Connor Beaton - Modern Masculinity Is Under Attack: Here’s How To Fight Back

💥 Modern masculinity is under fire — but Connor Beaton isn’t backing down. In this gripping conversation, he breaks down the silent struggle facing today’s men 🧠💔 — from emotional suppression to societal expectations — and lays out a path to reclaim purpose, strength, and truth. 🛡️🔥 Whether you're navigating relationships, identity, or inner battles, this is your rallying cry. ⚔️👣 It’s time to rise, rebuild, and redefine what it means to be a man. 🧍‍♂️➡ 🍿Watch The Full Episode: https://londonreal.tv/beaton 🚨 Learn To Make Money In Crypto: 💰The Investment club: https://londonreal.tv/club 💰Crypto & DeFi Academy: https://londonreal.tv/defi

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Men are in decline. We have less men going to college, less men in the workforce, more men living at home, less men dating. I do think that we have a real crisis.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Are we getting better or worse?

• 0:13Speaker 00

  I think it's a tough time, man, to be a young guy. There's a lot of paradoxes within our modern culture. The OnlyFans woman that's making millions of dollars off of a man is praised for being sexually liberated, but then the man who's paying the money to watch and use the OnlyFans woman is a disgusting pig. We as men are kind of very linear and logical, right? And so it's like, well, the rest of this relationship's okay, but the sex part really isn't there, and so I'll just go get that from over here. Porn kind of creates a pseudo-attachment. It's just like this beautiful reset button for your brain and your body. You feel like crap, you're angry, you're frustrated, you had a shitty day, you're stressed out,

• 0:57Speaker 00

  and you're like, "I don't like this, I don't like feeling like this." You can go watch porn, get off, and you feel good for a brief period of time. And that is no different than weed, alcohol, cocaine, or whatever it is. Part of replacing addiction is by reintroducing healthy relationships.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Without London Real, I wouldn't have my sobriety. Without London Real, I wouldn't have my children. Without London Real, I wouldn't have so many things in my life. And so I kind of reverse engineered that somehow, because with London Real, I was kind of forced to create all these human relationships that I had avoided.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  When you get around other men that really are living exceptional lives, and they're showing up in exceptional ways, it gives you something aspirational to move towards, and that is at the heart and soul of our masculine core, in my belief.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  The world is changing.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Inspiration is everywhere.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  It has never been so easy to connect, share, and bring people together.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  We're learning from others and finding the best in ourselves.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Challenging our beliefs.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Sharing our vulnerability.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Overcoming our fears.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Transforming ourselves so we can transform the world.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  How far can we go?

• 2:35Speaker 01

  This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is

• 2:46Speaker 01

  This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Connor Beaton, the entrepreneur, bestselling author, and keynote speaker. You are the founder of Man Talks, an international organization focusing on improving the lives and relationships of men with the goal to better understand the challenges men face in today's world. Your book, Men's Work, is a practical guide to confront one's inner darkness, overcome self-sabotage, and gain a sense of freedom and purpose. Here, you've developed an innovative approach to healing the shadow, a concept that addresses the hidden parts of ourselves that contribute to our struggles. You said there is an epidemic of man shaming within society, as well as a lack of authentic support, leading many men to feel isolated,

• 3:31Speaker 01

  purposeless, and disconnected. Your mission is to help men reclaim their inner strength, confront their shadow, and live with greater purpose, clarity, and connection. Connor, welcome back to London Real.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me back.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Look, it's great to have you. I think we spoke eight, nine months ago, and we went pretty deep on all sorts of things. I think I was, you know, telling you about a lot of my life, and you were kind of breaking down. And honestly, Connor, you helped me see some things in a different way that I hadn't really looked at before, from, you know, drinking drug abuse to like my experience as hazing as a fraternity. And we really covered a lot of amazing ground, but we didn't get even into some of the more interesting things that define us as men, or even reflect to us who we are as men, like relationships and mothers and all these other things. So I can't wait to dive a little bit deeper today.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  Beauty. Beauty. I'm ready.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  When you bump into someone like on the street or on the bus, and they say, "What do you do?", what do you tell them?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  It depends on my mood, but essentially I just said that I run a men's mental health company and you know, our slogan is it's not therapy, it's training. And so essentially it's, you know, helping men grow deeper into themselves, not grow up, but actually grow deeper into who they are and who they actually want to be. So that's, that's usually what I say. If I, if I, you know, if I'm just messing around, I'll say like I make men cry, you know, I'll just joke around and stuff like that. But for the most part, it's, it's that it's helping men grow deeper into themselves, giving them the tools, the resources that oftentimes modern therapy is actually not giving them.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Powerful. You know, for me, I think about this a lot because my two boys are now eight and nine. So like, I really am looking straight at it. And I'm, I'm, first of all, I've got a direct reflection of how I'm doing as a father and introducing concepts of masculinity. And also I'm watching in real time, two young men develop into men. So I've got that going on. I've also still have relationships with my father and all sorts of other people. So it's pretty interesting how it's all kind of happening in real time. And it gives me a lot to think about and focus on for sure.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, I mean, eight to nine is a very interesting time, especially for a lot of young boys where it's like the prepubescent time. And I mean, this is maybe a interesting fact, but maybe something for all the, all the parents to think about. Eight to, eight to 11 is the, what the research shows is the general age that young boys are now finding porn. And so if you have an eight and nine year old boy, it's probably close to that time, if not that time already to have that conversation of what pornography is because a lot of young boys are finding it so early, you know, it's so accessible. And it's, it's a big struggle for a lot of parents of like, when do I talk to my boys about this? How

• 6:35Speaker 00

  do I talk to my boys about this? Do I talk to my boys about this? And, and so yeah, just throw that out there for you.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Good point. Let's drill right into that. How do you talk to your boys? About that.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  I mean, I think a couple of things, you know, depending on the relationship that you have with your boys. You know, one of them is to talk about the ease of acquisition, you know, and I probably wouldn't use the word acquisition. I'd probably say something along the lines of, you know, you can find some things on a phone or an iPad or a computer that maybe you're not ready for and to open the door for conversation. So what I would probably say to my son when he turns eight or nine, number one, I would say, I'm always here to talk to you. If you get hit with something or if you find something or you come across something that, you know, just you don't even know how to deal with, or it just feels like it's too much for you, or if it feels like it's something that you want to hide, you know, like that's probably a good time to come and talk to me about those types of things.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  So that's number one. Number two, I would have some type of a conversation with with them or how you would have that conversation with your kids, have some type of conversation with them about sex and what it actually means, whatever your family system makes it mean, you know, every, every family system is a little bit different. But have a conversation with them about what sex is, the role that it plays, the sanctity of it into some degree. And then to be able to have a conversation of, you know, you can go and watch porn, but it's going to skew, it's going to mess up your perspective of sex. And the analogy, because I'm from Canada, so I'm going to give you a Canadian analogy is you can watch hockey, but it's very different to go play hockey.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  And so having a basic analogy for kids can be very, very helpful to get them to just understand like, you could go and watch this and it'll be enticing and you can get hooked on it. And it'll be something that, you know, you struggle with or you just deal with in silence. It's not to shame them, of course, but you know, the real thing's better and encouraging them to just go down that path safely.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  So it's a tricky conversation to have because like you said,

• 8:40Speaker 01

  you kind of have to talk about a lot of things that maybe they're not even mentally ready to talk about. It's almost like because it's so accessible and like most parents, they, they, they live in oblivion, right? Oh no, my kids haven't seen that. But like if we're really honest with ourselves, they're seeing it two or three years before you think they will, maybe more, right? So if I'm really honest with myself, they probably have already seen something, right?

• 9:06Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  Percent. I, I spoke at a all boys school. Cause I do a lot of public speaking and I spoke at an all boys school. There's 600 kids, right? And it's middle school and high school. And so, uh, you know, pretty not, not like grade one, but I think about four or five, grade four or five, uh, all the way up to grade 12. And they had these, they had all the boys on the lower levels. There's 600 boys and I'm on stage in front of the boys. And then the rafters are some of the parents and all of the teachers. And, you know, I was talking about being a man and, you know, masculinity and these types of pieces. And I had a slide that I turned to and the slide and I, I had passed this with, you know, the parents and the teachers first. Like I'd put, I'd given them my slide deck. I was like, I'm going to talk about this.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  And so it just turned to a slide that said porn. And of course, all of the boys like, oh, you know, all erupts. And I was like, okay, I'm going to get all the parents and all the teachers to turn their backs. And so all the parents are up in the second floor and all the teachers, they turn their backs. And I said to the boys, okay, real talk, how many of you have actually watched porn? And I kid you not, 95% of the boys put their hands up out of 600 kids, right? From grade four or five up to, you know, grade 12. So the majority of those kids, you know, if you think your boys haven't seen it, they probably have. It's, it's really one of those things where, and, and the interesting thing is that the research shows that it's, it's oftentimes, it's not them searching for it, you know, either they stumbled across something,

• 10:36Speaker 00

  they're at a, they're at a friend's house and, you know, a friend's older sibling has shown it to them or whatever it is. But oftentimes somebody else is showing them the pornography. And so it's, it is good to get a sense of, you know, having some dialogue with your kids about it.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  This is crazy. Like you said, then you're talking about sex, which is probably still maybe a good time to talk about that. But then you're talking about the sanctity of it. I mean, that gets really deep into relationships and all that, which is, I mean, stuff that maybe that cortex isn't necessarily ready to grasp. So it puts you in a difficult situation these days, right? Because of these, I guess, digital files and digital devices where you have to have that conversation with people maybe before they're really ready.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you know, anytime you're talking to kids, it's best to just use super simple language, you know? It's like, this is special, and, and, you know, this is easy to access. And I think the more that you can make it very simple and very straightforward. And I think the challenge is that for most parents, it's uncomfortable for them, you know? Maybe it's uncomfortable for the kid, but if the kid, you know, is sort of, doesn't really know a lot, it's not going to be super uncomfortable for them. It might be a little strange, like, oh, you know, mom and dad had to talk with me. But use super simple language. And you're right, try and keep it within the context of what do I think my kid understands? And sometimes the best thing to do is to, to ask, to inquire, like,

• 12:07Speaker 00

  what do you know about? Have you ever heard of this word before? Have any of your friends ever used the word pornography? Have they ever talked about sex before? And sometimes that type of just opening the door for you and your child to have a conversation about what they already know might surprise you.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. That'll be happening on Sunday. Thanks for that. I still remember one of my first experiences with porn. I mean, you know, look, I just turned 54, so there was obviously no internet back then, and it would have had to have been a videotape. And I, I remember I saw something, I was 14 or 15, was that the first time I thought, saw like, video porn? And it really shocked, I wasn't ready for it. I was like, what the hell is that? It was really like, whoa. And, you know, then, back then, you really would struggle to get access to like, video stuff. And then when I got to the fraternity house, it was there, but, you know, we kind of moved.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  We kind of moved on at that point, but um, so I really don't have context to how much of a issue it is, you know, today. And I know quite a few people that that speak about this as well, including Sadia Khan. She's a friend of mine. She speaks on this um, kind of from her perspective, and she thinks it's it's one of the biggest problems out there, you know?

