#791 - Dr Robert Glover - Why Most Men Fail To Attract A Quality Woman

27:33That you don't have to look far in the family tree to see mom, dad, sibling, grandparents, aunts, uncles. With some manifestation of this rumination kind of pattern, you see depressed, depression, anxiety, suicides oftentimes, addictive issues, relationship struggles, abuse. and so I think it's a brain type that you inherit. Like studies have shown you can inherit brain types that predispose you to addictions, to ADHD, and ruminating brain. And I found those three things often go together. I've got so many buddies that are recovering addicts and most all of them acknowledge they have ADHD and most all of them acknowledge they have a ruminating brain.

28:17So I think there's something genetically particularly inherited of those traits. Now, the ruminating brain can also be caused by trauma, as what PTSD does. It can create ruminations, it can lead to depression. But what the ruminating brain typically does, and brains don't actually ruminate, but it's like there's that, this constant spinning, like there's a washing machine agitating all the time, and you're inside the washing machine. And I found that there's three ways, three directions, ruminating brains tend to go, then go into the past and just rehash every perceived mistake, missed opportunity, regret.

28:57And if you replay the same regret 15 ,000 times, you're going to feel like a real loser. You're going to feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with you. And I think even going back to these isolated men we were talking about earlier, I suspect a lot do have room at eight in brains. because if you're going in the past and just rehashing, oh, I blew that opportunity. How come I didn't talk to her? How come I didn't get her number? How come I broke up with her? How come I stayed with her? All I was teaching when I thought this course live a few years ago, and a guy who was probably by my age, who was in his 50s or 60s, still ruminating about a missed sexual opportunity in college, still beating himself up.

29:38So again, the mind creates this illusion that it's just gathering important information. It's important that I keep going back and rehashing, re -looking at this stuff because there's something I missed, something I need to know. But all you really do is just end up feeling worse and worse and worse about yourself. So the other thing that people do in that backward looking is they create, I call it revisionist history. I've got other people call it like castles in the sky. We go back and replay these events and we say if I just done X, Y or Z, then my life would had gone down this path and this, if I just had slept with her when I had that chance in college, my whole life would be radically different.

30:20But it's not true. We'd still probably be ruminators and we'd still be ruminating about all missed opportunities. But we believe that that revisionist history is highly likely could be possible and it's not what we're living now, so now we feel terrible. So here's another way then that a ruminating brain beats us up. It measures us and compares us, maybe it measures us against just any arbitrage standard. I should be a millionaire by this. I should be married by this time. I should have had, should have slept with 100 women by this time. I should have launched my program by this time. Or, oh, look, he's my age and he's some pill gates as the same age as me and graduated from high school in the same city as me, same year.

31:04And you know, he's you know, what if I compared myself to Bill Gates, you know, in terms of the financial success? I mean, I'd be miserable if I actually took that seriously. So there's that comparison and the measurement Almost always finding ourselves lacking and being less than in some fundamental significant way. That's one reason I'm not a big fan of this bow down and worship the high achiever thing that we're so caught up in, you know, 10X your life, 10X this, you could be doing better, you could be making more, you could be doing that, you could be a Navy SEAL, you could be that. I think all it does is just fuel that I'm not good enough.

31:46I'm not good enough. And we know, we're not going to attain that, but we think we should in order to be good enough. And so, so in the third way that the room in Edinburgh goes into the future, this is where your perfectionism comes in, if I don't do it perfectly, it's going to crash, it's going to burn. What if I fail? What if I look foolish? What if I invest in it and I lose everything I've got? Well, with my luck, everything's going to crash. Everything's okay now, but it's only a matter of time until everything goes south, goes heads up and everything just, you know. So what happens if you've got that going on in your head?

32:21In most ruminators, maybe do all three of those, going to the past, going to the future, do the measuring compare. but most do one significantly more than the other. And the three things it tends to do to you. It keeps you stuck, because if you're just ruminating about the past, trying to figure out every possible pathway forward before you take any action, you know, research everything to death, you're not gonna take action, so you're gonna stay stuck. You're gonna stay isolated, there's that isolated thing, because you don't want people to find out, because if you're ruminating in all these negative ways, your odds are not going to feel really good about yourself.

32:59And you don't want to let people get close to you because you're afraid they're going to find out what you already believe to be true. So, and you're going to feel really bad about yourself. Because, again, if you rehash the same mistakes enough times, if you miss enough opportunities because it took you too long to make a decision, if you compare and measure yourself enough, you'll find enough people doing better than you, you're just going to feel fundamentally flawed. And it just goes on and on. But thankfully there is there is good news and I teach people a combination of mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy, but it's as simple as how can we step out of the washing machine and watch it spin rather than be in it being spun by it.

33:42So, the primary mantra of what I teach people, ruminating brain is practice being the observer, not the believer of our thoughts. Unfortunately, if we've thought something for long enough, a belief is nothing but an off -repeated thought. If you've thought that thought enough times, your convinced is true. It doesn't matter what our belief is. It could be religious belief, political belief, belief about ourselves, belief about women, belief about the world. If you think enough, and if you find enough other supporting evidence through confirmation bias, of course it must be true. And so stepping out of that machine and watching it going, is sure still seems true that I'm, you know, so many men create their sense of value by measuring how well they've done with women in life.

34:35How many times they've been laid? If they've been laid? How many girlfriends they've had? if they've had girlfriends, have they been married? Or how many times have they been married, not just across the line that now? So I see guys who don't feel they're good enough to never have a girlfriend, or they've never had sex, so they must not be good enough. Or they haven't had enough sex, or not enough sex with enough pretty women. Or they haven't had a, I'm talking to somebody the other day. All my relationships ended about two years. So he's judging himself for that. I was on a call with two podcasters and all you know me and the other two guys all work with people around relationships and One guy said well, I'm not in a relationship right now So I kind of have this thing.

35:18How can I teach people the other guy says well? I met my my wife in high school and that's the only one I've ever been with how can I teach people and I go I've been divorced Three times how could I teach people? So it's funny how we find these things to measure ourselves that are absolutely inconsequential, but we're just sure they're proof of our worth or lack of worth. It's so interesting. It's the Michael Singer influence there of you are not your thoughts, you're the observer of your thoughts, being able to sort of step away and see that washing machine going on. I think so many of the thought patterns that people engage in regularly, the stories that they tell themselves, the little reverse mantras that they have, not something that's positive and encourages them.

36:12Usually not at all. But something which is negative and reinforces a fear that they have or an insufficiency that they're concerned about or whatever. You're right. If you say those things to yourself enough times, you'll end up believing that they're true. And then after a while, they just become part of you. And you're not even believing it anymore. It's like the physics of your system. Yeah. You know, whether you do a dive into like Joe dispends a type quantum physics, you know, pick the path you want. Psychologically, the world will be as we believe the world to be. We will be in the world as we believe ourselves.

36:54It goes back to you know, what we internalize at a young age. So if you believe the world is XYZ, that's what you're going to see. You're only going to see examples of that and you won't see all the things that might contradict those beliefs. Just two bits there. First off, the way that the reticular activating system actually works is precisely by that. It's why when you buy a new car, you're like, every time a fucking person got this same car like, no, in the same color. You're now, you're The same reason as to why they do experiments where they tell people to pick all of the things that were read in a room and then say, and how many things were blue?

37:32They go, I have no idea. It's like, well, no, because you weren't looking for the things that were blue. You were looking for the things that were read. So have you heard the one about the gorilla? Yes, where they get the... The path to the basketball. The path to the basketball. How many times did they pass the basketball? And did you notice the gorilla that came through the middle of the screen? Gorilla. No one noticed the gorilla that came through the middle of the screen. Yeah, of course. So, the way that the reticular activating system works, you actually do... from a sort of sensory interpretation perspective, you blot out the things that you're not looking for.

38:02And if you are looking for a reason as to why you are a loser, or why you are not worthy, or why people don't like you, or why the world doesn't care whether you live or die, or you're inferior to other people, or they're more successful, or they've got more friends, or they're going to make more money, or whatever it is, you will observe, like global confirmation bias, you will find things that reinforce that belief. easily. So from the sort of particular activating system. And now the internet will feed that to you as well. Of course, because you actually have algorithms that pick out that. They realize that you spent 0 .5 seconds longer on all of the negative news stories and the positive ones or on the ones that are aspirational about dudes that got 3 % body fat and a 220 pounds stage shredded all your own.

