How to Stop Wasting Your Life - Connor Beaton

Chris Williamson 0:00 Why do so many high functioning men self-destruct in private?

Connor Beaton 0:05 (laughs) It's like, you're like describing my, my clients. Oh, boy. Um, I think there's a number of different reasons. There's, there's trying to maintain this image externally and part of that image is the perfectionist. So there's never any room for downfall. There's never any room for weakness, there's never any room for problems, um, or issues, and so for a lot of men, that becomes... (sighs) it becomes something that they start to medicate and usually that has rooting in childhood, right? That they had to be a certain way in order to garner love, to garner attention. So for a lot of super high performing men, they're, you know, they grew up in an environment where they kind of had to be perfect, and if they were perfect enough, then they would get affection, then they would get love, they would get praise, they'd get validation. And so for a lot of young guys, it's like, a lot of men in general, it's, "If I can be perfect enough and I can perform well enough-"

Chris Williamson 1:04 Mm.

Connor Beaton 1:05 "... then everything will be okay, but if that starts to falter just a little bit, then it says something about me personally, it means that something's wrong with me." And then sh- shame starts to creep in and they don't want anybody to know that that's happening.

Chris Williamson 1:18 Mm.

Connor Beaton 1:19 And so slowly over time, because they can't admit that there's something wrong, they can't admit that there's an issue, they can't sort of vocalize it, they start to medicate that shame or they start to medicate the perceived weakness, the insecurity, the anxiety-

Chris Williamson 1:37 Mm.

Connor Beaton 1:37 ... uh, with booze or weed or women or, you know, hookers, whatever it is, right? Whatever their sort of drug choice is. Could be gambling or whatever.

Chris Williamson 1:44 Mm.

Connor Beaton 1:45 And slowly over time, that becomes the method that they need in order to just maintain homeostasis and it's almost like there's a debt building in the background that's building over time. Every little mess up, every little screw up is just sort of accruing this, this massive debt inside of them, and eventually it just craters. Um, and so, you know, and in a lot of ways, they need to be able to bring forward some of those weaknesses or insecurities or-

Chris Williamson 2:15 Mm.

Connor Beaton 2:15 ... anxieties or, you know, the, the trauma that they've just been holding on for fucking decades.

Chris Williamson 2:21 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 2:21 You know? Um, so I think that's a huge part of it and, and I think for a lot of men it's, it's correlated to how... it's correlated to their sense of masculinity and their sense of manhood.

Chris Williamson 2:32 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 2:33 So it's like, "Well, if I admit this weakness, if I admit that I'm struggling, then it means that there's something wrong with me as a man, that I'm less masculine." Um, and I don't think that that's necessarily something that we think about top of mind. It's more perf- performance at all costs, and so I don't want to admit that there's something going on behind the scenes.

Chris Williamson 2:55 Mm. As you're saying that, the word, I don't know why, but the word toxic masculinity came up.

Connor Beaton 3:00 Mm.

Chris Williamson 3:00 This actually feels like a kind of place that it suits in a bizarre sort of way.

Connor Beaton 3:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 3:06 That it's taking traits of masculinity and making them a performance, forcing yourself to perform, and it's a way... Not that masculinity itself is toxic, which is what the current like version of that is, that this is a way to turn your masculinity into something which becomes like a prison guard-

Connor Beaton 3:26 Mm.

Chris Williamson 3:26 ... in a way, that's sort of locked you in jail for doing the non-masculine thing and if you try-

Connor Beaton 3:32 Right.

Chris Williamson 3:32 ... you can't necessarily break out of that. So the high functioning guys are, um, what the world rewards them for in public, they struggle with in private.

Connor Beaton 3:41 Correct.

Chris Williamson 3:41 High standards, hyper vigilance, neuroticism, obsession, drive, desire for conquer and mastery, lots of competition, lots of comparison between myself and other people.

Connor Beaton 3:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 3:53 That is a type of pressure, uh, and that pressure causes them to set very high standards and if they ever fall short of those standards, that causes pain. "I am not enough because I have these high standards. These high standards are why I've managed to become so high functioning in the real world. I'm a hard charging sort of dude."

Connor Beaton 4:12 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 4:14 But as, uh, fears about not being able to keep up with this work rate that I've already established for myself, uh, my comparison group is getting, uh, better and more successful, uh, I'm finding it hard, like my physiology just can't keep up with the burnouts-

Connor Beaton 4:30 Mm.

Chris Williamson 4:30 ... level that I'm requiring of myself. All of these things build up, build up, build up and there needs to be some sort of a release valve.

Connor Beaton 4:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:37 One of the release valves could be learning self-love, self-compassion, having somebody that you can speak to about this, a supportive partner who makes you feel safe and secure in your, like, vulnerabilities. But if you aren't prepared to do that or you don't have access to that, you turn to something else, which is also like a pressure release valve. Is that a fair-

Connor Beaton 4:56 That's a fair-

Chris Williamson 4:56 ... synopsis?

Connor Beaton 4:57 ... and I think we could probably just summarize it by saying, (clears throat) and this is something that I wrote about, uh, in, in my book years ago, which is that in male culture, it's very common that we teach strength through suppression.

Chris Williamson 5:11 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 5:11 And for high performing men, that is way overindexed, right? So it's, "I need to develop competency, capability, strength, whether it's physical, emotional, mental, in the boardroom, whatever, but I'm gonna do that by suppressing the unsavory parts of myself. I'm going to suppress, um, maybe it's empathy, I'm going to suppress that I'm exhausted, I'm going to suppress these types of things." And there's a cost to that suppression, and so, you know, part of the hallmark of being a great man in society has always been your capacity and capability of suppressing certain things in certain moments so that you could go and do the thing that nobody else wanted to do.

Chris Williamson 5:51 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 5:51 Right? It's like, Navy SEALs need to suppress certain things in certain moments so that they can get a job done. Same with CEOs and executives and athletes and yada, yada, yada, right?

Chris Williamson 6:02 Mm.

Connor Beaton 6:02 So-There's merit in that, uh, skill, in being able to sort of say, "I'm gonna put this aside for right now so that I can get this done and execute on something." But for high performers, it's usually that that is way over dialed. It's, it's over indexed. And the, the problem with that is that when some of those things that are being suppressed go undealt with, then, you know, it sort of amasses a ton of psychological energy.

Chris Williamson 6:29 Mm.

Connor Beaton 6:29 Right? And so all of a sudden, you're having to keep down years of, "I don't really like this fucking job." Or, "I'm disappointed in this marriage." Or, you know, "This isn't really the l- way that I thought things would play out," or, "I feel ashamed of..." You know, all of these little micro failures that aren't really a failure to external people, but for me, it feels like this monstrous thing. You know? And so all of a sudden, this accumulation of all these suppressed emotions and disappointments and perceived failures start to mass-

Chris Williamson 6:59 Ah.

Connor Beaton 7:00 ... and that has a tremendous amount of energy, which then needs to be dealt with. And the problem is that how high performing men have often been taught to deal with those things is that, you know, we've sort of had this normalized culture of, you know, drink it off or, you know, go rub one off and you'll feel better.

Chris Williamson 7:18 (laughs)

Connor Beaton 7:18 And so how we try and hit the reset buttons, button on some of those suppression, suppressed emotions is usually maladaptive behaviors. They're, they're not supportive.

Chris Williamson 7:27 Mm.

Connor Beaton 7:28 You know, they don't help you feel better, right? It's like you go and hire the hooker, or, you know, you go and watch the porn or you go and have a bender, you know, and take some molly and go to a rave. And then the next day you're like, "Fu- fuck, I feel like shit now."

Chris Williamson 7:40 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 7:40 You know? And so it kind of compounds things over time.

Chris Williamson 7:44 Mm. Mm.

Connor Beaton 7:45 So (clears throat) a lot of high performing men will go on this arc, and I think the other thing, maybe I'll just add one more wrench into the mix here, is many high performing men have built high performance off of what I call shame-based motivation, dark motivation. And so part of their fuel source is they're trying to run away from the man that their father said they'd probably become. They're trying to run away from the shame or the pain that they experienced growing up. And so it's like, "I don't want to be a failure at all costs." Right? Or, "I fucking hate myself and so I'm gonna turn myself into this absolute beast that is incredible in, you know, in many different ways." Or, you know, he was like an insecure teenager or something like that. And so what happens for a lot of high performing men is they're actually using shame as a fuel source. And how they get to a place of excellence is through self-deprecation. And this is very different for women. Uh, like, women don't generally use shame as a fuel source in the same way that we do, or pain in the same way that we do. A lot of men will use pain that they're carrying internally-

Chris Williamson 8:59 Mm.

Connor Beaton 8:59 ... to actually motivate themselves towards a goal. And I'm sure you've seen this with so many people that have sat across from you, right? Where you start to hear about their story and you're like, "Holy shit. I mean, the stuff that you went through, the stuff you experienced." And so for a lot of high performing men, what we do is we take that pain, we take that shame, we take that anger or that rage, and we use that as a fuel source for a period of time. And, and eventually what happens is it starts to have a net negative, um, outcome.