• 13:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I would agree. I mean, I've been working with men for a decade, uh, over a decade now, and you know, my organization has worked with tens of thousands of guys, and I can tell you that it's it's a huge issue for a lot of men. And it's not every single man, doesn't mean that every single man has a problem with porn, um, but the majority of people are watching it. Um, women are now watching it more as well. Um, and you know, I think for a lot of guys, because they find it so early, it does skew their perspective of what sex should look like, how they should perform in sex, and it kind of takes out the how do I want to operate, you know, during sex part of it and the exploration. Um, and so, you know, if you if you think about

• 14:07Speaker 00

  it, if a kid, if a boy finds porn at, you know, eight, nine, 10 years old, he he hasn't even had puberty yet, you know, he can't even really do those things. So it it really alters their perspective of, oh, this is what sex should be. This is how sex should look. And for for some people, you know, depending on when they find it, um, it can really replace real intimacy and sex in a relationship. I see a lot of couples struggling, uh, when and when they struggle, the man, uh, sometimes the woman, but oftentimes the man will just turn to porn. And so sex will start to decrease in the relationship because the guy's not really trying to initiate. He kind

• 14:49Speaker 00

  of falls into this pattern of like, what's the point anyways? Why should I bother? And then there's this, you know, this thing that he can turn to that never rejects him, never turns him down, is always available. Uh, and so it's it's very easy access. And when you think about it, uh, you know, the average man, I mean, even a a young guy can sit down and watch pornography for however long. And see more naked women than pretty much any man throughout the course of the entire human history, right? The greatest kings in the past, you can, you can watch pornography for an hour or two and see more women naked than any single man will have seen throughout his lifetime, uh, throughout human history. And so I think it definitely, you know, skews

• 15:34Speaker 00

  your sense because it just inundates your brain. It inundates your mind. Um, and, and it alters your perspective of what sex should be.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  I do struggle to see how, how it's a replacement for intimacy, you know, digital files. Um, I can see that there's a lot going on there with the brain and that it could be, and then also maybe if you started early, there could be some weird things going on. But again, I, I, maybe there's a correlation with relationships going southwise with physical intimacy, but I personally don't see the causation or replacement. But then again, you see a lot more of this than me.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Well, it's, it, I'll, can I speak to that just really?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Please.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  I think that's probably important, which is, you know, we, we're, we're attachment based creatures. I think we touched on this last time, like we are relationship, social creatures. And so we, we are literally designed and built to be in relationship with people. And we have very specific needs that we desire from relationships. And when we get into an intimate relationship and there's a part of that attachment that's not working, it's, you know, we as men are kind of very linear and logical, right? And so it's like, well, the rest of this relationship's okay, but the sex part really isn't there. And so I'll just go get that from over here. And so, you know, one, it kind of solves a problem

• 16:55Speaker 00

  that we think that we have. And number two is porn kind of creates a pseudo-attachment and it mimics and sort of mirrors and what you'll see in certain men's pornography usage behavior. Is that who they're talking to and the type of porn that they're watching is mirroring some type of connection that they're wanting in their relationship. It's some type of expression that they're wanting in their relationship. It's, it's a part of them that they're wanting their wife or their girlfriend to know. Uh, but they're afraid to bring it in. They don't know how to bring it in. They feel like they're gonna get rejected for, for bringing it up in their relationship. But they can go and do that in porn, or they can pay an OnlyFans girl to, you know, shoot a video for them and do exactly what they want.

• 17:40Speaker 00

  So porn creates this pseudo-attachment with zero, almost zero risk and zero rejection. Right? You can ask for and do and say whatever you want, and for the most part, you're going to quote unquote, "get your needs met." Um, so I think that's why for a lot of people, it's, it's very enticing. Uh, and you know, then there's the neurochemical side of it, which is it creates a dependency. So the more that you watch it, the more you get a dopamine hit that basically incentivizes you to return to it. And what ends up happening for a lot of men is that porn turns into, I, I call it the great reset button, right? It's just like this beautiful reset button for your brain and your body.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  You feel like crap, you're angry, you're frustrated, you had a shitty day, you're stressed out, uh, you feel alone, bored, depleted, whatever it is that you feel. You feel something internally and you're like, "I don't like this, I don't like feeling like this." You can go watch porn, get off, and what happens in your brain is a whole, uh, slew of neurochemicals like dopamine, like prolactin will flow out through your brain, relax your body, make you feel good, wipe away the, that sort of, you know, angry tension, frustration that was there before, and you feel good for a brief period of time. Now eventually that state will likely come back in, cause you know, your life hasn't actually changed, you've just watched some porn and got off.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  But it tricks your body into thinking, "Oh, this is a great way for me to feel better." And so for a lot of men, what ends up happening is this very subtle addiction starts to creep in, where anytime they feel something internally that they do not like, porn is there to help them feel better and they turn to it. And so for a lot of guys, what you'll see is, you know, some men literally watch porn every single day. Some men watch porn in order to wake up in the morning and get out of bed. Some men watch porn in order to go to bed at night. And oftentimes in these, in these, what I'm talking about is a little bit more extreme cases, but oftentimes.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Investment Club. Today, I consider it the best investment that I've ever made. We get four projects presented a week by their associated CEOs. Personally, I'm completely blown away by the quality of these projects. And I know of nowhere else where I would be given this same opportunity. Each weekday passes, I feel more appreciative of the fact that I'm a member of this group.

• 20:04Speaker 03

  The vibe was just tremendous. Everybody's on the same wavelength. We just clicked. Everybody listened to each other, enjoyed their company. It was just magical, magical.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Take action. Don't take my word for it. Do Dylan's you need to do. And I really hope that someday down the road, I see you in the club.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  It far exceeded expectations, without question.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Times in these more extreme cases, guys have built a dependency on pornography to help them deal with some type of internal state that they don't like. And that is no different than weed, or, you know, alcohol, or cocaine, or whatever it is, right? You do that substance to help you feel better internally and to feel like there's some type of connection. So we trade human attachments, we trade human relationships for these substances, objects, and behaviors. That's basically what addiction is, right? We trade relationship with another person with a substance, an object, or a behavior. And that becomes what we're attached to. So instead of becoming, being attached to you, or, you know, my wife,

• 21:17Speaker 00

  or whatever, you know, addiction means I'm attached to this substance, object, or behavior, instead of being in right relationship with somebody else.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Hmm, very interesting. I mean, coming from a former addict, or I guess you could say I'm always an addict, depending on how you look at it, or what meetings you go to, then I can see that, because that's why I used to drink, and that's why I used to do drugs. But also, I would say one thing you didn't mention is that after you're dabbling with the porn there, if you're honest with yourself, you feel even worse after that than you did when you started. Now, of course, same with alcohol, same with heroin, same with all these other things. And if you're smart enough to see that, because I've seen it, because I've gotten all of those things, then I can see it, and they'd be like, but you're going to do that thing that you think's gonna make you feel better, but it's gonna make you feel worse. So maybe don't do that thing. But the only reason I can

• 22:10Speaker 01

  maybe have that conversation with myself is because I went down that wrong road for decades with the substances. So now I can kind of look at it and be like, you know what, you're playing yourself. Or as one of my famous guests said, "You're trying to find happiness in the exact place where you lost it." That's what he says. I love that quote. Love that quote. And so, you go back to do this, that's where you lost it, and you're trying to find happiness again, and of course, it doesn't work. But I can see how that could happen. I guess that could happen about a lot of behaviors. Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, I always say we don't sabotage to get out of control, we sabotage to regain a sense of control. It's a very big misconception about sabotage. We think, oh, I sabotage, I text that girl, I watch the porn, I do the drugs, in order to feel out of control again. Now, you know that whole pattern of sabotage. The whole thing is baked into your brain, from what's gonna happen before you do the drug, or, you know, text that person that you know you shouldn't text, to when you go through with it, to right after, to the morning after, you know, the whole cycle is played out in your head. And so sabotage is a way for us to move back into patterns that we recognize, right? Your brain is a pattern recognition

• 23:23Speaker 00

  machine, and it will always choose the patterns that it knows over the patterns that are foreign. So if what your brain knows is dysfunction, it will choose that dysfunction, even though you're like, I know this isn't good for me, I know I'm gonna feel like crap tomorrow, I know this is going to take me down a peg, and I'm gonna resent the fact that I texted this person, or, you know, had that extra drink, or whatever it is. But it will move you towards that pattern, because that's known. So we have to work towards, we actually have to work kind of against our, our wiring, which wants to move us back towards patterns that are known, which are oftentimes, you know,

• 24:05Speaker 00

  addictive behaviors, sabotaging behaviors that are not good for us, that we don't actually want.

• 24:14Speaker 00

  And, and in doing that, and I think one of the parts of AA that is really beneficial, that sort of ties into what we're talking about, and that, you know, it's about addiction. My good friend and mentor Dewey Freeman says, you know, we're, we're wounded in relationship, we have to heal in relationship. And the big challenge with any type of addiction is that you get hooked on something and you build this really strong bond with that subject or object or behavior. You build a relationship with the drug, or the porn, or the, you know, the alcohol, or the gambling. And then there's a community usually around that behavior. Not always, right? With the porn, maybe there's not a community, but there's other women, right? There's other people that are involved in it.

