The Opposite of Settling With Case Kenny

I spent most of my life settling in relationships. And at 49, I finally got it right.

In this episode, I sit down with Case Kenny, author of The Opposite of Settling and the voice behind millions of those red pen posts you've probably seen on Instagram, to talk about the question that haunts so many of us: Am I settling or just being realistic?

Case isn't your typical self-help guru. He has a background in languages and studied how words literally rewire our brains. He even measured his own brainwave activity while using different sentence structures to prove that the language we use physically changes our neural patterns. It's not woo-woo. It's neuroscience.

We dive into why chemistry is overrated (yes, really), what "I need more time" actually means (spoiler: they're not worth your time), and the concept of "out of town confidence" that you should be bringing to your everyday life. We also get into competing beliefs, like those hidden contradictions like wanting success but believing power corrupts, or wanting love but thinking relationships threaten independence. 

Whether you're single and tired of dating, in a relationship and wondering if it's enough, or just trying to figure out your worth, this episode will help you stop second-guessing yourself.

Connect with Case Kenny:

Website: https://www.casekenny.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/case.kenny/

Book: The Opposite of Settling (available everywhere)

Podcast: New Mindset, Who Dis? 

Connect with Sabrina:

https://www.instagram.com/Sabrina_Soto/

www.SabrinaSoto.com

Transcript

Welcome & Why Case Kenny

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Redesigning Life. I'm your host, Sabrina Soto, and this is the space where we have honest conversations about personal growth, mindset shifts, and creating a life that feels truly aligned. In each episode, I'll talk to experts in their field who share their insights to help you step into your higher self. Let's redesign your life from the inside out. Welcome back to redesigning life. I took a little hiatus, but I had to come back because I have Case Kenny as a guest today. And if you don't follow him on Instagram, you should. And you probably do already because I was talking to a lot of friends of mine who are fans of his. And when I was saying I was so excited to have you on today, they're like, Case Kenny, can't they looked on their Instagram. They're like, oh my God, I already follow him. And I think it's because you're not face forward. Um, but I'm a huge fan of yours. Thank you for coming as a guest. I have so many questions for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Awesome. Thanks for having me. And thanks for uh making a return here. We need you.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

So no, no, this is gonna be good because you speak about things that I am super passionate about. Case came out with a book called The Opposite of Settling. Um it came out last year. You could get it anywhere books are sold now. It was on bestseller list. So it I I've read through it and I have a bunch of questions, but I really believe in not settling. I just got married, Case, three months ago, two months ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Um, at the age of 49.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

I love it.

The Language Of Optimism

SPEAKER_00 1:29

And my husband is amazing. And I spent most of my life settling. And I think now I'm so passionate about women and men living their best life and knowing their worth. And that's what you are passionate about too. So, first of all, can you tell people who may not be familiar with you sort of what you stand for, who you are, and like really what started this journey for you?

