The Dating Lies You've Been Sold (And Why They're Keeping You Single)
Release Date: 02/07/2025
#39: The Human Shield Excuse: Why Goodness Dies When We Stop Taking Responsibility
Beyond Success
Let’s stop pretending this is just a problem for soldiers and politicians. The “human shields excuse” isn’t just some abstract wartime tactic—it’s the same twisted reasoning people use every day to justify hurting others, dodging accountability, or compromising their integrity. It’s what lets you blow up a relationship and blame the other person for making you do it. It’s how you rationalize crossing a line—then sleep at night because technically, it wasn’t your fault. In war, this excuse gets innocent people killed. In your life, it’s killing your peace of mind,...
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#38: Success Doesn't Heal Shame: Why the Hustle Kills Emotional Strength
Beyond Success
Too many people are numb to life, unable to enjoy themselves and their relationships even if they’ve achieved great things. The real problem isn’t intelligence, skill, or drive. It’s a failure to process emotions properly because they’ve lost the ability to use their “heart-mind.” Sadly, most of us have been subtly conditioned to not even know we’re approaching this all wrong. Thankfully, you can learn how to regain clarity of your heart-mind. And once you do, and stick with it, the results are astounding. In today’s episode, I’ll share three key ideas about your...
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#37: The Books That Helped Me Stop Proving Myself and Start Living for Real
Beyond Success
The Achiever’s Curse is a deadly one. It starts subtle at first. But left unchecked long enough, it seeps into every aspect of your life, stealing joy and fulfillment every step of the way. Too many achievers don’t realize this insidious curse until they feel the intense pangs of regret on their deathbed. Far too late, in other words. I want to help you avoid this terrible fate… I have read well over 1,000 books in my life - spanning across psychology, philosophy, leadership, business, religion, spirituality, personal growth, and more. Most of them were interesting. A...
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#36: The Hidden Reason Smart People Make Terrible Life Decisions
Beyond Success
Perhaps the most important skill an intelligent person can learn is the Dao of Decision Making. Making tough, high-stakes decisions doesn’t come naturally to high achievers because they’ve been fooled into valuing their intelligence more than their emotions. But every decision has its roots in emotions… and relying solely on logic and data for these decisions is a quick way to make a decision that wrecks your marriage, your internal harmony, and even your future fulfillment. In other words, there is a better way to access the deep kind of wisdom that makes the answer to...
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#35: The Silent Way Emotional Avoidance Destroys Success
Beyond Success
High achievers are vulnerable to emotional avoidance. It’s subtle, sneaky, and seductive. It tricks you into thinking you’re making progress or crushing goals. But when everything feels flat - no matter how big the accomplishment - it’s a sign that you’re under the spell of emotional avoidance. And emotional avoidance comes with a devastating cost: Losing the entire gamut of your emotions. That might sound alluring at first, until you realize the full cost. It’s not just mental, but physical too. In fact, it could put you in the ground long before your time. But...
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#34: Why Smart, Driven People Struggle Emotionally (& How to Finally Break Free)
Beyond Success
Most high achievers learned at a young age that emotions were distractions. This early lesson inspired much of their success… but it came at a terrible cost: It develops emotional blindspots that quietly, patiently, and relentlessly sabotage you. Here’s the thing about emotional blindspots: No matter how much you try to stuff them down and pretend they don’t exist, they don’t simply disappear. Instead, they move underground. They become sneakier. More insidious. And more sabotaging. Worst part? There’s only one way to address your emotional blindspots in a way that...
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#33: The Myth of Emotional Toughness: Why Suppressing Feelings is Weak, Not Strong
Beyond Success
Most high achievers take pride in the fact that they’re not too emotional. They stay cool under pressure, act like nothing bothers them, wear their emotional armor like a badge. But one day, they wake up and realize that they’re a mere observer of their life. They’re not actually living their own life. Instead, they feel empty, like something’s missing that they can’t quite put their finger on. Worst part? They don’t realize that the emotional armor they wore so proudly is the exact thing preventing them from experiencing all the good life has to offer: Joy, love,...