• 24:58Speaker 00

  And so you, you kind of have this relationality that plays out within this addiction. And part of what needs to happen is that in order to let go of the addiction, you have to, part of, part of replacing addiction is by reintroducing healthy relationship. And so if you look at AA, what you'll find is a huge part of it is you, you know, you've got the person that you call, you know, you talk to them every single day, and you go to meetings. And so what they've done is they are just replacing this behavioral pattern of using a drug, or using a substance, or, you know, alcohol, or whatever it is, with genuine relationship, where when that experience internally that you dislike starts to come

• 25:43Speaker 00

  up, I want to blow things up, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm alone, I don't like how my life looks, instead of turning to the substance, you turn to an actual person, you turn to a relationship. So in many ways, healthy, secure relationships are the antidote to, we could say, the poison of addiction. I think that might be a little bit too harsh, but it's the antidote to addictive behaviors.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, powerful. Again, you're knocking me out here, Connor. Because I always say that without London Real, I wouldn't have my sobriety. Without London Real, I wouldn't have my children. Without London Real, I wouldn't have so many things in my life. And so I kind of reverse engineered that somehow. Because with London Real, I was kind of forced to create all these human relationships that I had avoided in the past. And in the past, I would just go to the drink because that was just convenient and I knew that pattern. But with London Real, I started developing all these amazing relationships and I was connected. Also, a lot of alcoholics will tell you they feel disconnected from the world. And that pain, maybe they're just trying to get over from that day. A lot of times, they feel really separated from the world.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  And then when they're in their alcoholic stupor, it doesn't hurt as much. So for me, it was like building all of those relationships over many, many years that I think allowed me to just walk away from it at the end. And I think that's the only reason. There's no way I could have done it without the show, which forced me to have so many relationships from the team, to my guests, to the fans, to just everything, that I just evolved out of it. And that's why I didn't go to A A or any of these other things. It just kind of got to a point where it just fell away. And I made a conscious effort, but then I could do it. But it was only because of those relationships, Connor. I hadn't really thought about the details of that. But yeah, I'd say that's very accurate.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  I'm with you, man.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Powerful.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Right there with you. You know, I struggled with a bunch of different addictive behaviors. Booze was never really the big one for me. But, you know, I think really letting myself... I mean, I created, when I started Man Talks, it was an in-person event where we brought people together to share their stories. And men would come up and share their stories. And it just evolved from there. And so, you know, I think a part of it was that I always struggled to bring all of me into any relationship. You know, I didn't have very good attachment. I keep coming back to that word. But, you know, I do think it's important. I had, you know, pretty avoidant attachment tendencies,

• 28:18Speaker 00

  meaning that I avoided expressing what I wanted, what I needed, who I was in relationship. You know, I would lie a lot. I would hide. In my relationships and then I would just venture outside of the relationship and get what I wanted met, you know, outside of that. So infidelity was huge for me. It was a big, big, big struggle. Um, and pornography was as well, but it wasn't until I started to bring myself more fully into relationships and build a community where it was like, oh, I do belong here, you know, I can belong, I can show up and people rely on me. I'm responsible for things that all of that really started to shift and change. And so again, relationship is the antidote to addiction. It's not the only antidote. We do need other pieces.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  You know, we need to have some type of a mission, some type of purpose. We, you know, we have to make the choice to get clean, all of those things, you know, all the 12 steps that you, that you can go through. But relationship certainly is, is one of the most integral parts. And what I've seen with a lot of men is because, and this is where porn is insidious. It is the most socially acceptable addiction there is. Maybe even outside of drinking, like drinking is pretty socially acceptable, but when you start to get off the rails, everybody's like, oh, I don't know. Like you're making a mess of yourself. You're showing up, you know, at work drunk. Nobody knows if you're sitting at home watching porn for three hours by yourself. Nobody really knows that. And so it's so easy to hide. It's so easy to hide. You know, if you have a heroin addiction,

• 29:48Speaker 00

  you're going to struggle with, you know,

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's hard. It's hard.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Porn addiction, it's kind of unseen, you know, so it's really this, this ghost in the background for a lot of men's lives. And, you know, again, for some guys, it's not that big of a deal. They watch it once in a while. You know, maybe they watch it once a week or once a month and it's like, kind of not really that big of a thing. But for many men, it is a much bigger problem than that.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. It reminds me of the people I used to see that could have a glass of wine at dinner once a week and I'd be like, I don't understand that. I want to have 40 of those right now. And so as Brad Pitt once said, um, he got his drinking privileges revoked and so did I and thank God. Um, it's interesting. You talked recently a lot about anxious attachment. And disorganized attachment. And I guess we might as well jump in on that now because I'm curious if you could tell us more about that. You know, it's interesting. I was talking to a friend many years ago and he was struggling to find, I guess, the the love and intimacy in his relationship and he was going elsewhere. And at one point he said, you know, do you feel love? You know, do you feel enough love or do you have to go find it too? And

• 31:00Speaker 01

  I immediately thought of my community and I was like, man, I feel so much love. It's not actually, um, it's not, you know, this this man, woman love that it was just so much love from all these different members and the relationships I had with the guests and my community. And I was just like, I feel like I have tons of love. Even if, you know, it wasn't relationship based. And it was just something interesting to note that we were, that he was struggling with one thing and I was seemingly to replace that with something that wasn't even obvious that it could work for him. And I don't know if that has anything to do with the attachment things that you talk about, but it just came to my mind.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, we all have some, I mean, this, this attachment work, I think, is one of the best things that's come out of the therapeutic industry or the psychological industry outside of maybe Carl Jung. I think the OG Carl Jung is still, I think, some of the stuff that he created was, was phenomenal, but you know, there was a ton of work that was done by John Bowlby and the like. And what they found was that in the first few years of your life, predominantly in the first few years of life, it can be interrupted and changed as you, as you grow and develop, but mostly in the first sort of three to five years of your life, your attachment style is going to start to form to your, your caregivers, right? To mom, dad, whoever your caregivers are.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  And ideally what we want is a secure attachment and that secure attachment is based off of a few, a few different things. Number one is the trust and the understanding that our needs matter and our needs can be met by somebody else. Right? So your needs matter. Your needs can be met by somebody else. The second thing is that you can go through a tough time in relationship with somebody else and come out the other side. Okay. Alright, so we can go through hardship, we can disagree. You know, I can try and express that I need something and maybe I'm not doing it right. And so you kind of misinterpret it, it leads to a conflict, but we come out the other side okay. Even if that doesn't happen, right? And we can circle back and we'll, we'll try again.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  So these are some of the basic building blocks of what creates attachment, just a healthy, secure attachment. And my good friend Dewey Freeman has a great attachment cycle. That kind of explains the whole thing, but you know, essentially when we're young, we have needs, right? We're very, we need to be taken care of by other people. And we express those needs when you're a baby, like my daughter who's 10 months old. She kicks, she screams, she cries, she acts adorable, you know, she does all these things. It gets my attention, gets her attention. And we try and figure out what does she need? And as a kid, it's pretty simple because you know, she either needs food, she needs a diaper change, she needs to be held and loved. That's, that's kind of it. And when those needs are met, what happens is a child will learn, oh, my needs matter.

• 33:49Speaker 00

  I can communicate my needs effectively and the world's okay. The world's a safe place to be. People care about me. That cycle for infants plays out something like 30, 40 times an hour. Right? So if you're around an infant, around a baby, they're just doing that constantly, right? They're trying to get your attention, et cetera. So as we get older, these, this attachment cycle just evolves, but essentially it evolves around the same thing. I need food, I need interaction, I need communication, I need expression. I need to be able to express myself in relationship and have it be received. I need to be able to ask for what I need in relationship and have it be received. And so as we get older, this same cycle still plays out and that forms secure attachment.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  Now, if we have interruptions, it will create, and you know, there's, there's different labels, right? Anxious attachment, avoidant, disorganized, fearful, those types of pieces. So as we have interruptions, it will create these behaviors. And I can give you sort of like high level pieces for each of the, um, you know, different attachment styles to kind of give some insight. Like anxious avoidant is, I need you to be okay in order for me to be okay. So you'll see an anxious person constantly like checking in, are you all right? You seem a little off today. And what's really going on is that their internal state is disrupted. They need to know, are you actually alright? Is everything okay with you?

• 35:18Speaker 00

  Before they can be alright. So there's a lot of externalization. There's a lot of oftentimes love bombing, like let me give you a whole bunch of love that you will hopefully give to me in return. Right? And so Dr. Robert Glover calls those covert contracts. I'm gonna give you something with the unspoken expectation that I get something back in return. Anxious people do this all the time. I'm gonna try and do everything for you, make everything good for you. So that hopefully you ease my internal state. You ease my anxiety and help me feel better. Avoidance are the flip side of that. It's I don't need you in order for me to be okay. I'm better on my own.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  And so avoidance tend to, as soon as things start to get more close and intimate, they will start to pull away from the relationship because in their past, intimacy, closeness, that was the threat. Relationship was the threat. Whereas for the anxious, not having relationship was the threat. So you can think about a baby being left for too long. You know, maybe mom's kinda tuned out quite a bit and she's kinda spaced out or she's super busy and the baby's left by itself. That'll create anxiety within a baby, right? Over time. Or on the flip side of the spectrum, it'll induce a kind of shutdown. Like screw it, relationship's not safe. I'm not dealing with this.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  I don't wanna be involved in a relationship. So avoidance, it's I'm better off on my own. I'm better off on my own. I'm safer on my own. There's not really anybody else I can trust but me. It's not safe for me to express who I am in the relationship fully. And so what you usually find with avoidance is that the relationship will kinda reach this peak, this place, where all of a sudden there's some closeness and some intimacy starting to happen and they'll start to pull away. Or if things have gone too well, you know, the things have gone well for too long, they'll kinda throw a grenade in. You know, they'll pick a fight, pick an argument. And you know what? I'm not talking to you for two days, right? And they'll just peace out.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  And then the last one that I'll give you, and there's sort of variations on this, but the last one is disorganized. And the disorganized is basically a variant on both avoidant and anxious combined. So the way that I like to look at it is that the disorganized just does not have a strategy to do relationship or to make and maintain connection. So the anxious is I'm anxious around connection and relationship. The avoidant is I'm hesitant and mistrustful of relationship. And the disorganized is I just don't know how to do this. I don't have a strategy to make or maintain continuous connection. So I just said a bunch, so maybe I'll just pause there.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Hmm, and so when, should everybody, when they're in a relationship, be looking around thinking which one are you? And then I'm going to deal with you accordingly? Or should they be aware of that? You said it was one of the most powerful theories that you're aware of. Is that important? Because I wouldn't necessarily have looked at relationships through that lens. Friends or intimate relationships?

• 38:33Speaker 00

  I don't think that we need, you know, lots of people in the therapeutic space go down the path of like, I'm an anxious attested. I'm a fearful, disorganized, you know? Those types of labels are more for the clinician. That's, it's more for the person that's working with a client or a patient than it is for the actual individual. I think one of the challenges of modern day social media is therapy speak is everywhere. And people, people are self-diagnosing and diagnosing everybody else around them. You know, you see a video on the internet and you're like, that person's a narcissist.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 00

  This isn't, this isn't about pathologizing yourself or your partner. This is more about understanding the behaviors and the decisions that lead to security and trust and intimacy in a relationship and the behaviors that don't. And then maybe if you start to notice like, actually, I really eject from a relationship a lot. You know, or every time I get into a relationship, I'm an anxious, complete mess and disaster. I text bomb the crap out of the other person. Then maybe you might want to go and understand those topics. But otherwise, what's helpful is understanding what actually builds security in a relationship. That's the important piece.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm avoiding for sure. Yeah, my parents got divorced. I was like, these, these, these relationships are dangerous. They're gonna hurt you. So I was like that. I figured that out real early. And now I just try to catch myself when I see myself about to blow something up or running away. And having kids helps because now you have a relationship that it's not going anywhere. And it can cause you pain. And if you take the extreme scenarios of something bad happening, that cause you a lot of pain, but they're not going anywhere because I have to take care of them. I would say that's, that's a nice way to get yourself used to a relationship that, that you, that you can be like, okay, I can do this, you know, I don't have to avoid this. I don't have to sabotage this and maybe it works elsewhere or maybe not.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  What is the mother wound and mommy issues? You know, something you talk about and I feel like it's important to talk about because I don't know if men really talk about this that much.

