Are Your Limiting Beliefs Holding YOU Back?

In 2014 I was just having so much fun dating that I said love is a concept invented by poor people and and and the truth is looking back now I was wrong. I don't encourage dating you know I discourage dating I hate dating. There's one reason I hate dating apps is they just encourage that endless wheel of dating. When I first met Dana I was so against marriage I have had three marriages before and three divorces and some of them were not ready and so I felt really jaded. My advice to the women out there is I know that there are a lot of men out there who are that way big ego is a beast but underneath they are just boys who are lonely and want to find this type of love. How you get an avoidant man to believe in marriage when he tells you up front day one that he doesn't. What does it take to win an avoidant man's heart? I'm bringing on Brandon Wade today who was the creator and founder of SeekingArrangement.com a website known for sugar baby relationships. Now through that app and through his own dating service he met the love of his life and transformed his belief in love. Everything changed when he met Dana. I'm here today to talk about what love actually looks like in 2026. How you get an avoidant man to believe in marriage when he tells you up front day one that he doesn't and most interesting of all what is the future of dating and courtship actually look like. Brandon and Dana welcome to the show. Brandon and Dana I'm so excited for this conversation. Your love story is very interesting and inspiring and yet so 2026 it is perfect to hear about. For everybody who's at home I would love to hear how did the two of you meet and fall in love. Well we met on my dating website which actually created in 2006 when I was sort of looking for love that the website is seeking.com and and I think I chased it all the way down and ultimately met Dana. Yeah we met in 2020 late 2020 and I went on seeking and he was the first like profile when I logged on he had basically bumped his real estate up in his profile all the way up to the top and put a founder badge on there so I was just curious I was like actually that's really interesting. I don't know who founded the site and his bio was like three pages long. It was so long which I think on most dating apps today I mean it's really short typically the like the get to know someone and you know they have prompts and then they're pretty like minimal and what they write and so I found it really actually refreshing. He was just laying everything out and being like radically honest with what he wants from a relationship and so I found it kind of refreshing and so then we talked and we were on a phone call for four hours then he flew out and then we saw each other and yeah the rest sort of history we then came back to run the site and hope that people find what we found for each other. Yeah you don't get much of a better commercial than I started this dating website and found my spouse on it that is a pretty good advertisement I have to say for this for the thing so fantastic there's so many places I want to go from this but I know Brandon you've been fairly open about your personal history you didn't start off looking necessarily for the love of your life it doesn't sound like it sounds like you didn't you maybe didn't fully believe that that was out there tell me about that if you would please. I would say I grew up really feeling lonely I went to an all-boy school in Singapore and my mom seeing my struggles with shyness and that was kind of a nerdy boy right not not exactly very popular in school so my mom saw me struggling with that and said hey don't focus on the dating just focus on your school and you need to focus on your school that's the most important thing now because in her opinion you're not you're really not even ready to date until you have first of all gain that capability to provide for yourself for her she was telling me sort of looking back in the early sort of 1970s or late 60s in Singapore sort of when she was living there she was looking for sort of for a man to date and her signal was do they drive a motorbike like most of the men do in those days in a developing country or does he ever car right like for her for her the signal of somebody having made it or gained the capability to add value to the world is measured by that signal so she's telling me you need to focus on your school because you need to gain that before you can you should date but the problem is by 2006 I was still struggling with dating that's the truth right I have had very little practice and the dating game is really not built for for guys like me if you if you join a normal dating app or back then websites they market dating to everyone so so clearly there's just a lot more men in those on those dating sort of platforms than women and the women the especially the ones that are pretty highly sought after they're getting bombarded with all these messages so there's no way I could possibly stand out in in that noise right so I said well you know it's time to rethink how the dating game works maybe I can redesign the game create a website that's for eligible men right and of course back then we called it sugar daddy and sugar dating because it's it's actually a term that came out of San Francisco there was a there was a sugar baron who made a lot of money in the sugar industry who married a younger wife and and his younger wife was just affectionately calling him my sugar daddy so we sort of use that terminology to describe what the site really is about and and of course it blew up and a lot of women were signing up because I think intuitively women know that you know they they possess that intuition that my mother has which is they want to find a man who really has their shit together so to quote right so in a sense seeking became that website and dating became very easy for me and the thing about dating I realized is the reason I was so bad at it early on in my life was because I lacked practice and the more I did it the better I became the more confident I became the more I became sort of comfortable with holding a conversation and actually telling people who I am even even being rejected that's that's a feeling that's scary but but sort of the more experience you