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

Dr Robert Glover is a therapist, coach and an author. We’re frequently told to be less selfish in life, whether it’s in love, work, or personal matters. But what if prioritising your own needs is actually the key to unlocking a better life? Expect to learn how you can make your needs a priority, ways you can learn to be authentic, how men can learn to have more self compassion, what men often don’t understand about female attraction, the problem with needing approval from anyone outside of yourself, Robert’s advice for staying out of the friendzone, best tips to date after a divorce and much more... - 00:00 Believe Your Needs Are Important 08:40 How to Make Your Needs a Priority 18:22 Rewriting Deeply-Set Patterns 26:05 Preventing a Critical Inner Voice 35:43 Believing the Story You Tell Yourself 45:13 Men Need to Step Outside of the Cycle 55:25 Having a Puritan View of Hard Work 1:03:10 The Cause of Nice Guy Syndrome 1:09:07 What it Really Means to Be an Alpha 1:21:29 Do Women Need to Be More Receptive? 1:36:41 How to Successfully Use Online Dating 1:47:55 Dating After Breaking Up or Divorcing 1:54:40 The Downsides of a Casual Sex Culture 1:58:17 Where to Find Dr Glover - AG1 - Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/wisdom Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period from Shopify at https://www.shopify.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Momentous - Get up to 32% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout). Nomatic - Get 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom (use code MW20) Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  That's a good starting point.

• 0:10Chris Williamson?

  Why do you think so many guys subjugate their needs?

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Um, we've been taught 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 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 so what you learn is, well, maybe if I get rid of my needs, or maybe if I become needless and wantless. 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.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:14Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Well, that's that's a big piece I've worked on, and I work, you know, I work with men, and 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. So I consciously work at that. Another piece with the men I work with, I call nice guys, is, again, they believe they're bad for having needs, everybody else's needs are more important. And here, again, the kind of the distorted logic that a lot of us use. I've done this, a lot of guys do this, women do it too, is they'll go find a person whose life is a mess.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, they can't pay their own bills, they can't hold a job, they they fight with everybody they know, they're depressed, you know, whatever. We think, I can fix them up. I'll I'll dedicate all my resources to getting them good. And once they're good, they'll get, they'll be there for me. They'll help me get my needs met. But that's just terrible. Terrible strategy. If you want to get your needs met, go find people who are already competent at getting their own needs met and who are available to help give to you. But again, most of this stuff is so unconscious, we're not thinking about it. We just keep doing the same thing, hoping that 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.

• 2:48Chris Williamson?

  The minimization.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, just, yeah. No, no, no, no. So, um, yeah, this is a big piece I've been working on in my own life.

• 2:55Chris Williamson?

  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. There's something kind of, not desperate, but, but tangential to desperate 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.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  You know, talk about that, that dynamic with men. Cause 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, 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 it, 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.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  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. They have to give up all this other stuff over here that, that consumes them. And maybe even there, I think there's a fear that they might even have to reveal too much of themselves and reveal how shallow and empty and non-productive their lives really are. And so they just keep doing the same thing.

• 4:48Chris Williamson?

  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 do 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.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  That's just a given, you know, the devil you know is the devil you don't know. And for so many men, I liken it to, I call it an emotional tree fort. I don't know where you grew up, if you had trees around you, but we had trees, we had tree forts. And, you know, 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 in 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 it's kind of like a lot of men just continue that mentality of just wanting to live in that emotional tree fort, where they pull the ladder up, nobody can track them, nobody knows what they're up to.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  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 us physically, emotionally, early death. Look at any, you know, in this country, you need to, you know, the multiple shooters. It's all lonely, isolated, white, young men. And, and, you know, now it's men, you know, men going their own way and cells 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.

• 6:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, they self ID in their isolation.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  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 was at a retreat this weekend 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. Eighty percent of the isolated lonely men are isolated by choice, not because they've lost a partner, not because they've had an accident or an illness or a major financial setback. It's by choice, it's their preference. And then all the while, wonder why they can't

• 7:14Speaker 01

  get love, 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 place to be.

• 7:24Chris Williamson?

  I understand why guys have a skepticism and a retreat from the world around them, though. 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.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  It is so ironic how all the projections out there, 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 the women and minorities and immigrants go, those white guys are privileged. And, you know, I've really never found where blame or pointing fingers resolves much of anything or gets you anywhere.

• 8:08Chris Williamson?

  Yes. 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.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 8:24Chris Williamson?

  You know?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  I get it.

• 8:25Chris Williamson?

  You are the OG.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  The patriarchy.

• 8:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, of course. You are the OG oppressor. That is going to encourage you to check out. It's like, hey, I'm suffering.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  It's just an excuse. You can use it as a great excuse.

• 8:36Chris Williamson?

  Correct. Yes. Yeah. It legitimates your, your prize already. Okay. So how can people better learn to make their needs a priority? How do you start doing that?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I began by giving to myself. I, years ago, I was in therapy. I was married to my second wife, who I was married to when I wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy. And it became obvious that I was operating 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, don't have to ask, won't have to be clear or direct. You'll just read my mind because I gave you and now you're going to give to me. And so when I was working with a therapist, I was in a men's group at that time, I made 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'd, oh, my wife would like that.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  If I, if I saw, had any impulse to give to somebody else, I had to give something to me.

• 9:38Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Not necessarily equal, but 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 back. And then when they did try to give to me, I wouldn't let them. 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.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  You know, I'd pay for my kids to go to the dentist or the dentist. 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 healthcare kind of things. And I continue it 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 a nutrition coach. 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 gotta give to me. I gotta eat well. I, I told my fitness coach, I don't want to track macros. I'm tracking macros.