• 40:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, there's again, there's sort of like different variants or iterations of the mother wound, but a couple of different things. Essentially, a mother wound is the, the pain that a man will have experienced at not having the love or nurturing that he needed from his mom. So his mom may have been invasive, you know, the sort of stage five clinger mom that was constantly all over him, checking on everything as, you know, as soon as he's hurt. Oh, my God.

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• 42:12Speaker 00

  Gosh, my baby, you know, and he's like 15 years old, uh, kind of smothering him and, and all over him. That type of invasiveness actually sort of penetrates through our boundaries as a person. So that can feel like, oh, women aren't really safe because they're going to try and make their way in, in a way that I actually don't really like and appreciate. So that's kind of the, the smother mother or the, the stage five cleaner. Another version of it is the, the ghost mom. And so that's the mom that's kind of checked out. You know, she's not really super present, maybe she's around, um, but you know, she's kind of occupied

• 42:52Speaker 00

  with her career, you know, she's kind of maybe a workaholic and you don't really have a sense of who she is. She's not super loving, warm, nurturing or kind. Uh, and then there's the tyrant mom, the mom that just like she runs the house. You know who the boss is, she makes it clear that she's the boss. Uh, and it creates this very interesting kind of imbalance in the household where she runs the show. Dad doesn't really have much of a spine, doesn't stand up for himself. And so the boy has to start to kind of cater to whatever mom wants. And that can create this, this dichotomy of either that boy continuing to be a man who then sort of kowtows to women and, and never actually stands up for himself and is, is truly deeply afraid of women.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  Or a man who has an extreme level of anger and distrust towards women. Uh, it can be very hard for that type of man to be in relationship with somebody because his animosity and resentment for his mom will oftentimes start to show up in his relationship. So those are just some versions, but a mother wound is essentially the, the pain that you experienced from having a mom that, uh, wasn't able to maybe meet your needs. A ghost mom can also be an addict, right? If you had a mom who, who had an addiction, um, my mom struggled from addiction. And so, you know, sometimes she was very loving and kind, and sometimes she just really wasn't there at all.

• 44:18Speaker 00

  She wasn't available to actually be loving and nurturing and, and in relationship because she, you know, she was going through her addiction. So those are, those are some of the pieces. There's, there's a couple of other ones, but maybe I'll just stop with that.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Does everyone have a mother wound or not necessarily?

• 44:34Speaker 00

  Not necessarily, no. I mean, you know, I think that there are some moms that are very loving and kind and there's, you know, there are a lot of great moms and a lot of great dads out there that I think are doing a phenomenal job, honestly. If you read the works of, there's a great book called Iron John, and it's written by a guy named Robert Bly, and it's basically a myth about the coming of age of a young boy, that like the maturation of a boy. And there's this part in the book, and I won't give too much away, but I'll talk about this one part, which I think is important and relates to this. There's this one part where the boy, he's got this golden ball and he loses it into the cage of this wild man, this like big hairy wild man.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  And he goes to get the ball back from the wild man, and the wild man says, "If you want the golden ball back," which, you know, could represent innocence and, you know, a whole bunch of things. And the wild man kind of represents the masculine essence within us as men, right? This sort of like unfiltered, un, you know, powerful, hairy, hairy man locked up in a cage. He says, "If you want your golden ball back, you have to go and steal the key from your mother. We have to go get the key from your mother." And in the book, the boy cannot ask mom for the key. He can't let her know that he needs the key. He actually has to go steal the key from underneath her pillow. And so it's kind of this symbolic

• 45:59Speaker 00

  piece that the maturation of a young boy into adulthood, into manhood, requires that he removes something of himself from his mom. That he actually ventures into adulthood without her sort of quote unquote permission. He's not asking her, "Can I let the wild man out of the cage? Can I let this adult version of who I could become out of the cage?" It's something that he actually has to go and take for himself. So I think a lot of men have a mother when, because they've never done that. They're still looking for mom's approval. You know, they're thirty, forty, fifty years old, sixty years old, and they're still desperate for mom's

• 46:43Speaker 00

  To tell them you're a good boy, you're a good, so you're doing a good job. And they need that, they need that from them. And so. And I'm not saying that that's not nice. I'm not saying that every once in a while, it's not nice to hear your parents say like, I'm proud of you. That's not what I'm saying. But it's a different quality. It's like a necessity for those men who don't steal the key from under their mom's pillow. Because they've never truly matured into a self sustaining man that they're able to recognize, validate and appreciate themselves in a deep way. And so they still need it from the feminine. And maybe it shifted from, I need this from mom to I need this from women, you know, I need women's attention. I need women's validation.

• 47:27Speaker 00

  This is the classic nice guy thing, and it's very, very prominent within our culture.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  It's all so goddamn complicated, isn't it, Connor? Jesus, right? Moms and dads and girls and man.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  I had a question for you. Last time we spoke, we had a different president in the United States. And now we have a new president. I was about to say who's much more masculine. You might not, you might disagree with that. But he's definitely a different type. And he's rolling back, it seems, a lot of the, some of the anti masculine things going on. And I'm just kind of curious. Do you think that has changed the tone of masculinity, the tone of the country? Do you think there's good things about it, bad things about it? I'm just curious.

• 48:22Speaker 00

  Put me in a tricky spot because I normally don't talk anything about politics.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 00

  Say, here's what I will say.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  I do think that we have a real crisis, like men are in decline. Statistically, if you look at the research, young boys are in decline, men are in decline. We have less men going to college, less men in the workforce, more men living at home, less men dating, you know, fewer young men are even sexually active. Far fewer than young women, because young women are either sort of going. Towards sort of like five percent of men or they're going towards older men. So you can see that men in general are being affected. I don't know if the things that Trump has done are necessarily the things that are going to reinforce masculinity. Um, or actually teach manhood.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  I think it's, you know, I think it really is the, the baseball coaches and the fathers that are at home. And the men that are raising the boys in our future, I really do think that it, it comes down to us. You know, the man sitting in the big office in the White House. I, I like to think has less impact on my son than I do. Uh, and I, I think that I need to take the responsibility for raising the next generation of men to be men. And I, I think the narrative has shift shifted a hundred percent.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  I think it's just a back and forth. It's like a volley, you know, it's like anti-men. And then kind of like very pro-men and yeah, I, I saw Scott Galloway talking about how like. The election was won and lost because of young men. And I think that's true to some degree. I do think that the left. I do think that the left really, uh, does not know how to talk to young men at all. At all. It's insane. Um, and, and does not have a place for them there. You know, I think about myself when I was 18 or 19. I was super liberal, you know, and I cannot imagine being 18 or 19 and, and feeling like I have a home in. Today's Democratic Party. Right.

• 50:36Speaker 00

  And so, you know, I think that the level of ostracization towards young men. And just men within our culture is extremely problematic. And I, I think if anything, you know, what the administration has done is kind of. Maybe tried to make a, a statement or a sentiment. Around, you know, being a man is good and we respect men and we value men. And there's other things that they've done besides that, but I think that's maybe part of the message that they're trying to send. And I, I do think that that's, you know, largely up to us as men in terms of. How we want to work and operate within our society and our families and those types of pieces. Um, but I think it's a tough time, man, to be a young guy. It's hard like.

• 51:21Speaker 00

  I was saying to somebody the other day, like, I get why 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds like Tate. I think if I was 18 and 19-year-olds, I'd probably be watching Andrew Tate as well. Because I would feel like, and I think it was maybe Richard Reeves, or maybe George from the Tin Men, who I was talking to on my show. And they said something along the lines of, in our modern culture, men don't have problems, men are the problem. And I think what's happened is that there's this divide that's happened in the political party, where one, one party has held that frame, men are the problem. And the other party has held the opposing pole. They've said, actually, no, men aren't the problem. And, you know, of course, what am I going to choose?

• 52:06Speaker 00

  They're going to go to the side that's like, yes, not everything is my fault. And some of us are struggling and have real issues that maybe as a society, we should look at and dig into. I don't know if this administration has done maybe what they could to support men and to actually help men. I'm not familiar enough. I'm going to play the Canadian card here. And just say like, I'm not really too, like a hundred, I try and keep abreast of it, but I'm not as immersed in it as maybe I should be to really know the policies that are being implemented. But I think that, I do think that young men are really struggling.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  And I absolutely think that we really need to support them and we need to do that sooner than later, because we are turning out a lot of young men who,

• 52:58Speaker 00

  they're just, I mean, I get messages from them all the time, man. It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. I can't tell you, like, every week, you know, sometimes I get messages from men being like, please help me not take my life. I'm like, man, you know, why should I live in this society? I don't want to live in this world right now. Why do, you know, it seems like everybody hates me. It seems like everybody hates men. You know, and they're just really struggling. And so I think we need to do a much better job of supporting them. That much I will say.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely true. Well, I can't talk about politics. I think it's a massive net positive just because I think we have someone who is unabashedly male, an alpha male who's running that country. And I also think that if you watch him long enough, and Trump has his flaws. And I think his latest spat with Musk is actually not very good alpha male behavior. And it's not what I was taught through all of my men' interactions of how to deal with something through a spat on Twitter. I think it's actually not very good male behavior, but that's a separate issue. But overall, I think it's a net positive. I think we see a guy who can be tough, but who can also be compassionate and who can also be gracious

• 54:10Speaker 01

  and who employs all of these really powerful, strong women in his cabinet. And I just think there's a lot of really great examples there that I think young men are seeing. And I can see why they won that vote. And I think there's a lot of subconscious messages going on there that are like, you can do this. And then, of course, they're trying to roll back a lot of the gender blending stuff too, which I think helps. Now, are they going to take it to the next level and help everybody on a granular level? Yeah, that's yet to be seen. So I'll agree with you on that. And the baseball coaches and the fathers, they have to do the work. But there's a lot of leadership from the top and there's a lot of setting the tone that I think can come from a place like the White House, even to the whole world.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  And when I was in Dubai, and I want to tell you about three incidents that happened to me in Dubai and get your take on them. But they couldn't even believe that there was a question that we wouldn't have Trump because they don't really understand how wacky and wild the leftists have taken things. And I'd say that's most countries in the world just don't understand how far America went off that. And so for them, they tend to that more conservative frame point. But maybe that's also Dubai and that culture, which I quite like. So anyways, that's kind of my thoughts and call on that.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  But I don't want to miss talking about relationships because otherwise we're gonna have to do this again, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But let's talk about relationships and then I want to get your thoughts on three things that happened to me in Dubai from a perspective of a male. Relationships is a huge, huge topic, which I bet we can't even scratch the surface of, but we didn't really talk about it last time. And, you know, maybe we really need to talk about it. Also, if you look at the statistics, it's shocking what's going on. I don't think there's a, very few countries on this planet that are actually reproducing enough to sustain their growth. The numbers from South Korea are shocking, as in like there will be no great grandkids ever again type of thing. I know they had a little uptick this year, I think with some government incentives, but

• 56:12Speaker 01

  it's, it's down to like point six or point seven reproduction rate, which just quickly compounds to where like you never have any grandkids anymore kind of thing. So it's kind of scary there as well. And then I also get to know a lot of men and women who seem to opt out of relationships these days. And whether you or maybe Saudi other people say that the men replace it with porn and then the women are waiting for the right one because they're all looking to the top percentage. I don't know what it is, but they all seem to be opting out of that, which I guess is dangerous. I don't know, maybe some transhumanists would say it's not. So, look, it's, it's very open there. I'm just curious where you want to dive in.