Chris Williamson 9:29 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 9:30 For, there, we sort of reach a tipping point where all of a sudden, you know, I've worked with musicians where they get all the accolades and the awards and, you know, they're like so famous rappers or what, whatever, uh, athletes that, you know, win the Super Bowl and then the crash comes, you know? And why is that? Well, they've been using shame for so long to drive themselves that they've never developed an internal architecture of self-recognition, of real self-recognition. And so they've just tried to motivate themselves to success through shame and self-deprecation. And so when the accolades come, they can't actually enjoy it. They're not able to actually recognize that they've accomplished and achieved something meaningful.

Chris Williamson 10:13 Mm.

Connor Beaton 10:13 And so the whole time that they've been working, that they've been driving themselves and killing themselves and working towards this like big illustrious goal, all of a sudden it comes and they're not able to actually bask in the like, "Wow, I actually did that." And then the collapse happens, you know? And that's when you see them just fucking crash out, you know, and you see the, you know, the TMZ stories and shit like that.

Chris Williamson 10:35 Is it a bad thing to use your pain as fuel?

Connor Beaton 10:40 No, I don't think so. I mean, this is, this is the kind of, this is the kind of catch-22 about it, is-

Chris Williamson 10:45 Feels like a paradox.

Connor Beaton 10:46 It is, it is very paradoxical. And, and I've sat with this for a long time 'cause I, I think in my own journey, this is very much the same thing, you know? I used my, my own pain, my own shame, my own sort of like, um, rage towards the world to motivate myself for a period of time and I, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. It's if we don't build the, the counter tools to support ourselves, the generative tools to be able to appreciate, acknowledge ourself, to be able to recognize ourselves for actually doing good, to be able to receive goodness in the moments where we actually achieve, accomplish something, um, that's when it becomes problematic. So it's not necessarily a bad thing to allow pain or shame to drive us and to motivate us. I think for some people, for a period of time, that's actually maybe necessary because they need to, to do something to disprove the internal story of, "I'm a piece of shit."

Chris Williamson 11:45 Mm. Mm, mm.

Connor Beaton 11:45 "Uh, I'm never gonna amount to anything. I'm never... Uh, I'm gonna show that, you know, I'm gonna show dad, I'm gonna show mom that I..." You know, whatever it is. Um, and so it's not necessarily a bad thing, however, it has a shelf life, and if we don't develop the tools that are meant to go in tandem with it, it, it's always destined to fail. Always destined to, to end in some type of a collapse.

Chris Williamson 12:08 I find this topic, like, endlessly fascinating. I think it's so interesting. I had this one insight I've been thinking about recently, which is an infinite one rep max.

Connor Beaton 12:19 Mm.

Chris Williamson 12:20 So, the idea that, um, most people reach a particular level of pain, and that level of pain is maybe before a breakdown. Like the whole point of there being warning signs is that they warn you before the catastrophe occurs.

Connor Beaton 12:39 Right.

Chris Williamson 12:39 Right? You slow down before you get toward the cliff, not as you're going off the cliff-

Connor Beaton 12:43 Right.

Chris Williamson 12:43 ... and you hit the brake as you're going off the edge.

Connor Beaton 12:45 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 12:45 Right? (laughs)

Connor Beaton 12:46 I mean, you could do that. It's just-

Chris Williamson 12:47 Well, it's pointless, right? Like the whole point of the warning signs was to stop you from needing to go off the cliff in the first place.

Connor Beaton 12:52 Right.

Chris Williamson 12:53 Um, and one of the things that guys are praised for, and women as well, especially meritocratic capitalist society, blah, blah. If you're able to suppress, if you're able to outwork, out-suffer, be more conscientious, if you're able to put up with discomfort basically-

Connor Beaton 13:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:10 ... if you're able to do things that most other people wouldn't want to do or couldn't do, for longer than other people, society rewards you. So you are praised in public for this thing. But the problem is, that same skill in your private life-

Connor Beaton 13:27 Mm.

Chris Williamson 13:28 ... causes you to be able to put up with a level of suffering that is maladaptive.

Connor Beaton 13:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:32 Like, if you were able to say, um, "I can work 16-hour days, six days a week, for a year, for five years, to build my startup, to make my..." Congratulations. Can you switch that off when it comes to your current relationship which is totally toxic and turning your brain-

Connor Beaton 13:52 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 13:52 ... inside-out? And you go, "No, no, no. I'm the David Goggins of suffering."

Connor Beaton 13:55 Right.

Chris Williamson 13:55 Like, "Fuck carrying the boats, I'll carry the whole fleet."

Connor Beaton 13:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:58 Like, "Give me more. Load more of this onto me." And I, I think it... the interesting element here is that your capacity that you are praised for in public, is toxic in private.

Connor Beaton 14:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:09 And you don't get to compartmentalize it. And the issue with this conversation online a lot of the time, is that people are conflating the, uh, place that the tool gets used. Like the tool should be praised and is very useful-

Connor Beaton 14:27 Mm.

Chris Williamson 14:27 ... in the real world. It's useful at your father's funeral, it's useful at the job interview, it's useful when the shit hits the fan and you need to find a new career or whatever. It is not useful when it comes to dealing with your health problems.

Connor Beaton 14:44 Right.

Chris Williamson 14:45 It is not useful when it comes to dealing with your intimate relationships or the way that you and your friends don't ever see each other or ever open up to each other or whatever. And this again, why do high functioning men often self-destruct in private? Because the same... it's, it's like having a sword, and the sword having two edges, and it being really great on the fore swing-

Connor Beaton 15:09 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:09 ... and then constantly fucking nicking you on the back swing.

Connor Beaton 15:12 Right. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:13 Does that make sense?

Connor Beaton 15:13 It makes total sense. Yeah, I mean there's a... I, I think about this a lot, that I think we as modern men have become very unidimensional. We've become very single d- single, singular, uh, dimensional. That there's a kind of over-indexing on these very specific skills, and a letting go of other skill sets that could actually support us. And I think for a lot of high performing men that, that is, that is a huge part of it. And it's challenging, because I think one of the things that... I remember working, you know, my wife and I have an office in Manhattan, and I was-

Chris Williamson 15:46 Woo.

Connor Beaton 15:46 ... working with (laughs) I was working with this client years ago and, uh, he owned a hedge fund and massive hedge fund in the city, and we started to talk about some stuff that, you know, his success was starting to be impaired because he was dealing with really high levels of an- anxiety. And his whole life has changed, he had had kids and blah, blah, blah. But he had found himself in this spot where he could cognitively see that the way he had done things up until that point was no longer going to work. And he could also cognitively see that this... that he had been suppressing a whole bunch of stuff from his youth. You know, stuff that he had gone through in childhood and, um, decisions that he had made in the past. And he had never really dealt or confronted with any of them. And so he could cognitively see, "I know that that's having a net negative impact on me-

Chris Williamson 16:43 Mm.

Connor Beaton 16:44 ... but I'm terrified to deal with this." And this is the other thing that most high perfor- performing men have to deal with is, they're terrified to deal with the things that are actually starting to crater them because they're worried that it's going to hinder their performance to deal with them.

Chris Williamson 16:59 So good. So good.

Connor Beaton 17:01 Right? So it's like, "Well, how am I going to perform in my job running this hedge fund, running this venture capital firm, running this tech company, you know, in whatever it is, whatever it is that they're doing, whatever their career is. How am I supposed to perform to make money, to provide for myself or my family if I start to dive into this emotional shit?"

Chris Williamson 17:22 If I'm deep in my feels while I'm trying to give a fucking pitch.

Connor Beaton 17:24 Right, if I'm deep in my feels. And it's such a real thing where it's like, "If I get cracked open and I start to talk about, you know, the neglect or my father's death or whatever it is, how am I going to function?" And so there's this very real fear of, "If I started to deal with the thing that I know is bringing me down, it's going to bring me down even faster."

Chris Williamson 17:46 Hm.

