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Welcome to the CINO Show. I'm your host, Cino McFarlane. I'm an addiction specialist. I'm a coach. I'm a translator. And I'm God's middleman. My job is to crack hearts and let the light in and help everyone shift the narrative. I want to help you wake up and I want to help you get free. Most importantly, I don't want you to feel alone. Listen to the CINO Show every Wednesday on iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
There is a blueprint for how we're supposed to have relationships. Date, find the one, get married, have kids. And almost all the dating apps are built based on that blueprint. Except for one. Anna Korova is the CEO of Field, a dating app for people who don't want to follow the blueprint. It's a dating app for alternative relationships. Every kind of alternative relationship.
But the best part about Field is that it's a safe container for people to feel fully at peace with who they are, what brings them happiness, and how to actually find joy in their relationships. This is a bit of optimism. I was really excited to talk to you for a reason that I think you wouldn't expect given what you do or what your company does.
We're living in this world where we're seeing record high levels of anxiety, depression. The pursuit of happiness has become an industry with all kinds of talking heads and books and online courses offering to help somebody find happiness, whatever that means.
I so admire what you're doing because your work, I think, sits right in the front of people finding happiness, in part finding love and relationship and whatever they're looking for, but more so about being at peace with who you are if you don't fit the norm and finding community. That's why I wanted to talk to you. For those who don't know, we should probably tell them what field is.
Field is a dating app, but specifically it's a dating app for whether you want to call them alternative relationships or any kind of relationship dynamic that doesn't fit the traditional definition of just a traditional monogamous relationship. It's everything else. It's polyamorous relationships. It's threesomes. It's people who are curious. It's every kind of alternative kind of relationship you can come up with. And this is the place
to find somebody who may be like you? First of all, thank you so much for introducing it that way and for presenting Field that way as a platform where people are looking to feel whole and themselves and real. We try to define what people look for in Field in general. And the closest we've ever gotten to a definition is
This idea of a relationship that is based on growth and discovery rather than a relationship based on a destiny mindset where you look for the one or you come in with very set expectations and you place them onto others. In field, you come with curiosity first.
So alternative relationships, yes. And actually a lot of people end up in very traditional monogamous situations because that's what they want. That's what they feel good in. How did you find yourself
the CEO of this company, of this dating app? How did you get to where you are now? First of all, maybe it's important to say that I never saw myself in this role. I've never had a goal of being in a certain job or in a certain position. This is something that people have asked me. So I've learned to say it outright that it's not like I've achieved a personal goal to be a CEO. Right.
I've always thought to do things that feel right to me and feel like I'm making an impact in a way that is aligned with my values and also keeps me interested and allows me to explore my curiosity. I've always seen curiosity as a practice. And so...
Just in practical terms and fields, Dimo started the company in 2014. Dimo is the founder of the company and your partner. Yes, and my life partner. We had a moment early in our relationship when I realized that
My sexuality wasn't what I thought it was. I thought I was straight and monogamous, but I had feelings for a woman despite having been with Dimo already. And we were also in a very traditional relationship, but those feelings were really strong. And I had feelings for two people at the same time, and I didn't know what to do with that. And I expressed it to him, and he was very moved and inspired. And instead of
doing what I expected him to do, which was to leave me. He said, why don't we explore this together as partners and see where that takes us? There were no platforms at the time. They cater for anything else than finding the one. So he made it as an experiment to build field. And there was a lot of demand from the early day. So he took it off the ground. I joined the company a year later. And initially I was working on the product, so the actual app. And
And I was leading that team. And then two years and two months ago, Dimo stepped down from the CEO role and appointed me. And he's now the chairman and I'm leading the company. It started off differently, right? It was just an app for non-monogamous relationships, ethical non-monogamy. Obviously, it's expanded to include almost every kind of dating dynamic people can think of. What did you learn about
the people who were joining this app? I remember one of the very first customer surveys we did, one of the things that we saw people were sharing was that in fields they felt like they can be very honest about what they wanted or what they were curious about, and they never felt that in any other place.
