Money is not a top three priority in my life, and the night before a matchmaker date I decided to say that out loud from my live stream. Health, family and communication are what I have to offer a woman. If a woman's top three priorities in a man include money, then I'm not her man, and I would rather find that out on the first date than five years into a marriage.
Someone in the chat told me that net worth isn't a measure of character. That landed right as I was thinking about the date I had coming up through my matchmaking service. Instead of getting more excited to meet her, I found myself focusing on a different question. What do I have? What value do I have to offer her? That is the question that matters to me now, and I'd invite you to ask it about yourself, whether you're dating, building a business or just trying to be useful to the people around you.
Taking Inventory Before the Date
I'd been asking the same question about YouTube. What value do I have to offer there, and how do I offer it? It seems there's hardly anybody in the world who can show up on a live stream, talk for two hours, interact with the chat, get people emotional and passionate, and have conversations that matter. That's what's special about what I do. Someone in the chat said my value is that I'm an entertainer. I think what I really do is educate and entertain together. That is what I'm good at.
So I turned the same inventory toward dating. The woman I was going out with looked amazing on paper. She's more than a decade younger than me, she seemed very interested in having a family, and she's studying a subject I thought would be really interesting to talk about. I've been on enough first dates this year that I've noticed how most of them go. You sit down, you mess around talking about random stuff, you see where the conversation drifts, and two hours later you still don't know if the two of you fit.
My plan was different. I wanted to ground the conversation first. I'd show up and say, look, here's the value I have to offer. What value do you have to offer? Is what you have and what I have compatible? I was not going to ask her what she's looking for. "What are you looking for?" turns the date into a shopping list. To me the real questions are whether what she has is valuable to me and whether what I have is valuable to her.
The goal was to make it so that the date was a valuable interaction for both of us, even if we never see each other again. I've spent enough money on matchmaking, which I wrote about in what I actually got for my paid matchmaking, that I want every one of these dates to count for something, even if all it gives us is clarity.
When I sat down and took inventory, I came up with three things. Not ten. Not a long list of hobbies and accomplishments. Three things that are special and that are not going to change. How attractive you are, how much sex appeal you have, what kind of status you have in the world and how much money you have can all come and go very easily. Health, family values and communication are the things I've built that stay.
The First Thing I Offer: Health
The first thing I have to offer a woman is that I'm healthy. Most guys are not healthy. Most guys have so many physical or mental health issues, whether it's drinking, marijuana or a crap diet. The whole country collectively is not doing that well with health, and the statistics are pretty bad. I'm very healthy. I'm probably in the top 5% of men for health. If a woman wants an honest, healthy man, that's something I have.
When I say health, I mean mental health as much as physical health. I realize some of you may not agree that I have strong mental health, and that's okay. A sign of strong mental health is that I can respect it if you don't agree with me, because I know it's true for me. I can handle a wide range of emotions. I can handle borrowing all this money, more than $220,000 of debt at this point, and all the uncertainty that comes with it. I can handle the jealousy of my ex-wife getting a boyfriend she wants to introduce me to. I can handle all the failures in dating this year. I can show up and handle all the critics and all the videos people make about me.
I can do all of that while not being sick in four years and while not taking on any new addictions. I'm sober from alcohol. The one exception this year was a decision to go to Mons Venus, the strip club, one night and spend a couple thousand dollars. That was one time this whole year, and I don't picture going back there again. I can handle all of that and yet I'm constantly steady. I'm constantly there for my kids. I always show up. I'm cooperative with my ex-wife.
Someone in the chat asked how I can stand how stressful all this is. The truth is maybe one or two days a month I have a day where I feel like a loser. I had one of those days right before this stream, where I was telling myself that if my income doesn't keep growing at the rate it's been growing, I'm in deep doo-doo. But most days I wake up and think this is awesome. This is an adventure. To me, the fact that I can borrow this much money, take on this much financial danger and still feel abundant most days is proof of how mentally healthy I am.