Connor Beaton 17:46 And, uh, for, for a lot of men, that's the first hurdle. That's the very first hurdle, is realizing that you can still function and you can still perform with your heart involved, I guess you could say, you know, with a kind of emotional, um, deep dive that you're, you know, you go into stuff from your past, being able to go into the things that you've been carrying. And, and it will be different. You know, it does alter things. It does change things. And, you know, in...There's a- a great Jungian psychologist named Dr. James Hollis, and he wrote this book called The Middle Passage, and it's all about how we go through this kind of turning in midlife, and we've kinda demonized it in Western culture. We talk about the midlife crisis, right? People have a midlife crisis and, you know, dude buys a Porsche, or, you know, they get divorced and he gets the, you know, the young woman, uh, and he's like, "Oh, midlife crisis." But the m- the middle passage is really meant to be this- this period of time where all the things that weren't working that you've been ignoring come to the surface, and you're confronted and having to deal with them. And it's an incredibly important part of maturation, psychologically, but we try and bypass that in our culture. We try and get around dealing with the real, uh, unsavory parts of our life that we've just suppressed or repressed or ignored or pretend, you know, aren't really there. And it's incredibly important to go through that phase, because otherwise, maturation can't take place. There's a very interesting correlation between your ability to confront the unsavory truths of your life and maturation. Those two things go hand in hand. The more that you can look at things that are true that you dislike about yourself and your life, the more that you're going to be able to mature. And for us in Western civilization and Western culture, we don't like the dissent, right? Stock market goes up, and we treat ourselves psychologically in the same way as the stock market. We should always be growing. And so any type of dissent, any type of collapse, any type of falling apart, there's a- there's not only a demonization of that, but we have devalued that period of time because it's brutal, it's hard. And when you hear people talk about it, usually what you'll hear is people have really found a deeper, truer sense of who they are by going through these almost catastrophic periods of time in their life where things completely fall apart. Everything with the business falls apart, their sense of self falls apart, their health falls apart, the relationship that they thought was so steady falls apart, and all of a sudden they're left with, "Now I have to face the truth of what's always been there that I haven't wanted to admit."

Chris Williamson 20:39 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 20:39 So I think that's a very important part, and for high performers, they're- they're just better at pushing it down, you know? They're just b- better at ignoring it for a longer period of time and being very high functional while doing it, and then eventually, it catches up to them, and usually it's in a moment where everything's come to fruition. You know? It's like everything has happened and everything's great, and they're like, "Yes!" And then they collapse, you know? And then, in alchemy, it's called the nigredo, right? It's called the decay, the- the blackening, the falling apart. Um, and so it- that's the period where we, you know, things decay and fall apart so that we can, you know, like a phoenix, rise from the ashes again, and- and b- be risen a new in a certain l- e- sort of like a new way. So I feel like maybe- maybe you've gone through a little bit of that recently with the health stuff and-

Chris Williamson 21:29 Permanently.

Connor Beaton 21:29 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 21:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Connor Beaton 21:31 But, like, what's that been like? 'Cause it- I mean, kind of, we're- we're sort of talking about you, in a way.

Chris Williamson 21:36 Oh, wait, this entire podcast is a thinly veiled autobiography. Um...

Connor Beaton 21:40 (laughs)

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Connor Beaton 23:30 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 23:30 Like, I just take a mallet to all of the warning signs-

Connor Beaton 23:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 23:32 ... and I go like, you know when the- the classic, like, old car and all of the engine lights are on-

Connor Beaton 23:37 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 23:37 ... but you know that if you whack the dashboard hard enough the connection drops out for a little bit?

Connor Beaton 23:40 I was- I was thinking, like, Whac-A-Mole. Do you guys have that in the UK?

Chris Williamson 23:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Connor Beaton 23:42 Like, the little moles that pop up and you're just like, "Nope, nope, nope."

Chris Williamson 23:45 "Fuck off. I'm not listening to you, I'm not listening to you, I'm not listening to you." Um, but I- I think the- the toxic fuel thing and that being, uh, the- the concern of, "Well, if I face this thing, I'm gonna be less effective. Maybe the world's going to abandon me." The whole reason that I started using the fuel was to get the world to accept me and want me, and now it kind of does, so you're telling me that I've got to let go of the thing that I worked to get to face the thing that I tried to run away from.

Connor Beaton 24:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:16 Uh, it seems like a cosmic joke...

Connor Beaton 24:18 Yep.

Chris Williamson 24:20 ... it seems so unfair. (laughs)

Connor Beaton 24:21 (laughs) Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, I think in many ways, it's a reminder that, like, we, we can't, w- we just can't run from the things that, that we know we need to address and deal with, you know? There's, there's always a toll, there's always a price. And I think in a big way, part of the dilemma that we all have to face as human beings is, am I willing to pay the price to get that? Am I willing to pay the price to ignore that? You know, it's like, I, I probably could be more successful in my career, um, but I'd have to sacrifice my kids, and I'm away from them a lot as it is, you know? I'm away from them right now to be here. And, and every time I leave, it's a conscious choice, and I do believe that, you know, as fathers, we, we need to venture out into the world and, and sort of show that for our kids, but, but there is this sort of trade-off that happens. I, I'm curious, I'm curious for you, as you've kind of gone through that, like, I mean, everything's blown up, everything's like (laughs) be- I can't imagine how different your life is now from the first time that we had our conversation-

Chris Williamson 25:30 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 25:30 ... like, two years ago.

Chris Williamson 25:31 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 25:32 And I know you went through health issues, and so what's it been like for you to have this sort of like meteoric rise and then have something just sort of, like, stop you dead in your tracks and have to deal with something that was unexpected?

Chris Williamson 25:44 It feels a little bit like being a fraud in some ways because you have this, uh, perspective of yourself. Um, you have this expectation which you've put on you, you have this expectation that you think the world is putting on you, too.

Connor Beaton 25:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:59 Um, and you don't really know... No one, no one actually knows why people like them. Like, no one knows... From a content creator perspective, they don't. Like, your friends will say stuff like, "Dude, I, I, I, I love how fucking good of a listener you are and, like, you just always make me feel safe, regulated," rah, rah, rah. (inhales deeply) But there's t- the bit rate of feedback is too low for us-

Connor Beaton 26:18 Hm.

Chris Williamson 26:18 ... to actually be able to understand, so you go, "Well, maybe it's because, like, he kept going. Maybe it's because he showed the consistency or the resilience," and yeah, to be completely flat-lined and kicked in the nuts by something that you didn't choose to do, by something that was, you know, out of your control, uh, i- it felt scary, it feels like, wow, the thing that I worked my entire life for is just about to be taken away from me.

Connor Beaton 26:43 Hm.

Chris Williamson 26:43 And it's through no choice of my own, and, and I've worked very hard for a long time to make myself into someone that I'm proud of, and my better self's slipping through my fingers, through no, no action of my own. And, again, it feels like a, like a cosmic joke. I think... (sniffs)

Chris Williamson 27:01 What would you say to the guy who looks at the inner child work, the mother wound, the past patterns that haven't yet been dealt with, the accumulation of sort of psychological discomfort like that, uh, and say, "I think that's sort of woo bullshit, dude." Like, "That, that doesn't resonate with me. I understand that if you break an arm, you need to put it in a cast, but this is just a question of overcoming suffering, it's noble to do that, it's, uh, uh, like, the sort of life that I want to live as someone who is stoic, who does, like, just get on with stuff." This, yeah, maybe I've hit some sort of a wall, maybe I'm sort of broken in pieces on the ground, but the answer to that is to just, like, David Goggins it and stay hard-

Connor Beaton 27:48 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:48 ... as opposed to Eckhart Tolle it and just, like, remind myself that I'm enough already.

Connor Beaton 27:54 Yeah, I mean, I do think that it's a, it's a bit of both, you know? I do think that part of the challenge that a lot of men have with therapy and therapy culture is that it's become hyper-feminized, and so I think when men look at that, oftentimes, it's like, it doesn't resonate with... Feels too woo-woo, it feels too sort of, like, soft skills, um, but I think it really is about a quest of knowing thyself. And, you know, for, e- for every man, they're going to have a journey and an inflection point where they have to decide, "Am I going to learn about who I am through trial and error and external experiences, or am I going to put on this, you know, the psychological scuba diving mask and, and go in-

Chris Williamson 28:43 Hm.

Connor Beaton 28:43 ... and actually see who the fuck I am?" And I think it's easier for men to say, "I'll just go out in the world," right? "I'll just go build some shit." Because the truth is that the scariest place to be is inside of yourself. That's the truth. Most men know that. You know, barring some extreme situations in war zones and stuff like that, but for the majority of men, for a lot of the men that I've worked with, I've worked with Navy SEALs, I've worked with executives, I've worked with artists and athletes and every single man that I've ever worked with, the most terrifying thing for them is the truth of who they are, because there's parts of them that they do not understand, and that's scary. There's parts of themselves that are out of control, and that's terrifying.

Chris Williamson 29:28 Hm.

Connor Beaton 29:29 And so I think for... What I would say to those men is, "It sounds like you're not really willing to get in the arena with yourself, period." And you can find a medium that works for you, right? Goggins found a medium that seems to work for him, which is that's not my medium, right? I, I don't want to get up at 5:00 AM or 4:00 AM every single day and, and run until my knees are grinding bones against each other. This is just not it for me. Um, I want to push myself physically, for sure, and I want to build things and push myself from an entrepreneurial spa- standpoint, for sure, but there is something to be said for the courage and the bravery that it takes to go in to who you actually are as a human being and start to discover the unsavory parts of yourself. You know, Jung had this great saying that, that the, "The real work of a man is... The real work of men is to discover their own shadow, and if they can do that, they have done something meaningful for the world." And what he meant by that was if you don't understand your own...... maladaptive behaviors, your own sabotage mechanisms. If you don't understand how you are harming other people, then you are, you're essentially passing on harm-

Chris Williamson 30:47 Mm.

