SLO MO REWIND: Dr. Robert Glover on Boundaries and the Pitfalls of Being a Nice Guy

27:07And then they both profess, I'm so stupid. No, I'm so stupid. And they're beautiful. everything's great, blah, blah, blah. And then the credits roll and they have the wedding scene and everybody's dancing and blah, blah, blah. And we've seen it a thousand times. They keep making that same movie over and over again. Why? Because women keep paying to go see that movie. So it doesn't matter if it's sex in the city. It doesn't matter if it's daytime drama. It doesn't matter if it's The Bachelor. It doesn't matter if it's nighttime soap, Grey's Anatomy. It's the emotional tension that arouses the female.

27:42Now, we men like some degree of emotional tension. We'll get it in our sporting events, but they've all got a clock. They end at a certain time. We'll go watch Sly or Vin or The Rock or whoever being in an action movie, but we know it's going to end in two hours, and we know it's all ridiculous. But we don't like emotional tension in our personal relationships. We want them smooth and calm and easygoing and predictable. So here's the problem. I believe in general, I'm going to make general statements. So in general, women need emotional tension to feel attraction to a man, to be sexually aroused by him.

28:20And that can be caused by 10 ,000 different things. For men, our emotional tension towards a woman is usually caused by one or two things. Either her butt. But women have multiple of things. and we men can't predict those. We just can't. We think we can, but we can't. We think, oh, I'll drive a hot car or make a bunch of money or I'll have six pack abs and that will do the trick. But women told me, I love your hands or I love your shaved head or I love your kind eyes or I love your kissable lips. Those aren't the things I thought were going to get me laid, but they create an emotional tension and it varies, of course, in every woman.

29:02So for the woman, they need the emotional tension to be attracted to a man, have sexual arousal, and to want to stay connected to him and sexually aroused by him over time. I've been a marriage therapist for over 30 years. And, of course, that's one of just the biggest complaints men and women both have in long-term relationships. The sex just died. So my theory is that on the other side of that equation is, in general, men don't like emotional tension, especially in intimate personal relationships. So not only do we not create any, by the way we live or interact with women, which therefore that women have nothing to be attracted to or aroused by, again, that niceness doesn't create tension for women.

29:44So either we don't create it, or if there is some tension in the relationship, we try to solve it as quickly as we can and get everything back to good. So, you know, we don't have to deal with, you know, that noise because it is noise to us men. Or if a woman's creating what I call negative emotional tension. Now, this sounds really weird to men, but for women, they don't really care if the emotional tension is positive or negative. It's really true. So if they're slamming cabinets or throwing dishes in the sink or criticizing you or flirting with your best friend, that's all emotional tension.

30:20And for most people, for the men and women, usually both, it all feels negative, but it's still emotional tension. So then what do most guys do? We go try to solve what's causing that tension, get it back to good. So while the woman, again, general statements, every woman's different, every man's different, but there's generalizations. While the woman's needing the emotional tension, negative or positive, good or bad, it doesn't matter. She's got to feel something. the guy doesn't want to feel anything so he's doing his damnedest to put those fires out every time they come up and then then we men can't figure out why women either aren't attracted to us in the first place or after they get to know us on after a second or third date and we're trying our best to please them and get them to like us why they never call us back again why they ghost us and never come around or or why our wife after you know two or three years in a marriage, it's just too tired, not interested in sex anymore.

31:17And we can't figure that out. This is really interesting because in an interesting way, it's definitely one of the biggest challenges with happiness as relationships. And one of the biggest challenges with relationships is that the sex dies out. And what you're saying here is actually quite interesting because the nature of a steady relationship by the man and also by the woman is to try and reduce tension and increase predictability. It's like, hey, can we make this easy? But then when it's easy, it's not hot anymore. It's not exciting anymore. And you're absolutely spot on. I mean, negative or positive emotional tension, the reason why makeup, sex, and the morning after is wonderful is because it's tension.

32:03All the tension build up. And you've hit the nail on the head. You may be familiar with this book. It's one of my favorites by Esther Perel. called mating in captivity, you know, just a brilliant relationship therapist. And her basic premise is that intimacy basically kills sex. The more we get to just know somebody and begin to, you know, work for predictability, but maybe closeness and comfort over time, it just takes the tension. She doesn't call it that, but it takes that, the hotness out of relationship. and you know as again as a marriage therapist you know we're taught well you know help people get rid of all those things you get to get in the way of intimacy you know being known and known knowing yourself and being known by another person and intimacy is great and certain types of intimacy where we're working to make sure everybody's happy and everything's clicking okay over time tend to just you know sap the juice out out of the sexual part of it yeah now so so i want to come back to all of this because I think the whole story we're trying to build for listeners here is there seems to be something needed for a relationship to succeed, but that's not what is the headline of the news says, right?

33:22There is something hidden in the article that we need to understand, but the headline says, make it stable, make it easy, give me all my needs, But the truth is this is not there. And I think the other incredibly powerful proof of that was the incredible success of Fifty Shades of Grey. And the whole idea of you constantly talk about what you call misplaced beliefs, belief systems. And the whole belief system that we start with that I laughed my head off when I heard you say this once. sex is a sin, it's bad, it's evil, and so keep it to the one that you love. Keep it for the one that you love.

