THE UN/CONVENTIONAL CEO

How to Find "Truth Love" in this Disneyfied Society...Introducing La Vette: A Virtual Social Club for Singles focused on Self-Development

June 12, 2022 Angela Marie Christian Season 1 Episode 17
THE UN/CONVENTIONAL CEO
How to Find "Truth Love" in this Disneyfied Society...Introducing La Vette: A Virtual Social Club for Singles focused on Self-Development
Show Notes Transcript

I had so much fun during this conversation with Mia Lux, co-founder of La Vette.  It felt like a fun chat with an old girlfriend. 

I was thrilled to see that someone FINALLY created a dating app / experience where it involves a lot more than swiping or judging someone by their picture.

La Vette is the first ever (virtual) social singles club where the applicants are fully vetted (with background checks and everything).  Instead of old school images, they use videos.  But the coolest feature of all: they focus on self-development and offer virtual areas / events for users to attend together, which replicates how we all used to meet one another (in social settings).

Right now they're in Beta, so the price is only $33/month for 3 months.  Go sign-up now before they raise their prices. 

As some of you know, I'm currently going through a divorce and desperately wish I had taken more time before committing to such an important decision, but I was like many others who get caught up in the initial feelings (hormones) and miss important signs that it isn't a good fit.

Like many others, I grew up watching Disney princesses marry their prince and live happily ever after.  I also watched The Notebook a million times, among other popular RomCom movies.  Real-life relationships are a FAR cry from Disney or Hollywood depictions and I've finally realized that.

When I'm ready to begin dating (currently saving myself for Brad Pitt, hehe), I will be looking for TRUTH love, not TRUE love.  I will be myself, speak my truth and ask that whoever I'm dating do the same.  There's no use in putting on an act and pretending to be someone you're not if marriage is your goal...you'll be found out.

Check out La Vette here and follow them here: @lavettesocialclub

You can find Mia on Instagram here: @mymialux

And please make sure to follow me on Instagram: @hercircle_thepodcast and @angelamariechristian

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Angela:

Welcome to her circle, a virtual women's group, where the focus is leveling up your life. My name is Angela Christian, and I'm your host. I hope you navigate a new path in your life while I do the same, whether it's mindfulness, manifestation, mental fitness, women's health or business tips. I'm your girl. After a decade in corporate finance, I'm finally pursuing a career. I love as I learn how to do this. I'll share every step of the way. Not only that, but I'll teach you how to become more, present, how to listen to your higher self and how to listen to your body. My guests, and I will talk about spiritual and personal development relationships, trauma, and how to find your purpose stick with me and let's grow together. This is her circle. Well, ladies, today we have a lovely dynamic guest joining us. Mia, Lex. I met Mia at the feel good summit about four years ago, and she was the host and facilitator there. It was one of the best trips of my life and definitely the best summit I've ever been to. I was really impressed by Mia's stage presence, her confidence and her warmth. Mia used to be a lawyer high school teacher, and then took the leap to pursue her passions. For over seven years. She has been an international host comedian and facilitator specializing in top wellness and personal development experiences. Now, Mia is channeling this in the name of love as the co-founder and CEO of lave, a radical new platform designed to rehumanize dating in the digital era, which is launching, uh, now and merging the psychology with cutting edge technology. Um, it's poised to revolutionize the way we meet date and play. So I'm really excited to get into this and without further ado. Welcome Mia. Thank you for being here.

Mia Lux:

Oh, thank you so much for having me

Angela:

<laugh> and I hope I said love that correctly.

Mia Lux:

<laugh> you did. No, you did. It's it's uh, it's it's one of those words where, because it's not sort of like, doesn't look particularly Englishy everyone sort of has a go at it, but we, we love it. Cause like, love it kind of goes with like, love it. And so we're like, we love it and we love it.

Angela:

That's great. Okay. Yeah. Cause I said it and then I was like, oh, I think that's how you pronounce it. Okay, great. So I'd love to go back a little bit and hear more about how and what made you decide to leave like the legal corporate scene. Because a lot of my followers are women who wanna leave the corporate scene and, and pursue their passion. So I love to ask this and I would love to hear your story.

Mia Lux:

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and it's, it's interesting because, you know, I always call myself a recovering lawyer and I have many friends who were there was, you know, leaving law or leaving, uh, you know, being an accountant or any of the traditional professions. There really is almost like a Rite of passage through that process. And you know, if you are someone who's in a profession, if you think about the reasons that you stay, it's usually, well, it's economic security, you know, it's predictability, but there's also like a lot of it is identity too. And I know for myself, you know, I, I, the decision to, to stop practicing law was one which required enormous amount of courage because it created enormous amount of uncertainty for me around what will my future look like and who will I be? And I think this is what's funny is like, I think a lot of very smart, talented people get funneled into professions because they're obvious choices and we're not usually given a lot other choices. You know, if you look at the extraordinary different jobs out there that you're, oh gosh, I wish I was like that. That was never available on the counselor, like the counselor's job list. Right. Um, so for me, it was very much an experience of, I just kind of got very unintentionally, very unconsciously shuffled and funneled into a profession and then just found myself, I don't know, sitting every day going, is this really what life is? Mm-hmm<affirmative>. And I, I have a pretty good role, which I would encourage anyone to adopt, which is, if you find yourself asking yourself that question for more than like a week in a row, like, can you wake up? And like, most of those days you're going, is this my life? Like mm-hmm<affirmative> am I, is this really what I'm gonna do with everything that I've been given and feeling dissatisfied? It's a pretty good cue. It's more than a bad day that it's, it's time to look into something else. And so, um, for me, I, you know, I took a pretty radical step. I took some time off work and I actually retrained as a high school teacher. I went, I, I took my lessons as a lawyer and was like, okay, I wanna try to create something more meaningful for myself. I said, to focus on like, what does, um, contribution look like? I thought, what, what about creativity? What about being involved in the community? Um, so I kind of swung the other direction, you know, and as you can see with my very<laugh> very experimental career, it did take me a minute to figure out, uh, how to use all my requisite skills in a way that felt, uh, like an authentic expression of who I am. So I think for anyone leaving a profession, I, I mean the advice I always give is like, you don't have to just rage, quit and walk out the door. You know, there's a thousand ways to kind of build bridges into other worlds and to test out other talents and to get a sense of like getting to know yourself better so that when you decide to make that bridge into moving from one profession to a different type of career, it's not like a sudden shock change, um, which I did. And I do not recommend

Angela:

<laugh>. Yeah, no, that's so true. And I love that.

Mia Lux:

Do you have any past lives, any past careers, any secret careers we don't know about

Angela:

Me? Well, yeah, I've been in accounting and finance for like over a decade. And then I just, the switch, I mean, I'm still, I'm a part-time CFO for some, you know, small companies, but, um, you know, this, this and coaching and courses, um, and writing. So it was pretty sudden I was at a long, I was at a finance firm for like seven years and they had cutbacks due to COVID and I was not expecting it, even though I was not happy there. Like I know I manifested leaving because I thought about it. Yeah.

Mia Lux:

The universe kicked you out.<laugh> yeah,

Angela:

Exactly. So, yeah.<laugh> so I was pushed out and now I'm so happy that I was so<laugh>,

Mia Lux:

I mean, I always laugh. I'm like, sometimes we do need those plot twists in our lives to kind of give us the nudge we needed.

Angela:

So yep, exactly.<laugh> and so, yeah, I love how you've made this shift and I saw a post that you wrote on social media the other week that I really loved, and it was about true love and questioning our society's like long held definitions about it, which I completely agree with. Like I was raised on Disney princess movies and it all looked so glamorous and beautiful and I'd love to hear. And have you share like your definition of true love?

Mia Lux:

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I, I, I think about this a lot, you know, so with Levette Levette really is my attempt and my co-founder as well, our attempt to use technology to answer some of the pains and problems of modern dating, right? So I spend a lot of my time thinking about the nature of love, the quality of love, how people fall in love, what makes a relationship good, healthy, toxic, not right. And one of the things I noticed, like, I think you and I are not unique in having this kind of Disney VI Disney fired version of love, which essentially goes, you know, you have a yearning in your heart for a prospective beloved, it's an exciting moment. And you have all this built up anticipation around this idea that I'll meet someone who will complete me and suddenly my life will suddenly make sense and it'll all be worth it. And I will be the person I imagine myself that I want to be when I find my person, like we have all our bottled up hopes and expectations and dreams, and then we meet another human and we take all that<laugh> and we project it onto them and we go, you are my transcendent beloved. Um, and that post I mentioned, there's a really wonderful book by Robert Johnson called we, uh, understanding romantic psychology. And it's a, Yian kind of approach where he talks about this idea that as a society, because we've lost our spiritual connection, we are seeking a kind of spiritual transcendence through romance like this I'm gonna experience completion. And, and this ecstasy through another human being, which is wildly unrealistic. Right? Yeah. And so when we do this at first, maybe it works cuz we're projecting. But I think, uh, if you reflect on your own experiences, even if that person at first seems so divine and perfect and you were on cloud nine, inevitably, you know, the truth of just being two flawed humans will emerge. And to this point, we're either asked to confront the model of love as dysfunctional. Like maybe this model of love is too, the expectations are kind of miscalibrated or we go, okay, they suck. Like it clearly it wasn't like, it's not love it's that this is like, this is not actually prince charming. Um, thank you next, like, and so we do this kind of, and very much dating culture, swipe next swipe next, you know, and when you live in this world of like so much romantic abundance, we have such so much access to so many people that we do have the sense of like, well, I just need to find somebody who fits right now. That version of true love as in the true love, that's gonna save you the true love. That's gonna complete you. I just see over and over again in my life, my friend's lives, all the studies that I've kind of read all the research I've done that this, this is not really a great model for love. It leaves us disappointed and, and often really disillusioned and discouraged. And I was a bit, I'm a big romantic. And so I was very like, Ugh, yuck. Okay, true love is the worst. I'm never like I'm from now on. I'm just gonna date very practically. And if I, if I meet someone makes me feel something I used to be like, eh, neurochemicals, it's nothing.<laugh>, it's just hormone. It's just pheromones. It'll pass. I was, I became the opposite. Right? Right. So what I'm exploring that is this idea of like, and this is again, part of what I'm building into LA. It is to teach people this. What if we took a different approach where we said, listen, two human beings, two flawed people can learn really good skills, really great communication. They can be self reflectively aware so they can figure out like, what are my strengths? What do my weaknesses, what do I want? How do I say it out loud? How do I navigate conflict? How do I heal my past? Like what if we take two floored human beings? And instead of like having this fetishization of fantasies, what if we dated in a beautifully honest way, we just showed up moment to moment to moment and said, Hey, listen, in this moment, this is my truth. This is what I'm feeling. This is true for me. Now, this is true for me now. And I've been having this experience. I met someone recently and I made a promise to myself like no grand delusions, no projections.<laugh> let me just see what happens if I shop. And I really ask myself, how do I feel right now? Do I feel attracted to him? Am I kind, are there red flags? And I just do truth by truth, by truth. And in that experience was such a beautiful experience having me showing up like that himm too, and watching like the kind of love that can blossom from that. And I had this moment like into this where I was like, wow, if you apply the truth to a relationship and you trust that whatever the truth brings is the correct outcome. Then you can have true love. You can have the kind of love that is, it is true love, born of truth, born out of the honest sharing of the two people building something. Right. And so I was saying that I was like, that's why I made that post. I was like, I feel, I feel like this is part of what humans are doing right now. We're trying to reclaim and rename our romantic relationships and what they look like and to marry this kind of the natural, romantic spark that we have that makes life and love. So worth it with like great sane principles of personal growth,<laugh> communication and how to divvy up the chores at home. Right. So, um, it's like, this is my obsession and I, and I think about it deeply, um, because I think it matters to everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