Connor Beaton 30:48 ... out into the world, onto other people, inadvertently to your kids or your family members or your friends. And that's not really what... (laughs) I don't know how else to say it, but it's like, that's not really where men find a sense of meaning and purpose. Like, i- in many ways, the archetypes of great kings and great men, they are the men that are servants to others, and how they go about doing that is by deeply understanding who they are. And so, I think for a lot of men, when I hear that, I'm like, "You're scared to know who you really are. You're actually just afraid and that's okay, but don't fucking lie to me that you're just not afraid of who you actually are." Because so many times I've sat with men and I'll say, "Close your eyes." And the, the challenge that that man will have, he'll be a killer in the boardroom, he will be a killer on the football field, and I'll say, "Sit down, close your eyes, take a breath, tell me what's happening inside of you." An immediate confrontation. So, we as men are sculpted through confrontation. Masculinity in some ways requires confrontation, and I think change requires confrontation. Any type of psychological change requires confrontation. I think the challenge is that, uh, some men are afraid of the confrontation with themselves.

Chris Williamson 32:08 (laughs)

Connor Beaton 32:08 What, what are your thoughts on that?

Chris Williamson 32:10 I think it's superbly accurate. I think it makes for a very interesting redefinition of the word bravery, especially for men. Uh, that emotionality, uh, tapping into yourself, being in touch with who you really are, uh, is seen as a kind of weakness. And yet, so much of that that I see among guys is like a sex-based gaslighting. Um...

Connor Beaton 32:45 (laughs) I think, I think it's, I think that's one of the things that's made you very successful is tho- is those little sn- sex ba-

Chris Williamson 32:52 You know the-

Connor Beaton 32:52 Where did that even come from, Chris?

Chris Williamson 32:54 I don't know.

Connor Beaton 32:54 Sex-based gaslighting. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:55 Try, try and tell me it doesn't fit though.

Connor Beaton 32:57 It 100% fits.

Chris Williamson 32:58 It's fucking perfect.

Connor Beaton 32:58 It's great, it's great. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:59 It is because you're scared of what's inside of you. As a man, you're terrified of looking inside of yourself, you're terrified of being in touch with your emotions, you're terrified of your heart. Don't pretend like you're not, and don't pretend like the guys who are prepared to face it are somehow lesser.

Connor Beaton 33:15 Right, right. It's like, I, you know, I do, uh, martial arts, I do Muay Thai a couple times a week. I absolutely love it. I love knowing that I can like, you know, kick some dude in the side of the head (laughs) that's like six f- you know, six foot two.

Chris Williamson 33:28 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 33:29 Uh, but I also am not afraid of how I'm feeling. And I do think that... I think this is what I was talking about before, which is that we've become so one-dimensional. We've over-indexed on like one specific thing, and that hasn't been, that hasn't been the truth for men throughout human history. I mean, when you look at, when you look at men from different walks of life and, uh, you know, like the, the Spartans, right? They do hand-to-hand combat, sword training, fighting in groups, and then in the afternoon, they would learn how to write poetry and dance and play music.

Chris Williamson 34:03 Mm.

Connor Beaton 34:03 You know, so it's, it's always been a part of, of our development as men. It's just recently in the last 100 plus years that we've sort of condensed men down into this one dimension, and it's great if you want to pop out factory workers. It's great if you want to produce armies of people, armies of men that their sole job for 10 hours a day is to put a fucking handle on an ice cream bucket. You know? It's like, you don't want a human being that's thinking about, "How do I feel about doing this?"

Chris Williamson 34:36 Yeah.

Connor Beaton 34:36 You don't want that, right? Because that's not useful because then that person's not going to be useful. So a- again, I think we're, we're entering into this territory, and I think this is what is causing a lot of, part of what's causing a lot of the challenges in modern dating is that women have become much broader in the sense that, you know, they still have network, they still have community, but they've learned how to compete with men. And I think that largely we as men have not adapted and figured out how to compete with women. I think that we are terrible at competing with women because women compete far different. They complete w- they compete way differently than we do as men. We as men, we compete through competition, through competency. It's like, "I'm gonna outwork you. I'm gonna be more competent than you. I'm gonna be more capable than you. I'm gonna figure out the systems and get better at it than you."

Chris Williamson 35:26 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 35:26 And women have figured out how to do that as well, but they also have this whole other skill set of emotional intelligence, of being able to create network, of being able to social, socialize, and along with that, character assassinate, right? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 35:42 (laughs) Yeah.

Connor Beaton 35:42 Like, to then take you out in ways that, that we just don't-

Chris Williamson 35:45 You didn't even see coming.

Connor Beaton 35:45 ... you didn't even see coming, and all of a sudden you're like, "Wait, why is Becky from HR pulling me in and like reprimanding me? Like, what the hell just happened?" Uh, a- and so I think that's very intimidating for some men. I think it's very confusing-

Chris Williamson 35:58 Mm.

Connor Beaton 35:58 ... because we've kind of been sold this bill of goods that if you just prioritize competency and capability, then you should rise through the ladder of culture and society, and you should be able to be successful with women. And I think that that is really in jeopardy right now. I think there's this big kind of tug of war-

Chris Williamson 36:19 Yep.

Connor Beaton 36:19 ... for whether or not that's going to be true or not. And you still have men that are outliers that that is true, that because they're so successful, because they're, th- they have high status and yada, yada, yada, that that still works, but I think for the average guy, that's becoming harder and harder.

Chris Williamson 36:33 Have you seen the new stats... You know, hypergamy, the word hypergamy-

Connor Beaton 36:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:36 ... favorite-

Connor Beaton 36:36 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 36:37 ... of the, the romantic pill.

Connor Beaton 36:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:39 Um, I call it the, the-... red pill, the romantic pill.

Connor Beaton 36:41 That's great. That's great, I like that.

Chris Williamson 36:43 The romantic pill. 'Cause everyone that's in the red pill is a romantic. Everybody, every single guy that's in the red pill is a romantic. Some have failed, some are successful. Um, but fundamentally they want to-

Connor Beaton 36:53 Relationships.

Chris Williamson 36:54 ... they want to find and be loved by a woman. Yeah. It's the romantic pill.

Connor Beaton 36:57 That's great.

Chris Williamson 36:58 Um, hypergamy. Uh, the bottom two quintiles, uh, of men in terms of earning and the top quintile in terms of women for earning have the female as the primary breadwinner in the household now.

Connor Beaton 37:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:15 That's in the US.

Connor Beaton 37:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:16 So, uh, the bottom 40% of guys who earn are dating up socioeconomically, and the top 20% of women earners are dating down socioeconomically.

Connor Beaton 37:28 Yep.

Chris Williamson 37:28 So that is getting squeezed a lot. And, uh, how long have I been fucking screaming about this tall girl problem thing?

Connor Beaton 37:34 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 37:34 Where again, another great meme. Um, if women are socioeconomically successful, soon enough, they're going to stand on the top of their own competence hierarchy, look across and find very few men. And the men that are there have a wealth of opportunity, so they're gonna use and discard women.

Connor Beaton 37:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:50 Um, so yeah, we, we are at this interesting tug of war, but I think, it's not really even a tug anymore. It's like it's happened. It's happened and it's happening.

Connor Beaton 37:59 It's happened. We're, we're fully in it.

Chris Williamson 38:00 Correct. Yeah.

Connor Beaton 38:01 Fully in it.

Chris Williamson 38:01 And we're just trying to sort of pick up the pieces. And for women, what it's felt like, uh, objectively is a lot of gain, lots of gains, right? Uh, "I've now got degrees." There's more women getting, like e- I think it's creeping up into master's and doctorate degrees now as well.

Connor Beaton 38:18 Yep.

Chris Williamson 38:18 So it's not just that they're getting into undergrad. Um, more degrees, they earn more than guys up to the age of 30, 31. Now that's continuing to creep up as well. And you go, that just seems like a boon. Now there are prices that women are gonna pay, and those are gonna be ones that are much m- harder to quantify. Quality of life, eight out of 10 women that don't have kids and breach their reproductive window don't say that they didn't intend to not have children.

Connor Beaton 38:44 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:44 So, uh, or say that they didn't intend to not have children, sorry. What this means is the prices that women and like, uh, the, uh, the feminism problem or the femininity problem, supposed to the masculinity problem, uh, are gonna be felt later, further down the line and they're gonna be more subtle and they're gonna be much more psychological, um, or mu- at least much more hidden, I think. Uh, but objectively, guys are already in it.