• 56:54Speaker 00

  Oh, man. There's so many different entry points there. I mean, I think AI is going to disrupt all of that in a big way. It's, it's going to be wild. I mean, my wife was speaking at a conference recently. She's a family, a marriage therapist, marriage and family therapist. And she was speaking at a conference with Esther Perel, who talks a lot about intimacy and sex. And there was a company there that had

• 57:22Speaker 00

  They had like an AI platform and it was it was for everybody, but it was very clearly for women. And what it was, was that you could basically go in and put in some details about the type of man that you like and want. And then that AI platform would create a fantasy based story where the character in the story was speaking to you. You know, and you were the love interest in the story. And so the story was playing out as if you, the woman was, you know, a part of this AI. You know, fantasy story. And I think that's what's gonna get a lot of women. I don't think that it's going to be porn. I think it's going to be.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  Pretend highly emotionally intelligent AI agents that are specifically created to be this like male companion. You know, with a deep voice, it's kind of sexy, that's always available, that can talk with her about all of her emotions, that can also, you know, understands female arousal and desire and can, you know, play with that. I think a lot of women are, are, I think we're gonna see as many women fall prey to that as men have fallen prey to porn.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Scary. Well, I mean, porn, you know, AI is gonna end up eliminating us all anyways. So you're, you're just talking about the one subset that's gonna use that for women, but it's scary when you describe that because most men are oblivious to a bunch of those things that you just talked about, the arousal and the, the emotional and the fantasy and all that. I mean, most of us are pretty clueless to that. Every now and then we get it right. Uh, maybe we're sometimes aware, but in AI, they could push all those buttons. Even if they didn't physically exist, could easily out, out, could be the man in person.

• 59:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I, I recorded this video, I think last year.

• 59:17Speaker 00

  I think it was called women are women are disillusioned and men are disenfranchised, something like that. But it was it was basically that women's expectations of what they should get or entitled to from a man have for some women, not all women, I have to preface that otherwise I'm just gonna get launched at. But you know, for some women have become so unrealistic that the only version of the man that exists is the one in her head that can actually meet her needs. There's no man in the world. He doesn't not a real person. Right? So for some women, their expectations have just ballooned into I want a man to be everything for me. I want him to be my therapist and my friend and my cheerleader and my

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  business partner and my lover and my this and my, you know, the husband to my kid, the father to my kids and and there's just this expectation burden. And so what ends up happening is that women are chronically disappointed by men. And you can see this in the comments online. It's like, well, men need to step up and men need to do this and men need to do that. And I'm not disagreeing that some some men aren't bad options, you know, they're just not mating and dating material. I get that. I understand that.

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  But there are a ton of caliber men out there. And what's what's partially happened is that women's preferences have become so centralized to dating and relationship. That for the most part, and I think in the last sort of like 10 years, and it's starting to shift now. Men were trying to figure out constantly, well, how do I just meet a woman's needs and figure out what she wants and do what she, you know, needs. And especially in more metropolitan areas. And and so women's expectations have risen and risen and risen and risen. And you can kind of see this in the in the dating apps as well, where it was something like like on Bumble, this is just one example.

• 1:02:13Speaker 00

  But a poll on Bumble showed that that only 15% of women said that they would date, they would be willing to date somebody under five foot eight. Right? 15%. So that's the average height of a man. Is five foot eight, but only 15% of women are willing to date somebody underneath that. So, you know, I think that dating apps have made it so that you can kind of go on there and and try and create some, you know, perfect artifact of a human being that you want to date. And you just, you're like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to settle, I'm not going to settle. Why should I settle? And there's a lot of rhetoric, I think, that is being told to women of like, never settle and never do that.

• 1:02:56Speaker 00

  And then on the other side, for men, I think it's it's challenging because for a lot of guys, a couple of things have happened. Number one is the rise of anger towards women online and and the frustration with dating apps. You know, I I know a lot of guys, and this again, when you look at the the the data from the dating apps, it's like the bottom 50%, 55, 0% of men on Tinder get almost zero interaction and responses. Right? Like, that's insane. Imagine being a 19, 25 year old boy, man, and you're trying to date and you're using these dating apps. And you've got a buddy who's six

• 1:03:40Speaker 00

  Two, six foot three and he's taking somebody home two, three times a week. Different women, two, three times a week and he's just having a great time. And there you are on a dating app, constantly swiping through, getting zero responses, very few conversations, almost no dates whatsoever. And you're like, well, what the hell's going on? So this perspective of, well, women only want the super high status, very tall, in good shape guy, really starts to set in and it becomes easy to be like, all women are the same. Uh, and you know, anger and frustration sets in. So I think there's this big gender war that's happening where men and women are really angry with each other and it makes dating very, very challenging.

• 1:04:23Speaker 00

  Uh, I also think that everybody's turned into their own personal therapist that's diagnosing the people that they're dating. And I, I do think that women are more, uh, they, they have a larger predilection towards this, you know, women generally tend to pathologize their partners more than men do, um, just having worked with men for a long time and couples. Uh, so I, I don't envy being out in the dating pool right now. I think, I think it's very, very challenging and I think that people are having a hard time value matching, you know, they're having a hard time matching values like I value X and you value the same thing. I value integrity and honesty and loyalty. I value these things. Do you value the same thing?

• 1:05:07Speaker 00

  I value respect in a relationship. And I think part of what's happened is that, and this is on the other side of the equation is, is that for a lot of men, they either haven't known what it is that they want in a relationship. And so they're just trying to, you know, fit into what they think women want. Or what they, what they want is to just have a whole bunch of fun and not really settle down. And they're in that sort of like top 5% where they don't have to and they can just have a rotation. Um, and I think this has created a bit of a tension and an issue in relationships where you, you see other people's relationships online all the time.

• 1:05:50Speaker 00

  So there's this chronic comparison of, you know, Instagram influencers and their their relationship looks a certain way and it's actually not. So you never see the fight, you never see the conflict. So I think there's a whole whack load of things that are playing into the sort of chaos. That's unfolding in relationships, not to just dump that huge pile.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  The doorstep.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, like with like with social media again, like, you know. I mean, back in the day, obviously, if you grew up in a small town, you know, that there would, there would, you know, you could never find someone that was, you know, ten times or a hundred times richer than you or better looking than you or whatever. Now you could see literally the whole world. And the algo is going to push the stuff that people are watching. And now you can see all these crazy things, depending on whatever field you're in. If you're an entrepreneur. Um, there's always going to be someone better than you. Um, there's always someone better looking than you. There's always something to do something physically better than you now on Instagram. Some of that can be really helpful and motivational and can maybe. Help us with sports and all those things when you see it, but like with relationships, like you said, it can be really bad.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  And you don't see the other side of it. And so I guess when people see that they they they basically hold off. For something better that just doesn't come. And so everyone is in this kind of stagnant state of actually not having relationships. Is that why we're seeing the birth rate go down as well, you think? Or is that maybe a corollary to that where people say? It's just not worth it. And I'd rather have my own time.

• 1:07:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think the reasons for not having kids has gone up. You know, I I think, one, life is just much more expensive. So I think for the average person, you know, if you look at your parents' generation or grandparents. Yes, times were tough, but. How much you earned versus how much your house costed uh was much, much cheaper. So I do think that there's an affordability issue, um, where a lot of people are looking at having children and they're like. I I won't be able to live this lifestyle. I won't be able to, you know, maybe support my kids in the way that I want. Or in the way that I've felt pressured by social media to to do. Uh, so I think that's contributed to it.

• 1:08:04Speaker 00

  You know, I think that there's some people that have convinced themselves that the I think there's all kinds of strange reasons. I was gonna give you a strange one. Can I just

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  Give me one. Yeah, yeah, give me one.

• 1:08:14Speaker 00

  I heard this the other day that the most ethical and carbon neutral thing that they could do was to not have kids. And I was like, I was like, man, you're missing out on one of the greatest joys in life because you think that you're not going to increase the carbon footprint on the earth. I was like, I don't, I can't even comprehend that. But, you know, I think there's more reasons. That's, that's just to say there are more reasons to not have kids than ever before. And I think that our level of neuroticism and narcissism as a culture and as a species has just gone up. You know, there's a lot of people who

• 1:08:55Speaker 00

  do not want to make the sacrifice and the compromises that are legitimately necessary for healthy human relationship to function. And what's happened is that both men and women, and it's, we're, we're both at fault for this, have basically said, well, I'm not willing to sacrifice my time. I'm not willing to sacrifice what I need. I'm not willing to compromise in any way, shape or form. And so we've become very, very rigid. And it's like this old, you know, Texas standoff that's basically happening between a lot of men and women. And, and part of it, rightfully so, that men are saying, which is like, you know, what we want in a relationship actually does need to matter. And it's kind of funny

• 1:09:40Speaker 00

  because when you, when you see some of these videos online, you see, you know, women asking guys like, what do you want in a relationship? Or what's really important to you? Like, what do you, what do you really prioritize? What do you really want in a relationship? And a guy says something like, I just want peace and ease, you know? I want a, I want a woman that brings some peace and ease into my life. And then you see the comments of like, that's misogynistic. And he just, you know, all that kind of stuff. And it's like, well, yeah. So there's this, there's just this standoff, where it's almost as though

• 1:10:15Speaker 00

  One side is expected to cater to the other side's values and expectations in relationships, and the other side's not supposed to do that, you know? And so, there's just this stuckness. And we have to find a way back to what you need in a relationship matters, what I need in a relationship matters, and we have to find a win-win solution. And we've gotten out of that. You know, when you look at a lot of modern day discourse, people will use disagreement now more than ever before to sever a relationship. Right? I mean, you look at the polls and the studies, I think it was like 65 or 66% of people say that they won't date or marry somebody with an opposing political perspective.

• 1:10:59Speaker 00

  It's like, you know, so that's just changed from religion. It used to be you're not allowed to date somebody that's not in your religion, and now you're not allowed to date anybody that's not in your political affiliation, because it's the new religion. So, I think in many ways, there's just all of these areas where people have become so fixed and so rigid that they won't be willing to compromise. And, you know, as you know, great relationship, business or otherwise, requires some compromise. It requires negotiation. It requires some sacrifice from all parties involved. And you have to decide as an individual, am I in this relationship for a win-win? Or am I in this relationship just to win? And too many people are in relationships just to win.

• 1:11:44Speaker 00

  They're not interested in creating win-win dynamics. And that really is what I think we need to move back towards.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Is watching porn the ultimate non-win-win dynamic as well? Is that something you don't really earn with sacrifice and with all of that?