People were just saying that field was changing their lives because of how it allowed them to present themselves in a much more open and honest way.
And it wasn't because of the tech. It was because of the people on the platform. There was very strong word of mouth from the early days. Like people would have a good experience and they tell their friends, but everyone recommends it in a different way. So some people say, oh, you know, you can find this kinds of folks there, or I found my best friend there, or I had an amazing sexual experience there, or field was a part of my coming out journey. Those diverse people,
Journeys showed us as we were growing fields that it's not about a type of relationship or a type of experience that people were seeking. It was personal growth, personal exploration, curiosity and growth.
The ability to do it in a space that makes you feel valid and seen the way that you are right now. You don't have to pretend. You don't have to act. Or you can, but because you want to, not because the platform is forcing you to. I think what other platforms focus on is the dating app as a tool. So they optimize for that.
Whereas we've really focused on the difficult to define idiosyncratic, personal, unique aspects of being a human and the element of feeling like you can be yourself.
almost in every aspect of our lives, we are attempting to present ourselves in a manner that we hope that other people will want us or like us, which may not be who we truly are. This could be for a job interview. You know, we present ourselves as diligent, hardworking, you know, shows up at nine, leaves at six, where in reality, we're a little more flighty. We're a little more sort of, we work at weird hours, you know, but we're trying to sell ourselves. And I think on dating apps, we,
present ourselves as nice and charming and successful and all of the things that our mothers said that that's what people want in a relationship. And we dare not share alternative lifestyles or alternative sexual preferences or our tastes or fear of judgment, rejection, or quite frankly, career damage. If this gets out, my family finds this out. And
What I think is so magical about what you're doing is people either, whether experienced or dipping their toe, they're writing dating profiles where they put it all on the table. This is who I am.
What I find so interesting about the work that you're doing is as somebody is swiping through in a traditional manner, whether they like or don't like the thing that you're into, there's no judgment. They just swipe left and move on because the environment that you seem to be creating is come as you are, not who others expect you to be.
This is why I think it's a social experiment is what happens when somebody gets to sit in a safe space, present themselves as they are without any judgment, not just what you're able to find in friends and partners, but how it makes you feel about yourself.
Can you talk about yourself for a moment? Because you said the origin of this app was you having difficulty in your traditional monogamous relationship, starting to have feelings for another person, operating out of fear that if you're honest, your boyfriend will leave you, which I think is
pretty normal. I would love to learn your own journey, because now here you are in a public forum talking about your relationship dynamics and sexual preferences. What is your own journey from insecurity to confidence in who you are as you went on this journey of putting yourself out there to your partner and being received with warmth and love?
rather than rejection or judgment? I had a relationship in high school and I was really in love with my boyfriend and I had a massive crush on someone else. And I couldn't tell why it wasn't one or the other in my head. It was, I can do both and I can be present for both people and I can communicate very well, but I won't do it because it's not right and they'll be cheating. But I remember the feeling in me that I didn't really...
understand why you have to choose. So I think I've always had this feeling that I don't fit in traditional relationship structures. And a part of the journey to confidence that you were talking about is actually my partner. His response was so validating and so comforting and empowering because he said, I will join you in this and we'll see what happens. If we don't work out, we don't work out. But I'm
I want you to be happy and this is what you feel. So let's try this together. This is one of the most powerful moments in my personal life because I felt seen in a way that I really didn't expect I can ever be. I think that in some way, this whole interaction has translated to the platform of that experience
come as you are, and you'll just be accepted as you are, it doesn't automatically mean that everyone's going to like everyone in the platform. But there isn't that sense of deep rejection or really needing to conform to a certain way or a certain way of being. I think we're very often forced into fitting into boxes, but a big part of that
forcing ourselves to fit in a box comes from our need to belong. And sometimes the only thing you need is language and simple signs that you are accepted as you are. And that really allows people to blossom. It's a great irony in this, isn't there? Which is, as you said, we put ourselves in a box that other people approve of because we want to belong. But in reality, we're living lies, presenting ourselves as we're not.
and actually making ourselves feel like we don't belong even more. And I'm curious how you think about jealousy. Like that's why we want to restrict our partners sometimes from living their best lives, not because we don't love them and want them to be happy. It's because we have fear that we're going to lose the person we love.