34:10And that whole idea of preconditioning that says women don't like sex as much as men, women are giving you sex as a favor, so you might as well pay for it. When suddenly Fifty Shades of Grey doesn't only say that a woman is as interested in sexuality and maybe some extremes of sexuality as a man, but even a very clear statement that a woman actually might be interested in the man to be a little more dominant than the current story of feminism is making it seem. Do you believe that to be true? Sensitive topic, we have to... No, no, actually, I'm going to dive into it. I'm going to dive into it.

34:49The backstory for me with Fifty Shades of Grey is that I read it, oh, say six years ago, when it was in its heyday, because I wanted to know what are the 90 million women that have bought this book, what are they buying it for? Now, I'd also had the book The Count of Monte Cristo recommended to me. So I actually read The Count of Monte Cristo and Fifty Shades of Grey at the same time. I'd read a chapter of one and then go to the chapter of the other and back and forth on my Kindle, reading one. And I promised you after a couple of chapters of Fifty Shades of Grey, I couldn't wait to get through each chapter to get back to The Count of Monte Cristo.

35:27So that's classic writing. That's classic guidebook. It's such a great book. And I was really drawn to that. But here was my takeaway of Fifty Shades of Grey. I think this is my thought, my spin. I think maybe the media mismeasured what was going on in that phenomena. And we said, oh, that women really are into softcore BDSM. And I want to come back to how women are because the book I'm writing now, I make the statement that women are the most sexually evolved creatures on the entire planet. Women, human being women, and that they are sexual Ferraris. And in contrast, men tend to be sexual mopeds.

36:10Okay. If you want, we'll come back to that. We definitely will come back to that. Okay. So my read on the Fifty Shades of Grey is I think we got too caught up in the softcore BDSM. As I what what frustrated me as a guy reading that book is that the woman, you know, it's got this fantasy guy, you know, billionaire, you know, he flies helicopters. You know, he's he plays piano, concert piano. You know, he's drop dead gorgeous. Everything, you know, but he's way above her. She's way down here. She's, you know, a college student. I get remember when she meets some journalists. and what was most interesting to me was not the bdsm part of the book it was the dynamic of what went on in the woman's head throughout the story that is oh this guy couldn't possibly want me he couldn't possibly be interested in me who am i and it's all tension i'm not good enough and then when she starts being attracted to and turned on by the bdsm aspects of it then from there on out She starts trying to change him.

37:17She loves what he does to her. And she's constantly trying to pull that in and modify it and put wraps on it. And, you know, yeah, I love what you do to me, but quit being the way you are. You know, and it reminded me of an article I read in The Onion a few years ago, the satirical online magazine that it was titled, Woman Turns Boyfriend Into a Guy She No Longer Wants to Be With. Story of time, right? This is a story as old as time. So my read on the Fifty Shades of Grey was not so much that there's millions of women out there seeking the BDSM, even though, yes, I do believe being able to trust the strength and fierceness and dominance of a man that's open-hearted and loving and trustworthy is power for women.

38:08I mean, I have no doubt of that. It's amazingly powerful. I teach men that. But I think the part that women were flocking to that book about was the neurosis of the woman herself and how she couldn't just accept this amazing man wanting her. And she couldn't just accept him the way he was, no matter how amazing and prince charming and dreamy he was. She had to change him to something that she felt like she could manage or made sense to her brain. I think that's what women flock to because my guess is that's what's going on in a lot of their brains the majority of the time is they keep finding these things that their head over heels about the guy but they want to keep finding things to be unhappy about and keep changing even though the things are lighting them up and arousing them.

38:54No, but I don't want it to be that way. Let's see if we can change it. And so I think that's what women were relating to most in that book, not the soft core BDSM. That was actually the most boring part of the book. The BDSM part, just like, okay, I'm snoozing now. Let's get back to the Count of Monte Cristo. That's interesting. Exactly. But that's so interesting because once again, it's not the violent part of it. Okay. But it's that whole idea of, I'm sorry to say, eventually, you know, Hollywood still turned it into a chick flick because eventually she sort of changes him. She gets him to be exactly what he, what she wants or at least closer to where she wants.

39:38That's so sad. That's so sad. That's the third movie. And the third movie is like, I'm sure for every woman is like, oh my God, that's amazing. I can do that too. Which I have to say is misleading because men will rarely ever change that drastically, I believe, for a woman. As a matter of fact, if they do, they'll probably just be nice guys, right? But at the same time, you know, I think most men were like, seriously, is that how it's always going to end? And I think that misalignment between the views of men and the views of women is really where we end up confused. I heard you once say, tell her no.

40:16Because if you really think about Fifty Shades of Grey and the part that turned a lot of 90 million women on was that he was in charge. He was capable. Okay. He had the means, but he sort of, he set the rules in an interesting way. Right. Is that true of every relationship that there is a need for a little bit of I'm in charge here. I'm, I can take care of this. You know, and again, I'm going to make generalizations because I can't say it's true in every, because every relationship is different. You know, my view is all men and women have some degree of what I'll call masculine traits, some degree of what I'll call feminine traits.

41:01My break it down to the most bare bones is masculine does. Masculine penetrates. So it's the masculine in us that goes out and gets stuff done. The feminine in us is the part that is done too. It's the part of us that is penetrated for good or for bad. And I think most of us have a default where we default more one direction than the other. We default more masculine or we default more feminine. Now, it'd be too simple to say, well, men always just default masculine and women always default feminine. There's a lot of women that have a very strong masculine side, a lot of men that have a very strong feminine side that default that way.