Angela:

No, I love that. And yeah, I think you had also mentioned, like, sometimes we won't speak our truth because we're worried like, oh, if I say this, then the bubble's gonna burst. And then, you know, like,

Mia Lux:

You know what, you know, a really good taste. And I, I have an amazing coach I have like, and I know if, if, if you guys listening have, um, work with coaches and I'm sure there's probably a lot of you do, I can never, ever recommend enough choosing to work with intelligent coaches and people who are experts, because otherwise you're just reinventing the wheel. I have like five different people I work with on different areas of my life. And it saves me so much time. And in this, in this case, I have a, you know, one of my, uh, coaches, she said to me about this guy that I just met, she's like, well, have you asked him about his timeline with kids? You know, because I'm 35 and he's a little younger. And she's like, if you asked him and I was like, no, what did we get to know each other a bit more? And like, you know, and she's like, you are afraid to ask the question because if his honest answer for himself is a no, that means you have to stop dating him. And I was like, you know, and so I realized like, it's a small example, but we all have versions of that where we're, where it's like questions we're not answering. Or if we're kind of impression managing like that person says, yeah, I really love girls that go hiking. And then we're like, yeah, I, I hike all the time. Like you never hiked in your life. Like always go. I, once pretended I was like 21, I once pretended to be really into rock climbing because a guy I liked rock climbed. I was like, oh yeah, I go down to this like rock the one that he goes to. I go down to that rock climbing gym all the time and I faked it. And then he's like, he's like, okay, let's rock climb together. So now I'm in this harness rock climb. I'm like faking my way. Was she terror up this wall going like, what have I done? Um, so, you know, I think, but we get ourselves these situations, of course, what happens two years down the line, two years down the line, you have to turn around and be like, Hey, listen, I hate rock climbing. I hate it. I lie to you. Everything's a lie. I'm not who to the boss. Um, yeah. And more importantly, like this whole thing of you, you know, there's all these beautiful quotes around like whatever's meant for, you will never pass you by, but there's believing that like, if you believe the truth will produce the correct outcome, you have nothing to be afraid of. Yeah. If you mean someone that you really like, but ultimately they wanna spend every Sunday hiking and you don't, it's not gonna work, you know, and so better to know that now and let it go for sure. Right. True love.<laugh>

Angela:

Yeah. I like that. True truth.

Mia Lux:

Have you, have you ever kind of like pretended to be into something? Oh yeah.

Angela:

Yeah. I, oh yeah. I love camping and I hate camping. And so it was kind of like, you know, a few months in, do you wanna go camping? I'm like, oh, I can't that weekend. And it took a while before I was like, I just, I don't like camping. I'm sorry.

Mia Lux:

I can imagine him like doing like a surprise camping adventure for your anniversary. Like, Hey, I know you love camping much. You're like, oh no. And the thing is, I'm sure anyone listening, if you ask yourself, honestly, if you've done any version of this right. Or experience it from the other person, it's like, we'll, I have so much compassion for why we do it because we so want something to work. And at the same time, we all know where it goes. We all know that leads ultimately to issues.

