Women Are Turned Off By Passive Men - Dr Robert Glover

1. 0:00 – 8:40

   Believe Your Needs Are Important

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      So, you say if you don't believe you and your needs are important, you won't be receptive to the good things the world wants to give you?

   2. RGDr Robert Glover0:08

      That's a good starting point.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:10

      Why do you think so many guys subjugate their needs?

   4. RGDr Robert Glover0:14

      Um, we've been taught to, and we inaccurately internalized, ironically, that that was the best way to get our needs met. I mean, think about it, if- if you're a- a small child, infant, and you don't have a lot of thinking, processing power, just survival power, and, uh, let's say you- you quickly come to the awareness that the caretakers in your life are not real competent. They don't respond timely, they don't respond cont- consistently. They don't respond with what you really need. And, um, so what you learn is, "Well, maybe if I get rid of my needs, or maybe if I become needless and wantless..." I mean, this isn't thought, it's just emotional survival reaction. "If I take care of their needs, if I make sure they're okay, then they'll be okay to make sure I'm okay." And all of this begins before we can even think about it. So, it gets wired into our nervous system, and we grow up to be children, adolescents, adults, and we just keep following the same thing that got wired in when... very inaccurately, when we were just a few months old.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:14

      Isn't it strange to think that we can rail against the world not giving us the things that we want, meanwhile, we don't make the things that we want a priority?

   6. RGDr Robert Glover1:23

      Well, th- that's- that's a big piece I've worked on, and I work, uh, you know, I work- I work with men, and, uh, that's a really big piece. I... You know, I used to do things like not tell anybody what my needs and wants were, or even hide them, or I'd still, at times, make it difficult for people to give to me. I've been told by many people in my life that I'm difficult to give to, uh, so I consciously work at that. Another piece with the men I work with that I call nice guys is, again, they believe they're bad for having needs, everybody else's needs are more important. And here- here again, the- kind of the distorted logic that a lot of us use, I've done this, a lot of guys do this, women do it too, is they'll go find a person whose life is a mess. You know, they- they can't pay their own bills, they can't hold a job, th- they- they fight with everybody they know, they're depressed, th- you know, whatever. And we think, "I can fix them up. I- I'll- I'll d- I'll dedicate all my resources to getting them good, and once they're good, they'll get- th- they'll be there for me."

   7. CWChris Williamson2:22

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RGDr Robert Glover2:22

      "They'll help me get my needs met." But that's just ter- terrible (laughs) terrible strategy. If you wanna get your needs met, go find people who are already competent at getting their own z- needs met, and who are available to help give to you. But again, most of this stuff is so unconscious w- we're not thinking about it, we just keep doing the same thing hoping that at some point, it will work. And then again, often when people then do try to give to us, "No, no, that's okay. It's all right."

   9. CWChris Williamson2:48

      Hmm.

   10. RGDr Robert Glover2:48

       "No, it doesn't matter. No, it doesn't matter."

   11. CWChris Williamson2:48

       The minimization.

   12. RGDr Robert Glover2:49

       "Yeah, just... Yeah. No, no, no, no, no." So, um, yeah, this is a big piece I've been working on in my own life.

   13. CWChris Williamson2:55

       Yeah. I, uh... There's something, I think especially for guys, that seems kind of, like, romantically heroic about, "I don't need anybody or anything."

   14. RGDr Robert Glover3:07

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson3:07

       "I can make this work on my own." There's something kind of, not desperate, but- but tangential to desperate and- and- and needy about having needs. Uh, and I think the reverse of that of maybe if you tell people what you want, sometimes they'll give it to you. Creating a r- reframing that so that it's something which is aspirational to do, uh, I think is a hurdle that many guys may struggle to get over.

   16. RGDr Robert Glover3:39

       You know, talk about the- that dy- dynamic with men, 'cause again, I- I've been working with men for 30 years, and a really core pattern I see is just this pattern of- of going it alone, you know, isolating themselves.

   17. CWChris Williamson3:51

       Mm-hmm.

   18. RGDr Robert Glover3:52

       Another way I put it i- is so many men, and especially the younger men, um, uh, millennials, generation below, they grew up with the internet, and it's like that's all they need. You know, they- they- they just... Uh, they hang out- I call it they hang out in the nursery. Nothing's required of them. Nothing's demanded of them. Uh, they- they get all their connections on social media, spend all their time on the internet, binging on Netflix, playing World of Warcraft, smoking dope, drinking, jerking off to porn, just... And th- and that's their life. And to actually go connect with other real live human beings who could actually nurture them, fill their bucket, give them social connection, it feels like they'd have to give up too much.

   19. CWChris Williamson4:30

       Hmm. Hmm-hmm.

   20. RGDr Robert Glover4:31

       They'd have to give up all this other stuff over here that- that- that consumes them, and maybe even their... I think there's a fear that they might even have to reveal too much of themselves and reveal how shallow and empty and non-productive their lives really are, and so they just keep doing the same thing.

   21. CWChris Williamson4:49

       Yeah, when you're siloed off, no one is peering in to look at exactly how are you spending your day-

   22. RGDr Robert Glover4:53

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson4:53

       ... and exactly what do you think-

   24. RGDr Robert Glover4:55

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson4:55

       ... and when'd you get out of bed. You've got this great quote where you say, "Your mind would rather manage old and familiar anxieties than confront new and unknown ones." And I think that's exactly what you're talking about.

   26. RGDr Robert Glover5:05

       Well, that's just a given. You know, the devil you know is better (laughs) than the devil you don't know. And- and for- for so many men, I liken it to... I call it an emotional tree fort. Now, I- I- I don't know where you grew up, if you had trees around you, but-

   27. CWChris Williamson5:16

       (laughs)

   28. RGDr Robert Glover5:16

       ... we had trees. We had tree forts, and, you know, the- the- the i- the ideal perfect day is if, you know, you or one of your buddies found somebody's dad's Playboy magazine or whatever, Hustler, Penthouse, whatever, and you go up in the tree fort, pull the ladder up, nobody can find you, and you can just be all by yourself and do whatever you want and no... And it's kinda like a lot of men just continue that- that mentality of just wanting to live in that emotional tree fort where they pull the ladder up. Nobody can track them. Nobody knows what they're up to. Uh, they don't have to get real accountable-

   29. CWChris Williamson5:50

       Mm-hmm.

