Stop Asking for Permission to be a Man - Dr Robert Glover

so you say if you don't believe you and your needs are important you won't be receptive to the good things the world wants to give you that's a good starting point why do you think so many guys subjugate their needs um we've been thought to and we inaccurately internalized ironically that that was the best way to get our needs met I mean think about it if you're a small child infant and you don't have a lot of thinking processing power just survival power and uh let's say you you quickly come to the awareness that the caretakers in your life are not real competent they don't respond timely they don't respond consistently they don't respond with what you really need and um so what you learn is well maybe if I get rid of my needs or maybe if I become needless and want I mean this isn't thought it's just emotional survival reaction if I take care of their needs if I make sure they're okay then they'll be okay to make sure I'm okay and all of this begins before we can even think about it so it gets wired into our nervous system then we grow up to be children adolescents adults and we just keep following the same thing that got wired in when very inaccurately when we were just a few months old isn't it strange to think that we can rail against the world not giving us the things that we want meanwhile we don't make the things that we want a priority well that's that's a big piece I've worked on and I work you know I work with men and uh that's a really big piece I you know I used to do things like not tell anybody what my needs and wants were or even hide them or I still at times make it difficult for people to give to me I've been told by many people in my life that I'm difficult to give to uh so I consciously work at that another piece with the men I work with they call Nice Guys is again they believe they're bad for having needs everybody else's needs are more important and here here again the kind of the distorted logic that a lot of us use I've done this like lot of guys do this women do it too is they'll go find a person whose life is a mess you know they can't pay their own bills they can't hold a job they fight with everybody they know they're depressed they you know whatever we think I can fix them up I I'll I'll I'll dedicate all my resources to getting them good and once they're good they'll get they they'll be there for me they'll help me get my needs met but that's just ter terrible terrible strategy if you want to get your needs met go find people are already competent at getting their own needs met and who are available to help give to you but again most of the stuff is so unconscious we're not thinking about it we just keep doing the same thing hoping at some point it will work and then again often when people then do try to give to us no no that's okay it's all right no it doesn't matter minimization yeah just yeah no no no no so um yeah this is a big piece I've been working on in my own life yeah I uh there's something I think especially for guys that seems kind of like romantically heroic about I don't need anybody or anything I can make this work on my own does something kind of not desperate but but tangential to desperate and and and needy about having needs uh and I think the reverse of that of maybe if you tell people what you want sometimes they'll give it to you creating a reframing that so that it's something which is aspirational to do uh I think is a hurdle that many guys may struggle to get over you know talk about that that that Dynamic with men because again I I've been working with men for 30 years and a really core pattern I see is just this pattern of of going it alone you isolating themselves another way I put it is so many men and especially the younger men um uh Millennials generation below they grew up with the Internet it's like that's all they need you know they they they just they hang out I call they hang out in the nursery nothing's required of them nothing's demanded of them uh they they get all their connections on social media spend all their time on the internet binging on Netflix playing World of Warcraft smoking dope drinking jerking off to porn just and that and that's their life and to actually go connect with other real life human beings who could actually nurture them fill their bucket give them social connection it feels like they'd have to give up too much have to give up all this other stuff over here that that that consumes them and maybe even I think there's a fear that they might even have to reveal too much of themselves and reveal how shallow and empty and nonproductive their lives really are and so they just keep doing the same thing yeah when you're siloed off no one is peering in to look at exactly how are you spending your day and exactly what do you think and when did you get out of bed you've got this great quote where you say your mind would rather manage old and familiar anxieties than confront new and unknown ones and I think that's exactly what you're talking about that's just a given you know the devil you know is the devil you don't know and and for for so many men I liken it to I call it an emotional tree fort I I I don't know where you grew up if you had trees around you but we had trees we had tree fors and you know the the the ideal perfect day is if you know you or one of your buddies found somebody's dad's Playboy magazine or whatever Hustler Penthouse whatever and you go up open the tree fort pull the ladder up nobody can find you and you can just be all by yourself and do whatever you want and know and it's kind of like a lot of men just continue that that mentality of just wanting to live in that emotional tree for where they pull the ladder up nobody contract them nobody knows what they're up to uh they don't have to get real accountable vulnerable with anybody and then then we wonder why you know statistically you read how many men are isolated lonely depressed the tolls that it takes on is physically emotionally early death look at any you know in this country any the you know the the the the multiple Shooters is all lonely isolated White young men and and you know now is men you know men going their own way incels just you know they're just you know saying hey we're advertising it now we're in the club of guys that basically aren't in a club yeah they they self ID uh in their isolation yeah exactly it becomes their identity and then it also then becomes easier to blame somebody something outside of you whether it's women Society culture feminism you know whatever well let's blame them for my isolation and I was speaking I I was at a retreat this weekend with with about 40 men and I spoke to them about this and you know if I had to pull a number out of my ass I'd say you know maybe 80% of the isol lonely men are isolated by choice not because they've lost a partner not because they've had an accident or an illness or major Financial setback it's by choice it's their preference and then all the while wonder why they can't get loved can't get laid you know can't get a promotion at work don't have any friends it's it's it seems to be a voluntary uh place to be I understand why guys have a skepticism in a retreat from the world around around them though uh it's not to say that they can't overcome it themselves and that the agency is in their hands to fix the problem but I do think that a lot of guys feel like their challenges are being dismissed by The Whining of a privileged class that they themselves don't actually feel like they're a part of that you know it is so ironic how all the projections out there of who's actually privileged privileged in our culture and you know you have men saying well you know now women and minorities and immigrants are privileged and women and minorities immigrants go those white guys are privileged and you know I I've really never found where blame or pointing fingers resolves much of anything or gets you anywhere yes I that being said if you are a guy that is struggling and isolated and alone and doesn't have many connections hearing that the world out there considers you to have some sort like you're the original oppressor yeah exactly you know I get it you are the OG patriarchy yeah of course you are the OG oppressor that is going to encourage you to check out it's like hey I'm suffering it's an excuse you can use it as a great excuse correct yes yeah it legitimates your your priz already okay so how can people better learn to make their needs a priority how do you start doing that I began by giving to myself I years ago I I was in therapy I was married to my second wife who I was married to and I I wrote No More Mr Nice Guy and um it it became obvious that I was operating but by what I call covert contracts giving to get if I do this for you then you'll do this for me I won't have to say it out loud won't have to ask won't have to be clear or direct you'll just read my mind because I I I gave you and now now you're going to give to me and so when when I was working with a therapist I was in a men's group at that time I made a a year-long commitment that I would no longer give gifts surprises anything to anybody else other than my children so like if I was at the mall I oh my wife would like that I if I if I saw had any impulse to give to somebody else I had to give something to me okay not not necessarily equal but I it it was a way of reversing an old Paradigm an old pattern I was just so reflexively giving to everybody else and in the midst of doing that the people in my life felt the strings attached I didn't realize I was giving to get giving to approval to get approval giving for them to give him back and then when they did try to give to me I wouldn't let them right so I had to start giving with me so that's where it had to begin I had to say okay what do I want what's my priorities what's important to me you know I'd go in the mall and there'd be a jacket on sale and I haven't bought myself a jacket in a while and I'd buy myself a jacket uh you know I'd pay for my kids to go to the dentist or the dontist and I thought it's been a few years since I've been to the dentist so I thought I need to go to the dentist so you know all the way from just basic healthc care kind of thing and I continue to this day you know wear a ring that tracks my sleep I try to give to me by getting enough sleep I just hired um a nutrition coach I I want to you know I want to be around another 20 30 years and have a Fit Body and fit mind and I thought I got to give to me I gotta eat well I I told my fitness coach but I don't want to track macros I'm tracking macros I got Happ you can't get around it yeah so whether it's giving to ourselves in just those basic fundamental get enough exercise get enough sleep eat healthy spend time socially connecting with other people save money go to the dentist whether's those basic things or or just you know ordering yourself some new clothes you know saying I'm going to goang prioritizing yourself first prioritizing self now the I I know people already listening to this going but that's just selfish that's just fundamentally selfish what if everybody lived that way and I think if everybody lived that way we'd probably be a lot better off because we wouldn't be you know walking around from this place of emptiness needing us and manipulating people to to to try to Value us or give to us and if our bucket is full and overflowing we have so much more to give to everybody else I like a lot of people for a long time was trying to give from an empty bucket my bucket was bone dry you know not only did I not I didn't fill it but I didn't let anybody else help me fill it so if you're not carrying for yourself if you're not doing the things that makes you whole you then look to other people to fill something that you can you could have done already you are an empty vessel you come to fix me however I'm not going to tell you that I need you to fix me and I'm not going to fix me and then I'm going to become resentful of you and me for me being empty that that that's probably definition of neediness right there and you know and this again this is when I'm talking with people about how to get their needs met the first thing that guys will say well you know will that make me needy you know that that that that repulses women right that that in no making your needs a priority does not make you needy not making your needs a priority walking around with an empty bucket with this big vacuum hose that you try to hook up to other people to get them to meet your needs that's neediness and that's what you know people kind of go go like this to so we all have needs and and to just acknowledge I have needs and and again guys want well what's the difference between a need and a want don't don't go there if you want it great if you need it great but make yourself a priority and where you know kind of bringing this back around and more pieces to this but uh really good book I've been recommending it it seems like a lot lately because it's an old book that a lot of the younger generation hasn't discovered but it's a book called The Road Less Traveled by Dr M Scott peek a psychiatrist he's passed away I'm told it is the all-time best-selling self-help book and it's been around well over 30-some years back when I was a minister I even preached sermons from it many many many years ago I you're smiling oh Minister what go there um and I brought up in a Christian Church that says put yourself last put yourself last you know subjugate your desires yeah yeah I I can tell you some stories about that so Scott peek says that if parents are meeting their own needs are attentive to their children responding to their children's needs and timely judicious and I add consistent ways children at this young at a young age emotionally internalize a belief I'm valuable I'm lovable my needs are important and the world is like my family now can you imagine going off to preschool kindergarten think I'm lovable I'm valuable my needs are important and kindergarten is going to be just like my family or Junior High you know I'm lovable I'm valuable my needs are important and everybody in junior high is going to be just like my family if we operated that in the world can you imagine how our lives would be so significantly different we just add internalized belief I'm valuable I'm lovable my needs are important and of