• 1:12:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, again, it's low risk, right? It's the low-hanging fruit. It's like, I don't have to work for that. You don't have to face any type of rejection. You don't have to, you know, get turned down by a woman. You don't have to tell her what you really want or need. And if you do, you're paying her to do what you've told her to do, right? Like, that's really it. And this is, there's, I think there's a lot of like paradoxes and, uh, and sort of like hypocrisies within our modern culture, right? It's like the OnlyFans woman that's making millions of dollars off of a man is praised for being, you know, sexually liberated, but then the man who's paying the money to watch and use the OnlyFans woman is a disgusting

• 1:12:43Speaker 00

  pig, right? It's like, well, how did those, that's, that's what I mean by a win lose situation, right? It's like on the one side, somebody is, you know, not good and the other side, they're phenomenal and should be celebrated. That's the type of stuff that's entered into the dating world. It's like what I want and need should be celebrated and revered, but what you want and need is, you know, archaic or gross or whatever it is, right? So I think we have to come back to this place of seeing things as, as win-win.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're definitely in, in different echo chambers as well, because I don't hear that as that much. But, but I understand what you're talking about. I can see how that is the narrative out there. I was always wondering, are people not having kids because maybe 20, 30, 40 years ago, you know, they would get married and then they would be at home and if they wanted to be social, they would have to probably get in the car and drive somewhere. They had three channels on the TV and maybe they were left with a lot of time and they were thinking, okay, what am I going to do with my life here? And making a family made sense. Whereas maybe today, and I'm just throwing this out there, you know, you have all these digital options that then simulate relationships and activities and, um, all these ways to occupy your time to where you can really probably not get

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  around to it or make an argument that I'm busy doing all these other things. I have all these fulfilling relationships and projects and social pieces that I can do in a way that maybe I don't need that kid. Whereas before, maybe the kid and the family was such a big part of my identity and maybe one of the only forms of my identity that if I didn't pursue it, I was really, really felt like there was a hole in my life. Whereas maybe now you could try to fill that. Do you think that's also an issue?

• 1:14:27Speaker 00

  I believe so, yeah. You know, I think it's interesting to see that, you know, having a family has become a more conservative value, you know. I mean, I saw this article, it was last year or the year before, and it was, you know, it was about how men working out was right wing, you know, which is absolutely insane. It's like prioritizing your health is right wing. But I think, I think when you look at the data set and the research around different political leanings between conservative and liberal, what you see is the, the identity of the conservative is more tightly wound around the family, which is sort of at the

• 1:15:07Speaker 00

  core. And then for the liberal, the identity is more tightly wound around the outside and the community and the culture. And so there's less precedence, I would say, for the more sort of left-leaning Democrat, maybe, to want to start a family, whereas for conservatives, that's actually a part of the ethos. It's part of the, the value set that they hold within maybe the religion or within the culture of the conservative values. And so, again, I think there's this kind of divide. I, I would say that, you know, one, we, it's much more expensive, but two, people have found that, you know, their lives are just

• 1:15:50Speaker 00

  much more chaotic and busy. And I think a lot of people live in a, in a fear of like, well, what if I have a kid and I'm, you know, I can't take care of them, or it's not, you know, not gonna be, I'm not gonna have enough money, or, you know, the world's gonna end anyways. Like, those kinds of sentiments, I think, are very, very common in certain circles. And I, I really try and immerse myself into both sides. Like, I get heat sometimes for following people that are, you know, far left or far right, because I'm like, what are people saying? Because, you know, the men that I work with, they fall into all those categories. It's one of the reasons why I try not to talk about politics is because I just want to support men, you know. I don't care who you vote for. I don't

• 1:16:34Speaker 00

  care who you pray to. But I do think that, on average, people are much busier, much more immersed in their own perceived needs, wants, and desires. And that's taking them out of having kids, because it's like, well, that might interfere with me building this business or doing this.

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• 1:17:40Speaker 01

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• 1:17:49Speaker 00

  ... job or, you know, my time just seems so occupied because I'm spending four hours a day on social media. And so it seems like I'm busy when actually I'm just spending a ton of time online.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's almost like your brain convinces you not to do it, but deep down inside, maybe you will regret that one day. It's hard to say. And I think it's really good that you're in both camps and listening to both sides because I really do, if you believe, if you get everybody in a room, you can actually talk through and find common ground with almost anybody. But online and everything, they sometimes, these other people seem like different alien species that you just don't get. So I think it's good you're talking to both sides. And by the way, I was the guy that was never gonna have kids. I was the guy that thought a dog was too much of a commitment. And, um, and thank God, you know, uh, their mother made me do it and, uh, really pushed me into doing it. And thank God, because I almost missed one of the, the greatest rides of a human being.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's, it's, I don't think the human experience is complete without having a child, I just don't. And, um, I almost missed it and I was just would have been an idiot or more of an idiot if I hadn't have done that. So, um, I want to ask you about three things that happened to me in Dubai and just get your take on it. And, um, this kind of came up when I was prepping for you. The first one is that I interviewed a guy on the show. His name is Jules Sullivan, also known as the Sartorial Shooter. And he's a pretty masculine guy, but a very interesting guy. Australian guy who now lives in Dubai. He actually reverted to Islam as well. And so you don't always see a six foot six, you know, white dude who's former, you know,

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  military security who's also into Islam and is very devout in that. And I really enjoyed meeting him and he invited me one night to a gathering of men. And he just said, look, we're having this thing on Thursday. You know, there's some pretty interesting guys, some high level guys. You should really stop by. And I had, I had something already booked and I broke it to go to this. Cause some part of me told me I really needed to show up. And I'm telling you, Connor, it was one of the more special evenings that I had last this year. I was surrounded by like 20, like really high level men. And when these guys came to this event, we were just kind of hanging out in like a place.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  And they came and each one of them like walked around and introduced themselves to everybody. But like these weren't, these were high level guys, like they had charisma and presence. And yet they all treated everyone with respect. And it just felt, the energy was just amazing to be there. And there were no women there and there were no women invited. And that was okay. It was a time for us to hang out with each other. And I just pinged Jewel a few more times, I mean Ramadan happened and there was a few issues. But I was like, when are you doing that Thursday again? Because I really want to go and I hadn't felt that feeling in a long time. I've hung out with one or two guys, maybe that I know. I've hung out with very amazing males on the set of London Real.

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  And I think I told you last time, you know, 14 years of London Real is just my search for the perfect alpha male to show me what to do with my life. But this was something kind of special. It was like a wolf pack or a group of men that it was just powerful to be around. And I wanted to be around it again. And Jewel believes that, you know, as men, we're men. To go out and, you know, do things with our brothers. We're meant to go out and conquer worlds and all these things. We're not meant to, um, you know, I'll say it, like take the kids to the soccer game. Or, uh, or analyze our wives' problems that night, you know? He's, he's like, look, you know, I want to treat them with respect and do that.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  But let's not forget this need for us to do, you know, cool, maybe dangerous things with our brothers. And let's not forget that because otherwise we can't be a good husband as well, or a good father, or a good father. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that. Um, but that was an interesting experience that I noted I wasn't having. Also, I had it in Dubai and not in the West. That's another interesting thing.

• 1:21:56Speaker 00

  What, what was so, like, what was present in that gathering that you think is missing from your other male friendships?

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  Maybe it was just the scale, you know, like there was like fifteen, twenty of us and, uh, yeah, it was. And maybe because they were new, you know, uh, and I felt, but I felt like, I just felt like there was something there like, uh.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. Um, it was, it just felt like it was kind of a special group to be around and a special. I don't know, kind of like a, like a brotherhood thing going on there that I wouldn't necessarily be able to access. And then that's just kind of what I felt. And, uh, I just felt like it was something I really was drawn to. And I really want to make sure I make an effort to do that and exercise that part in my life. Not just hang out with a buddy for the weekend and have dinner and not just do that. But to go do things with like a group of, of like kind of brothers that you trust. That are pushing you to be the best version of yourself, that all have their games elevated really high. Which makes you want to elevate your own game.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  And you're around them and you're like, whoa, like I get this one on one in here, but I'm rarely around ten of those people. And, uh, I really noticed it. And it just came up when I was kind of thinking about you tonight and I'm just curious because, because you talk about that. You say that as men, we really don't have these, these groups of men that we can always be around. You know, to learn from or feel secure in, or even to make friendships like that. So, um, I'm curious what you think. And even for someone like me who has a lot of access to this, I still found it unique.

• 1:23:35Speaker 00

  I mean, I think that all men,

• 1:23:39Speaker 00

  if they are really honest with themselves, want male friendship or male brotherhood that is aspirational, where they know they're going to be challenged, tested, and they're going to be asked to rise in some way. You know, you're going to be asked to, how we want to phrase that, be better than you are right now. Like, that is at the core of masculine relationship. I'm going to ask you to be better than you are right now. And in our group, so we have something called the Alliance, with about a thousand members from around the world, and that's part of our ethos, is like, we call each other forward. I call you forward.

• 1:24:22Speaker 00

  You say you want to do this, I'm going to call you forward into doing it. You say you want to stop drinking, and yet you show up onto a call, or you know, you text me and you say that you're, you know, you're a beer deep or something like that, whatever it is. The point is that there is this spark that comes alive in us, where we get to venture out into the world with men that we know and can sense, not only have our back, because it's kind of cliche, but that will kind of like go to war with us. Maybe not actual war, but like the war of building a business, the war of, you know, building an exceptional marriage, because it's not easy. And I actually think to tie back into that dating piece,

• 1:25:06Speaker 00

  that's why so many people aren't getting into relationships, because they don't want to do hard shit. They are so hard shit averse. You know, our culture has made it just so easy for people to be complacent and soft. And, you know, while relationships really are about love and connection, all those types of things, it still takes effort. It still takes a lot of, you know, hard conversations and dedication and sacrifice. And I think the majority, not the majority, I think that some people just do not want to do that. They're not willing to do that. So, but that brotherhood gives you that, you get to practice. It's like a training.

• 1:25:45Speaker 00

  Ground for you as a man to sharpen and hone that part of you that wants to go out into the world and build something meaningful and do something meaningful and become an exceptional or even better father or husband, you know, and to have other examples of that. And this is something that I've talked about within Western culture and society. And maybe globally, I don't know enough about other cultures, but certainly within our culture, we've strip mined out male role models. So there's just this vacancy that there is no aspirational view of masculinity. We define masculinity today, first off, maybe for the first time in human history, women are largely defining what masculinity is within our culture.

• 1:26:30Speaker 00

  And secondly, how we define masculinity is by saying everything that you shouldn't do or be as a man. That's not aspirational. That doesn't give me any direction to move towards. And as men, we want a direction to move towards. For the majority of us, that's baked into our DNA. It's like part of our body and our psyche. It's like, I want a direction to move towards. And so when you get around other men that really are living exceptional lives and they're showing up in exceptional ways and you appreciate them and maybe you admire them or, you know, they're asking you very direct, hard questions and they're kind of getting into the weeds with you. It gives you something aspirational to move towards.