I think it's all a perfect storm. There's fear, insecurity, there's this really deep need to feel loved unconditionally, I think, but also conditionally. It's a lot of layers. I try to apply curiosity to the negative feelings. That's when you see versions of you and parts of you that you usually keep hidden.
When we feel discomfort, we want it to end immediately. And that's normal and understood. But very often when the discomfort comes from an emotion, let's say you have physical discomfort, you want to protect your body. It makes sense to want to resolve that. But when there is an emotional discomfort and we're seeking the answer in others, that is a rejection of learning something about ourselves. That's how I've always looked at it.
Whenever I felt jealous personally, I usually express it and I say, oh, this made me so jealous. I'm glad you're happy, but I want you to know that I actually feel jealousy, but it's not your bad. It's me. It's my feeling. And if you look into it, if you are curious about what that jealousy is actually coming from, you can see parts of you that
you didn't know about yourself. And I think that curiosity for understanding ourselves, understanding what moves us, what stops moving us because we transform all the time. There's such powerful moments of self-awareness and knowledge and we deny them ourselves if we want every discomfort to be instantly resolved by other people changing their behavior. There's another aspect to this, which was with people who are
In relationships where they really don't accept and approve of their partners to be in any type of connections with other people, not even romantic, even friendships have to be shared and things like this. There is an element of what attracted you in someone is what they've become after all of their different experiences. And then you suddenly want to deprive them of that.
and you want to be their only single source of inspiration and let's say content, how is that person going to still be interesting and exciting for you? If what made you interested in them in the first place was this variety of experiences that they had. I want to underscore what you're saying here because it's really important. Jealousy is a feeling like happy, sad, angry.
And we know that healthy relationships of every sort, traditional monogamous relationship or not, that communication is essential in all relationships. Expressing, I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm angry. And jealousy is one of those feelings. And what I'm hearing you say is that traditionally, when we feel jealous, we expect the other person to change their behavior
so that we don't have to go deep inside ourselves to find out what insecurity or fear is causing that jealousy, but rather we expect the other person to change so I don't have to deal with it. And what you're saying is express the feeling, I'm feeling jealous, and that the other person not take it as an indictment, and the person who's expressing jealousy is actually not asking the other person to change their behavior.
But rather saying, I'm having feelings. I want to explore what's causing these feelings. Will you hold space with me because you love me and I love you for me to understand what's causing this jealousy, what fear or insecurity or whatever it is, because I want to deal with that because I don't want to have this feeling. And I think that's so important here. And any kind of relationship.
Traditional monogamous relationships included any kind of relationship for somebody to have that quality of communication with their partner that you do not expect them to change who they are so that you don't have to grow, but rather you take yourself on. In other words, you choose the difficult path, I think is the root of success of any relationship.
It's just exaggerated and more significant in the kinds of relationship that you are in. It's very well put. I think there's something about growth mindset here. It could be very comfortable to sit in a space that never changes. And I feel like sometimes that's what people try to control for when they're jealous. It's the, I don't want you to change because if you change, I have to change and I don't like changing. Yeah.
But in reality, that's, it's a farce. It's not true. Transformation is constant. And if there's anything that is constant in the world, it is change. And, and,
To me, relationships are generally moving in this direction of people seeking to grow together, applying a growth mindset to themselves and to their relationships, to each other. And exploring feelings that don't feel comfortable, cushy, and safe is a part of that growth.
And it's really an approach to the feeling. If you take every discomfort as something that has to be put under the carpet, as we say in Bulgarian, I don't know if that's how it's said in English too. Yeah, swept under the rug. Swept under the rug. Swept under the rug, that's how it's called. Yeah, yeah, no, it's the same. It's the same.