course most of us did not get that to a significant degree we maybe got the opposite and unfortunately another piece that can get added in if you don't get that is that if your parents are not meeting your needs in timely judicious consistent ways they may tell you they love you 100 times a day but if they're not meeting your needs you don't internalize that emotional belief but if they're not meeting your needs then you get called up maybe even to take care of a parent you get parentified like for me uh I like sports and so my father got a lot of Pride out of his son you know being good in sports and my mother you know lived through me to be the good man that my father wasn't so I was parentified by both of my parents then a child internalizes the belief I'm not good enough because you think I should be able to fill mom up and make her not depressed and make her happy I should be able to satisfy you know Dad in this way and and so you internalize that belief now you got the beliefs of I'm not valuable or lovable my needs aren't important I'm not good enough and the world is like my family that's how most people approach the world so here's my theory my theory if Scott peek's theory is accurate and and I believe it has value and maybe our minds aren't as receptive and elastic and and plastic as they were when we were infants our brains are still plastic and we can we can still rewrite overwrite our basic operating system that machine language and so I believe that we're actually going to make the world a better place be more loving accept more love if we can start making our needs a priority in that way that Scott peek talks about okay it's not our parents jobs anymore it's our job so our job is number one when we can fill our own bucket up number two surround ourselves with people who want to help us fill our bucket up and create what I call Cooperative reciprocal relationships everybody in the relationship is there because I choose to be it's cooperative and it's reciprocal everybody gets value that can be a friendship it can be a family member a buddy it can be a professional Cooperative you and I have a Cooperative reciprocal relationship we're both here because we choose to be we both get value out of it and our lives are better because we have this time together and if we can fill our lives up with that I believe we can also internalize the emotional belief not just a mantra oh I'm good enough I'm lovable but an emotional belief in our nervous system at the core I'm lovable and valuable my needs are important I'm good enough and the world sees that and the world's going to respond to that I think that then lets us be much more loving and giving to the world around us and much more receptive to all that the the world the universe the cosmos wants to give us in other news this episode is brought to you by nomatic their travel pack is my favorite backpack of all time you can tell this one is a bit worn because I actually use it every single day it is a complete Game Changer if you're someone that carries your stuff regularly you need a good quality backpack I cannot tell you how big of a change of quality of life it is when you have a properly engineered well-designed backpack that helps you to organize your life when you're on the move I even survived a full month on tour using a travel pack and a carry-on because hold luggage is a scop meant to keep you poor and late and you can defeat them by getting better quality luggage nomatic has got thousands of five star reviews from customers who love their product and everything comes with a lifetime warranty so if it breaks for any reason they will replace it for free right now you can get 20% off everything sitewide by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to nomatic docm Modern wisdom that's Nom matic.com slod wisdom I'm interested in taking that step from just tactical things which are a great Foundation if I'm going to give to somebody else have you given to yourself recently probably a good idea that's something that's tactical uh learning to clearly and fairly State when something makes you feel good or makes you feel bad probably a good way of setting boundaries and reinforcing behavior that you want from people around you all of these things tactically very useful at a high level but the deeper stage of this of unpicking the texture of your system as you're talking about like the emotional response that you have as opposed to just creating this odd ltis work of Band-Aids that you've placed over the top of it to somehow be able to operate in a functional way from a dysfunctional Foundation how do what are the steps of getting deeper how much can we unpick those patterns that we've developed from even preverbally and what are the steps that you like to get people to go through well number one I don't know there's about three or four questions there I don't know I don't know how much we can rewrite I know we can rewrite some you know people will come to me and say Robert how long will this take for me to get to XY or Z I don't know I I'm still I'm still on that journey I haven't gotten there yet I'm still learning I'll let you know once I I find out probably a lifetime so if we do anything you know are if there's anything about the human mind and the human nervous system it it it likes predictability it likes the sameness kind of going back to that quote that that you you you read earlier we like the ghetto we know even if it's you know it's a ghetto but it's the ghetto we know and you know to leave that ghetto and go out into the world where I don't know what language they speak I don't know how they what their rules are you know we we'll just stay where we are but countless people throughout time have decided to challenge themselves you know whether through religious spiritual practice yogic practice challenging themselves to make more money challenge themselves to get into shape whatever no matter how we challenge ourself our nervous system our mind our body is going to resist it wants to hold on to the famili familiar neural Pathways those neural goat paths that we've been down the muscle memory that we've just created since before we could think and reason okay that's normal that that's why coaching is valuable that's why therapy is valuable that's why 12-step groups are valuable that's why you know having mentors is valuable it's because if we're going to do it on our own we we'll probably keep you know stumbling and bumping into hurdles and brick walls and and we we'll quit we'll give up but if if we can make this journey with others who either are on a similar Journey or who've already been the further down the road when our emotional dissonance our cognitive dissonance our physical dissonance when our reaction comes in um we have accountability we have support we don't have to go through it alone because for example um you know I I like to be in shape but I I've never been a gym rat and I've never been you know one of those people that just die hard guy to get to the gym every day and so you know I've learned it's better if I don't say I'm going to lose x amount of weight and this amount of time or I'm going to go to the gym this many times CU as soon as I set like a commitment to myself that's out of my normal habit pattern I almost always about a week or two later catch myself Gone Gone the other direction without even being aware right just a few examples when um when I was going through my second divorce and I was in my late 40s living alone for the first time in my adult life I started going to a 12-step group a few of them actually just to get have a support system just to have a men's group you know they got a lot of platitudes in 12 steps and one of them was about having an attitude of gratitude so I thought you know going through divorce my my life's in turmoil my first book's just about to be published you know my my son's a senior in high school my life was just it just felt upside down and so a buddy I met in this 12ep group I said let's start a gratitude practice every morning before uh first thing when we get up every night before we get in bed let's just think of 30 seconds three you know four five six 10 things we feel grateful for and we'll check in with each other both of us started this four or five days in I was just feeling amazing I was going through all these changes struggles difficulties and I was feeling good because I was doing this gratitude practice and about the fifth day I forgot to do it and so did my buddy and we probably both went about two or three days before it dawned on us wait a minute we haven't been doing that gratitude practice it was it felt good both of us were liking it and we just forgot that's that emotional cognitive dissonance of where our nervous system wants to just keep things homeostatic keep things in a familiar pathway and so now if I am going to make a significant commitment I do have to surround myself with people and I have to check in I I decided end of last year I thought you know I've I've always thought it was a good idea to meditate you know I've tried I always thought we got to get uncomfortable sitting cross-legged on this cushion you know and and can I not have any thought and so a guy I knew I said would you coach me in meditation he lives on Michael singer's compound in Florida and so I thought if he's living there he probably you know is into meditation and so he did so we started every day we check in we just came up with a plan first thing in the morning and so that's probably been four or five months now and I've only missed three days of meditation because we checked in every day we connected with each other um you know one day it was late at night I thought oh I'm going to miss a day I thought [ __ ] it I don't want this to be ego driven I'm going to do it because I want to do it so I missed it I didn't try to squeeze it in the end of the day and I and I have found out there's an interesting mathematics to this if I do the meditation early in the morning first thing of the day I don't miss it you know if I mean it's it goes on the calendar I take a snapshot I wait till later I can get pushed push pushed I forget about it same thing you know wanting to be healthy and fit okay I've I've hired a fitness coach and so and we check in regularly and I'm putting things in you know my fitness pal and I'm doing all that stuff that is how we change those old patterns it it it takes consistency over time I know in the in the self-help world there's this thing 21 days to change a habit I don't know who in the [ __ ] thought that up I've never changed a habit in 21 days uh I think if you've had something in your nervous system in my case 60s something years it ain't going away in 21 days but I'm okay with that I can be the noticer because when you decide okay I'm going to eat this way or I'm going to exercise this way or I'm going to practice gratitude this way or meditate this way now you become the Observer of self you notice when you have the impulse to go eat this thing that you know you're not eating or skip the day at the gym or not meditate you notice the pattern coming up and then again if you have a support system you just check in and and then just pick it up again to tomorrow so it's not rocket science but it is challenging how can we stop our ruminating brains you mentioned there about when you posit an ideal you then begin to compare yourself to that ideal and a lot of the time you start to fall short and I think lots of people especially High performers personal developers self- Growers will have a very scolding inner voice yeah I I I watch those interviews and I'm going oh my goodness i' hate to be inside his head yeah um but yeah but but we put him on pedestals the high performers you know the the worship of Navy SEALs you know all this stuff that especially we men do in this culture and um yeah most of them are driven by a lot of Demons by a lot of voices in their head and and you know may maybe you can relate to that as well I fortunately don't h i I can I can ruminate as well as the next person but I don't I fortunately I don't have that critical voice generally my mind just I just it keeps me safe I just don't launch into bigger and and you know things that the unknown um but I don't have a highly critical voice but I work with a lot of people that do I think every woman I've been married to has had that my father did um is maybe one of my superpowers to you know to kind of help calm the people down but I I have a whole course that I call the ruminating brain and my theory about ruminating brain is that I think for many people it's an inherited trait that you don't have to look far in the family tree to see Mom Dad sibling grandparents Aunt uncles with some manifestation of this rumination kind of pattern you see depressed depression anxiety uh suicides often times addictive issues relationship struggles abuse um and so I think it's a brain type that you inherit like Studies have shown you can inherit brain types that predispose you to addictions uh to ADHD and ruminating brain and I found those three things often go together I've got so many buddies that are are recovering addicts and most all of molers they have ADHD and most all magners they have a ruminating brain so I think there's something genetically inherited of those traits now it could the ruminating brain can also be caused by trauma that's what PTS does it can create ruminations it can lead to depression but what the ruminating brain typically does and brains don't actually ruminate but it's like there's that this constant spinning like there's a washing machine agitating all the time and you're inside the washing machine and I found that there's three ways three directions ruminating brains tend to go then go into the past and and and just rehash every perceived mistake Miss opportunity regret and you know if replay the same regret 15,000 times you're going to feel like a real loser you're going to feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with you and I think even going back to these isolated men we were talking about earlier I suspect a lot do have ruminating brains because if you're going in the past and just rehashing oh I blew that opportunity how come I didn't talk to her how come I didn't get her number how come I broke up with her how come I stayed with her all I I was teaching when I taught this course