gain the better you you get at it and I think in 2014 I was just having so much fun dating dating became so easy on the website that I said love is a concept invented by poor people and and and the truth is looking back now I was wrong I really was wrong um I thought I thought the men you know had to sort of make up this story on love to get women interested in them because dating once you have once you have that capability is so easy but the truth is love is not a concept invented by poor people love love actually is the the reason for life itself yeah I was sure that we were looking at we were looking for neither of us were looking for like marriage on the site at all um I think I think you kind of if you go into dating and you you you have really high expectations which I do encourage people to do but it's almost like expect like do you have to almost like be radically optimistic about everyone that you meet right and it just or who you're talking to and if it doesn't work out it doesn't work out right like that think that's just the nature of meeting so many people online and being having access to so many different people that you can start communicating with and seeing if you drive with and so it's just kind of part of that that dating game that Brandon's talking about but I think neither of us had like expectations of one another and so when we met it was just it was very organic and I think for for Brandon like what you were looking for initially on the site I think um you know dating became like Brandon said he got very confident and so it just became sort of this way of life for him and then obviously when you when you meet someone that you really jive with you want to sort of stop that dating game and actually commit to to growing something meaningful from each other yeah yeah I realized that dating really to find the one really is a probability game and when it comes to anything that's probabilistic it's about going out there and actually meeting enough people but it's not just a lot of people it's actually quality people in quantity right you have to do that and and I think I think once I've gained the confidence the right moment came and I've seen enough dated enough when I saw Dana I was just in awe um and I think I found the one that I'm willing to say you know I'm willing to give up everything else for the kind of love that transforms your entire life yeah yeah yeah well you say I mean you said so many fascinating things in there that I'd love to pull on and have conversations about one that I want to pull out very quickly is your mother and her views on financial stability and financial safety being an element that something is that men should be providing I actually agree on that um I know it's becoming much harder in today's world for a lot of people in doing that and a lot of young men are very frustrated today but they're having a difficult time finding the means to provide in some aspects but I don't think that it is right in any way shape-reformed to vilify women who are looking for financial safety and stability that's it's in fact partly what marriage was invented for was to create that stability and safety for women so that you can have that safety and that kind of So I can understand that. I am just to be transparent with you. I'm not anti-dating app at all. People often misunderstand me on that. I'm not anti-dating app. What you just said was very good. You said there's quantity and quality. And those need to be balanced. And the nice thing about dating apps, they give you tremendous quantity. But depending on the app, I have seen very low quality filter through there, particularly because, and given different apps, particularly because the people who tend to use apps are the ones who don't have a family friend network maybe to match make through as much. So it's more people who might tend more toward avoidant attachment or anxious attachment. And they don't have those personal connections as much. So your quality, your quantity goes up. And your quality might go down with some dating apps and some platforms. The hope, of course, is the golden grail of dating, is that you have a family friend dating network that humans have dated through for most of our history, and quality should go up this high. And quantity goes down this low. And you get to choose between Steve or Joe. And those are pretty much your options if you're a woman. Right? Or Sarah and Jane. One of the two, which one is pretty your kind of thing. And that's your options. But the quality should go up as far as a match, as a connection, loyalty, et cetera. It's kind of have to. You're incentivized to do that. So it's a trade off that people are making. Family friend networks are gone. You've probably seen the research brand and showing this. And only 12% back then met through what we called computer dating. Back then it was even websites yet. It was just the computer dating systems. Fast forward to 2025. And it's it's reversed 65% of couples are now meeting through apps at least 65% and only 12% are meeting through family and family. And that's what we're talking about. her and really working through the logic of even those to come to a point where we realize, hey, actually, we enjoy that the marriage point, but in our own way, a little bit different than maybe the way society interprets what marriage should or should not be. We want to do it, but we want to do it on our own terms. Yeah, like, what does it mean to, like, what does it mean to us to get married? I think we were asking like deeper questions, like, what's the benefit of getting married for us, you know, and we want to, like, what is the outcome? Like, we want to be together and and and it's like a commitment to one another. And so once it meant that to us rather than just being married for the sake of it, I think it really resonated with us in like a very deep way. Yeah. Yep. I love that. And I love that you were able to explore the topic together. That's the only thing that actually led you to believe marriage could be even viable for the two of you. I hear that a lot, people that typically say marriage is not for me. It's because they've been burned. Sometimes they have avoid an attachment pieces that have come in, which is just an adaptation to no one around you having