I have a whole chapter dedicated to how
Speaker 1: to find your purpose and how to help your partner
Speaker 1: find their purpose at the same time. And one of
Speaker 1: the hardest parts about this is that when you start
Speaker 1: pursuing something and if it's not working, and your partner's
Speaker 1: pursuing their thing and it's working, the natural feelings we
Speaker 1: have even towards someone we love is jealousy, envy, competition.
Speaker 1: Now you may say you don't have it, and that's beautiful,
Speaker 1: that's amazing if you don't have it. But I promise
Speaker 1: you a lot of people do. They feel insecure, they
Speaker 1: feel unsettled, and it comes all from us feeling like
Speaker 1: we want to do something great with our life, but
Speaker 1: maybe we don't have the tools, maybe we don't have
Speaker 1: the motivation. And often what's really uncomfortable in that moment
Speaker 1: is your partner's dissatisfaction with you. Your partner is saying
Speaker 1: to you like, oh my god, why aren't you doing
Speaker 1: it yet? Look what I did. Oh my gosh, you
Speaker 1: need to get up off your backside. I achieved more
Speaker 1: in a month than you have in your year. When
Speaker 1: your partner looks down on you, we've got to make
Speaker 1: sure that whatever gender we are, it's not really about
Speaker 1: what role we play. It's about how we make the
Speaker 1: other person feel. So we have to ask the question,
Speaker 1: are we making the other person feel more insecure? Not
Speaker 1: by our greatness, but by how we make them feel
Speaker 1: about our greatness. You can be great, and you can
Speaker 1: be brilliant, and you can either choose to inspire people
Speaker 1: with that or you can choose to discourage people with that.
Speaker 1: And if you have expectations, and you're telling people that
Speaker 1: you're not happy with where they are or how much
Speaker 1: they've achieved. And I had a friend admit this to
Speaker 1: me a few months back, where she said she was
Speaker 1: with a guy and she constantly reminded him how far
Speaker 1: behind you was to her. That, of course, is not
Speaker 1: an encouraging place to start from. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: you can't be someone's parent, coaching them along the way,
Speaker 1: cheerleading them the whole way. It's a really interesting balance.
Speaker 1: But I will say this, often the way we support
Speaker 1: our partner is different. You may support your partner in
Speaker 1: their career, they may support you mentally and emotionally. We
Speaker 1: may not support the person we love in the same
Speaker 1: area they support us, and that's okay, That's totally fine.
Speaker 1: For example, like Raddy came up to me when she
Speaker 1: was asking me questions about her book, and as I'd
Speaker 1: launched two books before she launched her first one, I
Speaker 1: had a lot to share. So in that area, Raddi's
Speaker 1: not helping me with my book. When it comes to
Speaker 1: setting the right tones, setting the right mood in the home,
Speaker 1: setting the right energy, I let Radi lead on that.
Speaker 1: So we have to understand that leadership comes in many
Speaker 1: different forms. Partner may lead financially, but you may lead emotionally.
Speaker 1: Your partner may lead physically are you taking care of
Speaker 1: the physical things in the home, But you may lead
Speaker 1: mentally are you making decisions? So I think it's really
Speaker 1: important to realize what leadership is and what you're looking for.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people say to me, I want to be with
Speaker 1: someone really ambitious and they are ambitious too, And I say, okay,
Speaker 1: well do you know what that looks like, because that
Speaker 1: isn't the person who's sitting front row at your event
Speaker 1: hearing you on. If you want to be with someone ambitious,
Speaker 1: chances are they going to be on the road too.
Speaker 1: If you want to be with someone who's killing it
Speaker 1: their career, chances are there's going to be a lot
Speaker 1: of late nights. They're not always going to have loads
Speaker 1: of time for you. And neither of those is better
Speaker 1: or worse. But it's about being honest with what you
Speaker 1: want and what that means you attract. I think that
Speaker 1: it takes time for people to find their stability, and
Speaker 1: when you're making someone feel insecure, no matter how much
Speaker 1: you try lift them up, if they are not doing
Speaker 1: the work to lift themselves up. There's only so much
Speaker 1: you can do, and so as much as we can
Speaker 1: play that role, we can't take the responsibility to be
Speaker 1: the person that lifts someone up. We can be a supporter,
Speaker 1: we can be a cheerleader, we can't do the work
Speaker 1: for them, and I think sometimes some of us feel
Speaker 1: that if we do the work for them, they'll suddenly
Speaker 1: get it. But the truth is we can't, and so
Speaker 1: we need to empower them. But we need to empower
Speaker 1: ourselves as well, and that can be the hardest part
Speaker 1: about all of this. One of the things I want
Speaker 1: to say is that I found another interesting study, and
Speaker 1: it said that in this study of one hundred and
Speaker 1: five men, the researchers gave two scenarios. The first scenario,
Speaker 1: they told men that a woman close by who they
Speaker 1: never saw either outperformed or underperformed them on an intelligence test,
Speaker 1: and the men said that they would like the person
Speaker 1: who outperformed them on the test. In the second round,
Speaker 1: men were told that they were about to meet a
Speaker 1: woman who did better than them on the test, and
Speaker 1: at that time men choose not to meet that woman.
