#1026 - Alison Armstrong - How to Treat Men Better

29:21Their values, as in where they come from, are compatible. They don't have to be exactly the same. They can even be complimentary.

29:39Their futures have to be in the same direction. Are we headed the same direction?

29:52All of these are standalones, by the way. Each one of them matters. Someone could be 10 out of 12. No, we're not going to do this.

30:06Oh, Polly.

30:12communication so sex is one area of communication but communication in general is productive it's got to solve problems it's got to identify problems solve problems

30:35on the same team team. The way a man put it was, when there's a problem, she doesn't make me the problem. We stay on the same team, no matter what, we stay on the same team. Very hard for women to do.

30:57Okay. That's all I can remember right now. That's okay. Eight of 12 is good.

31:07I see my friends and myself in all of those.

31:15There we go. She's attractive to him, which women don't understand at all. She's attractive. What we would call him making sense of men, both sexually attractive and he's charmed and enchanted by her. She's special. I think women wildly underestimate how much men are attracted to charm. Oh, my gosh.

31:51Well, another topic, the four most charming qualities in a woman. You want to know? Bring it on. Let's keep weaving this thing. This tree's huge. It's a redwood. Let's keep going. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it's an aspen forest. which is what I live in. Four most charming qualities in a woman. Number one, self-confidence.

32:24It's hilarious because I've had panels of men say, it's probably different for other men, but for me it's self-confidence. And they all say self-confidence. I've unpacked that for a while. What does that mean? uh yeah like about 20 years uh the second would be authenticity and men almost always use the word courage when she has the courage to be direct when she has the courage to speak up when she has the courage to be who she really is when she has the courage to say what she needs when she has the courage to share her dreams and authenticity in and so much of being a woman is about pretense seriously we're taught to pretend push what was it called that bra the wonder bra laugh at jokes that you don't think are funny i mean so much of being a woman we're literally taught to pretend in order to be pleasing and this is where we miss the mark men would much rather have authenticity than someone who's pretending in order to be pleasing now will you take it okay it's better than nothing but not not worth a whole lot um so self-confidence authenticity passion Passion, which is, it ends up in the domain of marriage as well.

34:01She's, the way that men put it is she's got to have something outside of me, outside of us that feeds her. So she's bringing something to us.

34:19Can I go down this way a little bit? It doesn't seem to matter what she's passionate about as long as there's a passion. A shared passion, though, is how cool is that, right? Yeah, yeah.

34:38And women wish that men would listen to them talk longer, but they don't know that how long you can listen to us talk depends on how we're being. if we're complaining give me about 30 seconds if we're talking about something we're passionate about and it's actually been measured that being with a woman obviously I've had a show of hands men spend two days with me and I go, okay, how many of you you have a greater sense of well-being than when you arrived? they'll raise their hands it's an effect of a woman being passionate you guys actually it can be measured you'll have a testosterone spike which is the well-being hormone and um so yeah women's gotta have a passion and be passionate and it's really cute how men talk about yeah my wife collects ceramic cows i don't know why but it's her passion so i'll spend my time off buying her ceramic cow like it becomes worth it um and then the the fourth one the fourth one is the most difficult for women because and they don't know why it's so difficult because self-confidence, authenticity, and passion all shift how a man's being.

36:18And it's the opposite of sexual attraction, which self-confidence crosses over. But then there's shiny hair, which is an indicator of being fertile. There's a shapely body. all kinds of definitions of that men have no control over their imprint of the shape that gets them um sensuality being present to the pleasure your own senses are bringing you which causes men to think of the pleasures they would like to bring you and then the most the most is sexual energy and it's the the way i used to say it was it's the energy a woman puts out when she wants to put out. And so, but these cause a man to want to take.

37:22Give me that. I got to tap that.

37:28One of the things I got in touch with about 15 years ago was like, if we were paying attention, not just subconsciously um do you like dogs i love dogs you love dogs if you're trained a dog try to try to so so as in humans we had the limbic system right which is always a split second ahead of the prefrontal cortex right so this is the impulse to do and then this this choice this can overwrite well a dog have a border collie and when he was a puppy i started training him as if he were a horse which proved really effective and he his body would be shaking and i realized that the shaking came from impulse overwrite impulse overwrite impulse overwrite and he he wanted to jump up on me so badly and he knew not to and it's just shaking shaking shaking well what women don't know and it's one of the crazy things about how much they lead with sexuality is that a man is having the same reaction that the impulse is grab it grab it take it carry it away that's the impulse and then he's overriding that no no no no no no no no no to whatever degree he has to depending on how antagonized the most primitive in instinct on the planet it but it it's why women feel really safe around gay men there's no there's no overwrite there's no vibration there's no there's no tension.

39:20You're just, wow, you're just so easy to be with. But meanwhile, we exacerbate what makes it hard to be with a straight man because of how much we think sexual attraction is what matters. But this is what causes a man to want to take. And these other qualities, charming, is what causes a man to want to give. What was the fourth charming quality? Haven't said it yet. Good job. Receptivity. Because the first three make him want to give. But if she's not receptive, she's caused him to want to give. And then she's like, no, I can do that myself. No, I don't need that. And I'll prove it to you. I don't need anything you got.

40:17What? that's being a man no way am I gonna be receptive to that you want to give me your opinion you want to teach me what you know you want to you want to protect me from a danger that you see that I'll argue against like men are looking for women who were receptive both to who they are and what they want to give, what they need to give. Men need to give. Women need to give. We need to give. But both men and women suck at receiving. Suck at it. It's one of the best skills to work on. You say that appreciation is a form of oxygen. For men. How? You've probably heard experts like Dr. Rhonda Patrick talk about the benefits of omega-3s.

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42:27How important is it for women to seem impressed or giddy or appreciative or receptive of their partners?

42:38well i call it peacocking um i remember when i realized that my soon-to-be boyfriend was doing it um because i i was with my husband for 20 years so i had to relearn everything after he died and uh so a man is attracted to a woman he thinks she's special there's some You guys are so perceptive. You can see it across the room. Oh, who's that? Oh, she's special. Right now there's something at stake. Now there's a nervousness. Now being turned down. Ouch. Right? And so he'll try to impress. But if she's not impressed, you guys know, if you can't impress her, your chances of making her happy. That's number 10.

43:34we're going to end up excavating the remaining two remaining yeah he knows he can make her happy um huge huge men marry men they women they know they can make happen men don't marry women that they love but they know they can't make her happy if they can't impress her like oh this is a non-starter if she's not impressed which is like this much how am I ever going to make her happy well I mean I certainly know for me the sense of being impressive is a wonderful motivator yes do more of that good boy points points It's men play for points. And it's not, I don't know, good boy, good boy would be minor, but it could be, you know, patronizing or matronizing, right?

44:36But good job, good job, or wow, or

44:50there's a have you have you listened to or read the queen's code yes yeah read okay so um do you remember the line in there where mike says to his wife karen i'm always trying to impress you

45:08and then she's like then why don't you take out the trash he's like that would impress you well that's her job i mean pleasing a man is is is tiny like we talked about in the beginning but to be impressed by him? He would so much rather that you were impressed by him than he was pleased by you. You know, we're getting towards the bullseye here, not like the outer edges. How do you advise women to cultivate

45:55more receptiveness, more displays of appreciation and being impressed? I can answer that, but I'm going to start in a place that seems like I might not be, okay?

46:11So this has showed up in the last year or so as I started letting the King's Code come through. You know I didn't write the books, right? Okay, so women have an instinct that anything important, we have to tell you when and where we were when it happened. They're all located in place and time, important things. So I was in my car driving to Wyoming when the King's Code started downloading. on the day that I put on my calendar that I was going to start typing it. And it didn't get the memo that my daughter needed me. I was going to Wyoming. I'm not in front of my laptop. It just came. It just started coming.

47:06And what I was shown was how men and women both are always scanning for strength, searching, hunting for strength, scanning for strength, depending on the brain. And women are scanning for strength that tells me you'd make a good provider. You'd make a good protector. You could save me from the tiger. You could make sure I don't starve. And, oh, with those eyelashes, I want to have your babies.

47:44I have kids with long eyelashes. So it's cute to watch. You're kind of blushing. It's charming. It's a delightful compliment. So we're scanning Procreate, Protect, Provide, Procreate, Protect, Provide. And what we don't know is that men are searching and they're searching for strength, But what they're looking for, depending on the context, and let's talk about mating, men are scanning for complementary strength.

48:25Complementary strength. The way one man put it to me was Tom Brady is not looking for another all-star quarterback. Tom Brady is looking for Jerry Rice. someone whose strength literally altered the possibilities of his own gain. That's what a man's looking for in a wife, that she has complementary strengths that alter his possibilities. I'd be so much better off with her. I so should be with her. But women don't know that you're doing that. and this horrible thing happens, which is why I'm more on the side of age differences because it can happen less, not knowing that she's been picked for complementary strengths, then she criticizes him for not being strong the way she is.

49:26When what he needs from this person he admires for her complementary strength is that she's admiring his complementary strengths. This is what I bring. Why do you keep expecting me to bring what you bring? This is what I bring. It'd be like Tom Brady being pissed at Jerry Rice that he can't throw a ball. So women will, they'll be picked for complementary strength not knowing it and then they'll attack him they'll criticize him for not being like her and then instead of seeing his strength and being impressed by it i mean it's it's intoxicating in a good way to be admired by someone you admire and it's but it's like something happened to us probably in that vortex that I grew up in a Barbie doll meets feminism very very tough being born in 1960 I mean you gotta get a man keep a man try to make him act right but never need him for anything anything he can do I can do better oh yeah that this was my message I think it's still the message now it is yes you have to have thigh gap and a man but don't need him for anything but he's gotta make more money than you because how are you gonna be better off with him which is another part of the question you're asking how can women get better at this is to pay attention to what you need from men that even if you can do it right even if you can do that would you let them contribute that to you and and even to go looking for i gave this assignment to this woman she's like I have never met a man stronger than me ever and she's in our smart singles program and I was like okay here's your assignment I want you to for every man you encounter I want you to have the question at the top of your head like a treasure hunt it's all about listening is all a treasure hunt most people the way they listen they filter out all the treasure what do I think about that That is how most people listen.