38:45Yeah, everybody looks like watching porn and think every guy's got a big dick. Yes. I everybody's got a big dick. No, no, you're being see that you're seeing a skewed perspective of the world. So first thing, yes, that's the way that the reticular activating system works. But on top of that as well, I think you can repurpose the story you tell yourself about pretty much almost anything. So is this great, great example Sam Harris uses where he says at the end of a workout, you know, really tough cardio and weights work out when your heart rates at 190 and you're lying on the floor of the gym in a sweat angel and you're panting, you've got the taste of metal in the back of your throat and your heart and sweat everywhere.

39:26And that sensation in and of itself is quite uncomfortable. And yet you're taking such cathartic, weird pleasure from this masochistic thing that you just did to yourself because of the story that you tell yourself. Now if that exact same stimulus happened spontaneously while you were sat in traffic, you would think I need to go to the hospital fucking immediately, right? What is happening to me? That tells us that the story that you tell yourself about why something is happening, very much and maybe almost entirely is your experience of that thing. Well, and what's the quote, the only difference between anxiety and excitement is breath.

40:11It is, Fritz Peroles, I think, said that, that they're the same neurological response in the body, but when you're excited, you're actually breathing. When you're anxious, you're equipped breathing, but they're the same neurological response in the body. So yes, what we label things in the context we give things makes all the difference. And like you, yeah, I believe this is, I believe anything is within our power to begin making adjustments. Now, I'll kind of throw out another part to this. I've never found anybody make a significant change from a place of shame or from hating on themselves. And I'll just give you an example.

40:56Yeah, I tend to carry my weight in my belly. And I found that whenever I gain a little weight there, if I start just, every time I look in the mirror, I just hate on my belly. It doesn't go away. Never has gone away from hating on it. But if I focus on my chest a little bit, on my shoulders and arms a little bit, which I like better, and just kind of send love and think, how can I keep doing better? The belly takes care of itself. And a lot of people think the way to make significant change is to have significant shame wrapped around it or to hate on themselves. But the hating on yourself, how's that gonna open you up to let good things happen?

41:35To let yourself change in positive ways. So let good things come to you. Would you want to be a random person either? Is that the friend you want? But if there's somebody, people have that person up here in their hair. Of course, of course. And you know, I'm speaking to myself here. I have a very scolding in a voice. It's very quick to judge. It's very quick to tell me when I fall in short of these impossibly arbitrary high standards that no one else knows. So here's one thing that happens pretty frequently, I think, for me. And I know that Lex Friedman has the same issue. So when you're speaking a sentence as a podcaster, you're very intimately connected with the texture of your mind, with the friction from what you're thinking to what you mean to say.

42:21And a lot of the time you're trying to play this odd balance between getting out of your own way so that the words come out naturalistically and also being sufficiently engaged so that you can craft the direction of where the sentence is going. And sometimes you forget a word or you slightly misspeak or you're imprecise with the way that you meant to describe something or you use one term when you could have used a different one or you pause in the wrong sort of place. And you know, this is my craft. This speaking thing is what I do. And I am I absolutely adore this level of this relationship I have with my verbal mind and it's one of the things that I pride myself on the most.

43:00But it also means that when I start to fall short, if there is something where I just, I just trip over a little rock ever so slightly. And that, to me, plays on my mind because I think, well, this is why you could what should have been. You're constructing the next thing. Of course, which you then begin to spiral down from that. But here's the weird thing. Nobody else knows the sentence that you could have spoken. No one else knows. No one else knows the blog post you could have written. Nobody else knows Because the meal you could have cooked, nobody else knows, the chest press rep that you could have done, only you will know about that.

43:39And I can see how for type B people with that, the lack of external scrutiny gives them the opportunity to do less and to kind of hide away. But for type A people, that gives them this sort of bizarre internal taskmaster that continues to whip them until they hit some impossibly high standard that nobody could ever meet in any case. Still not good enough. Correct. That taskmaster doesn't... Okay, I put the whip down. You achieved it. In other news, this episode is brought to you by NetSuite. The less your business spends on operations, on multiple systems, on delivering your product or service, the more margin you have and the more money that you keep.

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44:55Over 37 ,000 companies have already made the move. NetSuite has extended its one of a kind flexible financing program for a few more weeks. So right now you can get that by following the link in the show notes below or heading to netsuite .com slash modern. That's netsuite .com slash modern. Oh, you listen to that episode I did with Matthew Hursey, didn't you? Yeah, so he has this great story where he's talking about how He starts each day basically in something similar to productivity debt. Oliver Berkman's got this phenomenal idea of productivity debt that when he wakes up every morning, he imagines that he's somehow overdrawn in this contribution to his day overdrawn.

45:36Yes, yes. And that it is his job that by the end of the day, if he castigates and flagulates himself sufficiently, he may be able to get it back to zero. Like only zero though, you can never be in the four thousand weeks guy. We're correct. Yeah, that's all of a Birkman. And then this is Matthew Hussie's thing, which I think relates to it. I struggle to believe I'm worthy of moments of joy and peace without first putting myself through a brutal schedule, monitoring my productivity levels down to the minute. Perhaps some people apply this to earn your cookie mindset in ways that lead to healthy accomplishments.

46:12Not me. Mine is a mutation whereby joy and self -compassion are regularly outlawed by an internal tyrant who decides when I've been plugged enough for one day. Just when I'm about to collapse, a voice inside says, okay, give him half an hour of peace before bed, but make sure he knows we'll start again bright and early in the morning. In debt. In debt, productivity debt. In debt. Yep. Yeah. And you know, that's what I was talking about, about stepping outside the washing machine. Right. When you're inside the washing machine, you don't know you're being spun by it. That's normal. That's life. It's just what is.

46:48But when you can step outside as Matthew does in that example, he can be the observer of himself. And from there, something can shift. He can do something different. I love living in Mexico. I love the Mexican culture honors the Ciesta. I lay down at least two, maybe three times a day. Sometimes for 10, 15 minutes, sometimes for 30 minutes or an hour. And whether is to put a little hot pack on my eyes or take a nap. And you know, I'm so much more productive. I can work from seven in the morning till 10 at night and not feel drained or exhausted or driven just because I can build those little gaps in there to say time to relax, time to recharge the battery.

47:33And if you can step outside that cycle, you can go, hmm, I'm going to lay down for 15 minutes. Sometimes when I'll do like 30 or 90 day challenges with guys run different areas of life. One of the assignments I almost always give now just because I love the reaction is no matter what the challenge is, whether it's a fitness challenge, meditation challenge, whatever the challenge is, they have to take 30 minutes a day to meticulously do nothing. Whether it's a sit on a bench, sit in nature, go for a casual walk, take a nap, listen and the music, meditate whatever it is, 30 minutes a day, and it's funny.

48:15It's the thing they resist the most starting out. But by the time the challenge is up, they love it. They absolutely love it. Could just that doing nothing, kind of just refilling the bucket again, recharges you, makes you more productive. And again, this is kind of like that drive that nobody ever changed from a place of shame or hating on something. Yeah, we can drive ourselves. We can drive ourselves. But you never do get there. That was an unfinished thought from you earlier on when I was saying, who would you rather be around? Like, yeah, exactly. What? Think about your friends and think about the ones that are performing well.

48:55And then imagine that that person was able to push themselves to that level of performance, or even close to it. Let's say they had to sacrifice 5 % of their outcomes in life, but they got to gain 50 % of no longer cursing themselves in the shame and the blame and the guilt and stuff. Who would you rather your friends be? You would absolutely go, dude, this seems like the best deal in history. Like the only reason that you're trying to be successful and achieve something is presumably to make yourself feel happy. And in the pursuit of trying to become successful so that you can become happy, you're making yourself miserable.

49:30You're sacrificing the thing that you want for the thing that's supposed to get the thing that you want. And yeah, you know, if you can, again, me speaking to me, if you can see that you would much soon be around that person because they're going to be a better friend and the energy that they bring to the room is just going to be so much more positive some for the world, but that you would want that for them, just for them. Yeah. Right? You'd want that because their day -to -day experience of the world is going to be so much more joyful and enjoyable. And it seems to me, you know, looking at your work and increasingly kind of opening the lid on how people operate, that chronic shame is such a huge driver of why people do almost everything that they do in life.

50:21Yeah, we're surrounded with shame. You know, culturally, familely, familely. I said that wrong. I feel so terrible. Religiously. And rather than making people happy and successful, it makes them easy to control. And that's why by religion and governments, you know, if they can make people feel bad about something that's normal or natural, it's easy to control them because, you know, it's like a little kid. My doctor, my education is marriage and family therapy. And you know, parents used to bring kids into me and go, my kids doing this, they're doing that. And I go, I was actually normal behavior.