   30. RGDr Robert Glover5:50

       ... vulnerable with anybody. And then- then we wonder why, you know, statistically, you read how many men are isolated, uh, lonely, depressed, the tolls that it takes on us physically, emotionally, early death.... look at any, you know, in this country, any of the, you know, the, the, the, the multiple shooters, it's all lonely, isolated, white young men. And, and you know, now these men, you know, men going their own way, incels just, you know, they're just ca- you know, just saying, "Hey, we're advertising it now. We're in the club of guys that (laughs) basically aren't in a club."
2. 8:40 – 18:22

   How to Make Your Needs a Priority

   1. CWChris Williamson8:40

      Okay, so how can people l- better learn to make their needs a priority? How do you start doing that?

   2. RGDr Robert Glover8:48

      I began by giving to myself. Uh, I, years ago, I, I was in therapy, I was married to my second wife, who I was married to when I, I wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy, and, um, it, it became obvious that I was operating b- by what I call covert contracts, giving to get. "If I do this for you, then you'll do this for me. I won't have to say it out loud, won't have to ask, won't have to be clear or direct, you'll just read my mind, 'cause I, I, I gave you and now, now you're gonna give to me." And so wh- when I was working with a therapist, I was in a men's group at that time, I made a, a year-long commitment that I would no longer give gifts, surprises, anything to anybody else other than my children. So like, if I was at the mall, I thought, "Oh, my wife would like that." Uh, if I, if I saw, had any impulse to give to somebody else, I had to give something to me.

   3. CWChris Williamson9:38

      Okay.

   4. RGDr Robert Glover9:38

      Not, not necessarily equal, but I, it, it was a way of reversing an old paradigm, an old pattern. I was just so reflexively giving to everybody else. And in the midst of doing that, the people in my life felt the strings attached. I didn't realize I was giving to get, giving to approval, uh, to get approval, giving for them to give me back. And then when they did try to give to me, I wouldn't let them, right? So I had to start giving with me, so that's where it had to begin. I had to say, "Okay, what do I want? What's my priorities? What's important to me?" You know, I'd go in the mall and there'd be a jacket on sale and, "Oh, I haven't bought myself a jacket in a while," and, and I'd buy myself a jacket. Uh, you know, I'd pay for my kids to go to the dentist or the dentists and I thought, "It's been a few years since I've been to the dentist." So I thought, "I need to go to the dentist." So, you know, all the way from just basic healthcare kinda things, and I continue it to this day, you know, wear a ring that tracks my sleep. I try to give to me by getting enough sleep.

   5. CWChris Williamson10:35

      Mm-hmm.

   6. RGDr Robert Glover10:35

      I just hired, um, a nutrition coach. I, I wanna, you know, uh, I wanna be around another 20, 30 years, and have a fit body and fit mind, and I thought, "Oh, I gotta give to me. I gotta eat well." I, I told my fitness coach, "But I don't wanna track macros." I'm tracking macros. Now, I got the app, I'm-

   7. CWChris Williamson10:51

      No, you can't get around it.

   8. RGDr Robert Glover10:52

      Yeah. So whether it's giving to ourselves and just those basic fundamental get enough exercise, get enough sleep, eat healthy, spend time socially connecting with other people, save money, go to the dentist, whether it's those basic things or, or just, you know, ordering yourself some new clothes. You know, say I'm gonna go hang out with a friend.

   9. CWChris Williamson11:14

      Prioritizing yourself first.

   10. RGDr Robert Glover11:15

       Prioritizing self. Now, the, I, I know people are already listening to this going, "But that's just selfish. That's just fundamentally selfish. What if everybody lived that way?" And I think if everybody lived that way, we'd probably be a lot better off because we wouldn't be, you know, walking around from this place of emptiness and neediness and manipulating people to, to, to try to value us or give to us. And if our bucket is full and overflowing, we have so much more to give to everybody else. I, like a lot of people, for a long time, was trying to give from an empty bucket.

   11. CWChris Williamson11:45

       Mm-hmm.

   12. RGDr Robert Glover11:45

       My bucket was bone dry.

   13. CWChris Williamson11:46

       Mm-hmm.

   14. RGDr Robert Glover11:47

       You know, not only did I not, I didn't fill it, but I didn't let anybody else help me fill it.

   15. CWChris Williamson11:51

       So if you're not caring for yourself, if you're not doing the things that makes you whole-You then look to other people to fill something that you can, you could have done already. You are an empty vessel. You come to fix me. However, I'm not going to tell you that I need you to fix me, and I'm not going to fix me, and-

   16. RGDr Robert Glover12:10

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson12:10

       ... then I'm gonna become resentful of you and me for me being empty.

   18. RGDr Robert Glover12:13

       That, that, that is probably a definition of neediness right there. And you know, and this, again, this is when I'm talking with people about how to get their needs met, the first thing the guys will say, "Well, you know, will, will that make me needy?" You know, that, that, that repulses women, right? That, that... And no, making your needs a priority does not make you needy. Not making your needs a priority, walking around with an empty bucket with this big vacuum hose that you try to hook up to other people to get them to meet your needs, that's neediness, and that's what, you know, people kind of go, go like this to. So we all have needs, and, and to just acknowledge, "I have needs." And, and again guys want, "Well, what's the difference between a need and a want?" I go, "Don't, don't go there."

   19. CWChris Williamson12:52

       Mm-hmm.

   20. RGDr Robert Glover12:53

       If you want it, great. If you need it, great. But make yourself a priority. And we're, you know, kind of bringing this back around, and there are more pieces to this, but, uh, really good book. I've, I've been recommending it, it seems like a lot lately because it's an old book that a lot of the younger generation hasn't discovered, but it's a book called The Road Less Traveled by Dr. M. Scott Peck, a psychiatrist. He's passed away. I'm told it is the all-time best-selling self-help book, and it's been around well over 30-something years, back when I was a minister. I even preached sermons from it many, many, many years ago. Ah, you're smiling. "Oh, minister, we'll go there." Um, and yeah, I was brought up in a Christian Church that says, "Put yourself last, put yourself last," you know? Everybody has to-

   21. CWChris Williamson13:35

       Mm-hmm. Subjugate your desires.

   22. RGDr Robert Glover13:37

       Yeah, yeah. I can, I can tell you some stories about that. So Scott Peck says that if parents are meeting their own needs, are attentive to their children, responding to their children's needs in timely, judicious, and I add consistent ways, children at this you- at a young age emotionally internalize a belief, "I'm valuable, I'm lovable, my needs are important, and the world is like my family." Now, can you imagine going off to preschool or kindergarten thinking, "I'm lovable, I'm valuable, my needs are important, and kindergarten's gonna be just like my family"? Or junior high, you know, "I'm lovable, I'm valuable, my needs are important, and everybody in junior high is gonna be just like my family." It can... If we operated that in the world, can you imagine how our lives would be so significantly different with just that internalized belief, "I'm valuable, I'm lovable, my needs are important"? And of course, most of us did not get that to a significant degree. We maybe got the opposite, and unfortunately, another piece that can get added in if you don't get that is that if your parents are not meeting your needs in timely, judicious, consistent ways, they may tell you they love you 100 times a day, but if they're not meeting your needs, you don't internalize that emotional belief. But if they're not meeting your needs and you get called up maybe even to take care of a parent, you get parentified. Like, for me, uh, I liked sports, and so my father got a lot of pride out of his son, you know, being good in sports, and my mother, you know, lived through me to be the good man that my father was. So I was parentified by both of my parents. Then a child internalizes the belief, "I'm not good enough," because you think, "I should be able to fill mom up and make her not depressed and make her happy."