52:06So I want you to have the question at the top of your head, how is this man strong? And when you've gotten used to that question, and every man you meet, you see strength in him in some color of the rainbow. Then move on to, how is this man stronger than me? Scary. It was so scary for her. I said, yeah, go looking. How is this man stronger than me? and I said after you've got that dialed in then switch the question how is this man stronger than me and I like it

52:44if you go looking for that the whole world of men changes what you can see who men are instead of seeing how he's not acting like a woman and so what's wrong with him and what's wrong with me that he won't treat me the way I clearly deserve to be treated. Oh, maybe I don't deserve it. Let's work on that. Oh, that's a nightmare. All other places we could go. But, yeah, it's a fundamental difference, actually, in men and women. Our brains are wired to find flaws. What's the imperfection? What's the flaw? What needs to be fixed? and we think when you're looking at me that when you're looking at us that you're doing that women don't know that men are fed by beauty so men's brains hunt beauty sort for beauty you can find beauty in anyone it doesn't have to be perfect it's for you to find beauty oh that nose, those lips.

53:53Like it just, who wouldn't want to be fed, right? And especially if you're, my grandpa, he would say, I'm surrounded by pulchritude. I don't know that word. It's an ugly word for beauty. Okay. All right. Pulchritude. Yeah. The desire of men to feel needed and useful, I think is really interesting. And it is certainly coming into conflict with a modern environment that is teaching men, teaching women that men are optional as opposed to mandatory investments. that way. I wonder whether career women who have spent years cultivating masculine energy in their job, but also want to be looked after, make it a difficult situation for the guys.

55:08Because women can behave in a hyper-independent way, like you don't need looking after. So they get treated as such by men. So the very thing that they want is the very thing that they signal they don't need. if men think well you know i've tried to do these things and she didn't really seem that impressed and she's adamant that she's got it herself in any case and she doesn't really need me all that much i'll just stop offering it i saw this um i saw this really fascinating instagram reel a few months ago that said uh in a relationship men start off treating a woman the way they want to be treated and after a while treat the woman the way that they have been treated by her and this like i want i want i want but i'm also really trainable i'm super super trainable and after a while this is what i've been crafted into that was what i wanted and this is what it seems like you wanted and uh yeah this challenge that women have here of uh

56:19blending a culture that says you should be as independent and reliant self-reliant as possible with men needs to be needed they need to feel impressive and admired and useful and you go, well, if I'm just optional, if I'm a ketchup packet on your value meal of life, that doesn't make me feel very good.

56:51Okay, you just said volumes.

57:00The place that you started. If a woman has the attitude, what do I need men for? What do I need men for? My assignment is answer that question. Don't ask it, answer it. So what do I need men for? It's another treasure hunt. What do I need men for?

57:31it's a great thing to answer and to look and to actually see there are answers if I'm not proving I can do everything what do I need men for and I've done a lot of informal surveys we used to I was leading workshops 24 to 26 times a year for 20 years. And so I'd end up in mostly all women for a very long time and then co-ed. And I'd do these surveys and I'd ask the woman, okay, so think about how many women that you know are for you. They're your friends. how many women does it take to make you feel as safe as one man you know is for you? And I've watched them, and they're thinking and thinking and thinking, and then they start to shake their heads.

58:38There is no number of women that makes a woman feel as safe as one man. That she knows is for her. And this is why this thing we were talking about, sexual attraction versus charmed and enchanted. If a woman is leading with sexuality and bringing out take energy in men, they're either scary or she's sure she can manipulate them, but she's still not going to feel safe. where if he's charmed and enchanted by her, which causes a man to care, which is you guys closely guard caring. Something else I learned from that. You know it's your biggest expenditure of energy. And it has this paradox, which is another thing I love about you all.

59:37you're the walking resolution of paradoxes all the time women think men are simple many men say men are simple no no you

59:52not caring can feel like freedom i don't care i don't care i'm free i'm free but not caring can turn into, I have no purpose. My life is shit. It's not for anything. Right? And then men have said, when a woman needs something from me, I have a purpose. It's just like, there's something really beautiful about it. You know, and I think of it like this, you're making those other, which I think of it like this, I call it this, I call it this, I have it, providing, receiving, providing, receiving, providing, receiving. And this beautiful dance, if we're allowing for it, if we're feeding it, and you asked about appreciation.

1:00:39Appreciation is feeding. It's feeding providers, and providers are grateful to be received. You let me. I asked her once, why do you do so much for me? I said, because you let me. oh women aren't very good at letting men these days haven't been for a long time letting men provide what is what they're compelled to provide and so there's so much that's cattywampus and But the addictive thing is such tiny changes make such a huge difference. And like I was teaching a course in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. And we had just done that part about how many women make you feel as safe as one man. And we were finishing the workshop and people were sharing from their seats.

1:01:43and this young woman took a microphone and she announced to the whole room she said I am gay so what that means men is it doesn't matter what you do I'm not going to fall in love with you but I want to say that still what she said about one of you making me feel safer than any number of women is true for me and then on the other side this This big man stood up and took my phone and said, it'd be fair to call me a redneck. And my daughter's marrying a woman. And they started to cry. But now I know from what that young lady just said that I still have something to give her. Big tears coming down his red face.

1:02:43Ugh. Mm.

1:02:54another way I would put it Chris is that femininity is a gift to women from men

1:03:10that femininity is its own kind of strength, feminine forms of power, its own kind of magic, mystery. I learned all this from men, by the way. But as long as we're being the warrior, we're the warrior, we're the hunter, we're protecting ourselves, we're providing for ourselves, we have no energy left or space left to be feminine. Until we let ourselves be protected, until we entrust you, which involves information women don't impart. Honey, what makes me feel really safe is... Oh. I mean, you said trainable.

1:04:02decades ago, one of my first interviews by telephone was like, I was talking about how women have it backwards. What we take personally, we shouldn't. What we don't take personally, we should. And the woman said, so like women are dyslexic? They get it backwards? And it just popped out of my mouth. I said, yeah, if we treated men like gods instead of dogs, it would work much better. And then I apologized to a group of men for, I'm so sorry that if you live with a woman who treats the dog better than you. And there were men, I mean, you could see it on film, like the faces, you could tell the ones.

1:04:50So yeah, men are dogs. They're loyal. They want to bring you stuff. They're always happy to see you. They're so bummed when they think they haven't done good.

1:05:11Okay, where are we going now? It's interesting the direction of the arrow of causation between these two things. I saw a tweet a while ago. I'm trying to jumpstart me. Yeah, yeah, I am riling you up. You haven't even had the caffeine yet. The direction of causation? Someone who's obsessed with cause and effect? Of course. The direction of causation? Yeah, so I saw a tweet a while ago that said, women love to submit, you just have to be him. And I think the suggestion here is that a woman's inability to be submissive or soften up or show needs is because their partner isn't doing something right.

1:05:58And it seems like you've kind of left both sides open a little bit at the moment, that femininity is a gift from men to women, that that is something that occurs because we're able to protect and provide and make them feel safe, maybe a little bit secure, but mostly safe. But also women's... I'm sorry. As soon as you said maybe a little bit secure, where it's like, oh yeah, that's what this is about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put a ring on it. Of course. Then I'm secure. You promised all your friends. That's a big statistic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:06:35That it's men's job, it's their gift, the femininity. I'm showing up, I'm protecting, I'm providing, etc., etc. But also that the receptivity of women, the preparedness to say,

1:06:48I do need you. I want to need you. I want to be able to open up. I want to soften. I don't think, that tweet got to me a little bit. Women love to submit, you just need to be him because it laid at the feet of men, women's unpreparedness. It was almost like a shit test. You heard of shit tests from Pickup Artistry? Do you know what these are? Okay. So supposedly during the flirtation stage, women would sort of throw little sort of neggy jokes around to see how a man would respond. It's kind of a test of your self-assuredness. Okay, yeah, women maybe do do that in a little bit of a way. It's like, well, poke you a little bit and see how you respond.

1:07:31Are you able to stand up to this sort of a thing? And I get that. And I think that in the flirtation stage, that's an interesting challenge. If you scale that across the rest of time throughout an entire relationship on every different domain that you're trying to relate to your partner in, which is in order for you to submit. You have to be this never stopping, unrelenting, completely omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent force that is able to blast through. Except, well, women love to submit, you just have to be him, is exactly the same as saying, my shortcomings are your fault. My unpreparedness to open up, my unpreparedness to be soft or to be gentle or to be submissive.

1:08:17That's not a me. That's your job to overcome. That doesn't sound very collaborative. I'm wondering when it comes to the direction of the arrow of causation here, how you come to think about that with regards to needing. This episode is brought to you by Whoop. I have been wearing Whoop for over five years now, way before they were a partner on the show. I've actually tracked over 1 ,600 days of my life with it, according to the app, which is insane. And it's the only wearable I've ever stuck with because it tracks everything that matters, sleep, workouts, recovery, breathing, heart rate, even your steps.

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1:09:44That's join.whoop.com slash modernwisdom. There you go. Oh, boy.

1:09:57I want a dictionary. I want to look up the difference between submit and surrender.

1:10:16Oh my gosh.

1:10:23Let me just put, I'll just say this this way. in a certain context, I love to be ordered around. Tell me what to do. I am a happy camper. In a particular context. Other than that,

1:10:49so submit, to me, submit has an element of putting up with. or submitting like like i one of the things i teach is be aware of demanding demanding doesn't work because the other person only has a choice to submit or resist and both will create resentment i think with that uh that is being used in the form of soften up or surrender i think is is probably what that means so you're right to say Do you really mean submit? You mean maybe submissive as in please take care of me, but not submit as in, okay, I submit. So I think you're right to call that out. Yeah, so I worry about that, and the him part is an impossible ideal.