And when I feel down, I look for the opportunity. If I could isolate one skill I have that's really valuable, that's it. I feel horrible, everything sucks, and the next thought is, okay, where's the opportunity? Where do I learn? Where do I grow? Where do I become more flexible? Every time I feel bad, I tend to get inspiration and bounce right back up. That's part of what I mean by health. A woman who builds a family with me isn't getting a man who falls apart every time the bank account drops.
Health also means the physical side. Someone in the chat said I was looking fit, and I am. I take care of my body, I eat well, and I don't poison myself. That matters more the older you get, because a partner's health is something you live with every single day. When a woman gets with a man who drinks, smokes, eats garbage and never moves, she's signing up to take care of his problems later. I'm offering the opposite.
The Second Thing I Offer: Family Values
The second thing I have to offer a woman is that I value family. I don't just say it. I've demonstrated it with my money and my choices.
The reason I'm in about a third to half of the credit card debt I took on is so I could have a house my kids would love to stay in, in a neighborhood my kids would love. I rent a house for $2,700 a month in the best neighborhood so my kids would be happy and so we could all be happy together. That was my main criteria for living where I live. I wanted to find a place where my kids would be happy.
I could have moved to Thailand. I could have moved to countries all over the world. I have a friend in Thailand who keeps telling me, dude, you need to come over here, it's so cheap, you could drop your expenses to a couple thousand a month. The easiest thing I could do to save money would be to move out of the country and cut my expenses to nearly zero. I have friends and family I could live with completely for free who have incredible houses in rich neighborhoods. But they're nowhere near my children, so I don't go. I stay because of my kids. I wrote more about that commitment in why my kids are taken care of no matter what.
Another reason I have so much debt is that I didn't fight in my divorce. I had just quit doing YouTube and I was in a very vulnerable position when the divorce happened. Financially, it was the worst possible time for me. I wasn't making any money. I could have been in a position to ask for alimony and child support. I chose not to. I didn't demand that the house be sold, even though that would have freed up money for me, because the kids especially did not want to move. Instead, I took the risk on myself and I borrowed the money so my ex-wife would be in a better situation with the kids.
That's what family values look like to me. They cost something. I've borrowed a lot of money so that my children could stay comfortable and so that their mom and I could cooperate instead of fighting. I would appreciate a woman who sees how honorable that is and how much confidence I have in myself to borrow all this money knowing that, in most cases, I'm going to make enough to pay it all off and then provide for an entire family.
Family values also mean something about how I'd run a household with a new partner. If a woman values family, both of us are going to put the family first. Not either of our careers, and not whether one of us wants more kids than the other. The entire family comes first. And once you have enough money to support your family, making more money after that means you're devaluing your family and valuing money, ego and worldly possessions instead. I'd rather be home with the people I love than chasing another zero for my pride.
The Third Thing I Offer: Communication and Deep Listening
The third thing I have to offer a woman is that I can communicate. You can see my capacity to speak on a live stream. I've had the gift of gab since I was a kid. My whole family had it. All of us could talk all day, every day, so I was raised with it.
For those of you who think I'm delusional, how could I so accurately communicate this delusion to you if I weren't a fantastic communicator? Almost all of the people who criticize me will agree that I'm effective at communicating. Whatever you think of what I'm saying, you can understand what I'm thinking based on how I say it.
The part people don't see on a stream is that I can also listen very well and very deeply to a woman. I listen so deeply that sometimes the women who aren't used to it get a little creeped out. One woman asked me, "Why are you looking into my soul right now?" Because I want to really hear what you're saying. I want to really understand who you are and why you're here. That is a pretty unique offering for a man.
Communication shows up in small things too. I'm very responsive to messages. During this stream, I got a text from the woman I've been talking to in South Africa, and I answered her right there while I was live. I don't want a woman who takes a day or two to respond to a message, and I don't want to be that kind of man either. One thing I always loved about my ex is that she was very responsive to messages all the time. That's rare, and I value it.