If we take every discomfort and we just like push it away and we shove it in a hidden space, we're losing so much opportunity to discover and grow. And usually discomforts and friction are the moments in our life that allow us to become better.
fuller, richer in terms of our experiences and our lives and the way that we relate to each other. It's such a beautiful opportunity that we get to have in our world. I so love this thing that the thing we're attracted to someone for some reason, we get into a relationship sometimes,
We become offended by that thing, right? You know, you meet somebody who's a social butterfly. And, you know, when we meet them, we're like, oh, my God, I love how friendly they are. And they talk to everybody and everybody loves them. And then you get in the relationship and we want that behavior to stop or change because for some reason it triggers us in some way. And I love what you're saying, which is why would you want to restrict the thing that made the person beautiful? Wouldn't you want them to continue to have that experience?
It's worth underscoring here as well. You're totally fine with a traditional monogamous relationship so long as that's what you want. Your whole point is have the relationship that you feel whole and you feel yourself. You're not advocating an alternative relationship. You're simply creating a safe space for anybody who, for whatever reason, has felt that the box that has been defined by society, for some reason, they don't fit in it.
That's all you're saying, which is come to a safe space for people who feel a little uncomfortable in all the traditional ways. But if traditional monogamous relationship is your thing, then you're all for it. Let's be crystal clear. And that's why I wanted to talk to you because your goal is not advocating alternative relationships. Your goal is for people to feel seen, for people to feel that they can live their true selves, be themselves and be happy in relationship.
Yes. And be able to explore and find what that is. We are provided with this blueprint of a relationship. We have this like default template of...
how it's going to go. And we assume this is what we should look for. We might find that it is exactly what we need. I have friends who are living a fairytale type of relationship. They found the one, they feel like, you know, that's it, happy ever after. They're just making it work with that in that context. And that's what they wanted. That's what they got. And they're happy. But there are people who
That's not the relationship they need. That's not the relationship that serves them. It's not the relationship that allows them to be themselves. And what I want is a world where we get to try and see what works for us in a manner that's respectful, caring. It gives space for people's pleasure and desires and to explore and to discover and to grow. There is nothing in us humans that
that can be clearly defined. Everything changes and shifts and it's flexible and it's contextual and it moves all the time. And I think we deserve a space where we can just connect based on what we need right now and based on who we are and how we want to be and grow together. It's ironic that it's perfectly accepted in the world right now of challenging all these very traditional blueprints of how we live our lives, but having a conversation that challenges the blueprint
of a relationship and what a relationship looks like, for some reason, still feels taboo. To some degree, your app still has taboo associated with it, that the people who join feel there's some sort of fantasy life or taboo that they're engaging in. But as you've expressed, all that's happening is they're challenging the blueprint.
or curious to challenge the blueprint. Why are we so uncomfortable challenging the blueprint of what a relationship should look like in a world where we challenge every other blueprint of how everything else should look like? Why are relationships and our love lives seemingly pushed to the side and considered the exception and fraught with judgment? We're so good at self-delusion.
let's say we have these blueprints, they're not ideal, but they're there, they're available. So we know what works and what doesn't work with them. And there is a sense of security in that because
It might be a dysfunctional model that's, however, tested. And there is information available on what happens when it doesn't work. You know, like the kinds of feelings you can experience. I think we have so much, for example, content on cheating, on divorce. So we know the risks of that blueprint in the relationship.
I think there's an aspect of that. There is also a layer of censorship. So in general, sex in our lives and sexuality, it's completely hidden away. It exists in a separate category. It's private. It's not something that's discussed on a table or it's frowned upon. And I think intimate relationships have a layer of sexuality and sexual experience to them.