loyalty, no one around you being trustworthy and you live in a world where you have to protect yourself. So avoid an attachment makes perfect sense in those regard. And we know avoid an attachment on the rise right now. So for a number of for a number of reasons, very good reasons, by the way. So it makes sense that by having a discussion where you number one, saw that the other person would treat you with respect. Number two, you could actually be truly honest with each other and receive each other in that way. And number three, that you could even maybe change your ideas and that they would still accept you. That right there is that is proof that you could even work together as a couple. I mean, it sounds like proof of concept. Does that make sense? Yeah. When I first met Dana, I was so against marriage. I've had three marriages before and three divorces and some of them were not pretty. And so I felt really jaded. So I would say I'm pretty much layers upon layers of my ego has sort of grown all the time because of that. And I was very attached to certain things. And I know easily trigger too. But it is this sort of understanding, Dana, that Dana will be there to talk things over with me and the ability to sort of in a sense put my ego aside to really consider what she has to say every time that I do something that perhaps degrade her experience of life, right? She would be sure to sort of talk to me about it. And and sort of it's through that process of really understanding why I think the way I did or felt the way I did to rewire some of that takes takes time and practice. Yeah, I would say radical honesty lives within our relationship constantly. Like if if I if something were to happen, like I would just tell them right away, like I would just be like, Hey, this I would just be so direct with it, right? I think for me, I wasn't necessarily shaded in terms of like marriage, but I I think I was just so focused on career that it sort of I wasn't even thinking I thought I found it to be a distraction more than anything. And I did not want to be distracted. But um, you know, after after obviously being married for almost five years now, it's it's it's not a distraction. It helps it actually helps you grow in the right relationship, which I think is like a lesson that I wish I would have told myself and everything happens for a reason. But if I would have talked to a version of myself that's not married or it's not against marriage, but just really doesn't see the benefit of it, I would explain it in that way. Yeah. I love that. So the secure relationship that you experience transformed both of your understandings about what love is supposed to be because you actually experienced it. That's the story. That's that's that's what I try to teach people day and night. So everybody listening to this, it's real. This really happens and it does really change people's lives. Look at how happy these people are right here. Brandon, I would love to hear because most of the people listening to this are women. And right now they have a couple burning questions in their mind right now. Number one, how did Dana attract you from a place where you were like, now I don't think so marriage is what was it? Marriage is for poor people right? Love is for poor people and marriage. Ah, marriage is a bad idea to go from that to this woman is the love of my life. How did she attract you? How did she attract you and how did she prove that to you? I think first of all she was just genuinely curious. She wasn't she didn't have preconceived notion about any specific topic. And I was really honest when I when I said so that I wrote three pages on my on my sort of profile, I just like I was busy. I you know I only had free time. You know I was just describing things that for most people would be like, wow, you know he seems to be very specific maybe to a T. And I'm not I'm not open minded to consider that. But for Dana, it was more like she looked at it and say, well I want to know why he thinks that way. And that curiosity is out I think ultimately what got me just super attracted to read to realize that there's a deeper connection here than than something superficial. So she asked you some probably more personal questions than most people would ask. She didn't just politely skim the surface. She came in with a sledgehammer and started asking exact questions to understand more about you. Was that fair? Yeah. On our first date. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say she asked me a question. No other person has ever asked me specifically on the first date. You know she said she said to me, you know she asked me what's your greatest fear? Yeah because I was curious right. I was curious of someone who who like has everything in life like I was genuinely curious about like what is your biggest fear? What are you fear in life? You know I feel like that's that's that's like a fair question. Yeah. And my answer was after thinking really quite deeply that day I said loneliness. Yeah I think I'm afraid of being alone. Nobody wants to go to live alone. And then assuming the personal questions have continued. Oh yes. Oh yeah. Every day we challenge each other like every day and we ask each other like we dig deeper right? I think like the point is like Brandon would do things that maybe some people would not appreciate like they would think it's selfish but for me instead of taking that approach I just I would ask him like why to everything he did. Why did you do that? Like what if I did that to you right? Like it's asking these questions and growing that empathy I think not only help Brandon but just the relationship as a whole to be because it's crucial to be able to see eye to eye on things and to be understanding of how the other person is experiencing it. So I think constantly switching each other and each other's shoes like how would you feel if we did this? Why did you do this? Like what was the deeper purpose behind it? What are you trying to achieve asking us about with everything including the way we run the business today and the dating site today I think it leads just not only a healthy relationship but a healthy way to like run a company together which is very difficult in nature like typically people in relationships it ends badly for people who who