When you put the three together, you get a man who is healthy, who is a great communicator and who truly values family more than making money. I realize there are women who aren't going to care how healthy I am or how much I value family. That's fine. I'm going to state very clearly that these are the things I have to offer that are special, and the women who want them will find that valuable.
What I Optimized for in My 20s, and Why I Stopped
I used to choose with a very different list. In the past, the main things I wanted out of a woman were status, fun, sex and kids. I wanted a woman who was really attractive because that brought my status up. It helped me feel better about myself. I wanted a woman who was fun, who wanted to go places and do things and have lots of sex. And I wanted a woman who would have kids.
When I chose my now ex-wife, those were the criteria, and in the short term it worked out great. In the long term, choosing someone because they're attractive is not a very good choice. You get used to being with someone attractive to the point where you feel entitled to it. Of course I have this attractive woman, because that's what I deserve. It's called the hedonic treadmill. Whatever you get, you adapt to, and it stops making you happy.
It actually worked against me. If I had been with a woman who was more homely, and I told my friends I was having a hard time in the marriage, they might have said to go ahead and get divorced. But because my ex is so attractive, my friends all said, stay with her, man, make it work, you'll never find a woman like her again. I'd ask, what do you mean like her? Because she's really hot? Yeah, she's so hot, you're never going to find another woman that hot.
Living with a woman on a daily basis, that isn't what I care about most. I'd like a woman I get along with, who can communicate with me, who values family more than her own personal desires, and who is willing to be as healthy as me. When you optimize for attractiveness and fun, what happens when she isn't as attractive anymore and she stops having fun with you? Then you're left thinking you should have chosen more carefully. The responsibility for that choice was mine, and I'm choosing differently now. I wrote about how my thinking on standards changed in why I changed my mind on settling.
What I'm finding is that I'm more holistically attracted to women now. In my 20s, if a woman was physically beautiful, that was about all I needed to get turned on. Now I get turned off fast when the inside doesn't match the outside.
At an AA meeting the day of this stream, there was a woman who was very attractive. As soon as she started talking, I literally could not follow what she was saying. She jumped from one thing to another, and all of it was about her. I could barely listen. I even wondered, is this how I sound to some people? From my point of view, her life was probably just fine, and the way she was thinking about it was turning everything into a disaster when it didn't have to be. Ten years ago her looks would have been enough. Now they weren't even close.
There was another woman I knew from the AA rooms, more than a decade younger than me, beautiful, friendly, flirting with me a little bit. It all went downhill when she asked me what she should do that night because she was hungry. Should she get Taco Bell on DoorDash? I couldn't hide my reaction. First off, she had this beautiful body, and Taco Bell is poisoning it. Second, if you're going to get Taco Bell, at least go through the drive-thru and get it yourself.
She didn't like me after that, and I was okay burning that bridge. Her parents paid for her apartment and she sat at home ordering delivery. That's not the kind of woman I could build a family with. I'll admit I'm a bit irrational about delivery apps. I've paid for DoorDash and Uber Eats a handful of times, but if I want something to eat, I make it at home or I go get it. I even thought about driving for DoorDash for extra money, and the problem is I don't want to be paid to bring food to people who could go get it themselves. Maybe I wasn't the best husband in that respect, because I got a little toxic the time my ex ordered out. But it tells you what I value. I want a woman who takes care of her body and her own life.
Food was a real difference in my marriage too. My ex wanted to go to steak dinners, especially at Bern's. I'd go with her and order the cauliflower steak, which is a grilled piece of cauliflower next to some vegetables for anywhere from $25 to $50. At one point she told me she wanted to go to Bern's again, and I said I'd go with her. She said, "Not with you." For this matchmaker date, they booked an Italian restaurant, and I've started asking them to stop booking Italian restaurants because all they have is cheese and meat. I was about to go on a first date at an Italian restaurant anyway, and I planned to make the best of it.
Politics, Careers and Where She Lives
Someone in the chat asked what I think about dating someone with different politics. To me, politics shouldn't matter at all. I don't care if a woman is ultra liberal. My ex was pretty close to ultra liberal, not a total extremist, but she and her entire family are all very liberal. I came into that relationship pretty conservative. Now I'm more middle of the road.