51:04Well, no, but it's, I'm crazy. I don't want them to do it. And you know, that they was shame the kid for normal, natural stage of behavior. Child of behavior. behavior and you know the kid will either the kid will do one of two things. It'll either start hiding the behavior to avoid the punishment of the consequence but it doesn't mean it goes away or the impulse goes away or they become oppositional to find it. They just push back against everything. They'll cut off their nose despite their face. If you make shame the motivating factor and that's why I've learned if I want to actually accomplish something I can't set some big lofty goal for doing it.

51:43I've got an oppositional defiant self that will defy me. They say, no asshole, you know, we're not going to do it that way. And at the same time, at least my friends all tell me, and they've told me this for years, Robert, you're so consistently productive. My wife would frame that differently. She says, Robert, you work all the time. And I'm not driven. I'm really not. You know, I got a PhD at 29, but not because I was driven. and I just hated school and high school, but the further I went, the more I liked school. So I just, I like to, you could do research and write and things like that when I got to grad school.

52:23So I kept going. So it wasn't because I was driven to get a PhD. I mean, I may do some things out of insecurity. Oh, if I got some letters after my name, you know, I'll be more believable, but it wasn't a drive. I had to get a PhD. I've built businesses, I've written four books, I've moved to Mexico, I've just done things, but never because, oh, I got this big goal, I got to make that happen. I just usually went in the direction of either what I just naturally seemed to enjoy or what I was naturally curious about. Every book I've written is just because I was curious. I wanted to understand stuff, so I just dove into it.

53:02And at some point I thought, well, I guess I should just write a book about it now. But I'm not super highly driven. But if, again, if you ask anybody who's known me for a very long, they say that I'm also very consistently productive. And so for me to be consistently productive, I'm always involved in things I enjoy being involved with. For example, I love doing this. I've never said no to an interview in my life. I love this communication when you're talking about constructing sentences earlier. I thought, I love this where the sentences just come out of me. The muse just speaks, you know, I love doing Q &A.

53:41I hate doing keynote speeches where I have to get up and give a canned speech because then I'm just, you know, oh, what if I forget to say that one thing I want to say. But doing a Q &A, I absolutely love it. So I've orchestrated my life to get to do as many things as I like doing it. Whatever my sweet spots are, I try to spend as much time there as I can. Places that aren't my sweet spot, I try to find a way out of it. Pace I'm going to do it. I hate accounting. I hate bookkeeping. Pay my account in $550 a month to do all my books and taxes. Best $550 ever spent. And that lets me then stay in my sweet spot.

54:18And so for example, for me to get back into a fitness routine, I got a gym in my house. My office is in my house. I got to swim and pull in the backyard. My gym's 10 feet away from my office. My wife's a gym rat. She'll work out in the gym in the house and then go to the gym that has the heavier weights and the bigger machines. And you know, Shokani, you know, you're on the gym today, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll be in there. So if I'm going to be consistent, I got to find a way to, to, to, that I learn to enjoy that. I got to make it a sweet spot that I get to the gym. So now I've started listening, you know, to, to good podcasts while I'm at the gym or I'll put on you the good music that I like or I've got to find a way to make it enjoyable because I'm just if I'm just pushing myself forcing myself driving myself It's not gonna last long.

55:05It just will not be consistent. So for me the way I'm wired If I find things I love doing I can do them day and night and give me a few little naps in there and give me some good buddies to talk to during the day and I'll keep going forever. I can keep going forever. Yeah. But that's just me. That's how I'm wired. I was thinking, I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago, the guy that you're going for dinner with tonight, George, who was his 30th in Miami. And we were talking about why hard work is so... ...poleselyzed in lots of cultures, but specifically in this version of the modern world, where leverage has been more available than ever before, where you can get more done whilst putting in less.

55:46hard work is still this sort of mainstay. And rightly so, like I'd like working hard. But one of the things, one of the reasons that I think it is so pedestalized is that it's kind of like a universal solution to a multivariate problem. So there are lots of different ways to get the successful outcome that you want. You can use leverage, you can be creative, you can have the right networks, you can do there's lots of different ways. Lots of those have a medium failure rate in them. Hard work has a very low failure rate in it. There are very few problems that if you throw lots of hard work at it, won't get better.

56:28Now it will get better painfully slowly. It will cause you to have to sacrifice yourself. You'll be crucified, you'll sleep all, take a hate, they call it your relationships, all of these things. You'll pay very high price. Basically, hard work is a reliable route to achieving something. And I think that its reliability causes us to think that makes it a panacea. It's like, no, it's one component of what you do. And it may be one of the foundations that there are very few things that you can get good at without working hard. I .e. consistently with a degree of attention for non -insignificant durations of time.

57:05Let's say that's what hard work is. But that doesn't mean that you need to pray at the altar of it, and it also doesn't mean that you need to castigate yourself if you don't always work hard. So one of the strange things I did when I was running these nightclub events in my 20s, when we started running them, I had to work very hard. I paid a high personal price for them. Then the events began to become successful, but I shortcutted the sense of satisfaction I got from the events being successful to if it was successful and I didn't suffer, this doesn't count. It doesn't count. It doesn't count.

57:40If it happened and it went well, but I didn't pay a high personal price for this, I didn't not even worked hard. You know that's twisted, right? Of course. That's messed up. Of course. Of course. And at the time, I just, I don't know what I thought it was. I thought, I think that I considered that to be some sort of nobility in the suffering itself. You know, like a Puritan work ethic, these priests, howling the garden, sun beating down on their back, and it's in service of God. It's not in service of the work. It's in service of the outcome of the work. It's in service of the work itself and of the tribute that it is.

58:17And yet, that, you know, odd kind of like laborious, masochistic approach that we have to the things that we do. I see an awful lot and yeah, I'd had this sort of insight about hard work as well Well, here's even a little bit of a twist on the hard work thing If you look around the world the hardest working people are usually the poorest people Especially if you talk about physical labor Yeah, I live you can't you can't use the word third world Country or glue emerging economy anymore. I don't know what makes Mexico qualifies that a narco run institution I don't know It is. But I'm surrounded by people who work really hard and have absolutely nothing and have absolutely nothing.

59:10So I'm a fan of hard work, but I'm a fan of smart hard work, of hard work that actually takes you where you want to go. Because you can work really, really hard and not have anything to show for it. But you're right. It's kind of built into our culture. And I think it's maybe another one of those ways that cultures just tried to control us. If you get people, if you get told them, you gotta keep working hard. God favors the person who works hard. God's gonna bless you. Well, you can keep people plowing your fields. You're in time in and time in. They'll be subjugated to the local barren or they'll not break the rules or they won't spend enough time to be able to come a revolutionary force that'll overthrow the government or the Canterals.

59:55That's what they're all afraid of. It's a revolutionaries. They don't want. It's how do we keep us people with power and power? Well, we'll create a religion. We'll create a cultural meme. We'll do whatever. I mean, increasingly, I'm a ruthless capitalist thrown through. But I do, increasingly, I'm seeing this sort of bizarre internal tyrant that people have about their work rate. And when you think, you know, go back a few thousand years and the requirement to use slaves, forced labor in order to be able to get shit done. And then how smart to somehow repurpose the slave master to be inside the slave itself to think, you go and work, you go and work and you tell yourself that you want to work.

1:00:43And then you tell yourself the story that this was what you were supposed to do and you chose to do this all along. It's so fascinating. And again, you know, what's that quote about capitalism is the worst system apart from all of the other ones that have been tried? Compared to everything else. And here's a thought, but a little different light on it. What's the best day of your life look like? Theoretically, our hard work. Theoretically the stuff, you know, I launched a new company a year ago. It took me two years of building it before I launched it. You know, I bootstrapped it. I'm in debt over it.

1:01:18I worked from 7 a .m. till 9 o 'clock at night It has not paid me a paycheck yet, and I'm loving it. I'm having such a good time with it So What's the best day of our life look like is that the day that this finally pays off that it finally crosses this threshold? That you finally had that success with the event, you know that I get to do an in -person podcast, you know, with somebody with a lot of followers. What's the best day of my life? And I don't think many of us, most of us, even ask ourselves that question. What are we working towards? Isn't it theoretically towards the best day of our life that on some day will have finished the work and we can rest?