Speaker 1: So it's really interesting. Men said they were attracted to
Speaker 1: a smarter woman. But then when they were told that
Speaker 1: they were about to meet them, that was a much
Speaker 1: more challenging scenario. That was a much more challenging thing
Speaker 1: for them. And so if you're with someone, or if
Speaker 1: you're dating someone and you see them and you like
Speaker 1: them and they're not as ambitious and driven as you,
Speaker 1: it's up for you to decide how important that is
Speaker 1: for you. But the qualities that this person has and
Speaker 1: what they bring to a relationship. Remember, career ambition isn't
Speaker 1: all anyone brings to a relationship, male or female, whoever
Speaker 1: they may be. There's so much more we bring to
Speaker 1: a relationship, and career ambition doesn't define whether you have
Speaker 1: a successful relationship or not, or an unsuccessful one. Right,
Speaker 1: It's almost disconnected from the actual success part. I think
Speaker 1: what I look for when I encourage people to look
Speaker 1: for is what do you think is going to make
Speaker 1: someone a successful partner? What do you think is going
Speaker 1: to make people a healthy partner? If you focus on that,
Speaker 1: chances are the rest will figure itself out. One of
Speaker 1: the things that comes to mind is I'm talking about
Speaker 1: this with all of you. You're trying to find someone
Speaker 1: who's going to be a partner. And what a partner
Speaker 1: means is you support them on some things, they support
Speaker 1: you on others. What you don't want to be as
Speaker 1: a parent, and what you don't want to be as
Speaker 1: a child. You don't want to be the child of
Speaker 1: the relationship where you're expecting someone else to parent you
Speaker 1: and build you up all the time. And you don't
Speaker 1: want to be the parent in a relationship where the
Speaker 1: other person's a child. But a partnership means we're willing
Speaker 1: to help each other, We're willing to support each other.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important early on to figure out
Speaker 1: whether the threatening and the intimidation is something. If you
Speaker 1: keep feeling that, you also have to ask yourself, am
Speaker 1: I attracting the right man? I working towards the right person?
Speaker 1: Beyond beyond whether it's a male or a female as well.
Speaker 1: I want to end on this last point, and it's this,
Speaker 1: we should respect our partner's ambitions, they should respect ours,
Speaker 1: and we should be excited to watch each other grow.
Speaker 1: This requires such a high level of maturity because when
Speaker 1: you actually say I want to watch you grow, that
Speaker 1: means you're okay with however they grow. And most often
Speaker 1: we want people to grow the way we want them
Speaker 1: to grow. And so a successful relationship requires a flexibility
Speaker 1: and adaptability and openness to who that person wants to become.
Speaker 1: And that's very unsettling for most people. For most people,
Speaker 1: we want certainty, we want clarity, we want ease, we
Speaker 1: want comfort, and a real, healthy, long term relationship evolves
Speaker 1: far more than that, and so I think it's important
Speaker 1: to remember that, first of all, don't make career ambition
Speaker 1: the only thing you look for in a relationship. Don't
Speaker 1: make it your sole identity either. Look for traits that
Speaker 1: make people a healthy partner, and ultimately recognize that growing together,
Speaker 1: being tolerant of each other in some areas, as long
Speaker 1: as it's not hurting you, is part of any healthy
Speaker 1: relationship and building something special together. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: listening to this episode. I hope it helped you rethink
Speaker 1: this idea, and I hope that it helps you have
Speaker 1: healthier conversations with the people you know and love. Remember this,
Speaker 1: I'm forever in your corner and I'm always rooting for you.
Speaker 1: If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with
Speaker 1: Dr Gabor Matte on understanding your trauma and how to
Speaker 1: heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.
Speaker 1: Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a
Speaker 1: tree doesn't grow, Oh, it's hard and thick, does it.
Speaker 1: It goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.