The profile of the woman I was going out with said she's independent on politics. I thought, thank God. I think most of us, if we really take inventory, are pretty middle of the road. We really should have a middle-of-the-road party, a reasonable party with reasonable views on most issues that practices love and tolerance. The Republicans and Democrats could be their own extremist parties, which they certainly try to be. We need an average party for the average person. I'd be happy to lead it.
Someone else asked whether I'd date another attorney. I would, because what I'm mostly interested in is a woman who is healthy, values family and can communicate. If we can communicate, we'll be able to really understand each other. If she's healthy, we'll be able to successfully interact and depend on each other. If she values family, we'll both put the family first. So I don't care that much what a woman's job is.
Would I be a little hesitant if she said she's an attorney? Probably. I grew up in a family where all of us were very intelligent and all of us argued with each other like crazy. I know how to be argumentative too, and it's difficult to have a peaceful household when you argue that much. My marriage had a lot of arguing over who was right, and I played my part in that. Now I'm willing to compromise and work together, and I'd rather be happy than right. So my first choice would probably not be another attorney, but I absolutely would date one.
I've gone out with a doctor this year. Several women who are doctors have gone on dates with me or become friends with me without it going further. A few women in sales. A divorce attorney was interested in me this year, both wanting to date me and wanting me to be her client, and I said no to that combination. Work isn't a priority for me.
The one job that would be extra difficult is the military. A woman in the military reached out, and part of why it wasn't going to work was that she might be moving around the world for years at a time. She also wasn't responding very fast, so I appreciated the validation of her reaching out, but I could tell it wasn't going anywhere. I'm rooted in St. Petersburg. As long as a woman's job doesn't require her to move around the world for years at a time, I'm cool.
I would date a woman almost anywhere in the world, as long as she can live here so I can be here for my kids. That's why I've been talking to a woman in South Africa. That's the family value again. The location question isn't about my preference for beaches or weather. It's about my children.
Why Money Isn't in My Top Three
One woman wrote in the chat, "I refuse to support a man." That's fine. Then we're not right for each other. In a good team, both people work together, and you don't let superficial things like that decide. If money is a top three priority for a woman in a man, then I'm not her man, because money is not a top three priority in my life. Health and family are, and I'll certainly do what it takes to provide for my family.
Right now I can at least filter out women whose top priority in a man is money. There are a lot of men who can provide money. Plenty of men would sit down on a date and say, here's what I can provide you: money, kids, status. Boring. If a woman would be happy with just money, kids and status, she's not my kind of woman. I'm there for something deeper. If a man's money is one of the main reasons she's with him, what happens when his money runs out? She goes and gets another man? I never want to be with a woman who would leave me if I stopped making money.
Some people say a successful man is a man who makes money. I've heard Ashley Cummings talk about her late husband, who was a billionaire and an alcoholic. If you call being an alcoholic, having a bunch of money, being stressed out, poisoning yourself with alcohol and dying in bed a success just because of the money, then your definition of success is missing almost everything. If all you define success by is money, there are clear pathways to get there that are often dishonorable and involve extracting money from other people. I find that disgusting. Anyone who celebrates money alone as success isn't aware of the things that are really important in life.
No matter how much money you have, it can all be taken from you. One lawsuit or one criminal charge, and it's gone. Health can be taken in a similar way, but over the long term, having health, having real family values and being able to communicate are so much more important than money.
That doesn't mean I can't make money. I've made millions of dollars, and I'm going to make millions more. My single best year was 2016. I made somewhere in the high $300,000s in revenue and around $240,000 to $250,000 in profit, and that was the year Udemy banned me, so I would have made much more without that. The year before, I made about $70,000 in profit after spending aggressively on ads, and in 2014 I barely made anything. For several years after 2016 I made six-figure profits consistently, then crashed in 2019, made a small profit in 2020 and around $100,000 again in 2021.
