Yearning for Love

On Valentine's Day, which we just celebrated last week, love is everywhere. It's plastered on greeting cards; it's in the heart-shaped decor that covers all our stores; it's all over our social media feeds; and we feel obliged to celebrate it with chocolates and candlelit dinners. But what if we're being conditioned to think about love in the wrong way? What if, in our search for romantic love, we are overlooking the deeper ways that love ought to shape and sustain our lives?

In this final episode of Season 3 of my podcast, I sit down with Francesca Hogi to explore this question. A former corporate lawyer turned matchmaker turned love coach, Francesca is a TED speaker, host of Dear Franny Podcast, and internationally recognized expert on dating and relationships. She’s been featured in media outlets such as The Today Show, Marie Claire, The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar and The Huffington Post. She coaches individuals and groups, and is the founder of The True Love Society, a community for people seeking deeper self and romantic love. Her first book, How to Find True Love, will be released in April 2025. Prior to her love career, Francesca competed on two seasons of the iconic reality show Survivor.

Francesca challenges conventional wisdom about love, showing how many of us fall into the trap of thinking that a perfect romantic partner will complete us. But as she explains, love is much more than just romance—it is a way of being, and a practice that must be cultivated in all areas of our lives.

In our conversation, Francesca shares:
* Why we put romantic love on a pedestal—and how that can hold us back
* The four key dimensions of love: mindset, heart set, soul set, and skill set
* How our cultural narratives—especially what she calls the “Fairy Tale Industrial Complex”—shape our expectations of love in unrealistic ways
* Why true love isn’t something we find—it’s something we do
* How our beliefs about love shape our experiences and relationships—and how we can change these beliefs

Consider our conversation an invitation to live a love-centered life, one that encompasses all our relationships—including with ourselves. And at the end of the episode, Francesca offers a practical exercise that can be very helpful for us to come to grips with faulty beliefs about love that we have come to embrace.

You can listen to our conversation in two parts (here and here), watch the full video, or read an unedited transcript below.

Brandon: All right. Francesca, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us.

Francesca: Thank you for having me, Brandon. This is exciting.

Brandon: Gosh, it's such a pleasure. Yeah. And man, I loved your book. Congratulations. It was such a fun read.

Francesca: Thank you.

Brandon: Enlightening in many ways. You know, I've been married 18 years this year. So I've not thought about a lot of these things in a while. So it was really nice to sort of bring up some of these questions and to think about how does this matter for my own life.

Francesca: Thank you.

Brandon: And very apt. So this episode is going to release on Valentine's Day. And you know, what could be more apt than an episode about our yearning for love, right, what that means in all of its forms. Okay. To get started, this is a podcast about beauty. I sent you a little question to think about, which is, could you share a memory of an encounter with profound beauty that perhaps you had in your childhood or something that lingers with you till today? What does that idea evoke for you?

Francesca: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a hard question because it's like, oh, there's so many directions to go, right? But that's also why it's a great question. But I think what really came to me was, when I was a kid, I was probably — it was a summer between I think third and fourth grade, so I would have been eight. My family took a vacation. I grew up in New York. I grew up in New York City. And we took a vacation to LA. It was my first time ever going to California. I was a child of the '80s, like growing up watching all of these sitcoms, all these shows that were set in LA and just like the glamour of all of that. And I just remember. I mean, it was a magical time for many reasons. I mean, it was magical because my whole family was together. We didn't normally take vacations like that. We would take road trips. We would go, you know, but we didn't get on an airplane and fly across the country. And so it was like a big deal. I just fell so in love with California and the beauty of California. And it was a long trip. We were there for a month. I just remember it just felt like a dream. I was just like, "Is this real life?" Like the beach and the sun and the mountains and just everything to me was so incredibly magical. And so, yeah, I just think that was a beautiful time for so many reasons. And also, just as a family, I mean, I'm sure there were stressful moments. I'm sure there were times my brother and I didn't get along. I'm sure all of that happened, but I don't have any memory of that. I only have memories of the good times and the beach and going to Disneyland and Universal Studios and just feeling like, yeah, I was living in a dream.

Brandon: I'm sure your parents have very different memories of that experiences. But it's amazing what stays with us, right, and how these memories transform. Particularly, the resonance between your imagined world of what LA might look like and then really getting to encounter the reality of it and, wow, there really are beaches. It's really a lot of fun. And of course, I'm sure being together with your family and all of that, right?

Francesca: Yeah.

Brandon: Amazing.

Brandon: So you've had, I mean, such a fascinating journey. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what it means to be a love coach, and how did you become one after becoming a lawyer? It's such a strange juxtaposition, and I'd love to hear a little bit of that story.

Francesca: Yeah, you know, I was a romantic child so I've always really cared a lot about love. I've been very taken with romantic love and the idea of it. And it was something that I always just, I wanted to grow up and fall in love. And so it was something that I always cared a lot about. I think I probably took for granted, like, oh, everybody cares that much about love, like romantic love. But I don't think so. I think I was a little over the top. But then once I did find myself as a young lawyer, I also had to accept the fact that I was very romantically challenged. It wasn't easy for me. I wanted to be in relationships. I wanted to have these great experiences. I didn't even know how to date. I was like, I don't even know how to get a date. And so I decided that I was going to teach myself how to date. And so I got on match.com. I created a profile, and I started going on dates. And so this is long before I ever knew such a thing as like a love coach or dating. I don't even know if I knew like a life coach existed at this point. But I just sort of intuitively just realized that I needed to teach myself some skills. And so I did, and it worked. I was like, oh, okay. Now I know how to get a date. But how do I get a second date? And how do I flirt? And how do I choose? And how do I, you know, all of these different — I just kept on coming up against a new kind of obstacle or challenge each step of the way. But I learned a lot.

Then I was still practicing law, and a friend of mine started a blog. She invited me to contribute to her blog. She's like, "Oh, maybe you can write about the law." And I was like, I am not writing about the law in my free time. She's like, "Oh, well, you can write about whatever you want." And I was like, I said the only thing I could think I would want to write about is dating. Because that was just what came to me. And she was like, "Write about dating." So I was like, okay. Great. So I started this dating advice column basically, and it was great. I just felt like, oh, there's a lot of people who are struggling with things that I used to struggle with. So I could totally relate to that challenge. I was like, oh, this is fun, you know. So fast forward. But I still had no idea, I had no inkling that this could be a career. It was just literally just a little, you know — I think I wrote one blog post a week. It was a very, very, very, very side project.

Various other things happened in my life. I knew that I didn't want to practice law forever. I went on the show Survivor. I don't know if you know that I was on Survivor. I went on Survivor, and that was a disaster. Then I went back for a second season, and it was a disaster again. And after my second season, I was like, okay, I've got to rewrite the narrative of my life. Like, this cannot be my legacy. And I was still stuck in this place of like, you know, being a lawyer is not the worst job in the world. You could do many worse things.