Optimism vs Positivity

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I stand for pretty much one thing that has permeated my life that I'm passionate about, that I'm qualified to speak about, which is I want to help people be more optimistic in their lives in the way that they speak about things that elude them, in the way that they speak about what's happened to them. My background is in languages, randomly enough. I majored in Chinese and Arabic. I've studied Hindi, Latin, Urdu, all these languages. So I I've always had a really keen appreciation for the way that language constructs our reality. The words that we use become predictions for what happens. And there's amazing, amazing research on the neuroscience level and the psychology level around how that is a true statement, that words are spells. And so for the past eight years on the podcast, on Instagram, in my books, you know, the the only thing I'm really qualified to talk about is how can we speak about the things that we want, the things that elude us, and how can we do so in a way that speaks to our brain as well as our heart. Um, and that that's that's really what I'm so passionate about. I've been hosting this podcast for about eight years. I've been writing on Instagram with my red pen for for quite some time. Um I travel over the US doing these keynotes called The Language of Optimism. And then the book, of course, is is the idea of the language of optimism, but specifically in your dating life. And yeah, I mean, it's completely changed my life, who I am as a person. I'm 37. Um, it's helped me reinvent myself over and over again, just the way that we have the most practical tool ever to change our life and rewire our brain. And it is shown. Like I always try to give the sales pitch that being an optimist really does change your life. I mean, it's been shown time and time again, decades and decades of research, that optimists make more money, have longer lasting relationships, are healthier, more creative, are more likable, all these things because it changes the way that you carry yourself in life. And it's all about word choice, it's all about language, it's all about sentence structure, the most practical thing. Um, and yeah, I mean, I started this to answer your question more specifically. I started all this in in 2000, well, before that, in like 2014, but more seriously in 2018 with the start of my podcast, really just as a challenge to know myself. I feel like before then I didn't really know myself. I feel like I was unfair to myself, judgmental of myself, cynical of myself, of the world around me. So my creative endeavor initially with the podcast was to fix that, to have a worldview. And then very quickly I realized what I was doing on the podcast with introspection, mindfulness, plus the the science and heart of optimism. And I haven't looked back ever since. And it's uh privilege to do it.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

So let's talk about being optimistic because I also know some people who speak the, you know, life is great. Oh my gosh, I and are miserable behind the scenes. So it goes hand in hand that you have to speak it, but you actually have to feel it as well. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

For sure. I mean, you so the the biggest thing is I hear that all the time, you know. The the the thing that I think people get confused, and this sounds crazy, but optimism doesn't necessarily necessitate positivity. Like those are two separate things. And oftentimes people think, oh, optimist is just being positive. Look on the bright side. It really is not. I mean, it depends on how you define things for sure, but when I define it within the construct of research and and heart, it's optimism is the belief that things can change. That's the definition. So this leaves room for one, emotions to not be permanent, circumstances to change, the dating pool to change, the industry you're in to change, and but a core component of it, and I'm I'm writing a book that's coming out uh in like a year and a half, that's what's called it's called the language of optimism.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

So uh tech technically hasn't even been announced yet. So the exact the the the core component of that though is that to be an effective optimist, before you you get delusional about all the greatness that can come and your ability to visualize the future and your ability to put sentences behind how things can't change for the better, first and foremost is you have to embrace the negative. So there's there's so much great history and anecdotes and research behind we have to be specific about the negative that we feel. I I present it as a wall on a swimming pool that if you want to go far and fast in the pool, you have to kick off a wall, right? If you just start in the middle of the pool and you start swimming, it's gonna be slow and slow and slow. Kicking off the wall is the negative. We have to be negative first. We have to embrace the negative first. We have to feel how we feel, and then we go to the positive. And that certainly is the difference between one toxic positivity, toxic optimism, and then two, just saying positive things and not feeling it, saying positive things but still being miserable inside. So there's so many things from that. But to react to what you said, I I hear that a lot. You know, your brain is not dumb, obviously. Right. Your brain does not simply just believe what you tell it. You have to train it in a way to collect evidence and data points such that the brain believes it to be true. And once that's the case, then you're off to the races. But you can't ignore the negative. You have to embrace the negative. And there's a variety of constructs to help convince the brain to believe in optimism versus just receiving it.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

First of all, I love that. And if you're watching this, you know that the case is holding a red pen. It's sort of his signature thing. Like, what started that whole red pen thing?

The Red Pen Story

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Well, it was two things. Uh, on the on the less deep side, I just wanted to stand out, right? Red, red to me has never been like a violent, aggressive color. I know some people are like, ooh, red, traumatic from high school with my teacher. It's never been my my my case necessarily. Oh, yeah, or something, whatever it may be. You know, red is all kinds of symbolism. For me, it was just here is a color that stands out, that pops. When I think of clarity, I think of red. I think of a uh a sea of distraction, and then red draws my eye. So that's always been why I've done it. And now to me, you know, and red represents power, red represents these things. It represents stop, it means all these things. So for me, I've just continued to do it in red.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Uh well, it's your signature thing, and I see people doing it now.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

And I was my thing. Yeah, sure.