   23. CWChris Williamson15:18

       Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   24. RGDr Robert Glover15:18

       "I should be able to satisfy, you know, dad in this way." And, and so you internalize that belief. Now you got the beliefs of, "I'm not valuable or lovable, my needs aren't important, I'm not good enough, and the world is like my family." That's how most people approach the world. So here's my theory. My theory, if Scott Peck's theory is accurate, and, and I believe it has value, and maybe our minds aren't as receptive and elastic and, and, and plastic as they were when we were infants, our brains are still plastic, and we can, we can still rewrite, overwrite our basic operating system and machine language.

   25. CWChris Williamson15:58

       Mm-hmm.

   26. RGDr Robert Glover15:58

       And so I believe that we're actually gonna make the world a better place, be more loving, accept more love if we can start making our needs a priority in that way that Scott Peck talks about. Okay, it's not our parents' jobs anymore. It's our job. So our job is, number one, when we can, fill our own bucket up. Number two, surround ourselves with people who want to help us fill our bucket up and create what I call cooperative reciprocal relationships. Everybody in the relationship is there 'cause they choose to be, it's cooperative, and it's reciprocal. Everybody gets value. That can be a friendship. It can be a family member, a buddy. It can be a professional cooperative. You and I have a cooperative reciprocal relationship. We're both here 'cause we choose to be, we both get value out of it, and our lives are better because we have this time together. And if we can fill our lives up with that, I believe we can also internalize the emotional belief, not just a, a mantra, "Oh, I'm good enough, I'm lovable," but an emotional belief in our nervous system at the core, "I'm lovable and valuable, my needs are important, I'm good enough," and the world sees that, and the world's gonna respond to that. I think that then lets us be much more loving and giving to the world around us and much more receptive to all that the u- the, the world, the universe, the cosmos wants to give us.

   27. CWChris Williamson17:22

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3. 18:22 – 26:05

   Rewriting Deeply-Set Patterns

   1. CWChris Williamson18:22

      interested in taking that step from just tactical things, which, uh, are, are a great foundation. If I'm going to give to somebody else, have you given to yourself recently?

   2. RGDr Robert Glover18:35

      Yeah, check it. Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson18:35

      Probably a good idea. That's something that's tactical. Uh, uh, learning to clearly and fairly state when something makes you feel good or makes you feel bad, probably a good way of setting boundaries and reinforcing behavior that you want from people around you. (clears throat) All of these things, tactically very useful at a high level. But the deeper stage of this, of unpicking the texture of your system, as you're talking about, like the emotional response that you have, as opposed to just creating this odd latticework of Band-Aids that you've placed over the top of it to somehow be able to operate in a functional way, from a dysfunctional foundation-

   4. RGDr Robert Glover19:16

      Right.

   5. CWChris Williamson19:16

      ... how do ... W- what are the steps of getting deeper? How much can we unpick those patterns that we've developed from even pre-verbally, uh, uh, and what are the steps that you-

   6. RGDr Robert Glover19:26

      I, I-

   7. CWChris Williamson19:26

      ... like to get people to go through?

   8. RGDr Robert Glover19:28

      Well, number one, I don't know. There's about three or four questions there. I don't know. (laughs) I don't know how much we can rewrite. I know we can rewrite some. You know, uh, people will come to me and say, "Robert, how long will this take for me to get to X, Y, or Z?" I don't know. I, I'm still, I'm still on that journey. I haven't gotten there yet. I'm still learning. I'll let you know once I, I find out. Probably a lifetime. So if we do anything, you know, our ... If there's anything about the human mind and human nervous system, it, it, it likes predictability, it likes the sameness, kind of going back to that quote that, that you, you, you read earlier. W- we, we like the ghetto we know, even if it's, you know, it's a ghetto, but it's the ghetto we know. And, you know, to leave that ghetto and go out into the world where, uh, I don't know what language they speak, I don't know how they ... what their rules are. You know, we'll, we'll, we'll just stay where we are. But countless people throughout time have decided to challenge themselves, you know, whether through religious, spiritual practice, yogic practice, challenging themselves to make more money, challenging themselves to get into shape, whatever. No matter how we challenge ourself, our nervous system, our mind, our body is going to resist. It wants to hold onto the famili- familiar neural pathways, those neural goat paths that we've been down, the muscle memory that we've just created since before we could think and reason. Okay, that's normal. That, that's why coaching is valuable, that's why therapy is valuable, that's why 12-step groups are valuable, that's why, you know, having mentors is valuable. It's 'cause if we're gonna do it on our own, well, we'll probably keep, you know, stumbling and bumping into hurdles and brick walls and, and we'll, we'll quit. We'll give up. But if, if we can make this journey with others who either are on a similar journey or who've already been, they're further down the road, when our emotional dissonance, our cognitive dissonance, our physical dissonance, when our reaction comes in, um, we have accountability. We have support. We, we don't have to go through it alone. Because, for example, um, you know, I, I like to be in shape, but I- I've never been a gym rat, and I've never been, you know, one of those people that's just die-hard, gotta get to the gym every day. And so, you know, I've learned it's better if I don't say, "I'm gonna lose X amount of weight in this amount of time," or, "I'm gonna go to the gym this many times." 'Cause as soon as I set, like, a, a commitment to myself that's out of my normal habit pattern, I almost always, about a week or two later, catch myself gone, I've gone the other direction-

   9. CWChris Williamson22:07

      Mm-hmm.