Angela:

Mm-hmm<affirmative> yep. No, that's so true. Um, yeah. I hope people listening will start thinking about love in a different way and expressing their, their truth. And

Mia Lux:

Can I just tell you something from my, from what I've seen? Yeah. So my coach, um, and she's my co-founder too Lauren Zander. She founded the Handel group and their whole premise is, is honesty and learning how to say the, on the honest truth so beautifully. And when I first started doing this dating, especially like in New York and New York, people are not honest, like the dating scene here is I love it. Cause I'm I'm I have a great dating protocol, but you know, I have so many horror stories about, you know, this kind of accepted degree of deception and dating. I didn't approach that way. When I first started going in there, like using this proactively honest approach, saying what I wanted being super clear about what I needed, my boundaries, what I'm looking for. I was like, I'm. I was like, I'm sure people are just gonna turn tail and run<laugh>. I was like, I guess it's gonna, my head. Rate's gonna go down. What I experienced though, was interesting was that by being really honest and really pleasantly, Honest's not like, Hey, here's what you need to know. Boom, boom. But like a smart, like, listen. Okay. So here's my funny story. I need to blah, blah, blah. And I, and just being like, sharing it with love, is that what it did was just gave the other person permission to share too mm-hmm. And even though a lot of those dates, it worked out very quickly that we weren't a match. It was really fun. It was like a way more fun experience, a way more honest experience. A lot of these people ended up becoming like friends or, you know, kinda like having acquaintances with, um, but it changed the quality of the interaction. Right. And so I think so much of our fear about telling the truth is means that people weren't like us. We won't get a second date, blah, blah, blah. Um, you know, I find that first of all, the quality of the connection is just in general improves. And then if you have a connection, which, where it hits the investment of the two people, cause they've been honest and they're having this kind of communication, it just jumps a lot higher, you know? So I, I think it's a honesty is a strangely refreshing thing in this world and, and it kind of plays out pretty well in dating.

Angela:

Yeah, no, I totally agree. Like people would waste so much less time if they were just honest<laugh> so, um, yeah, so I'm really excited to hear about Lavette and I was looking at the website and what really captivated my attention was that, um, you merged self-development with live virtual experiences and then you vet the members and there's this like meet date play. Um, so I would love for you to tell us what inspired, um, Lavette for you.

Mia Lux:

Ah, absolutely. Well, it segueway into what we're just sharing, right? So mm-hmm<affirmative> here we are. We're saying, okay, well to date, well, it's really great to tell the truth so you can shake out what's a fit or what's not a fit to tell the truth. You have to know what you want. And what's really funny is like, I'm sure you see this. I mean, you're in this personal development world too, but it takes a minute to figure out what you want and, and having good tools and intentional frameworks. Right? And so one of the things I was noticing, you know, on all the apps is that I, I feel like most of the digital dating systems have sort of systematized failure and systematized antisocial behaviors because what they're built for isn't necessarily long lasting high quality relationships. They're built for many, many, many quick connections. And that's what their success criteria is. Tinder success criteria in, on their back end as a team is, did someone say hi, did someone say hi back? That's what they count as success. Right? And because they're like, well, listen, it's not up to us to help people figure it out. I feel differently. I feel like, and this is why we built LA bit. I feel like good quality love is something that can be taught how to create it, how to find it, our skills. Right. And, and, and if you're interpersonal growth, you'll know this, the quality of your relationship with yourself is such a big part of your quality relationship with other people. Yeah. And so having a platform where we kind of say like, you know, a big part of finding love is fighting yourself. And so building a dating platform, which is built around this kinda like fun, playful, self development exploration, um, and then everyone in that world is on the same buzz using the same language. You know, one of the things I also, you know, we, we, one of the reasons I'm using a vetted community system is a safety. You know, anyone who's dating will tell you, but if you look at the stats, it's really interesting. 40% of users have experienced some kind of verbal abuse, 10 have had threats of physical violence. You know, it's one in 10 profiles are fake 560 million last year lost to scammers. Like it there's, there's a lot of, uh, genuinely unsafe behavior that happens because of the anonymity of dating, never mind, just like the, the crappy behaviors, like ghosting and rah. Right. Catfishing all, all the stuff where we like, Ugh, the lying just, and so for us, we're like, okay, if we want people to be honest and connect, they have to feel safe doing so. Yeah. So, you know, we have a very intense onboarding vetting process. Joining Lavette is like joining a high end social club, like a Soho house or a core club mm-hmm<affirmative> um, so you go through an onboarding process where you complete your applications, everything is video. And the reason for that is that we found, well, I found that, especially<laugh>, it's really funny, especially woman, but we suck at making assessments of attraction based on pictures. Mm-hmm<affirmative> and it makes sense. Cause think about it. And I actually invite anyone who's listening to this to, to have a thick, think about your last few partners. I always ask people like, would you have actually swiped on them?<laugh> like, I know my last, like my last boyfriend, I wouldn't have even seen because he was like five, eight. And I had my thing set to like five 10 right now when I met my boyfriend, like, do I care less? No, he was such an extraordinary man. I was like, he, he was like six foot in my head. You know what I mean? But I, I would never have even seen him because I arbitrarily filtered him out. So, and then we, of course we are just being asked to assess based on traction. Whereas mm-hmm,<affirmative> what can make someone attractive is so much more than a picture, how they speak, you know, how they hold themselves, the quality of what they're thinking. And so we choose, we have chosen to make a video based platform so that you're able to use all the nonverbal aspects and data or a person to make that assessment to. Yeah. So you complete your video, your video profile, um, part of what we do, you know, cuz we are very much kind of a personal growth rapport building platform. You'll answer questions about your life and you know, for like five different areas and you'll answer like, what do I love about this area of my life? What sucks about it and what do I want? And these are like quick, 62nd, 92nd videos. And it's so fascinating watching people share someone jumps on and it's like, you know, career. You're like, okay, what I love about this area of my life is it's so dynamic and it's exciting. Every day I wake up, I'm like, what is happening? What am I doing today? I feel fully expressed. I feel really in my purpose. And I really feel like I'm rolling the dice in something that matters to me, what sucks, massive uncertainty. I often wake up and I'm like, wow, I'm building a startup. What if it doesn't work? Uh, where am I gonna be? If it all falls to zero and I can feel a lot of anxiety and fear around it. And so that, that excitement is, is sometimes balanced with this real understanding. I'm taking a risk and what do I want from someone in this area? Like I want someone who is proud of what they've built. Who's got a career that they believe in that has some element of contribution. Um, but I really mind what area it's more about them being embodied and proud of who they are. And so cute little clips like that, and everyone has a different version. So, so being able to see people on video sharing and expressing, um, such a different way of interacting and then we background check. So we're the only platform that actually does a formal background check. So we have proper identity, identity verification, um, again, just from like a safety perspective. And what I found is that the kind of people who are willing to get on video and share and go under a background check, they tend to be awesome. People who have nothing to hide<laugh>. Yeah. And so that filtering process means that everyone you meet inside of lid, when you actually get through the application process and you're accepted, you get into the social club, you can trust that everyone you're meeting is a certain caliber