41:35I don't want to make too big of a generalization, but I do want to use this as a teaching tool and something to help both men and women better understand what does help relationships tend to work better. So I think in every relationship to have a sense of polarity, some sense of tension and excitement, somebody does by nature need to move towards the default masculine and the other person needs to move towards the default feminine. Now that can be switched back and forth. There can be a reciprocity. But what I've found in years of couple counseling in my own relationships, that for it to work well, for the reciprocity work, the most by default masculine person in the relationship needs to set up and take the step up and take the set the tone and take the lead.

42:20Now, it's not about control. It's not even about dominance in the way that we hear it spoken. It's showing up with a plan and being open to discussion, negotiation, movement. But I've asked women countless times, how do you feel when your man says, what do you want to do tonight? You want to do something tonight? You want to go out? You want to get dinner? Where do you want to go? So women consistently tell me they hate it. Now, they'll make the decision if we burden them with it. But most women in society nowadays have to be in their masculine so much. Whether they're raising kids, that's masculine.

42:58Whether they're going to work, that's masculine. Just getting ready to go on the date is masculine, all the things they got to do, right? And so for us men to burden the woman with more masculine decision-making, not that they can't, they can. man, many women are a lot stronger than we men. My wife's Mexican. And so we speak all in Spanish to each other. And she tells me somewhat regularly, and she tells other people that she knows she's got big balls and her balls are bigger than mine. They are. She's a tough chick. I mean, she grew up eight out of 10 kids, alcoholic family, poverty, Guadalajara, Mexico, being beat by older siblings, beat by neighbors.

43:41She's tough, right? I grew up in a white bread environment, a suburb of Seattle, Washington, filled with Boeing engineers' families. We're very different, but my wife says, I know I got big balls, and I know they're bigger than you, but I don't ever want to feel like my balls are bigger than yours. I don't want to be with you, and I say jump, and you say, yes, dear, how high? And a story that she likes to tell that I've told a few times is early on in our relationship, before we got married, and she bought an old piece of Honda Accord and I called it Coche Fail, which is ugly car. Her kids love the name.

44:18But she wanted me to drive if we ever went anywhere. I was living down here part of the year in Mexico, so I didn't have a vehicle here. And I remember one time I was taking her back to work. She owned a spa. And so I'm taking her in her car back to work driving driving and the spa was down a one-way street. And so I'm driving up another one-way street, right angle to it. And she says, you can just pull over here and let me out. And I said, I just calmly said no and kept driving to the next block, which was a one-way street the other way. And then when I turned that street and she said, you can let me out here.

44:50I just said no. And then I came to a stoplight, which would put me on another one-way street. She knew what I was doing. I was just making the block to come back to drop her off right in front of her spa, her space. so I'm waiting now to stop light to make two more turns or to get her and after like the second or third time I told her no she just moves over gives me a kiss and says I love it when you tell me no so in that moment I could let her out at any of those places because it's what she wanted right it's what she said she wanted let me out here I'm thinking no I'm going to let her out in front of her space.

45:25That's three less streets she has to cross, a couple of them busy, to get to her space. That was me looking out for what I thought was best for the two of us. Not me being controlling, not me trying to dominate her, me just asking myself what feels right, what seems like, and she gave me a big kiss and said, I love it when you tell me no. Now, is every woman like that? No. But in my experience, again, women have enough shit they got to be in charge of every day that they want a man that matches their strength. They want a man that's got a spine and balls and can stand up and say, no, I'm doing it this way.

46:05They want that fierceness because it lets them then relax into a space in which they They can, going back to 50 shades of gray, they can open up and be done to in ways that feel good. But if they don't feel safe, if they don't feel trusting with the man, if they don't think the man is man enough to be their man, they won't ever trust enough to open up and be taken. And being taken is the deepest feminine bliss imaginable. And that, I think, is where things become super clear. right because if you try to do those things without deserving to be her man you're a jerk right if you don't try to do those things you're a nice guy yeah right and and that balance in the middle where i will qualify to be your man by taking charge and being responsible okay for what is good for both of us yes right which is that reciprocity if you want of i will take charge of a few things because i expect you to take charge of other things and here they are by the way the things that i i expect from you towards me right yeah so so you often talk about often is the is the time i spend in the uk why do i say that i don't know why anyway you often talk about of codependence versus interdependence and the difference between them.

47:32And in a way, I want to go back to the definition of a real man, but let's visit that very quickly. Because what you did there was what she needed, okay? And not exactly what she said, right? And that, in a way, allows her to feel that in the future, if you make that decision, she can depend on you trying to find what is good for her. That's a good analysis of that. Excellent. Yeah. Yeah. And so where do we fall when we start to get into interdependence, when we start to say, I can't be without her, I can't live without her, I can't have happiness without her, or, you know, where does that go wrong?

48:12Yeah, well, where it goes wrong, and I don't use the word codependency in the book No More Mr. Nice Guy, and I did that on purpose because at that time when I wrote the book, nobody had actually addressed the issue of codependency in men. All the books were either about family members, usually of alcoholics, addicts, or women. And I wanted to write a book towards men without creating pre-deceived or confusing ideas. Well, what do you mean codependent? So I don't even use the term. But nice guy syndrome is basically codependency. Another term that you could use is called borrowed functioning. And that's kind of a good way to look at it because basically for a codependent, they don't exist unless they are in relationship with somebody else.