1:11:48Impossible.

1:11:53Men have a saying that I didn't understand for the longest time. I'm only human. I didn't understand that. I'm only human. And then I realized that women expect men to be omnipotent and omniscient, omnipresent. Oh, omnipresent. Every time I look at you, you're there, receptive to me looking back. And I realized, oh, that's what women are looking for in men, that you're all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, and men are going, but I'm only human. Oh, we really do judge men relative to what only God is supposed to be. And where there's a flaw, then...

1:12:50Okay, I'm talking about this, but I got to bring in this, okay? Do you remember very early on I said women trust too much?

1:13:01So I think men are much more discerning about this than women. Women want to trust, have a blanket trust. They want to be able to trust you. Period. I trust you. early on when you said you trust me i wanted to say for what right because because we just want to blanket trust which most women mean that if i trust you that means you're going to meet every expectation of mine i can trust you to fulfill my stated and unstated expectations to trust you to fulfill them even and they've never agreed to fulfill them. And that's, so we want to be able to trust you for everything. And if you do one little thing, now I can't trust you for everything.

1:14:02I can't trust you. So how would I ever surrender? How would I ever give up my autonomy and authority? How would I ever get on the same team and let you call it a play, for gosh sakes? Can you tell I love sports? and it's a great place to study men.

1:14:22It's such a great place. So there's actually something people can look up. It's called the trouble with trusting the opposite sex. And I start with the trouble with trusting, period, and how we want this blanket trust and then there's a blanket violation instead of what I propose, that I assert is you can trust everyone if you pay attention to what you can trust them for. I could trust my husband to eat chocolate every day, no matter what he said otherwise. When he died suddenly, and the kids came, and they wanted to clean out his office,

1:15:11it's been six and a half years there are still mice finding hershey's chocolates and leaving the foil behind right and so but you can what can i trust him for and so part of the clarity that men and women both need if they're looking for a mate or a business partner, what do I need to be able to trust somebody for, be able to trust them for, meaning they're trustworthy, they've proven that they're trustworthy for that, in order to have them be that important to me, in order to have my business in their hands, in order to have my life in their hands, what do I need to trust them for? And then find evidence before you commit.

1:15:56it people commit way too quickly the due diligence is like oh we have chemistry and i love him and and he makes me feel wonderful and and if i scrint you know yeah i'm getting everything i need let's not look too closely at that i trust that he will eventually once we get married and I start changing him.

1:16:26So the unreality around all this, it's primarily what we're doomed by. But besides opposing instincts, if we just were aware of opposing instincts and knew we had to negotiate opposing instincts, it can turn out. But being clueless about that, thinking men are a kind of woman and women are a kind of man, And no, it's never going to work out. So this surrender part over here, right, has to do with trust. And what can I trust you for? And just being a grown-up, I can't trust you for everything. What do I need to be able to trust you for? Okay, what do I see that I do trust you for that? And there's evidence.

1:17:16It's based on evidence that I can trust you for that. Okay, cool. Is there anything else that would make a huge difference in my life if I could also trust you for that? And that's the thing to have a conversation about. And what would it look like? What would that look like to be trusted for that? most women don't trust their husbands to load the dishwasher because he's not going to load it like her. He's going to load it so there's clean dishes. Acceptably clean dishes. It's one of the questions men asked me like, you're going to close the door and have a party? Is that why everything has to be grouped just right?

1:18:09Okay. Oh, then there's this other part that you brought up, needs. I've studied so long needs. When I first found out I was bringing out the worst in men, right, and went looking, what I was sure of was that men either didn't care what I needed or they were actively withholding it. Like to get me. This was really my behavior in my first marriage. Actively withholding. Oh well. We have our son. Who's just like about six months younger than you.

1:18:58And then I found out men do care. Really. They care about a woman. They care about what she needs. Right? One of the 12 things. He thinks he can give her what he thinks she needs. And I thought, okay, cool. They want us to give her what we need. Oh, big problem. They don't know what we need. They think they know what we need. There's things they think we need, and men will project onto women their own needs. This is how men project orgasms onto women. please can I just go to sleep it's late I don't need that so so okay so they men want us to have what we need they're willing to do what it takes to give us what we need but we have to tell them what we need and when I started teaching women that they're like but what if I don't know what I need and then I figured out a way for them to figure out what they need, which is awesome.

1:20:05It's like so logical. Well, first figure out what you want to be. What quality do you want to be? Well, then what do you need in order to naturally be that quality? It's actually really like magic. You can be anything you want to be. So then I, you know, I was doing this for years. And then this woman stopped me on a break and said, there's something I need from my boyfriend but he's not giving it to me. And I said, have you told him? She said, no. And I said, why haven't you told him? And she, that was a really fun snort. That was awesome.

1:20:52That was such a great snort. I've been practicing. And you were like right there in the microphone. So I said, why haven't you told them what you need? That's what I've been. I mean, I started teaching women how to tell men what you need in 1995. And men thought it was ridiculous. How could you have a nine-step process? We're simple. And then I walked them through the nine-step process. They validated every part of the process. What would go wrong if they didn't do that? and you would have encountered it in the Queen's Code, Chapter 6. And so this woman, when I asked her, why haven't you told him what you need?

1:21:39And she said, because I can't get over what I think about myself for needing that. It's like, what? And it led to this whole study. I call it the point of view. I identified six different points of view that men and women have about what it means to need a particular thing in the first place. And that what it means to need something in the first place is what causes this lockdown. Don't tell. Don't tell. And there's, can I show you? You'll take your imagination. So imagine a spectrum. And on this end of the spectrum, having a need is weak and pathetic. And then moving this way, it might be selfish and self-centered.

1:22:46or next door would be it's unevolved and immature. A grown-up wouldn't need that. A transformed person wouldn't need that, right? And then it gets to justified and reasonable. Yeah, I could see why I would need that. That's reasonable. And then there's bothersome and annoying. ah and this is here for a reason and the end is entitled and deserved i deserve that from you right and i was thinking about this before you arrived i was thinking entitled entitled is a perfect word i'm entitled because of my title you owe me that I am your girlfriend you owe me that I just did a course on how even when they agree that you deserve it it doesn't make it happen but we think that if I think I deserve it and you think I deserve it now it's going to happen so what we saw and it was so fun because you were talking about songs earlier Alanis contributed to this she was part of the weekend where I was distinguishing it with a bunch of people.

1:24:11And that basically what happens is wherever you are mostly live in regards to your needs, something has to work its way all the way over. Justified and reasonable might be expressed because that's an okay thing to need. But most things have to work all the way over to, I'm now convinced I deserve this and I've earned it and you owe me and I'm going to demand it. And so there are a lot of needs that don't make the whole trip, and so they never get told. They never get asked for. They might break the surface, like the tip over there, in a complaint. But a complaint is not an ask. Are you with me so far?

1:24:56Mm-hmm. So then surveying groups of women and then later on surveying classrooms of men, most women will fall in their needs are justified and reasonable or entitled and deserved. the few that are bothersome and annoying they just ignore it ignore it ignore it but then when they're dead in a ditch they're pissed at the people who should have foreseen debt i mean it's it's really really interesting dynamic there's a lot of high performers here and then and a lot of high performers here because they got to keep earning what they need right so then asking a men, like, because we do this whole thing for them to figure out and find out themselves, and we got a whole grade of what they say and all that stuff.

1:25:52About half the men ended up in their primary reaction to having a need is that it's weak and pathetic. They just don't need. Y 'all are like Superman. Have you ever seen a Superman movie where he ate? No. No. Slept? No. No. No. You guys think you should be able to do anything and everything without sleeping, without eating, without being appreciated, without having enough sex, without... Right? And so needing anything, it means you're weak and pathetic and don't dare. The warrior's never going to reveal a weakness. Never, ever. It'll be used against you. You guys are It's another thing women are pissed at you about You won't reveal yourself Well of course you won't reveal yourself It'll be used against you You're built to not reveal Anything that can be used against you Which is why men talk about What doesn't matter to them There's a nobility in stifling desires I think that's how men see it Maybe not desires is quite the right word But there's certainly a nobility in suppressing what you need?

1:27:12Yeah, it could be thought that way, that it's nobility. But if you just confront getting it out of your mouth, you'll see the fear. Like, no, don't say that. It'll be used against you. And it's one of the things women want men to open up, but we always use it against you. How? You're trainable. We'll teach you to not open up. How do women teach men not to open up? Well, there's several ways. One is that you tell me a truth about you, and it's, oh, it's so yummy. Oh, he told me something really special about him. Who can I tell? so for a woman that an admirable man a strong man a cool man revealed something to me makes me important status herd instinct but it's only worth something if i can tell someone else yes so we'll you'll reveal to us and we'll reveal to them it's a betrayal from a man's point of view That's a betrayal.

1:28:29But you'll find out that we did it because it'll come back around. The end with revealing intimate information. The other thing we'll do is we'll use it against you. So I used to be really cautious. In 1995 when he started a workshop, it was called Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women. And I called it that to offend people who weren't up for it. I imagine he did. Yeah, to just turn them away. Celebrating men? They're pigs. They're dogs. They're fill in the blank. But every once in a while, I wouldn't be like, you can do that? I want to do that. And they, okay, come on in. It was limited to 12 women.

1:29:17They were so scary at the time. So I was really careful for a long time. And then as I practiced natural horsemanship and learned how to hold my space, and then I started poking the bear. Like, so I did a teleclass called Using Anger to Get What You Need because I wanted to attract all the women who used anger to get what you need or wanted to use anger to get what you need. It's a run-pull. It doesn't work. And, but I brought them in so I could pull the rug. Well, then I did a webinar called Why Men Can't Be Trusted to Tell the Truth.