live a few years ago had a guy who was probably about my age it was in his 50s or 60s still ruminating about a missed sexual opportunity in college still beating himself up so again the mind creates this illusion that it's just Gathering important information it's important that I keep going back and rehashing relooking at this stuff because there's something I missed something I need to know but all you really do is just you just end up feeling worse and worse and worse about yourself so the other thing that people do in that backward looking is they create I call it revisionist history other people call it like Castles in the Sky we go back and replay these events and we say if I just done X Y or Z then my life would have gone down this path and this if I just had slept with her when I had that chance in college my whole life would be radically different but it's not true we'd still probably be ruminators and we'd still be ruminating about all missed opportunities but we We Believe that that revisionist history is highly likely could be possible and it's not what we're living now so now we feel terrible so here's another way then that that our ruminating brain beats us up it measures us and Compares us maybe it measures us against just any arbitrary uh uh standard well I should be a millionaire by this I should be married by this time I should have had should have slept to the 100 women by this time you know I should have launched my my my program by this time or oh look he's my age and he's so Bill Gates is the same age as me and graduated from high school in the same city as me same year and you know I I he's you know what if I compared myself to to Bill Gates you know in terms of Le financial success I mean I'd be miserable if I actually took that seriously so there's that comparison and the measurement almost always finding ourselves lacking and being less than in some fundamental significant way that's one reason I'm not a big fan of this Bow Down and Worship the high achiever uh thing that we're so caught up in you know 10x your life 10x this you could be doing better you could be making more you could be doing that you could be a Navy SEAL you could be that I think all it does is just fuel that I'm I'm not good enough I'm not good enough and and we know we're not going to attain that but we think we should in order to be good enough and so so then the Third Way that the ruminating bra goes is into the future this is where your perfectionism comes in if I don't do it perfectly it's G to crash it's gonna burn what if I fail what if I look foolish what if I invest in it and I lose everything I've got what you know with my luck you know everything's going to crash and everything's okay now but it's only a matter of time till everything goes south goes tiits up and everything just you know so what happens if you've got that going on in your head and most ruminators maybe do all three of those go in the past go in the future do the measure and compare but most do one significantly more than the other and the three things it tends to do to you it keeps you stuck because if you're just ruminating about the past trying to figure out every possible pathway forward before you take any action you know research everything to death you all that you're not going to take action so you're going to stay stuck you're going to stay isolated there's that isolated thing because you don't want people to find out cuz if you're ruminating in all these negative ways your odds are not going to feel really good about yourself and you don't want to let people get close to you because you're afraid they're going to find out what you already believe to be true so and you're going to feel really bad about yourself because um again if you rehash the same mistakes enough times if you miss enough opportunities because it took you too long to make a decision if you compare and measure yourself enough you'll find enough people doing better than you you're just going to feel fundamentally flawed and it just goes on and on but thankfully there is there there is good news and um I teach people a combination of both mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy but it's as simple as how can we step out of the washing machine and watch it spin rather than be in it being spun by it so I I I I the primary U Mantra of of what I teach people ruminating brain is practice being The Observer not the believer of our thoughts unfortunately if we've thought something for long enough a belief is nothing but an offre repeated thought if you've thought that thought enough times you're convinced it's true doesn't matter what our belief is it could be religious belief political belief belief about ourselves belief about women belief about the world if you thinking enough and if you find enough other supporting evidence through uh uh confirmation bias of course it must be true and uh so stepping out of that machine and watching it going it sure still seems true that I'm you know you know so many men create their their their sense of value by measuring how well they've done with women in life you know how many times they've been late if they've been late how many girlfriends they've had if they've had girlfriends how you know have they been married you know or how many times have they been married now you cross the line that now so I see guys who don't feel they're good enough because they've never had a girlfriend or they've never had sex so they must not be good enough or they haven't had enough sex or not enough sex with enough pretty women or you know they haven't had a I talking to somebody the other day all my girlfri all my all my relationships ended about two years so he he's judging himself for that um I was on a call with two podcasters and all you know me and the other two guys all work with people around relationships and um one guy said well I'm not in a relationship right now so I I I kind of have this thing how can I teach people the other guy says well I met my my wife in high school and that's the only one I've ever been with how can I teach people and I go I've met divorced three times how can I teach people it it's so it's funny how we find these things to measure ourself that are absolutely inconsequential but we're just sure they're proof of our Worth or or lack of worth it's so interesting it's the uh Michael Singer influence there of you are not your thoughts you're the Observer of your thoughts being able to sort of step away and and and see that washing machine going on I think so many of the thought patterns that people engage in regularly the stories that they tell themselves the little sort of like reverse mantras that they have not something that's positive and encourages them usually not at all but something which is negative and reinforces a fear that they have or an insufficiency that they're concerned about or whatever uh you're right if you say those things to yourself enough times you'll end up believing that they're true and then after a while they just become part of you and you're not even believing it anymore it's like the physics of your system yeah you know whe whether you you do a dive into like Joe despenser type quantum physics you know pick the path you want psychologically the world will be as we believe the world to be we will be in the World As We Believe ourselves it goes back to you know what we internalize at a young age so if you believe the world is XYZ that's what you're going to see you're only going to see examples of that and you you won't see all the things that might contradict those beliefs just two bits there first off the the way that the reticular activating system actually works is precisely by that it's why when you buy a new car you're like is every 10 [ __ ] person got this same car like why no the same color you're now you're you're now looking for it right it's the same reason as to why they do experiment where they tell people to pick all of the things that were red in a room and then say and how many things were blue they go I have no idea it's like well no because you weren't looking for the things that were blue you were looking for the things that were red so have you heard the one about the gorilla yes where they get The Passing basketball how many times did they pass the basketball and did you notice the gorilla that came through the middle of the screen no one noticed the gorilla that came through the middle of the screen yeah of course so the way that the reticular activating system works you actually do uh from a sort of sensory interpret ation perspective you blot out the things that you're not looking for and if you are looking for a reason as to why you are a loser or why you are not worthy or why people don't like you or why the world doesn't care whether you live or die or you're inferior to other people or they're more successful or they've got more friends or they're going to make more money or whatever it is you will observe like Global confirmation bias you will find things that reinforce that belief easily so from the sort of particular activating and now the internet will feed that to you as well of course because you actually have algorithms that pick out that they realize that you spent 0.5 seconds longer on all of the negative news stories than the positive ones or on the ones that are aspirational about dudes that have got 3% body fat and 220 pounds stay shredded all your own everybody looks it's like watching porn and think every guy's got a big dick everybody's got a big dick no no you're being you're seeing a skewed perspective of the world so first thing yes that's the way that the reticular activating system works but on top of that as well I think you can repurpose the story you tell yourself about pretty much almost anything so there this great great great example Sam Harris uses where he says at the end of a workout you know really tough cardio and weights workout when your heart rate's at 190 and you're lying on the floor of the gym in a sweat Angel and you're panting and you've got the taste of metal in the back of your throat and you're hot and sweat everywhere and that sensation in and of itself is quite uncomfortable and yet you're taking such cathartic weird pleasure from this masochistic thing that you just did to yourself because of the story that you tell yourself now if that exact same stimulus happened spontaneously while you were sat in traffic you would think I need to go to the hospital [ __ ] immediately right what is happening to me that tells us that the story that you tell yourself about why something is happening very much and maybe almost entirely is your experience of that thing well and what's the quote the only difference between anxiety and excitement is breath is uh um Fritz pearls I think said that that they're the same neurological response in the body but when you're excited you're actually breathing but when you're anxious you quit breathing but they're the same neurological response in the body so yes what we label things and the context we give things makes all the difference and and and like you yeah I I believe this is I believe anything is within our power to begin making adjustments now I I I kind of throw out a kind of another part to this I've never found anybody make a significant change from a place of shame or from hating on themselves and I'll just give you example you know yeah I tend to carry my weight in my belly and I found that whenever you know if I gain a little weight there if I start just every time I look in the mirror I just hate on my belly it doesn't go away never has gone away from hating on it but if I focus on my chest a little bit on my shoulders and arms a little bit which I like better and just kind of send love and think how can I keep doing better the belly takes care of itself and a lot of people think the way to make significant change is is to have ific shame wrapped around it or to hate on themselves but the hating on yourself how's that going to open you up to let good things happen to let yourself change in positive ways so let good things come to you well do you want to be around that person either like is that the friend you want there so many people have that person up here in their head course of course and you know I'm speaking to myself here I have a very scolding in a voice it's very quick to judge it's very quick to tell me when I've fallen short of these impossibly arbitrary high standards that no one else knows so here's one here's one thing that happens uh pretty frequently I think for me and I know that Lex fredman has the the same issue when you're speaking a sentence as a podcaster you're very intimately connected with the texture of your mind with the friction from what you're thinking to what you mean to say and a lot of the time you're trying to play this odd balance between getting out of your own way so that the words come out naturally realistically and also being sufficiently engaged so that you can craft the direction of where the sentence is going and sometimes you forget a word or you slightly misspeak or you're imprecise with the way that you meant to describe something or you use one term when you could have used a different one or you pause in the wrong sort of place and you know this is my craft this speaking thing is what I do and I am I I absolutely adore this level of this relationship I have with my verbal and it's one of the things that I pride myself on the most but it also means that when I start to fall short if there is something where I just I just trip over a little rock ever so slightly and that to me plays on my mind because I think well this is where you could would should have been how you're constructing the next sentence which you then begin to spiral down from there but here's the weird thing nobody else knows the sentence that you could have spoken no one no one else knows no one else knows the blog post you could have written nobody else knows the meal you could have cooked nobody else knows the chest press rep that you could have done only you will know about that and there's I can see how for type B people with that the lack of external scrutiny gives them the opportunity to do less and to kind of hide away but for type A people that gives them this sort of bizarre internal Taskmaster that continues to whip them until they hit some impossibly high standard that nobody