Angela:

Mm-hmm<affirmative> no, I didn't know that, that you guys are the only ones. I mean, that's Ugh. I can't even think about all the people that have experienced violence and stuff. So that is so important, especially. And

Mia Lux:

Geez, did he watch the tender wonder if you saw that it was like a big documentary about these three women who were like wildly ripped off and scammed by the sky, pretend to be a billionaire. And they, they went, they did this documentary about it. So everyone was like, wow, like there's some crazy stuff that goes down with dating.

Angela:

Yeah, no, I mean, I love this idea. And when they, when you look at these videos, are you guys actually like matching people? Or how does that whole process work?

Mia Lux:

We use this traditional algorithms. So we will set you up on like introductions mm-hmm<affirmative>. But because we call ourselves like the Levette social club. And so one of the reasons that we did this is I call like the modern system of dating where you're doing match, like swipe, swipe, match, match match. At first is very exciting. Like we said, we're like, oh my God, so many people, this one's so hot, this one's so hot. But then like after a week you have like 40 matches and like three conversations and like they're all the same. And you like, what, what is even going on? And it starts to feel like a full time job<laugh> yeah. Um, and it to feel confrontational because we're being asked to declare sexual traction, like immediately versus like how, think about how people used to fall in love, how they used to meet friends of friends, colleagues, you know, like at a party, at a workout class, in a hobby group, we used to meet in social contexts, which meant that you meet somebody and you didn't have to, like, if you're at a party, they don't, they don't like this is John. Do you like him? Or not say yes. Yeah. Like say yes. And he'll stay in the conversation. Say no, and I'll, I'll make him walk across the room. Right. Like this is not like that at all. Um, you'd get to like watch him from a distance, be like, oh, that guy's kinda cute. And then like have a few words with him. And, and then you just, you have a chance to like socialize without the kind of confrontational pressure of declaring interest, which a feels like intense. But then also kind of takes the magic away because it starts to feel very transactional. You're never, you're not asking anymore. Like, oh, do they like me? Don't they? Cause you were like, uh, I guess we like each other.<laugh> all the movies gone. So for us, I wanted to build that social aspect back in. So even though, yeah, we'll give you introductions and be like, listen, based on what you said, you wanted here's someone who might be a fit. But the main way that you'll meet people is, you know, either through the social experiences, um, on the site, like we have a daily prompt, you can look people up the introductions or you attend these live experiences. We have a virtual gym, a virtual temple, a virtual speakeasy, a virtual playroom, beautifully designed virtual spaces that hold live experiences. So it could be comedy night, the speakeasy or a workout in the body shop, or it could be a, a meditation in the temple. And when you jump in, it's got a facilitator, but then everyone else who's, there is also a vivid single, and we've built. I mean, the take that came outta COVID is so cool. And I won't Bo everyone with the features, but your ability to kinda like send messages, interact, jump out into little video bubbles, we get you connected and interacting. So that it's kind of like being at a, at a party or a hobby group, but everyone there is a bit single. So merging that kind of natural way where we like to have the chance to get to know each other and hear someone speak and hear what they have to say before being like, Hey, I like you<laugh>. Yeah. Just like, you know, and so then you could meet someone and be like, oh, like you might be sent into a breakout room and someone that you didn't even notice. Cuz like, you're like, oh, you know, like he seems okay looking and then he shares something and you're like, wow, that is such an incredible deep thinking person. I, I would love to like, and you messaged him like, Hey, it was a beautiful forward. And, and now you're having a connection with someone that could turn into something beautiful. That again, someone you would've just swiped past. Right. So would you wanna restore some of that? Like, um, some of the, I guess the serendipity and the magic to how love and connection happened with the convenience of putting you in rooms and groups of sing of like like-minded singles.