1:29:59Yeah, why can't they be trusted to tell the truth? And some of my graduates were just incensed. Alison Armstrong said this about men? So he sent out an email to all the men. And the subject line was, we still have your back. and I told him about the webinar and that the subtitle of the webinar could be How Women Teach Honest Men It's Not Worth It. And because what will happen is a man will tell the truth and he'll tell a truth that's been true for him maybe for as long as he can remember. For as long as he can remember. Or it might be a newer truth. It's only been the last couple of years or the last few months.

1:30:43But it's the truth. and he tells it to her. And she's upset about that. You shouldn't think that. You shouldn't feel that way. No, that's wrong. And because of how women are wired, where to be upset is to be displeased. Ooh, don't have anybody upset. So women believe, I'm just sure of it. Chris, they're positive. They're sure that if you know how upset I am about what you just told me is true for you, you will change your truth. That you will, just like I would. You will change your truth. No, men are smarter than that. There was no problem with that truth until it came out of their mouth, until they told her.

1:31:43it was fine as long as it wasn't said. So this is how men are literally taught, trained, as you say it, to not tell the truth. She doesn't need to know that. She doesn't need to know that. She doesn't need to know that. But women cause that. And another thing I recorded called Why Men Lie, Why Women Lie. And, you know, I like to drill down, drill down, drill down. and basic survival instincts for all species, fight, flight, freeze, you have reactions. And I discovered there's fight line, there's freeze line, there's flight line. I gotta go. And, but as I drilled down into it and my kids were, had been young, children lie, horses lie, dogs lie.

1:32:43I've seen it in all of them. And I realized that lying is a basic survival reaction. It's just fundamental to survival. Just lie. Buff yourself up, look, I'm bigger than, right? Or I'll really still, I'm not here, I'm not here, right? All these things. But once I saw that lying is completely natural, and truth is my second highest value. So if lying is normal and not an aberration, how do you get honesty? You have to celebrate it. So like in my company, I have fired people for lying about lying.

1:33:40The problem wasn't that they lied. It was that then they lied about lying. And I had people, employees say, I lied to you. Really? What about? And then they tell me, oh, thank you so much for telling me. What had you lied about that? Oh, is there something you need me to do different? Do something you need from me? like if you want the truth you got to celebrate the truth even if you don't like the truth or the way I would say is a man's got to get more points for telling the truth than he loses by what the truth is way more points I love you admire you and adore you for telling me the truth I'll get over the hurt feelings.

1:34:33Just give me a bit. But thank you. Thank you for that. Oh, you're welcome. Huh. We keep doing this a while? Can I tell you a funny story? We hadn't been together for very long. Dan and I, it'll be five years and a couple months. But we were very new to each other. and he knew truth is one of my highest values. Freedom is number one, which freedom and control.

1:35:11And I'm a freedom fighter. I want to set you free. That thing we were talking about before. Strategy, strategy is a cage.

1:35:29And so we were getting naked. And I realized I was self-conscious, which is that's the last thing I want to be naked is self-conscious. And I said, I just got to tell you, I'm feeling a little chubby. And so I'm self-conscious. And he said, you're not chubby. and then like about three seconds later he goes, well, you're a little chubby, but it's all good. And I turned around and I like looked at him. I was crawling over him into the bed and I turned and looked at him and he goes, I remember truth is one of your love languages. Be careful what you wish for. But I'd never been so tickled to be called chubby, which I've been called since I was a little girl.

1:36:19Like, thank you for checking.

1:36:24That was funny.

1:36:29That was awesome. Isn't it great just to be real? Just to be out loud? It's so awesome. So yeah, that was like the happiest time I'd ever been called chubby because he was just being truthful. And Dan's superpower, which I didn't even know could be a superpower, is acceptance. he's like he's a genius at acceptance he's like yes i'm i'm perfectly imperfect so are you we all are perfectly imperfect oh thank you and it it's by the way the difference in how men and women get married when you guys decide she's the right person it doesn't mean you think she's flawless there even could be things that would be that'd be nice if that went away but when you choose you you buy the whole package she is what she is and she isn't what she isn't it just seems logical factual that's not how what women do you so you commit you guys when you guys commit you commit all the time just like the whole thing the whole picture the whole package just scoop it up and we can feel it and I've and women who are like where's the ring where's the ring give me the ring I'm like you guys once there's a ring on that finger he's going to be married and he's going to start acting like a husband and he's going to think he has a right to have veto power over dangerous things that you want to do where it's physically dangerous or a man who got engaged recently.

1:38:14I said, uh-oh, you're married. He was all happy. We got engaged. I said, does she know you're married? He said, what do you mean? I said, you're all in. You're already married. The ceremony is just like for friends and family. And he's like, oh. And I said, are you more protective? Do you seem controlling? Has she accused you of being controlling? Yes. she's an actress and she told me about a job she was offered and i said you can't do that movie and she looked at me like i was what and it had been the most natural thing for him to do is protecting her career her reputation who she's becoming no you can't do that and she was just like who the hell are you that you can tell me what to do i'm doing my job i'm your husband he didn't say that but that's what he thought.

1:39:10Women commit one acceptance at a time. One acceptance at a time. I know women who had a wedding 30 years ago and they've hardly accepted anything. They've been trying to change them for 30 years. They're not actually married. Women don't understand how men be married. We're a team now. It's us. We're a team. We're a team about everything, aren't we? You don't do that right. You can't be on my team. It breaks my heart. I'm interested in the role of emasculation here. You mentioned it a couple of times. Yes. Kind of a, it's a word that I don't hear much outside of your work. I wonder whether it appears in different ways I wonder whether people men use other words instead of it to explain how they feel when what they mean is I feel emasculated but I'm interested in what your definition of it is and why it's so important

1:40:29um

1:40:33And I was asked, six months into studying men, I was asked to stop castrating men. A harsh word.

1:40:47I did change my life forever. But I looked it up in the dictionary, and it says to deprive of virility. and then I looked up and it had a synonym emasculate and and over the years right since 1991

1:41:22emasculation the idea of emasculation it got captured. His name is Tomer. And we were talking about feeling bad, that women don't want to make men feel bad. And especially my graduates, they don't want to make men feel bad because they've given up the right to emasculate men. So they don't want to tell their man something they need because if he can't do it, he may feel bad. And Tomer said, Feeling bad does not emasculate me. He said, when you diminish my ability to produce results, you have emasculated me. And that sent me on a whole other trajectory of productivity versus connectivity, which goes back to that security through productivity, safety through connectivity.

1:42:26So, you could call it the masculine and feminine if you wanted to, but so many women spend more time in a hunting, committed, goal-producing, committed state of mind that those terms have got, they were hard to deal with in the 90s. So much baggage to unpack. But if you're finding security through productivity, male or female, doesn't matter, if you feel safe through connectivity, which comes with an open state of mind, which estrogen naturally creates in the brain. so to diminish someone's ability to produce results as a as a man

1:43:19it can be anything from being taken down a notch the winds out of your sails the plug was literally pulled out of the wall and you, oh, everything shuts down. Get specific for me. What are some of the ways that women emasculate men that, what are the most common ways that they do it all and or some of the ways that they do it and they might not notice? Can I expand it a little bit? Because what we figured out after a long time was everybody does it to everybody. Women emasculate men, women emasculate women, women emasculate themselves. men naturally emasculate men it's part of war whether it's war in the board room right or it's part of business it's part of the workplace to compete and diminish and it can be honorable or dishonorable um so so what we saw is everything women do to men we do to ourselves and um

1:44:33in the case of what we were talking about not telling a man what we need because we thought it would hurt his feelings and tomer saying that doesn't hurt my feelings one of the ways that we diminish the men in our lives ability to produce results is we withhold quality information We don't speak up about what really matters to us. We don't expose ourselves that way. We don't say it. This is why authenticity is so valued, so charming. And the way one man put it, it was a head turner, and you would have heard in the Queen's Code, a strong woman, voluntarily vulnerable. So she's clearly capable, and yet she's admitting a need.

1:45:21oh, it's breathtaking, especially if what she needs he can give her, and he knows he can give her, and she'll entrust him to give it, and she'll think it's worth a thousand points. Oh my gosh, I needed that so badly. So that dynamic, right, can get really beautiful, but when we don't want to reveal a need because we think it's unattractive, If I need something, then I'm not perfect, and I'll be unattractive and less pleasing to you, and then you won't save me, and I'll die. You won't choose me. So it's just not speaking up about what we need is emasculating. Give me some more.

1:46:12This is a hard one, and I apologized for it earlier. We interrupt. so we'll ask a man a question, for example, and then he doesn't answer fast enough, so we'll interrupt his thinking, and he still doesn't answer, we'll rephrase, and then we'll interrupt him again, right? Give him options, because he's too stupid for an open question. We think this stuff. But we also, we don't understand that, my husband helped me understand this. in studying natural horsemanship Buck Braneman was talking about how horses are seeking peace and I was thinking about how much men have talked to me about peace yeah we're warriors and what do we crave?

1:47:07peace what do we want most when we walk through the door? peace and and so i asked greg so when you accomplish what you're focused on then do you experience peace and he he would look at me in this is the sweetest way he'd just be kind of like like like when i was good honey the hierarchy of instinct so is it protect then provide them procreate is it provide then procreate then protect is it and he's looking at me and look at me goes keep going and I went no it's procreate then protect then provide and he just smiled at me so then I asked other menus they're like yeah of course you create it then you protect it you have an invention you patent it right like it's the most natural thing to do but there's a hierarchy one trumps the other this is why emasculation is important because women want men to be in provide mode but when we criticize which is a form of emasculation a man will retract from providing to protect and if it's a direct attack like on your character you're just like your fill in the blank your father now he's protecting himself and that's what brings out the worst in men when they're protecting themselves because it overrides their their compelling desire to protect others they're they're they're the smallest version of themselves and they're protecting themselves and they could shut down right they could they could withdraw or they could attack and women cause men to attack and then we think that's who men are women cause men to withdraw and we think you ghosted me right we have all these accusations after we've caused it by doing something like ignoring.