• 10:50Chris Williamson?

  Nah, you can't get around it.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So whether it's giving to ourselves and 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 it's those basic things or just, you know, ordering yourself some new clothes, you know, saying I'm gonna go hang out with friends.

• 11:14Chris Williamson?

  Prioritizing yourself first.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Prioritizing self. Now, 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 and neediness and manipulating people 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, I didn't fill it, but I didn't let anybody else help me fill it.

• 11:51Chris Williamson?

  So if you're not caring 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 have 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.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  That, that, that is probably definition of neediness right there. And you know, and this, again, this is what I'm talking with people about how to get their needs met. The first thing the guys will say, well, you know, well, will that make me needy? You know, that, that, that, that repulses women, right? That, that, and 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 too. So we all have needs and, and to just acknowledge, I have needs. 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.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  And we're, you know, kind of bringing this back around and more pieces to this, but a really good book. I've, 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 Peck, 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 something years. Back when I was a minister, I've been preached sermons from it many, many, many years ago. You're smiling, oh, minister, we'll go there. And I brought up in a Christian church, it says, put yourself last, put yourself last, you know.

• 13:35Chris Williamson?

  Subjecting your desires.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I can tell you some stories about that. So Scott Peck says that if parents are meeting their own needs, are attentive to their children, responding to their children's needs in 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? Saying, "I'm lovable, I'm valuable, my needs are important, and kindergarten's gonna 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 gonna be just like my family."

• 14:21Speaker 01

  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 and you get called up maybe even to take care of a parent, you get parentified. Like, for me, I liked sports, and so my father got a lot of pride out of his son, you know, being good in sports.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  And my mother, you know, lived through me to be the good man that my father was. 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 belief 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 Peck's theory is accurate, and I believe it has value,

• 15:42Speaker 01

  and maybe our minds aren't as receptive and elastic and, 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 and machine language. And so I believe that we're actually gonna 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 Peck 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

• 16:24Speaker 01

  create what I call cooperative reciprocal relationships. Everybody in the relationship is there because they choose to be cooperative and is 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

• 17:08Speaker 01

  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 world, the universe, the cosmos wants to give us.

• 17:22Chris Williamson?

  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 a 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 psyop 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

• 18:06Chris Williamson?

  for free. Right now, you can get 20% off everything site-wide by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to nomatic.com/modernd wisdom. That's nomatic.com/modernd wisdom.

• 18:22Chris Williamson?

  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. 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

• 19:03Chris Williamson?

  have, as opposed to just creating this odd lattice 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 pre-verbally? And what are the steps that you like to get people to go through?

• 19:28Speaker 01

  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 X, Y, or Z? I don't know. 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 find out. Probably a lifetime. So if we do anything, you know, or if there's anything about the human mind and the human nervous system, it likes predictability. It likes the sameness. Kind of going back to that quote that 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

• 20:12Speaker 01

  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'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 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.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Okay, that's normal. 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'll probably keep stumbling and bumping into hurdles and brick walls, and we'll quit, we'll give up. But if we can make this journey with others who either are on a similar journey or who've already been further down the road, when our emotional dissonance, our cognitive dissonance, our physical dissonance, when our reaction comes in, we have accountability, we have support. We don't have to go through it alone. Because, for example,

• 21:39Speaker 01

  you know, I like to be in shape, but I've never been a gym rat, and I've never been, you know, one of those people that's just diehard, got 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 in this amount of time, or I'm going to go to the gym this many times." Because 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 the other direction, without even being aware, right? Just a few examples. 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. And you know, they got a lot of platitudes in 12 steps.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  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 12 step group, I said, let's start a gratitude practice. Every morning, four, 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,

• 23:05Speaker 01

  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 decided, end of last year, I thought, you know, I've always thought it's a good idea to meditate.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  You know, I've tried. I always thought, well, you gotta get uncomfortable sitting cross leg 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. Cause we checked in every day, we connected with each other.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  You know, one day it was late at night, I thought, oh, I'm gonna miss a day. Fuck it. I don't want this to be ego driven. I'm gonna do it cause I wanna do it. So I missed it. I didn't try to squeeze it in the end of the day. And I have found out there's an interesting mathematics to this. If I do the meditation early in the morning, first thing in the day, I don't miss it. You know, I mean, it goes on the calendar. I take a snapshot. I wait till later, I can get pushed, pushed, pushed, and I forget about it. Same thing, you know, wanting to be healthy and fit. Okay, 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.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  That is how we change those old patterns. 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 fuck thought that up. I've never changed a habit in 21 days. I think if you've had something in your nervous system, in my case, 60 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 gonna eat this way. I'm gonna exercise this way, or I'm gonna 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.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  And then again, if you have a support system, you just check in and then just pick it up again tomorrow. So it's not rocket science, but it is challenging.

• 26:03Chris Williamson?

  Hmm. 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-growthers, will have a very scolding inner voice.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I watched those interviews. And I'm going, oh my goodness, I'd hate to be inside his head.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Um, but yeah, but we, but we, but we put them 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, maybe, maybe you can relate to that as well. I fortunately don't, 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, that the unknown. Um, but I don't have a highly critical voice, but I work with a lot of people that do. Think every woman I've been married to has had that. My father did.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Um, i- i- 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, aunts, uncles with some manifestation of this rumination kind of pattern. You see depressed, depression, anxiety, suicides oftentimes, addictive issues, relationship struggles, abuse.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  And so I think it's a brain type that you inherit. Like, uh, 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 them acknowledge they have ADHD and most all of them acknowledge they have a ruminating brain. So I think there's something. Genetically inherited of those traits. Now, the ruminating brain can also be caused by trauma. That's what PTSD does. It can create ruminations, it can lead to depression. But what the ruminating brain typically does, and brains don't actually ruminate,

• 28:36Speaker 01

  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. They can go into the past and, and, and just rehash every perceived mistake, missed opportunity, regret. And you know, if you replay the same regret 15,000 times, you're gonna feel like a real loser. You're gonna 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?