There's that element of, oh, that's private. We don't talk about it. And then when we start to disconnect the two, then one sounds very theoretical. Like when we talk about relationships without recognizing the presence of sexuality in them, it becomes like this kind of abstract topic. So I think there's a layer of that. Fear of judgment, fear of rejection, fear of being hurt, all of these. But
With all this said, I think to your point of blueprints falling apart and like starting to disintegrate, we've identified a trend in that direction too. And we call this a movement from low fidelity to high fidelity society. So it's like coming from this world of black and white, one kind of career path, one kind of good life, one type of relationship that everyone is striving for.
to a world where there's so many ways to be happy and options and directions that seem to continue even changing and transforming and expanding as well of being yourself. It's like there is more space for the individual to be themselves the way they are and to interact with other individuals the way that they are without the need to subscribe to like a standard. The idea of standard is starting to fall apart.
And I think this is happening in relationships too. And taboos are starting to shake in general. They're already kind of shaking. But I think back to the point on sexuality, I feel like that is the tricky part. That's the part which will have a lot to grow in as a society because we
Our extreme discomfort and fear of discussing anything relating to sexuality is causing this inability for people to be able to connect in a more authentic way. Field allows for people to express parts of their sexuality in a respectful way. We've managed to craft such a community that can express what they're looking for, what they're not looking for. They can explore boundaries.
And I believe that's a very important part in being able to connect as you are, where you are, and within the context of what you're looking for. But there's a very long way to go. And I think education, writing, curiosity, safe spaces, those are the things that help people navigate that part of their life. This idea of fake security, and it goes back to fear again, right? We stay in a bad job.
because we're afraid that we won't find another job or we stay in a bad relationship that we know is not right for us or we're not our true selves because we fear being lonely. So we sort of accept the thing we have. And as you said, as human beings, we are masters of rationalizing. We can delude ourselves into the devil I know is better than the devil I don't. And I think in most cases,
uncertainty and the unknown generally is scarier than even a bad known, especially in the case of relationships. The fear of loneliness and the fear of never being able to find somebody, so I'll just take what I've got. There are certain situations when people prefer to or are looking for a type of safety, even if it's not real. If you've grown up in an environment that's always rejected your intrinsic features of your identity and is always...
forced you to behave in certain ways and has rewarded that fakeness, then you will naturally try to retain that and to always copy what you see as being approved because we all need to be approved and seen. So I think the first step is a very private, personal journey of seeing yourself as you are and accepting that.
I owe a very big part of my experience in the world to meditation, to Eastern practices of self-acceptance, of growth and things like this, which is
They're rooted in these rituals of transparency with yourself, acceptance with yourself, and a desire to be as you are, to observe yourself as you are. This concept of awareness. I think everything starts there. It has to start with you first. You have to be able to be transparent with yourself. And sometimes that's the hardest part. That's the biggest step. I think that one of the powerful and most impactful things in field is when you look through people.
how people seem to have accepted themselves and they're ready to present themselves in a certain way. And they're very transparent about it and really respectful, but very honest about what they want and where they are right now in life. I feel there is something in the concept of being yourself in this very authentic way. There's something very permissive that can allow you to take the first steps to be yourself with yourself and accept that.
But it's a lifelong journey. Ain't that the truth. Sort of the last question I have for you is how did finding acceptance in yourself and being accepted in your relationship affect the rest of your life and how you engaged with the world? It helped me be a lot more authentic in my expression. So I know I'm the CEO of a company and people look up to me and they expect me to have answers and I
I'm very transparent when they have answers. I'm very transparent when they make mistakes. And I'm very transparent when I don't want to do something. I just say it. I say, I don't like doing this, but I know I have to do it. This has the ripple effects that I see from this is that I work with some people who are extremely experienced, like real professionals. They know thousands of times more than I do about their work, about work in general, about life.