1:49:30For example, walking by a man day after day as if he's not even worth acknowledging his existence. Women do that a lot. But interrupting, this business of interrupting, when I asked Greg, I'm like, so do you get peace from accomplishing what you're focused on? And he gave me that look. It said, Single focus is peace.

1:50:09Wait a second. This state of mind where you're committed to one thing and your brain is screening out everything it considers irrelevant.

1:50:21Single focus is peace. Your brains are designed to give you peace. You commit to something, it screens out everything it considers relevant. It doesn't usually ask your opinion about, do you think it's irrelevant? Men's wives' voices are relevant. But when I got it, like, oh, focus is a state of peace, so he's being productive, so he's secure, he's being productive, getting it done. We identified the problem. That's productivity, right? Even just identifying a problem is productivity. And then she's interrupting him because she wants to connect. She can feel that he's gone. There's no connection.

1:51:06Honey, I'm going to the grocery store. What? And so now she's uber disconnected and freaked out and thinks he's... But she doesn't know she interrupted his productivity and his peace. Blew it up. Ran the train off the track. She doesn't know she did that and he's reacting to that.

1:51:37So, we interrupt. It's one of the biggest things I've been teaching women. Count to 30. Wait. Count to 30 again. Wait, but estrogen creates a brain that's in a constant state of interruption. We're monitoring so many things at the same time. It doesn't, we don't really understand interruption until we get older. Our hormones change. We get focused. Actually, I had to tell my daughter, I've changed. I'm not ignoring you. I'm just focused. She thought I was ignoring her. I was turning 50. She was 15. She thought I was ignoring her. No, my brain was just rewiring, getting focused. Are there any other big emasculation?

1:52:28Oh, golly. Let's see. Amongst the withholding. So we withhold quality information. We withhold attention. We withhold even bad attention. A man will seek bad attention is better than no attention. Ponytails in the inkwells, you know, goes way back. Affection, admiration, it's a whole lot of A's. Accountability, we'll let you be helpful, but we won't entrust you with accountability. You help me with my plan, don't you dare have one of your own. It's a whole area, it's a whole area to shift how we interact. I call these the green emasculation because they're low energy, just what you don't do. Holding back, refraining from.

1:53:25The Cs, we criticize, we compare, we complain. Even we have so-called compliments. Oh, a gentleman. Finally, you're so rare. okay you just insulted my whole gender but i'm supposed to feel good about that right so we

1:53:51um let me see i just was going through this a few weeks ago with my students let me see the board oh there's the worst one be a better man

1:54:09there are women who walk around sure that they are the best men they've ever met what do I need you for I am a better man than everyone in you I'm more everything than you it's brutal they could take out a whole room just walking in what do I need you buggers for um I was a

1:54:43we withhold sex some women withhold food just watch him power down don't feed him oh yeah brutal can I tell you something sweet there was a woman who did the Celebrating Men's Hustle and Women workshop when she was 86.

1:55:11And she came back to the second day of the workshop and she'd given up the right to emasculate men forever. And she came to the second day and she said, I've been withholding sex from my husband, but not anymore.

1:55:33and then and then he died a year later and i asked her son who's a dear dear friend of mine i said how's your mom doing he said she's doing great she knows she gave him the best last year of his life that she could i was like oh that's amazing what's even cooler 91 she got remarried

1:56:06that was super sweet

1:56:13can I tell you a part? so So how we emasculate is here in the middle, like in terms of time, causation. So over here is what triggers us to emasculate. And everything I've seen that triggers us to emasculate, which was one of the first things I had to learn after I gave it up, you could boil it down to fear and frustration if you wanted to simplify fear and frustration trigger emasculation and then there's how we emasculate and then this piece which I've referred to what we do about it this is this is the thing that if you take it out these can fall apart and and what it is is it's how we justify diminishing men how we justify stealing your power taking your feet up from underneath you how do we justify it so one of things i've interacted with women for a really long time 30 years or more even before we started our workshop.

1:57:44We called it the transformation of the castration club. Talk to women one-on-one about what triggered them, what they did, and why men deserve it. And they have all these different reasons why men deserve to be diminished. And it goes back to fear and frustration, but things like, well, they abuse power, or they can't be trusted, or they don't do anything right. My mother's was, they're stupid. And what was interesting is as I would see the justification, I could see the flip side of it. like my friend who her justification was they have too much power and they abuse it was like oh because you think that and therefore you diminish them they can't ever use their power for you and she got it she's the co-founder of our company she got it in her bones and she She shifted so fast.

1:58:59She's my best student ever. So my mother, who was just determined that men are stupid, my father was a genius. My stepfather number one, really intelligent man. Stepfather number two, intelligent in a different way. Stepfather number three, intelligent in a different way. She really went through it. In a different way. Great modeling. she could never avail themselves of their intelligence, their unique intelligence, because she was looking for them to be intelligent the way she was. And since they weren't intelligent the way she was, they were stupid. So this complementary strength thing...

1:59:53never have anything be good enough never be satisfied be unhappy on principle there are women who think if you if they never give up the happy you'll keep trying harder they've got it backwards you give up the happy he wants to know how much happier he can make you well if that made her happy what about this they don't know that You mentioned at the start, right at the top, that pleasing men is pretty low down on the triaged hierarchy of... What men care about? Yes. Being pleased? What should women focus on? Well, you mentioned some of them. Being taken care of. it's stunning to men. Like, wow, you're looking out after me.

2:00:58I mean, how much more productive can a man be if he's being taken care of? When I left home to come be with you, I cooked a bunch of food to bring with me because I eat very particularly, and I cooked a bunch of food for Dan so he can eat very particularly. And he just, it's like he just loves it. When my grandson was born, I was gone for a month, and I made his favorite cake. It's called Jack, ginger apple cake. And he was coming over, this is when I lived in his backyard, and he would come over once a week to water my plants while I was gone. And I left him with a ginger apple cake. And I didn't tell him that in each of the three drawers in my freezer, there was another ginger apple cake.

2:01:57So he would come water my plants. I watered your plants. Oh, thank you. In the bottom drawer, there's something for you. And I said, which drawer? And he goes, did you already forget? but I want to make sure he looked in the bottom drawer because I didn't want him to find the aloo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Although now that I think about it, whichever one he opened, he would think that was the only one. Right? Duh. Yeah. So. Take care of. Yeah, it's just like to take care of him. Mm-hmm. And it's different for a different man. Like, you got to ask, what would take care of you? Mm-hmm. And a man might say, it would support me if.

2:02:42Right? So they're, it's interesting. I ask, how do you feel supported? Men say, I feel appreciated when? When I say, how do you like to be supported? How do you like to be appreciated? Well, I feel supported when? So taking care of support and appreciation, they all live in the same, right? What you appreciate, you take care of. What you appreciate, you support, you support. Like they all live in the same domain and they're priceless in terms of quality of life and in a partner that they'll take care of you and they'll support you. They'll, you know, Sunday was my birthday. Happy birthday. Thank you.

2:03:2965. It's crazy, Pete, 65. I feel invincible. You look invincible. You do. Thank you. So, you know, it's my birthday. It's special. It's my 65th. We got to do something really special. We did do something really special. He went to Father's Weekend at CU Boulder with his son, who's a senior. He was there for all the frat stuff and see you older to beat Iowa. And I had three days home alone. It was heaven. It was so awesome. It was one of my best birthdays. But for me to support him, like something women don't know to listen for, like when they're sorting for a relationship is what matters to him what matters to him just keep thinking that he's talking what's important to him what matters to him what does he care about we call it listening to learn and so it was obvious to me after the first three hours I talked to Dan on the phone before we ever met the most important thing to him in his life is his children.

2:04:47Okay, I got it. I was glad. So many women, like women in your age group, they want to be a man's first priority. Tell them it's a huge mistake. Men's capacities are enormous. If he makes you his first priority, he will drive you nuts. That's interesting. Dig into that for me. Why would a man who makes a woman his first priority drive the woman insane because you guys you got so much to give you have such capacities for productivity for getting things done for creativity like y 'all are amazing and if that's all focused on me i don't need enough to occupy you i i i need i need enough that I, you could really help me probably every day, several times a day in different ways.

2:05:51But to be the focus of all that attention, all that mind power, all that oomph, it would be emasculating to you and it would feel needy and controlling and icky to me. so just as a man is looking for a woman who has a passion that feeds her that she can bring to relationship you gotta have a purpose you gotta have something you're up to that's hot what you're up to you ever read uh dr robert glover's book no more mr nice guy i've never read it but he interviewed me about three months ago oh cool yeah i like robert did you ever did he teach you the three things that make an attractive man? Did he give you that one?

2:06:39No, he...

2:06:44I feel like there's a story here. What went on? Well, the interview, which is on the internet, was for the men that he coaches. And he has a whole team. And he was adorable because in the interview, he talks a lot. And after it was all done, everybody was gone and we were in a room with a group. And the group were saying their favorite things that they learned. And at the end of it, what Robert said was, I learned when Alison Armstrong's talking, I should shut up. And it was just so sweet that he caught it. Right? It was really, really sweet. The three essences of an attractive man. What are they?

2:07:35A man who is comfortable in his own skin. Yep. Knows where he's going. Yep. And is having fun while he's going there. Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, yes.

2:07:54That's bringing back so many things. My husband was not comfortable in his own skin. He felt trapped in a human body. It was too heavy. It was too slow. It was just a burden. So I drove fast, rode mad at motorcycles, really fast. He was so happy. but when he died which he did suddenly I felt his exhilaration he was free he was free of this thing that had just been too heavy and too slow his whole life I could hear Mike going he was incredible it made it really hard to grieve in a normal way to know what that was like for him. How interesting. I had a conversation with my coach, a guy called Joe Hudson.