• 1:27:13Speaker 00

  And that is at the heart and soul of our masculine core, in my belief, is that we need other men that we want to move towards a bigger version of ourselves alongside.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it has to be a group of only men. And that's what bothers me. Even in London now, one of these all men's clubs, they just had to start admitting women because of the times. But, you know, there's, there's a distinct time where you need to not have women around because men can't be men when there's a single woman in the room. It just can't happen and you can't get that, I need you to be better than you are now. 100% energy. You're only gonna get that, I think, with men in the room. And that's why it's really, really important. And like you said, we need it. We probably even need it for the women, right? Because, again, yeah, and that's and that's something I guess women need to know is that we need that time.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Because that dynamic changes massively when one of them is in the room and then without it, it just, yeah, I feel like that's how we, it's in our DNA, definitely. We're honed in to be a part of that pack and to make us all sharper on the back of it. But it's something that's very, very hard to find.

• 1:28:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it's, I really think it's unfortunate that we are dismantling those things in our culture. Like, I really fundamentally believe that we should absolutely have spaces for men and spaces for women. You know, and I'm not talking about bathrooms, but I'm talking about like actual spaces. I mean, yes, bathrooms, but I'm also talking about spaces where we as men can gather and support one another, serve one another, you know, call each other forward, and be able to see other iterations, other versions of men who create some type of aspirational desire within us, like, man, that guy is an exceptional businessman. Wow, he's an amazing father. I really appreciate that. I hadn't thought about

• 1:29:12Speaker 00

  talking to my kids about that or talking to, you know, to them in that way. Or, you know, setting that routine in place. And it's those types of things that, that I think we as men really need. And without it, we, you know, we suffer, we struggle.

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. I think that's why I connected to that so much. Also, I didn't know what everyone did at that gathering, but I knew they were all at the top of their game, you know? And that's, that's, that's interesting as well, because I didn't know like a specific thing about that. Sorry about that. I didn't know a specific thing about that, but I knew they were all at the top of their game, and I knew that being around them would force me to step up my game and that, and I wanted to be around them. That's all I knew. It's kind of wild how that works. And I hadn't felt that in a while. Second thing I wanted to talk to you about was something else happened when I was in Dubai. And I spoke about this once already, but I'm gonna talk about it again with you, because I think it's really important.

• 1:30:09Speaker 01

  I met a group of people a couple of years ago when I went to Dubai that ended up becoming a group of friends that I hung out with and it was a really amazing experience. A lot of people say that Dubai is full of superficial people with superficial things, but I met this group of people that were quite opposite of that. And I originally met them e-foiling, which is you take these kind of foil boards out there and you kind of can go out in a remote control. And I met this girl I knew, took me to meet these two guys. They had their own boards, they had their own pickup trucks. They were like jacked and they get me on their board and they got me up and we ended up hanging out in the boat together and we ended up doing the dune buggy thing together. And it was actually a group of men and women

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  that were just really cool, really into kind of pushing themselves athletically. And it was just a really a great group of people to be around, really generous and it really was an amazing introduction to me to a town that some people say is this or that.

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  And but there were two guys there that I really got attached with. And again, they were up at 4:30 in the morning and lifting and then, you know, all these things they had, but they were quite on top of their game. And they reminded me a little bit, because they were kind of surfing as well, of the movie Point Break. So I used to joke, the next thing we're gonna do is rob a bank together. And then one day I said, we gotta skydive because that's what the Point Break people do. So I booked it up for all of us and we all went skydiving and and of course, they started skydiving solo on the back of that too. So it was this whole crew. And I got back a few months ago and about a month after I'd been there, Connor, I got the word that one of the guys had committed suicide. And I just couldn't compute.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  I mean, this guy was the last guy, right? This is the guy that was like on top of it, super alpha, like I said, jacked, not that has anything to do with your mental state, you know, had the truck, has the this, has the that, everything just seemed to be going. And I just, none of us could compute. And it just was really hard for us to take. And I felt like it was important to talk about one because I wanted to honor him because he was just the most incredible guy. Such a generous person and such a big part of that clique. But also really hard because I think it was probably one of the first close people I've had or relatively close that did that. And you know, I had to ask a lot of questions and I guess we'll never know what really happened.

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  But I think, I think he started to feel like he just didn't have kind of enough to provide and didn't have enough to kind of be that guy that maybe he was expecting himself to be. And I think it started eating away at him. Now, we'll never know, but I think it was something like that. And again, I just didn't think it would happen to someone like that. And it was hard and it's something I'm sure we're all still processing. But it was something I also wanted to talk about because I'm sure there's people out there that either experienced that or are thinking about that. And I don't know, I just wanted to get your thoughts, Connor.

• 1:33:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, first off, it's brutal, man. And I'm sorry that you went through that and it's rough, you know? I think it's like 660 plus thousand men every year are going to take their lives. And I think it's, it's not only a huge challenge, but it's also one of the most unrecognizable things. Sometimes when a man takes his life, it's like apparent, you know? But more often than not, it's how you've described. It's like, we didn't know, I didn't know, we're in shock. And there was this research that was done by Richard Reeves from the American Institute of Boys and Men.

• 1:33:57Speaker 00

  And they, there's two pieces of research actually I want to share with you. Maybe I'll share the one in the UK first, which is really interesting, also tragic. And what it showed was that 92% of men who took their life in the UK had sought out help. So they had gotten a counselor, a therapist, and they had sought out therapeutic help. Of those 92%

• 1:34:19Speaker 00

  Eighty percent of them were labeled as no risk or low risk for suicidal ideation. Okay, so the majority of men that seek out therapeutic and psychological help, our framework doesn't even, has a, does a terrible job of identifying whether or not that man is actually at, at risk for suicide. And it's interesting because sometimes when you look at that, people will say, well, men just need to open up more and men, you know, they'll, they'll go back to like, well, if men just talked more and, you know, this type of rhetoric. And so again, it's men don't have problems, men are the problem. Right. And that doesn't actually help us support men's problems.

• 1:35:02Speaker 00

  What I think transpires often is a couple of things. Number one is that a lot of men feel as though their ability to provide is very, very, very important to their sense of self and their sense of identity. And if that gets threatened, or when that gets threatened, it can be extremely damaging to that man's sense of self, his, his ego, his identity, and it can really destroy him. Because he's built a life where people rely on him and he's responsible for, you know, paying paychecks and supporting people and doing those types of things. And so if that falls apart, uh, he's going to suffer because who he is and what he takes

• 1:35:46Speaker 00

  pride in is actually being of service to other people. And that gets missed out on a lot. The other piece of research that I think plays into this, it's very important, is Richard Reeves from the American Institute of Boys and Men. They studied, um, notes that men left behind when they took their own lives. And what they found, and they were looking for commonalities, like what's the thread? And what they found was that one of the highest words that was used was useless. That when a man starts to feel useless, that he can't contribute in his marriage or his relationship, he can't provide financially, that that uselessness is so damaging to him.

• 1:36:27Speaker 00

  Not just because as a society, we value that within men, but because as men, that's something that actually matters to us. It's something that we genuinely desire to do. It's important to us. And so when that gets infringed on is when a man's sense of self and sense of identity starts to collapse. So when men feel useless, that's a pretty big red flag. And so I always say to men, you know, talk to your buddies, talk to the guys that are in your life. And if they're talking about how useless they feel, or how useless they think they are, whether it's in a joke or in a side, like dig into it, you know, get into it. Like, well, what do you mean by that? And are you actually struggling financially? And, you know, where can you contribute?

• 1:37:13Speaker 00

  You'd be surprised at how often a man just wants to be of service and contribute something of value to the people that are around him and to know that he actually can be useful and he can be of service and he can support other people. So those are the two things that come up for me. You know, who knows what that, I don't, I don't know the guy or what he was dealing with, who knows what he was going through, but generally speaking, those, those are the things like one, it's just, most men have thought about it and never talked about it.

• 1:37:48Speaker 00

  And most people don't know when a man's actually in that space. And I think that that's, I think that's brutal, you know? I think that we should change that. We need to have a better system where men who are really struggling can get support and that the depth of their struggle can actually be identified and then worked with.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I spoke to another guest about this in Dubai and he had, he had come close in his past to, to committing suicide. And he said, Brian, it's not the, it's not the mopey when depressed ones you have to worry about. He said, because once I decided, he said, It was not even a big deal to me. I just made the decision. I was like, yep, I'm gonna do this next week and I'm just gonna do it. And it was the useless. If I wasn't here, it wouldn't matter. The kids can do this. They can raise them. They can do that. It was the useless thing for him. And, um, and he just, his advice was to just, you know, just check in on people. Just kinda check in. Doesn't mean you have to go over and knock their door down. But yeah, check in on people. And I like your idea with that language.

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  And the crazy thing is, is that with my friend Sam, who took his life, I, the crazy thing is, is that I think a couple of people that maybe got a whiff of it, they're like, oh, I can help. But like, that's not the problem. And I, and I, that's the problem is, is that he doesn't want the help. He wants to feel useful. And in some ways, if you keep offering that help, he's actually not gonna wanna talk to you anymore and it could get worse. And that's what I think it's important for men and women to understand, maybe about men, is that that provide instinct, it's so powerful. Drives so much of what I do. And when you take that away, man, it can't get much worse, I think, for a man than to take that away.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  It's one of the, I think, one of the more humiliating things. And I think if people understand that, it's easier to talk about a lot of these issues, you know? So yeah, appreciate perspective. Look, last one is this. Um, I had my first boxing match on May 1st in Dubai at the age of 53. And, um, it was quite the experience. And, um, a lot of it was what I expected and a lot of it wasn't what I expected. And, um, I've been training martial arts for 20 some years, but I never had the balls to go into the ring. And when you train martial arts, it's kinda funny because you're hitting the pads and you're doing all these things, but you're not actually fighting. And I noticed,

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  when I booked this, a couple of years ago, I got an opportunity to fight and I kinda was drawn to it, even though I was terrified of it.

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  And I ended up, it ended up not happening three years ago and it was always bothering me that I wanted to do this. And I just always wanted to put myself in there. And like I said, when you're training martial arts and not fighting, if you're really honest with yourself, you know, you're not doing the thing that you're training for. And yet, most people don't, and that's okay. It's still an amazing way to do all sorts of things with your life. But for me, it was something I really wanted to do. And so, I kind of finally made it happen. I got the fight. They put me up with this 28-year-old punk kid. They flew in from London. And it started getting really spicy. At the weigh-ins, he shoved me across the room and got in my face. And it really hit me about 24 hours out of what I was doing.