Connor Beaton 39:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:11 They're in it right now. In other news, you've probably heard me talk about LMNT before, and that's because I am frankly (laughs) dependent on it. Uh, and it's how I've started my day every single morning. This is the best tasting hydration drink on the market. You might think, "Why do I need to be more hydrated?" Because proper hydration is not just about drinking enough water. It's having sufficient electrolytes to allow your body to use those fluids. Each grab and go stick pack is a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium. It's got no sugar, coloring, artificial ingredients, or any other junk. This plays a critical role in reducing muscle cramps and fatigue while optimizing brain health, regulating your appetite, and curbing cravings. This orange flavor in a cold glass of water is a sweet, salty, orangey nectar, and you will genuinely feel the difference when you take it versus when you don't, which is why I keep going on about it. Best of all, there's a no questions asked refund policy with an unlimited duration. Buy it, use it all, and if you don't like it for any reason, they give you your money back and you don't even have to return the box. That's how confident they are that you'll love it. Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of LMNT's most popular flavors with your first purchase by going to the link in the description below, heading to drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom. That's drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom.

Connor Beaton 40:26 Yeah. We're, we're in it. I mean, the, the, the decline of men is staggering. You know, when you look at the stats and the data of, you know, there's less men going to college than ever before. You know, by 2030, you're gonna have two women graduating with degrees for every one man, right? And when you look at the women that graduate from college, they statistically want men with college degrees. They wanna date men with college degrees, right? So we're, we're creating a, a population of men that a lot of women don't... that s- they say they don't necessarily want to date on paper.

Chris Williamson 41:00 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 41:00 Right? So you have less men going to college, you have less men in the workforce. I mean, there's, there's a huge amount of men, something like six or seven million American men are not in the workforce right now.

Chris Williamson 41:10 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Connor Beaton 41:11 So you have this massive, uh, exodus from the workforce. You have more young men under 30 living at home than ever before. You have more young men not dating, right? So like, I mean, I feel like Scott Galloway right now. Just, I can hear Scott just, like, listing off the, the stats, right? It's like, you know, 40% of men at the age of 30 haven't approached a woman in the last year and haven't had sex with a woman in the last year. And so I, I think that when you look socially and economically, young men really are in decline. And I think the problem with that is that when we go to talk about young men, men's problems and how we can alter society or create social programs for men to actually support them, it... all hell breaks loose. You know, it just, it just turns into a kind of, um, you know, misandry fest. (laughs) It's like ma- man hate just becomes very apparent when you start to talk about men's problems and men's issues. But I-

Chris Williamson 42:07 It feels like it's taking resources away from some other more deserving group, that's why.

Connor Beaton 42:12 Sure. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:12 It's a zero sum view of empathy and resources.

Connor Beaton 42:14 Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think that hierarchies have just shifted, right? And so there's... th- the, the power distribution is not going towards men anymore. And I think that that is very hard for a lot of people to come to terms with. I think it's also detrimental for our society and our culture. And I do think that young men have... I think they have a hard time. I think that as a culture, we've forgotten how hard it is to, to take a young boy and turn him into a man, and to get him through that period of...... going through puberty, having testosterone, wanting to basically like, you know, fight, fucking feed (laughs) crash out entirely, uh, and, and get him into manhood in a functional way, and so I think that we, we almost have like a type of amnesia with how hard it is to turn a young boy into a man. I think it's, I think it's very, very challenging. And so, and then when we look at the social programs for young men, uh, and boys, they're, they're few and far between, right? So you have young boys that don't have father figures at home, you know, one in four kids in America don't have a father figure in the household. You, you have young boys, they're gonna go into an education system that is female-dominated, so they're not gonna have role models at home, not gonna have role models in the school system. If they go through a therapeutic vein 'cause they're having problems, that's dominated by women as well. And so there's a kind of vacancy. There's like a male role model vacancy, and for a lot of young boys, there's the, what they're looking for is a type of transmission from men around, "How do I get through this process?"

Chris Williamson 43:55 Mm.

Connor Beaton 43:55 "W, how do I go from being this boy or being this adolescence into being somebody who can regulate, who can deal with the intensity of his anger, who can deal with, you know, the fear of the rejection of talking to a woman in a coffee shop or at the grocery store?"

Chris Williamson 44:11 Mm.

Connor Beaton 44:11 And so I think that that absence is, is really crushing for a lot of young men, and then I think when you couple that with, um, with the parenting style that we've gone through in the last couple decades, which is like the helicopter parent, it- it has completely debilitated a lot of young men. The, the, there's two simple things that the parenting data that basically, like, shows, y- when it comes to raising a healthy child, whether it's a, a boy or a girl, is that you need high standards and high support. You need those two things. You need really good solid standards of, "Here's what I expect from you. I wanna help you develop. I want you to develop competency in these different areas," and then high support. "I'm also gonna help you to do those things." What a lot of young boys grow up with is extremely high standards with very little support, right? It's like, "I expect you to get the high grades. I expect you to be exceptional at hockey or lacrosse or basketball," whatever it is, "but I'm not actually going to teach you how to do those things. I'm not gonna support you to do that."

Chris Williamson 45:11 Mm.

Connor Beaton 45:11 Or, in the last couple decades, we've had the inverse, right? Where it's been like, "It's okay, honey. You got tenth place. It's all right. No worries."

Chris Williamson 45:18 Low standards. High standards.

Connor Beaton 45:20 No standards, no expectations, no nothing. And for that young man, he's like, "Well, fuck. Is this it then? Am I just supposed to ... Okay, I guess I'll just play video games and jerk off watching PornHub," you know? Like, "Nobody expects anything from me and culture is telling me that I'm the problem, so I'm just gonna check out." So I think that you have this intersection of problems that are creating a shit storm for young

Connor Beaton 45:42 men.

Chris Williamson 45:42 What are some of the traits of an emotionally safe man?

Connor Beaton 45:46 Well, first, I think you need to have the ability to regulate your own nervous system, so you need to have some level of competency over your own emotional awareness. You need to have an understanding of what's happening inside of you. If you don't know or you're not able to identify what's happening inside of yourself emotionally when you're angry, when you feel ashamed, when you feel anxious, when you feel sad, when you feel embarrassed, if you don't, if you can't differentiate between those things or identify them and then be able to regulate yourself through them so that you don't lash out and get reactive and get defensive all the time or, you know, you, you get rejected for a phone number at the coffee shop or whatever and you, you dissolve into a puddle of like, "Oh, my God. I'm such a piece of shit," which I understand. I've been there. I actually have been there. (laughs) You know, I, like, was that guy when I was a teenager. Uh, rejection was brutal, but if you, if you aren't able to understand what's happening inside of you and move yourself through it, it's gonna be very, very challenging to do that for anybody else. So that's kind of like the first place, the first step. Um, and then secondly, I think you need to have the capacity to draw out emotional content, and this is a s- this is a skill set that far few men learn. I think what we learn as men is get the, get the content logistically. Get the logistical content, like what happened, when did it happen, um, what did it look like, you know? Like, we get all those details, but what we don't ask is, "What was that actually like for you," you know? "What was it like for you when your boss was pissed off or when you fucked up the presentation? What h- what was that like for you? What happened inside of you?" And so that's another skill set that I think a lot of young men need, is to be able to draw out emotional content. "Tell me what that was like. What happened? How did you feel in that moment?" You know, when, when she said that, when he did that, what was that like? And (clears throat) those simple things are going to create a connection, a bridge for the other person to say, "Oh, this, this person is interested in how I'm feeling." And so I think for a lot of men, just showing I have interest in what's happening inside of you-

Chris Williamson 48:05 Mm.

Connor Beaton 48:05 ... is also the next step, and then being to respond and not react. A lot of the times, we personalize the shit out of especially women's, uh, the women that we're dating, um, but we, we personalize what other people are saying, and so you might have your girlfriend or your wife talking about something and, you know, b- she's talking about how she was disappointed in her mom or some argument with, with you, and all of a sudden, it's like, "Well, did I do something wrong and how could I have done that better and what's wrong with me?" And so a lot of men collapse into a type of defensiveness or reactivity to go on the attack, to character assassinate, to, you know, sort of just defend themselves in that moment, and so we need to be able to regulate and then respond versus just reacting from whatever emotion comes up inside of us when somebody else is talking. And sometimes that means that we have to be able to hear...... what somebody is saying to us and about us without becoming defensive, without becoming reactive.

Chris Williamson 49:11 How do you do that?

Connor Beaton 49:13 Y- your breath is a big part of it. Like, y- I think this is just a very simple thing, like your breath is a huge piece of regulating your nervous system. And so, you know, for a lot of guys that I work with, when they... There's this moment, Viktor Frankl has this beautiful phrase, which is, "Between stimulus and response, there is a pause," and we have to be able to feel that pause. So, for a lot of guys, as soon as they hear hard content, you know, it's like you forgot something and your partner's upset and she's like, "How could you have forgotten to do that? I asked you, I texted you." And all of a sudden, the shame and the guilt and the, you know, the heaviness of like, "Fuck. Oh, fuck, I fucked up," or like the defensiveness that happens. Being able to literally take some breaths so that the emotional intensity and the charge that has happened inside of you can subside a little bit instead of immediately reacting from that place. What most of us do, as men, is immediately react from that place.