   10. RGDr Robert Glover22:07

       ... without even being aware. All right? Just a, a few examples. When, um, when I was going through my second divorce and I was in my late 40s, living alone for the first time in my adult life, I started going to a 12-step group, a few of them actually, just to get a ... have a support system, just to have a men's group. And, you know, they got a lot of platitudes in 12 steps, and one of them was about having an attitude of gratitude. So I thought, you know, I'm going through a divorce, my, my life's in turmoil, my first book's just about to be published, you know, my, my son's a senior in high school. Yeah, my life was just ... it just felt upside down. And so, uh, a buddy I met in this 12-step group, I said, "Let's start a gratitude practice. Every morning for, uh, we ... First thing when we get up, every night before we get in bed, let's just think of, 30 seconds, three or ... you know, four, five, six, 10 things we feel grateful for, and we'll check in with each other." Both of us started this. Four or five days in, I was just feeling amazing. I was going through all these changes, struggles, difficulties, and I was feeling good, because I was doing this gratitude practice. And about the fifth day, I forgot to do it, and so did my buddy, and we probably both went about two or three days before it dawned on us, "Wait a minute, we haven't been doing that gratitude practice." It was ... It felt good. Both of us were liking it, and we just forgot. That's that emotional cognitive dissonance of where our nervous system wants to just keep things homeostatic, keep things in a familiar pathway. And so now, if I am gonna make a significant commitment, I do have to surround myself with (laughs) people-

   11. CWChris Williamson23:43

       (clears throat)

   12. RGDr Robert Glover23:44

       ... and I have to check in. I, I decided end of last year, I thought, "You know, I've al- I've always thought it was a good idea to meditate. You know, I've tried. I always thought, well, you gotta ... I get uncomfortable sitting cross-leg on this cushion, you know, and, and y- can I not have any thought." And so a, a, a guy I knew, I said, "Would you coach me in meditation?" He lives on Michael Singer's ... a compound in Florida. And so I thought, "If he's living there, he probably, you know, is into meditation."

   13. CWChris Williamson24:09

       Mm-hmm.

   14. RGDr Robert Glover24:10

       And so he did. So we started. Every day, we'd check in. We just came up with a plan first thing in the morning. And so that's probably been four or five months now, and I've only missed three days of meditation, 'cause we checked in every day, we connected with each other. Um, you know, one day, I th- it was late at night, I thought, "Oh, I'm gonna miss a day," and I thought, "Fuck it.""I don't want this to be ego-driven. I'm gonna do it 'cause I wanna do it." So I missed it.

   15. CWChris Williamson24:35

       Mm-hmm.

   16. RGDr Robert Glover24:35

       I didn't try to squeeze it in at the end of the day. And I, and I have found out, there's an interesting mathematics to this. If I do the meditation early in the morning, first thing of the day, I don't miss it. You know, if- I, uh, I mean, i- it's- it goes on the calendar. I take a snapshot. If I wait 'til later, oh, I can get pushed, pushed, pushed, and I forget about it. Same thing, you know, wanting to be healthy and fit. Okay, I've, I've hired a fitness coach. And so... A- and we check in regularly, and I'm putting things in, you know, My Fitness Pal, and I'm doing all that stuff. That is how we change those old patterns. It- it- it takes consistency over time. I know in the, in the self-help world, there's this thing, uh, "21 days to change a habit." I don't know who in the fuck thought that up. I've never changed a habit in 21 days. Uh, I think if you've had something in your nervous system, in my case, 60-something years, it ain't going away in 21 days, but I'm okay with that. I can be the noticer, 'cause when you decide, "Okay, I'm gonna eat this way. I'm gonna exercise this way," or, "I'm gonna practice gratitude this way, or meditate this way," now you become the observer of self. You notice when you have the impulse to go eat this thing that, you know, you're not eating, or skip the day at the gym, or not meditate. You notice the pattern coming up, and then, again, if you have a support system, you just check in, and- and then just pick it up again tomorrow. So, it's not rocket science, but it is challenging.

   17. CWChris Williamson26:04

       Mm-hmm.

4. 26:05 – 35:43

   Preventing a Critical Inner Voice

   1. CWChris Williamson26:05

      How can we stop our ruminating brains? You mentioned there about when you posit an ideal, you then begin to compare yourself to that ideal, and a lot of the time, you start to fall short, and I think lots of people, especially high-performers, personal developers, self-growthers will have a very scolding inner voice.

   2. RGDr Robert Glover26:25

      Yeah. I- I- I watch those interviews (laughs) and I'm going, "Oh my goodness, I'd hate to be inside his head."

   3. CWChris Williamson26:31

      Yeah.

   4. RGDr Robert Glover26:31

      Um, eh, but yeah, we- we- but w- but we put 'em on pedestals.

   5. CWChris Williamson26:35

      Mm-hmm.

   6. RGDr Robert Glover26:35

      The high performers, you know, the- the worship of Navy SEALs, you know, all this stuff that, especially we men do i- in this culture. And, um... Yeah, most of 'em are driven by a lot of demons, by a lot of voices in their head, and- and, you know, may- maybe you can relate to that as well. I, fortunately, don't ha- I- I can- I can ruminate as well as the next person, but I don't... I- fortunately, I don't have that critical voice, generally. My mind just- I just... It keeps me safe. I just don't launch into bigger and- and, you know, things that-

   7. CWChris Williamson27:06

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RGDr Robert Glover27:06

      ... that- the unknown.

   9. CWChris Williamson27:07

      Mm-hmm.

   10. RGDr Robert Glover27:08

       Um, but, uh, I don't have a highly critical voice, but I work with a lot of people that do. Think every woman I've been married to (laughs) has- has had that. My father did. Um-

   11. CWChris Williamson27:17

       (coughs) .

   12. RGDr Robert Glover27:17

       ... I- i- it's maybe one of my superpowers to, you know, to kinda help calm the people down, but I- I have a whole course that I call The Ruminating Brain, and my theory about ruminating brain is that, I think for many people, it's an inherited trait, that you don't have to look far in the family tree to see mom, dad, sibling, grandparents, aunts, uncles, with some manifestation of this rumination kind of pattern. You see depressed- depression, anxiety, uh, suicides oftentimes, addictive issues, relationship struggles, abuse, um. And so, I think it's a brain type that you inherit, like, uh, studies have shown you can inherit brain types that predispose you to addictions, uh, to ADHD, and ruminating brain, and I found those three things often go together.

   13. CWChris Williamson28:08

       Mm-hmm.