2:08:56I had a conversation with him the other day. And I was talking about trepidation. And he asked me this question and he said, how much of it's fear and how much of it's excitement? And I was like, oh, you motherfucker. I really really try and like sit with it yeah like the first 50 % of the outside of the gobstopper is fear the core of its excitement it's really messy it's trite to do the whole you're not nervous you're excited thing I think it's a little trite just that it's yeah cool like these two things can a slight different perspective you finish a workout you're on the floor in a sweat angel panting and you've got the taste of metal in the back of your throat and your heart and breathing heavily and it's exciting that happens spontaneously in traffic you call an ambulance okay the same sensation okay so our framing around the present moment actually determines our experience of it like whatever but that one around fear I'd never heard before uh and I've been working with fear a lot especially the last month or so.

2:10:10And I found it really interesting. I found it really interesting to think about when you're telling that story about Greg. And there's less cleanness around the grief. There's cleanness available. I'm sad that he's gone and he was sad that he was going but also he was in some ways maybe glad that he was going and i'm glad that he was glad that he was going but he's sad that he went and i'm sad that he's gone and oh here we go like this is a big complex knot to try and cut through yeah no grief is extraordinarily complex um and has so many gifts may i say something about the fear and excitement absolutely So one of the things I've found useful is the awareness of having two nervous systems.

2:11:19That we literally have two nervous systems. They call them the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. and excitement and fear and anger, I would call those all emotions. And how you can tell, and someone, I wish I could credit them, defined emotion as energy in motion. So if you think about fear, fear moves in the body.

2:11:56it zings around chemistry zings around excitement zings around what if those are all sympathetic nervous system responses they're all in response to the perception of a threat or an opportunity and opportunities are can go either way they can cause you to live or die right it could it could be a fake or you could not be up to it so opportunities quickly become threats to the nervous system right so if you so if you distinguished that from a feeling and feelings have locations feelings have a place yeah you have a place right there now it's interesting where you put your hand because that's that's your diaphragm right there right yeah yeah well if we were going to talk chakras what i'm not fluent in i'm not even a novice in chakras but right there right there would be your the chakra of yourself who you are.

2:13:20And somewhere near there, maybe a little lower, you would find it would be the place that both men, it's going to be a little higher, that men and women feel shame. Not when we've been shamed. When we're, between me and me, Like, someone was harmed, even if I harmed myself, by failing to be or do what I most value being and doing. So it's one of the few feelings that men and women have in the same place, which I find fascinating. Because so many of our feelings are not in the same place. And women don't know this. So when they ask a man, so how do you feel about that? we think you should just look right here, which is where we would look, and you'd know how you felt about it.

2:14:19But do you ever notice a woman said, you hurt my feelings? She doesn't say you hurt my feeling. You hurt my feelings. Because, like, we have a stack of pancakes right here. So many feelings that all, like, it's like a condo complex. They're all on different floors, but they're right here. And I started paying attention to men and where are these feelings? And this goes back to the emasculation, which is so sad. So I started asking men, where do you feel happiness? They couldn't answer. men pay attention to women being happy they don't pay attention to themselves being happy they just are when they are and you were talking about fun, right?

2:15:15so have a, be at home when you're skin comfortably in your skin know where you're going has fun when they're going yes, so having fun, men at play men at play is when we fall in love with you you having fun you're open you have an open state of mind and we we just like just fall madly in love with you but if you're always that way then you're not strong enough to save me from the tiger right so if you don't know where you're going and then be at play doing it we we need both right and so back to the feeling thing so I asked men where do you feel happiness and they couldn't answer so I started do you ever review videos in your head like your memories and you like go through the video and I can take a video from 30 years ago and re-watch it and learn something that's what was happening there right so I just was replaying videos and then I got it that where you guys experience happiness, which you usually conceal that you're feeling happiness because it could be used against you, is right here.

2:16:39And there's this thickening of the neck and there's a swell right here in the chest when you guys feel happy. and if a man if someone that you admire expresses admiration for you that will cause a feeling of happiness for you and but since warriors conceal you can tell that it really affected them because they'll go something like this you have to watch so closely like oh that mattered to him

2:17:18and it's hard because women will go on and on about what mattered to them right so we expect you to go on and on oh that was such a great acknowledgement thank you so much I just felt made me feel like a million bucks no there's just gonna be this subtle thing but oh it broke my heart when I found out about it the problem is where you guys feel happiness is also where you experience power. Your shoulders and your arms, this is the strongest part of your body. This is why when you guys pick something up, you lift it up. It's weak here. The pelvis is weak in men. It's the women's strongest part.

2:18:01We'll pick something up and we'll carry it like this. This is our strongest part. It's a good thing my pregnancy works, right? You guys will, I know this from cutting logs in the woods of Colorado. And then the guys would chainsaw it and we would move them onto the truck. But no, my girlfriend and I, we would roll them on the ground or we would clear the pathway. And the men are like, why are you clearing the pathway? Because they just lift something up and then they just step over what was in the path. And so I was paying attention to this. But anyhow, so power shows up here. Happiness shows up here.

2:18:38Happiness and power go together. But what are women terrified of? Power. Yes. Men feeling powerful is scary as hell. So guess when women emasculate men? When they feel happy? When you're happy. When you've had a victory. When you feel empowered. Off with his legs. We attach. It's terrifying to us. There's a really interesting idea from evolutionary psychology that you might be familiar with. Two types of relationships that are caused or mediated by an imbalance in mate value, typically. An imbalance in mate value. Mate value. Okay, yep. How I see your value, how I see my own, and how those two relate to each other.

2:19:34It's not necessarily how it is. Usually, sometimes it is. Anyway, cost affording, benefit affording, cost inflicting. So two types of mating strategies. Benefit affording, I will cause our connection to deepen by doing more, by making you feel great, by good luck at it through prestige as one of the ways that you have this and I'm continuing to afford these benefits to you. but if there's too much of a disparity this can flip and it flips into cost inflicting and this is well no one's ever going to want you it's cutting you off from seeing your friends it's passive aggressive comments and uh this is done when the fear is that delta in mate value was so great that I need to pull the one that appears too high down.

2:20:34And I can do this by little jibes and jabs and withholding love, attention, not making the effort that I know that I could do if I wanted to. And this will just erode away perhaps at your own self-image sufficiently for you to come back down into the same solar system of mate value that I perceived myself to be in. And it made me think about that. It made me think about benefit-affording and cost-inflicting mating strategies.

2:21:12Doesn't sound lovely. It is. Look, we are a fascinating creature when it comes to the way that our mating systems work because

2:21:28everything's so predicated on status male parental uncertainty and male parental investment are probably in the animal kingdom we probably have the greatest of the two there's probably no other creature on the planet that has more male parental investment in fact there can't be there's no other animal which comes out as neotenous and useless. It's a blob that can't look after itself at all for 10, 12, 14 years, something like that. So you need fathers around. But also women have concealed ovulation and monogamish, but very clever. And we can be devious. And no woman has ever given birth to a child that they're not sure was theirs, but every man has looked at their partner giving birth and had in the back of their mind a hope that it is theirs until only 50 years ago or something.

2:22:25Have we ever actually been able to do the test to be able to verify that? And when you combine all of this together, you have a fascinating dynamic that is, I really can't afford to invest my efforts, women the same way, but for different reasons. But for men, I really can't afford to invest my efforts into someone who might not be as invested in me as I need them to be. And I can get them to continue that investment and connection and love and dedication through showing how valuable I am and how much better we can be together. Why would I ever look anywhere else? Like how phenomenal the thing is that I have at home.

2:23:06On the flip side, why would I ever look anywhere else? Nobody else would want me right that's the benefit of holding cost inflicting interesting

2:23:20at least 10 things would come to mind but one thing you might get a kick out of is um there there's this at least one study that showed

2:23:38if you ever take baby pictures in like high school graduation album and you compare them you usually can't match them because for the first year of life babies look like their dad and most people say they look like their dad about 80 % of his family will say they look like their dad and they actually do look like their dad and the point of looking like their dad is I'm yours wow you think that's a reliable so are you suggesting that human babies have evolved to look more like their father because that is going to increase male parental investment due to less uncertainty around whether or not the child's theirs absolutely that is so cool i've never heard i've never heard that absolutely that is so cool but then what happens is over time they start looking more and more like their moms and it's uh it's a characteristic actually in in herd animals where um like you know the difference between donkeys and mules and horses so donkeys are the most masculine you would say in the equine world they're they're logical they you can't train them by the use of fear they're they're pound for pound the strongest large animal had a donkey immovable and if it didn't make sense there's no way he's going to do it also extremely sensitive so to train them you have to be super perceptive to everything horses more on the feminine side um easily controlled through fear easily controlled through the desire to be pleasing you can train them through that you're not going to get out the best in them that way but you can train them through it so mules are a cross between a male donkey and a female horse a hinny is a male horse and a female donkey hinnies are not desirable they're not nobody wants a henny why would i want a henny because the beauty comes from the female this is not just horses beauty comes from the female and so the mule has the beauty of the female that that attractive face and the ears aren't too big and all that stuff and the grace in the body but ends up with intelligence and the sensitivity of the donkey and it's a natural thing for men to look for beauty in a mate because there's a primal knowing that the beauty in her is what my children are going to end up with and it will be an advantage to them beauty is a currency in human cultures for sure.

2:27:08So, yeah, so babies look like their dads. I wasn't aware. And then their faces change, and they don't look like their dads so much anymore. I don't know how human mothers and fathers contribute differently to looks. That would be an interesting one. I do know that there is something called the sexy son hypothesis, which is an additional benefit that attractive men have when being assessed by women. Not only is this man attractive, which is symmetrical face, good immune system, genetic profile seems to be sort of relatively all there, has been able to look after himself, hasn't incurred any great injuries, blah, blah, blah.