Chris Williamson 50:09 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 50:10 So we're reacting from the shame, we're reacting from the anger, we're reacting from the defensiveness and the embarrassment. And so what I teach a lot of men is just, like, take three breaths before you respond. I know it sounds super simple and super... it's like so simple that it sounds dumb. But if you can just start to interrupt the pattern of reacting immediately from an emotion, you can create a new pathway of being able to take some breaths so that you can, quote-unquote, "down-regulate your system." Or at the very least, you can get some awareness of, "What is happening inside of me?" So take a breath, understand what's happening inside of yourself, and then you can either choose to set that aside or you can voice it, right? It's like, "Oh, I hear you and I feel really defensive, so I'm going to pause." You know? Or, "I get what you're saying and you're right, I totally forgot to do that. I'll take care of it."

Chris Williamson 51:04 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 51:05 So you, you don't personalize what's happening and you're able to actually stay with your experience.

Chris Williamson 51:12 The mindfulness gap is what my meditation teacher referred to it as.

Connor Beaton 51:16 Yes.

Chris Williamson 51:17 It's like space. Uh, I certainly know the periods in my life where I've had that the most. There's a few incidents that were really, really funny where somebody, um, got very agitated. Like this guy in a Nando's I was in, in the UK. I was with my friends. Always use this as an example, it's so funny. And this guy sort of-

Connor Beaton 51:36 Always Nando's.

Chris Williamson 51:36 ... had a... I know, I know. Scum.

Connor Beaton 51:39 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:39 Uh, I'm very working class, which is why Nando's for me is a, a huge treat.

Connor Beaton 51:43 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:44 Um, I walked past his table, he kicked off at me because he thought that I got too close, and this was like deep, deep, deep meditation mode me. Like, this was the peak monk mode, three-hour morning routine, like gratitude. This is when I was doing, I think, 1,000 days sober and 500 days without caffeine at the same time.

Connor Beaton 52:05 Oh. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:06 (laughs) It's... The- the alcohol thing's great, the caffeine thing's fucking miserable and pointless.

Connor Beaton 52:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:11 Um, but was a, uh, a good lesson to learn. Anyway, this guy kicks off and because I've, uh, d- I don't know, he was obviously having a bad day, like he was obviously on the edge, he was having a bad day. And I remember, like, watching this thing unfold and I just turned around and said, "Oh," and kept on walking. And he'd made this big sort of explosion. Oh, let me give you this. You're going to fucking love this. You go to Joe Hudson yet? Have I got you into Joe?

Connor Beaton 52:35 I've, I think, yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:36 Art of Accomplishment guy?

Connor Beaton 52:37 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:37 He stinks of you. So, he taught me this idea called, uh, vagal authority.

Connor Beaton 52:44 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 52:45 You already know what it means, right? Like, you're in a room, somebody's nervous system is dysregulated, somebody's is regulated. Which way does the rest of the room go?

Connor Beaton 52:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:53 And which way do you go? That guy there, I held de- vagal authority. Now, I'm not sure if he was able to take my regulation and go back to his family and be like, "I don't know. I don't think I should have blown up that much. That guy just walked near my table." Um-

Connor Beaton 53:06 Yeah. May- maybe not, but...

Chris Williamson 53:08 But the, the, the idea that I am so regulated that not only can I keep myself where I want to be while you are doing something else, but also, I maybe have so much surplus that you can kind of borrow from it.

Connor Beaton 53:22 Yes.

Chris Williamson 53:22 Like, my cup is so full that the saucer that overflows around it can fill yours up.

Connor Beaton 53:26 Yes.

Chris Williamson 53:27 And, um, yeah, when I think about emotional safety, that regulation piece is a, a huge part. But I guess a lot of guys will worry or fear, "How do I build emotional range without losing my grounding or my strength or my attractiveness, my-"

Connor Beaton 53:46 Mm-hmm.

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Connor Beaton 54:50 Well, I think, I think that that's... When you... (laughs) What I'm really talking about is a type of emotional containment, but it's containment not through suppression. It's not by cutting yourself off from what you feel, it's not about, you know, beheading your emotions or, or numbing yourself out from them. It's actually by gaining a mastery...... through deeply understanding and feeling what you're feeling in any given moment, to the degree that they do not control you. For the average man, what happens is that they feel something and they become something. They feel anger, and they become angry. They feel shame, and they're shameful, right? And so the emotion comes up, and then they become that emotion, and then they respond from that ro- emotion, they react from that emotion. Versus, "Oh, there's that emotion. I, I know that I'm feeling that emotion and I can feel that emotion, but I can still have enough space from that emotion that I can still respond in a grounded way." And (clears throat) this, this type of emotional containment, this type of emotional regulation, is really what... (sighs) When you look at people like Marcus Aurelius, when you look at, um, really great leaders, when you look at Aragorn. I did this video about, you know, the, the masculinity of Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, which is super fucking nerdy, but I'm kind of a nerd so I thought I would do it. Uh, th- i- it's, it's becoming a, a man who is capable of dealing with the intensity and the charge within himself so that he can learn to deal with the intensity and the charge of others. That is a gift, right? That is a gift that we as men can provide the world, can provide our children, can provide our friends, can provide our family, the women in our life. And (clears throat) for a lot of women, that is what they're saying when they say, "I want safety. I want emotional attunement." Now, it's j- not your job to make all women safe. That's kind of impossible. It's not your job to do that. It's also not your job to, you know, help the woman that you're dating feel better all the time. That's people pleasing and codependency and all that other type of stuff. But what you can bring is containment. And sometimes that containment can look different ways. It can be, you know, your partner, your girlfriend, or your wife saying something that's crossing a line that's like a little bit of a jab or an edge, and you saying, "I didn't like that. Don't do that again. I love you. I don't like when you talk to me like that." And it's s- it's not a threat. It's not angry. You're not blowing up, "Oh, why do you fucking do this to me all the time? Uh, uh, I hate when you talk to me like that." It's just clear-grounded boundaries. And, but you need to have emotional connection to be able to attune to the information of, "Oh, that wasn't okay. That pissed me off." So good. "That made me feel embarrassed." Yeah. "That made me feel shame." And so emotions are just data. They're just data. And we as men, the, I think the men that become the real leaders of the future, I think the men that become really successful in the future, whether it's with women or in the business world, are going to be men that are exceptionally emotionally attuned, that are able to read the data that's happening inside of them and not be numbed out or completely disconnected, but be able to understand that there's a very real intensity inside of them. And the interesting thing is that, when you look at something like the, the, um, neurology and the data around emotions between men and women, it's, it's generally that women will feel more emotions, um, more often, and men will feel singular emotions more intensely. And so, men generally will stay in an emotion for a longer period of time, and they'll stay in an intensity of that emotion. This is why you have guys that are, like, you know, they'll stay in their depression for ages and ages and ages, right? They'll stay in their anxiety or their anger. They'll stay angry and frustrated- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ... for, you know, days on end and they're holding grudges and they're not talking to anybody for days and they're cutting people off. Eh, they're, they're s- in that intensity of that emotions. So (clears throat) I think the more that we as men can learn how to deal with the charge inside of ourselves, through the breath, through awareness of like what is actually happening inside of me, without saying, "Something's fucking wrong with me 'cause I have emotions." Or, uh, you know, uh, um, like it's emotional competency. That's what it really is. Mm-hmm. It's being able to have emotional competency and say like, "Oh, f- you know, I, I felt angry when you said that. You know, I didn't, I didn't like when you did that. That wasn't okay with me." Or, "I really loved when you, you know, did X, Y, and Z." And that type of emotional attunement to ourselves and then to others, is like a super power for men. And (clears throat) I think that for a lot of women, it's, it's really what they're asking for. And I'm not saying that we as men should do that to give them that. I think that we should do that because it allows us a certain level of meaning and depth that I think most men are deeply craving. You know, deeply craving. And (clears throat) how are you supposed to walk through life with a sense of purpose and meaning if you're disconnected from the data of your own emotions? It's so hard, and we need those things to set boundaries, to know when things are okay and not okay. We need those things for relationships and trust and safety. Mm-hmm. But we also need those things for leadership. Like, the, the men that are going to be leaders of the future will have an exceptional level of emotional literacy, and they will have a very high capacity to regulate their nervous system. When you look at today's culture and society, people are fucked. Their nervous systems are fucked. And so, who are people turning to? They're turning to people who have said, "I'm able to navigate the shit storm of the chaos of our times."... the chaos of our social media and our culture, and the uncertainty of whether AI is gonna destroy us all and climate's gonna kill everything. And da da da da da. Most people's nervous systems are so hijacked. And so if you're a man who's able to regulate your nervous system in your relationship and in a work setting, in a genuine, meaningful way, without needing to numb yourself out constantly and chronically through booze or weed or porn or whatever it is, and you can do it in a genuine way that is aligned with your values, you're going to be unstoppable. You're gonna be unstoppable because y- you will be signaling to women, "I have done something that most men haven't done." Because most women know that for the majority of men, it's extremely hard to put on the scuba diving mask and go inside and confront the dragon within, the beast inside of ourselves. Most women know that that's something that we as men are afraid of. And so women are largely in our culture, I think, saying, "I really am craving a man that has met himself, that's confronted himself, that's met his own demons and his own darkness, and knows his violence and knows what makes him dangerous." That is, I think, what men are really being asked to do. And I feel bad for a lot of the young men because so many of them are either finding the sort of like false gods of masculinity or there's just a vacancy entirely.