Brandon: Sure.

Francesca: And one thing that I did like about being a lawyer was, I really did like the client service aspect of it. I really liked like a client needs something. Then you figure it out, and you give them that solution. That was very satisfying to me. So I had this sense of like I do want to work with people, and I want to work with people and help them solve problems but problems that are very important to them. Because I was a corporate lawyer, so it was like, you know. Nothing against corporate lawyers. But it's just like, I mean, we're just making big corporations richer. That's not—

Brandon: Right, right, right, right.

Francesca: You know, is that what I am on this planet to do? I don't think so. Right? Nothing wrong with it for other people if that's what your calling is. But it wasn't my calling. I wound up going to a 4th of July barbecue after I came back for my second season of Survivor. I met this woman who told me about this black male matchmaker named Paul Brunson, who she followed on Twitter. And I was like, there's like a black male matchmaker? Like, what? Who's that? And I'm like, I want to follow him. So I took out my phone and I followed him. He had a story of, he had an MBA. He had been in investment banking, and he left investment banking to start this matchmaking agency. I was just listening to all the things he was talking about. And I was like, oh my God, this guy is so cool. This is like the best job ever. Then one day, he tweeted that he was going to be speaking at the Matchmaking Institute Conference in New York. And I was like, wait, there's a matchmaking institute, and they have conferences? Like, what? And so I just responded to his tweet and I was like, I want to come to this conference. And he said, you should come. And I took that as an invitation, and I went to the conference. I met all of these people who were just regular people, but it was their job to help people get into relationships. And I was like, well, I want to do that. The Matchmaking Institute had classes. And so I went to matchmaking school, and I got my matchmaking certification. Then I went on Facebook one day and I said, "Hey, everybody. I'm a matchmaker now."

Brandon: Wow. That is amazing.

Francesca: "Send me all your single friends." That's actually how I got my first client.

Brandon: Wow. That's extraordinary.

Francesca: Yeah, from that Facebook post.

Brandon: What did you learn from matchmaking school, maybe something that was an eye-opener or something that you didn't already know, something that surprised you?

Francesca: So matchmaking school was very much focused on basically kind of helping you to develop your own theories around compatibility, right? Because people have different theories around compatibility. And so it really made me think very deeply about that, you know. Because it's like, oh, because you have these ideas. But then once you have to actually articulate them and put them into practice, that's a whole other level. And also, just to think about things like, who do you want to work with? Who do you think that you actually could match? What are their personalities? What's the demographic? What are their characteristics? Where are you going to find the people to set them up with? Rght? Sourcing matches is a really — that's a huge, huge part of matchmaking, right? You can have all the ideas and all the theories you want. But if you don't have people to introduce your clients to, then it's not going to work out.

Actually, the reason that I sort of transitioned from matchmaking to coaching was because I matched made for about two years, and I started my own business. I also started working for Paul Brunson, who I mentioned. So my inspiration. I actually became his lead matchmaker for his agency. So I was very lucky to kind of be able to work with a bunch of clients right away. And it became very clear that the people that we could match were the people who were very open to looking at themselves. They had self-awareness. When we would set people up on dates, we would get feedback not just from our clients but also from their dates. And so presenting that feedback to people as constructively as possible, you know, taking the — if you have one client, you set up with five people. And all five people say like, they're really rude to the waiter, for instance. Just as an example, right?

Brandon: Right. Right. Yeah.

Francesca: You know, if one person says it, you're like, oh, okay. But these patterns would emerge, right? And so the people that we could match were the people who could take that feedback and take some responsibility for it and who are really willing to understand that, oh, just because I'm hiring a matchmaker, this doesn't mean that this is like now build a bear. I just get to say, you know.

Brandon: Right. Right. Right. That's right. Come on, genie.

Brandon: Exactly. I'm like, hi, we still live in the same world that you do. Right? But the people who are really willing to prioritize and actually get to the why, behind why, what they want certain things. Because a lot of people want things just because they have an idea of like, "Oh, I should just be with somebody who's x, y, and z." And then when you start to say, "Well, what does that have to do with your relationship with them," or, "Who have you dated like this in the past," they'd be like, "I've never dated anybody like it. But I don't care. That's just what I want." Those people were very difficult to work with. And so it just became really clear that it was the coaching piece that was really the secret sauce. I mean, anybody can get lucky with introductions. If you introduce enough people, some of it is going to stick, right? I was like, this is so random. It started to feel random. And I was like, I really don't want this to be a random process. I want to know that I can reliably, consistently help people get into the relationship that they're seeking. As far as I'm concerned, that can't be done without coaching.

Brandon: Right. Because it takes so much self-work, right? Your book is so clear on, I mean, it's in many ways it seems like it would turn on its head the kind of consumer mindset that people might have towards dating. Because you were shifting the focus back to the person and I think reorienting our sense of what it means to love. Then there's so much to do prior to even being ready to go on dates, it seems. Right?

Francesca: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Brandon: I want to jump right into the book because there's so much wisdom here, and it's such a delightful read. So you start by saying that love is not just something you feel. It's something you do, right? Which again is, for a lot of people, a serious shift in how they think about love as a feeling. You say you do love because you're a vessel or a conduit of love. Love feels far away when it only occupies corners or slices of life. So say a little bit more about that. Because I think you're inviting us to think about love as our highest calling and something to do with all aspects of our lives, and the romantic piece is only one small component of that, it seems.

Francesca: Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is something that — you know, it's now been 12 years that I've been doing this work, right? And I have seen this time and time and time again how clients come to me, and they are like all of their hopes, all of their dreams are pegged to romantic love. And it's up on a pedestal. It's like if I can only just meet this person and have this relationship, then my life will be complete, then I'll be happy. But then seeing that, but wait a second. There's all these other opportunities that you have to experience love in your life that you're discounting, or you're putting them on the table. You don't think they matter. And sort of like with matchmaking, it's like those people, it's very difficult for you to actually attract a really loving relationship if you are not somebody who has a deeper understanding of love and if you're someone who just has this sort of magical fantasy perspective on romantic love, which is that, "Oh, as long as I have that, then everything else will be fine."

And so it became really clear that the people who — because one of the things that I was fascinated about from the beginning when I started matchmaking, and even when I started coaching, was just like I could have two people who are essentially the same. They would be in the same lineup, so to speak. They've got very similar resumes. They check all the same boxes. And for one person, I could work with them for a really short amount of time. And they're like, "Okay. Get it. Got it. No problem," and they go out and they meet someone amazing instantly. Then the other person, it's like this struggle and it takes so long. It's not happening in the movement. This was one of the things that I really realized was the distinction, was who was actually taking responsibility for showing up in their lives in a loving way versus who was just not living in an openhearted way but just still expecting to "be rescued" by one person who comes in and gives them all the love that they're unwilling to give to themselves, or they don't know how to experience with other people.