could ever meet in any case still not good enough correct there there's you know that Taskmaster doesn't okay I put the whip down you achieved it in other news this episode is brought to you by netsuite the less your business spends on operations on multiple systems on delivering your product or service the more margin you have and the more money that you keep but with higher expenses on materials employees distribution and borrowing everything costs more so to reduce costs and headaches smart businesses are graduating to netsuite by Oracle netsuite is the number one Cloud Financial system bringing accounting financial management inventory and HR into one platform with netsuite you reduce it costs because netsuite lives in the cloud with no Hardware required and accessed from anywhere you cut the cost of maintaining multiple systems because you've got one unified business management suite and you're improving efficiency by bringing all of your major business processes into one platform over 37,00 thousand companies have already made the move net Suite has extended its one-of-a-kind flexible financing program for a few more weeks so right now you can get that by following the link in the show notes below or heading to netsuite.com slod that's netsuite.com slod oh you you listened to that episode I did with Matthew Hy didn't you yeah so he has this great story where he's talking about how um he he starts each day basically in in something similar to productivity debt Oliver burkman's got this phenomenal idea of productivity debt that when he wakes up every morning he imagines that he's somehow overdrawn in this contribution to starts the day over yes yes and that it is his job that by the end of the day if he castigates and flagellates himself sufficiently he may be able to get it back to zero like only zero though you can never be in this the 4,000 weeks guy we're correct yeah that's all of a burkman and then um this is Matthew hussy's thing which I think relates to it I struggle to believe I'm worthy of moments of joy and peace without first putting myself through a brutal schedule monitoring my productivity levels down to the minute perhaps some people apply this to earn your cookie mindset in ways that lead to healthy accomplishments not me mine is a mutation whereby joy and self-compassion are regularly outlawed by an internal Tyrant who decides when I've been flogged enough for one day just when I'm about to collapse a voice inside says okay give him half an hour of Peace before bed but make sure he knows we'll start again brightened early in the morning in debt in debt productivity debt in debt yep yeah and you know that's what I was talking about about stepping outside the washing machine right when you're inside the washing machine you don't know you're being spun by it that's that's normal that's life it's it's just what is but when you can step outside as Matthew does in that example he can be the Observer of himself and from there something can shift he can do something different I I love living in Mexico I love that Mexican culture honors the Siesta I lay down at least two maybe three times a day sometimes for 10 15 minutes sometimes for 30 minutes or an hour and whether it's just put a little hot pack on my eyes or take a nap and you know I'm so much more productive I I can work from 7 in the morning till 10: at night and not feel drained or exhausted or driven just because I can build those those little gaps in there just say time to relax time to recharge the battery and if you can step outside that cycle you can go H I'm gonna go lay down for 15 minutes when when sometimes when I I'll do like 30 or 90day challenges with with guys around different areas of life one of the assignments I I almost always give now just because I love the reaction is that no matter what the challenge is whether it's a fitness challenge you know meditation challenge whatever the challenge is they have to take 30 minutes a day to meticulously do nothing whether it's just sit on a bench sit in nature go for a casual walk take a nap listen to music meditate whatever it is 30 minutes a day and it's funny it's the thing they resist the most starting out but by the time the challenge is up they love it they absolutely love it cuz just that doing nothing kind of just refilling the bucket again recharges you makes you more productive and again this is kind of like that drive that nobody ever changed from a place of shame or or or hating on something yeah we can drive ourselves we can drive ourselves um but you never do get there that was an unfinished thought from me earlier on where was saying who would you rather be around like yeah exactly what think about your friends and think about the ones that are performing well and then imagine that that person was able to push themselves to that level of performance or even close to it let's say they had to sacrifice 5% of their outcomes in life but they got to gain 50% of no longer cursing themselves and the shame and the blame and the guilt and and stuff who would you rather your friends be you would absolutely go dude this seems like the best deal in history like the only reason that you're trying to be successful and Achieve something is presumably to make yourself feel happy and in the pursuit of trying to be become successful so that you can become happy you're making yourself miserable you're sacrificing the thing that you want for the thing that's supposed to get the thing that you want yeah and yeah you know if if you can again me speaking to me if you can see that you would much sooner be around that person because they're going to be a better friend and the energy that they bring to the room is just going to be so much more positive some for the world but that you would want that for them just for them yeah right you want that because their day-to-day experience of the world is going to be so much more joyful and enjoyable and it seems to me you know looking at at your work and increasingly kind of opening the lid on how people operate that chronic shame is such a huge driver of why people do almost everything that they do in life it it yeah we're surrounded with shame you know cultur familiar familiarly I said that wrong I feel so terrible religiously and it rather than making people happy and successful it makes them easy to control and and then that's why why religion and governments you know if they if if they can make people feel bad about something that's normal or natural it's easy to control them because you know it's like a little kid I I my my my my my doctor my education is marriage and family therapy and you know parents used to bring kids into me and go my kids's doing this they're doing that and I go that's actually normal behavior well no but but it's driving me crazy I don't want him to do it and you know that they would shame the kid for normal natural stage of behavior and and you know the kid will e the kid will do one of two things it'll either start hiding the behavior to avoid the punishment the consequence but it doesn't mean it goes away or the impulse goes away or they become positionally defiant they just push back against everything they'll cut off their nose despite their face if if you make shame the the motivating factor and that's why I've learned I if I want to actually accomplish something I can't set some big lofty goal for doing it I've got an oppositionally defiant self that will defy me to say no [ __ ] you know we're not going to do it that way and at the same time I at least my friends all tell me they've told me this for years Robert you're so consistently productive my wife would frame that differently she says Robert you work all the time and I'm not driven I'm I'm really not you know I got a PhD at 29 but not because I was driven I just I hated school in high school but the further I went the more I liked school so I just I ke I liked you could do research and uh write and things like that when I got to grad school so I kept going so it wasn't because I was driven to get a PhD um I mean I may do some things out of insecurity oh if I get some letters after my name you know I'll be more believable but it wasn't a drive I had to get a PhD um you know I've built businesses I've written four books I've um you know just moved to Mexico I I've just done things but never because oh I got this big goal I gotta I got to make that happen I just usually went in the direction of either what I just naturally seemed to enjoy or what I was naturally curious about every book I've written just CU I was curious I wanted to understand stuff so I just dove into it and at some point thought what I guess I should just write a book about it now but I'm not I'm not super highly driven but if again if you ask anybody that's known me for very long they say that I'm also very consistently productive and so for me to be consistently productive I I I'm always involved in things I enjoy being involved with for example I I love doing this I get never said no to an interview in my life uh I I I love this communication when you were talking about constructing sentences earlier I thought I love this where where the sentences just come out of me the Muse just speaks uh you know I love doing Q&A I hate doing keynote speeches where I have to get up and give a canned speech because then I'm just you know oh what if I forget to say that one thing I want to say but doing a Q&A I absolutely love it so I've orchestrated my life to get to do as many things as I like doing I I whatever my sweet spots are I try to spend as much time there as I can places that aren't my sweet spot I either try to find a way out of it pay someone to do it I hate accounting I hate bookkeeping pay my account $550 a month to do all my books and taxes best $550 ever spent and that lets me then keep stay in my sweet spot and so for example for me to get back into a fitness routine I got a gym in my house my office is in my house I got a swimming pool in the backyard my Gym's 10 ft away from my office my wife's a gym rat she she'll work out in the gym in the house and then go to the gym that has the heavier weights and the bigger machines and you know sh Connie you know you going the gym today right yeah yeah yeah dear yeah I'll be in there so if I'm going to be consistent I got to find a way to to that I I learn to enjoy that I I've got to make it a sweet spot that I get to the gym so now I've started listening you know to to good podcasts while I'm at the gym or I'll put on you know the good music that I like or I I've got to find a way to make it enjoyable because I'm just if I'm just pushing myself forcing myself driving myself it's not going to last long it it just will not be consistent so for me the way I'm wired if I find things I love doing um I can do them day and night and give me a few little naps in there and give me give me some good buddies to talk to during the day I'll keep going forever I I can keep going forever yeah but that's just me that's how I'm wired I was thinking had a conversation a couple of weeks ago the guy that you're going for dinner with tonight uh George it was his 30th in Miami and um we were talking about why hard work is so pedestalize in this version of the modern world where leverage has been more available than ever before where you can get more done whilst putting in less hard work is still this sort of Mainstay and rightly so like I I like working hard but one of the things one of the reasons that I think it is so pedestalize is that it's kind of like a universal solution to a multivariant problem so there are lots of different ways to get the successful outcome that you want you can use leverage you can be creative you can have the right networks you can do there's lots of different ways lots of those have a medium failure rate in them hard work has a very low failure rate in it there are very few problems that if you throw lot of hard work at it won't get better now it'll get better painfully slowly it'll cause you to have to sacrifice yourself you'll be crucified you your sleep will take a hate the quality of your relationships all of these things you will pay a very high price basically hard work is a reliable route to achieving something and I think that its reliability causes us to think that makes it a Panacea it's like no it's one component of what you do and it may be one of the foundations that there are very few things that you can get good at without working hard I.E consistently with a degree of attention for non insignificant durations of time let's say that's what hard work is uh but that doesn't mean that you need to pray at the altar of it and it also doesn't mean that you need to castigate yourself if you don't always work hard so one of the strange things I did when I was running these nightclub events in my 20s when we started running them I had to work very hard I paid a high personal price for them then the events began to become successful but I shortcut the sense of satisfaction I got from the events being successful to if it was successful and I didn't suffer this doesn't count it doesn't count exactly doesn't count if I didn't s if it if it happened and it went well but I didn't pay a high personal price for this I didn't not even worked hard I could you know you know that's Twisted right of course that's messed up of course yeah of course of course and at the time I just I don't know what I thought it was I thought I I think that I considered there to be some sort of nobility in the suffering itself you know like a Puritan work ethic these priests hoing the garden sun beating down on their back and it's in service of God it's not in service of the work it's in service it's not in service of the outcome of the work it's in service of the work itself and of the the tribute that it it is and uh yeah that you know odd kind of like laborious masochistic approach that we have to the things that we do uh I see an awful lot and yeah i' I'd had this sort of insight about hard work as well well here's even AIT little bit of a Twist on the hard work thing if you look around the world the hardest working people are usually the poorest people especially if you're talk about physical labor you I I live you can't you can't use the word third world country or Glo emerging economy anymore I don't know what Mexican Mexico qualifies a Nar run institution I don't know uh it is um but you