Love Without Settling

SPEAKER_00 7:53

I I love, I know it's always your post, but like so knowing a little bit more about you, and I have a question for a lot of my single friends. What is your romantic situation?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Uh I'm engaged in uh getting married in June. So very soon.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

I don't have any wedding advice because I had a micro wedding, it was tiny, but um we're doing the same thing, literally, just just immediate family.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

So it's gonna be mean and meaningful.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

It was I I I highly recommend it. First of all, congratulations. Okay. Then knowing that you're engaged, what would you say to someone that feels let's talk about settling? Okay, that they are so lonely. And I think a lot of my single friends are just sick of being alone. So they're like, Well, how do I not how do you know when you're settling versus just being realistic?

Out‑Of‑Town Confidence Explained

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah. Well, how much time do you have? So there's a lot there, right? I think the simplest answer to that would be uh to go back as far as you can in in twofold. One, to realize the purpose of a relationship, and two, to put a mindset behind you to live your life such that the absence of another person is something you want, but not having it doesn't negate the joy and happiness that you currently have. And that's the tricky spot. So I'll say to do the latter first. Chapter one of the book is called out of town confidence, which I don't know if you've ever heard that term, and but you've probably lived it in your life. When you're in another city and you're traveling, let's say you're in Miami or wherever, New York, LA, something, you're traveling. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but when you're when you're in one of those new cities, you kind of have a little bit more confidence. You got a little bit more pep in your step. You're in a new city, not everyone knows you there. You've got that vacation energy that that, you know, I'm traveling, I'm here to just experience the thing. If you're in Miami and you're here for like four or five days, you're here to see the beaches, the people, the music, the fun. You're here for an experience, right? You're here for the totality of what you're there for. You're not there to find one person to make the experience enjoyable. You're there to enjoy the experience. And if you meet someone, then that that amplifies it. And that's the mentality that I that I talk a lot about in the book. It's expanding your definition of a full life in love and having that out-of-town confidence such that you're in, you're living your life and your goal is to live fully across all definitions of love, but you're open to someone coming along and keyword amplifying your joy that you've already created for yourself, versus the opposite, which would be looking for a person such that you could then find all the joy in life. And, you know, love and a person, of course, is an enormously powerful, one of the main purposes of life. But to put the burden on a relationship to give you the joy and satisfaction of being alive is the reverse order. So I talk a lot about having that out of town confidence such that when you don't have a partner, sure, it's normal to feel lonely, but you're still centered in on the purpose of life, which is to live your life fully and find joy and find all these things, such that when you are potentially dating someone, you can answer the question, which is does this person amplify my life? Does this person make me feel like more of myself? So we have to throw ourselves into life as deep as we can. And I know sometimes that comes off as patronizing, but the idea is to give you a better view of self, such that you know if they amplify that sense of self. And I find a lot of times people just skip that because they're so focused on having a partner, being in a relationship, not being lonely, that they don't have that grounding. I talk in the book about um, it's called Your Your Essence. There's a book called The Souls Code by James Hillman, which talks about inside all of us, we have an essence. That is something inside of us that makes us us, that is unique in some capacity, a mixture of things. And he calls it an acorn. And you could plant an acorn in in the ground and you could really hope that it becomes a banana tree. But it's an acorn, it has to become an oak tree. And we can spend a lot of our lives ignoring the thing that's inside of us that's true to us, in favor of, you know, being nonchalant or low maintenance or this or that, but inevitably it has to exist in that form. And I think, you know, I present that idea as knowing yourself, such that you know if someone amplifies yourself. So I think in a roundabout way, that is the answer of coming back to that. And when that's the case, loneliness is normal, of course, when you have so much love to give and you want to be with a with a partner, but you've expanded your definition of love and you're focused on self. And it just makes the the process easier.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

So do you feel like that happened in your own life? I mean, you're in your mid to late 30s. So something had to have shifted for you and your soon-to-be wife where you both met at the right time. Would you say that?