And so just understanding, you know. And I always say, I'm like, if I knew how hard this was. I'm like, oh, I can give dating advice. I'm going to give him dating advice. I can do all this. But I really became very fixated on, how do I articulate to people what it is that really can reliably put them in a place where romantic love can just be an extension of how they're already living their lives versus just this magical thing that's supposed to come along and save them? So that's why centering love in your life holistically is, hat's the first chapter in the book for a reason. Because it's like, let's start here. Let's start with just living a life full of love. Then that makes romantic love a much easier — you combine that with your intention for romantic love, and then that makes it much easier to manifest in your life.

Brandon: It seems also that it would reduce the burden on a romantic partner to be the sole source of love that you find in your world, right?

Francesca: Yes.

Brandon: That's such a tall order to ask of anyone, I think. They give me all the love that I will need in the universe.

Francesca: Exactly. "Make me happy. Be my everything." I mean, you look. You've been married for 18 years. Congratulations, by the way.

Brandon: Well, thanks. Don't feel that long, but yeah.

Francesca: But you know. It's like having an amazing partner is such a blessing to your life. It's such a gift. But you still need other relationships, right? Those other relationships still matter, and your relationship with yourself still matters. And the more that you're able to understand that and to invest in all of those relationships, the better your relationship is going to be with your partner. It's not sustainable to just say, "Be my everything. I'm miserable, but it's your job to make me happy." It's like, but you can make yourself happy.

Brandon: It's such a big part of our common narrative. I think it's great that you divide your book into these four dimensions of love that you call mindset, heart set, soul set and skill set. Mindset is I think one of the biggest challenges we're facing, right? Because there are so many popular narratives of love and what romantic love ought to be. And you point out these various imposters, like infatuation and love bombing and control. I grew up not in the U.S but in India, in the Middle East. And so Bollywood movies painted for me a vision of love that was centered on infatuation and control. So if you're not completely infatuated and obsessed with somebody, stalking them, carving their name on your hand with a knife, or, you know, it was insane. But this was like, you know, my classmates and I, this is what we thought it meant to experience love for someone. It's you have to be completely obsessed and be jealous and possessive. If you're not, then this is obviously not love, right? So it takes a lot I suppose to dismantle that. You have this term for the fairy tale industrial complex and used Jerry McGuire as a good example of that. Could you talk about what's wrong with this sort of fairy tale vision of love?

Francesca: Yeah, so the problem with it is that, it's just not how love works. Right? But it's so pervasive. Whether it's Bollywood, whether it's Hollywood, whether it's love songs, we're getting so many unrealistic narratives around romantic love. And because we don't live in a culture where we have a strong counter narrative to that, it's just easy for people to default into that. Like, oh, it's supposed to be love at first sight. We're supposed to be obsessed with each other. We're supposed to know right away. And even when we have struggle, then there's still going to be this moment where the grand gesture now means that we're going to live "happily ever after." I mean, these stories always end at the wedding, right?

Brandon: Yeah, and that's the end end of love apparently, right?

Francesca: Apparently, you've done it. You've made it to the finish line. Everything's like, that's it. And it's like, well, no. Hold on a second. That's just the beginning, right? That's just the beginning of a whole new journey and a whole new relationship. And so it doesn't serve us to think that love is this magical fantasy that doesn't require our work. It doesn't require our intention. It doesn't require our effort, that it doesn't require us growing in our capacity to give love and receive love. Relationships are not set it and forget it. And if you do set them and forget them, they're not going to last for long, right? I like to talk about the fairy tale industrial complex and give some of those examples. I mean, I'm pretty hard on the movie Jerry Maguire in the book.

Brandon: I'm glad you are. That again, from my teenage days, was a big — I think I've said to at least one person, you complete me.

Francesca: Listen. So many people. I can't imagine how many wedding vows this has been in. But I think even as an example of a diamond engagement ring, which I also talked about in the fairy tale industrial complex chapter which is — I have nothing against diamonds. Like, get a diamond if you want a diamond. But also understand that this is a narrative that was created by a company to sell diamonds because people didn't buy diamonds.

Brandon: Right, yeah.

Francesca: But people have this idea. They're like, "Oh, no. This is this eternal symbol of love." And it's like, that was literally a woman who worked for a marketing agency in 1948. De Beers was like, "We have all these diamonds. People don't buy diamonds. How do we get people to buy diamonds?" I mean, brilliant.

Brandon: Would you feel so bad if you can't get one? That's the power of these narratives, right?

Francesca: That's the thing, you know. And so it's like, how many people didn't marry someone they loved because they couldn't "afford" the right diamond. Right? Or how many people did marry someone they didn't love because they got the right diamond?

Brandon: Incredible.

Francesca: And so it's like you have to just at least, if you're going to care about a diamond engagement ring, at least understand where that's coming from. Then ask yourself, well, hold on a second. It would be like if McDonald's had convinced everyone that loving your family meant feeding them McDonald's every night, and you never took a moment to examine that narrative.

Brandon: Yeah, it's incredible. Absolutely. All of these traps, I think they really shape our imaginations and our desires, right? Because we want to be seen as able to live out this cultural script, right, to be able to fall in love at first sight. And if you're not doing that, something is wrong with you. You've also tackled this issue of rejection, which, again, I think is a huge fear for a lot of people. So you were on Survivor twice, experienced rejection there. How did you overcome that? Because for a lot of people, the trauma of rejection is so painful. And once you've been rejected in a relationship, it's very hard to recover. So how do you overcome that? Because one of the things you say is, your feelings are always valid, but your feelings are not facts. So that experience of rejection you say is not really revealing a truth about us. I'd love to hear more of your own thoughts on this.

Francesca: Yes, I mean, I think that, yes, I've had my own experiences of rejection—romantic and otherwise. And it was hard, right? So it's not like I was just like, "Whatever. This doesn't matter." Just like everyone else, it mattered a lot to me. It mattered a lot to me for a really long time. But this is actually one of those — there are so many examples of things that I'm just so grateful to all of the clients that I've had throughout the years. Because I have learned so much from them. And seeing how other people get held back by this fear of rejection has been so illuminating to me. Because, first of all, it's a slippery slope. I mean, I know people who were genuinely upset, depressed, feel so badly about themselves because there's somebody that they liked on a dating app and that person didn't like them back. And they feel so rejected. And I'm like, literally, that person may not even be a person. That could be a bot. Just when you realize, like, there's so many reasons why someone might not swipe on you on a dating app. But just to see how people internalize so many things and called it rejection, I'm like, wait, why are you calling this rejection? This is bad, right?