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  And everything got real primal, Connor. And actually, I was close to fighting about three years ago and I was going through sparring partners and it was getting, like I said, pretty primal. Like, before I would go into spar, I was just like, "Oh my god, like, this is... This guy is trying to take away my livelihood and my kids and my right to reproduce." And it would like, really, I was thinking about it all the time and it was just really like, "Wow, this is no joke." And 24 hours before, it really hit me and I was just like, "What am I doing? Like, this is the stupidest thing I've ever done." Like, I'm gonna wake up tomorrow in a hospital, my kids aren't gonna have their father anymore, and it's, of course, livestreamed, of course, of course.

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  And so, everyone gets to watch it and my kids knew about it. And it was this wild experience. And luckily, I had some good people around me. And, but what I found myself doing, Connor, is I was... I wrote the initials of my two boys' names on my arms. Like, I don't have any tattoos, I never had any interest. But like, what I found myself doing was writing them on my arms. And part of me was thinking about them a lot that day. And part of it was maybe that this guy might be literally taking them from me. And maybe part of it was that they're gonna be watching me and learning from me. And part of the reason I wanted to do this maybe was so they would see it.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  But man, it was just wild, the real back to basics amygdala, you know, hunter gatherer or whatever savage animal vibes I was going through. And the fear and the fear and walking into that fear of someone that wants to knock your block off. And it's very different than sparring in the gym. Although sparring in the gym can be very scary too. It's very different than hitting the pads. As Bruce Lee famously said, bored, don't hit back. And then when I got in there, it was very tense. And of course, he was talking all this crazy shit and starting fights everywhere. But then once the bell rang, we were in it. And then from there, it was just all good. And I actually put my hands up in victory after the first round because I had accomplished, I had beaten all my demons at that point.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  And from there, I was like, this is, I got this. And it was a transformative experience in my life. I really, I walked out of there and now I'm a fighter. And no one will ever take that away from me. And I'm just curious, what do you think about all of that? Because there's a lot of, there's a lot of maleness going on in that type of ritual. And even a rite of passage that it took me 53 years to get to.

• 1:43:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, there's value in knowing that you can protect yourself and your family. You know, and it sounds like that move from being a question mark in your head to something that was an answer, you know? And like having an answer of like, oh yeah, actually I can hold my own. I can protect myself. I can protect my family. And you know, there's a great saying of it's better to be a warrior in the garden than to be a gardener in the war, right? And so when push comes to shove, it's like, do you want to be the man that questions whether or not he can protect his family? God forbid, or do you want to be the man that knows that he can do that? And it's really up to you, but I would say that the majority of men know the answer to that,

• 1:44:35Speaker 00

  which is that it's the latter, you know? For me, I know I can protect my family if push came to shove. I know that, you know? I trained Muay Thai, I've done boxing, I was the hockey brawler. Like, I know I can hold my own. No problem there. And so. I do think it's just one of those things and I bring my son, you know, my son comes and watches me with kickboxing and Muay Thai and because I want him to see that and he's very physical, you know, he's four years old, he's very, very physical. And I think as men, it's a shame for us to not push our edge to see what our body is capable of. And you don't have to do that. You can do that at any age. You know, like part of my, when I got to 40, I was like, I want to get in the best shape of my life.

• 1:45:19Speaker 00

  You know, completely natural, no steroids, no TRTs, no peptides, no nothing. I just want to work out and get in extraordinary shape and eat really healthy food and see what happens, you know, phenomenal. So I think that that lives within, within the majority of us as men is that we, we crave and desire to, to see what is our body capable of? And can I answer the question of can I protect myself? And, you know, I think sometimes we, when we meet other men, there is that kind of like natural sizing up that happens. Or even with friends, it's like, can I take that guy? You know, like, like, like, what would happen if me and my buddies,

• 1:45:58Speaker 00

  like, you know, threw down? And I think that's just part of, of nature within boys, you know, there's, there's like this competitiveness and there's this curiosity and there's this physicality that I think has been so demonized because it's seen as violence. But, you know, it doesn't have to necessarily be violence. It's like my friend Trevor has this great saying of, be dangerous, but not a danger. You know, this notion of like, I know I have that capacity within me, but because I've done the work to temper it, there's a certain level of mastery and self-respect that I now have. And for a lot of men, we've just been told, you know, neglect your anger.

• 1:46:42Speaker 00

  Reject any type of aggressiveness or hostility that lives inside of you. And the commentary has just been suppress the living shit out of those emotions within you as a man. That doesn't teach you anything about how to do, deal with them. And so that just comes out sideways. And every man knows that. And so it's better to be masterful in it as you've, you know, moved towards of like, oh, I, I want to move my body and use my body in this way. Than it is to just completely neglect and suppress that part. So, but kudos to you, man. Good job. That's, that sounds like such a blast.

• 1:47:15Speaker 01

  It was a wild ride, man. A wild ride. And in retrospect, thank God he shoved me at the weigh-ins because it made, it made the whole experience so much bigger and then ultimately better. And now I think we got the rematch in three months. So I've caught the bug because I just like, I kind of like the person I am when I'm training. And also my, my really good buddy who's trained me in martial arts from 23 years. I flew him into Dubai and we spent the week together and it was just an incredible time for the both of us. And without him, that last 24 hours, it would have been challenging. And another, another great time to spend with, with, with male friends, you know, that was really powerful in this pursuit.

• 1:47:57Speaker 01

  You know, um, yeah, it was incredible. And yeah, again, I've conquered some fears and now I'm actually a better man to be around. I'm a better leader. I'm a better father. I'm a better everything because now I don't have all these, you know, doubts inside of me and I'm definitely, you know, calmer. And, um, yeah, I, I know I can be dangerous, but I'm not a danger now. Now that I also know that I've done that. So it's wild. I used to always, um, I always remark, is that the, the fighters I used to meet when I trained throughout my career, they always had the gentlest handshakes. And I used to tell people this little anecdote and, you know, now you know why, you know, it's just because they've,

• 1:48:38Speaker 01

  they've sorted all those demons out and they, and, and you don't feel that vibe when they meet you because they don't have that insecurity, even if it's on a subliminal level. They're just, that, that thing has ticked off for them and you get this kind of a good vibe with them. So, yeah, it was powerful, man. And it made me wonder,

• 1:48:57Speaker 01

  yeah, how important that is and how even those rituals are kind of missing from, from us. And then how, how we're all deprived because of that, you know? As usual, Connor, we're blowing through all of our time. Um, how can people? Connect with you and your groups because it sounds like a great place for people to talk. And what I really like about you Connor is that you, I really like your vibe, you know, where, what did you say? Where you said it's not, it's not therapy, it's practice? Is that what you say? What are you, training? Yeah. You're rigging to practicality and not into the theory. And I think that's really important. And then like trying to also, you even mentioned they're holding people accountable to change. And it's like, these groups are really, really important.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, if this has piqued the interest of some people, where should they start with your book, with groups? What would you say? And also if some women are watching, what, what's some things they should explore?

• 1:49:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you can just go to mantalks.com. It's just M-A-N-T-A-L-K-S, mantalks.com. The alliance is the group. My book is called Men's Work. It's probably a great place to start, whether you're a man or a woman. If you're a woman wanting to get to know men a little bit better, it'll probably give you some good context. And if you're a man, there's a ton of work in there. I really do like practicality. You know, I like getting, getting down to the work. I have a saying with my son, which is hard work is good work and the joy is in the practice. And so I've tried to put that into my work. So yeah, mantalks.com. And then I'm on YouTube, mantalks. I'm on Instagram, mantalks. It's just mantalks everywhere. It's super, super easy. I like very direct marketing.

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  Are we getting better or worse?

• 1:50:42Speaker 00

  As men, as a, as a culture?

• 1:50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, just as the state of masculinity and as a, as a, as a culture right now. I mean, it seems like it's, it's not necessarily going in a positive direction. And it seems like we really need to be aware, because it doesn't seem like it's naturally coming back to correct itself or going back in healthy ways. And I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but would you say that this needs a lot of attention? And would you say that's probably true?

• 1:51:12Speaker 00

  I think that our very young generation needs a lot of attention. You know, I, I, I do think that the needle shifting quite a bit. I think that there is a pretty substantial, maybe not movement is the right word, but I do think that a lot of men are finding their way, much like you and I have. You know, they're, this is a bit of a longer conversation, but I think that we're waking up from the kind of generational trauma of being raised by the men that came back from World War II. You know, and just came back completely obliterated and, you know, had to raise families from that place after what they saw.

• 1:51:51Speaker 00

  Um, and I think a lot of men that are your age, my age, a little bit younger than, than us, they're really asking these questions because there's been this vacancy of male role models and there's been this vacancy of masculinity that feels rooted and mature and grounded. And so I think a lot of men are on that quest. What I do think needs support are the younger men who, you know, are going into school too early, who the school system has not set up to serve and support them. You know, they're, they're not benefiting from those education. Uh, and, and then, you know, they're going to go out into a world that their education has not really set them up for. I mean, you're going to have an, you know, an AI philosopher,

• 1:52:36Speaker 00

  university prof in your pocket at all times. Uh, and that's going to disrupt some stuff. And so I think the more that we can teach young boys, here's how you think, here's how you critical think, here's how you learn, right? Teaching young boys how to learn, I think is so important. And then creating more opportunities for that physicality. So I, I do think it's getting better. I'm, I usually am a, I'm a pretty relentless optimist and I do think that it's, there is a big shift, especially from when I started a decade ago. When I started Man Talks a decade ago, it's like, man, we are in trouble because I got so much hate for even starting it, you know, so much hate. Uh, and now, you know, it's much more socially accepted.

• 1:53:20Speaker 00

  Uh, men doing their own sort of personal work is much more socially accepted. More men are doing that. They're trying to find their way into what does it look like for them personally to be a good father or husband or businessman? Instead of having, you know, other people tell them what that should look like. So I, I'm, I'm.

• 1:53:40Speaker 00

  I'm optimistic.

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think we are now seeing all sorts of different types of male role models. Again, you know, some suit others more than others. I think that's really positive. But also, we've got all these other technology creeping up on us. And you know, you mentioned the how the AI can really be dangerous tool for women like with the that that scenario, which I hadn't heard of before, which is interesting. But obviously, the AI replacement of men is also a really scary possibility. And through the physicality and even the protection and all that, it's I guess it's scary for both sides. So we have some new problems. We have a little bit of a light there. I guess we got to keep having these conversations.

• 1:54:25Speaker 00

  I love it, man. I really enjoy our time together. I really enjoy our conversation, like, very thoughtful questions. I do a lot of interviews and you are well prepared. And I love the like, the personal side of this, you know, and just getting to talk about boxing is. And fighting.

• 1:54:41Speaker 01

  That's cool. Yeah, I knew you had a little bit of scrap in you and some stories there. So that's really cool to hear your perspective. Yeah, Connor, really enjoy this time. Really appreciate you. And let's definitely have another one of these in the future.

• 1:54:53Speaker 00

  Likewise.

• 1:54:53Speaker 01

  All right, great. Thanks, everybody. Follow this man. Check him out. And we'll see you next time on London Real. Take care.

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