SPEAKER_01 12:41

I I mean, and that's all of that to be said that timing certainly is the most important and uh direct variable in all that. I think, yeah, I met Emily at the perfect moment in my life where I finally was like, this is who I am, this is what I represent, this is what I want. And, you know, you could add that to a lot of things, right place, right time, serendipity. We were both in Chicago at the time. Um, but I think before that, yeah, I mean, I I truly did not understand the purpose of a relationship. I was pretty typical male avoidant, perhaps, in the sense of thinking that a relationship was this existential threat to my independence. And what I've realized with Emily is that I have never felt more independent than being in a relationship with her. Our relationship has made me more independent. So I have an entire chapter on that about with the right person, you feel more independent because you have that connection. And that like, if anything, that was the catalyst for me being like, whoa, oh, this is this is different. Like this is the one. Because in the past, it was all, you know, you know, the assumption was that a partner would limit my independence, which is a you know important male attribute as well as an important human attribute. And that totally changed. And, you know, now, you know, we're just uh a beautiful combination of creative energy. She's a DJ and producer. I do whatever the heck it is I do, write and talk. And you know, I've never felt more independent, more playful. I think also like in my late 20s and early 30s, dating had become this like serious endeavor, which it is a serious endeavor, but it it carried that serious weight to it. And I think the purpose of a relationship is to return you to a state of playfulness.

Essence, Acorns & Alignment

SPEAKER_00 14:21

It was like my husband's name's Nate, he's from Chicago, and he and I talk about our first date because it was the first time in my life that I didn't make dating serious. I was like, you know what, I already have my daughter. I don't care about really getting married again. I don't care about having kids, so I'm just gonna have fun for the first time in my life. And he says when he we went on our first date, he couldn't believe we started talking about dating. And he was like, Isn't it the worst? And I'm like, no, I'm actually having the best time. And he was shocked that I said that. But it I wasn't saying that to be cool. Like I actually felt so relaxed. And I think that's what changed. I just wasn't trying to choke it to death so much. And I think that that's what people do, women and men. But I assume most of your oh, I guess I should ask you, do most people who like DM you, are they women asking for advice? Yeah. So what do you think most women ask you about sort of high standards, meets like the difference between high standards and fear-based perfectionism, let's say?

Timing, Independence & Play

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah, it's it's a lot within that realm, right? Am I asking for too much type thing? A lot of a lot of women, but some men, but like beating themselves up for presenting some themselves, coming on too strong. Yeah, it's all it's you know, everyone is just trying to figure out how much they should care. That seems to be the thing. Like, should I should I be bothered by this? Should I care about this? Should I be worried about myself? Am I doing something wrong? It's you know, everyone's just trying to make sense of their life. I think it ultimately most people are trying to figure out if they're asking for too much, um, which is tough. And usually my advice is I really try to stay away from like tactical advice. Like, what do I know about how to find a person? I got lucky. Um, but I but I do know when it comes to like, uh, how do how do we all too often talk ourselves out of what we want? Well, usually it's because we negate the value of lived experience. Like I talk to people all the time, and people are very quick to be able to talk about what they want in a partner. And oftentimes I'll ask about like, where are those standards coming from? And whenever someone has a standard and they're able to say, Well, it's because I dated this person and here's what I learned from it, I say, Yes, yes, that is it. That is a standard. Never negotiate that. But when I hear them say, Well, you know, this is I just feel like and I want this, I question standards like that. Not that you shouldn't have theoretical standards, but the most powerful thing you have is lived experience from which you have standards and boundaries. When that's the case, you should never second guess yourself. You should, you don't need to ask me if you're if you're asking for too much. Ask yourself, do I have an experience that taught me this? Yes. That is a true personal lived wisdom. Never don't negotiate that. Anything else? Yeah, I think we we apply a measure of awareness to it. But for the most part, I think people really do discount where these things are coming from and that like that's your that's your source of power. And I really try to encourage people to to go back to where they lived it and where they loved it and where it came from. And that tends to ground people in their power.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Shifting gears a little bit, just still into settling, but you said something in your podcast about not just settling in relationships, but in life, like not charging enough for your services, things like that, that you said that you've known and you you are a speaker. So if somebody is dealing with this in a business professional setting that maybe they want to raise their prices or they want to ask for a raise, how you said that you've learned this yourself. So can you talk a little bit about how you got your yourself out of settling?