And so I say in the book, and something I've said for a long time now, which is rejection isn't real, which is not to negate what happened. That's a minor example. But sometimes, you really want to be in a relationship with someone. You are in a relationship with them, and they say one day, "Yeah, I don't want to be with you anymore." It hurts. And by the way, I've been broken up with. I didn't like it. I've broken up with other people, and I didn't like inflicting that pain on someone else either. But you can feel your feelings of disappointment, and you can mourn the loss of that relationship without now saying, "Well, it's because I wasn't good enough." And so when I say rejection isn't real, it's because it's not that what happened didn't happen. It's the story that you're telling yourself. It's the meaning that you're ascribing to it. That is completely subjective. So just as easily as you could say, "Oh, my girlfriend broke up with me, and I feel so rejected. Nobody's ever going to love me," someone else could have that exact same experience and say, "Well, that sucks because I really thought we were going to be together for a long time. But I guess that just means that that's not the right person for me and that there's someone else for me." Right? And so if you can just change your whole emotional experience of something just by reframing it and just by changing that story, then it's just a story.

Brandon: I suppose that our ability or inability to make those changes tells us a lot about ourselves, right? If I really want to hold on to this idea that I'm not worthy, that seems to be an indicator that maybe that's where I have to do some work. Right?

Francesca: Yes.

Brandon: You have a great concept called the self-love formula, which is very different. Because a lot of people think of self-love as sort of egoism, and you have a very different way of framing that. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Francesca: Yes. Oh, gosh. Self-love, you know, I think the reason I came up with the self-love formula, again, clients. I'm like, oh, it's not just one thing. And also, seeing the absolute necessity of us having a foundationally loving relationship with ourselves in order for us to even know what it means to be loving towards another person and to receive love from another person. So the self-love formula, it has five elements. And so the first is self-compassion. I start with self-compassion for a reason. It's because we are so addicted to shaming ourselves, judging ourselves, beating ourselves up that it's like you can't even get to feeling love for yourself. If you can't ever give yourself a break and just have compassion that you did the best that you could, and even if you're ready to do better, shaming yourself isn't going to help you do any better. Right? We tell ourselves it does, but it's not. Because if you think about it, there's anything in life that we wanted to change. And shame worked to get us to make that change. Everybody would go to the gym every day. Everybody would be—

Brandon: Yeah, you draw on Brené Brown in your book. I think she has a nice distinction between guilt and shame, in the sense that when you do something wrong—which you might make mistakes, or hurt somebody, or say something you shouldn't have—you can feel guilty about it and say, "Oh, I shouldn't have done that." But then the shame is this sort of, there's something fundamentally wrong with me. Right? And that just seems very hard to get out of that kind of spiral.

Francesca: Yes, it's very hard to get out of. I call it a shame fog. It's so unhelpful because now you're just stuck there. You're just stuck in that place of self-loathing. So just choosing in that moment. Just like, okay, I'm really beating myself up. If beating myself up actually resulted in the change that I wanted, that would be one thing. And I tell people all the time, I'm like, self-compassion can be begrudging. You don't have to be like, "Oh, my God. I love myself so much. I'm going to give myself—" No, it could be begrudging. It could be like, "Okay. Well, I just want to move on." Right? "And so I'm just going to at least give myself that gift of just moving on and letting go of the story that I'm terrible." Right?

Then the second element is self-worth. That is just actually, first of all, like you said at the beginning, for me, love is not just about a feeling. And not just for me. I think just the definition of the word, it's not just a feeling. It's a verb, right? And so self-worth, just actually believing that you deserve good things, believing that you deserve to be loved, that you deserve to be treated with respect and with kindness and with compassion. Like, if we don't believe that we deserve these things, then life is going to be really hard. Relationships are going to be a nightmare, right? But because it's not always easy to feel worthy just as you are, just to feel that you inherently deserve good things — because we live in a world where we are told many times that you don't inherently deserve good things. You have to earn them. You have to work for them, right — so I always like to give the analogy of imagining a newborn baby. If you can imagine a newborn baby anywhere in the world, what does that baby have to do to be deserving of love, to be deserving of care, of kindness, of good health, of joy? I'm sure there are sociopaths who'd be like, "We're not going to love that kid until they grow up and see how they turn out." Right? But I like to think that most of us can agree they don't have to do anything. They just exist and, therefore, they deserve love. The same goes for us. But we don't always feel that way. And so with the self-love formula, it's not just about, okay, feel worthy. It's like, okay, how do I do that? It's like, well, no, actually, if I can accept that I am as worthy as everyone else, then how can I start to treat myself in that way? Because if you treat yourself with enough self-worth, then your feelings will catch up. Right? So it's all about starting with the action and not waiting for the feeling to just magically arise, right? Then I'll be quick with these.

Brandon: Sure. Yeah.

Francesca: Then the next one is self-validation. Self-validation is really just giving yourself some credit. Because this is another thing I've just seen through years of working with clients. It's like, how much people discount the work that they've done, the attempts that they've made, the ways in which they've been brave, the ways in which, you know? It's like we're so outcome-oriented that it's like, if I didn't get the absolute best perfect outcome, then I failed. It's like, wait, what? You tried, right? You were courageous. You pushed yourself. You tried something new. The only way that we gain confidence is by doing something new and then giving ourselves credit for having done it. And if you skip the part of giving yourself credit, then it's just an endless treadmill of trying to do and do and do and do and do to feel good enough that you never, ever are going to — like, you'll never see the end of that. So self-validation is just recognizing the importance of you, actually, just as you would a child, right? If a toddler is taking their first steps and they fall down, do you say, "Oh, you suck," or do you clap because they took a step, and you encourage them to get back up again? Right? And so that's what we really need to foster within ourselves.

Then the next is self-care, which is a huge industry. Lots of people will sell you lots of things under the umbrella of self-care. But it's really an individual thing to recognize, well, number one, how do I want to feel? How do I want to feel when I wake up in the morning? How do I want to feel when I go on a date? How do I want to feel inside my relationships? Then the second question is, what can I do to support myself in feeling that way? Right? That's not a one-size-fits-all thing. So the self-awareness, even just to ask yourself that question is a loving thing to do. And you will start to get answers. Then the last thing is self-gratitude, which is just actually recognizing that you are a one-of-kind miracle, that there is no one else on this planet who's exactly like you. No one ever has been. No one ever will be. And we all know that intuitively. But if you really think about it, that's amazing.

Brandon: Yeah, that's extraordinary.