run businesses together. Which is funny because throughout human history most couples ran some kind of a business together it actually wasn't separate. I always tell people and they get mad about this. You sounds like you guys might agree marriage itself is a business and everything else that spins off from it is also business and it has to be business first you just get the benefit of sleeping with your co-founder that's the purpose of marriage. So it sounds like you guys have really distilled that down to a science. I love that. You know what was it about Brandon's approach that got through to you when you were looking at romance as an afterthought you were focusing on your career. I meet a lot of women who do this. The career is safety it's status it is nobody can take this from me because I've built it with my own hands. I don't have to be beholden to somebody and he got your attention despite all of that. What was it about him? I think that's a good question. I think that for me I met someone that he was the smartest person I've ever met. I mean he's a double MIT degree like electrical engineering masters in business from from Sloan School. I mean he just he was so intelligent that I was so like I guess just captivated by the way he viewed life and and I honestly I felt like this guy knows something in life that that even if we weren't to end up in a relationship like the curiosity that Brandon's talking about the reason why I wasn't like I need to have a relationship with you is I was so curious because he is approached a business like because we were able to have conversations that were like hey I run my business this way this are you manage people this is what the way I went in life and like I grew and I went because like I know what you're trying to achieve and this how I got to it and I was like this is incredible like I've never heard someone you know speak the way he speaks and have the experience that he has and so it took me a back as I was like this is actually he's kind of everything I want to be when when I'm his age and like run a business and have gone to these Ivy League schools and so I think not just at a romantic level did we connect but even just as a person like a personal level I just was like I actually look up to you not not in a desperate type of way but in like a I admire the things you've done in life and and I appreciate the work you've put behind it and I think that appreciation just it flows really well into romance I don't know how to describe it it's like you were talking about marriage as a business like I appreciate the way he goes about life and the way he does things and so I think it just naturally translates into like admiration of that person a lot of men today complain that they can't get women's attention and I think part of the reason for that is exactly what you've highlighted most men live life today either buried in their fear or half asleep they're not pursuing their passions they're not chasing skill mastery and competence and that's ultimately what Brandon's displaying not not just an an academic academic intelligence, but actual skill mastery and real competence derived from years of professional focus. And that's ultimately what you're looking at. A man who can do that is a man who can actually lead effectively and but build a life with you that's also purpose driven. And that's what most women that I talked to are very, very attracted to is a man who's living fully alive. And Brennan, it sounds like at this time that that's what you were doing. And you you were doing that openly instead of secretly. You were actually showing that and saying, this is the life you would join me in. And that's what it was. And is that a good way to encapsulate it? Absolutely. And like I know you're most of your listeners are women, but I would say even for the women like for any men that build something cool, like it's automatically like you're that much further ahead than every other guy. And it takes time, yes, but but if you're really passionate about something and you've built something and that's where your focus is, like you will succeed at it. And I would say like that just goes back to Brandon's like fundamental thing that is mom taught him of like focus on on school and profession and skill set. And you don't have to be wealthy, right? Like you can be the best, I always like this example, the best plumber out there and you've innovated and you've done the thing, right? It doesn't have to be you built an empire, but you're just your master at what you do. And people can learn from you. I think that like that that concept is so fundamental in humans like and what they look for that it'll really give men, even especially young men, the advantage like over everyone else in the dating market. Yeah, currently gives them gives them confidence, it gives them meaning in a world of people who barely put in 20%. If you can even put in 60%, number one, you stand out heading shoulders above everybody. else number two, you have an incredibly interesting life that you actually want to get up and live. And number three, you become phenomenally attractive to women who are looking for a real partner. They can actually share life with. And I think that's what's missing for so many men today. It sounds like seeking is built to try to pull that kind of a man in. Is that right? Absolutely, absolutely. You know, I'll believe clearly is not everyone is ready to date and you have to do the work. And there really is no shortcut. That's the problem with our society today is everybody sort of takes shortcuts, right? That's why you have, you know, the Gen Zs are now tired of dating app because that's what shortcuts get you. And at a place where you realize it's just not meaningful, satisfying. Yeah. Yeah. Even even dating as a concept, you know, it's a failed concept from the last 100 years of let's find strangers and hopefully it kind of works out and then we'll just play around and have fun and see where it goes. What you're describing actually with your system is something much older, what we would call courtship. It doesn't necessarily mean that every person on your website is looking for marriage, but they are getting together with an intention of building a structured relationship with a specific romantic sexual