   14. RGDr Robert Glover28:09

       I've got so many buddies that are- are recovering addicts, and most all of 'em acknowledge they have ADHD, and most all of 'em acknowledge they have a ruminating brain. So I think there's something genetically her- uh, uh, inherited of those traits. Now, it could... The ruminating brain can also be caused by trauma. That's what PTSD does. It can create ruminations. It can lead to depression. But what the ruminating brain typically does... Now brains don't actually ruminate, but it's like there's that- this constant spinning, like y- it was a washing machine agitating all the time, and you're inside the washing machine. And I found that there's three ways, three directions ruminating brains tend to go than go into the past, and- and- and just rehash every perceived mistake, missed opportunity, regret. And, you know, if you replay the same regret 15,000 times, you're gonna feel like a real loser. You're gonna feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with you, and I think, even going back to these isolated men we were talking about earlier, I suspect a lot do have ruminating brains, because if you're going in the past and just rehashing, "Oh, I- I blew that opportunity. How come I didn't talk to her? How come I didn't get her number? How come I broke up with her? How come I stayed with her?" All I... I- I was teaching, when I taught this course live a few years ago, and a guy who was probably about my age, he was in his 50s or 60s, still ruminating about a missed sexual opportunity in college, still beating himself up. So again, the mind creates this illusion that it's just gathering important information. "It's important that I keep going back and rehashing, re-looking at this stuff 'cause there's something I missed, something I need to know." But all you really do is just... Y- you just end up feeling worse and worse and worse about yourself. So, the other thing that people do in that backward looking is they create... Uh, I- I call it revisionist history. Uh, I've- I've had other people call it, like, castles in the sky. We go back and replay these events, and we say, "If I'd just done X, Y or Z, then my life would've gone down this path, and this... If I just had slept with her when I had that chance in college, my whole life would be r- radically different." But it's not true. Our- Our... We'd still probably be ruminators, and we'd still be ruminating about all the missed opportunities, but we- we believe that that revisionist history is highly likely, could be possible, and it's not what we're living now, so now we feel terrible. So here's another way then that- that our ruminating brain beats us up. It measures us and compares us. Maybe it measures us against just any arbitrary st- uh, uh, standard. "Well, I should be a millionaire by this... I should be married by this time. I should've had... Should've slept with 100 women by this time." You know, "I should've launched my- my- my program by this time." Or, "Oh, look, he's my age, and he's so..." Bill Gates is the same age as me and graduated from high school in the same city as me the same year, and, you know, I- I... He's... You know, what if I compared myself to- to Bill Gates, you know, in terms of at least financial success? I mean, I'd be miserable if I actually took that seriously. So there's that comparison and the measurement.... almost always finding ourselves lacking and being less than in some fundamental, significant way. That's one reason I'm not a big fan of this bow down and worship the high achiever, uh, thing that we're so caught up in. You know, 10X your life, 10X this, you could be doing better, you could be making more, you could be doing that, you could be a Navy SEAL, you could be that. I think all it does is just fuel that "I'm- I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough."

   15. CWChris Williamson31:47

       Mm-hmm.

   16. RGDr Robert Glover31:47

       And- and we know w- we're not gonna attain that, but we think we should in order to be good enough. And so- so then the third way that the ruminating brain goes into the future. This is where your perfectionism comes in. "If I don't do it perfectly, it's gonna crash, it's gonna burn. What if I fail? What if I look foolish? What if I invest in it and I lose everything I've got? What..." You know, uh, w- "My luck," you know, "Everything's gonna crash and b-" Or, "Everything's okay now, but it's only a matter of time until everything goes south-"

   17. CWChris Williamson32:15

       Mm-hmm.

   18. RGDr Robert Glover32:15

       "... goes heads up and everything just..." You know. So what happens if you've got that going on in your head, and most ruminators maybe do all three of those, go in the past, go in the future, do the measure and compare, but most do one significantly more than the other. And the three things it tends to do to you, it keeps you stuck, 'cause if you're just ruminating about the past, trying to figure out every possible pathway forward before you take any action, you know, research everything to death, you know, all that, you're not gonna take action, so you're gonna stay stuck. You're gonna stay isolated, there's that isolated thing, because, uh, y- you don't want people to find out, 'cause if you're ruminating in all these negative ways, your odds are not gonna feel really good about yourself, and you don't wanna let people get close to you 'cause you're afraid they're gonna find out what you already believe to be true. So... And you're gonna feel really bad about yourself, because, um, again, if you rehash the same mistakes enough times, if you miss enough opportunities 'cause it took you too long to make a decision, if you compare and measure yourself enough, you'll find enough people doing better than you, you're just gonna feel fundamentally flawed. And it just goes on and on, but... Thankfully there is (laughs) there- there is good news, and, um, I teach people a combination of both mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy, but, uh, it's as simple as how can we step out of the washing machine and watch it spin rather than be in it being spun by it? So I- I- I- I... The primary, uh, mantra of- of what I teach people with Ruminating Brain is practice being the observer, not the believer of our thoughts. Unfortunately if we've thought something for long enough, a belief is nothing but an oft-repeated thought. If you've thought that thought enough times-

   19. CWChris Williamson34:02

       Mm-hmm.

   20. RGDr Robert Glover34:02

       ... you're convinced it's true. Doesn't matter what our belief is.

   21. CWChris Williamson34:05

       Mm-hmm.

   22. RGDr Robert Glover34:05

       I- it could be a religious belief, political belief, belief about ourselves, belief about women, belief about the world. If you think it enough, and if you find enough other supporting evidence through, uh, uh, uh, confirmation bias, of course it must be true. And, uh, so stepping out of that machine and watching it going, "It sure still seems true that I'm..." You know, you know, so many men create their s- their s- their sense of value by measuring how well they've done with women in life. You know, how many times they've been laid, if they've been laid, how many girlfriends they've had, if they've had girlfriends, h- you know, have they been married, you know, or how many times have they been married not just crossed the line that now... So I see guys who don't feel they're good enough 'cause they've never had a girlfriend, or they've never had sex so they must not be good enough, or they haven't had enough sex, or not enough sex with enough pretty women, or, you know, they haven't had a- a l- I... Talking to somebody the other day, "All my girlf- all- all my, all my relationships ended about two years." So he- he's judging himself for that.

   23. CWChris Williamson35:05

       Yeah.

   24. RGDr Robert Glover35:06

       Um, I was on a call with two podcasters, and all re- you know, me and the other two guys all work with people around relationships. And, um, one guy said, "Well, I'm not in a relationship right now, so I- I- I kind of have this thing, how can I teach people?" The other guy says, "Well, I met my- my wife in high school and that's the only woman I've ever been with. How can I teach people?" And I go, "I've been divorced three times. (laughs) How could I teach people?" It- it- so it's funny how we find these things to measure ourself that are absolutely inconsequential, but we're just sure they're proof of our worth or- or lack of worth.

5. 35:43 – 45:13

   Believing the Story You Tell Yourself

   1. CWChris Williamson35:43

      It's so interesting. It's the, uh, Michael Singer influence there of you are not your thoughts, you're the observer of your thoughts, being able to sort of step away and- and- and see that washing machine going on. I think so many of the thought patterns that people engage in regularly, the stories that they tell themselves, the little sort of, like, reverse mantras that they have, not something that's positive and encourages them-

   2. RGDr Robert Glover36:12

      (laughs) Usually not at all.