• 29:20Speaker 01

  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, I had a guy who was probably about my age, who 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 is just gathering important information. It's important that I keep going back and rehashing and 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.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  I've had other people call it like castles in the sky. We go back and replay these events and we say, if I'd 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 our ruminating brain beats us up. It measures us and compares us. Maybe it measures us against just any arbitrary.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Standard, oh, I should be a millionaire by this, I should be married by this time, I should have had, should have slept with a hundred 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 some, 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 the 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.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  That's one reason I'm not a big fan of this bow down and worship the high achiever 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 brain goes is into the future. This is where your perfectionism comes in. If I don't do it perfectly, it's going to crash, it's going to burn. What if I fail? What if I look foolish? What if I invest in it and I lose everything I've got?

• 32:08Speaker 01

  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 tits 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 know, 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, because if you're ruminating

• 32:53Speaker 01

  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 believed to be true. So and you're gonna feel really bad about yourself because 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 gonna feel fundamentally flawed and it just goes on and on. But thankfully, there is, there is good news and 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

• 33:38Speaker 01

  and watch it spin rather than be in it being spun by it? So I, I, I, the primary mantra 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 off 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 think it enough, and if you find enough other supporting evidence through confirmation bias, of course, it must be true.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  And 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 laid, if they've been laid, 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 and I've just crossed 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 was talking to somebody the other day. All my girlfriend, all my, all my relationships ended about two years.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  So he's judging himself for that. 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 One guy said, well, I'm not in a relationship right now, so 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 been divorced three times. How could I teach people? And 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.

• 35:43Chris Williamson?

  It's so interesting. It's the 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 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, a little sort of like reverse mantras that they have, not something that's positive and encourages them.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Usually not at all.

• 36:13Chris Williamson?

  But something which is negative and reinforces a fear that they have or an insufficiency that they're concerned about or whatever. 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.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, whether you, you do a dive into like Joe Dispenza 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'll, you won't see all the things that might contradict those beliefs.

• 37:06Chris Williamson?

  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, has every ten fucking person got this same car? Like, why, no.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  And the same color.

• 37:20Chris Williamson?

  You're now, you're, you're now looking for it, right? It's the same reason as to why they do experiments 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? And 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

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Have you heard the one about the gorilla?

• 37:39Chris Williamson?

  Yes, where they get the

• 37:41Speaker 01

  They're passing the basketballs back?

• 37:42Chris Williamson?

  How many times did they pass the basketball? And did you notice the gorilla that came through the middle of the screen?

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Gorilla?

• 37:46Chris Williamson?

  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 from a sort of sensory interpretation perspective, you blot out the things that you're not looking for. And if you're 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.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Easily.

• 38:24Chris Williamson?

  So from the sort of reticular activating

• 38:27Speaker 01

  And now the internet will feed that to you as well.

• 38:29Chris Williamson?

  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 got 3% body fat and a 220 pounds stage shredded all your

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Not everybody looks, it's like watching porn and think every guy's got a big dick.

• 38:48Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Everybody's got a big dick.

• 38:50Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, 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

• 39:02Chris Williamson?

  you can repurpose the story you tell yourself about pretty much almost anything. So it's 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, you've got the taste of metal in the back of your throat and your heart 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

• 39:46Chris Williamson?

  you were sat in traffic, you would think, I need to go to the hospital fucking 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.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Well, and what's the quote, "The only difference between anxiety and excitement is breath"? Is Fritz Perls, 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 believe this is, I believe anything is within our power to begin making adjustments. Now, I'll kind of throw out a kind of another part to this.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  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 an example, you know, I tend to carry my weight in my belly. And I've 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 to have significant shame wrapped around it or to hate on themselves.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  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, to let good things come to you.

• 41:39Chris Williamson?

  Well, do you want to be around that person either? Is that the friend you want?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  There's so many people have that person up here in their head with them.

• 41:45Chris Williamson?

  Of course, and you know, I'm speaking to myself here. I'm 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 pretty frequently, I think, for me, and I know that Lex Friedman has the same issue. When you're speaking a sentence as a podcaster, you're very

• 42:13Chris Williamson?

  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 naturalistically, 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 absolutely adore this level of this relationship I have with my verbal mind.

• 42:57Chris Williamson?

  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, what should have been.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  How you're constructing the next sentence.

• 43:16Chris Williamson?

  Of course, 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 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

• 43:59Chris Williamson?

  until they hit some impossibly high standard that nobody could ever meet in any case.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Still not good enough.

• 44:04Chris Williamson?

  Correct.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  There's, you know, that taskmaster doesn't, okay, I put the whip down. You achieved it.

• 44:10Chris Williamson?

  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 high

• 44:22Chris Williamson?

  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 37,000 companies have already made the move. NetSuite 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

• 45:07Chris Williamson?

  to netsuite.com/Modern. That's netsuite.com/Modern.

• 45:13Chris Williamson?

  Oh, you listened to that episode I did with Matthew Hussey, didn't you?

• 45:15Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 45:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, so he has this great story where he's talking about how he starts each day basically in something similar to productivity debt. Oliver Berkman'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 his-

• 45:35Speaker 01

  He starts the day overdrawn?

• 45:36Chris Williamson?

  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 the-

• 45:50Speaker 01

  This is the 4,000 weeks guy we're talking about.