element to it. That's courtship is what that is. You're not encouraging dating, which is great. I don't encourage dating. I discourage dating. I hate dating. There's one reason I hate dating apps is they just encourage that endless wheel of dating where you're supposed to date 500 people and maybe the 500 and first person. Maybe, maybe is an interesting match that the app throws at you just to keep you going. But that's that's ultimately the different game. I like that. I mean, I think I think even like the idea of the way that first dates are manifested nowadays, it's so low effort. The person you're going out with, I like the word courtship, right? You pay for their date. If you ask your grandparents, the guy always paid for the date. It's just it's chivalry. It's because you care. That person's taking time out of their day and the woman got ready and then she took time out of her day. She works nowadays and it's just an effort thing. It's very low effort nowadays and I feel like it just jades not just the women but also the men and to just this bad cycle of meaningless first dates. At least if you invest a little on the person in the first date, it feels like it's not just so easy to let it go right away. Like you said, there's courtship involved. There's intention involved with it. I would say that even the view of what dating ultimately is for, for me, that change all the time. When I met Dana, right, a lot of my older habits was dating as me and someone else. It's always me first. But after meeting Dana, I realized, oh my goodness, we're really talking about co-pilots. Flying the plane together. It's really an equal relationship. It's not me over her or her over me. It's actually two equal people really being there to help each other. And that changed my perspective on relationships completely. I love this for many reasons. One of it is when I was 22, I met my now, my wife, we'd been together for 17, 18 and a half years, married for 17 and a half. We have six children together. And we got married when I was about 23. And I was very fortunate. And people hear that story and say, yeah, okay, Adam, you have no idea what dating reality is like. And I'll say this, I've never used a dating app because I dated through family and friend networks. That's how I met my wife. But I love this story in particular because my wife and I, when we met, we did exactly what the two of you did. We said, we're not playing games. I'm trying to build something here. Let's be real or let's get out. Let's see if we can ruin this date and ruin this conversation by being radically honest with each other. And for us, in our early 20s, it worked because we were just brutally radically honest in a way that nobody had ever been with us before. And we looked at each other and said, this is kind of, this is kind of different. And at two weeks, I said, you're going to marry me. I didn't even ask. I didn't even give her the option. I said, I want to run away. I said, you're going to marry me at two weeks. And she said, okay. And now here we are. But you're doing it now. And you've built systems and you are showing that that is the correct method to be radically honest, to filter correctly with compatibility, to be upfront about what you're looking for, and allow other people to make that filtering choice as well instead of playing any games. Zero pretending, zero putting on a mask, zero of that just absolute real honesty and curiosity, which I love by the way. You're embodying that. So here's a here's proof of concept that being honest with each other actually works. That is absolutely wonderful. They know the question that many people are asking right now. Many people is a man who has, it sounds like some avoidant tendencies in his past. A man with some more avoidant tendencies. You have captured his heart. You have proven to him that you are a woman who is capable of loyalty and care. What the heck are you doing that is instilling that kind of safety and love in him daily? What is the daily practice of marriage look like for you? And as you weave him in deeper. Talking every night, every single night asking each other what each other's experiences were like, is even if you spend the day with the person or you're in meetings with the person or whatever it is like catching up at the end of the day is so important. So we like to have this thing where in our whole relationship we prioritize this where we separate whether it's school and relationship or work in relationship, we separate those two very heavily. So when we are, it's a weekend, like we are focused on each other when it's night and it's after 5 p.m. Although we keep working and sometimes it requires late nights, like when we shut it off, we shut it off, like we shut work, we shut school off and then we just communicate with each other. And I think that communication has been prioritized since day one. I will also say that anytime we are faced a problem in life and I think they always say like more money, more problems, right? And it's very true. And so like Brandon had to go through a lot of that and I had to go through my own trouble in life, like a lot alone. And so I think that when we, especially in the beginning of a relationship, like we were able to offer solutions to each other and work with problems with each other through it, it got us actually closer to solve problems together because like I said, you spend your life with this person. So you want to make sure that when you're down or something's going on in life, like they can help you whether it's emotionally or it's like whatever it is physically, whatever it is, they can help you get through that state or that thing that you're going through. And I think that we both were facing problems with each other and helped each other get through it. And that oddly enough bonds you in a way that I think builds the trust with the person just like, yeah, I can go through life because life has so many problems every rich direction. And I think it just gives you that confidence, especially in the beginning relationship, which I think would really solidify the foundation for us to be able to experience life and get through life together. Yeah. I love that. Can I ask you a more personal question? Yes. When we start off often very, very autonomous, very, I