Video summary
The discussion centers on why many men resist engaging in emotional work, therapy, and concepts like inner child healing or addressing mother wounds. The speakers address a common sentiment among some men who view these psychological practices as "woo" or overly soft, preferring instead to adopt a stoic approach focused solely on overcoming suffering through sheer willpower, akin to the philosophy of David Goggins rather than Eckhart Tolle. While acknowledging that therapy culture has become hyper-feminized and may feel alienating to men accustomed to traditional masculinity, the speakers argue that this resistance stems from an unwillingness to confront one's own shadow self. They emphasize that true bravery for a man involves "psychological scuba diving" into his internal world rather than relying solely on trial and error through external experiences. The core argument posits that avoiding introspection is not about strength but fear, specifically the terror of discovering maladaptive behaviors or unsavory parts of oneself that one does not understand. The speakers illustrate this by describing how men often excel in high-pressure environments like boardrooms or football fields yet struggle to sit quietly and identify their internal emotional states. This confrontation with self is presented as essential for meaningful purpose, drawing on Carl Jung's assertion that a man must discover his shadow to stop inadvertently passing harm onto family members, friends, and society. The speakers challenge the notion that men who embrace these feelings are lesser; instead, they argue that fear of one's own heart and emotions is often disguised as stoicism or competence. A significant portion of the conversation addresses how modern masculinity has become dangerously one-dimensional over the last century, condensing male development into a single metric of physical output or industrial utility rather than the holistic balance seen in historical figures like Spartans who combined combat skills with poetry and music. This narrow focus on competency and capability is contrasted sharply with women's evolving skill sets, which now include emotional intelligence, networking, socialization, and strategic maneuvering within professional environments. The speakers note that while men traditionally competed by outworking others or demonstrating superior technical ability, this strategy is becoming less effective as women have adapted to compete using a broader range of skills that can sometimes bypass traditional hierarchies entirely. The dialogue concludes with the observation that relying solely on competency and capability no longer guarantees success in culture or relationships for the average man, creating a precarious situation where previous social contracts are breaking down. While high-status outliers may still navigate this landscape successfully through sheer dominance, most men face increasing challenges as women's capabilities expand beyond traditional boundaries. The speakers suggest that adapting to include emotional intelligence and self-knowledge is necessary for modern survival and success in dating and professional life. Ultimately, the conversation reframes bravery not just as enduring physical hardship but as having the courage to look inside oneself, accept one's vulnerabilities, and integrate those insights into a more complete human experience.
Read the full video transcript
What would you say to the guy who
looks at
the inner child work, the mother wound,
the
past patterns that haven't yet been
dealt with, the accumulation of sort of
psychological discomfort like that.
Uh
and say, "I think that's sort of woo
[ __ ] dude. Like that that doesn't
resonate with me. I understand if you
break an arm, you need to put it in a
cast, but this is just a question of
overcoming suffering. It's noble to do
that. It's uh like the sort of life that
I want to live as someone who is stoic,
who does like just get on with stuff."
This yeah, maybe I've hit some sort of a
wall. Maybe I'm sort of broken in pieces
on the ground, but the answer to that is
to just like David Goggins it and stay
hard as opposed to Eckhart Tolle it and
like remind myself that I'm enough
already.
>> [gasps]
>> Yeah, I mean, I do think that it's a
it's a bit of both, you know. I do think
that
part of the challenge that a lot of men
have with therapy and therapy culture is
that it's become hyper feminized.
And so I think when men look at that,
often times it's like
it doesn't resonate with feels too
woo-woo. It feels too sort of like soft
skills. Um
but I think it really is about a quest
of knowing thyself.
And
you know, for
for every man, they're going to have a
journey and an point where they have to
decide, "Am I going to learn about who I
am
through trial and error and external
experiences or am I going to put on
this, you know, the psychological scuba
diving mask and and go in
and actually see who the [ __ ] I am?"
And I think it's easier for men to say,
"I'll just go out in the world."
Right? I'll just go build some [ __ ]
Because the truth is that the scariest
place to be is inside of yourself.
That's the truth.
Most men know that. You know, barring
some
extreme situations and war zones and
stuff like that.
But for the majority of men, for a lot
of the men that I've worked with, I've
worked with Navy SEALs, I've worked with
executives, I've worked with artists and
athletes and
every single man that I've ever worked
with, the most terrifying thing for them
is the truth of who they are.
Because there's parts of them that they
do not understand. And that's scary.
There's parts of themselves that are out
of control and that's terrifying.
And so I think for
what I would say to those men is it
sounds like you're not really willing to
get in the arena with yourself.
Period.
And you can find a medium that works for
you, right? Goggins found a medium that
seems to work for him, which is that's
not my medium, right? I I don't want to
get up at 5:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. every
single day and and run until my knees
are grinding bones against each other.
This is not it for me.
Um I want to push myself physically for
sure and I want to build things and push
myself from an entrepreneurial
standpoint for sure.