• 45:51Chris Williamson?

  Correct, yeah, that's Oliver Berkman. And then, um, this is Matthew Hussey'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 bright and early in the morning."

• 46:31Speaker 01

  In debt.

• 46:32Chris Williamson?

  In debt, productivity debt.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  In debt.

• 46:34Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  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.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  And you know, I'm so much more productive. I, I can work from seven 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 to say, time to relax, time to recharge the battery. And if you can step outside that cycle, you can go, hmm, I'm gonna go lay down for 15 minutes. When, when, sometimes when I'll, I'll do like 30 or 90 day 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,

• 47:59Speaker 01

  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. Cause just that doing nothing, kind of just refilling the bucket again.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  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 hating on something. Yeah, we can drive ourselves. We can drive ourselves.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  But you never do get there.

• 48:43Chris Williamson?

  That was an unfinished thought from you earlier on, where I was saying, who would you rather be around?

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, exactly.

• 48:49Chris Williamson?

  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 stuff.

• 49:13Chris Williamson?

  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 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.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:34Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:57Chris Williamson?

  Right? You'd 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.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  It, it, yeah, we're surrounded with shame, you know, culturally, family, family lately. I said that wrong. I feel so terrible. Religiously. And it.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Rather than making people happy and successful, it makes them easy to control. And, and that's why, why religion and governments, you know, 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, 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 kid's doing this, they're doing that. And I go, that's actually normal behavior. Well, no, but it, but it's driving me crazy. I don't want them to do it. And, you know, they would shame the kid for normal, natural, stage appropriate behavior. Child behavior. And, and, you know, the kid will, the kid will do one of two things. It'll either

• 51:19Speaker 01

  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 oppositionally defiant. They just push back against everything. They'll cut off their nose to spite their face. If, if you make shame the, the motivating factor, and that's why I've learned, 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. They say, no asshole, you know, we're not going to do it that way. And at the same time, I, at least my friends all tell me, and they've told me this for years, Robert, you're so consistently productive. My wife would frame that differently. She

• 52:03Speaker 01

  says, Robert, you work all the time. And I'm not driven. I'm really not. You know, I got a PhD at 29, but not because I was driven. I just, I hated school and high school, but the further I went, the more I liked school. So I just, I liked, you could do research and 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. I mean, I may do some things out of insecurity. Oh, if I got 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 built businesses. I've written four books. I've Um, you know, I just moved to Mexico. I I've just done things, but never because, oh, I got this

• 52:48Speaker 01

  big goal. I gotta, I gotta make that happen. I just usually went in the direction of either what I just naturally seem to enjoy, or what I was naturally curious about. Every book I've written is just because I was curious. I wanted to understand stuff. So I just dove into it. And at some point, I thought, well, 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, I've never said no to an interview in my life. I, I, I love this communication. When

• 53:32Speaker 01

  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, I love doing Q and 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 and 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 try to find a way out of it, pay someone to do it. I hate accounting. I hate bookkeeping. Pay my accountant $550 a month to do all my books and taxes. Best $550

• 54:13Speaker 01

  ever spent. And that lets me then keeps it 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 feet 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, she'll kind of, you know, you, you own the gym today, right? 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 learned 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,

• 54:54Speaker 01

  or I'll put on, you know, the good music that I like, or I, I've, I've got to find a way to make it enjoyable because I'm, 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.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  If I find things I love doing, 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.

• 55:20Chris Williamson?

  And I'll keep going forever.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  I can keep going forever.

• 55:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  But that's just me. That's how I'm wired.

• 55:24Chris Williamson?

  I was thinking, I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago, the guy that you're going for dinner with tonight, George, it was his 30th in Miami, and we were talking about why hard work is so pedestalized in lots of cultures, but specifically 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.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:46Chris Williamson?

  Hard work is still this sort of mainstay, and rightly so. Like, I like working hard. But one of the things, one of the reasons that I think it is so pedestalized is that it's kind of like a universal solution to a multivariate 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.

• 56:16Chris Williamson?

  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 lots 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. Your sleep will take a hit, 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

• 56:58Chris Williamson?

  hard, i.e. consistently with a degree of attention for non-insignificant durations of time. Let's say that's what hard work is. 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 twenties. 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 short cutted 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.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  It doesn't count. Exactly.

• 57:39Chris Williamson?

  Doesn't count. If I didn't, 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.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  You know, you know, that's twisted, right?

• 57:49Chris Williamson?

  Of course.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  That's messed up.

• 57:50Chris Williamson?

  Of course.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:50Chris Williamson?

  Of course, of course. And at the time, I just, I don't know what I thought it was. I thought, I think that I considered that to be some sort of nobility in the suffering itself. You know, like a Puritan work ethic, these priests hoeing 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 tribute that it is. And, uh, yeah, that, you know, odd kind of like

• 58:23Chris Williamson?

  laborious, masochistic approach that we have to the things that we do. I see an awful lot. And yeah, I'd had this sort of insight about hard work as well.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Well, here's even a little bit of a twist on the hard work thing.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  If you look around the world, the hardest working people are usually the poorest people, especially if you're talking about physical labor. Yeah, I live, you can't, you can't use the word third world country or global emerging economy anymore. I don't know what Mexican, Mexico qualifies at. A narco run institution. I don't know. It is. 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 hard work that, that actually takes you where you want to go. Cause you can work really, really hard. And not have anything to show for it.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  But you're right, it's kind of built into into our culture. 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 your fields, you know, time in and time.

• 59:45Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  That's what they're all afraid of, the revolutionaries. They don't want, 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.

• 1:00:06Chris Williamson?