Angela:

Yeah. I love this idea because that's so true. Like I like the idea of meeting someone in a social environment, but you know, with COVID and everything, this really gives you the opportunity to do that and feel safe. Like you're doing it from home and it's not too intimidating

Mia Lux:

And you don't, you don't have to put pants on. I'm like, I'm like, cause my friends would be like, well, why don't you just go to a bar? I'm like, okay, first of all, do you know how I don't drink? I'm sober. That's one thing. But also, you know, for me, I did used to go to when I was drinking, you know, I tried, but the thing is like what bar? And then you're sitting there hoping, just hoping someone vaguely compatible walks in and let's say someone compatible does walk in. They probably have a girlfriend<laugh> yeah. So, so like the, you know, going to parties, going out, like, I, I still do a lot of that cause I like to go social. But now when I'm socializing, it's for socializing sake, you know? Yeah. Versus like, I think it's so easy to feel discouraged. You're like, okay, I'm gonna go out tonight, try and meet somebody and you go to some party. And like there's only one single guy there. And you're like, oh. And he was like, Hey, meet Paul. They're like, okay, hi Paul. You know? Um, so we, one of our taglines is a big night out and, and five O' like put on something cute, you know, grab a little drink, come, come, jump into the speakeasy and see who's hanging out there, you know, or, uh, or doing like a coaching workshop in the evolution center, learning about dating tips. Or we have a salon where it's like how to, you know, like how to dress for camera or for men, what kind of facial here for what kind of face shape, you know, whatever, all these kind of playful, self developmental tools. Um, so that this feeling of like, as you're kind of meeting people, you're also on your own journey of learning, like what is good for you? How, how to date better? Um, all of our pages have like a content library of resources. So go the evolution center and there's, you know, there'll be tips on like how to handle rejection, how to give a good, no, you know how to deal with insecurity before a date or in the temple. There's like a, you know, five, a five minute meditation to do before a first date. So all these kinda tools and tips and things so that it's a supportive community, um, where you're growing and learning. And again, like, and then everyone in that community with you is also looking for a high quality connection.

Angela:

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love this. And I didn't realize it was so it's so deep. There's so many different words.

Mia Lux:

<laugh> no, we have like, that's not even all of it. Like we, we actually, the other part of this, which I think, so this is, and if you're single, even without coming on Levette this is the greatest piece of dating advice I could give you. I, I have the greatest dating life and everyone's always like, why do you go on these amazing dates? Like the first dates that I go on are like full dinners and a show and this, and they're like, how do you get men to take you on a first date? Like this? I'm like, I'm like, I'm about to change your life. Are you ready? Okay.<laugh> and again, I fully credit my, my co-founder Lauren hand Delando for this method and for, um, the intelligence behind what she calls like her dating system, which is really simple. It's like, if you connect with somebody do not spend forever in text, you know, like spend enough time in text that you're like, okay, this person's coherent. Great. Yeah. Um, then the very next thing you do is you set a video call. You say, and way I do is say, Hey, listen, um, I'd love to, I'd love to just chat quickly on FaceTime and make sure we both pass the psychopath test. Ha ha ha. Right? That's funny little thing. Um, and most, I mean like I've had one out of many, many men say no, and, and I'm like, okay, if he's not willing to go on FaceTime, definitely not gonna go a date with him. Right. Yeah. Um, most men are really like really happy to because you know, they don't know how to ask a woman and for them, they also try and save time. And so you say, listen, let's jump out to FaceTime 15 minutes and you only ask deep questions. I, I don't be like, I'm like, where do you, why are you from? And I'm like, you know, what are you most excited about in your life right now? What's something I could never guess about you. What's something you're struggling with your life. What's the thing you're most proud of. Like ask real questions and do like a 15 minute vibe check. The funniest thing is I, if you try this, I promise you it's true. Within three minutes of talking to a person, you'll know if you wanna go on a date with them. Yeah. And that's that three minutes is normally the is three minutes of the first date where, you know, you've put on your makeup or your clothes. You took an Uber, you walk out, you see the guy walking across the road. You're like, Nope.<laugh>. And now you have to do like a 20, 30 minute drink with this guy. Yeah. So do it on the video first. And so, first of all, it means that you know, that you're never gonna have a bad date because, and we have this thing of like never date a stranger. Again, it doesn't feel like strangers. Now you have a sense of the person, but more importantly, because you both feel kind of safe about it. You both like, oh, this kind of chemistry, there's a vibe. You both feel safe doing a better first date. Like I will go to dinner with this person. I'll go to a show with this person, because I know at the very worst, I'll just have a good time because I have a click with them. Whether or not it translates into physical chemistry in real life. We'll see. But you know, you're not gonna have a bad time. So this very simple step can save a lot of time. We've built that in as a system into Levette. So I have something called the virtual vibe check. And the cool thing is, again, it's like a beautiful design date space where it's like a sunset view of the Manhattan and you jump in and there are automatically facilitated questions. So the best questions I've ever come across designed to like drop you into, um, rapport and understanding they pop up on cards. And so you don't have to like generate everything yourself. You could just do it as a shared experience. Um, so that was something I built in as well to kind of give people this, a advantage of knowing each other, um, and feeling safe. So when they meet up in person, again, that experience is much, much better.