48:58Unless there's a borrowed sense of, oh, I'm loved, I'm needed, I'm valued because, because, whatever, fill in the blank with whatever the because is. Healthy interdependence is when two people can stand alone, but choose to stand together. That's a big difference. And another one of my favorite books is by Dr. David Snarch called Passionate Marriage. And he talks a lot about fusion and where we're like, oh, I'm dependent on you. We got to be together versus healthy differentiation. And he stole the terms from a guy named Murray Bowen, who wrote about this years ago. He steals it very well. Snarch, I love.

49:34He's brilliant. But most of us, when we get into relationship, how we view most modern relationships, they're fused. I call them ownership relationships. You're my girlfriend, therefore you should. You're my boyfriend, therefore you should. You're my wife, you should. You're my husband, you should. Those ownership relationships are codependent by nature and are dependent on borrowed functioning. Now, Snarch teaches an exercise to couples to kind of illustrate this. He calls it hugging until relaxed. and he has two people hug each other. Partners hug each other. But first, be grounded. You know, they're grounded in their own two feet, standing, and they hug each other without leaning on the other.

50:16They just hug until they relax enough to just melt into each other. They don't lose their individual self. They don't have to give that up to be in this embrace. They still support themselves, but they let go into the other. and both and one person doing that often then kind of makes it easier for the other person to do it because calm is contagious just like anxiety is contagious so that's interdependent where we can be on our own two feet but yet relax into the other and you know and and i'm not a dominant guy by nature and but in my relationships with women i've learned that they didn't want to be in control or dominant.

50:59So I've learned there's certain ways I can step up and lead in certain ways. I can give examples of that that are pretty simple, but seem to be pretty effective. And I preach to the woman I'm with, no matter, you know, I'm on my third marriage, you know, been in a few relationships along the way. I preach we're a team. It's not that what this person does is most important, what this person does. We're a team. We're going to work together to bless each other's lives. Let's work to make each other's lives better than they could have been apart. Now, as my coach, who I work with, John Wineland, says, you can want your woman.

51:34But as soon as you start needing your woman, you start losing your power. Now, this also goes back to what we were talking about just a little bit ago. As soon as a man starts needing the approval of any woman, so a woman he's wanting to attract, to date, to take out, a woman who's in a relationship. as soon as we get into that, oh, either I need you or I need your approval and validation, everything's going to go to hell in a handbasket. He can't ask himself, what's the right thing to do here? Should I let her out here or keep driving around the block? That question doesn't even enter in. Oh, she wants to be left out here.

52:12I better let her out here because that's what she said she wanted. And then the woman goes, oh, he failed the test again. I can't trust him enough to open up. So this doesn't have anything to do, again, with control or dominance in how we usually think of it. But it does mean that the woman knows you are strong enough that she can count on you. She can depend on you. And they'll test it. Yeah. In charge is the word. It's not dominance. It's I'm in charge. I can be responsible enough to take this and I know will get us home. I know I'm responsible to get that done. It's not dominance. Dominance is I will force you to do something that you don't want and it's not good for you.

52:52Now, we can even parse it down more if we want to, but in these kind of conversations where people can't get feedback, it gets tougher. I actually believe that, going back to Fifty Shades of Grey, is that I actually would like to use the word dominance and submission, but they're so charged nowadays in social discussion, it's hard to do. but I really do believe to really have the best sex, there does have to be an interplay of dominance and submission. Somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to be done too. Now, it can trade off back and forth, and I know we don't like the words dominant submission, but to receive, you have to submit.

53:30There's just no way around it. You've got to let go. And to be done too, there has to be a doer. There has to be somebody that's got some sort of strategy in their mind that says, I'm doing this next, right? I'm taking this here. So if we can get kind of the social vibe out of it that, you know, that, you know, because a lot, a lot of people have been dominated and not very nice ways. Right. And, and, but if, if this is open hearted, if, if this is authentic and caring, the dominance and submission is at the core of any polarity and, and memorable sex. You can't have it without it. You're going to have just plain vanilla sex without some trading off back and forth, penetrating and being penetrated and being open to both.

54:18But then I think here is the most controversial conversation of our modern world at all. Are you saying in any way, Robert, that we're not equal? We're amazingly equal. And you mentioned the UK. I'm from America, so I'm going to use American sports references. in football, American football, every player on that team is equal and essential. But that doesn't mean that they all play the same position. The quarterback and center are both essential. They're equal, but they don't play the same position. They don't do the same thing. The running back and the cornerback, the linebacker are important, equally important, but they don't play the same role.

54:58So thinking that equal means the same is one of the biggest mistakes, one of the most tragic things that's happened to relationships. Now, you know, at work, okay, maybe that works fine. In intimate relationship, sameness gets boring really, really quick. And in my experience, again, I'll go back to, I've known and worked with a lot of really strong, successful women. And again, they don't want to be, quote, equal. I mean, they, of course, want their relationships to be equally yoked, but they don't want to be in the same role that their partner is. They want a diversity of roles and they want to be able to move out of that role of I'm in charge of everything all the time.