  I mean, you know, 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 use slaves, forced labor, in order to be able to get shit 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.

• 1:00:49Chris Williamson?

  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?

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  You compare it to everything else. And, but here's a thought, let's 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 launched a new company 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 worked from 7:00 AM till 9 o'clock at night. It has not paid me a paycheck yet. And I'm loving it. I'm having such a good time with it.

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  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 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 theoretically towards the best day of our life? That on some day 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?

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  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 gonna happen? Is it gonna be tomorrow? The Saturday? Next Saturday? You know, when, when, you know, when the business starts making a profit? When you're over 5,000, 5 million? Remember, 5,000 probably was a big deal, right?

• 1:02:44Chris Williamson?

  It was huge still.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that you've broken a million? 2 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.

• 1:02:59Chris Williamson?

  Well, it's that Seneca quote, "How long are you going to wait until you start to demand the best for yourself?"

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  It kind of goes back to making us a priority, doesn't it?

• 1:03:08Chris Williamson?

  A lot of, a lot of people continue to wait. I wanted, 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?

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  Well, probably began with mom. So yeah, yeah. And another quote from, from one of my coaches in his book 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 audiobook 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, is all about seeking the approval of women. Pick me, pick me, choose me, get naked with me, want to be my girlfriend.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  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 walk into my office, they're still trying to chase the approval of a woman that, you know, has said, "I do," 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 preschool with women and then kindergarten and elementary school.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:05:20Chris Williamson?

  Mike, what's the problem of chasing the approval of women?

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Well, kinda 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 don't know how many women have you been with, but have they been all consistently approving of you day in and day out?

• 1:05:43Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  No, of course not. And so is that even attainable to get the approval of women? What if instead we were seeking the approval of ourself? Maybe the approval of our male peers and friends through 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, 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 each other and would show me, I go away from, you know,

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  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 we're 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.

• 1:06:55Chris Williamson?

  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 AG1's ingredients are insanely 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. First of all, there is a 90 day money back guarantee. So you can buy it and try it every

• 1:07:37Chris Williamson?

  single day for 89 days. And if you do not like it, they will give you your money back. You can get that 90 day money back guarantee and try AG1 with a year's free supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to drinkag1.com/wisdom. That's drinkag1.com/wisdom.

• 1:07:58Chris Williamson?

  Now, you say a woman may want to be attracted to a nice guy, but biology won't allow it.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Nice is not a turn on. You know, there's, I can't think of the name of it. You may know the name of it, but there's 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 to 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

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  likely to drive up them, you know, wanting a connection than you, you giving them. There's a name for that. I can't think of the name of it right off.

• 1:08:53Chris Williamson?

  I know what you mean. I mean, reciprocal altruism is the dynamic that it's based on, but I don't know what the name of that particular effect is.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Something effect. And I can't remember it.

• 1:09:01Chris Williamson?

  Very interesting.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  I'll think of it later. I'll go, why didn't I think of that during the podcast?

• 1:09:06Chris Williamson?

  That being said, it's so, 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.

• 1:09:27Chris Williamson?

  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, which

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  That's the covert contract.

• 1:09:39Chris Williamson?

  Correct, which in future is going to be a debt.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  But the other person doesn't know about the contract.

• 1:09:45Chris Williamson?

  Correct.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  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 like to give. Most people like to give, but when nice guys go see, I'll give you an example. I, I teach men to be social animals, kind of, kind of going back to these isolated men.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  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, 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 swipe right apps. 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 I thought,

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  I spent the last, you know, 25 years, you know, going to my kids' sporting 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.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  Creating the kind of life I wanted to live, right?

• 1:11:20Chris Williamson?

  Well, you have two choices, right? You can either lie about the sort of life that you're going to live, or expose to the world the boring as fuck life that you actually are having.

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  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 know, 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 worked to become 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'd take my laptop. I'd take my books. If I could go be in public, I'd go and I practiced talking to people around me. Just, and, and then I started being successful in terms of dating and getting laid. And my clients start saying, Robert, teach us.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  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, you 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 because 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 day. I'm alpha. I'm, no, you're chasing her because you want her approval. You want her to say yes.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  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, are smiling at you, you know, walking in front of you a couple of 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 doors. And then guys go, well, but you know, it, it seemed, and I, I love this quote by David Data. Choose a woman who chooses you.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  If you, you know, if you just, why chose her? I want, no, you're gonna chase and you're gonna work and you're never gonna feel her approval. But then the guy said,

• 1:13:42Chris Williamson?

  Even if you manage to get the marriage to work, even if you manage to get the ring on her finger, or even if you manage to do the rest of it.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  You know what? The, again, as a relationship therapist,

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  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. Cause the married guys, well, I'm married, it's the only choice I got. Now I've gotta get her to choose me. And I got guys will say, Robert, how can I get my wife to want to have sex? How long since you've 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 them and let him, you know, poke her with his body parts. So it doesn't matter if these are single guys or guys in relationship. If you're chasing the approval

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  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 interested in 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'd you meet your wife? I was walking down the street in Puerto Vallarta, Mexican, Mexico. I heard a voice to say, oh, la señora want a massage. Said, no hoy, mañana, not today, tomorrow. I thought, I liked your voice. And a buddy of mine had been saying, Robert, listen more to your emotional messages.

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  I liked her voice. I didn't, I didn't even remember what she looked like. Turned around, walked back, said, how much? Started getting massages. Six months later. She basically propositioned me. I asked her out and, and we've been married seven 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 Nala.

• 1:15:48Chris Williamson?

  I remember.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Do you need to go let her out? My, my wife was standing outside the house. She'd forgotten her

• 1:15:53Chris Williamson?