Angela:

Yeah. That is such good advice because I know for myself when I was dating and then my friends, you just get stuck in that text. Yeah. And women, usually aren't the ones saying let's get on a video call, you know? So

Mia Lux:

It's very hard for a man to say that I think women don't understand that when a man says that women often receive it, like, are you checking to see if I'm pretty, that's how women often receive it, which is fair enough. And so, so men are very sensitive about asking it. Whereas if a woman does it, especially you make a joke, like, that's why I like making the psychopath test joke. I'm like, yeah, if we not, you like, let's see if we both pass the psychopath test. Right. It's cute. Funny. And, and you always had like 15 minutes, like a quick 15 minute FaceTime to pass a psychopath, test it kind of pre reframes it and, and most people are. Yes.

Angela:

Yeah. Yeah. If they said, no, it would just be like, okay, not meeting you in person.<laugh>

Mia Lux:

No

Angela:

Good flag. Yeah. No. So if someone is interested in signing up, will you just kind of walk us through and then, and then also I'm interested in the vision of it. Yeah.

Mia Lux:

Yeah. So if you, if you're curious about, about us, like you can go to our website, which is WW dot, love it, L a V E TT e.love. Um, and all the information's there. We have a, and the application portal starts there too. So you can go. And, um, the, the application portal is, is very much like a guided experience. And so you can see, you'll go through, you'll watch some videos. You unlock your portal in the application process itself, as you're making your profile. We also have what we call like a Levette valet, who is our personal concierge. It's a complimentary service. So, you know, they can jump on a call with you and help you think through your videos and think through how you wanna approach it. Um, we really like to give a white glove service to everyone because this is again, we're, we're very much building something. Uh, that's designed to be a quality experience and we know it's new. We know everyone's kind of having to retrain. So don't feel overwhelmed if you get in there and like, oh, what am I doing? We have so much support and help for you. Um, but really the question is more like what I always ask people is this, this club is really for people who are done, like really done with the bad dating done with, you know, like the exhausting pouring of profiles, hours of swiping, like this is a higher quality of interaction, but it does require more work. And I'm, we are really clear about that, that we only want people who want to and can participate in a higher quality kind of conversation and a higher quality kind of environment. So, um, where you say, if you, if it sounds too hard, no worries. There's like a thousand other apps for that. That's what hinges for that's what bubbles for have fun<laugh> And the vision for it is, is really clear. Like I'm like, listen, I know so many incredible people out there in and woman who, what I hear from them and how I felt deeply in myself being single is like, where, where can I go to meet great people? How do I meet great people? Like I've, I feel like I'm trapped in this, like never ending carousel of, of like junk food where I don't know. I just don't even know how to choose. I, I feel like it's this repeated experience like this frustration, and they're all like attractive coherent people with options what's happening is that they're exhausted and they don't have time. And, you know, the quality isn't working. So the vision is like, what if we can create this other alternative platform where people can come in have incredibly, you know, like learning experiences. So they're always learning how to have relationships better improving their dating lives, meeting, amazing people, finding the kinds of connections they want. Um, and in that regard, like I believe that the quality of love makes a big impact in the world. How we've seen this. I mean, this whole Johnny Depp, Amber heard case thing that just went down for anyone. I, I just think it typified the dysfunction and toxicity in relationships. And I think all of us were able to look at that relationship and we all have had experiences one way or another on either side of that, um, off this type of dysfunction, how normalize their dysfunction is in our society and the collateral damage, having kids to everyone around. I mean like this is not like dating is not some trivial thing, how we love each other and how those love relationships work are so important. They say, you know, the most important financial decision you ever make is who you marry. And like, I've gone through, you know, I went through C UN coupling. I have a lot of friends going through divorces and, you know, anyone who's had to go through a serious separation divorce knows how painful that is. Like, these are not small choices. And so my vision is creating a platform that sets people up for success so that they can a figure out what they actually want. And then B like have the ability to, to meet and find someone in a context that encourages that kind of healthy relationship dynamic. This is really important set people up for success.