1:02:03We can enjoy it, we can take pride in it, we can experience the fruits of our labor, we can share with our friends, We can dance, we can sing, we can have a good night's sleep, we can have sex, we can, you know, isn't that best day of our life? And I'm wondering, do we really have to work so hard to have the best day of our life? Can you and I get up today? And if you and I don't get up today with the intention of having the best day of our life, Why not? When's that gonna happen? Is it gonna be tomorrow? The Saturday, next Saturday, you know, when the business starts making a profit, when you're over 5 ,000 ,000, remember, 5 ,000 probably was a big deal, right?

1:02:44We're huge deal, yeah. And that you've broken a million, two million, five million, 50 million. Yeah, will you be happy and have the best day of your life then? Not unless you get up every day and have some component of the best day of your life today. What's that, Seneca quote, how long are you going to wait until you start to demand the best for yourself? I kind of go back and make an as a priority. A lot of people continue to wait. I want to talk, we didn't get to speak much last time about dating and about how nice guys seek the validation and how it shows up in their intimate relationships.

1:03:21How much do you think of nice guy syndrome stems from just wanting and needing the love and validation of women? Well, probably began with mom, so yeah, yeah. And another quote from one of my coaches in his book that I love, he says, a man doesn't mature until he quits seeking the approval of a woman. I thought, I was listening to that on audio book while driving from California to Washington. I had to pull off the road, he preplay in that. A man doesn't mature until he quits seeking the approval of a woman. Unfortunately, the way most men date, especially nice guys, as I define them, is all about seeking the approval of women.

1:04:09Pick me, pick me, choose me, get naked with me, want to be my girlfriend. It's all chasing the approval. and as a marriage therapist, I started doing marriage therapy 40 years ago. And I've been married a few times. Most people, most guys walking in my office, they're still trying to chase the approval of a woman that, you know, has said, I do and married them. So that approval seeking, I think, of course, began with mommy. You know, we come into this world, we have a caregiver, we're completely needy, dependent, vulnerable. and so, you know, we had to make sure stuff was good with mom. We had to make sure she was in a good mood, she was available, you know, and then we had female caregivers and then we had preschool with women and kindergarten and elementary school.

1:04:58It makes sense that since we were born as men, that we've been, it felt like life and death to get the approval of women. But unfortunately chasing that approval with women in terms of the dating scene in the dating world actually works completely against the results we want to get. What's the problem of chasing the approval of women? Well, kind of like chasing that success through hard work. You actually never do achieve it. And it's based on the assumption that the approval of, let's just say, feminine women could actually be attained. I don't know how many women have you been with, but have they been all consistently approving of you day in and day out?

1:05:43No. No, of course not. And so is that even attainable to get the approval of women? What if instead we were seeking the approval of ourself, maybe the approval of our male peers and friends through how we live our life and how we show up and our integrity or our authenticity and our values. What if that actually was attainable? I, for, you know, sad down to talk with you, I spent five, six days out at a retreat center with 40 guys and just watching the love of men, you know, I assume everybody's straight. The love that men were showing each other and would show me, I go away from, you know, doing the work I do with men, feeling much more loved than I've ever felt in any relationship with a woman.

1:06:35And I'm not trying to be dismissive of that. But what I'm saying, if we go, if we go seeking that kind of approval from women, not only we're probably not going to get it, maybe it isn't attainable, but then we start acting in ways that don't tend to turn women on, that don't tend to make them go, I want to get close to that guy. I like how I feel when I'm around that guy. In other news, this episode is brought to you by AG1. It's important to me that the supplements I take are of the highest quality, and that is why for over three years now I've been taking AG1. They conduct relentless testing to set the standard for purity and potency.

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1:07:41You can get that 90 day money back guarantee and try AG1 with a year's free supply, vitamin D and 5 free AG1 travel packs are going to the link in the show notes below or heading to drinkag1 .com slash wisdom. That's drinkag1 .com slash wisdom. Now you say a woman may want to be attracted to a nice guy, but biology won't allow it. Nice is not a turn on. You know, there's a, I can't think of the name of it. You may know the name of it, but there's a dynamic that giving to people does not actually make them like you. You know, nice guys think that. Well, if I just give this person something, you know, they'll like me.

1:08:25Asking people to give something to view is gonna increase the likelihood that they're going to think well of you. Because now the mind has to justify it. I just gave something to that person. I must think well of them. I must think highly of them. Because we don't give stuff to people we don't like. So requiring people to give stuff to you actually is more likely to drive up them, you know, wanting a connection. Yeah, there's a name for that. I can't think of the name of a movie. I mean, reciprocal altruism is the dynamic that it's based on, but I don't know what the name of that particular. There's something effect.

1:09:00Okay. Very interesting. I'll think of it later. I'll go, why didn't I think of that? You can tell me it over there. That being said, it's so... There's another element in there, which is implicit in me asking for something from you, is the sense that in future you probably get to ask something from me. That's okay. But that, I think, is the opposite of that is, here is me giving something to you, which means that in future I'm going to ask for something in return. Here is a gift which in full recondruct. Correct, which in future is going to be a debt. But the other person doesn't know about the contract.

1:09:45Correct. And that's why when all of a sudden they're not given to us and we're all resentful and frustrated and pissed off and passive aggressive or whatever, and they're going, what are you even talking about? I didn't know that there was any strings attached to those things you gave. Now I'm a giving generous person. I like to give. Most people like to give. But when nice guys go see a giving example, I teach men to be social animals, kind of going back to these isolated men. As I mentioned, when I got divorced from my second wife, I was in my late 40s, had never lived alone as an adult. I married my first wife two days after I graduated from college, moved out of the dorm, moved in.

1:10:26It wasn't much gap in between my first and second wife. When I got on an online dating site, match .com, that was before the swipe right apps. And I looked at profiles and looked at women's profiles, you know, all the things they said they did, you know, the wine country, the wine tasting the skiing, the trips to Europe, and I go and I wrote my profile and I thought, I spent the last, you know, 25 years, you know, going to my kids sporting events, walking the dog and trying to make my wife happy. That's what my life looks. And you know, I thought that's not gonna attract a lot to me, but more than that, I thought I Want more of a life than that.

1:11:07I want more of a life And so the the act of wanting to learn how to date Drove me was part of what moved me to start Creating the kind of life I wanted to live, right? We have two choices, right? You can either lie about the sort of life that you're going to live or Exposed to the world the boring as fuck life that you actually are having and that doesn't that doesn't go well in the profile, you know? So, I made my bucket list, you know, I wanna learn to shoot a gun, I wanna ski, I wanna learn Spanish, I wanna travel, I wanna do this. And but mainly, I've worked to become a social animal. If there was anything that I could do, and I could do it in public, I went out in public and did it, whether it was reading my New York Times or eating my breakfast or going out to have dinner, I'd go to a happy hour, bar in a restaurant, I'd take my laptop, I'd take my books, if I could go be in public, and I practiced talking to people around me.

1:12:04Just, and then I started being successful in terms of dating and getting laid, and my client starts saying, Robert, teach us, I'm not a dating coach, but you're having success. And so what I teach men, the approach I take is, don't, you guys want to go learn these pickup techniques and this magic and the NLP and the hypnosis and the peacocking and I call that pounding on closed doors. She's hot. I want her. I want her to pay. That's that's approval seeking at its ultimate. I tell guys, when you go approach a woman just because she's hot, you've made her the alpha. She's the decider now. And remember, she's got lots of men, lots of men approaching her.

1:12:45She's the decider. You're not. You've made her the alpha. You're the beta. You know, all these red pill and pick up guys all the time. I'm alpha. I'm at note you're chasing her because you want her approval you want her to say yes, you've just given her all the power But what if you don't need that what if you're just living this good life and then all these doors open around you And you notice women you know smiling at you, you know walking in front of you a couple extra times unnecessarily You know bending over when they put the plate on the table What if you just start noticing all the doors that are open now this this is you know dating but this is life Right.

1:13:19This is the abundance. You can go pound on closed doors all day long. That's a lot of work I'm a big fan of walking through open doors and then guys go well, but you know It's seen in I love this quote by David data choose a woman who chooses you If you you know if you just why chose her I want no you're gonna chase and you're gonna work and you're never gonna Feel her approval, but then I say well even if you managed to get the marriage to work Even if you managed to get the ring on her finger or even if you managed to do the rest of it Again, as a relationship therapist, I think I've spent more time with married men suffering through their woman not choosing them than single guys, not getting women to choose them.