  I remember that as well. I apologize.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Nala was barking to let me in, you know, while, while we were recording the podcast. So I'm a big fan, but 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? Things ever gonna get raining? 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,

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  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, how's your day going so far? There's gotta be some start to it.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  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 gotta 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 of 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 continuing interaction. Typically,

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  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. Well, it's low interest. You found 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 and lead her. They

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  don't play, they get playful with her, and they just start playing it safe. That's the boring part that women go, 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 relationship. I teach men about, what do you teach men? Women always want to know, what do you teach men about relationship? So, you know, I tell the woman the kind of stuff we're talking about. And the women go, can, can, can I tell you a couple of things to tell your men?

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  I go, okay.

• 1:18:52Chris Williamson?

  This is like doing a request from the DJ.

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, can you play a couple of tracks for me?

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, could you play, you know, we built this city, you know? So to say, tell the men, trim their ears and nose hair. That's one thing to say.

• 1:19:05Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:19:05Speaker 01

  The other thing, the thing to say is, tell them to polish their shoes. Shoes are important to women. Women notice their shoes.

• 1:19:11Chris Williamson?

  That's interesting.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  But then they go, can I ask you a couple of 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, and 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 gonna ask for my number? You know, do I have to put up a billboard to say, hey,

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  dumb shit, ask me for my number, you know? And then the guy gets done, he goes, oh, well, it was nice talking to you, shakes the hand, maybe I'll bump into you sometime. They go, why don't they do that? I go, because he's scared.

• 1:20:07Chris Williamson?

  Well, they're looking at each different stage, guys are looking for rejection. So I think it's, I think I'm.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Which is just the opposite of approval. If they approve of me, I don't get rejected. So I don't want to, if I've got approval at any level, I don't want to risk.

• 1:20:21Chris Williamson?

  Win. That'll take, that'll take, I'll take that as a win.

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  I'll take it as a win. Exactly.

• 1:20:25Chris Williamson?

  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 Jim Shark and Allbirds and Newtonic. 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 inventory 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 you're 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

• 1:21:07Chris Williamson?

  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 slash modern wisdom or lowercase. That's Shopify.com slash modern 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 owner myself. But one of the things that I think women definitely can cultivate is receptiveness. I think that you need to basically treat the men that you're attracted to, like particularly slow, mentally disabled golden retrievers.

• 1:21:52Chris Williamson?

  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 aristocrat, England Renaissance period, where ladies would drop a handkerchief.

• 1:22:07Chris Williamson?

  In front of men.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, can we go back to that? I mean,

• 1:22:10Chris Williamson?

  It's just a

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  But the guys nowadays will go, was that for him? It wasn't for me. It must have been for him.

• 1:22:15Chris Williamson?

  Well, I don't know. It's like, it's not Iraq. 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 Too's had on men's dating behavior. And again, this isn't to say that Me Too wasn't an important redress to some people in Hollywood being total dickheads. And you know, Harvey Weinstein is about to like get retried, apparently.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  He got out of jail.

• 1:22:46Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, some dodgy shit. But in a post Me Too world, men are terrified of being seen as a predator. Any good man is going to think, well, fuck, 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 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 shit. So I think just adjusting the sights on the scope for women, especially in the post Me Too world,

• 1:23:32Chris Williamson?

  could make dating an awful lot easier for them. It's like, hey, cultivate some receptiveness. Drop a visual handkerchief.

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  I love that a lot. Can I use that?

• 1:23:43Chris Williamson?

  Absolutely.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  I love that. You know,

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  I told you earlier, I've never said no to an interview. And I did one about six months ago with a young guy, Hispanic guy in LA. And found out later when I checked out the, I was his number one YouTube, his first YouTube post.

• 1:24:01Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:24:01Speaker 01

  Young guy. Great interview. This guy's, this guy's gonna be great. And but he asked me the question. He said, all right, what advice do you have for guys my age, 21? And he shared an example of where he had not done something inappropriate, but had an experience with his girlfriend and and and then she was gonna post on social media that he raped her. And then apparently a friend intervened and 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 gonna go post anything and everything on social media and you got no rebuttal and, and you know, it's gonna be believed, you know.

• 1:24:47Speaker 01

  A mantra that I've never loved is during hashtag me too is the victim is always to be believed. But what if the victim is a man who's been falsely accused?

• 1:24:57Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  And he's saying, I'm the victim here. I didn't do that.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  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 pick up and 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, gonna come be a nice guy and try to, you know, get your approval, or whether he's gonna come on and hit on you. You don't know, you don't know where that's going to lead.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  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 them from Adam. So I'm not a big fan of just approaching women because they're hot. And, and I know that, that's not a popular stand to take because men want hot women. Well, how else am I gonna get a hot woman if I don't go to approach her because she's hot? And I go, that's a great way, it's 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. And just assuming because a woman's hot, she's good and bad or gonna be good girlfriend is a reach.

• 1:26:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you say an obsession with hot women is basically broadcasting a man's low self-worth.

• 1:26:33Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't have the answer to that other question of, of what do you do when interacting with a woman? Cause I know when I got out there and got successful with women in 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 I 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,

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  or you know, she's going to, you know, I become a hashtag me too casualty, 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 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 U S 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 swipe right, all the, you know, the,

• 1:28:13Speaker 01

  the dating bootcamps and, you know, Instagram, you know, you can 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 that 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. Yeah, I'm glad I'm not a young guy having to navigate.

• 1:28:45Chris Williamson?

  It's perilous. It's perilous. And then it's also, you know, perilous is 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.

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  And maybe they've had those horrors.

• 1:29:09Chris Williamson?

  And 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.