know I'm surrounded by people who work really hard and have absolutely nothing and have absolutely nothing and so I'm I'm a fan of hard work but I'm a fan of of smart hard work of of hard work that that that actually takes you where you want to go because you can work really really hard and and not have anything to show for it um but you're right it's kind of built into into our culture and I think it's maybe another one of those ways that cultures just tried to control us if you get people you tell them you got to keep working hard you know God favors the you know the person who works hard God's going to bless you well you can keep people plowing on your Fields you know time in and time out they'll be subjugated to the local Baron or they'll not break the rules or they won't spend enough time to be able to become a revolutionary Force that'll overthrow the government or the king that's what they're all afraid of the revolutionaries they they don't want is is is how do we keep us people with power in power well we'll create a religion we'll create a cultural meme we'll do whatever I mean you know I increasingly I'm a ruthless capitalist through and through but I do increasingly I'm seeing this sort of bizarre internal Tyrant that people have about their work rate and when you think you know go back a few thousand years and the requirement to um use slaves forced labor in order to be able to get [ __ ] done and then how smart to somehow repurpose the slave master to be inside the slave itself to think you go and work you go and work and you tell yourself that you want to work and then you tell yourself the story that this was what you were supposed to do and you chose to do this all along it's so fascinating and again you know what's that quote about capitalism is the worst system apart from all of the other ones that have been tried compared to everything else and but here's a thought let's put put a little different light on it what's the best day of your life look like theoretically our hard work theoretically the stuff you know I I I launched a new company in a year ago it took me two years of building it before I launched it you know I bootstrapped it I'm in debt over it I I I I worked from 7:00 a.m. till 9:00 at night it has not paid me a paycheck yet and I'm loving it I'm I'm I'm having such a good time with it so what's the best day of our life look like is it the day that this finally pays off that it finally crosses this threshold that you finally had that success with the event you know that I get to do you know an in-person podcast you know with somebody with a lot of followers what's the best day of my life and I don't think many of us most of us even ask ourselves that question what are we working towards isn't it theore ically towards the best day of our life that on someday we'll have finished the work and we can rest we can enjoy it we can take pride in it we can experience the fruits of our labor we can share with our friends we can dance we can sing we can have a good night's sleep we can have sex we you know isn't that best day of our life and I'm wondering do we really have to work so hard to have the best day of our life can you and I get up today and if and if you and I don't get up today with the intention of having the best day of our life why not when's that going to happen is it going to be tomorrow this Saturday next Saturday you know when when you know when the business starts making a profit when you're over 5 thou 5 million remember 5,000 probably was a big deal right huge deal yeah yeah and now you've broken a million two million 5 million 50 million yeah will you be happy and have the best day of your life then not unless you get up every day and have some component of the best day of your life today what's that senica quote how long are you going to wait until you start to demand the best for yourself it kind of goes back to making us a priority a lot a lot of people continue to wait I want to I want to talk we didn't get to speak much last time about dating and about how nice guys seek the validation and how it shows up in their Intimate Relationships how much do you think of nice guy syndrome stems from just wanting and needing the love and validation of women well probably began with Mom so yeah yeah and another quote from from one of my coaches in his book um that that I love he says a man doesn't mature until he quits seeking the approval of a woman and I thought I was listening to that on an audio book while driving from California to Washington I had to pull off the road and keep replaying that a man doesn't mature until he quits seeking the approval of a woman unfortunately the way most men date especially nice guys as I Define them um is all about seeking the approval of women pick me pick me choose me get naked with me be want to be my girlfriend it's all chasing approval and you know as a marriage therapist I started doing marriage therapy 40 years ago and you know I've been married a few times most people most guys walking in my office they're still trying to chase the approval of a woman that you know has said I do and and married them so that that approval seeking I think of course began with mommy you know we come into this world we have a caregiver we're completely needy dependent vulnerable and so you know we had to make sure stuff was good with Mom we had to make sure she was in a good mood she was available you know and then we had female caregivers and then we had pre school with women and then kindergarten and Elementary School it makes sense that since we were born as as men that we've been it felt like life and death to get the approval of women but unfortunately chasing that approval with women in terms of of the dating scene in the dating World actually works completely against the results we want to get M what's the problem of chasing the approval of women well kind of like chasing that success through hard work you actually never do achieve it and it's based on the assumption that the approval of let's just say Feminine women could actually be attained I I don't know how many women have you been with but have have they been all consistently approving of you day in and day out no no of course not and and so is that even attainable to get the approval of women what what what if instead we were seeking the approval of ourself maybe the approval of our our male peers and Friends through um how we live our life and how we show up and our integrity and our authenticity and our values what if that actually was attainable I I for you know I sat down to talk with you I spent five six days out at a retreat center with 40 guys and just watching the love of men you know I assume everybody's straight the love that men were showing other and would show me I I I I go away from you know doing my the work I do with men feeling much more loved than I've ever felt in any relationship with a woman and I'm not trying to be dismissive of that but what I'm saying if we go if we go seeking that kind of approval from women not only are we probably not going to get it maybe it isn't attainable but then we start acting in ways that don't tend to turn women on that don't tend to make them go I want to get close to that guy I like how I feel when I'm around that guy in other news this episode is brought to you by ag1 it's important to me that the supplements I take are of the highest quality and that is why for over three years now I've been taking ag1 they conduct Relentless testing to set the standard for Purity and potency everything that they make is the highest quality it's NSF certified meaning that even Olympic athletes can use it and they've updated the recipe 52 times over the last decade as new research and sourcing has come in I'm massively focused on gut health at the moment and a1's ingredients are insanely heavy heavily researched for efficacy and quality and I love the fact that they've got Pro and prebiotics plus digestive enzymes to help support my gut best of all there is a 90-day money back guarantee so you can buy it and try it every single day for 89 days and if you do not like it they will give you your money back you can get that 90day money back guarantee and try ag1 with a Year's free Supply vitamin D and five free ag1 travel packs by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to drink a1.com wisdom that's drink A1 / wisdom yeah you say a woman may want to be attracted to a nice guy but biology won't allow it nice is not a turn on you know there there's a um I can't think of the name of it you you may know the name of it but there's um a dynamic that giving to people does not actually make them like you you know nice guys think that well if I just give this person something you know they'll like me asking people to give something of you is going to increase the likelihood that they're going to think well of you because now the mind has to justify I just gave something to that person I must think well of them I must think highly of them because we don't give stuff to people we don't like so requiring people to give stuff to you actually is more likely to drive up them you know wanting a connection than you you get me there there's a name for that I can't think of the I know what you mean I mean so reciprocal altruism is the Dynamic that it's based on but I I don't know what the the name of that particular effect something effect effect and I can't remember very interesting I'll think of it later I go why didn't I you tell me um that being said it's so there's there's another element in there which is implicit in me asking for something from you is the sense that in future you probably get to ask something from me right and but that I think is the opposite of that is here is me giving something to you which means that in future I'm going to ask for something in return here is a gift C contract correct which in future is going to be a debt but the other person doesn't know about the contract correct and and that's why when all of a sudden they're not given to us and we're all resentful and frustrated and pissed off and passive aggressive or whatever and they're going what are you even talking about I didn't know that there was any strings attached to those things you gave now I'm a giving generous person I I I I like to give most people like to give but when nice guys go see I'll give you an example I I I teach men to be social animals kind of kind of going back to um these isolated men as I mentioned when I when I got divorced from my second wife I was in my late 40s had never lived alone as an adult I married my first wife two days after I graduated from college moved out of the dorm moved in all right and there wasn't much Gap in between my first and second wife and when I got on the online dating sites match.com that was before the Swip right apps um and I looked at profiles I looked at women's profiles you know all the things they said they did you know the wine country the wine tasting the skiing the trips to Europe and I go and I wrote my profile and and I thought uh I spent the last you know 25 years you know going to my kids sport events walking the dog and trying to make my wife happy that's that's what my life looks like and and you know I thought that's not going to attract a lot to me but more than that I thought I want more of a life than that I want more of a life and so the the act of wanting to learn how to date drove me was part of what moved me to start creating the kind of life I wanted to live right well you have two choices right you can either lie about the sort of life that you're going to live or EXP to the world the boring as [ __ ] life that you actually are having and that doesn't that doesn't go well in the profile you know so I I you know I made my bucket list you I want to learn to shoot a gun I want to ski I want to learn Spanish I want to travel I want to do this and but mainly I I I work to becom a social animal if if there was anything that I could do and I could do it in public I went out in public and did it whether it's you know reading my New York Times or you know eating my breakfast or going out to have dinner I'd go to you know happy hour bar in a restaurant i' take my laptop i' take my books if I could go be in public I'd go be and I practiced talking it to people around me just and and then I started being successful in terms of dating and getting laid and my client started saying Robert teach us I'm not a dating coach but you're having success and so I I what I teach men the approach I take is don't don't you know guys want to go learn these pickup techniques and this magic and the NLP and the hypnosis and the peacocking and I call that pounding on closed doors she's hot I want her I want her to pay that's that's approval seeking at its ultimate I tell guys when you go approach a woman just CU she's hot you've made her the alpha she's the decider now and remember she's got lots of men lots of men approaching her she's the decider you're not you've made her the alpha you're the beta you know all these red pill and pickup guys all think I'm Alpha I'm no you're chasing her because you want her approval you want her to say yes you've just given her all the power but what if you don't need that what if you're just living this good life and then all these doors open around you and you notice women you know smiling at you you know walking in front of you a couple extra times unnecessarily you know bending over when they put the plate on the table what if you just start noticing all the doors that are open now this this is you know dating but this is life right this is the abundance you can go pound on closed doors all day long that's a lot of work I'm a big fan of walking through Open Door doors then guys go well but you know it seem and I love this quote by David data choose a woman who chooses you if you you know if you just why chose her I want no you're going to chase and you're going to work and you're never going to feel her approval but then gu say even if you managed to get the marriage to work even if you managed to get the ring on her finger even if you managed to do the res you know what the again as a relationship therapist I I think I've spent with I've spent more time with married men suffering through their woman not choosing them than single guys not getting women to choose them because the married guys I'm married it's the only