Francesca: It's pretty amazing, right? And so there are things about you that make you uniquely you. And if you can practice being grateful for those things, then again, the feelings will catch up. But it's like that acknowledgement of the miraculous person that you are. For me, the whole point of the self-love formula and having this act of practice of self-love is that if you normalize that within yourself, then it's also going to become normal in your relationships. Because if you treat yourself as worthy and then somebody else comes along and they tell you that you're worthless, you're going to be like, "Uh, haha. You are wrong." You're not even going to be attracted to that person, right, much less are you going to be in a relationship with them. So it's so important for us to like normalize within ourselves what we want to experience with other people.

Brandon: Yeah, that's a tremendous amount of work too. I think that the converse of that is, people are so accustomed to seeing themselves as unworthy that they resonate with relationships where they're made to feel unworthy. And that's a really hard challenge to get out of. I want to ask you about heart set, which is the the next aspect of your framework. One of the things that struck me was, you said your attractions will change as your skill at love does. How have you seen that happen in your clients?

Francesca: Oh my gosh. So many times. It's the most amazing thing. And this is why we're actually able to break patterns, like toxic relationship patterns. It's because just as you just said. The example of like if you're used to relationships where people treat you poorly, then again that has to be normal inside of you. Right? But if you get more skilled at treating yourself with that sense of worthiness, then your skill at being loving towards yourself is increasing, so much so that when somebody comes along — I mean, of course, we can think of very dramatic examples. But let's even think of a very common but not as dramatic. Because obviously, there are very abusive relationship dynamics. But even just somebody who doesn't support your dreams. They're kind of like, they're like, "Oh, well, that seems pretty hard. How are you ever going to do that?" If you were really questioning yourself and if you're like, "Well, who am I to do that? Do I deserve to do that? Why do I have this dream," and then somebody says to you, well, how could you ever do that, you're kind of like, all right. Well, you know. All right. You can still be with that person because it's a match. But then as you get more skilled at actually treating yourself with that worthiness and that builds up that confidence and those feelings of self-worth within you, then you're not attracted to somebody anymore who pooh-poohs your dreams. It's no longer a match for you. I think that's something that I always really like to drive home to people. Because it's so easy to feel so trapped in relationship patterns and feel like, "Oh, every person I meet, this just keeps happening and it keeps happening." It's like, but no, wait a second. It keeps happening because you're not actually getting the right message. You're not understanding what your love assignment is here. And once you do, you are not going to be attracted to that same dynamic anymore. Those people, they will fade from your view. Then new people will emerge. It's miraculous. It happens. It happens every day. It's a beautiful thing.

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You're listening to Beauty at Work. This podcast is made possible through support from the John Templeton Foundation and Templeton Religion Trust.

Brandon: One of the movies that was I suppose formative for me was Groundhog Day, which is, in a way, resonant with this. Right? Because once the protagonist realizes he's got to work on himself and be a certain kind of person, that dramatically transforms his ability to relate to others, to love others, and to actually live out a more loving way of life, right?

Francesca: Yes, I love that movie.

Brandon: But it's so hard to see. Because I mean, the challenge is, in these experiences of failure or rejection, to be able to say, "All right. There's something here for me. But the message for me is not that I'm inherently incapable of love or always going to be unlucky." And so I suppose that feeling of being flawed or cursed, I suppose, is really challenging. How do you recommend people deal with that? Suppose, in a series of relationships where it's just not worked out — not because of rejection but just it seems like bad luck — how do you recommend people deal with that?

Francesca: I always encourage them to, first of all, put on the lens of self-compassionate curiosity. So rather than judging myself for this pattern, let me actually get curious about this pattern. Let me actually start to dissect. Like, okay, yes, this has been my experience in the past, but how did these relationships begin? Then what happened? Then what happened? Right? Then what happened? Start to see those patterns. And the thing about patterns, even if you have an unwanted pattern, if you can just recognize with, again, that self-compassionate curiosity, the ways in which you have been co-creating it, then it's actually pretty amazing. Because then you can be amazed by like, wow, I'm very powerful. Because of all the people in the world, I have managed to find the 5 or 10 people who can be the exact puzzle piece fit to this old set of beliefs that I have. So if you can bring that curiosity to it, then you can be a little bit more objective about it. Then you can actually start to break down.

A really simple example of this is, maybe if you have been convinced that somebody needs to be obsessed with you in order to feel love. And so every time you meet somebody who's just completely obsessed with you, you're just all in. Right? Then maybe that obsession turns to jealousy, and it turns to control. It winds up being a toxic relationship dynamic, right? So if you can say, okay. Well, maybe even if I don't know what to do, I know what not to do. So maybe the next time I meet somebody who's immediately like, "Oh, my god. You're the greatest thing since sliced bread. I want to carve your name into my hand with a knife," you're like, rather than see that as romantic and rather than see that as a green light, you're like, "Okay. Wait. Hold on a second. I've been here before. So what am I willing to do differently here?" And this is going back to why that foundational relationship with yourself is so important. It encourages you to have more agency in those decisions. And even recognizing, like, but I might be really attracted to this and they're so cute. They think I'm the greatest thing ever. So you're having that compassion but you're also understanding, well, if this person is really right for me, then I don't have to dive in headfirst day one. Right? I can take my time and I can see, are their feelings genuine? Is there consistency here? So it's just really kind of like being a bit of a detective for your own romantic choices. Once you start to do that, then you see like, oh, these things that seem to just happen, they didn't just happen. I actually was, I was half of the equation. And now that I see, I don't want that formula anymore.

Brandon: Right. You provide, I think as a litmus test, the question of, is this in my highest good, right? That the decisions we're making have to be aligned not with how I'm feeling right now or what would make me feel really good, but thinking of maybe our best self or our highest self? And whose interests are we advancing? Is it of my impulsive self right now or kind of a deeper or higher self? Right?

Francesca: Yeah, and that's the question to ask too when you're reflecting on those past relationships. Which is, if this relationship happened, or if this dynamic has been repeating, to teach me something, that is in my highest good. To teach me that I'm never going to have love or that everyone's terrible. But if it's something in my highest good, what might that be? And just start to bring that curiosity. It's like, okay, you'll start to get answers if you ask yourself that question from a place of loving kindness.

Brandon: Something else you say is that love is spiritual, and this is the idea of the soul set. And so when you honor it as such, you increase your connection to it. So say more more about what you mean by that.

Francesca: Yeah, so I think this is a big thing that I saw as a matchmaker in particular, right? It's because a lot of people have this attitude of like, "I want love. I want this deep love. I want true love. Here's the list. Find me somebody that checks all these boxes, and then that's love." And it's like, wait. Hold on.

Brandon: This idea as standards, right? People have standards of what they're looking for and their traits of people.