Chris Williamson 1:02:34 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:02:35 You know, there's just a vacancy.

Chris Williamson 1:02:36 The choice is between extreme and void.

Connor Beaton 1:02:39 Yeah. Yeah. And you're going to take extreme every single time.

Chris Williamson 1:02:42 Yeah. Because it's better to be, uh, given some advice that sounds right but may not be than no advice at all. Because that sounds like-

Connor Beaton 1:02:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:51 ... that feels like being lost.

Connor Beaton 1:02:52 It's my biggest problem with progressive liberal, um, talking points around masculinity in men, is that there's, there's no target. There's no aim. It's a, it's a continuous laundry list of the things that you should not do. So there's no actual aim or definition. There's, there's no, um, trajectory that you can point yourself towards and say, "I want to become that. I want to move in that direction-"

Chris Williamson 1:03:22 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:03:23 "... that is something that I can ascend towards."

Chris Williamson 1:03:27 The, uh, vagal decapitation-

Connor Beaton 1:03:29 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:03:29 ... that you were talking about that, like, you know, a person who only lives above the neck.

Connor Beaton 1:03:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:34 Um, I'm gonna keep going. I've had my new tonic today, dude.

Connor Beaton 1:03:37 It's good. It's, it's good.

Chris Williamson 1:03:37 I'm gonna get, I'm gonna keep naming shit that-

Connor Beaton 1:03:39 I gotta start, I'm gonna start taking those.

Chris Williamson 1:03:39 I'm gonna keep naming shit that you came up with. Um, hey, do you want one for your, the turning or whatever it was, the narrow path, the turning thing?

Connor Beaton 1:03:46 Yes, yes.

Chris Williamson 1:03:47 Manopause.

Connor Beaton 1:03:48 Oh, menopause. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:50 Yeah.

Connor Beaton 1:03:50 That's good.

Chris Williamson 1:03:51 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Connor Beaton 1:03:51 That's true.

Chris Williamson 1:03:52 Works on many levels.

Connor Beaton 1:03:53 It's true.

Chris Williamson 1:03:54 Um, the thing that comes to mind and what I'm particularly fascinated about is almost objection handling, uh, some of the stuff that comes up that will come up for guys that I've seen-

Connor Beaton 1:04:06 Yeah, yes.

Chris Williamson 1:04:07 ... online a lot. Um, I think one of the first objections earlier on is, "Well, that toxic fuel has helped me to be successful. Also, I turned that toxic fuel, I alchemized that bad thing into something good. Is that not something I should be proud of?" Um, another element might be, "In order for me to delve into this, I feel like my real world performance is going to dip and it very well may do." Uh, Tiger Woods had this issue with his swing that he'd developed as a young golfer that he needed to purposefully go back and fix.

Connor Beaton 1:04:35 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:36 So he needed to adjust his hand position, adjust his back swing because there was, there's too many variables in that. Why are you grinning?

Connor Beaton 1:04:40 (laughs) When you said Tiger Woods had a problem, I was like, "With Swedish bikini models or?"

Chris Williamson 1:04:45 Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had many-

Connor Beaton 1:04:46 I thought that's what you were gonna say.

Chris Williamson 1:04:46 ... he had many problems. This is before that.

Connor Beaton 1:04:48 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:04:48 This is before that. This was in the confines of his sport. Um, he had to, uh, basically unlearn, which is 100 times harder than learning.

Connor Beaton 1:04:54 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:04:55 Uh, he had to unlearn and then relearn in order to get to the next level. But that required a false peak. He got to as good as he was going to be with this. He had to go back and then come back up. So I think even if you do go, well, look, uh, you might... Real world effectiveness might be reduced-

Connor Beaton 1:05:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:14 ... if you crack yourself open in this sort of a way.

Connor Beaton 1:05:16 For a period of time, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:17 Correct. Yeah. And in my experience, that's true. (laughs) That's true. I just need to put it out there. I know that you said, "You know, you can show up in an open-hearted way and blah, blah, blah." The first couple of years of trying to feel feelings fucking blow, dude.

Connor Beaton 1:05:31 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:05:31 I'm gonna... (laughs) I'm just gonna be upfront about it.

Connor Beaton 1:05:33 I get it. I get it.

Chris Williamson 1:05:34 But another one of the objections is, uh, the world to me seems to be split largely into two groups. Uh, people who know that they should be feeling emotions and either are or are not. And people who just don't feel emotions that deeply or are so good at repressing them that functionally it's the same thing.

Connor Beaton 1:05:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:05:53 And these two groups constantly argue between each other. Um, the second group, the group that doesn't necessarily feel emotions quite so deeply, uh, the Tim Kennedys of the world, for instance. I actually think that David Goggins is a bad example of this because I think he does feel things very deeply-

Connor Beaton 1:06:09 He does.

Chris Williamson 1:06:09 ... which is what's caused him to go and do something so extreme-

Connor Beaton 1:06:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:06:13 ... as a, a mechanism for him to be able to alchemize it. Um, Tim Kennedy would be an example of somebody who, at least in my experience, slightly less so. If you're a sniper, a Green Beret, all that stuff, um, that tends to not be your archetype. Um, for them when they start to talk about, "Well, the opening up of emotions, I don't even know what you're talking about, tapping into inner child wounds, doing the shadow work, alchemy, things falling apart, the phoenix, all this stuff," I just... I, it, it doesn't resonate that much with me. And also on the female side of this are the sort of women who would see a man opening up in that way and think less of him.

Connor Beaton 1:06:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:06:47 Who would see a man that wants to try and have a deeply connected, heartfelt, emotionally, uh, aware, emotionally mature relationship that not only experiences emotions but talks about them and works on them together to transcend and include them.

Connor Beaton 1:07:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:03 Um, that group of people who are...... a- it w- would be wonderful for them all to just get together. But unfortunately, sometimes they cross over and you have the guys that don't feel with the girls that do, and the guys who do feel with the girls that don't, or-

Connor Beaton 1:07:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:18 ... don't take it in the manner that they wanted to. And I think (exhales) just identifying, "Hey, if you're a dude who has the horrible affliction of actually feeling things, as far as I can see, you have two choices." The first one is to actually open the bank account of this emotional inheritance-

Connor Beaton 1:07:46 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:46 ... and have a look at what's inside of it and do the work on it. Uh, the second one is to be floating above your life like a hovercraft for the rest of time. Like, you never... It's like being a poltergeist. You're, like, haunting your own existence.

Connor Beaton 1:07:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:08:00 You never actually come into contact with your own life, fully. That advice is not for the group of guys that don't feel stuff quite so deeply.

Connor Beaton 1:08:08 Correct.

Chris Williamson 1:08:09 And it's that group, I think, that often tends to throw sh- Well, maybe it's not. Maybe it is the, um, "I don't want to have to feel the thing that I know I should feel." Perhaps it comes from both directions. But you, i- this is like trying to speak Arabic to a dog or something, you know, a dog that doesn't speak Arabic as well.

Connor Beaton 1:08:27 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:08:28 Um, it's just never gonna work on that second group. Um, but I think... What I'm trying to say is, if you are the sort of guy who really feels things very deeply, I think that you have a beautiful adventure ahead of you, but it's fucking terrifying.

Connor Beaton 1:08:44 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:08:44 And you have a... almost like a burden or a cost to pay, or a, a demon to slay, that some of the guys might not. And they've got other ones.

Connor Beaton 1:08:51 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:08:52 But your one is to put the scuba mask on-

Connor Beaton 1:08:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:08:55 ... and go diving.

Connor Beaton 1:08:56 Yeah. If you're, if you're the guy that... and I really do... It feels like a curse, you know, at first, um, to have such a soft heart, you know? It does. When I, when I was a, when I was a boy, I mean, I, I had such a soft heart, you know? I was just... You know, my parents got divorced when I was three. I remember (clears throat) so many nights just crying 'cause my dad was gone.

Chris Williamson 1:09:24 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:09:25 And I look back and I was like, "Man, I was a really big feeling kid," you know? And life had a way of hardening me up. (clears throat) But I think for a lot of men, we look at that, we look at that and we say, "Oh, if I'm a big feeler, either there's something wrong with me or that's a curse that I have to deal with, so let me numb it out."