And I'm so lucky to be able to work with such people. And in this act of self-acceptance that I've been going through, because as I said, it's a lifelong journey, I see change in how some of these people behave in that they become more open about mistakes. They become more open about motivation. They become more open about frustrations or excitement. I think that the workplace is
has been a space where we accept people to present fake professional personas. That's what's been, I think, encouraged for such a long time.
that even people who haven't grown up in such an environment feel like they have to do it. So good. But when you have... So good. Right? Yeah. No, you're right. We do at work what we do in our dating lives. We present these fake personas. We don't have to, but we think that we should. And then when you have someone in a leadership role who...
recognizes their mistakes in a way that isn't, I mean, this is a growth journey for me too. I'm too self-deprecating and that gives a whole other bad example. But I've learned to be graceful and express when I have made a mistake or when I'm making a decision and when I don't know if it's the right one, but we have to do it. There is a layer of, in the people that I work with, that seems to start to peel off and people become a lot more
transparent about why they want to do something, why they don't want to do something. We've had conversations where I've had people come to me and say, Anna, I completely disagree with what you said yesterday, but I'm going to support you because it's my job to do it. But I just wanted you to know that I disagree. It's these levels of conversation that I've had, which I never had before at work. In previous places where I've worked, I've never heard those layers of
communication between people. And I've had feedback from people that my authenticity allows them to build their authenticity professionally, and they don't have to behave in certain ways. There's a virtuous chicken and egg going on here. Yeah. If we find self-acceptance, the next stage is self-expression. And with that self-expression, we create an environment in which others can feel safe to go on the journey of acceptance and expression as well. And
The chicken and egg is what comes first, the safe environment to sit in to find self-acceptance and feel safe to express or to go on the journey of self-acceptance before you can create the environment? And the answer is yes. And this is why it only requires one person to go on the journey first. And in your case, Field is unique amongst all the other dating apps where you have created an environment which people can go on the journey of self-acceptance, then self-expression, and then hopefully do that for the other people in their lives. Here's what I've learned.
And I'm so grateful for this. And field is a container, right? That's all it is. What I think is really special, which is anybody who feels like they can't be themselves or they have desires that produce feelings of shame or embarrassment or self-judgment,
The ability to go on field and see other people in the dating pool who may or may not be into what you're into, what it sounds like is that people learn that there's plenty of weirdos out there just like you. It doesn't actually matter if you date somebody on field or you date somebody from somewhere else, but it is a safe container for you to love yourself first.
and to go through life fully expressed and not feel judged or marginalized, but rather just accepted and included. And the confidence that you can build with those feelings allow you to have
a better kind of any kind of relationship. Anna, you're one of my favorite CEOs. I so admire the work that you're doing. And I so admire that what you do for people's relationships in the safe container that is field, you're also building a safe container for people to be fully expressed, as you said, that you can hear an employee say to you, I don't agree, but I'll follow you. And you don't react with anger or jealousy or contempt.
but rather you act with self-acceptance. And the goal is that everybody feels seen and heard and understood on the journey as you go on it together. This was a deeply philosophical episode and you've really got my head spinning and I see all the connections to all these other things because at the end of the day, this is about human being stuff and human beings are super emotional. And it's really, it's fantastic. Thank you so, so much for joining. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like to learn more about the topic you just heard, please check out the Optimism Library at simonsenik.com, where you can get access to more than 35 undemanded classes about leadership, culture, purpose, and more. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.
For 25 years, Brightview Senior Living has been dedicated to creating an award-winning company culture so residents and families receive best-in-class services. Across our 50 communities, Brightview associates help deliver peace of mind, safety, security, transportation, daily programs, delicious food, and high-quality care if needed.
Discover how our vibrant senior living communities can help you live your best life. Visit brightviewseniorliving.com to learn more. Equal housing opportunity. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life in marriage.
I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Miss Spelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to the CINO Show. I'm your host, Cino McFarlane. I'm an addiction specialist. I'm a coach. I'm a translator. And I'm God's middleman. My job is to crack hearts and let the light in and help everyone shift the narrative. I want to help you wake up and I want to help you get free. Most importantly, I don't want you to feel alone. Listen to the CINO Show every Wednesday on iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.