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Beautiful woman after beautiful woman without a lot of clothes on. So I, I think there's 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 a, any kind of ongoing commitment to this one because there, there might be this cuter one that I want, want to be with. 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.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  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. 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.

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  And so I think for the women, if I just commit to one guy, if I get all within one guy, I gotta turn off my social media in this constant funnel of praise. I gotta quit 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 easy to meet, connect, go fast, and nobody's actually getting together, staying together for any length of time.

• 1:32:02Chris Williamson?

  Talk to me about how guys can be more confident when talking to women.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  Not seek their approval. You know what? I've never worried about confidence. Now, 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 lifted her shirt and showed her his breasts. You don't have to think about it. We don't think, do I like those? It's just wired. And if a guy is confident, you know, women, they don't have to think about it. Do I like that? They just like it.

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  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 know, we just talk to people everywhere I go. And all of a sudden, a woman in a room sees, 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 ask Uber drivers their name.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  I, I ask, you know, I asked your camera guy, his name. Anthony, right? Yes. She had to think, oh, is that right? I hope, you, 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've found tends to be highly attractive to the feminine. Now, I'm, I'm married to a, a jealous Latina.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  And she is always pointing out women that are coming on to 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 it, but 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 dear old friend of mine passed away a few years ago. A, a gay fellow down in Puerto Vallarta had this bed and breakfast I used to stay at.

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  And my mother used to stay at and him and his gay partner ran it. And he used to say, he says, sin to say no, when you should have said yes. So I used to be-

• 1:34:41Chris Williamson?

  It's a very strong philosophy for a gay person. I imagine a lot of gay, gay guys live by that philosophy.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  You know, and, 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 go, 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. You know, 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 when you say yes.

• 1:35:24Speaker 01

  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 sixty eight years old, you know, yeah, hair's gone. What I've got is white, you know. I'm just, I, I just think 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,

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  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're, they're, they're interacting with people, right?

• 1:36:33Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:36:41Chris Williamson?

  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're here to stay.

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  Well, I actually never did the apps. They, they, they came along, um, you know, and, and maybe I'm grateful for that. I, I hear they're addictive. And maybe that's part of the problem, you know, I, I know guys, I've had guys come visit me in part of Ierta and, you know, and they, they, they get on the, the apps, you know, Tinder 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 frigging app the entire time. And maybe get a few dates out of it. So, you know, they, they work.

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  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,

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  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 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 to the 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 hashtag me too thing. They, they're drawn to something that has an edge to it, something that has some energy to it.

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  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, like I said, I was pre-app, but, but one of the things I would do, if I connected with a 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 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, because I already told them, you know, pack your, your bikini, your flip flops and your passport, go in someplace fun. And I, they get to pick what it is.

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  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 had 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.

• 1:39:14Chris Williamson?

  It's exciting, it's playful.

• 1:39:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:17Chris Williamson?

  Charlie, you went on my friend Charlie Hoopit's show a couple of months ago. And he has almost exactly the same thing for speaking to women that are 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'll quit my job. I can sell Lucy cigarettes on the, on the beachfront.

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:37Chris Williamson?

  You know, we can make mushroom cocktails and we'll sell those. And even 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.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  You know, 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, the, 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, 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.

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  And if they have any degree 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 gotta get up, gotta, gotta do their job. Looking for this studio, I came in from the door down on the street and I opened a door and here's 25 women all sitting at desks real close to each other. And I go, uh, yeah, I'm looking for the studio and, you know, and they, uh, what's, what's, 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

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  to get themselves out of that hamster wheel mentality.

• 1:41:42Chris Williamson?

  That's interesting.

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  Once they're in it, they don't have a ready-built escape. Maybe that's why they all go to get the glass of wine or cocktail hour or whatever.

• 1:41:51Chris Williamson?

  It relieves that.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  So what if you come along and they weren't expecting you, they don't know who you are, and maybe, you know, 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 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. When I was taking salsa lessons, and, you know, I went from being a terrible salsa dancer to being, you know, kind of awkward still white guy salsa dancer. But, you know, I'd, I'd be standing on a, on a corner waiting on a bus, or standing somewhere, and I'd ask a woman, do you salsa?

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  And if they said no, I'd go, I'm taking lessons. Let me show you a step. I would just get the frame, get them in frame, and I'd do a simple cross-body lead. Or if they said yes, I'd go, good, I'm taking salsa. Let me practice with you. I'm trying to practice, you know, this cross-body 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.

• 1:43:15Chris Williamson?

  Talk to me about being outcome agnostic.

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  Outcome agnostic. I didn't come up with that term, but the first time I heard it, I, I just loved it.

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  You know, probably most of us have heard that the Buddha said that attachment is the cause of all suffering. When I teach men this about being outcome agnostic, non-attached outcome, men get mad at me. They think I made that up and imposed it on them. No, no, don't put it on me. It probably preceded the Buddha even. But the truth is, if we get emotionally attached to a specific outcome, we're gonna suffer. 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. Cause I also say that attachment is the cause of all anxiety.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  And so, what if, we'll 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 you wanna 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 she go on a date with you, unless maybe you find out she's a psycho bitch from hell, and then, then you wished she hadn't, you know? But then what if you're equally okay with that as a possible outcome? And, and life flows.

• 1:44:52Speaker 01

  You can say yes to more things if you're equally okay with every possible outcome. And again, are we gonna like some outcomes better than others? Yes. But are some of the outcomes we didn't love, do they turn out to maybe be an outcome that we didn't see coming? 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 pounds, went to doctors in the US, Mexico, got undiagnosed, misdiagnosed. Did I want that? I knew it was killing me. I didn't know what is killing me. The last doctor I saw in the US, a gastroenterologist said, you probably just have, you know, a Mexican parasite you have to outlive.