will solve my life. I will do everything myself. I can't really rely on anyone else. We get into this mindset we call solo solving of our brain defaults every time there's a problem. So I have to solve this alone inside myself. I can't ask questions. I can't get help. I just need to figure it out. And it doesn't even present us with the option of saying, should I ask them? No, I don't think I will. The brain says, don't even think about it. I'm going to solve this alone. And we almost have to be reminded that the option of working together even exists. And this is something I face constantly with my coaching clients and couples is getting them to understand that you can solve problems, what we call co-solving that you can even do that. The majority of my work when they say, Adam, I have this problem. What should I do? The vast majority of my work is saying, go have a conversation about that. Go talk to that. human being and they go, oh yeah, I forgot I can do that. How often do the two of you deal with with one of you getting in a solo solving mindset? And when you do, what shakes you out of it? Every day, every day. Honestly, I'm just being honest, every day, because you're right, it's so you want to solve it yourself. You do. Like you're like, I can solve this. It's more effective, right, whatever. But but every day we have to remind, and that's why those communication at the end of the night, like we say, we make that time is so important because we kind of have created an environment where you have to like, if you don't talk about what you're going through, you kind of have nothing else to talk about sometimes. And it's like, you got to like, that's in itself a conversation, right? So I mean, I think probably you have like slightly different views on this. But yeah, yeah, every day it's a challenge to try to remind yourself that, that, you know, there are people around you to help. But it's not just Brandon. It's the network, whether it's your your team or your family or your friends, like being able to like be open about what you're going through, I think is extremely important. For me, for me, I treat every single situation that arises as a test and a way, an opportunity for me to practice my skills and improve. So, you know, I've seen, I've seen it happen many, many times, right? Sometimes Dana just needs some time alone, because she needs to process her own thoughts. And I give her the time to do that. When I, when I sort of see, you know, at some points, I need to step in and give her a hug and a sort of a message of encouragement, I do that. And so these are things that you learn over time on when to provide help in the type of help for your partner and also when to lay off and give them some space. Again, everything is an opportunity to learn and to improve. And then as we get better at it, it just becomes just a flow. You, you are both embodying the concept of what it means to run a marriage as a business, because now you do run a business actually that helps other people get married, which is fascinating. I love that. I'm very curious about with seeking. I'm very curious, because the approach you're describing is very practical. And how do I say this? The popular thinking out there is that women are simply too romantic to fall into and two feelings oriented to fall into a practical arrangement structure of courtship and building with more radical honesty. And I actually think the opposite is true. Most of what I encounter is that women are very practical and becoming more practical every day, because they have to be. And Brennan, you said an interesting comment. You said that on other dating apps, it's primarily a whole bunch of men circling around who are who are bombarding a tiny amount of women and the research is true that that's the case. What does that balance look like with seeking such a such a very practical minded approach? What's the balance of men and women there compared to the average dating app? It's flipped, right? On on Tinder, for instance, it's about three men for every woman. On seeking, if you are the eligible man, it's roughly one eligible man and there's roughly about four women vying for his attention. So he's getting more results for the messages that he sends out and he's actually meeting people. But I will flip that with another thing, because for the women, you may ask, "Well, why are women joining? Why is the ratio of flip?" Because for every one eligible man in the inbox out of four, their entrepreneurs, their CEOs, so your inbox is filled with that quality, right? So of course, more women want higher quality men, naturally, right? Yeah. Yeah, it flips the game, but at the same time, it's trying to optimize for the right people who are ready to be playing that game, who won that deeper connection based on really where they see their life going. There's a big taboo that I can imagine. A lot of people listening to this are saying, "When are they going to address it?" Which is your site started off, building for sugar relationships is what it's, and people, when they hear that, they immediately think the most awful possible interpretation that they can possibly imagine, and that is their fixed interpretation of what that means, to have a relationship structured around financial providing, financial safety, eligibility, talk to me about what that actually means for you and for your structure, because I'm very curious. I'm not actually against being practical and being smart, and people being very upfront about exactly what they're looking for. But again, many people out there have a very skewed view through, shall we say, movies, Netflix, and all of those sort of scandalous things. Talk to me please. I would say our history probably perfectly aligns us to be expert in what transactional relationships look like, because in the early days, in a sense, the transactional element, because we went out on the press and we started talking about the benefits of dating on the site, right? And it's not that relationship that we were focusing on. We were focusing on the superficial elements of, "Wow, now you have so much money, and you meet so much money from this relationship with this person." So the focus on that attracted a lot of people who are looking for that quick win, the low-effort sort of