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#32: Why "Working on Yourself" Can Make Things Worse
Beyond Success
There are 3 distinct levels to personal development and self-improvement. And most high achievers get trapped forever in Level 2—never fully healing or integrating with their internal world because they’re stuck trying to conquer it. While Level 2 is helpful up to a point, if you stay in Level 2 for too long, you’ll never experience true healing or integration. Worst part? Most influencers and coaches intentionally keep you stuck at Level 2 because it’s easier to sell you “the one thing” you need than to fix yourself than sell the message that you don’t need fixed and...
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#31: You're Not Broken, Your Mind Just Learned the Wrong Lesson
Beyond Success
There are certain emotional scripts you learned in your formative years that are running your life today. These emotional patterns aren’t the enemy. They don’t mean that you're broken as a person or flawed in an insidious way. Instead, it simply means that you’re not aware of these emotional scripts. But if you’re been stuck in the same loops for years, trying harder, doing the same thing over and over, something deeper is necessary. In fact, gritting your teeth and trying harder will only give these emotional scripts more power over you and your behavior. In...
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#30: Why You're Burnt Out, Unfulfilled, & Still Not Enough (& How Wu Wei Fixes It)
Beyond Success
Most people, and high achievers in particular, suffer from a paradoxical problem: Trying too hard backfires and causes your deepest, darkest fears to realize. When high achievers are confronted with a problem in their personal or professional life, their first instinct is to push harder, work longer, go on more dates. They’re desperately searching for connection, peace, joy, and love. But they don’t realize that their need for control keeps these forever out of their reach. But there’s an ancient solution to this problem: Wu Wei, acting without inner friction. However,...
info_outlineMen who have a desire to improve at dating often fall into the trap of tactics. And they fundamentally believe that their lack of success is not because of them, but because of the modern dating world.
So they seek to “optimize” individual tactics involved in modern dating—fixing their profile on dating apps, becoming more successful in their career, hitting the gym and getting a six-pack—without ever confronting the real root cause of their dating failures:
Themselves!
Of course, this route is far easier than confronting your deep-rooted emotional issues. You may even experience short-term successes too: More dates, getting laid more often, and being surrounded by beautiful women more often.
But this short-term success comes with a cost…
It deprives you of the very thing you actually want: A real, authentic connection with someone you love.
Why?
Because obsessing over dating tactics is a way to blame the world for your failures instead of looking in the mirror. But only by looking in the mirror and doing the work can you actually create an authentic and fulfilling relationship.
In today’s show, you’ll discover why men externalize their dating struggles instead of owning them, how unresolved attachment wounds keep you in the same toxic dating patterns, how chasing external validation leads to loneliness, and most importantly, how to actually address these issues so they stop showing up in your dating life.
Listen now.
Show Highlights Include:
- The weird way getting more matches on dating apps can erode your confidence (1:09)
- Do you think that women only care about status and wealth? Here’s why this is an example of classic projection of your insecurities (3:12)
- How taking the easy route in dating helps you overcome heartache faster—at the expense of a successful lasting relationship (5:14)
- 3 questions that break through your unconscious projections sabotaging your dating life (6:52)
- Why do people end up in the same, frustrating dating patterns no matter how much they've learned from previous relationships? They fall into one of these three categories… (8:31)
- How obsessing over your profile on dating apps prevents you from experiencing true love and connection. Here’s why: (18:25)
- The insidious “Grandiosity-Shame Dynamic” that explains why men struggle in their relationships with women (and how to conquer this shortcoming) (21:45)
- How you’re setting yourself up for loneliness, resentment, and self-destruction in your dating life without even realizing it (24:50)
For more about David Tian, go here:
https://www.davidtianphd.com/about/
Emotional Mastery is David Tian's step-by-step system to transform, regulate, and control your emotions... so that you can master yourself, your interactions with others, and your relationships... and live a life worth living. Learn more here:
https://www.davidtianphd.com/emotionalmastery