55:44You know, when most women I know, when they come home from work, they want to let go and be done too and not have to be in that role. So equal does not mean the same. Equal just means equals. But differences are what make the world go around. But that doesn't mean one, this shade of difference and that shade of difference, one is better than the other. There's just differences. And without them, again, there's no polarity. There's no tension. There's no excitement. There's nothing to look forward to. Amen. I think this is incredibly spot on. I would say, though, I think the most eye-opening part of your work for me has been...

56:23Okay, so there is no scarcity of books out there that tell men how to get the woman. Okay? Yeah, there's a bunch of them. Yeah, yeah. You go to YouTube and there must be like a million dating advice video over there. There's a lot of it. Yeah. The thing that I adore about what you do, and you actually say it publicly is that for you to make the world better, you'd better step up and assume your role as the masculine of the relationship. If you're the, I mean, also, by the way, I think people should know you, you work with a lot of gay men, for example, and your, your approach is not men or women.

57:03Your approach is if you assume the masculine role, assume it properly, and that will change not only the relationship, it will also change your life and the world as a result. Are you saying here that the role we're trying to play by taking charge, at least to me, this is how I heard it. It's not about my gain of getting the more attractive woman. It's about really making the machine of life work properly, making it actually last and continue. I've written a book called Dating Essentials for Men. It's another one of those books out there on how to get the women. But when I started teaching men dating skills, what I've been saying all along, and I say it in that book, I mean, I didn't learn how to date until I was in my late 40s.

57:53I never saw myself as a dating guru in any sense of the term. But what I say in the Dating Essentials for Men book is that this book is not really about dating. This book is really about expanding your social and emotional intelligence. I'm just using men's deep desire to have a girlfriend, have relationship to get laid as motivation to expand their emotional and social intelligence. So you've teed up another space for me that's, you know, a really area of passion for me. Most men, you know, and it goes back to what you and I talked about at the beginning of our conversation, most men reach adolescence and adulthood having no idea what it means to be a man, what it means to be male, what it means to be masculine.

58:37And I'm not anybody that I'm going to say, well, to be masculine, you got to be this way or to be a guy, you got to be this way. I don't want to tell anybody what it means for them to be male or masculine. But what I found is for most men, all we've been told since we were little boys is don't be that. Don't be this. Don't be like your father. Don't be like those bad men. Don't be angry. Don't be selfish. All we know is what don't be, right? Nobody's ever helped us embrace us, who we are, and to know what to be, what to make us happy. And I think that where I see the cause of that is that nowadays we just don't have tribe or masculine initiation for boys.

59:21In all of human existence, up until probably the last couple hundred years, we've had some form of tribe or masculine initiation. and and now boys just don't have that so it's interesting how you teed this up because in the book i'm writing now about positive emotional tension the premise i'm writing it is is learning about women's need for emotional tension and learning how to live both live a life and interact with women in ways that that increase the positive emotional tension in ways that women benefit they they get the bliss of being lovingly and powerfully penetrated by a conscious man, and it makes you more attractive as a man to all things feminine.

1:00:09It is also a powerful masculine initiation. You and I have been talking really this whole time really about the struggle between men and women. That's really what we've been talking about and trying to figure that out. Well, if a million and a half years into human existence and men and women are still struggling and trying to figure each other out, that's a pretty ripe area for profound growth. Where we struggle the most, I think, is the most profound place to grow. So by men learning about emotional tension, learning how to interact with women, learning how to live masterfully, learning how to put a dent in the universe, learning how to show up in a grounded, open-hearted, embodied, conscious ways, right, I believe is powerful masculine initiation.

1:01:04That's where I think we start making the world a better place. so here's this kind of paradoxical loop that because i want to get i want to understand women enough to get laid i'm going to get a masculine initiation that makes the world a better place yeah that's the way i try to treat it and approach it amazing amazing because again public opinion today somehow makes it look like being a man being masculine is a bad thing you know it comes with violence, it comes with aggression. Being the right man isn't, as a matter of fact, one of the reasons our world is lacking and falling behind is because men are not really behaving as they should, while actually women as well, you know, are not fully living up to that femininity, if you want, as you rightly said, a lot of women get into being more and more masculine because this is what is needed at work and so on and so forth.

1:01:58I'm going to do a few quicker questions now because I want to have all the time. I'm on my toes. I'm ready. But before I do that, I want to do one more pitch for No More Mr. Nice Guy. Because honestly, guys, if you trust me, this is an absolute must read for every man and every woman that wants to have a successful relationship. Now, one of the things I loved about that book is how you so unapologetically gave me assignments. It's like, who are you to give me assignments? But I, you know, after normally I skip the assignments. Like, it's like, okay, I get it. I'll do it in my mind very quickly.

1:02:36And then with your assignments, I was like, okay, you know what? And you actually suggested read the whole book and then come back and do the assignments. Read it again and do the assignments. So I followed Sensei. I did exactly what you said. Okay. Now, one of my favorite assignments, because as a nice guy, I'm not very good at receiving, was ask three people to do things for you today. Yeah. Tell me a bit about this assignment, because it seems to me that the idea of self-love and being worthy, healthy self-interest is what you call it, seems to be something that's very, very important for a normal Mr.