   3. CWChris Williamson36:13

      ... but something which is negative and reinforces a fear that they have, or an insufficiency that they're concerned about, or whatever. Uh, you're right. If you say those things to yourself enough times, you'll end up believing that they're true, and then after a while, they just become part of you, and you're not even believing it anymore. It's like the physics of your system.

   4. RGDr Robert Glover36:34

      Yeah. You know, whe- whether you- you do dive into, like, Joe Dispenza-type quantum physics, you know, pick the path you want, psychologically, the world will be as we believe the world to be. We will be in the world as we believe ourselves. It goes back to, you know, what we internalize at- at a young age. So if you believe the world is X, Y, Z, that's what you're gonna see. You're only gonna see examples of that, and you only- you won't see all the things that might contradict those beliefs.

   5. CWChris Williamson37:06

      Just two bits there. First off, the- the way that the reticular activating system actually works is precisely by that. It's why when you buy a new car, you're like, "Uh, does every-"

   6. RGDr Robert Glover37:16

      Everyone.

   7. CWChris Williamson37:17

      "... ten fucking person got this same car?"

   8. RGDr Robert Glover37:19

      Exactly.

   9. CWChris Williamson37:19

      Like, "Why did it..." No, it's because-

   10. RGDr Robert Glover37:20

       In the same color, even.

   11. CWChris Williamson37:21

       ... you're now, you're- you're now looking for it.

   12. RGDr Robert Glover37:23

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson37:23

       Right? I- it's...... the same reason as to why they do experiments where they tell people to pick all of the things that were red in a room, and then say, "And how many things were blue?" And they go, "I have no idea." It's like, well, no, because you weren't looking-

   14. RGDr Robert Glover37:35

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson37:35

       ... for the things that were blue. You were looking for the things that were red. So-

   16. RGDr Robert Glover37:38

       Have you heard the one about the gorilla?

   17. CWChris Williamson37:40

       Yes, where they'd get the- the playing-

   18. RGDr Robert Glover37:41

       And they're passing the basketballs back and forth?

   19. CWChris Williamson37:42

       Yeah, the, how many times did they pass the basketball? And did you notice the gorilla that came through the middle of the screen?

   20. RGDr Robert Glover37:46

       Gorilla? (laughs)

   21. CWChris Williamson37:47

       No one noticed the gorilla that came through the middle of the screen. Yeah, of course. So, the way that the reticular activating system works, you actually do, uh, from a sort of sensory interpretation perspective, you blot out the things that you're not looking for. And if you are looking for a reason as to why you are a loser or why you are not worthy or why people don't like you or why the world doesn't care whether you live or die or you're inferior to other people, or they're more successful, or they've got more friends, or they're going to make more money or whatever it is, you will observe a, li- like global confirmation bias, you will find things that reinforce that belief.

   22. RGDr Robert Glover38:24

       Easily.

   23. CWChris Williamson38:24

       So from the sort of reticular activating system-

   24. RGDr Robert Glover38:27

       And s- and now the internet will feed that to you as well.

   25. CWChris Williamson38:29

       Of course, because you actually have algorithms that pick out that. They realize that you spent 0.5 seconds longer on all of the negative news stories than the positive ones, or on the ones that are, uh, a- aspirational about dudes that got 3% body fat and at 220 pounds stayed shredded all year round.

   26. RGDr Robert Glover38:45

       N- n- everybody looks like... It's not, it's like watching porn and think every guy's got a big dick.

   27. CWChris Williamson38:48

       Yes.

   28. RGDr Robert Glover38:48

       Oh, everybody's got a big dick. No.

   29. CWChris Williamson38:50

       Yeah. No. You're being s- you're seeing a skewed perspective of the world. So first thing, yes, that's the way that the reticular activating system works. But on top of that as well, I think you can repurpose the story you tell yourself about pretty much almost anything. So there's this great-

   30. RGDr Robert Glover39:08

       Yeah.
6. 45:13 – 55:25

   Men Need to Step Outside of the Cycle

   1. NANarrator45:13

      Oh, you-

   2. CWChris Williamson45:13

      Oh, you listened to that episode I did with Matthew Hussey, didn't you?

   3. NANarrator45:15

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson45:16

      Yeah, so he has this great story where he's talking about how, um, he starts each day basically in, in something similar to productivity debt. Oliver Burkeman's got this phenomenal idea of productivity debt that when he wakes up every morning, he imagines that he's somehow overdrawn in this contribution to his-

   5. NANarrator45:35

      He, he starts the day overdrawn?

   6. CWChris Williamson45:36

      Yes, yes, and that it is his job that by the end of the day, if he castigates and flagellates himself sufficiently, he may be able to get it back to zero. Like, only zero though, you can never be in the-

   7. NANarrator45:49

      This is the 4,000 Weeks guy we're talking about?

   8. CWChris Williamson45:51

      Correct, yeah, that's Oliver Burkeman. And then, um, this is Matthew Hussey's thing which I think relates to it. "I struggle to believe I'm worthy of moments of joy and peace without first putting myself through a brutal schedule, monitoring my productivity levels down to the minute. Perhaps some people apply this to 'earn your cookie' mindset in ways that lead to healthy accomplishments. Not me. Mine is a mutation whereby joy and self-compassion are regularly outlawed by an internal tyrant who decides when I've been flogged enough for one day. Just when I'm about to collapse, a voice inside says, 'Okay, give him half an hour of peace before bed, but make sure he knows we'll start again bright and early in the morning.'"

   9. NANarrator46:31

      In debt. (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson46:32

       Productivity debt.

   11. NANarrator46:33

       I- In debt.

   12. CWChris Williamson46:34

       Yep.

   13. NANarrator46:34

       Yeah, and, and, you know, that's what I was talking about, about stepping outside the washing machine, right? When you're inside the washing machine, you don't know you're being spun by it. That's, that's normal, that's life. It's, it's just what is. But when you can step outside, as Matthew does in that example, he can be the observer of himself, and from there, something can shift.

   14. CWChris Williamson46:57

       Hmm.

   15. NANarrator46:58

       He can do something diff- I, I love living in Mexico. I love that Mexican culture honors the siesta. I lay down at least two, maybe three times a day, sometimes for 10, 15 minutes, sometimes for 30 minutes or an hour. And whether it's just put a little hot pack on my eyes or take a nap, and you know, I'm so much more productive. I, I can work from 7:00 in the morning till 10:00 at night and not feel drained or exhausted or driven just because I can build those, those little gaps in there to say, "Time to relax, time to recharge the battery." And if you can step outside that cycle, you can go, "Hmm, I'm gonna go lay down for 15 minutes." When, when, sometimes when I'll do, like, 30 or 90-day challenges with, with guys around different areas of life. One of the assignments I, I almost always give now, just because I love the reaction, is that no matter what the challenge is, whether it's a fitness challenge, you know, meditation challenge, whatever the challenge is, they have to take 30 minutes a day to meticulously do nothing. Whether it's just sit on a bench, sit in nature, go for a casual walk-

   16. CWChris Williamson48:08

       Mm-hmm.