choice I got now I've got to get her to choose me and I got guys who say Robert how can I get my wife to want to have sex how long since she have had sex 14 years and I go I have no clue I don't know how to fix that but what it is they're trying to get a woman who's not approved of them in probably over 14 years to magically approve of them enough to get naked with him and let him you know poker with his body parts so it doesn't matter if these are single guys or guys in relationship if you're chasing the approval of a woman who has already made it obvious she's unapproving of you she's not approving of you that's a big waste of your time why not walk through open doors and the guys go well but yeah the women who seem to be inting me they're all fat or ugly or you know old and I go that's again that's your your limiting beliefs I've been with so many amazing women in my life and I didn't chase any of them people ask me Robert how didd you meet your wife I said I was walking down the street in PTO to Mexican Mexico I Heard a Voice that say oh Lenor want a massage said no o Manana not today I tomorrow I thought I like your voice and a buddy of mine been saying Robert listen more to your emotional messages I liked her voice I didn't I didn't remember what she looked like turn around walk back said how much started getting m es 6 months later she basically propositioned me I asked her out and and we've been married s and a half years now because I walked through an open door I didn't have to go pound on a and she is the most amazing crazy beautiful sexy woman I know and I'm just so blessed and I'm so grateful my house my dog you you you've encountered n i remember do you need to go L my my wife was standing outside the house she'd forgotten her remember that as well to let me in you know while while we were recording the podcast so I'm a big fan bring it back to the approval seeking I teach guys what I call test for interest just get out in public and with everybody you meet don't wait till you see a pretty woman anybody men women old people young people just how's your day going so far been shopping think ever going to get rainy that was a hell of a thunderstorm last night wasn't it yeah we got to watch a great thunderstorm here in Austin just anything social pleasantry that's level one testing if that level one testing just organically continues I call that level two you connect in some way you know the conversations you have in these podcasts quickly you're good at this they go to level two all of a sudden you're talking about things you probably didn't have in your notes it's just enjoyable conversation that's just how how social interaction works but somebody has to start somebody has to say how's your day going so far there's got to be some start to it I can teach guys to do that a lot of guys will get pretty good at that then they want to make the level two happen I go no don't it'll just happen most of the time you say how's your day going so far fine and I tell guys all you got to do is check for high or low interest perceived high or low interest in having a continuing interaction from the other person and if all of a sudden you hit it off you're having a conversation it goes 30 seconds 60 seconds a couple minutes you're standing in line waiting for your coffee whatever most of the time that will end and you say hey nice to meet you have a great day but occasionally there's a real connection there whether it's you talking with another guy whether it's you with a woman now at level three you have to require something of them to see how high that level is to have a continu interaction typically it might say hey give me your number give me your Instagram you know give me this I'll call you I got an idea I got a plan we'll connect and if they go yeah that's great you know I'm really busy these days I so interest you find out what you needed to know or they say that'd be fantastic I'd love to connect with you they give you a number whatever then that's high interest but what I found is that most men because of that approval seeking especially with women they get to level two they seem to have the woman's approval they're having a nice conversation she's talking a lot it's going well they don't want to blow that so they don't do anything that might risk the approval they don't say anything that might Rock the Boat they don't require anything of her they don't touch her they don't take her hand in lead her they don't play get playful with her and they just start playing it safe that's the boring part that women go what when I'm on an airplane I'm sitting next to a woman you know if you talk about what do you do and I go well yeah I'm a a relationship I teach men about what do you teach men the women always want to know what do you teach men about relationship so you know I I tell the woman the kind of stuff we're talking about and and the women would go can can can I tell you a couple things to tell your men I go okay this is like doing a request from the DJ yeah can you play a couple of tracks for me yeah could you play you know we built this city you know so they say tell the men trim their ears and nose hair that's one thing they say the other thing thing to say is tell them to polish their shoes shoes are important to women women notice her shoes that's interesting they but then then they go they can I ask you a couple questions and I go sure they go how come I see a guy I look his way I smile at him you know I open my body I turn towards him him then I notice him a time or two how come he never walks over and talks to me and I said because he's scared and they go why and I go because you're scary and they go no I'm not scary but we men you're scary to us and they go oh you know maybe the guy is does have a conversation with me we talk about everything under the sun I touch his arm a lot I lean into him I smile I laugh at his corny jokes I'm thinking when's he going to ask for my number you know do I have to put up a billboard say hey dumb [ __ ] ask me for my number you know and and then the guy gets done he goes uh well it was nice talking to you shakes the hand maybe he'll bump into you sometime they go why don't they do that go because he's scared well they're looking at each different stage guys are looking for rejection so I think it's I think I'm which is just the opposite of of approval if they approve of me I don't get rejected so I don't want to if I got approval at any level I don't want to risk the that'll take that'll take I'll take that as a win I'll take it as a win exactly in other news this episode is brought to you by Shopify Shopify Powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States including huge Brands like gym shark and all birds and nutonic they are the global Commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business look you do not want to learn to code to start your business you don't want to learn how to build a website or how to do inventry management or web hosting or to design stuff you want to get all of that out of the way so you can get on with what your here to do which is to build and sell cool stuff that's what Shopify helps you do and that's why we use them for newtonic they're literally your no excuses business partner you can sell without learning to code or design you just bring your best ideas and Shopify will help you to sell immediately plus shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way right now you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to shopify.com slod wisdom or lowercase shopify.com wisdom to grow your business now no matter what stage you're in I don't remember whether I told you this last time I I struggle to give dating advice to women being a non vagina Rona myself but one of the things that I think women definitely can cultivate is uh receptiveness I think that you need to basically treat the men that you're attracted to like particularly slow mentally disabled golden retrievers like you know that's the level of of signaling that you need to put out into the world to the guys and there's this story from sort of uh Aristocrat England Renaissance period where ladies would drop a handkerchief in front of men as they we go back to that I mean it's just but but the guys nowadays would go was that for him it wasn't for me it must have been for him it's not right but um yeah I think you've spoken about this too although we didn't talk about it last time in a post me too world I do think men and women especially women probably don't realize the impact that me too has had the negative impact me's had on men's dating behavior and again this isn't to say that meu wasn't an important redress to some people in Hollywood being total [ __ ] and you know Harvey Weinstein's about to like get retried apparently because got out of jail yeah straight in the hospital some dodgy [ __ ] um but in a post me to World men are terrified of being seen as a predator any good man is going to think well [ __ ] like I don't want to be part of some Scandal I don't want to make her feel uncomfortable I've seen these videos on the internet of girls in the gym being approached by dudes when they're trying to unload plates wow how sensitive and and tentative and tenuous is the world of of men approaching women at the moment and I absolutely do not want to internally be that kind of guy externally be accused of being that kind of guy reputational destruction all of this [ __ ] so I think just adjusting the SS on the scope for women especially in the postm to world could make dating an awful lot easier for them it's like hey cultivate some receptiveness drop a visual handkerchief I I I love that a lot can I use that absolutely I love that you know I I told you earlier I've never said no to an interview and uh I I did one about 6 months ago with a a young guy spanic a guy in LA and found out later when I checked out the it was I was his number one YouTube post I was his first YouTube post young guy great interview this guy's this guy's gonna be great and um but he asked me the question he said all right what advice do you have for guys's my age 21 and he and he shared an example of where he had not done something inappropriate but had an experience with his girlfriend and and and she was going to post on social media that that he raped her and then apparently a friend intervened and I I don't I don't know the story but he said what advice would you give to young men and I go honestly I don't know I don't know that you know when women if you have a fear that women are going to go post anything and everything on social media and you you got no rebuttal and and you know it's going to be believed you know a mantra that I've never loved is and during hashme too is the victim is always to be believed what if the victim is a man who's been falsely accused yeah and he's saying I'm the victim here I didn't do that um if he's a man he's not to be believed you know we do have a skewed system around that now yes one reason for example I don't like pickup an approach is I think it's fundamentally invasive I I think men have no idea what it's like to be in a woman's skin especially you know a young moderately attractive woman who has men walking up to them all the time and as a woman you don't know what this guy's about you you do know he's approaching you because you got boobs and and you don't know what the story is from there you know whether he's being going to come be a nice guy and try to you know get your approval or whether he's going to come on and hit on you or you don't know you don't know where that's going to lead and I can understand as a woman i' I'd put my guard up I'd have my guard up if men were just I'm in the gym and they're approaching me and talking to me and you know I I I don't I don't know what where this is headed what they want I don't know him from Adam so I'm not a big fan of just approaching women because they're hot and and I know the that's not a popular stand to take because men want hot women well how's I'm going to get a hot woman if I don't go to approach her because she's hot and I go that's a great way is how you pick your car mechanic your heart surgeon you know your dentist no you pick them because they're competent at the skills you want them to have um and just assum because a woman's hot she's good and bad are going to be a good girlfriend is a reach a you say an obsession with hot women is basically broadcasting a man's low selfworth it does tend to do that but yet we'll go on the internet and we'll say this is this you know this will make you a real man if you go get the hot woman so I don't I don't have the answer to that other question of of what do you do when interacting with a woman cuz I know when I got out there and got successful with women and my 40s and 50s I wasn't getting younger you know I I I went through a bankruptcy I wasn't rich but I had success and I just had success because they didn't hold back I I practiced what I call Touch tease and tell if I had impulse to touch her I'd touch her I'd tease her I would tell her come on let's go do this and I was just playful I was I was uninhibited and in general women really liked that and really responded well but what if we live in a world where if I just touch a woman's arm I don't know if she's going to have a major overreaction to that or you know she's going to go ballistic or you know she's going to you know I become a hashtag me too casually or it goes on her social media I don't know the answer to that so I I agree with you though that we do need a a Readjustment we needed some adjustments that you know a world where where men could do whatever they wanted to women because they could they were bigger they're stronger they're powerful that that had to change but now where we have a world where where women are going you know we we live in a culture where in the US now statistically for the first time since they started counting numbers over 50% of men and women 35 and younger report not having been in a relationship for the last year so with all our hookup culture all the swi right all the you know the the the dating boot camps and you know Instagram you know you put all your photo all of that stuff people aren't getting into relationships and I think there's probably a number of factors to it but I think probably one of them is a Fear Factor you know if I get into a relationship what are