1:03:10Nice Guy. It is beyond important. It's essential. I'm dropping a lot of my favorite books here. Another one of my all-time favorite books is called The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck. I've heard it's the all-time best-selling self-help book. And he talks in there about sections on discipline, love. And on the section on love, he talks about how children come to feel love, not just think they're lovable, but to be love, right? To sense, I am love. And he says if parents are meeting their own needs, basically filling their own buckets up, paying attention to their children, giving them enough attention that they know what the needs of their children are, and then meeting the child's needs in timely and judicious ways.

1:03:54I also add to that equation in consistent ways as well. The child internalizes the beliefs. I'm important. I'm lovable. My needs are important. And the world is like my family. I.e., children are going to go out into the world and with, hey, I'm valuable. I'm lovable. And my needs are important. And people want to help me meet them. And when I present this model to the guys in my workshops, most of them go, oh, no, that didn't happen in my family. That's not the belief system I grew up with. And so for most nice guys, because our needs were not met in these timely, judicious ways, we tend to believe I'm not lovable.

1:04:34I'm not valuable. My needs are not important. Often for most nice guys added into that, if we were kind of pulled up to be our parents, we're parentified by our parents to take care of their needs. We also develop a core belief that I'm not good enough. And we believe the world is like our family. So we go out there believing I'm not lovable. My needs aren't that important. I'm not good enough. And the world's going to reflect that. So if we want to change that dynamic, now these aren't just thoughts. This is wired into our emotional brain, into our amygdala, into the fight, flight, freeze, survival, respiration, heartbeat part of our brain to, in order to overwrite that, I don't know if we can completely rewrite it, but to overwrite that operating system, that machine language, we have to start doing what happens to children in loving families.

1:05:24We've got to take responsibility for starting to meet our own needs in timely, judicious, and consistent ways. And that begins to overwrite, and it'll create a lot of cognitive and emotional dissonance in the process, but it begins to write, I'm important, I'm lovable, my needs are important, my needs are valuable, I'm good enough, and the world wants to love me and help me get my needs met. But it begins within self. We don't find it outside of ourselves. so in order to get to that place basically we have to become love right we become love it is who we are anyway we have to rediscover it and for me the only way i know to do i mean we can tell ourselves we can have a mantra say a thousand times a day i'm lovable i'm special i'm good enough but if we don't take the action of meeting our own needs in these consistent timely judicious ways, we can tell a child a hundred times a day, I love you, I love you.

1:06:22But if you're not meeting their needs and timely judicious ways, they won't internalize that belief that they're loved. So that's such a core piece of shifting a big part of this paradigm is we do have to start making our needs a priority. We touched on that a little bit before, and that's so challenging for so many of us nice guys. So I forget now what you teed that question up with, but maybe you can You're not such a dude after all. I'm not such a dude. What do you mean by that? You know, we are love. That is, you know, that is so profound when you really think about that. I think that's that idea of fixing what was missing.

1:07:03That actually is really, really eye opening. The reason I teed up that question is because I'm going to do the assignment right now. That's right. The breaking free assignments. Yeah. Yeah. So you said, ask three people to do something for you. I'm going to ask a few thousand people who are listening right now, because seriously, if you're still here, you are admiring that conversation with Robert as much as I am, which basically means you find this valuable. So do your bit. Tell others about it, because I think a million people should listen to Robert speaking today. You know me. I'm trying to make a billion people happy.

1:07:36I'm not going to make a billion people happy alone. The only way I can get there is for you guys to rate this five stars on your podcast player, share it on social media, tell others about it, tell others about Robert's book and books and his work. I think that really makes a difference for everyone. I'm going to go into the controversial bits now. Are you ready? By the way, I have to say I felt honored by what you just did. Thank you. That's amazing. Yes. Did you guys see my sensei likes my work, right? I'm doing well. Let's go to the sex Ferrari. Where was that? Where did that come from? You said women are Ferrari.

1:08:13The sexual Ferrari. Mopeds. Mopeds. Think about it. You know, like I said, this is in the upcoming book that I'm working on. Think about it. You know, we've got this cultural idea. You know, women aren't that highly sexual, aren't that interested in sex, that they're choosy, that they have to protect their precious eggs, that they're hypergamous. You know, they got to get the best guy with the best genes and the most money. I think all that's horseshit. I think that men in the manosphere love talking about all that, but it's horseshit. Women are the most sexually evolved. Women, human beings are the most sexually evolved creatures on the planet.

1:08:50They and maybe one other mammal, the only animals on the planet, female, that have sex out of season, i.e. for fun, not just because Mother Nature says have sex now to get pregnant. Women have more parts on their body that can trigger orgasms than any other creature. We men have one, maybe two. Women, I'm not going to go into all the different places I've known women got triggered into orgasm. Women can think themselves into orgasms. Women can have sex and orgasm and be ready to have sex again. Men, we're basically, I'll just put it bluntly. We just want to find a hole to get in and ejaculate.

1:09:33That's pretty much what men see sex as, you know, and just find a nice warm hole and I'm happy. Women are so much more complex. They're like, like I said, they're like Ferraris. They're complex. And they are just wired to have constant sex and a variety of sex. Now, again, men are, and maybe women are going to scratch. And there is going, I think a lot of women are listening, going, somebody finally gets it. Yeah, yeah, I can do it, blah, blah, blah. But here's the thing. Here's kind of my clincher on this. If women were not highly sexed or interested in sex or didn't have sex with lots of different penises, why have men worked, you know, really since the patriarchy began about 10 ,000 years ago and men started owning stuff rather than being tribal and communal.