   17. NANarrator48:08

       ... take a nap, listen to music, meditate, whatever it is, 30 minutes a day. And it's funny, it's the thing they resist the most starting out, but by the time the challenge is up, they love it. They absolutely love it, 'cause just that doing nothing, kind of just refilling the bucket again, recharges you, makes you more productive. And again, this is kind of like that drive that nobody ever changed from a place of shame or, or, or hating on something. Mm-hmm.

   18. CWChris Williamson48:37

       Yeah, we can drive ourselves, we can drive ourselves, um, but you never do get there.

   19. NANarrator48:43

       That was an unfinished thought from me earlier on where I was saying, "Who would you rather be around?" Like-

   20. CWChris Williamson48:48

       Yeah, exactly.

   21. NANarrator48:49

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

   22. CWChris Williamson49:30

       Yeah.

   23. NANarrator49:30

       You're sacrificing the thing that you want for the thing that's supposed to get the thing that you want.

   24. CWChris Williamson49:34

       Yeah.

   25. NANarrator49:35

       And yeah, you know, if, if you can... Again, me speaking to me, if you can-

   26. CWChris Williamson49:41

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

   27. RGDr Robert Glover50:21

       Yeah. It- it- it- it- yeah. We're surrounded with shame, you know, culturally, familial- familially... I said that wrong, I feel so terrible.

   28. CWChris Williamson50:30

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   29. RGDr Robert Glover50:31

       Religiously. And it... (sighs) Rather than making people happy and successful, it makes them easy to control. And- and- and that's why- why religion and governments, you know, if they- if- if they can make people feel bad about something that's normal or natural, it's easy to control them because, you know, it's like a little kid. I- I- my- my- my- my doctorate, my education is marriage and family therapy. And, you know, parents used to bring kids in to me and go, "My kids' doing this," or, "Doing that." And I go, "That's actually normal behavior." "Well, no, but it- but it's driving me crazy. I don't want them to do it." And you know, th- they would shame the kid for normal, natural, stage-appropriate-

   30. CWChris Williamson51:12

       Child behavior.
7. 55:25 – 1:03:10

   Having a Puritan View of Hard Work

   1. CWChris Williamson55:25

      thinking, uh, the conversation a couple of weeks ago, the guy that you're going for dinner with tonight, uh, George, it was his 30th in Miami, and, um, we were talking about why hard work is so personalized in lots of cultures, but specifically in this version of the modern world where leverage has been more available than ever before, where you can get more done whilst putting in less-

   2. RGDr Robert Glover55:46

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson55:47

      ... hard work is s- still this sort of mainstay. And rightly so, like, I- I like working hard. But one of the things, one of the reasons that I think it-... is so pedestalized is that it's kind of like a universal solution to a multivariate problem. So there are lots of different ways to get the successful outcome that you want. You can use leverage, you can be creative, you can have the right networks, you can do... There's lots of different ways. Lots of those have a medium failure rate in them. Hard work has a very low failure rate in it. There are very few problems that if you throw lots of hard work at it, won't get better. Now, it will get better painfully slowly, it'll cause you to have to sacrifice yourself, you'll be crucified, uh, you, you, your sleep will take a hit, the quality of your relationships, all of these things. You'll pay a very high price. Basically, hard work is a reliable route to achieving something, and I think that its reliability causes us to think that makes it a panacea. It's like, no, it's one component of what you do, and it may be one of the foundations, that there are very few things that you can get good at without working hard, i.e., consistently with a degree of attention for non-insignificant durations of time. Let's say that's what hard work is. Uh, but that doesn't mean that you need to pray at the altar of it, and it also doesn't mean that you need to castigate yourself if you don't always work hard. So one of the strange things I did when I was running these nightclub events in my 20s, when we started running them, I had to work very hard. I paid a high personal price for them. Then the events began to become successful, but I shortcutted the sense of satisfaction I got from the events being successful to, if it was successful and I didn't suffer, this doesn't count.

   4. RGDr Robert Glover57:38

      It doesn't count, exactly.

   5. CWChris Williamson57:39

      Doesn't count. If I didn't s- if it, if it happened and it went well, but I didn't pay a high personal price for this, I didn't... Not even worked hard, I could have-

   6. RGDr Robert Glover57:48

      Y- y- you know, you know that's twisted, right?

   7. CWChris Williamson57:49

      Of course.

   8. RGDr Robert Glover57:49

      That's messed up.

   9. CWChris Williamson57:50

      Of course.

   10. RGDr Robert Glover57:50

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson57:50

       Of course. Of course. And at the time, I just... I, I don't know what I thought it was. I thought... I f- I think that I considered there to be some sort of nobility in the suffering itself, you know, like a Puritan work ethic, these-

   12. RGDr Robert Glover58:03

       Right.

   13. CWChris Williamson58:03

       ... priests hoeing the garden, sun beating down on their back, and it's in service of God. It's not in service of the work. It's in service... It's not in service of the outcome of the work, it's in service of the work itself and of the, the tribute that it, it is. And, uh, yeah, that, you know, odd kind of like laborious, masochistic approach that we have to the things that we do, uh, I see an awful lot. And yeah, I'd, I'd had this sort of insight about hard work as well.

   14. RGDr Robert Glover58:35

       Well, here, here's even a b- a l- a little bit of a twist on the hard work thing. If you look around the world, the hardest working people are usually the poorest people.

   15. CWChris Williamson58:45

       Mm.

   16. RGDr Robert Glover58:45

       Especially if you're talking about physical labor. You know, I, I, I live... Uh, you can't, you can't use the word third-world country or glo- emerging economy anymore. I don't know what Mexican- Mexico qualifies as.

   17. CWChris Williamson58:56

       Yep.

   18. RGDr Robert Glover58:56

       A, a narco-run institution. I don't know. Uh, it is. Um, but you know, I'm surrounded by people who work really hard-

   19. CWChris Williamson59:05

       Mm-hmm.

   20. RGDr Robert Glover59:06

       ... and have absolutely nothing, and have absolutely nothing. And so I'm, I'm a fan of hard work, but I'm a fan of, of smart hard work, of, of hard work that, that, that actually takes you where you wanna go, 'cause you can work really, really hard and, and not have anything to show for it. Um, but you're right. It's kinda built into, into our culture, and I think it's o- maybe another one of those ways that cultures just try to control us. If you get people, if you keep telling them, "You gotta keep working hard," you know-

   21. CWChris Williamson59:36

       Mm-hmm.