Francesca: You know, their traits. It's things you can see on paper. It's things you can look at somebody and know, okay, box, box, box, box.

Brandon: Is that 6'5, finance, blue eyes?

Francesca: Yeah, exactly. And by the way, everybody gets to decide for themselves what they want. In some people, all they care about is checking boxes. And if that's what you want, that's the standard that you have for yourself and your relationships, I don't judge it. But I think that what we're all actually being called to have is a love where we're truly being seen for who we are, and we are also able to see our partners for who they really are. Right? It's deeper than that. So when I say love is spiritual, it's just the literal fact that love is not — you can't pick it up and hold it in your hand and put it in your pocket. It is something that is of the spirit. And it is something that we were all born knowing how to love. We were all born knowing what love felt like and what love feels like. And so even if we don't have language for it, even going back to that newborn baby, they know the difference between something that feels loving and something that doesn't.

And so, if you think about every other thing that we had to learn, we had to learn how to eat, we had to learn how to walk, how to talk, how to do all of these critical things. But we didn't have to learn what love felt like, right? And even if there's an absence of love and there's the pain of that absence of love, that's also the absence of something that we intuitively feel as well. Right? And so there's something bigger going on here than just 6'5, trust fund. There's something much bigger and much deeper. And when you can recognize that, the true power of love, then you actually do start to realize like, "Oh, wait. Love is truly abundant. I am my own portal to love. I experience love through myself actually, right? Even when I come together with another person, it's being amplified. But it's something that's still coming through me." And so I think, for me, a big part — you know this because you read the book. It's like I want people to feel very empowered in love and not feel like it's this magical thing they have to run around and search high and low and try to get lucky at to find it. It's like, no, no, no. This is like, you were born to love. This is a part of who you are on a very, very deep level.

Brandon: Yeah, I think you're right. There is a correspondence between what we most deeply yearn for and then — I don't know if I would say the feeling of love is certainly the action of loving, which is what I think you're also helping us to distinguish between. Because sometimes, what feels like love really isn't love, right? If you're in a situation of domestic abuse, it might feel like love to stay in that relationship. But I think we have a deeper knowledge. There's an old classical understanding of love, a definition of love, as willing the good of the other. So there's already an action of the will, and it has to do with something objective. You can say love for yourself is willing what is in my highest good, right? Even when I don't feel like it and it's hard, I got to work at it. But unless you do that, you can't really lean into that source of love, that I think you're saying we need to operate from that perspective, right?

Francesca: Yeah, exactly.

Brandon: One of the things you say is that unconditional love is real. But unconditionally, feeling love is not. Right?

Francesca: Yes.

Brandon: And so how do we do that? I mean, I think one of the things I've been wondering about is, can we just sort of force ourselves to love ourselves? So do we need somebody outside of us? Do we need an experience outside us? Do we need it modeled for us? Do we need an imagination for it that has to be triggered outside, or is that something we can just somehow come up with ourselves?

Francesca: I mean, I think if it's not modeled for us — and look, our relationships obviously matter, right? And so yeah, the more if you imagine a child who grew up in a very loving household, where love was something that was modeled every day, then it is probably going to be easier for that child to access that feeling of love and that practice of love within themselves versus somebody who did not have that. However, even the person who grew up not having that modeled and didn't have those loving relationships, to really foster that at a young age, they still have the same portal to love inside of them that we all do. And they still have the same ability to treat themselves with love as we all do. And so I think that it helps, right? And the more that we can all understand what it means to be loving and the more that we can make that choice to be loving to everyone in our lives, the more we are helping to normalize love in the world, which helps everyone. It's a rising tide. It raises all boats. But I do believe that we all fundamentally have that potential within us. But is it just realistically more easy to access for some people than others? Absolutely.

Brandon: You just talk about skills that are needed, right? This fourth dimension of yours is a skill set. I think that's one of the things that your book is able to provide, and your coaching as well. Could you say more about this quote that really struck me? You said, "If it's hysterical, it's historical."

Francesca: Yes. It's not the best quote. It's not mine. It's not mine. I don't know who originally said it. But I think it's so important for us to have humility. Because we are so indoctrinated in our society to be super logical. It's like you ask somebody, why did you do that, and they're going to tell you the reason and they're going to know. It's like, you do not know 90% of your motivation for anything, right? So it's just this reminder that, first of all, there's something deeper going on here. And so when you're having these strong reactions to things, having again that self-compassion to say, okay, there's something much more going on here, right? Another thing I say in the book which is like a trigger, if there's no bullet in the chamber, a trigger is a non-event. Right? And so it's those bullets that we're carrying in our respective chambers. That when they get triggered, if we're not recognizing, oh wait, there's something in me that actually I should probably address here versus only being focused on the other person. And it's like, it's your fault and you did it da, da, da, da. It's like, well, hold on. There's something deeper going on here. I mean, I just want to live in a world where we all take a little bit more responsibility for ourselves and not be so quick to just blame everybody else for everything.

Brandon: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's one of these things where I think my wife and I survived a lot of these disproportionate recurring reactions in our romantic lives. We find when we have children, oh, man, there are a lot of triggers. They evoke a lot of crazy reactions from us. We wonder like, what the hell did I just become there and why? Right? It's crazy. One other thing you talk about is opening your heart. So you say, the scarier it feels to open your heart fully, the more committed you must be to doing just that. Talk about that a bit. Because for a lot of people, they feel like, "I've closed my heart. I can never open it again." What are the skills that you might recommend? How do we do that? How do we open ourselves once we've closed ourselves off?

Francesca: I'm going to sound like such a broken record here, Brandon.

Brandon: That's all right.

Francesca: First of all, we really do have to start with that self-compassion, of saying like, "I closed my heart because that's what I needed to do in order to feel safe, in order to survive, in order to get through what I was going through." So it's not a judgment. It's actually another thing I talked about in a different part of the book, which is just like, I think we need to give our former selves credit. Even if we're like I've reached the limit of the usefulness of this closed heart, say, but I'm also going to give my younger self credit for the fact that they did the best that they could, and they figured out a way to function so that they could cope with life at that time. Right? And so a coping strategy is to close your heart when it feels too painful, you've been too disappointed, you've been too hurt. You've got to give yourself that kindness and that grace for the fact that you made that choice. Now you can also give yourself the gift of setting an intention of, "But I'm actually ready. I'm actually ready to open my heart. I'm actually ready to experience a deeper, a higher level of love than I ever have before. I'm ready to be more vulnerable." That takes courage. So what can I start to do? What steps can I take in?