1:14:02Because the married guy, I'm married, it's the only choice I got. Now, I've got to get her to choose me. And I got guys who said, Robert, how can I get my wife to want to have sex? How long since she's had sex? 14 years. And I go, I have no clue. I don't know how to fix that. But what it is they're trying to get a woman who is not approved of them in probably over 14 years to magically approve of them and up to get naked with them and let him you know Poker with his body parts So it doesn't matter if these are single guys are guys in relationship if you're chasing the approval of a woman who has already made it obvious She's unapproving of you.

1:14:40She's not approving of you. That's a big waste of your time Why not walk through open doors and the guys go well, but yeah, the women who seem to be interested in me They're all fat or ugly or you know old and I go that's again. That's your your limiting beliefs I've been with so many amazing women in my life and I didn't chase any of them People ask me Robert. How'd you meet your wife? It's I was walking down a street in Port of Ayerto, Mexico Mexico. I heard a voice to say Olis and your want a massage So no, I mean, yeah, not today. I'm tomorrow. I thought, I like your voice. And a buddy of mine, Mr.

1:15:15Robert, listen more to your emotional messages. I like your voice. I didn't even remember what she looked like. Turn her out, walk back to that. How much? Start getting massages six months later. She basically propositioned me. I asked her out. And we've been married seven and a half years now because I walked through an open door. I didn't have to go pound on a cl - and she is the most amazing Crazy beautiful sexy woman. I know and I'm just so blessed and I'm so grateful my house my dog You've encountered not I remember you need to go literally my wife was standing outside the house. She forgot her I remember that as well.

1:15:54I apologize Delip me in you know what while we were recording the podcast so I'm a big fan bring it back to the approval seeking I teach guys what I call test for interest. Just get out in public and with everybody in me don't wait till you see a pretty woman. Anybody, men, women, old people, young people, just how's your day going so far? Been shopping? Things never go great right? That was a hell of a thunderstorm last night. Wasn't it? Yeah, we got to watch a great thunderstorm here in Austin. Just anything, social pleasure, it has level one testing. If that level one testing just organically continues, I call that level two.

1:16:31You connect in some way. You know, the conversations you have in these podcasts, quickly you're good at this. They go to level two. All of a sudden you're talking about things you probably didn't have in your notes. It's just enjoyable conversation. That's just how social interaction works. But somebody has to start. Somebody has to have your day gone so far. There's got to be some start to it. I can teach guys to do that. A lot of guys will get pretty good at that. Then they want to make the level two happen. I go, no, don't. It'll just happen. Most of the time you say, how's your day going so far?

1:17:03Fine. And I tell you guys, all you got to do is check for higher low interest, perceived eye or low interest in having a continuing interaction from the other person. And if all of a sudden you hit it off and you're having a conversation, it goes 30 seconds, 60 seconds, a couple minutes, you're standing in line, waiting for your coffee, whatever. Most of the time that will end. And you say, hey, nice to meet you. Have a great day. But occasionally, there's a real connection there, whether it's you talking to another guy, whether it's you with a woman. Now at level three you have to require something of them to see how high that level is to have a continuing interaction.

1:17:38Typically it might say, hey, give me your number, give me your Instagram, you know, give me this. I'll call you. I got an idea. I got a plan. We'll connect. And if they go, yeah, that's great. You know, I'm really busy these days. Well, it's all interest. You find out what you needed to know. Or they say, that'd be fantastic. I'd love to connect with you. They give you a number, whatever. Then that's high interest. But what I found is that most men because of that approval seeking, especially with women. They get to level two. They seem to have the woman's approval. They're having a nice conversation.

1:18:07She's talking a lot. It's going well. They don't want to blow that so they don't do anything that might risk the approval. They don't say anything that might rock the boat. They don't require anything of her. They don't touch her. They don't take her hand in leader. They don't get playful with her. And they just start playing it safe. That's the boring part that women go what I'm on an airplane. I'm sitting next to a woman You know if you talk about what do you do? Well, yeah, I'm a Relationship I teach men about what do you teach men women was woman? What do you teach men about relationship? So you know, I tell the woman the kind of stuff we're talking about and the women to go Can can can I tell you a couple things to tell your man?

1:18:50I go okay, this is like doing a request from the DJ. Yeah, okay. Can you play a couple of tracks with me? Yeah, could you play it all we built this city? Yeah, so to say tell the man trim their ears and nose here That's one thing to say. Okay. The other thing that things say is tell them the policy shoes Shoes are important to women women notice their shoes. That's interesting. They say but then they go They can ask you a couple questions and I go sure they go. How come? I see a guy. I look his way. I smile at him. Yeah, I open my body. I turn towards him And I noticed him a time or two. How come he never walks over and talks to me?

1:19:29And I said, because he's scared. And they go, why? And they go, because you're scary. And they go, no, I'm not scary, but we men, you're scary, to us. And they go, oh, you know, maybe the guy is, does have a conversation with me. We talk about everything under the sun. I touch his arm a lot. I lean into him. I smile. I laugh at his corny jokes. I'm thinking, when's he gonna ask for my number? You know, I have to put up a billboard to say hey dumb shit ask me for my number, you know And then the guy gets done he goes Well, it was nice talking to you shakes the hand maybe I'll bump into you sometime Well they go I don't they do that because he's scared.

1:20:07Well, they're looking at each different stage guys are looking for rejection So I think it's I think I'm which is just stops that of approval if they approve of me I don't get rejected so I don't want to if I've got approval at any level I don't want to risk the reach. I'll take that as a win. I'll take it as a win. Exactly. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify powers 10 % of all e -commerce in the United States, including huge brands like Jim Shark and Allbirds and Utonic. They are the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. Look, you do not want to learn to code to start your business.

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1:21:24That's Shopify .com -modern -wisdom to grow your business now, no matter what stage you're in. I don't remember whether I told you this last time. I struggle to give dating advice to women being a non -Vegina -rona myself, But one of the things that I think women definitely can cultivate is Receptiveness. I think that you need to basically treat the men that you're attracted to like particularly slow Mentally disabled gold and retrievers Like you know that that's the level of Signalling that you need to put out into the world to the guys and there's this story from sort of Aristocrat England Renaissance period where ladies would drop a handkerchief in front of men.

1:22:09Is there a war back to that? I mean, when did it happen? It's just a, but the guys nowadays ago was that for him? Oh, it wasn't for me. It must have been for him. Why did you know? It's like, it's not Iraq. But yeah, I think you've spoken about this too, although we didn't talk about it last time, in a post -MeToo world, I do think men and women especially, women probably don't realize the impact that me too has had, the negative impact me too has had on men's dating behavior. And again, this isn't to say that me too wasn't an important redress to some people in Hollywood being total dickheads and you know, Harvey Weinstein's about to like get retried apparently because of some dodgy shit.

1:22:50But in a post me too world men are terrified of being seen as a predator. Any good man is going to think, well fuck like I don't want to be part of some scandal. I don't want to make a feel uncomfortable. I've seen these videos on the internet of girls in the gym being approached by dudes when they're trying to unload plates. Wow, how sensitive and tentative and tenuous is the world of men approaching women at the moment? And I absolutely do not want to internally be that kind of guy, externally be accused of being that kind of guy, reputational destruction, all of this shit. So I think just adjusting the sights on the scope for women, and especially in the post -MeToo world could make dating an awful lot easier for them.

1:23:36It's like, hey, cultivate some receptiveness, drop a visual handkerchief. I love that a lot. Can I use that? Absolutely. I love that. You know, I told you earlier, I've never said no to an interview. And I did one about six months ago with a young guy, Spanning Guy in LA, and found out later when I checked out the, I was his number one, YouTube post. This is first YouTube post. Okay. Young guy. Great interview. This guy's going to be great. But he asked me the question. He said, All right, what advice do you have for guys my age? 21. And he shared an example of where he had not done something inappropriate, but had an experience with his girlfriend.

1:24:18And she was going to post on social media that he raped her. And then apparently a friend intervened. And I don't know the story. Everybody said, what advice would you give to young men? And I go, honestly, I don't know. I don't know that, you know, when women, if you have a fear that women are gonna go post anything and everything on social media, and you got no rebuttal, and you know, it's gonna be believed, you know. A mantra that I've never loved is, during hashtag me too, is the victim is always to be believed. But what if the victim is a man has been falsely accused? and he's saying, I'm the victim here, I didn't do that.