shortcuts. And transactional relationships, as it occurs, doesn't yield the type of connection that we have, because it's something that I'm giving, because I want something back. When you enter that sort of mindset, and that is really the world, the way the world operates. On a dating site, we have to be even more careful, right? It's no longer about transaction. It's actually about achieving abundance, because dating and a relationship is about sharing, and you cannot share when you have not, you don't have enough to share. So you have to have achieved that capability built enough, not just resources, but time and attention. Attention is the most important thing, because we have to communicate, and communication requires that I give her time, and she gives me time and return. Yeah, attention is a really good one. Yeah, that's a good word. Yeah, so in a sense, because I've been down that road, and because the website or the dating platform has been through that transactional journey to now know what works and does not work, we are actually implementing technology to keep that transactional elements out. And the way we do it is actually very, very smart, right? Like we are using in artificial intelligence to understand people's intention, and even the messages and was stopping the transaction right at that level. So the communication doesn't even occur. So the AI now becomes a way to keep the community abiding by a level of standard that we have set. I love that, and that's a fantastic piece, because many people would hear, okay, you build a platform for people who are seeking arrangements. It sounds like Craig lists, but with an upgrade, right? Is what a lot of people would say. And I know that that's not what it is, because you have found the love of your life there, and you're building the system. My business partner and I, my co-founder Andre, he and I are very strict in our messaging, because we come across as being pro transactional relationship. We come across that way that we tell people be absolutely upfront what you're looking for, discuss it, build it together, craft that as a couple. That's what marriage is supposed to be. It's what romance is supposed to be for. And people hear that and think transaction immediately, but we say no, it's negotiation driven. And negotiation is very different from a transaction. And negotiation is we both have the same goals. How do we get there? What do you have? And what do I have? And how can we achieve this target together to have multiple exchanges ongoing? But the exchanges aren't the goal. The goal is the goal. The exchanges get us to the goal. In a transactional system, the one transaction is the goal. And if you like it, you have another transaction tomorrow or next week. That's the difference. Is the relationship the goal or is the transaction the goal? And you're shaking your head. It sounds like you've built systems to prevent this short-sighted transaction. I want one and done. I want to see a woman for one hour this afternoon. That's not the structure. It's I want to build a life with a human being who wants the same things that I want. That's what we're talking about here today. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it extends beyond transaction too because my mother's signal back in the old days was is it a motorbike or is it a car, right? But the signal actually extends beyond just even the things that people own, the material things. It's also a mindset. It's a mindset. Are you respectful? So in a sense, the AI now is also maintaining the community to make sure people are respectful to it's each other. Because if you don't have that mutual respect, you can't respect somebody else. Why are you on a dating site? That is a great way to put it. I've had a lot of women tell me that it feels irresponsible for a man to be dating. If he can't even financially take care of himself, why would you go out there in the world, finding a dating and say, okay, well, now you're going to take care of me. Sorry, babe. You got to pay for your own hamburger tonight. Why have a man at that point? Like why why even put the effort in for a man? I'm thankful that my wife when we met, wait, wait, way back in the day. We were both so young. She said, very clearly, Adam, I want to have 10 children. So what do you plan to be doing for a living? At the time, the best answer I had, I was 22. I don't know what I was going to be doing today. I said, I want to change the world in a good way with relationships and psychology. I want to help people. I'm not sure yet what that looks like, but I'm I'm dedicated to building it. I'm going to school and grad school and everything you get it done. And she said, okay, we'll see what you can pull off as we go forward. Fast forward to today, I run a company now co-founded my company about 30, 35 employees on the back end. They helped build the brand. We're one of the biggest psychology brands in the world. Thank goodness I love it and I love this work. But because of that, now the economy is pretty difficult. There's a lot of families struggling to put food on the table. There's a lot of families struggling and deciding which day of the week their children will eat meat. And my children, my six kids get to eat meat every single night. And that sounds like a small thing. It's a big thing in the modern economy. It is not foolish for a woman to look at that and say, I don't want my children to have to choose what day of the week they eat meat. I don't want my kids to have to choose which of my kids gets to go to college. I don't want to be struggling and suffering, right, mid life. And then have to start a career when I'm 50 because my husband has left me for some other woman. I don't want to be, I don't want to be destroying these things. I want safety. This is, this is not anything new to the human race that a woman is practical and is supposed to be practical. So I like the approach of honesty that you're taking, which is beautiful. Many people might take issue with it. I think that those people are misunderstanding the purpose of being together as a couple, right? They're, they're, they're the purpose of being married is to build stability and safety for both of you. Brandon, what is it that Dana has brought to you that has changed your heart so