1:10:18We started owning a piece of the cow, a tree, our partners, our kids. Since that time began, man, I believe two things happened. Like the standard narrative, wanted to start managing paternity. Since now I own stuff and resources are scarce, I better make sure if I'm taking care of a kid, it's really my own seed, my own DNA. But I think the bigger piece is, is once we quit being communally sexual as a tribe, where every man and every woman had access to partners in the tribe, because Mother Nature loves that. Mother Nature loves lots of penises and lots of vaginas, right? So when we quit doing that and we men set up this thing where now all of a sudden, well, we're owning stuff and start limiting men's access to vaginas and women's access to penises.

1:11:06What happened is we men, so I got to get it done. I got a cow. I got a crop. I got to go to war. I got to get this done. And the women, because in tribal times, we're used to just having constant sexual access. We men had to start trying to find ways to put a limiter on that Ferrari. Just quick, quick aside. You can't go more than 20 miles an hour. I bought a used 2007 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG. Damn. Oh, it is the most powerful, naturally aspirated V8 ever put in a grocery getter. into a SUV. Okay. It has, it has a 200 mile an hour speed limit on it, but it has a chip limiting the speed to 155. Who needs to go 155?

1:11:54But you can buy a chip and replace that to take the limiter off it to where I guess it'll go 200 miles an hour, which yeah, that's my, that's my desire. I think for all humans, you just need to remove the chip and then nature will go to the 220 and let nature do what nature does exactly so what's happened if women were not highly sexually involved and wanted a lot of sex why did we invent religion about 6 000 years ago and turn sex into a sin mainly to control the women's ask of being sexual why do we stone adulteresses why do we put them in burkas why do we put them in chastity belts why do we put scarred letters on their head.

1:12:36Why do we have a culture that has been just filled with slut shaming, you know, for centuries that if a woman is sexual, it gets knocked up. Oh my God, what a terrible human being she is. If women don't like sex and aren't highly wired for it, why do we have to control it in the way that we've tried to for 10 ,000 years? So I'm thinking that there's something wrong with our picture there. And if we take away the social narrative that we've all heard for so long and that's been forced on women and that men have bought into, and maybe we men have supported that because it scares the bejeebers out of us to be with a sexual Ferrari, right?

1:13:25When we're just sexual mopeds, I'll just leave it at that. But then the question becomes, is that Ferrari interested in one owner or multiple owners? All right, let me put it this way. All right, I'm going to create an experiment. I'm going to get a couple of hotel rooms. You get to have one hotel room and I'm going to bring in a lot of women for you. You get to pick the 10 women you find the most sexually attractive. Is that the promise? I'm promising this. Okay. I'm going to put you in a hotel room. This conversation is becoming interesting. Let's go. You can have this hotel room for as long as you need it.

1:13:59The only assignment, this goes back to asking three people. Your only assignment is you have to terminate. You have to ejaculate in all 10 women. Man, this podcast is family friendly. What are we doing here? Go on, go on, go on. I'm with you. And so as long as it takes you to do that, and then once you get done with the 10th woman, doing whatever it takes to impregnate her, 10th woman, you're done. So about how long do you think that would take you to do that? too personal but a few days a few days yeah and it's only going to take a lot longer than most of us men think it will we might get through the first three relatively uh you know within 24 hours everyone after that's going to feel like work it'll take okay now let's take any woman speak Speak of yourself, Robert.

1:14:54Okay. This is men talk here. Everyone will brag. We'll take any woman and there's not sexually wounded or repressed a site. Put her in a hotel room. She has to pick 10 guys that she finds sexually attractive. And we're going to time her how long it takes her to terminate to orgasm with 10 men. Not too many hours. Not too many hours. Some women could get it done in 90 minutes. Some women, yeah, in the afternoon. So they're completely wired different than us. And this is a couple of examples of how moped we are and how Ferrari they are. Are you starting to buy in a little bit? But is that their desire?

1:15:37Because every woman seems to be spending her entire youthhood attempting to find that one guy and stick with that one guy. Okay. Why? You tell them. Okay. How many fairy tales and Disney movies are created that show women getting to have as many men as they want in their lifetime? None. Zero. No. I'm not a big fan of the term, the patriarchy, but the patriarchy is still telling little girls, just get that one to come rescue you. Get that one. That's a very profound statement. This is really what it is. It's like you need one and he will rescue you. Yeah. It's like the whole pretty woman line, you know, when the guy says to, you know, the woman, what happens after the guy rescues the woman?

1:16:29And, you know, pretty woman says, oh, she rescues him right back. That's a big fairy tale, right? But anyway, going back to it, our evolution, human evolution is that men and women are wired to have a lot of sexual partners. And I'm sexually monogamous. I choose to be sexually monogamous. It's not natural. It's not wired into my DNA, but I choose it. I like it. And it's one of the most, again, wherever those challenging, difficult areas are, are the growth areas. And so I use it as a powerful personal growth machine to be sexually monogamous with one person. Is it how my wife and I are wired by mother nature over a million and a half years?