1:25:02If he's a man, he's not to be believed. You know, we do have a skewed system around that. Now, yes, one reason, for example, I don't like pick up an approach is I think it's fundamentally invasive. I think men have no idea what it's like to be in a woman's skin, especially, you know, a young, moderately attractive woman who has men walking up to them all the time. And as a woman, you don't know what this guy's about. You do know he's approaching you because you got boobs and you don't know what the story is from there. You know, whether it's gonna come be a nice guy and try to get your approval or whether he's gonna come on and hit on you, you don't know where that's going to lead.

1:25:47And I can understand as a woman, I put my guard up. I'd have my guard up if men were just, I'm in the gym and they're approaching me and talking to me. And I don't know where this is headed, what they want. I don't know him from Adam. So I'm not a big fan of just approaching women because they're hot. And I know that that's not a popular stand to take because men want hot women. Wow, someone get a hot woman if I don't go to a pro -cher because she's hot. And I go, that's the great way. Is that you pick your car mechanic, your heart surgeon? You know, you dentist? No, you pick them because they're competent at the skills you want them to have.

1:26:23and just assuming because a woman's hot, she's good and better, can be good girlfriend is a reach. So you say an obsession with hot women is basically broadcasting a man's low self worth. It does tend to do that, but yet we'll go on the internet and we'll say this will make you a real man if you go get the hot woman. So I don't have the answer to that other question of what do you do when interacting with a woman? Because I know when I got out there and got successful with women in my 40s and 50s. I wasn't getting younger. You know, I went through a bankruptcy. I wasn't rich, but I had success.

1:27:02And I just had success because they didn't hold back. I practiced what I called touch teas until. I didn't post a toucher. I'd toucher. I'd tease her. I would tell her, come on, let's go do this. And I was just playful. I was uninhibited. And in general, women really liked that and really responded well. But what if we live in a world where if I just touch a woman's arm, I don't know if she's gonna have a major overreaction to that or you know She's gonna go ballistic or you know She's gonna you know I become a hashtag me too casually or it goes on her social media I don't know the answer to that.

1:27:36So I agree with you though that we do need a re -adjustment We needed some adjustments that you know world where men could do whatever they wanted to women because they could that were bigger, they're stronger, they're powerful. That had to change. But now where we have a world where women are going, we live in a culture where in the US now, statistically for the first time since they started counting numbers, over 50 % of men and women, 35 and younger report not having been in a relationship for the last year. So with all our hookup culture, all the swipe right, all the dating boot camps and Instagram, You know, you put all your photo, all of that stuff.

1:28:19People aren't getting into relationships. And I think there's probably a number of factors to it, but I think probably one of them is a fear factor. You know, if I get into a relationship, what are the consequences? If I even try to approach a person and talk to them, what are the negative consequences? They're going to get broadcast on social media. And I'm not a big fan of social media for many reasons. It adds value, but, um, yeah, I'm glad I'm not a young guy. having an navigate. It's perilous. It's perilous. And then it's also, you know, perilous is a girl who wants to get into a relationship because they think, well, I need to, you know, Chris said cultivate receptivity and drop the hank chief and stuff.

1:28:58That sounds like a good, that seems like a smart idea. And yet, I'm physically vulnerable. And there are these horror stories out there. And I am afraid of strange men. And maybe they've had those horror stories. And maybe I've got evidence in my history that justifies my fear of that. and I've now got to get over it. It's given that we have the most permissive mating culture ever, it is strange that dating has probably never been so hot. And go back to the similar statistics, and so few young adults are having sex. Maybe porn just makes it easier to just go get things done that way. But yeah, I think we live in a place where, well, my two thoughts about the hookup culture, Yeah, part of it is this fear of both men and women.

1:29:45You know, what, what, what am I getting myself into? But I think for men because men, I tell guys, you know, our grandfathers maybe saw three beautiful women in their lifetime and didn't see any of them naked, right? Guys can go see beautiful women, not even just on porn, but just on, on, on their Instagram feed, just take talk, whatever. Beautiful woman after beautiful woman without a lot of clothes on. So I think there's one thing with men nowadays, even if we get a woman, you know, maybe a woman that we consider desirable. We're looking around. She's cuter, she's cuter, she's cuter, she's cuter.

1:30:24And so I think guys have this thing, well, I can't make any kind of ongoing commitment to this one, because there might be this cuter one that I want to be worth. And you know, I tell guys, number one, of course, you're always going to see pretty or younger women. And the woman you're with also sees the prettier younger women and knows you're thinking, you know, when it be nice And so that's always gonna happen. I tell you guys you have to stop that kind of thinking kind of ruminating Well, I'm with this one but because I'm with her. I can't be with her That serves no purpose that will not move you forward in life because even if you weren't with this one You probably wouldn't talk to that one anyway But so I think for the men there's just so many beautiful women to be seen everywhere.

1:31:09We have this fear getting all the way in with one because what if I want to get with that other beautiful woman? But I think for women it's a little bit different dynamic and you know maybe I'll hear from some women about this. I think for the women social media gives them lots of attention and I think the feminine thrives on attention and desire and praise. That's the feminine and any of us. And so I think for the women, if I just commit to one guy, if I get all within one guy, I got to turn off my social media in this constant funnel of praise. I got to quit putting selfies of myself up and getting all the likes and all the, you know, and so we've got this kind of technological world that makes it so easy to meet, connect, go fast, and nobody's actually getting together or staying together for any length of time.

1:32:01Talk to me about how guys can be more confident when talking to women. Not seek their approval. You know what? I've never worried about confidence. Now I will say that if a man interacts with a woman with confidence, it creates the same chemical reaction in her brain that he would have if she lifted her shirt and showed her his breasts. You don't have to think about it. We don't think, do I like those? It's just wired. And if a guy is confident, you know, women, they don't have to think about it. Do I like that? But they just like it. What I found for me, because, you know, I've got all my own insecurities and I've got all my own history of what women don't aren't attracted to me and beautiful women aren't attracted to me.

1:32:46Even though my second wife was gorgeous and I've been with plenty of beautiful women, you know, we've got these messages that still dictate, you know, how we behave. for me, it was always more of a matter of just not holding back. Not holding back. Again, the fact that I, you know, we just talk to people everywhere I go. And all of a sudden, a woman in a room, see who is that guy? He just, he likes to talk to everybody. He seems to know everybody. You know, I always, every restaurant I went in, every, I asked people their name. You know, I asked Uber drivers their name. I asked, you know, I asked your camera guy, his name.

1:33:22Anthony, right? Yes. I had to think, oh, is that right? I hope you can embarrass me if it wasn't about the fight. Yeah, but I always ask her names. If I forget or get it wrong, I ask again. And so there's just something about that of just being socially interactive that I've found tends to be highly attractive to the feminine. Now, I'm married to a jealous Latina and she is always pointing out women that are coming on to me or trying to get my attention. They're always very young and I don't chase young women, but there's just something about being comfortable in your own skin. You like that quote I remember.

1:34:05Be just being comfortable in your own skin. You know, having a life of purpose, know where you're going, enjoying that path, enjoying where you're going, I think it makes you attractive to all things. Men, women, opportunity, money, adventure. And I'm a big fan of saying yes. A dear old friend of mine passed away a few years ago, a gay fellow down in Puerto Vallarta. Had this bed and breakfast I used to stay at. My mother used to stay at and him and his gay partner ran it. He used to say, It's a sin to say no when you should have said yes. So, I use the very strong philosophy for a gay person.

1:34:43Imagine a lot of gay guys lived by that philosophy. And you know, I used to be surrounded by gay men whenever I'd be there. And guys say, well, how do you know when you should have said no? You'll know in 24 hours. But I turned that into basically my guide for life. Is that's why I said yes to my wife. when she said, you know, I went back and got a massage. Every amazing thing in my life has come from saying yes. You know, like I say, yes to interviews. I say yes to opportunities. I say yes to go, get to, you know, go be a part of this retreat. I just keep saying yes and it's funny how things just keep coming to me.

1:35:23When you say yes, I used to be, you know, I think about it, research it, talk about it a lot, take a lot of time, and then the opportunities come and gone. So I think that being uninhibited, not holding back, having a yes mentality, has tended to make me attractive to women. And you know, I even kind of hesitate to say that. You know, I'm 68 years old. You know, hair is gone, what I've got is white. You know, I'm just, I just think I'm very average in very many ways. And in spite of that, averageness, I don't seem to have any problem attracting good things to my life, whether they be opportunities to talk to interesting people, take interesting trips, have women pay attention to me.