This year I started from scratch on YouTube. I was making nothing in March. Within about six months I went from zero to around $4,000 or $5,000 a month. My website has a public business dashboard that shows exactly what I make, and at the time of this stream it showed $4,633 in sales from about 25 people with an average order of $140, the single largest being the $2,000 order I wrote about in finding out who bought my Queen video. Going from zero to several thousand a month is the hard part. Going from $5,000 to $10,000 a month is the part most people can't do, and I think it'll be easier for me than the start was.
So here is the irony. Right now is the best time for me to find a woman. Once I'm making lots of money again and I'm out of debt, I'll still be saying I'm healthy and I value family, but I won't be able to tell whether a woman just wants money from me. One thing I loved about my ex is that she got with me before I had any money, so I knew she wasn't just there for money.
I know a man who has a lot of money and is constantly plagued by the thought that his wife is only with him for it. He can't shake it. Once I start offering a lot of money to a woman, I'd prefer to offer it to a woman who has proven she cared about my character first. Then she gets the benefit of the money I'll make in the future as a reward for loving my character, my health, my family values and my communication.
Someone pointed out that financial stability is important for a woman thinking about having kids. It is, but it varies. Some women have their own financial stability locked in. A friend of mine didn't want to date because he wasn't making much money and was living with his parents. Then he found a woman from a rich family who didn't care at all about a man's finances.
There are also two different things people mean by money. One is what you're making now and what your net worth is now. The other is your potential. Yes, my net worth is negative a hundred-some thousand right now. Yes, I have credit card debt. But some women look at me and see a man who can make a lot of money, who has always paid his debts and whose family has never gone hungry. I'm in this financial situation because I quit everything to explore when I thought I had a safety net, my income went to zero, the divorce came right after that, and I still chose to give almost everything to my family.
My ideal is to be the primary income earner. I'd love to have a woman who could stay home with the kids while I make the money. If a woman wants to work, I can support that. But I'd love to get back to making $20,000, $30,000 or $50,000 a month, and I think I'm in position to do it.
The Real Problem on My Dates
Someone said, "50 dates and not one liked you." That is ridiculous. If anything, the number one problem on the dates I've been on is that I haven't been liking them. I've found some of them attractive, but attraction alone doesn't do it for me anymore.
One woman had a six-figure job, a beautiful body and was very intelligent. I just couldn't like her. She told a story that should have been one minute and it took twenty. I could hardly get myself to text her back because I didn't feel any warmth toward her. A six-figure income couldn't make up for that. If money were my top priority in a woman, she'd have checked the box. It isn't, so she didn't.
The woman I've called the Queen wanted a guy with a stable financial situation. When I looked at it the same way, I realized what I want is a woman who is stable mentally. I want a woman who means what she says. When she says she wants to take things slow, I want her to actually take things slow. Financial stability is something I'm rebuilding. Mental stability and honesty are what I'm screening for, and I'm working on offering them myself. I wrote more about how my picture of a partner has changed in my letter to my future wife and about the lessons from this year in what I got wrong dating after divorce.
I also want to be honest when I talk about my marriage. A lot of dating talk is dishonest because it presents only one side. Most of my opinion about my ex is very positive. Ninety-plus percent of our relationship was awesome and about ten percent wasn't, and that's all right. We had a ton of fun times and so many beautiful memories. I still look at pictures of us and smile. We have beautiful kids who are healthy, smart and gifted, and we cooperate on almost everything. My actions show it. Why do you think I was so generous in the divorce? Because I still love her and I still value my family.
If you're working through your own dating, your own business or a hard situation, I can help. You can send me an audio message or a video and say, here's what I'm going through, what do you think? It's kind of like a Cameo, but much more detailed, and I spend a total of 20 minutes on your situation. You can get my Personal Video Review on my website.
I was so interested to see how this date would go because I was showing up with a clear inventory instead of a wish list. Health, family values and communication are what I offer, and money isn't one of them. If you want to follow where these dates go next, I keep those videos together in my Dating playlist. Thank you for reading, and I hope you take your own inventory too.