Learning To Love
[Music]
[Applause]
the day
i got an offer for my first job after
college in management consulting
a good friend told me girl
you’re done the hardest part is getting
the job
that got me really excited but i also
heard
this anxious voice speaking inside my
head
that voice is my inner critic who i call
nancy nancy kept telling me
renata i don’t think you should be that
excited
you have zero consulting skills
nancy was right but she calmed down once
i got to work on that skill set
a couple years ago though when i started
a new relationship
i had a strangely similar experience
my friends were saying things like
you’re done
the hardest part is finding the right
person
nancy did not like that at all
renata what do you know about
relationships
clearly not much because so far 100
of them have failed ouch
nancy that hurt but
she was right what did i know
and this time i wasn’t even sure what
and how to learn so i started thinking
am i the only one struggling with this
what do other people think about this
so i want to ask you
wherever you are right now raise your
hand if you think the love
is a really important part of life don’t
be shy
no one can actually see you great
now raise your hand if you feel
really well educated on how
to love
if you don’t have your hand up right now
i can guarantee
that you’re not alone i also asked
my amazing classmates in business school
at stamford
and every single person thought the love
was a really important part of life
but not a single person felt educated on
how to succeed
which is interesting because in business
school
we pride ourselves on being so educated
and so strategic in everything we do
except for relationships let’s think
about that for a second
if i was looking for a new job in the
same way that we often look for a new
relationship
i would probably just pull out my phone
swipe through a few photos and if i saw
something promising
like a attractive office
only two miles away then maybe i would
think that that could be
the one but that would be
really weird because we invest
so much time in our professional lives
we spend years building our knowledge
our skills our network that’s a
pretty solid foundation but when it
comes to relationships
which overwhelming research point as a
top predictor
of life satisfaction health and wealth
our foundation is more like a
flimsy house of cards
we basically learn by watching others
we look at the couples around us we
watch what they do
right and wrong and we assume we know
how to do it right but that’s like
hoping to become
a doctor by watching grey’s anatomy
so instead of like building a solid
foundation
we kind of just wait or swipe
until we find the right person
no wonder we feel so unprepared
that’s exactly how i felt a couple years
ago
i thought i already met the right person
but i still didn’t know
how to be the right person
and that felt really scary
so i started reading every single book
and every piece of research that i could
find about the science of relationships
and even though that became my favorite
activity
i try to hide it for a long time
i thought it was too personal
controversial and frankly too
embarrassing to discuss
with anyone but then one day
my amazing big brother rodrigo called me
and he asked hey
is everything okay and i said
yeah what’s going on
well as it turns out i forgot
that rodrigo and i share the same
account on amazon
which sometimes gets awkward
and he was calling because he noticed a
trend
in my recent book orders
seven principles for making marriage
work
your brain unlove mating
in captivity and many
many other relationship books
now at the time rodrigo was also
in business school so i told him
listen we’re both getting an mba
because it’s valuable it’s not always
been valuable
when they created the nba a hundred
years ago most people thought it was
crazy
that business was being elevated to the
same level of expertise as law
and engineering now it’s the most
popular graduate degree in the us
we finally see value in business
education
and we have to do the same for
relationships
now am i suggesting that we create a
formal
master’s degree in love no
but i am suggesting that we all start
seeing
ourselves as ceos of our love lives
and that means worrying less about
finding the right person
and more about becoming the right person
we know from research that couples who
thrive and couples who fail
behave very differently the patterns is
so clear
that dr john gatman can predict whether
a couple will stay together
with up to 90 accuracy just
by observing a few minutes of how they
interact
yes people are different and there’s no
one formula
but there are patterns that we can all
learn from
so i want to leave you with three
takeaways that i think of as
love101 these are just a few
of many things that i wish we all
learned
in school and talked about more
much more they’re also
great things to consider before you go
on tinder number one
choose to see love as a skill
by far the most important thing i’ve
learned from this journey
is that love is something far more
demanding
and far more rewarding than what we see
in hollywood love is not just an
emotion it’s a skill that we can choose
to learn practice and master over time
like learning a foreign language and
as a non-native speaker myself
i can tell you that i still struggle
with english sometimes
a lot and i also still struggle with my
relationships
sometimes a lot but that’s okay
like any other skill love is not easy
and will never be perfect but choosing
to see it as a skill
is the first step to getting better
number two choose generosity
over judgment if you’ve been the parent
of a child or a puppy you know what it
feels like to see
really unpleasant behavior with
generosity
not judgment you understand that they
are still growing up
but if our partner does something that
we don’t like
we get offended we judge
they should be fully grown up by now
but as long as we are
alive we’re all still
growing up on top of that
we know from research that on average
two-thirds of all relationship problems
i actually not solvable even in healthy
couples
so the key is not hoping for less
conflict
but focusing on practicing more
generosity
even during conflict it’s so easy to see
the wonderful things about a partner
but the true love skill is seeing what’s
not so wonderful about them
with generosity not judgment
number three choose to become
an expert on your partner
i used to find it romantic to say things
like
you know i know everything about my
boyfriend
but i realize that it’s even more
romantic
to think about how much more there is to
discover
and that’s because to have a great
relationship we need
so much detail knowledge about the other
person
from what they want in their coffee to
what they want in their legacy
that’s really hard to do but it’s
possible
if we take on the mindset of a curious
expert who never stops learning
we know from neuroscience that the
brains of couples who report to be
mad late in love after over 20 years
can still light up in similar ways as
couples who just recently met
couples who stay and love are couples
who stay curious
every day they commit to learning about
each other like an expert
they never assume they know everything
plus if you’re always discovering
a new side of your partner then maybe
the honeymoon can be more than just a
phase
now the important part is not just
understanding love 101 it’s committing
to a lifelong practice
sometimes that’s really hard
but it’s often through the difficult
times that we get to test
our beliefs and our resolve to them and
i experienced that recently
when i ended a special long-term
relationship
which was very difficult but it gave me
even more conviction
about what i think is so important about
learning to love
but nancy did not agree
renato aren’t you ashamed
you basically failed love 101
and frankly i did spend a few days
listening to nancy
and to ariana grande’s breakup anthem
but during my breakup breakdown
i had a breakthrough
love 101 is about taking radical
responsibility
for learning the skills that make us
better in any relationship
so breaking up was not like failing love
101
it was actually another chance to
practice it
and that’s because we can always choose
to see love as a skill
whether it’s in the beginning the middle
or the end
of any relationship we can always
choose generosity over judgment and not
only when things are going well
but especially during the difficult
times
and we can always choose to become an
expert
on the other person and use that
expertise to better understand
ourselves because that’s the one
relationship that we all get to
cultivate
and to enjoy every single day of our
lives
like any other important skill that we
learn in school
learning to love is our right
it’s our responsibility and it’s an
opportunity
that we cannot afford to waste
thank you