High Standards Without Perfectionism

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's a I I vote, I if I can go back and change things, I think I would have been more audacious in terms of like business. Like specifically, I'm talking about like speaking. So I do a fair amount of uh paid keynote speaking, which is a great business. Like there's there's a lot of money to be made, but it's very, very difficult and very competitive, right? There's like a top percent of people, and then there's everyone else. And my ambition is to be in the in the top percent. And usually it comes from, you know, being fear-based. I set my rate and I'm just worried that I'm gonna lose someone. I'm just gonna lose their interest immediately based upon the rate that I set. And I used to really discount myself and I would do things for pennies on the dollar, and I would travel and do these things. And I think recently, really just like the past two years of being resolute for one and knowing what I have to offer and setting the rate and not having that scarcity mindset. Like I'm writing this book right now where I'm talking a lot about competing beliefs that is not a limiting belief, right? So we have limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are I'm not good enough, I'm not, I'm not smart enough to charge this enough this much money. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about two competing beliefs that we have. I have a desire to uh to be a top speaker, for instance, but I also have this belief that being a top speaker requires me to suffer for that. And I really struggle with that because I'm very type A. I work really hard, I think I'm good at what I do, but I've always had this desperation to me sometimes that like things don't come easy. Like, in order to be successful, I've got to suffer. It's gonna hurt, it's gonna suck, it's gonna take all this time. And there's an element that's true, but I've really found those two things to be competing with each other. And it manifests in so many different ways. It manifests when like someone reaches out to me and says, Hey, Case, we'd love to have you speak. You know, please give me some of these details. I have this desire for that to be true, but I also have this belief that, oh, they're gonna, they're gonna dip as soon as I name my fee and they're not gonna want me and they're gonna choose someone else. They probably emailed a bunch of other people. I need to sit here, I need the perfect email, I need to follow up 10 times. And I have a manager, and like sometimes I'm always texting him, hey, hey, hey, just desperate. I even remember in my sales career, I worked, I led a sales team for a long time. And I I even remember one specific instance. I was in this conference room with a client and we were pitching him, me and my boss at the time. And I was I was leading the meeting and I was pitching him. And near the end of the meeting, the guy was like, All right, awesome, like we're gonna do it, like we're gonna give you the business. And I I just like kept going. I just like kept pitching. I was I didn't believe it to be true. And afterwards, my boss was like, dude, like why? Why we got the business? Why'd you why'd you keep selling? You don't need to. Like it happened, you're good. And I've I've just always had this struggle with believing that something can come easily, you know, that that money can flow easily. So for me, I I have really had to reconcile those two things and to say that good things can happen. I work hard and I name my rate, and if it doesn't work, that's fine. I don't have to strangle the opportunity. I can let go in a sense. And frankly, that's something I'm still working on, but that has helped me step outside of that discounting my rates or my belief or my worth or whatever it may be, is un unearthing the desire and then the belief that might be in competition with it and uh reconciling them.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

It's so true. I I deal with the same thing and I'm still dealing with it. So I I can I empathize so much with everything you're saying because you know, my my parents are from Cuba and I was raised in a we've got to work hard and hustle. And I am type A, so I work hard constantly. But I'm just like you. Sometimes I feel like I gotta write the email. Let me follow up. Don't forget to follow up a week from now. And then when I sort of get sick of being like that and I let go, things flow so much easier. But it's so hard to believe in that when you're feeling that you really want an opportunity. But usually when you do let go, things come, things do flow. You just have to believe it.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