2:27:55But also, he's good looking. I'm attracted to him. That means if I have a son with him, the son will be good looking. Interesting. Steve Stewart-Williams refers to humans as grandchildren optimizing machines. It's really cool. It's the start of his book, The Ape Who Understudy Universe. He goes through all of these different, he imagines an alien looking down on Earth, and what is it that humans are doing? And he says, is it this? No. Is it this? No. Is it this? No. And he's sort of building on it each time. He says, well, maybe they're children optimizing machines. And he's like, well, no, they're not.

2:28:27There's a really interesting study done about Charles Darwin. Darwin, I think, ended up having 12 kids, something like that. Not all of them survived. And still Victorian England, maybe one or two died in infancy, childbirth perhaps. But the one that was most painful was the one that died around about age 11. And this seems to be reflected in studies. And the reason that's put forward, the evolutionary logic reason for this, is you're a grandchildren optimizing machine. And your child was just about to get to the stage when they could have become a mother or father. And you lost them at that point.

2:29:14So maybe there's lots of things. You've had enough time to attach to them. You've fallen more deeply in love. There all of these memories that you've got, so on and so forth. They still had all of their life ahead of them, and yet you'd spend enough time to be able to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of that's lovely, and those are the proximate reasons. But the ultimate reason, and why, why that moment, why did that one hurt so much? The grandchild optimizing machine was just about to be able to start producing grandchildren. Right. And I thought that was really, that's cool. Yeah, I can see that at any age that a child dies if they haven't reproduced yet.

2:29:52Yeah, I'm an only child, so I've got a lot of pressure on me. Oh.

2:30:02Very fortunate my mom's not ringing me that much, not yet. Yeah. Take care, Christopher. One of the things you mentioned earlier on was that men play for points. Yes.

2:30:17What earns the most points?

2:30:22what earns the most points with a woman or what counts as the most points to a man what counts as the most points to a man

2:30:38happy happy is the bullseye it's a spiritual quality it's transformative makes life easier

2:30:54the saying happy wife happy life it's victory on so many levels like for a man to be successful at what he does and his wife is obviously happy with him. He's a rock star.

2:31:20So I've worked so long with women about happiness, what does it take to make them happy? And teaching men that it probably at least 90 to 95 percent of what it takes for a woman to be made happy is up to her does that what's that mean do you like geometry so so picture picture this

2:32:01okay so we've got the vertical axis the horizontal axis so imagine the vertical access has to do with having what you need a real need has a big payoff when you get it and a big loss when you don't so like sleep is a perfect example of a verified need right so if this is about your needs being met. Actually, it's this one that's about your needs being met. This would be the enough line. The vertical would be the enough line. The horizontal is your needs met. So on this side, you're in the negative. You're in a deficit of food, sex, sleep, accomplishment even, right? This side, right here, you're right at zero, zero.

2:32:57A little over the edge, you're barely enough. Over here, the more you've got, you've got like a buffer pantry. It's in the bank, right? So you can have extra sleep and then have not enough sleep and you're still fine, right? So at the intersection here, down here, is not enough of what you need. and you're not doing anything that makes you happy that's fulfilling. Up here, you don't have enough of what you need, but you keep trying to make yourself happy on top of not having enough of what you need. You can't get happy. Over here, you have more than enough of what you need, but you're not engaged in what fulfills you.

2:33:52You're just getting what you need. this quadrant up here is where you have more than enough of what you need and you're engaged in the things that make you happy this is the only quadrant in which you can actually experience happiness so if a woman doesn't feel safe which is feeling safe is something she needs if she doesn't feel safe, she literally can't feel happiness. She can't experience it. It's a different nervous system. She's stuck. She's stuck in fear. She's stuck in the sympathetic nervous system. She's stuck in emotion, energy and emotion, energy and emotion. She can't be in the feelings.

2:34:39Happiness is this huge feeling for women in the middle of our chest. It's like a direct connection to the eternal that we fill with. But if she hasn't had enough sleep, she's not going to be able to feel it. If she hasn't had enough quality alone time, if she hasn't had enough quality attention, like a man will try to give her something that'll make her happy, but he hasn't been present enough to connect. So she's not safe, right? And so that thing isn't going to make her happy. So making sure this is mostly on her. There are some things that men can provide, but a lot of what we need is support.

2:35:31We need, honey, go to bed. I can't make you sleep. I can't make you eat. I can't make you sleep, but how about I put the kids to bed and you start your hour-long process to fall asleep. Yes. Bedtime bullshit. Bedtime bullshit. Bedtime bullshit? Bedtime bullshit. Every girl's got bedtime bullshit routine. Every girl's got tons of bullshit. I know it would occur like bullshit. Bedtime bullshit. That's so funny. What is all this? I can tell you what it is. Is this a fucking incantation? Are you doing some sort of rain dance for tomorrow? I must apply the cream. I must do the thing. I have to do the dance.

2:36:13There's sage everywhere. What the fuck is going on? Bedtime bullshit. Okay, well, our bedtime bullshit is for the purpose of being able to fall asleep because our minds are quiet enough that they're not bugging us. Dishwashers loaded, living room's clean, et cetera. The pillows aren't crooked. I don't disagree. I understand orderly home, local spatialization. I get it. I feel like sometimes becomes gratuitous. I think that that is used as an excuse for this like superfluous. It's a reindeer. I go to bow in front of the altar of the mirror five times and, you know, say Beetlejuice or whatever it is.

2:36:57But I'm both young. well i will i will concur that the way that our environments literally talk to us and get us to do bedtime bullshit is worth examining like really is that worth doing well this and we don't examine it. There's certainly an argument to be made around, uh, how could it be that the unfolded clothes in the laundry are causing me to not want to have sex with you as a woman? And you go, well, because I got the, there's this big open loop in the back of my mind. You go, you're kidding me. Guys are like, you being serious? We're not having, we're not having sex because the dry has not been emptied.

2:37:49Okay. We could spend a whole like three hours. Let's not get derailed too much. Better bullshit. How's the bullshit? Well, no, on sex. Okay. The difference between the way men and women approach sex and what they need from sex. Three hours of sex is a lot even for me. Pardon? I said three hours of sex is a lot even for me. That's funny. And a brother-in-law said, what do you do the other 23 and three quarters hours? okay so what were we talking about oh happy yes happy happy so there's so it is it is on you if she hasn't done these things nothing nothing rings the bell over there but the miracle is that when a woman has enough of what she needs It's the way I think of it is happiness is radioactive.

2:38:48So teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny amount. And I've proven it. Like I have had women get happy from remembering, like happy, like truly the feeling in their chest by remembering something that made them happy. I've had them get happy by planning to do something that makes them happy. In fact, happiness, well, it's the bullseye. It's the most points. It's cheap if you know what to pay attention to. You put all the energy into getting what you need, and then teeny tiny things make you really happy. We call it a moment of ecstasy where it's a big happy, and it feels like that, and the body's like, and this feeling goes out from the center and it goes down the arms and the legs and we get a little happy dance and we're like and it comes out of our cheeks and our eyes and every man in the vicinity is suddenly let's build something let's kill something i did that i made it happen happiness has been achieved yes i conquered it briefly yes which the downside of that is one of women emasculate men is they make sure he knows it wasn't you.

2:40:13I'm happy because of my career. I'm happy because of this thing that I did. I'm happy of this thing that somebody else did for me. Why can't you just be happy for me? Right? We won't go, look at the victory and I couldn't have done this without you. That's so interesting. That's so interesting. Why can't you be happy for me is the same as look at how much the most important thing in my life was achieved in the absence of you.

2:40:45Not. And it's a lie. It's horse shape. Well, of course, because even the patience of that, like, let's say that it was exclusively on you. It was this thing. It's the next book. It's the next convention meeting. It's amazing and all of the things. Well, even if I'm completely on the sidelines, I had to be sufficiently patient to let you do it. Even if I wasn't, even if you didn't speak for a week, didn't talk for a week. I had to put up with not talking for a week. I gave you your space. I went with that what I needed to give you your space to go be awesome. That must have been really hard. That must have been really hard for you to put up with not speaking to me for a full week while I went away and did this thing.

2:41:25Thank you. Thank you. So I couldn't have done it without the space. Yeah, very interesting. Why can't you just be happy for me? Look at how much happiness I am deriving without you. Yes. Maybe even in spite of you. Yes. Not because of you. Yeah, what a way to make someone feel like they're not a part of your life. Yeah, so it's the opposite. Like, what's the most amount of points? And then what's the most emasculating?

2:41:57We seem to have a sixth sense for that. How to get you. Why? Well, you said before. You said before about what it is, it's fear. It's very self-defeating, the things that we do in relationships a lot of the time. the thing that we want is the thing that we push away. We're wanting to be cared for, to be made to feel safe, but being so independent and in masculine energy themselves, without needs, that they don't allow anybody to actually help them.

2:42:34Well, if you think about it, the source of coupling is survival. Let's hole up in a cave together, fight off the tiger, try to protect our young. The source of human relationships is not fulfillment. It's not love. It's not satisfaction. It's not teamwork. That's not the source of romance. The source of romance is reproduction and survival. and survival into the grandchildren. Right? So when we're doing what we're compelled to do, which instincts are compelling, like there's a tension in our body and it's telling us to do something, whenever we follow the tension, we reward the tension, we act on the tension, we're going to do something destructive to love, to happiness, togetherness, fulfillment.

2:43:49We're just gonna. But we'll survive.

2:43:55So most of my work is helping people to become aware of when they're not at choice. This is all instinct acting itself out. And most of it is primordial. It's not human. It's not even pack and herd. Most of it we're compelled by. We share with bacteria, viruses, we behave the same way. And it's a thing I started working on about five years ago. It's like, hmm, I wonder if Chris and I will talk about this.

2:44:47Most people don't want to talk about it. It's so ugly. So, oh, we've evolved beyond that. Really? Really? Really? Hmm.