This is another thing about centering love in your life holistically rather than just like, I'm going to expect romantic love to come along. Now I'm going to be open-hearted, and I'm going to be vulnerable. It's like no, how can you start to practice that in every way? Right? What does that look like? How can you be more forgiving? How can you be more, you know? This is a really basic example I give in the book. But it's like even when people are like, "Oh, how are you doing Brandon," you're like fine, fine, fine, fine. Okay. Hold on a second. Can you start to say, "Well, actually, I've been having kind of a rough time lately," or, "Actually, I've been having a great time lately." So it's not like it's all bad being vulnerable. There's vulnerability in sharing the good as well. And so even just giving yourself that, noticing all those opportunities you have to start to be a little bit more vulnerable, to start to be a little bit more giving, to notice where you're being unforgiving, and starting to challenge yourself, like, am I willing to forgive? Am I willing to release this? It's like those baby steps, they matter so much. Because into those little cracks of possibility, so much can come through, you know.

Brandon: Yeah, absolutely. And it seems like, yeah, having a good — yeah, I mean, your role as a coach would be really important. But also having good friendships would be really critical to help people cultivate that kind of self-compassion and doing this sort of work, right?

Francesca: Very helpful. Yeah, it's very helpful.

Brandon: You have some dating archetypes that you proposed in this chapter. Could you tell us a little bit about these four types—the avoider, the looper, the surfer, and the sailor—and how doing this work of figuring out our archetype could be helpful?

Francesca: So I came up with these archetypes because dating is not one-size-fits-all, which is one of the reasons why very general dating advice typically is not that helpful. Because not everybody is in the same place on their journey, right? And as I mentioned, I was somebody who started out very remedial and I had to figure out all these kind of steps along the way. I think that if I hadn't kind of been through all of these phases myself, I don't know that I would have been able to recognize them as well in other people.

But essentially, another concept I talked about in the book is this idea of love confidence. Love confidence is how much we believe that we can handle love. We can handle finding it. We can handle keeping it. We can handle, you know. It's just all aspects of love. Right? And so the archetypes are kind of, or not kind of. The archetypes are sort of mapped on this spectrum of lower to higher love confidence, essentially. So at the lower end — and by the way, I also always like to say they're not your destiny. Not everybody has to go through every phase. But it's just understanding where you are, so you can give yourself the gift of focusing on the right thing. So we start with the avoider. I used to be an avoider, so I understand. Avoiders, they avoid. They avoid dating. They avoid talking about dating. I would always, I would be shocked by how often, especially when I was matchmaking. Because we would start working with a client. We would get feedback from people in their lives who are close to them. And so these are people who the client has said, "Yes, you can contact Brandon. He's my best friend." I would talk to Brandon and I'd be like, "Oh, yes. You know Tim. He's hired me and da, da, da." And he's like, yeah, I had no idea. And you're like, wow, yeah, I had no idea he cared about being in a relationship at all. So common. So common. It'd be like, "I just thought he was so busy with work and traveling. I just thought this was the furthest thing from his mind. I'm really glad he's working with you, but I had no idea." I can't tell you how many times I've heard that, which is fascinating. Right?

Brandon: Yeah,we don't know each other very well.

Francesca: But this is the thing. It's like avoiders tend to really just — they just leave it off the table. They do throw themselves into a lot of other things. They do stay really busy. They can be incredibly social. They can be that person who does everything for everyone else. They show up at everybody else's thing. They're like the whole package. But when it comes to romantic love, it's something that they have just completely set aside despite actually having a desire for that partnership. If someone comes to me and they're in that avoider phase and they're like, "Okay. I want to meet my true love tomorrow," it's like, well, okay. Well, first of all, it's not that that can happen. But what would set you up for more success is to actually to start opening yourself up more, right? Actually, start going on dates. Actually, start being willing to share with people who are close to in your life, that you are ready to have romantic partnerships. Actually, recognize like, okay, well, what are all of these fears and beliefs that are holding me back? And let me address those because that's what's actually going to put me in the position to start to open up to have the relationship I want, right? That's the avoider.

Then we have the loopers. Loopers are people who date. They date a lot, but their love lives are like Groundhog Day. Right? Loopers, they have that courage of putting themselves out there, but their efforts are just not connecting. I've worked with many loopers who have, you know, they've probably gone on a hundred dates, hundreds of dates. It's the opposite of not dating. It's like dating everybody and really wanting to have a partnership, but they can't get past these first few dates or through this pattern that just keeps on repeating over and over again. So with loopers, it's very important that they understand, like, okay, let me take a step back. There's something I'm not seeing here. So with that self-compassionate curiosity, how can I start to take these blinders off? What am I prioritizing? What do I actually need in a relationship? What skill do I need to develop to actually showing up differently in dating, choosing different types of partners? And so, again, it's really like a lot of skills needed to really be developed to break that pattern and to bring that curiosity of like, okay, how did I get here and why does this keep happening to me? Right? So they can break that loop.

Then next are surfers. Surfers are, I think of surfers as they are just romantics. They know that heat of chemistry and attraction. It's like a surfer who's like on the beach, and they see the perfect wave. They're like, "Yes, I am all in. That's my wave." Right? And so surfers tend to really dive in. Sometimes surfers can get lucky in that sense of like, yeah, that really was a great way for you, right? But oftentimes, they can find themselves like, oh, my god, the highest high and then the lowest low. And so a lot of surfers have this kind of pattern where they have these relationships that are really passionate and really intense, and then it all comes crashing down. Then they need to take time to recover. Then they go back into it, and it's the same pattern over and over again. And so with surfers, my advice to them is always to really slow things down. Stop equating that instant chemistry with long-term compatibility. Because as you have already demonstrated to yourself, it is a very unreliable indicator of that long-term compatibility. So how can you get more clear? I mean, it's always for everybody. How can you get more clear before you're now jumping out into the world and expecting everything to magically work out with another person?

Then last but not least are sailors. Sailors are, they are the captains of their romantic ship. Sailors are the kind of people who I used to, you know, especially back in my avoider days, I'd be like, how do they do this? There are just some people who are like, "I'm ready for a relationship," and then bam, they're in a relationship. And it's like, how did you do that? Some people call sailors serial monogamous or relationship people. Sailors are very good at doing relationships and finding those committed partners and getting into those long-term relationships. However, it doesn't mean that they're always in the right relationships. So some sailors still need to like say, "Okay. I've been in a relationship since I was 16 years old. But now I'm actually ready for not just to be in a relationship, but I want to be in a better relationship. I want to be in the right relationship." And so again, there's that clarity that they need of like, okay, well, what serves me in my pattern? What do I want? What is most important to me? And how can I start to not just choose the next partner who shows up, because that's what I've kind of normally done, but be a bit more discerning about who's going to be a long-term match?