much? My idea is that women tend to bring peace to a man's life. A man brings safety to a woman's life, but a woman tends to bring peace. What is it that she's bringing to you? What does that look like for you on the marriage front? There's so much. I mean, I see my story and her story as beauty and the beast and every time I go to Disneyland in Tokyo and there's a ride, the beauty and the beast ride and I, I'm always crying because, because it really is her openness and her sort of ability not to judge and to always sort of realize that when I, when I do something that's unkind that there's, there's a reason behind it and she, she's always willing to talk, talk it through with me and ultimately get me to see the right sort of view and to change. That only kindness, the non-judgment nature of her being can, can ever get to that part of me, right? I'm always defensive. I've just built that layers upon layers of ego. My, my advice to the women out there is I know that there are a lot of men out there who are, who are that way, big egos, a beast, but underneath they are, they're truly just boys who are lonely and want to find this, this type of love to be accepted, to be, you know, to be challenging the sense in a kind way. That, that I think is, is something that she brought to me and to my relationship and it allowed my, my sort of defenses to finally come down and to be able to engage her. And I always say, right, like the, the, the way you know that you've found the one in the crazy, sends us when the both of you could be kids and you could just play and just be, be in that sort of a state of mind because that's when, when nothing else matters, right? Whatever else is going around, like we're just, we're just kids and we just truly just care for each other and want the best for each other. It sounds like she brings peace to your heart. After you're all of you, the pain you've had in your life, she brings peace to your heart by not punishing you for being a human. That's what it sounds like. You're allowed to be a human in her presence without hiding it. Yes. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. I, I allow him to make mistakes and he allows me to make mistakes and that's just, you know, like when, when you're around your parents and you're growing up, you make a lot of mistakes, but they love you for who you are and, and they love you because they're, you're their kid. And so they, they, they'll always allow you to make room for that, you know? And so I think that creating that environment for one another is, is healthy for a relationship. And in a crazy sense, while, you know, in the sense, in a sense, a long time ago in 2006, when I built Seeking, I had a lot of desire for things of this world, but they were very sort of selfish in nature. And these days, I still have a lot of desire for things in life, but now it includes her and, and, and the form of desire in a sense has transformed, right? It goes from something that's very selfish and perhaps more destructive in nature into something that's just so much more life giving. And it's just going to create so much more good in this world, I feel, because even my relationship with my parents, with my nieces, with my siblings, with my employees, they have all sort of transformed over time as a result of what I've learned through our relationship. And that's just a beautiful thing. And that's wonderful. That is what we call secure attachment. Everybody listening, I told you it was possible to build secure attachment. You're hearing love stories right here. This is what it looks like when you build an authentic connection to all the women out there who have maybe been skeptical over the years. As I have said, ask more questions on dates. Be more upfront about what you want, push and prod for more information, and don't stop until that man is honest and personal with his reflections. And that if you can do those things while not taking his feelings personally, stand your ground and have conversations and be compassionate, but don't take it personally. If you can do those five things, then you can actually have a warm-hearted, loving, intimate relationship. Dana, you're a model to everybody out there right now listening to this who is trying to build a good loving relationship. Everybody listening to this has been trying to build that for a long time. So thank you for allowing us to pick both of your brains here today on what that loving, intimate, secure relationship can look like. Thank you both. I appreciate that. I love hearing about love. It's why I do this job in the first place so that I get to hear these stories and talk to people who are in love. So thank you for being in love. Oh, thank you. Thank you for having us. Such a lovely conversation. And I hope to everyone listening that, you know, stay hopeful like everything happens for a reason and your person is out there waiting for you. Yep. Now to everybody who's listening at home and I'm sure you want to find out where you can learn more about everything we've talked about here today, Brandon and Dana, where can we find you and more information about everything? I guess you could find us on our website and our social media. It's seeking on Instagram, TikTok, and also online. And then for personal, it's ask, Brandon Wade on Instagram. Yes. Yep. We share personal updates there. That's fantastic. I love it. Everybody out there, you know who I am and where I am. I'm Adam Lane Smith, the Attachant Specialist. Thanks for coming by. Leave comments. I'd love to hear your thoughts about seeking. I'd love to hear your thoughts about dating apps. You know my thoughts as well. This is a good conversation that's changed a little bit about my opinion about how people can be using dating apps in a smarter way. I really am fascinated about that four to one ratio of women to eligible men on that site. That is very interesting. That is something that most people and most dating apps have not been able to do to actually attract a crowd of women who are marriage-minded and trying to build a relationship. That is that is something I have not encountered in any structure thus far. So that is absolutely fascinating. Everybody thank you for being here today. Make sure you like, comment, subscribe, and I'll see you on the next episode.