the consequences if I if I even try to approach a person and talk to them what are the negative consequences are going to get broadcast on social media and I'm not a big fan of social media for many reasons it has value but um yeah I'm glad I'm not a young guy having to navigate perilous it's perilous and then it's also you know perilous is a a girl who wants to get into a relationship because they think well I need to you know Chris said cultivate receptivity and drop the handkerchief and stuff that sounds like a good that seems like a smart idea and yet I'm physically vulnerable and there are these horror stories out there and I am afraid of strange men and maybe they've had those horror stories maybe I've got evidence in my history that justifies my fear of that and I've now got to get over it and yeah it's given that we have the most permissive mating culture ever it is strange that dating has probably never been so hard and and and go back to the similar statistics and so few young adults are having sex you know maybe maybe porn just makes it easier to just go get things done that way but yeah I I think we live in a place where well my my my two thoughts about the hookup culture yeah part of it is this fear of you know both men and women you know what what what am I getting myself into but I think for men because men I I tell guys you know our grandfathers maybe saw three beautiful women in their lifetime and didn't see any of them naked right guys can go see beautiful women not even just on porn but just on on on their Instagram feed just Tik Tok whatever beautiful woman after beautiful woman without a lot of clothes on so I I think there's a one thing with men nowadays even if we get a woman you know maybe a woman that we consider desirable we're looking around she's cuter she's cuter she's cuter she's cuter and so I I think guys have this thing well I can't make any kind of ongoing commitment to this one cuz there might be this cuter one that that I want want to be with and and and you know I tell guys number one of course you're always going to see prettier younger women and the woman you're with also sees the prettier younger women and knows you're thinking you know wouldn't it be nice and so that's always going to happen I tell guys you have to stop that kind of thinking kind of ruminating well I'm with this one but because I'm with her I can't be with her that serves no purpose that will not move you forward in life because even if you weren't with this one you probably wouldn't talk to that one anyway yeah but so I think for the men there's just so many beautiful women to be seen everywhere we have this fear of getting all the way in with one because what if I want to get with that other beautiful women but I think for women it's a little bit different Dynamic and you know maybe I'll hear from some women about this I think for for the women social media gives them lots of attention and I think the feminine thrives on attention and desire and praise that's the feminine in any of us and so I think for the women if I just commit to one guy if I get all within one guy I got to turn off my social media in this constant funnel of Praise I got to quit put putting sexy selfies of myself up and getting all the likes and all the you know and so we've got this kind of technological world that makes it so so easy to meet connect go fast and nobody's actually getting together or staying together for any length of time talk to me about how guys can be more confident when talking to women not seek their approval um you know what I've never worried about confidence now I I I I will say that if a man interacts with a woman with confidence it creates the same chemical reaction in her brain that he would have if she lift her shirt and he showed her his breast you don't have to think about it we don't have to think do I like those uh it's just wired and and if a guy is confident you know women they don't have to think about it do I like that but they just like it what I found for me because you know I've got all my own insecurities and I've got all my own history of what women don't aren't attracted to me and beautiful women aren't attracted to me even though my second wife was gorgeous and I've been with plenty of beautiful women you know we've got these messages that still dictate you know how we behave for me it was always more of a matter of just not holding back not holding back again the fact that I you would just talk to people everywhere I go and all of a sudden a woman in a room see who is that guy he just he like talks to everybody seems to know everybody you know I always every restaurant I went in every I ask people their name you know I I I I asked Uber drivers their name I I asked you know I asked your camera guy his name Anthony right yes you had to think was that right I hope you can embarrass me if it wasn't that's fine yeah I but I always ask their names and if I forget or get it wrong I ask again and so there's just something about that of just being socially interactive that I found tends to be highly attractive to the feminine now I'm I'm married to a jealous Latina um and she is always pointing out women that are coming on me or you know trying to get my attention they're always very young and I don't chase young women but there's just something about being comfortable in your own skin you like that quote I remember just being comfortable in your own skin you know having a life of purpose know where you're going enjoying that path enjoying where you're going I think it makes you attractive to all things men women opportunity money adventure and I'm a big fan of saying yes a a dear old friend of mine passed away a few years ago a gay fell down in P of Bayer had this be um bed and breakfast I used to stay at my mother used to stay at and him and his gay partner ran it he used to say it's a sin to say no when you should have said yes so I used a very strong Philosophy for a gay person I imagine a lot of gay gay guys live by that philosophy you know and and you know and yeah I I I used to be surrounded by gay men whenever I'd be there and you know and um and guys say well how how do you know when you should have said no you'll know in 24 hours but I I apply I turn that into basically my my guide for life is that's why I said yes to my wife when she said you know I went back and got a massage every amazing thing in my life has come from saying yes um you know like I say I say yes to interviews I say yes to Opportunities I say yes to go get to you know go be a part of this Retreat I just keep saying yes and it's funny how things just keep coming to me um when you say yes I used to be you know I think about it research it talk about it a lot take a lot of time and then the opportunities come and gone so I think that being uninhibited not holding back having a yes mentality has tended to to make me attractive to to women and you know I even kind of hesitate to say that you know I'm 68 years old you know you hair's gone what I've got is white you know I'm just I I I'm very average in very many ways and in spite of that averageness I don't seem to have any problem attracting good things to my life whether they be opportunities to talk to interesting people um take interesting trips have women pay attention to me and there's no magic to it but if I just tell guys again get out of the house expand your route linger in public talk to people test for interest walk through open doors say yes it makes you an interesting person and um you know when you were working in nightclubs you know that that's that's all the people were they were just saying they they were interacting with people right yes and they're they're not because they were so rich or so good-looking they just were engaged and that just makes such a difference what are some of the more successful or creative ways that people can use online dating you mentioned that you briefly sort of got into and got out of the apps for better or worse they here to stay well actually never did the apps they they they came along um but you know and and maybe I'm grateful for that I I hear they're addictive um and maybe that's part of the problem you know I I know guys I've had guys come visit me in P of aera you know and they they they get on the apps you know tender and whatever looking for women around and like the whole time they're hanging out with me or at my house or by the pool they're on the fraking app the entire time and maybe get a few dates out of it so you know they work a buddy told me one time that apparently he got pretty good at doing the apps and he said you know if you ever got a mutual connection um his his standard response was whatever the woman's name was say her name hey Jessica you animal what are you doing here and he said that just seems to work now I I I I don't know that it's tried or true but it it does kind of fit that model of just not holding back just just being out there I tell guys blurt so just blurt you know I tell guys you know if something comes front of your mind just say it you know the more you hold back the safer you get and again even though I know I say women by Nature security-seeking creatures I.E the whole hash me too thing they they're drawn to something has an edge to it something that has some energy to it so I'd say as much as anything don't play it safe playing safe is boring and but again to just give now my favorite one I said I was pry yeah but but one of the things I would do if I connected with the woman like on match.com I'd send her a message and I say all right I call you up I tell you you got 30 minutes to pack your passport your flip-flops and your bikini where are we going and it starts the conversation it get kind of gets them thinking it gets you into their mind of doing something together it's going to be a nice place some tropical or warm I already told them you know pack your your your your bikini your your flip-flops and your p passport going someplace fun and I they get to pick what it is so now if they respond to that I find out how they think how they engage in that kind of energy what what kind of places they like to go we got something to talk about now if I been there not been there we can talk about have you been there so do something that just creates an energy that they want to to respond to it's exciting it's playful yeah Charlie you you went on my friend Charlie hoopet show a couple of months ago and um he has almost exactly the same thing for speaking to women that uh like where would we go if we were going to take a trip away together and then she says that and he says it's okay you know I I'll quit my job I can sell Lucy cigarettes on the on the beach front you know we can make mushroom cocktails and we'll sell those and you like it's fun like that kind of fantasizing the playful sort of like teasing energy I think I don't know there's there's a meta meme at the moment around seriousness and earnestness from guys but like the playfulness I think is where it's it's fun because it helps to relieve some of the pressure you're all you're a dude who's speaking to a girl you're already terrified that she's going to reject you you're terrified about these things and the more serious you make the interaction the more that piles the pressure on you know um I I I mentioned earlier that I think all all the women I've been married to have ruminating brains and and I think a lot of women do my my wife will say oh today's a 12 hamster day you're just just the we the hamsters are spinning up there and if you think about it most women nowadays live in such I'll just call it a masculine world you know W wi with feminism they've been taught you know go accomplish have a career don't be dependent on a man you know blah blah blah blah don't even think about kids till you're pushing 40 you know just just try I mean just that the whole the masculine doing mentality and if they have any degree of of feminine Essence they also like Beauty and and love and escape and beaches and romance and and but yet most of them just round that out because they they got to get up and go got got to do their job every looking for this studio I came in from the door down on the street I open a door and here's 25 women all sitting at desk real close to each other and I go uh yeah I'm looking for the studio you know and they uh what floor what what what sweet anyway you know here's all these young women doing a job right driven to do that and you know the the the whole song You Know Girls Just Want to Have Fun they do they they they want an escape from that and and often they don't know how to get themselves out of that hamster wheel mentality once they're in it they don't have a ready-built Escape maybe that's why they all go to the get the glass of wine or cocktail hour or whatever it relieves that so what if you come along and they weren't expecting you they don't know who you are and and maybe you know what whatever however you engage them gets them past that fear of what is this guy who is this guy what does he want and what if you can just be engaging and playful and and and spontaneous and uninhibited you know you're either going to make their day better for 45 seconds or you may you know spend a while I when I was taking salsa lessons uh and you know I went from being a terrible salsa dancer to being you know kind of an awkward still white guy salsa dancer but you know i' I'd be standing on a on a corner waiting on a bus or standing somewhere um and I'd ask a woman do you salsa and if they said no I go I'm taking lessons let me show you a step I would just get the frame get them in frame and I would do a simple crossbody lead or if they said yes I go good I'm taking salsa let me practice with you I'm trying to practice you know this crossbody lead with a spin I would just do stuff like that and again not as a technique but I just found that if I just was uninhibited and engaged with people most people are going to just stay glued to their phone but you know some people actually respond they light up they want to engage even again for just a few moments or longer talk to me about being outcome agnostic outcome agnostic I didn't come up with that term but first time I heard it I I just loved it um you know probably most of us have heard that that the Buddhist said that attachment is the cause of all suffering when I teach men this about being um outcome