Brandon: Very helpful, yeah. One of the challenges, I suppose, is when people are looking for commitment and have a hard time finding it. And so I hear a lot from friends of mine who are women in their 40s who are like, "There are no men who are mature enough to make commitments anymore." I hear this a lot. And I wonder if you've found—

Francesca: Me, too.

Brandon: Do you think there's a dearth of sort of men? I mean, is there something about a culture that makes this hard for men to make commitments, or is this just kind of bad luck?

Francesca: I mean, I do think, culturally, we don't do men any favors in terms of how to be committed long-term partners. Because, I mean, number one, starting with the fact that by the time boys are five, it's like, "Be a man. Don't cry. Suck it up." Right? So there's just, first of all, a challenge that a lot of men do have with even accessing deeper emotions. Because they've never really had that permission, and so there is a lot of suppression and a lot of, you know. That can become very toxic and show up in a lot of dysfunctional ways. However, I do think that is improving. And I do see that men are becoming more aware as our culture is shifting a bit.

But I think, usually, when people are saying that — look. The way that I feel is that no matter what your demographic is, there are people in this world that you can be in a great relationship with. Women say that to me, and they say it to me all the time. It's like if you're looking to say like, "I need to see 100 really eligible, really relationship-minded guys in my life in order for me to believe that's possible," that's not the right way to go about it. Right? Because then you're going to get into a numbers game, and then you are going to get into — and just really how about instead putting on the perspective of, "Okay. Even if I don't see a huge number of men who I see myself with, there are men out there who I know that I can be with or people." Because for people who are listening, right? There are people out there that I know that I can be with. So rather than focus on, "I don't see that many options," how can I actually just start to not worry about how many options I see, but just starting to believe that I can actually have the love that I want, and then how does that make me show up in the world? And when I do meet somebody who maybe isn't the type of partner I'm seeking, rather than be like, "Oh my god, that means there's no one," just be like, "Well, this person isn't for me and I can move on." And I'm telling you, I see this all the time. I see this. The people who can let go of that story and just be more focused on themselves and become more determined to just focus on their own journey, and just know that every person that they say no to isn't right for them, it's getting them closer to one who is—I'm not just saying there is only one. I think there's more than one for everyone—those people, they meet amazing people. And the people who are just always stuck in the, "All men are trash," or, "Nobody wants relationships anymore," there's so much power in that narrative and in giving that your energy and your attention. And so really shifting that narrative and not doing that is an important step.

Brandon: Thank you. What is one exercise perhaps you might leave our listeners and viewers with that you found really helpful for your clients and perhaps unlocking something for them?

Francesca: Well, I think one of my favorite exercises that I love to give people is love beliefs exercise. Because regardless of where you are in your love journey, everybody has, we all have beliefs about love, right? And so the exercise is to write down at least 20 things. I know that sounds like a lot, but push yourself to go to at least 20. Because sometimes people, it's like answer like 19. That's like, oh my god. That's like a breakthrough for them. So you've got to push yourself to go further than you think that you can. Write down at least 20 things that you believe to be true about love. This is everything from how it happens, who gets to have it, who's out there for me, there's no one out there for me, like all of those things. And when you look at those things — because as humans, we all want to be right about what we believe more than we want to be happy. We have an amazing subconscious genius that gives us the superpower of just this confirmation bias, of just finding the people who are going to validate that belief. It's just amazing. Okay? It's really amazing.

So you write down all those 20 things. Then for each of them, you ask yourself a few questions. So the first question is, is this true? Whether it's yes or no, it doesn't matter? Just literally, is this true? Because sometimes, people will be like, okay, fine, that's not true. But other times, because some of your beliefs also might be like, "Everyone I'm attracted to is a cheater." Maybe that's true. Because maybe every person that you've been attracted to has been a cheater. So this is not like a spiritual override. Just answer, is it true? But also, there'll be things on there that you're like, okay, fine, maybe that's not true. Then the second question is a really important question, which is, do I want this to be true? And if the answer is yes, I'm good with this belief. Because some of the things you believe might be very positive, and you're good with them. Then that's great. But if you don't want it to be true, then the next question is, am I willing to consider the possibility that it's not or it won't always be? And if you're willing to consider that possibility, then you can start to bring that self-compassionate curiosity to, well, then what else might be true?

And so really quick example that I give in the book is that I used to have this belief that boys didn't like me. So this is what led me to be this avoider. There's a story behind that. There was a boy. He didn't like me. I called him up on the phone. He said, "No offense, but I don't want to talk to you." And that was like, oh, okay boys don't like me. That was a decision that I made that became a belief, that I carried into my adulthood. Right? And the reason that I kind of stumbled upon this beliefs exercise is because, one day, I was just like — the thought came to me. Boys don't like me. And I was like, huh, I have been thinking that for like 20 years, you know. It's like, maybe, maybe. Then I'm like, well, there's a lot of boys that don't like me because I was really good at only being attracted to boys that didn't like me. So that was absolutely my bias, right? I just was able to say, well, there's definitely a lot of boys that don't like me. But there have been some boys that have liked me too, right? So maybe this isn't true. And so just starting to question it, then that narrative started to fall away. The point wasn't then, well, every boy likes me. No, right? What I would rather be true is that, that there are lots of great guys who I would also like who like me. That's what I would rather be true. So when you're asking this part of what rather be true, it's not like this fantasy scenario. It's like, no, realistically, right? Well, maybe what would rather be true, going back to the cheater scenario, is that there actually are relationship, monogamous people who don't cheat. And I could actually be attracted to one of them or some of them, right? What I would rather be true is that I break this pattern of being attracted to cheaters, for instance. So that's just a little way to start with bringing that curiosity and then letting new information come in, so you can start to form beliefs that serve you. Because then once you have beliefs that really serve you, then everything becomes easier.

Brandon: Amazing. Wow. Francesca, thank you so much. I mean, this is a fun book with lots of practical advice and a lot of wisdom. Where can we direct viewers and listeners to your work? Anything else you would like to draw to our attention?

Francesca: Thank you so much. Well, people can check me out at my website which is francescahogi.com. You can learn more about the book there. I have a series of classes. Actually, February 15th, they'd start. It's the first class, and they go through April. It's called the True Love Class Series. It's the second year in a row that I've done this. And even if people are listening to this after the 15th, you can still join because all the classes are recorded. So you have replays. But this particular series is really about meeting people in this cultural moment that we are in. Things are challenging—you might have noticed—in our culture, in our dating culture. And I actually do think things are going to get better. I think there's a new paradigm that's coming in when it comes to dating and relationships. So it's really about setting people up to know how to navigate that with as much grace and ease as possible. So people can learn more about that at my website, francescahogi.com/classes.

Brandon: Awesome. Thanks again for joining the podcast. It's been so great talking to you.

Francesca: Thank you so much for having me. This has been awesome.

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