1:17:10No. Mother nature really doesn't like monogamy. It's evolutionary sin. So, yeah, exactly. Because it basically limits the possibilities of procreation, right? So it's... Yeah, and the possibilities... Even though society will say it provides for a better environment for children to grow in, but... If we're not living in a tribe, it does. If we're living in a tribe, that's ideal. So you're going back to Esther Perel's work, right? Where basically, the way I sometimes describe it is I say I'm a businessman, right? So I say that idea of all of me exclusively every minute of my day for the rest of my life, right?

1:17:50This is the sort of the societal contract. That is not how we're wired as humans, as a matter of fact. It is not. Yeah, we're wired very differently. But then that provides a dilemma because from one side, every woman that I know, or many of the women I know, when you really make them feel comfortable to share they'll say yeah i'm interested in a few adventures too right but but then when they are in front of society in front of their own sense of responsibility they say but that's gonna reduce my chances of finding that one guy that that's maybe the storyline they've been given and remember every woman growing up grows up with constant slut shaming that a woman that wants to have i mean you know pick up susan friday's you know, was it My Private Garden, where she talks about the sexual fantasies of women.

1:18:42That blew away the culture when she put that out there. The things that women have in their heads sexually, and then going back to, you know, the Fifty Shades of Grey. Oh, women, you know, like that stuff. We are still culturally so close-minded that we don't know how close-minded we are, that we've been repressing sexuality, especially female sexuality for so many years, that seems normal, right? It seems normal. Now, the one piece I'll add, I think a really core piece, especially for the feminine is trust. And it is probably why for many women, it feels safest to be with one man rather than a lot of men is it gives a greater opportunity to build a deep sense of trust.

1:19:26And as I said, trust is essential for opening up. And if you can't open up, you can't be blissed, basically. So I think the core thing is not that I think every woman's looking for the one, even though they've been told to do that by culture. I think they're looking for the one whom they can trust and open themselves to. Robert, you're amazing. I'm always so grateful. I want to close with one very quick tip so that people can summarize a lot of what we spoke about. You and I both here are attempting to find, though controversial points, points that will definitely make a difference to relationships, right?

1:20:10It will make them better. If you were to sum it up in an advice for men, and by the way, an advice for women, because I believe your work is equally valid, because a woman can definitely, like your wife kisses you, to reassure you that these are the things that you need. I think there is a role on the woman's side to make clear what she actually needs, right? So if you were to give advice in brief to the men listening, for them to really be the men that they can become and for the women listening to really create relationships that will be fulfilling and lasting. Yeah, for the men, I say this in No More Mr.

1:20:49Nice Guy, I put it in the preface that I wrote when they kind of did just the cleaned up version. And I said, recovery from nice guy syndrome is not about becoming a different person or a better person. It's about becoming more you. It's about loving you, embracing you, every part of you. You know, all the part that you like the world to see, all the parts you don't want the world to see. Integrating all of those and loving and embracing you. Now, to do that, I firmly believe we men need a tribe. And I believe any way that men can find to go connect deeply with other men. I don't care if it's through martial arts.

1:21:27I don't care if it's through a divorce support group, through a men's group, through Mankind Project, 12 Steps, whatever. Go find tribe and connect with men. I think that is the way we then can embrace the deepest sense of who we are and honor the fact that we're a man. And it's okay to be a man. And we surround ourselves with men that support that. Yeah. And for a woman. For a woman is that in my experience, the more time you spend in your masculine trying to get stuff done, which is that's what's been imposed on women culturally. They've been told that's how you're going to get fulfilled. And there is fulfillment in that.

1:22:07But my experience is if you don't give yourself opportunity to be done to, to let go for a little while, to be open and receptive, without doing that, you're not going to find your deepest heart's longing. So, again, I'll encourage women to challenge that because most women nowadays have been brought up teaching, no, you got to go get the degree. You got to go get the career. You got to go compete. you gotta go. But I know when my book came out 17 years ago, I went to New York to do a book tour. And my editor at Barnes & Noble took me out to dinner with her fiance, I think. And he was an attorney with another couple.

1:22:50And they were both professionals. And neither women had children at that time. And both women, they were in their mid-30s, said, you know, I think I'm ready for something different. You know, they'd been doing the hard driven career, get it done. And they both said, you know, I think I'm ready for something different. And so I'd say to women, be willing to honor that. It's not either or, you know, you don't have to give this up to have that, but you do have to open a door for this other to happen. So I shall forever call you sensei. I'll forever smile when you say. And I'll always be grateful for what you taught me, Robert and taught so many of us.

1:23:30I love, love, love your work. I'm very grateful for the time that you've given us. Thank you for this invitation. Can't wait for the next book. Come on. You are love. I feel nothing but love in your presence. So thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to talking again. What an interesting conversation. Whether you've agreed with every point or didn't agree with anything at all, It's definitely true that Robert Glover brings a different perspective to a topic that we sometimes shy away from talking about. I'd want to say, oh, what a nice guy, but definitely I'm not going to do that. Before I go, let me remind you that you have a role to play.

1:24:18So spread the word on slow-mo, tell others what you learn, and follow me on social media so that we can connect closer and speak about what you would like to see here on Slow Mo and your feedback on any of the topics we've discussed. I am Mo underscore Gaudet on Instagram, mo.gaudet.personal on Facebook, Mo Gaudet on LinkedIn, and mgaudet on Twitter. I hope to hear from you soon, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity that you give me to talk to such interesting people on such interesting topics. I love you all for listening and I'll see you next time