Chris Williamson 1:09:46 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:09:46 And numbness is not a sign of emotional vacancy for the majority of men. Numbness is a sign of emotional fullness, that you are over capacity. Numbness is not emotional vacancy, it is emotional fullness. It's that your system has become overridden with too much emotions, and so your brain's only way to deal with that is to say, "Let me just turn off the sensor. Let me shut down the, the i- (laughs) the, like, inflow of information-"

Chris Williamson 1:10:17 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:10:17 "... of everything that's going on down there."

Chris Williamson 1:10:19 Hit the dashboard, get the warning light off.

Connor Beaton 1:10:20 Yeah, I hit the dashboard, get the warning light off, right?

Chris Williamson 1:10:22 Yep.

Connor Beaton 1:10:22 So, I think y- you have to start to look at it as y- y- whether or not you're going to choose to go on that journey and confront that truth about yourself and learn how to deal with this gift that e- exists inside of you. It really is a

Connor Beaton 1:10:38 beautiful gift.

Chris Williamson 1:10:39 How do you think about guys who have that disposition? Where do you think they find their self-worth from? Because it seems to me, especially in the modern world, the group that doesn't feel is able to trade on their masculinity publicly-

Connor Beaton 1:10:56 So-

Chris Williamson 1:10:56 ... in a different way. It's much more observable.

Connor Beaton 1:10:59 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 1:10:59 It's much more obvious. It's more classic.

Connor Beaton 1:11:02 Accomplishment, doing.

Chris Williamson 1:11:03 More... Yep.

Connor Beaton 1:11:03 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:11:03 Archetypal.

Connor Beaton 1:11:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:11:04 Um, ag- again, the objection of, "Well, not only is it gonna maybe make me worse for a little while, and I've gotta feel all of these things, and it's gonna be really hard, and I managed to survive so long without doing it, and the stuff that I alchemized was for me avoiding it, not me dee- diving into it, and now you're gonna say that maybe the world's gonna laugh at me a little bit too."

Connor Beaton 1:11:23 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:11:24 How do you think about, uh, building self-esteem as... uh, holding on to self-esteem, holding on to things to be proud d- of in a world that doesn't... especially in the messy middle bit, which is where presumably most guys get stuck-

Connor Beaton 1:11:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:11:39 ... uh, before you've got to Marcus Aurelius level where everyone goes-

Connor Beaton 1:11:43 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:11:43 ... "Oh my God, the vagal authority in the guy. He's so fucking... He's... I don't know what it is. He just makes me feel, like, calm and secure when I'm around him. I don't really know what's going on, but there's something..." Before you get to that, you're this dude that's, like, trying to decode the fucking, like, Da Vinci project here.

Connor Beaton 1:12:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:12:03 H- how, how should guys think about finding that self-esteem and, and that sort of pride on the journey?

Connor Beaton 1:12:09 There's a very simple truth and equation around developing worth, which is confronting and doing hard things that you know are hard, that you know you need to do, always develop a sense of worth and value.

Chris Williamson 1:12:27 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:12:28 And so if you are a man that has... you're just a big feeler, you know, you're a big softie inside, and you have this, you know, beautiful treasure trove of emotions that no one's really ever ushered you into understanding, no one's really ever taught you what to do with them, how to handle them, how to deal with that intensity that lives inside of you, you have to choose whether or not you're going to address them. And I, I think what you said is accurate, that if you don't, you'll always kind of be a ghost floating around in your own body, you know, because-

Chris Williamson 1:13:04 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:13:04 ... you will have... You will be cutting yourself off from a part of who you actually are. You, you will literally be disassociating-... from a part of who you are. And w-

Chris Williamson 1:13:14 You'll feel like you got shunted to the side of the road of your own life.

Connor Beaton 1:13:17 Correct.

Chris Williamson 1:13:17 Yeah.

Connor Beaton 1:13:18 And a basic psychological principle is that when we fracture off from something that is true, it creates mental suffering. So, if-

Chris Williamson 1:13:26 That's interesting. Tell me more about that.

Connor Beaton 1:13:28 Well, if you're in, if you're in great shape and you look in the, in the mirror and you look at your body and you think, "Fuck, I look like shit," but objectively and even subjectively, there's a part of yourself that knows, like, "Actually, I'm in great shape," you start to suffer, because you are fractured off from a sense of truth. If, a- anxiety is another version of this, right? All of a sudden, in a moment where you're just like, your body's pinging off, the alarm bells are going off inside of your body and you're, like, sitting at home watching Netflix and you're like, "I should be safe. I- I am s- objectively safe, but my body is telling me that I'm not." So you're fractured off from the truth of your reality.

Chris Williamson 1:14:06 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:14:07 So coherence and, um, congruency-

Chris Williamson 1:14:13 Yeah, I love that word.

Connor Beaton 1:14:14 C- coherence and congruency are mental well-being. The more you can align yourself objectively and subjectively with- with what is true, the more that you actually develop mental wellness. So if you have a lot of emotions inside of you and you are ignoring those emotions, how you feel about things and the intensity with which you feel about those things, you are going to create more and more suffering by ignoring those. It's just, that's a fundamental truth of our psychological well-being and our emotional well-being. And- and you're going to have to deploy a disproportionate amount of energy to try and ignore what you're feeling internally. So you're going to, you're gonna cut yourself off at the knees in some way, shape, or form. Whether you will, you know, chronically be confused, this is a case that I see for a lot of men, they have big emotions, they ignore their emotions, but then they're chronically confused about whether or not a relationship was right for them, whether or not their career is right for them, whether or not they're moving in the diri- right direction. They're just f- they're just generally lost, and there's, like, an ambiguity and a- and a haze that shows up for them psychologically. Why? Well, because they've cut themself off from a huge amount of data and information of what is true in themselves and in their life. So they can never find clarity-

Chris Williamson 1:15:34 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:15:34 ... because they don't have any emotional clarity. So they're just lost because they're trying to find the truth of their life purely through rationale and logic, completely ignoring emotional truth and data. So, they can never find truth. They can never find a path forward. They can never find meaning and purpose, because they're- they've over-indexed on rationality. So we have to move more towards coherence and congruency. And as we do that, as w- get more in alignment with what is true, then we produce more psychological well-being. That's the outcome. So if what's true is that you have a lot of emotions and you feel incompetent at dealing with those emotions, then... Or you- you are just ignoring those emotions and pretending like they're not there, you're going to create emotional, uh, dis-ease and discomfort and suffering within yourself. But if you acknowledge and you say, "You know what? I have all these emotions. They're super intense. Sometimes I'm anxious, sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm this, but I have really intense emotions, and what's true is, I fucking suck at dealing with them. And what I was taught growing up was just to disassociate from them." Well, now you have a truth. The truth is, "I need to become more competent at feeling my feelings and moving through them so that they don't take charge of my life, because there's something important there." And then you have a pathway forward. And that is a form of confrontation, but it's a form of aligning yourself with the truth. For the other guys that don't have the big emotions, you know, they- they probably land on the scale of being... Likely having higher levels of the dark triad, higher levels of psychopathy, lower levels of empathy, lower levels of agreeableness, um, extremely disagreeable and, you know, we could talk about why that may or may not have happened. It may be a psychological dis- de- uh, uh, disposition, predisposition, um, or it could just be that that's neurologically how they were designed and their nervous system was designed and there's just not a real connection between what's happening in their bodies and- and their emotional bodies and their mind. Um, those men... Those men will either... Get to a place in their life where they realize that the void of empathy is so catastrophic that they have to address it, and then go about the journey of understanding how to develop a different sense of empathy, a different sense of compassion, and maybe they don't feel the full spectrum of emotions that are there. Um, (clears throat) and there's, uh, but I think that these cases are fewer and far between.

Chris Williamson 1:18:21 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:18:21 I think that generally speaking, more men have more intense emotions inside of them that they just are ill-equipped to deal with and they don't want to admit that, because admitting a lack of competency as a man, especially a high performing man, is like the worst fucking thing that we could do-

Chris Williamson 1:18:37 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:18:37 ... and so we don't want to do that. Um, but I think that for- for the other men that genuinely are just like, "I don't feel a lot and I don't believe that it's because of childhood trauma or, you know, something that caused this, uh, this maladaptive way of- of moving through and I just have higher levels of, 'I don't give a shit' and I just go forward." Um, it's not to say that that's bad or wrong or that it's worse or anything else, it's just that at some point in your life, you will likely have to develop and work hard on developing empathy and compassion. And either you can proactively do it or you will systematically destroy enough relationships and opportunities in your life that you will come to the point where you will be forced...... into a kind of submission, into k- a kind of like knee lock or an arm bar-

Chris Williamson 1:19:26 Mm-hmm.

Connor Beaton 1:19:26 ... where you're like, "Oh, look at the wake of destruction that I have le- I'm four marriages deep. Shit, I wonder why." Or like, "I've destroyed five business relationships and imploded two companies, and all of my former employees fucking hate me. I- I should probably figure this out."

Chris Williamson 1:19:42 Before we continue, I've been drinking AG1 every morning for as long as I can remember now, because it is the simplest way I found to