1:36:12And there's no magic to it, but if I just tell guys again, get out of the house, expand your route, linger in public, talk to people, test for interest, walk through open doors, say yes. It makes you an interesting person. And when you were working in nightclubs, that's all the people were. They were just saying they were interacting with people, right? Yes. And they're not because they were so rich or so good looking. They just were engaged. And that just makes such a difference. What are some of the more successful or creative ways that people can use online dating? You mentioned that you briefly sort of got into and got out of the apps.

1:36:49For better or worse, they're here to stay. Well, actually never did the apps. So they came along, and maybe I'm grateful for that. I hear they're addictive, and maybe that's part of the problem. I know guys, I've had guys come visit me in part of Iaritan. They get on the apps, the Tinder and whatever, looking for women around. And like the whole time they're hanging out with me or at my house or by the pool, they're on the friggin' app the entire time. And maybe get a few dates out of it, so they work. a buddy told me one time that apparently he got pretty good at doing the apps and he said, you know, if you ever got a mutual connection, his standard response was whatever the woman's name was, say your name, hey Jessica, you animal, what are you doing here?

1:37:37And he said that just seems to work. Now, I don't know that it's tried or true, but it does kind of fit that model of just not holding back. Just being out there. I tell guys, blurt, so just blurt. I tell guys, if something comes in front of your mind, just say it. The more you hold back, the safer you get. And again, even though I say women by nature, security -seeking creatures, I eat all hashtag me too thing, they're drawn to something that has an edge to it, something that has some energy to it. So I'd say much is anything. Don't play it safe. Playing safe is boring. But again, just give me now my favorite one.

1:38:22Like I said, I'm pre -app, but one of the things I would do if I connected with a woman like a match .com, I'd send her a message and I say, all right, I call you up. I tell you, you got 30 minutes to pack your passport, your flip flops, and your bikini. Where are we going? And it starts a conversation that kind of gets them thinking, it gets you into their mind of doing something together, it's going to be a nice place, some tropical or warm, because I already told them, you know, pack your bikini, your flip flops, and your passport, going someplace fun, and they get to pick what it is. So now, if they respond to that, I find out how they think, how they engage in that kind of energy, what kind of places they like to go.

1:39:04We got something to talk about now, if I had been there and not been there, we can talk about it. Have you been there? So do something that just creates an energy that they want to respond to. It's exciting. It's playful. Charlie, you went on my friend, Charlie Hoopitz, show a couple of months ago, and he has almost exactly the same thing for speaking to women that like, where would we go if we were going to take a trip away together? And then she says that and he says, oh, it's okay. I'll quit my job. I can sell Lucy cigarettes on the beach front. Yeah. We can make mushroom cocktails and we'll sell those.

1:39:41It's fun. That kind of fantasizing the playful teasing energy. I think, I don't know, there's a metamine at the moment around seriousness and earnestness from guys. but like the playfulness I think is where it's fun because it helps to relieve some of the pressure. You're a dude who's speaking to a girl, you're already terrified that she's going to reject you, you're terrified about these things, and the more serious you make the interaction, the more that piles the pressure on. You know, I mentioned earlier that I think all the women I've been married to have and I think a lot of women do. My wife will say, today's a 12 hamster day.

1:40:29The hamsters are spinning up there. And if you think about it, most women nowadays live in such a masculine world. You know, with feminism, they've been taught, you know, go accomplish, you have a career, don't be dependent on a man, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Don't even think about kids till you're pushing 40, you know, just try to, I mean, just that whole thing. the masculine doing mentality. And if they have any degree of feminine essence, they also like beauty and love and escape and beaches and romance. And but yet most of them just round that out because they gotta get up, gotta do their job.

1:41:09Looking for this studio, I came in from the door down on the street and I opened a door. And here's 25 women all sitting at desk so close to each other. And I go, yeah, I'm looking for the studio And you know, what's slow? What's sweet? Anyway, here's all these young women doing a job, right? Driven to do that. And you know, the whole song, you know, girls just want to have fun. They do. They want an escape from that. And often they don't know how to get themselves out of that hamster wheel mentality. That's interesting. Once they're in it, they don't have a ready built escape. Maybe that's why they all go to get the glass of wine or cocktail hour or whatever.

1:41:51It relieves that. So what if you come along and they weren't expecting you, they don't know who you are and maybe, you know, whatever, however you engage them, get some pass that fear of what is guy, who is guy, what does he want? And what if you can just be engaging and playful and spontaneous and uninhabited, you know, you're either gonna make their day better for 45 seconds or you may spend a while. When I was taking salsa lessons, I went from being a terrible salsa dancer to being kind of an awkward, still white guy salsa dancer. But I'd be standing on a corner, waiting on a bus or standing somewhere, and I'd ask them, do you salsa?

1:42:36And if they said, no, I go, I'm taking lessons. Let me show you a step. I would just get the frame, get them in frame, and I could do a simple cross -body lead. Or if they said, yes, they go, So good, I'm taking salsa. Let me practice with you. I'm trying to practice this crossbody lead with a spin. I would just do stuff like that. And again, not as a technique, but I just found that if I just was uninhibited and engaged with people, most people are going to just stay glued to their phone. But some people actually respond, they light up, they want to engage. Even again, for just a few moments or longer.

1:43:14Talk to me about being outcome agnostic. Outcome agnostic. I didn't come up with that term, but first time I heard it, I just loved it. You know, probably most of us have heard that the Buddha said that attachment is a cause of all suffering. When I teach men this about being outcome agnostic, non -attached outcome, men get mad at me. They think I made that up and imposed it on me. No, no, put it on me. It probably preceded the Buddha even. But the truth is if we get emotionally attached to a specific outcome, we're going to suffer. And that's just the human condition. And we all get attached.

1:43:53And guys will say, well, why would I even date? Why would I talk to a woman if I wasn't attached to getting that pretty woman? And I go, well, you might not. But I said, if you have fewer attachments, you might actually be more engaging and not so anxious. I also say that attachment is a cause of all anxiety. And so what if, keep it in the dating sphere, what if you're standing, there's a woman standing next to you and let's say, you know, she's reasonably attractive and you want to say something to her. What if you are equally okay with every possible outcome? Now you might prefer some. Right.

1:44:29You might prefer that, you know, she smile and respond to you and maybe give you a number and maybe she goes, she go on a date with you. And let's maybe you find out she's a cycle bit from hell and then then you wish she hadn't you know But then what if you're equally okay with that as a possible outcome and and life? flows You can say yes to more things if you're equally okay with every possible outcome Again, are we gonna like some outcomes better than others? Yes, but are some of the outcomes we didn't love? Do they turn out to maybe be an outcome that we didn't see coming? I had a tumor blocking my small intestine six years ago.

1:45:14Really sick. Three months in pain all the time. Couldn't eat, couldn't use the bathroom. Lost over 30 pounds, went to doctors in the US, Mexico. Got undiagnosed, missed diagnosed. Did I want that? I knew it was killing me. I didn't know what it was killing me. The last doctor I saw in the US a gastroenterologist said, you probably just have, you know, a Mexican parasite you have to outlive. I wasn't going to outlive a golf ball size tumor in my small intestine. She didn't even run the right test to go looking for it. At some point, I surrendered. I didn't know what I had. I didn't know if it was going to kill me.

1:45:51I had a pretty good idea. It might be killing me. I was headed that direction. I was in pain all the time. The only remedy to pain was just breathing and relaxing into it. And when I finally surrendered into it, the pain became less. Did I want to be in pain? Did I want to know? But I surrendered. I accepted. I had something I might not ever know what I had. I accepted it might be killing me. And it got easier. People would ask me, Robert, how are you feeling? And I'd say, you know, I don't know if I'm actually doing better, feeling better, or just I've gotten better at feeling bad. But the surrender and the acceptance of it, let me live with it.

1:46:33And then the great story of how my wife found the doctor, the found the tumor that took it out and all of that. And here I am six, seven years later and life's good and I'm happy. What I want to go through that again. No, but I do it at least once a year. No, it's just a little reminder. Yeah, just to have a good life. So it's a practice to become outcome -agnostic, to be equally okay with every possible outcome. Guys will say, well, I would even get out of bed in the morning, I don't know about you, but when I'm not attached to so many, if I'm not emotionally attached to so many specific outcomes, I get out of mood, out of bed, in a good mood, excited for the adventure of the day.

1:47:14You know, this morning, I knew I was gonna come to an interview with you, you know, and I know we had a previously good interview, I knew it was gonna be good. You say, I'm gonna introduce you to some phenomenally interesting friends. All of my friends have bets going on who that may be. So we're having a good time. You know, it doesn't matter who you introduce me to, because I know it's gonna be cool. We're gonna have a good time. So what if we can just get up every day and live that way that life's gonna be good today? One of my mantras says, I love waking up in the morning, not knowing how my day's gonna end.