I'm that's where I'm at right now. I'm I'm starting to. See that. I mean, certainly you'd have to put in the foundation, you have to plant the seed, you have to water the seed, but you know, the blooming can be beautiful if you allow it to be. And uh yeah, I think I think people don't often realize that they have those competing beliefs about them. I was with uh, I don't know if you know David Guillaume, he teaches a lot about Kabbalah, and uh, I was with him the other day, and he was telling me an example about someone that he was coaching who they wanted to be a high power CEO, big CEO, fortune in a company. But and then the more that he was talking to him, they also he also unearthed that this guy had a belief that power was corruption and that like power was evil. And he didn't put the two and two together, that he wanted to be this person who inevitably would have power, but at the same time, he believed that power was bad. And you could see how those two things like kind of directly contradict each other, goal and belief, whether it's goal and goal. And I think there's really something there in terms of, you know, we have these desires planted within us. And I I believe, as maybe you do, that, you know, we don't necessarily have desires that we're not capable of achieving. Usually the the issue is that alignment within ourselves. So that's why it's so important to do all these practices from you know, mindful practices to some of the writing exercises that I encourage people to do, to be able to vocalize these things that we don't realize are in competition with each other. And I I find that to be a beautiful endeavor of of clarifying the way that as humans we're we're complicated and we're hypocritical and we say one thing and we mean another, and it's it's really crazy stuff and it's really fascinating. And, you know, you you can't just tell yourself one thing, you have to believe it at a deep level. And uh yeah, it helps.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Well, okay, that comes to my next question. I wanted to ask you, ask you. Like obviously, there's not a one size fits all, and I know you're really into writing, but what are your go-to mindfulness? Like, what does a day look like for case?

Not Settling At Work & Money

SPEAKER_01 23:54

What does a day look like for me? Well, I mean, every day I'm writing, certainly. Um, you know, my writing process is is pretty simple. I usually always like to write in response in response to a prompt. So I'm never like a stream of consciousness writer. Usually it's I have hundreds of pages of docs of other things that other people have written. Someone will say, This is love, or clarity is this, or a good standard is this. And I'll say, Oh, that was interesting. What do I think? And then I'll write off of that. So a lot of it is every single day just writing in response to that. Uh, you know, my my zone of genius writing is between like 10 and 1, coffee one and coffee two. I I listen to like a lot of house music. It's not like I like being like 140 BPM, like very uplifting, energetic music. That's what gets me going and feeling vulnerable. Um, so it's a lot of of writing from that perspective. Now, currently, I'm in the process of writing this book, so it's a lot of research. Even though like this past week was somewhat interesting, I went to um one of my friends owns uh um a business here called Supermind, where basically they measure brainwave activity. And uh, we went in and I took myself through a bunch of these linguistic practices I do. So, like the difference between talking to yourself about if something happens versus when something happens, the difference between saying, I want to do something but and I want to do something and, and we basically measured my brain activity when I did both of those. I did five minutes of one, five minutes of another, and we measured the brain activity, right? So the the the alpha, the delta waves, the theta waves, these are waves associated with fight or flight or happiness or threat detection. And we measured those in response to the language I used. And it was the coolest, most clarifying thing ever about it. Literally rewires your brain based upon the language you use. So I'm doing a lot more research in in that in that sense, that has been really, really cool. That I think for me, a former self-development skeptic in my 20s, this kind of thing is really like textured and because it's science-based. It's real. It's science-based, but you feel it in your heart. That's why I think that's the sweet spot for people. I really think is the science-backed and heart-led, as, as I call it. To me, I think that's what some people need. They need a they need the specifics, but they need the belief and you meet in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Okay, before you go, I have some fast, rapid questions. Ready? Yeah. Okay. Settling or being realistic, how do you know the difference in one sentence?