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  I wasn't gonna outlive a golf ball sized tumor in my small intestine. She didn't even run the right tests to go looking for it. At some point, I surrendered.

• 1:45:48Speaker 01

  I didn't know what I had. I didn't know if it's gonna 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 pain became less. Did I want to be in pain? Did I want, 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 it got easier. People would ask me, Robert, how are 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.

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  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. Would I want to go through that again? No, but I do it at least once a year.

• 1:46:49Chris Williamson?

  Nah, just a little reminder.

• 1:46:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, just to 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? And I go, I don't know about you, but when I'm not attached to so many, if 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 gonna come do an interview with you, you know, and I know we had a previously good interview, so I knew it was gonna be good. You say, I'm gonna introduce you to 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, it doesn't matter who you introduce me to, because I know it's gonna be cool. We're gonna have a good time.

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  So what if we can just get up every day and live that way? That life's gonna be good today. And one of my mantras is, I love waking up in the morning, not knowing how my day's gonna 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 gonna be one of those days.

• 1:47:55Chris Williamson?

  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?

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know if it changes that much for guys that have never been. You know, when I got out in the dating world.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  I realized two things. I'd done enough work on myself by that time. 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, 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. And so I thought, okay, I gotta change that pattern. And I thought, two things. Like I said, I was 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

• 1:48:57Speaker 01

  me all kinds of stuff. You know, I read Neil Strauss, guys gave me Double Year Dating with David D'Angelo. You know, I just, I just listened to podcasts. 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 just got bold, and I took risks, 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, showing my age again. So I decided I 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

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  want to have to go out again, and go through the whole process. So 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 three 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 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.

• 1:50:26Speaker 01

  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 coffee date. And then, you know, I don't want to see them again, or 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. 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.

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  Cause 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 COVID, that really got tough, but hopefully we got another window of time where we can actually get out and be social.

• 1:51:24Chris Williamson?

  Tactically, how can people be better enders?

• 1:51:26Speaker 01

  Better enders, sooner rather than later, always sooner rather than later. Now, people, the ruminating brains can spend years in a relationship every day. Should I stay? Should I go? Should I stay? Should I go? Thinking, well, if I leave, will I regret it? What if she gets another guy, then I'll be jealous. And well, but what if I stay, I'm missing out on that opportunity? So ruminating brain makes this, you know, hell on wheels on steroids. But as soon as you realize a person is not somebody that you can't imagine yourself not being with.

• 1:52:03Speaker 01

  It's probably a good time to stop it. And I, I learned from trial and error that I, I met 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 wanted that too, but I was just wanting the experience of dating and meeting people. And I let women know that upfront and you know, the majority of them, 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. Funny. And, and so, but what I did realize, you know, a, a lot of women very quickly wanted to get sexual

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  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 I live in now? And, uh, cause that didn't seem to be the, 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, if she's getting those feelings, I would end it.

• 1:53:31Chris Williamson?

  Even if you've stated upfront?

• 1:53:34Speaker 01

  Even if.

• 1:53:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. 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?

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Maybe, I, I don't know that I can speak to it. What, I, I think maybe the, maybe the best generalization I can make is that 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 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 women are more likely to do that.

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  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 wonder if I can just get him to have sex with me because I I.

• 1:54:40Chris Williamson?

  I think there's a, especially with a modern culture that tells women, you can work like your father and have sex like your brother. You know, you can be the.

• 1:54:52Speaker 01

  You make that up?

• 1:54:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:54Speaker 01

  That is good.

• 1:54:55Chris Williamson?

  Uh, it's what modern culture is taught with.

• 1:54:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:58Chris Williamson?

  Work like your father, have sex like your brother. 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 bifurcate 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 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.

• 1:55:42Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 1:55:52Chris Williamson?

  And learning to be open and honest and upfront. And then.

• 1:55:59Chris Williamson?

  It's almost like being overly honest in a way. It's not to do with honesty. 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.

• 1:56:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:56:17Chris Williamson?

  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 gonna do that myself.

• 1:56:31Speaker 01

  And that's a good way of saying, you know, what I learned over time. Because even when I'd tell women upfront, yeah, I'm just recently out of a 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.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  Their heart was getting connected and I promise you, if their heart's getting connected and you're good looking, you're charismatic, you're in good shape, you're successful. They are gonna fall. They're gonna fall for you. You know that. And, and they're gonna fall. And I'll just be blunt, if you're fucking 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 fucking 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 comes to an end. It does.

• 1:57:39Speaker 01

  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 if the woman seemed really cool with us continuing to have casual sex, when I knew her heart was opening and, and, you know, she was loving the sex and loving, just loving being with me. I had to end it. Break her heart, and I know that 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.

• 1:58:17Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 1:58:23Speaker 01

  DrGlover.com, integrationnation.net. Two best places to find me.

• 1:58:28Chris Williamson?

  Hell, yeah. I appreciate you.

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  Thank you. This was so fun.

• 1:58:32Speaker 04

  At Zocdoc, we know you care about your health. You wouldn't do that early morning cardio if you didn't. So the fact that your annual physical is overdue just shows how hard it can be to get seen by a doctor.

• 1:58:43Speaker 03

  Sorry, that doctor's not in network.

• 1:58:45Speaker 05

  Press 1 for more options. You've reached us outside normal business hours.

• 1:58:49Speaker 03

  The next availability is in three months.

• 1:58:51Speaker 04

  But Zocdoc makes finding the right doctor easy. Download the app and search by specialty, insurance, and availability. Read real patient reviews, then book instantly. Zocdoc, ready to be seen?