agnostic non-attached outcome men get mad at me they think I made that up and imposed it on no no don't put it on me it it probably preceded the Buddha even but the truth is if we get emotionally attached to a specific outcome we're going to suffer and and that's just the Human Condition and we all get attached and guys will say well why would I even date why would I talk to a woman if I wasn't attached to getting that pretty woman and I go well you might not but I said if you have fewer attachments you might actually be more engaging and not so anxious I also say that attachment is the cause of all anxiety and so what if we keep it in the dating sphere what if you're standing there's a woman standing next to you and let's say you know she's reasonably attractive and and you want to say something to her what if you were equally okay with every possible outcome now you might prefer some right you might prefer that you know she smile and respond to you and maybe give you a number and maybe go she go on a date with you unless maybe you find out she's a psycho [ __ ] from hell and then then you wish she hadn't you know um but then what if you're equally okay with that as a possible outcome and and life flows you can say yes to more things if you're equally okay with every possible outcome again are we going to like some outcomes better than others yes but are some of the outcomes we didn't love do they turn out to maybe be uh an outcome that we didn't see coming uh I I had a tumor Block in my small intestine six years ago really sick three months in pain all the time couldn't eat couldn't use the bathroom lost over 30 lbs went to doctors in the US Mexico got undiagnosed misdiagnosed did I want that I knew it killing me I didn't know what is killing me the last doctor I saw in the US a gastroenterologist said H you probably just have you know a Mexican parasite you have to outlive I wasn't going to outlive a golf ball siiz tumor in my small intestine she didn't even run the right test to to go looking for it at some point I surrendered I didn't know what I had I didn't know it was going to kill me I had a pretty good idea it might be killing me I was headed that direction I was in pain all the time the only remedy to pain was just breathing and relaxing into it and when I finally surrendered into it the the pain became less did I want to be imp pained I no but I surrendered I accepted I had something I might not ever know what I had I accepted it might be killing me and um it got easier people would ask me Robert how you feeling and I'd say you know I don't know if I'm actually doing better feeling better or just I've gotten better at feeling bad but the surrender and the acceptance of it let me live with it and then great story of how my wife found the doctor that found the tumor that took it out and all of that and here I am six seven years later and Life's good and I'm happy what I want to go through that again no but I do it at least once a year just a little reminder yeah just have a have a good life so it's a practice to to become outcome agnostic to be equally okay with every possible outcome guys will say why would I even get out of bed in the morning I go I don't know about you but when I'm not attached to so many I'm not emotionally attached to so many specific outcomes I get out of mood out of bed in a good mood excited for the adventure of the day you know this morning I knew I was going to come do an interview with you you know and and I know we had a previously good interview so I knew it was going to be good you said I'm going to introduce you is some phenomenally interesting friends all of my friends have bets going on who that may be so we're having a good time you know what it doesn't matter who you introduced me to because I know it's going to be cool we're going to have a good time so what if we can just get up every day and live that way that life's going to be good today one of my mantras is I love waking up in the morning not knowing how my day is going to end and I have I've had so many days getting ready for bed going I did not see this coming when I got up this morning and today's probably going to be one of those days you are experienced in dating after breakups and divorces what is your advice to guys that are trying to get back into the market after they've been in a relationship for a while um I I don't know if it changes that much for guys have never been you know when I got out in the dating world I realized two things I'd done enough work on myself by that time uh I realized that I'd always use nice guy seduction to get women listen to them talk about their problems be kind be nice do things for them fix things pay their car payment you know help their sister move uh and then maybe you know and hide your sexual agenda from them then maybe they'll want to take their clothes off the math on that doesn't work well either um and so I thought okay I got to change that pattern and I thought two things like I said as in my late 40s I thought I have to become a better picker and I have to become a better Ender and I didn't even know really how to be a good picker so friends started giving me all kinds of stuff you know I read Neil Strauss guys gave me you double year dating with David D'Angelo you know I just I just listen to podcast and mainly like I said I just got out in public every chance I got I was in public and every chance I got I talked to people and then I I just got bold and I took risk and I asked for numbers I found that that's easy often women like I said they're waiting for the guy say give me your number I guess nowadays you ask for people's Instagram but you know show me my age again so I thought it had to become a better picker but be a better Ender because part of my my nice guy seduction thing is that once I got a woman I'd hang on way too long because I didn't know if I'd ever get another one again and I didn't want to have to go out again and go through the whole process so I I stayed way too long in every relationship I was ever in usually in the first few months I recognized there were severe warning signs and about 3 years in at some level I realized they were done growing or you know evolving in the relationship and I'd stay a few more years and usually then act badly and then I got to be the bad guy for the how the relationship ended and so I realized I had to be a better picker so become a better picker a and better Ender and I realized that being a good Ender covers a multitude of sins of being a bad picker and actually what dating is is making multiple bad picks one bad pick of it that's what dating is go on a date and find out do you want to go on a second date if you don't end it right you made a bad pick but you didn't know you made a bad pick until you go when guys would say Robert I don't know what's wrong with me all my dates are just one and done you know we go on this one date one copy date and then you know I don't want to see them again I don't hear from them again I go good that's how it's supposed to work you should not every woman you meet should not become your future wife M and so becoming a better picker I think I think you do have to get socially Adept you have to get good at knowing you can meet people you can connect with people because if you don't know that and you do connect with somebody you're just going to hang on to them for dear life and so really go work at being that Social Animal you know during Co that really got tough but hopefully we got another window of time where we can actually get out and be social tactically how can people be better Enders better Enders um sooner rather than later always sooner rather than later now people the ruminating brains can spend years in a relationship every day should I say should I go should I stay should I go thinking well if I leave will I regret it and what if she gets another guy then I'll be jealous and but what if I stay I'm missing out on that opportunity so ruminating brain makes this you know Hell on Wheels on steroids m but as soon as you realize a person is not somebody that you can't imagine yourself not being with is probably a good time to stop it and I I learned from trial and air that I I met a many when I started dating I I did not want to just jump back in a relationship I'd been married 25 years and I just wanted the experience of dating and I wasn't even trying to just go get laid a lot I I I wanted that too but I was just wanting the experience of dating and meeting people and I let women know that up front you know the majority of that's cool that's great that's what I'm about to you know some women say well don't waste my time if you're not looking to get in a relationship okay great you know and they would say that and then still sleep with me it's kind of funny um and and so but what I did realize you know a lot of women very quickly wanted to get sexual with me and did I mean I'm going on first and second dates and they're getting naked without me I'm going whoa is this the world that that I live in now Y and uh because that didn't seem to be the way it was when I was young and so um so I said yes to all those opportunities and even when the women knew you know I was seeing multiple women and not trying to be exclusive I noticed many were beginning to develop fond feelings and I'm going I've got sexual access I've already told her you know I'm you know I'm not just seeing her and I quickly learned um don't continue doing that you know if I don't see myself being with her over a long period of time and I can see that look in her eye as she's getting those feelings I would end it even if you've stated up front even if yeah it do you think that that's the sort of um female attachment the belief that maybe I can be the one that's going to break him out of this preconceived idea of what he's going to do maybe maybe I I I don't know that I can speak to it what I I think maybe the the maybe the best generalization I can make is it men do this too so it's hard to really generalize but I think in women when they open up to have sex with a man they also tend to open their heart up and and they begin thinking in terms of the relational Dynamic with this person not just oh that felt good to have sex but I I I like being with him I want to see him again I want to know him I want to connect with and and whereas men men can do that too I'm not saying it's just a guy or girl thing but maybe the the maybe the women are more likely to do that and the guys more likely go oh if I can keep having sex with three or four women why would I stop doing that and the woman is going I I wonder if I can just get him to have sex with me because I I I like I think there's a especially with a modern culture that tells women you can work like your F father and have sex like your brother you know you can be did you make that up yeah that is good uh it's what modern culture is taught when work like your father have sex like your brother um and you know that feels liberating and empowering and independent and modern and Progressive and cool and sexy and all of this stuff and then you know for you to say hey you know I can't bate my feelings from my body in the way that culture is telling me that I should be able to and in the way that men seem to be able to to do more effectively like look to the ladies that are listening you are not going to be able to out casual sex the guy that you're having casual sex with like even if he's catching some feels you're catching more on average and it's not it's not a fair fight you know this sort of degree of of casualness and I do think that you know I'm back on the dating scene now uh which I haven't been for a very long time which is scary and and a whole new world for me uh and learning to be open and honest and upfront uh and then it's it's almost like being overly honest in a way it's not to do with honesty what you're what you're suggesting here is like look I know where this will come into land like I know what the outcome of this is going to be if we just keep on running this same script forward right I'm going to step in and get us there more quickly I'm going to shortcut this because I think that I can reduce a little bit of pain a bit of discomfort and all the rest of it before there is more pain and more discomfort and I'm going to do that myself and that's that's a good way of saying you know what I learned over time because even when I tell women up front yeah I'm just recently out of you know relationship just and they go great great great I'd start seeing that look in their eye and I'd remind them again and they all would say the same thing I heard you the first time their brain heard me the first time their heart was getting connected and I promise you if their heart's getting connected and you you you're good-look you're charismatic you're in good shape you're successful they are going to fall they're going to fall for you you know that and and they're going to fall and I'll just be blunt if you're [ __ ] them well oh yeah they just want to they want it they want that whole package and you know if you're just in it and you're [ __ ] them well and you're enjoying that part of it but you're not you know seeing them in the same way they see you every time that I let that go longer longer longer and then it it it comes to an end it does at some point you're a mismatch and it becomes so obvious it can't be denied and then it's messy and you know dating's messy enough and so I made that conscious decision that even the woman seemed really cool with us continuing to have casual sex when I knew her heart was opening and um and you know she was loving the sex and loving just loving being with me I I had to end it break her heart you I know it sounds egotistical but it's not I'd rather break her heart you know three or four weeks into it rather than three or four months into it and that does make a big difference in the timeline of dating Dr Robert Glover ladies and gentlemen Robert I really appreciate you thank you for coming to see me where should people go they want to keep up to date with everything you do uh drg glover.com uh integration nation.net two best places to find me hell yeah I appreciate you thank you this was so fun if you enjoyed that episode you will love a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last couple of months and it's available right here go on give him a watch