2:45:02It started with someone saying to me, the basis of the immune system is discerning me and not me. and my brain just glommed onto it just like fireworks like oh a sneeze a sneeze is a not me reaction from your body to eject what is not me a cough is a not me diarrhea is a not me get rid of it but we have the same reaction to another human being with any human being we're scanning are you me or not me oh you're like me that way oh and then we assign too much meaning you're like me so i'm i'm safe and i and you're gonna be like me in other ways and so i can trust you to do what i would do and you're like me like me like me produces this instant connection that's overestimated.

2:46:05Oh, you're not like me. And what's funny is women are like, you're not like me, but you're strong. Right? Or you're not like me. I'm not safe because you don't do what I would do. Ah, better take your power quick. Oh, right. That's interesting. Yes. Yeah. And so women are looking for men who are like them it's very confusing because then we have no chemistry because chemistry is caused by differences men lean into oh you're not like me oh you're not like me men have told me so many times i don't want to be with someone who's like me i don't need another me i want someone who's not like me but then women are trying to prove i'm as strong as you i'm as smart as you everything you can do i can do better right my mother danced around the kitchen singing that song after guys and dolls so if you look at human atrocities they're all me not me reactions yeah disgust just boom boom boom boom but it happens so fast and it's usually below the surface and it tribalism survival you it's why we pick up accents in order to pass if i talk like you you won't kill me some really interesting research that you might be familiar with on probably not people i think you might be uh people people are more prejudiced against those with different accents than those with different skin colors?

2:47:55I'm not aware, but it makes sense. Ancestrally, the likelihood of you meeting somebody with a different skin color is very rare. The likelihood of you meeting somebody with a slightly different word for stream or river or leaf or meat. Yes, yes. Oh, that's pretty high. So yes, somebody walks into the room, different skin color, same accent. Ah, what's going on? This person's got a lot to do. It's interesting. One walks in, same skin color, different accent. You go, hmm, where are they from? What do they do? Yes, not me. Not me. Me is safe. Not me is not safe. Unless, and I've encountered in teaching this, there are people who know that if you're like me, you're dangerous.

2:48:34Because they know they themselves are dangerous. Oh, that's interesting. You're like me. Oh, not safe.

2:48:44Yeah, it's cross-wired trauma. Trauma takes hold very quickly. listen let's bring this one into land it's been so much fun and uh i literally could keep going for the rest of the day um i think you're delightful i think the work that you do is is fantastic and i think that you specifically are very delightful yourself where should people go they want to learn more about this whatever this is yeah this oh gosh um it depends on how much contact they want directly or how much information they want cheaply um youtube slash alison armstrong videos lots of information cheaply even if you're not on my i don't know if you've tried it but alison armstrong into youtube and there's literally videos back to the 90s on there you can watch the whole the aging of oh wow okay yeah yeah doing some archaeological research um tons and tons millions and millions of views of things people who started collections of my stuff before I ever knew you could do that.

2:50:09Audible has the old stuff, things I recorded before 2006, but it's easily available and it's evergreen. In sync with the opposite sex is one of the most popular and I recommend it to people. Our website, alisonramshung.com, is where there's our formal curriculum where i interact with students answer questions about 10 hours a month for people um about four hours of that's dedicated to specific clarifications of this is what you learned and how do you apply it i'm very rigid about it and then we have a subscription program where no rules ask me anything i'll talk about anything um it's really fun uh We have hundreds and hours.

2:51:06I mean, everything I ever discovered, I needed people to know. They need to know this. So I recorded. I did an event just a few weeks ago called Feels Like Love, Looks Like Matt. It's so cool. For my little brain, it's so happy, right? So what feels like love? Just think about what feels like love from this person, from that person, what feels like love. It's always going to be something that they do, that they took the time to do, that they remembered to do, that they spent energy on doing. It's something that they're going to do or say, which takes time to do that too. And then we explore deserving and how that thing I said before, if I think I deserve it and you think I deserve it, we're good to go, right?

2:52:01No. You could think I deserve something, and I should be with someone who could give that to me. You could think I deserve something, and you know that you could do it and feel guilty about not doing it, but it's not worth doing. So it takes deserving and appreciation, and then it all comes together in this thing called the worth it calculation. And there's the pre-worth it calculation where everything's estimated, And then there's the ongoing worth it calculation. No, this is taking more time, effort, energy, painting my ass than I was expecting to. It's not worth it. I'm not going to keep going.

2:52:43There's a post worth it calculation. It's constantly being paid attention to. Is it worth it? And it's mostly being paid attention to by men because you all have an awareness of time and energy and resources being limited, being put to use, no longer available to use, saved for use. Women, we don't so much. The thing that you all love about us, we mostly have a connection to the eternal. we're present we're we're connected and in eternity there's all the time in the world so why not fill the laundry be one less thing yelling at me so almost everything is worth doing it just has to be a little bit worth it for a woman to do it for a man it's got to be you know I call it winter.

2:53:43Got to save for winter. The ROI has to be high to be worth doing. And there's so many things that women want from men, but they don't make it worth men doing. They don't provide the appreciation that would make a stupid thing worth doing. How interesting. Yeah. So that's what I did a few weeks ago. Feels like love, looks like math. And, I mean, that's my thing is figuring out, okay, why doesn't this work? Well, what's, are you familiar with the term trim tab? No. Yeah? Yes? No, no, no. Are you familiar with Buckminster Fuller? Yes, the OODA loop. The OODA loop. Most people will say the geodesic dome.

2:54:34Well, he's one of my heroes and credible inventor, philosopher, humanitarian. It's called the Einstein of our time back in the 90s. My dog's name is Buckminster. So he's the one who distinguished Trim Tam. And so let's take a ship, a relationship, right? So you've got a huge ship, and you want to change its direction. It's off course. You want to get a better course. So you change its direction, so you've got to move the rudder. But a huge ship, the rudder's ginormous. It takes so much energy to move it. Well, the trim tab is on the rudder. And if you flip the trim tab, it uses the current that the ship is moving through.

2:55:30to move the rudder to turn the direction of the ship. So that's my addiction. Trim tabs. Like women who want men to share more, to open up.

2:55:48Don't interrupt him. When he pauses, count to 30. Most men will come in at about 18, unless you're asking about feelings. Could be three days. Don't ever ask a question that isn't worth waiting for the answer. And women start waiting for the answer. And lo and behold, men start talking. Which is amazing. He's opening up. Then they have a new complaint. Well, I listened to him for an hour and a half, and then he didn't listen to me. Ah, reciprocity. Men show appreciation by take and use. You know they appreciate the listening because they're talking. They know they appreciate the sandwich because they ate it.

2:56:36They know they appreciate the nakedness because they went, ooh. Women show appreciation by direct reciprocity. I listened to you for 27 minutes. Now you listen to me for 27 minutes. And women are profoundly aware of this. We know this. Okay, it's your turn. I've been talking this whole time. Now it's your turn. It's like a little ticker going. So yeah, so women, the men will open up and then they'll complain, but they're not listening to me. Well, that's a whole other thing get listened to by a man. He's not going to do it in return. He's not built that way. So anyhow, so that's what I'm addicted to.

2:57:16If you just change this little thing, like instead of saying let's do it when a man says let's do it he's completely present to the value of sex and she expects him to be instantly present to the value of sex the wonders of it the fun the pleasure the release the peace the connection all that no she's not he just has to spare a couple details. Just that's a trim tab. I'd like you to feel, I want to make you feel things you've never felt before. How soon can you be in the bedroom? Let me turn off the faucet. But it's just a trim tab. Just a couple little more details. We're good to go. Forget the laundry, right?

2:58:04So those are all the little things I'm always looking at. If you just shift that if you just if you don't say i chris we really need to take some time probably every week to talk about this issue why would i want to do that right women don't know issues by definition are insolvable honey could you help me with a problem what so the hero language is all about in the queen's code because women avoid using the words that are the most actionable men okay so your question was where so alice normstrong.com is where i i get to talk to people and it's part of what we call a process of transformation, which starts with become aware of the cause of the results you don't want.

2:59:07Like for women, emasculating men is giving you what you don't want. Stop that. Then new information or new point of view. what if there's a good reason for everything men do what if no one's misbehaving but there's a good reason for everything you do so a new point of view then there's making sure the new information the new point of view exists in empowering context this is why the queen's code is the way that it is so women can't just glean the information out and use it against men it's a i call it a fairy trap the story that everything about it is just to just bring you in and transform you that was the point of that book to transform the way women relate to men now i love it transforming the way men relate to themselves finding out the good reason you have to do things and then the last part is a new good habit so an empowering context a new good habit so i spend all this time talking my students to make sure that they've got the new information.

3:00:14They really get it. It's clear to them. And it's in an empowering context, which for me is the context of partnership. It's my passion. It's my partnership. And then that they have the awareness, which causes, we have to celebrate noticing when we F'd up. Oh, shoot, I emasculated him yesterday. I noticed. I noticed. I'm aware of it. Thank you, brain. Thank you, brain. We have this thing called the notice dance. It's funny how many times you lose your pen. I like to play with it. It's over there now. Ticker, ticker, ticker, then it flies. Anything over, then you get it. Yeah, okay. Okay, so YouTube website?

3:00:58AllisonMemstrong.com. Alison, I really appreciate you Thank you, I appreciate you I love what you're up to I totally love what you're up to It's very exciting to me Thank you You're welcome Until next time I'd like a next time It'd be fun When I first started doing personal growth I really wanted to read the best books The most impactful ones, the most entertaining ones The ones that were the easiest to read and the most dense and interesting, but there wasn't a list of them. So I scoured and scoured and scoured and then gave up and just started reading on my own. And then I made a list of 100 of the best books that I've ever found.

3:01:41And you can get that for free right now. So if you want to spend more time around great books that aren't going to completely kill your memory and your attention, just trying to get through a single page, go to chriswillx.com slash books to get my list completely free of 100 books you should read before you die. That's chriswillx.com slash books.