Angela:

Yeah. Yeah. No, this is like amazing because yeah. As I mentioned to you, I'm going through a divorce and it's, I realized we both had delusions about each other, you know, so it's just, yeah. Knowing this and going through this process would have helped us understand each other better before going through all of this. So yeah, that's it's

Mia Lux:

Well, I mean, it's a funny thing where like, in retrospect, it's always easy to see what the downfall was. And I mean, very much my lesson from my experiences in the last few years was that, you know, this is why the personal growth element is so important. Mm-hmm,<affirmative> really knowing yourself and being clearer about what you want and how you want it can inform your dating life. And if you don't have an intentional framework, you'll just fall into a relationship with somebody. And then three years later be like, oh, I really should have like, probably realized that that was that's like, that was never gonna work. I said, yes, to deal breakups. And one of the things we do in the vet is we have, um, again, my, my co-founder's, what do you call who like pedagogy, which is the three HS, the head, the heart and the hoo-ha, which are the three voices to consult. My head is like, what, what makes sense on paper, age, location, life, vision, you know, spirituality, religion, family, like everything that you like needs to make sense for it to really work. It's the stuff that's gonna bite you in two years, you know, the heart is trust, you know, affection, all the, kind of like the, the feelings that you have for somebody wanting to be connected, wanting to feel safe and, and, and the tenderness, and then the who hires like the sex, the sexual traction, what you want. And you get to decide what you want in each of these lanes and the idea being that you never compromise between them. You decide what your non-negotiable non-negotiables are for each one. And if you don't have all those for everyone, you don't get to relationship with that person because you'll get your kicked down the line. If you're like, ah, you know, like my heart, my hoo-ha love him. I know that like, like my ex-husband, I loved him, but he was like, he was really old. He was way, much way, way, way older than me. My brain was like, what does age matter? Love will overcome. You know? And then of course, like three, four years later, I was like, ah, I want kids. And this is, this is not ideal for either of us, you know? So, um, we create an intentional structure for people so that they can approach it their way because otherwise, you know, we, even with our best, our best interests, we can make all sorts of nonsense decisions.

Angela:

Yeah. That's so true. I'm so excited to share this with everybody. And, um, is there anything else that you wanna share that I haven't asked you yet?

Mia Lux:

No. I mean, I just, I just end by just saying that, you know, wherever you are in your relationship journey, whether you're partnered, whether you're single dating, divorcing, you know, there's this ability to learn about ourselves through relationship is so powerful, right? Yeah. It's such a beautiful portal and, you know, so whether whatever stage you're at, like just really wanting to appreciate everyone out there who is using that as a way to reflect on their own behavior and become a better person. It's something I see in this community, you know, and I'm sure your audience is the same. Um, and so just encourage you to reflect on how you're doing that in your life and maybe how you could do more of that. Because I think these are where the magic moments are, for sure. It's where the gems are for ourselves and for our partners. And, and of course, yes, if you're single and you're done with the apps and you'd like to experience something, well, please do come, we're come. We're doing we're in our beta testing. Now we'll go live to public in product in August, September, but you can apply for the beta now, which is actually, um, for the beta it's, it's a super, super, super discounted rate. It's like a, it's like 90% of, for which actually gonna charge. So, um, if you're willing to come test the platform, it just means you have to come test it.<laugh> which means play with us, figure it out. It won't be perfect. Um, but if you're down for that, you can head over anytime it'll drive you straight into that and we'll see you inside.

Angela:

Oh, nice. I'll have to go check that out.<laugh>

Mia Lux:

Yes, please do. Please do.

Angela:

Um, well thank you so much. And also please just share where anybody could, um, follow, follow you on social media or whoever is

Mia Lux:

Best. Yeah. You follow me on, um, on Instagram as best, which am my handle is my MEIA Lux. M Y M I a L U X.

Angela:

Okay, great. And I'll link all of this in the show notes as well. Thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure and it's actually it's feels really inspiring and hopeful. So thank you. So

Mia Lux:

Make a stand in. The name of love was wonderful conversation.

Angela:

Well, ladies, that wraps it up. Thank you so much for being a part of my circle. Check out the show notes for all the links I mentioned and some surprise ones, please make sure to subscribe. And if you're feeling generous, leave a review, especially if I was able to help you out in some way. That helps me get into the ears of more women like us who are ready to level up their lives. Join me for wellness Wednesday on Instagram at Angela Marie Christian I'll share mindfulness techniques for you to do at home at the office or on the go until next time my friends stay safe.