1:47:46And I've had so many days getting ready for bed going, I did not see this coming when I got up this morning and today's probably going to be one of those days you experienced in dating after breakups and divorces What is your advice to guys that are trying to get back into the market after they've been in a relationship for a while? I don't know if it changes that much for your guys have never been you know when I got out in the dating world I realized two things. I've done enough work on myself by that time. I realized that I'd always use nice guy's seduction to get women. Listen to them talk about their problems, be kind, be nice, do things for them, fix things, pay their car payment, you know, help their sister move, and then maybe, you know, and hide your sexual agenda from them, then maybe they'll want to take their clothes off the mat on that doesn't work well either.

1:48:42And so I thought, okay, I got to change that pattern. And I thought two things. I said, as in my late 40s, I thought I have to become a better picker and I have to become a better ender. And I didn't even know really how to be a good picker. So friends started giving me all kinds of stuff. You know, I read Neil Strauss. Guys gave me a double year dating with David DeAngelo. You know, I just, I just listened to podcasts. And mainly, like I said, I just got out in public. Every chance I got, I was in public and every chance I got, I talked to people and then I just got bold and I took risk and I asked for numbers I found that that's easy often women like I said they're waiting for the guy say give me your number I guess nowadays you ask for people's Instagram, but you know showing my age again so I decided I had to become a better picker but be a better injured because part of my my nice guy Seduction thing is once I got a woman I'd hang on way too long because I didn't know if I'd ever get another one again and I didn't want to have to go out again and go through the whole process.

1:49:44So I stayed way too long in every relationship I was ever in. Usually in the first few months, I recognized the severe warning signs. And about three years in, at some level, I realized they were done growing or evolving in the relationship. And I'd stay a few more years and usually then act badly. And then I got to be the bad guy for the relationship ended. And so I realized I had to be better picker. So become a better picker and better enter. And I realize that being a good enter covers a multitude of sins of being a bad picker. And actually what dating is is making multiple bad picks. One bad pick of, that's what dating is.

1:50:27Go on a date and find out, do you want to go on a second date? If you don't, end it, right? You made a bad pick. But you didn't know you made a bad pick until you go. So when guys would say, Robert, I don't know what's wrong with me. All my dates are just one and done. You know, we're going this one day, one copy date, and then, you know, I don't want to see them again. I don't hear from them again. I go, good. That's how it's supposed to work. You should not, every woman you meet should not become your future wife. And so becoming a better picker, I think, I think you do have to get socially adept.

1:51:01You have to get good at knowing you can meet people. You can connect with people because if you don't know that and you do connect with somebody, you're just gonna hang on to them for dear life. And so really go work at being that social animal. You know during COVID that really got tough but hopefully we got another window of time where we can actually get out and be social. Tactically how can people be better enders? better enders sooner rather than later, always sooner rather than later. Now, people, the ruminating brains can spend years in a relationship every day. Should I stay? Should I go?

1:51:39Should I stay? Should I go? Thinking, well, if I leave, will I regret it? And what if she gets another guy then I'll be jealous? And, well, but what if I stay? I'm missing out on that opportunity. So, ruminating brain makes this, you know, hell on wheels on steroids. But as soon as you realize a person is not somebody that you can't imagine yourself not being with. It's probably a good time to stop it. And I learned from trial and error that I met many when I started dating I did not want to just jump back in a relationship. I'd been married 25 years and I just wanted the experience of dating and I wasn't even trying to just go get laid a lot.

1:52:20I wanted that too but I was just wanting the experience of dating and meeting people. And I let women know that up front. You know, the majority of them, that's cool, that's great. That's what I'm about to. You know, some women say, well, don't waste my time if you're not looking to get in a relationship. Okay, great. You know, and they would say that and then still sleep with me. And funny. And so, but what I did realize, you know, a lot of women very quickly wanted to get sexual with me and did. I mean, I'm going on first and second dates and they're getting naked without me. I'm going, whoa, is this the world that I live in now?

1:52:54Yeah. And because that didn't seem to be the way it was when I was young. And so, so I said, yes, it's all those opportunities. And even when the women knew, you know, I was seeing multiple women and not trying to be exclusive, I noticed many were beginning to develop on feelings. And I'm going, well, I've got sexual access. I've already told her, you know, I'm not just seeing her. And I quickly learned, um, don't continue doing that. You know, if I don't see myself being with her over a long period of time, and I can see that looking her eye, as she's getting those feelings, I would end it. Even if you've stated up front.

1:53:34Even if it does. You think that that's the sort of female attachment, the belief that maybe I can be the one that's going to break him out of this preconceived idea of what he's going to do. Maybe I don't know that I can speak to it. What I think maybe the best generalization I can make is it. Men do this too, so it's hard to really generalize. But I think in women, when they open up to have sex with a man, they also tend to open their heart up. And they begin thinking in terms of the relational dynamic with this person. Not just oh that felt good to have sex, but I like being with him I want to see him again.

1:54:17I want to know him. I want to connect with and and whereas men men can do that too I'm not saying it's just a guy or girl thing But maybe the maybe women are more likely to do that and the guys more likely go Oh, if I can keep having sex with three or four women. Why would I stop doing that? Yeah, and the woman is going I'll wonder if I can just get him to have sex with me because I I like that. I think there's a, especially with a modern culture that tells women, you can work like your father and have sex like your brother. You know, you can be the... Did you make that up? Yeah. That is good.

1:54:55It's what modern culture is taught with. Yeah. Work like your father have sex like your brother. And you know, that feels liberating and empowering and independent and modern and progressive and cool and sexy and all of this stuff. And then, you know, for you to say, hey, you know, I can't bifurcate my feelings from my body in the way that culture's telling me that I should be able to. And in the way that men seem to be able to do more effectively, like, look, to the ladies that are listening, you are not going to be able to out casual sex the guy that you're having casual sex with. Like, even if he's catching some feels, you're catching more on average.

1:55:36And it's not a fair fight. You know, this sort of degree of casualness. And I do think that, you know, I'm back on the dating scene now, which I haven't been for a very long time, which is scary and a whole new world for me. And learning to be open and honest and upfront. And then it's almost like being overly honest in a way. It's not to do with honesty. What you're suggesting, First thing here is like, look, I know where this will come into land. Like I know what the outcome of this is going to be if we just keep on running this same script forward. Right. I'm going to step in and get us there more quickly.

1:56:19I'm going to shortcut this because I think that I can reduce a little bit of pain, a bit of discomfort and all the rest of it. Before there is more pain and more discomfort and I'm going to do that myself. And that's that's a good way of saying you know what I learned over time because even when I tell women up front Yeah, I'm just recently out of you know relationship Just and they go great great great I'd start seeing that look in their eye and I'd remind them again and they all would say the same thing I heard you the first time The brain heard me the first time Their heart was getting connected and I promise you if their hearts getting connected and yeah You're good looking, you're charismatic, you're in good shape, you're successful.

1:57:06They are gonna fall. They're gonna fall for you. You know that. And they're gonna fall and I'll just be blunt, if you're fucking them well. Oh, yeah, they just want to, they want it. They want that whole package. And you know, if you're just in it and you're fucking them well and you're enjoying that part of it, but you're not, you know. seeing them in the same way they see you. Every time that I let that go longer, longer, longer, and then it comes to an end. It does. At some point, you're a mismatch and it becomes so obvious. It can't be denied. And then it's messy. And you know, dating is messy enough.

1:57:49And so I made that conscious decision that even if the woman seemed really cool with us continuing to have casual sex. When I knew her heart was opening and you know she was loving the sex and loving just loving being with me. I had to end it. Break her heart and I know it sounds ecotistical but it's not. I'd rather break her heart you know three or four weeks into it rather than three or four months into it and that does make a big difference in the timeline of dating. Dr. Robert Glover, ladies and gentlemen, Robert I really appreciate you. Thank you for coming to see me. Where should people go.

1:58:22Don't want to keep up to date with everything you do. DrGlover .com, integrationNation .net. Two best places to find me. Hell yeah, I appreciate you. Thank you. This was so fun. And Doug, here we have the Lemo Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their core insurance and save hundreds with liberty mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally Doug. Uh, Lemoo? Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera! They see us! Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual .com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings vary under written by LibertyMutual Insurance Company and Affiliates Excludes Massachusetts