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Yeah, I would go back to what I said before. I said you're never settling if it's coming from past experience.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Okay. If someone says, I just need more time, what does that really mean?

SPEAKER_01 26:32

It means they're not worth your time. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

I love that. Um, is chemistry overrated? Yes or no?

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Absolutely overrated.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Wait, why?

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Can I say more in one sentence now?

SPEAKER_00 26:47

No, no, all the the only one that was one sentence was the first one. So yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Oh, oh, good. Okay. Well, I mean, first of all, you and I are nice people, right? We we speak well, we present ourselves now. We could have chemistry with a lot of different people, right? True. We we want to find chemistry. I think there's a big difference between chemistry and compatibility, long-term, short term. I think some you know, I at least as my definition by of chemistry is that's that's butterflies and rainbows, immediate human emotions. And I think it's a great sign to see if you have compatibility, but I think it's somewhat overrated. When you bring a lot to the table, you're a kind person, you want to see the best in others, you look good, you're funny. I think sometimes we can get lost in that just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 27:30

I I agree. I mean, I think some of the worst relationships I've been in, we had amazing chemistry in the beginning. It turned out to be a complete nightmare. I think for me, at least with my husband, it was slow and steady in the beginning.

Competing Beliefs And Letting Go

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Yeah, same, same with my fiance and I. I'll tell you how I knew. I'll I'll just share the anecdote because I think it's funny. We went on like three dates and it was good. It was it wasn't like crazy. It wasn't fireworks and oh my gosh, this is this is the one. But what really sealed it for me is I I'm 37, but I'm like a child sometimes when it comes to like what I eat. Very basic palette. I don't need a lot. I'm not fancy. I don't know what I'm doing in Miami where there's so much great food. So, but I love mashed potatoes. And my my girlfriend came over for date four, and she had gone to eight different restaurants and picked up mashed potatoes from eight different restaurants, and I had a mashed potatoes of Chicago tour. And I don't know, I just like that. I was like, oh, like we have chemistry and we have compatibility now because of the mashed potatoes. But uh it's a joke somewhat, but like things like that.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

It I know. Well, so when I was dating, when I started dating Nate, I went to do you know the Hoffman Institute?

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

So I went to the Hoffman Institute and we had just started dating, and then I was out of pocket for seven days. And the whole time I was there, I kept thinking about him, hoping that he was thinking about me. But he lived in Chicago, I lived in LA. And when I turned back my phone, when I turned on my phone, he had left me vlogs while I was in Hoffman, like, hey, today's day three, and today's day five. And I just realized then like what an incredibly sweet human being to like have done that. But it's you're it's about those little things that you just know. Okay. Yeah. What's the fastest way to raise your standards without becoming impossible?

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Yeah, I mean, I would say, I mean, it's through the lens of of reciprocity. What do you so eagerly and willingly give? Effort, energy, consistency? I think you just you look for the mirror of that, and that's where your standard should be.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Okay. One sentence, one sentence every woman should repeat before she texts back.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

I would say before she texts back. Well, I mean, I would I would go higher level. I would just say the the the mantra that I always write, that was one of my more popular ones I wrote, um, you are worthy, you are worth every cent of what you're asking for. Again, grounded in what we just said, but just reminding yourself of that before you engage, before you start to compromise, before you start to text and lose yourself, just remind yourself that you are worth what you're asking for, specifically because that's what you give. And when it's grounded in that, it just becomes a measure of reciprocity in the right way, right? It's not always 50-50, but I think that that's helpful context.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Thank you so much. I'm so excited. Your new book is going to be out 2027. The opposite of settling is already out, came out August of 2025, so you can get it now. I appreciate your time so much. And obviously, if you're driving and listening to this, I'll have all of Case's information. Um, but I highly recommend to follow because every day there's like nuggets of just knowledge and it's inspiration. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Thank you. Thank you so much.