But there is something to be said for
the courage and the bravery that it
takes to go in
to who you actually are as a human being
and start to discover the unsavory parts
of yourself. You know, Jung had this
great saying that that the the real work
of a man is the real work of men is to
discover their own shadow. And if they
can do that, they've done something
meaningful for the world. And what he
meant by that was
if you don't understand your own
>> [snorts]
>> maladaptive behaviors, your own sabotage
mechanisms, if you don't understand how
you are harming other people,
then you are you're essentially passing
on harm out into the world, onto other
people, inadvertently to your kids or
your family members or your friends.
And that's not really
what
I don't know how else to say it, but
it's like that's not really where men
find a sense of meaning and purpose.
Like in many ways, the archetypes of
great kings and great men, they are the
men that are servants to others. And how
they go about doing that is by deeply
understanding who they are.
And so I think for a lot of men, when I
hear that, I'm like, "You're scared to
know who you really are. You're actually
just afraid." And that's okay, but don't
[ __ ] lie to me that you're just not
afraid of who you actually are. Because
so many times I've sat with men and I'll
say, "Close your eyes."
And the the challenge that that man will
have, he'll be a killer in the
boardroom. He will be a killer on the
football field. And I'll say, "Sit down,
close your eyes, take a breath. Tell me
what's happening inside of you."
An immediate confrontation.
So, we as men are sculpted through
confrontation. Masculinity in some ways
requires confrontation. And I think
change requires confrontation. Any type
of psychological change requires
confrontation. I think the challenge is
that some men are afraid of the
confrontation with themselves. What what
are your thoughts on that?
I think it's
superbly accurate. I think
it makes for a very interesting
redefinition
of the word bravery, especially for men.
Uh that
emotionality
uh tapping into yourself, being in touch
with
who you really are
uh
is seen as a kind of weakness and yet
so much of that that I see among guys is
like a
sex-based gaslighting. Um
I think I think it's I think that's one
of the things that's made you very
successful. It's It's those little snip
snip
Where did it even come from, Chris?
>> know. Sex-based gaslighting. Try Try and
tell me it doesn't fit, though. It 100%
fits. It's great. It's great.
>> is because you're scared of what's
inside of you.
As a man, you're terrified of looking
inside of yourself. You're terrified of
being in touch with your emotions.
You're terrified of your heart.
Don't pretend like you're not. And don't
pretend like the guys who are prepared
to face it are somehow lesser. Right.
Right. It's like I you know,
I do uh martial arts. I do Muay Thai a
couple times a week. I absolutely love
it. I love knowing that I can like, you
know, kick some dude in the side of the
head that's [laughter] like six, you
know, 6'2". Uh but I also am not afraid
of how I'm feeling. And I do think that
I think this is what I was talking about
before, which is that we've become so
one-dimensional. We've over indexed on
like one specific thing. And that hasn't
been that hasn't been the truth for men
throughout human history. I mean, when
you look at
when you look at men from different
walks of life and you know, like the the
Spartans, right? They do hand-to-hand
combat, sword training, fighting in
groups, and then in the afternoon, they
would learn how to write poetry and
dance and play music. You know, so it's
it's always been a part of of our
development as men. It's just recently
in the last 100 plus years that we've
sort of condensed men down into this one
dimension. And it's great if you want to
pop out factory workers. It's great if
you want to produce armies of people,
armies of men that their sole job for 10
hours a day is to put a [ __ ] handle
on an ice cream bucket, you know? It's
like you don't want a human being that's
thinking about, "How do I feel about
doing this?" You don't want that, right?
Because that's not useful. Because then
that person's not going to be useful. So
again, I think we're we're entering into
this territory and I think this is what
is causing a lot of part of what's
causing a lot of the challenges in
modern dating is that
women have become much broader in the
sense that, you know, they still have
network, they still have community, but
they've learned how to compete with men.
And I think that largely we as men have
not adapted and figured out how to
compete with women. I think that we are
terrible at competing with women.
Because women compete far different.
They compete They compete way
differently than we do as men. We as
men, we compete through competition,
through competency.
It's like I'm going to outwork you. I'm
going to be more competent than you. I'm
going to be more capable than you. I'm
going to figure out the systems and get
better at it than you.
And women have figured out how to do
that as well, but they also have this
whole other skill set of emotional
intelligence, of being able to create
network, of being able to social
socialize and
along with that character assassinate,
right? Like can take you out in ways
that that we just don't
>> even see coming. You didn't even see
coming. All of a sudden you're like,
"Wait, why is Becky from HR pulling me
in and like reprimanding me? Like what
the hell just happened?" Uh and and so I
think that's very intimidating for some
men. I think it's very confusing because
we've kind of been sold this bill of
goods that if you just prioritize
competency and capability,
then you should rise through the ladder
of culture and society and you should be
able to be successful with women.
And I think that that is really in
jeopardy right now. I think there's this
big kind of tug-of-war for whether or
not that's going to be true or not. And
you still have men that are outliers
that that is true, that because they're
so successful, because they're they have
high status and yada yada yada, that
that still works. But I think for the
average guy, that's becoming harder and
harder.
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