   22. RGDr Robert Glover59:37

       ... "God favors the, you know, the person who works hard. God's gonna bless you," well, you can keep people plowing your fields-

   23. CWChris Williamson59:44

       Yeah, right.

   24. RGDr Robert Glover59:44

       ... you know, time in and time out.

   25. CWChris Williamson59:45

       They'll be subjugated to the local baron or they'll not break-

   26. RGDr Robert Glover59:48

       Exactly.

   27. CWChris Williamson59:48

       ... the rules or they won't spend enough time to be able to become a, a revolutionary force that'll overthrow the government-

   28. RGDr Robert Glover59:54

       Yeah, tha- tha- that-

   29. CWChris Williamson59:55

       ... or the king or...

   30. RGDr Robert Glover59:55

       ... tha- that's what they're all afraid of-
8. 1:03:10 – 1:09:07

   The Cause of Nice Guy Syndrome

   1. CWChris Williamson1:03:10

      wanna, I wanna talk, uh, we didn't get to speak much last time about dating and about how nice guys seek the validation and how it shows up in their intimate relationships. How much do you think of nice guy syndrome stems from just wanting and needing the love and validation of women?

   2. RGDr Robert Glover1:03:31

      Well, probably began with Mom, so yeah. Yeah. And, uh, another quote from, from one of my coaches in his book, um, that, that I love, he says, "A man doesn't mature until he quits seeking the approval of a woman." And I thought... I mean, I was listening to that on audiobook while driving from California to Washington. I had to pull off the road (laughs) and keep replaying that. "A man doesn't mature until he quits seeking the approval of a woman." Unfortunately, the way most men date, especially nice guys, as I define them, um, is all about seeking the approval of women. Pick me, pick me, choose me, get naked with me, be, wanna be my girlfriend. It's all chasing approval. And, you know, as a marriage therapist, I started doing marriage therapy 40 years ago, and, you know, I've been married a few times, most people, most guys walk into my office, they're still trying to chase the approval of a woman that, you know, has said, "I do," and, and married 'em. So that, that approval seeking, I think, of course, began with Mommy. You know, we come into this world, we have a caregiver, we're com- completely needy, dependent, vulnerable, and so, you know, w- we had to make sure stuff was good with Mom. We had to make sure she was in a good mood, she was available, you know? And then we added female caregivers, and then we had preschool with women and then kindergarten and elementary school. It makes sense that since we were born as, as men that we've been... it felt like, uh, life and death to get the approval of women. But unfortunately, chasing that approval with women in terms of, of the dating scene in the dating world, actually works completely against the results we wanna get.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:05:20

      Mike, what's the problem of chasing the approval of women?

   4. RGDr Robert Glover1:05:23

      Well, kinda like chasing that success through hard work. You a- you actually never do achieve it, and it's based on the assumption that the approval of, let's just say feminine, women could actually be attained. I, I don't know how many women have you been with, but have, have they been all consistently approving of you day in and day out? (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson1:05:43

      (laughs) No.

   6. RGDr Robert Glover1:05:43

      No, (laughs) of course not. And, and so is that even attainable to get the approval of women? What, what, what if instead we were seeking the approval of ourself, maybe the approval of our, our male peers and friends through, um, how we live our life and how we show up and our integrity or our authenticity and our values? What if that actually was attainable? I, I, before I, you know, uh, I, I sat down to talk with you, I spent five, six days out at a retreat center with 40 guys. And just watching the love of men, you know, I assume everybody's straight, the love that men were showing each other and would show me... I, I, I, I go away from, you know, doing my, the work I do with men feeling much more loved than I've ever felt in any relationship with a woman. And I'm, I'm not trying to be dismissive of that, but what I'm saying, if we go, if we go seeking that kind of approval from women, not only are we probably not gonna get it, maybe it isn't attainable, but then we start acting in ways that don't tend to turn women on-

   7. CWChris Williamson1:06:50

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RGDr Robert Glover1:06:50

      ... that, that don't tend to make them go, "I wanna get close to that guy. I like how I feel when I'm around that guy."

   9. CWChris Williamson1:06:55

      In other news, this episode is brought to you by AG1. It's important to me that the supplements I take are of the highest quality, and that is why for over three years now I've been taking AG1. They conduct relentless testing to set the standard for purity and potency. Everything that they make is the highest quality, it's NSF certified, meaning that even Olympic athletes can use it, and they've updated the recipe 52 times over the last decade as new research and sourcing has come in. I'm massively focused on gut health at the moment, and AG1's ingredients are insanely heavily researched for efficacy and quality, and I love the fact that they've got pro and prebiotics, plus digestive enzymes to help support my gut. Best of all, there is a 90-day money back guarantee, so you can buy it and try it every single day for 89 days, and if you do not like it, they will give you your money back. You can get that 90-day money back guarantee and try AG1 with a year's free supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to drinkag1.com/wisdom. That's drinkag1.com/wisdom. Now you say a woman may want to be attracted to a nice guy, but biology won't allow it.

   10. RGDr Robert Glover1:08:03

       Nice is not a turn-on. You know, the, there, there's a, um... I can't think of the name of it. And you, you may know the name of it, but there's, um, a dynamic that giving to people does not actually make them like you. You know, nice guys think that, "Well, if I just give this person something-

   11. CWChris Williamson1:08:23

       Mm-hmm.

   12. RGDr Robert Glover1:08:23

       ... you know, they'll like me."Asking people to give something to you is gonna increase the likelihood that they're going to think well of you.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:08:31

       Mm-hmm.

   14. RGDr Robert Glover1:08:31

       'Cause now the mind has to justify, "I just gave something to that person. I must think well of them. I must think highly of them." 'Cause we don't give stuff to people we don't like.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:08:40

       Mm-hmm.

   16. RGDr Robert Glover1:08:41

       So requiring people to give stuff to you actually is more likely to drive up them, you know, wanting a connection-

   17. CWChris Williamson1:08:48

       Yeah, there's an-

   18. RGDr Robert Glover1:08:48

       ... than you, you giving. There, there's a name for that. I can't think of it right now.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:08:52

       I, I know, I know what you mean. Well, I mean, s- reciprocal altruism is the dynamic that it's based on, but I, I don't know what the, the name of that particular effect is.

   20. RGDr Robert Glover1:08:59

       There's a something effect, and I can't-

   21. CWChris Williamson1:09:00

       Okay.

   22. RGDr Robert Glover1:09:00

       ... can't remember the-

   23. CWChris Williamson1:09:01

       Very interesting.

   24. RGDr Robert Glover1:09:01

       I'll think of it later and I'll go, "Why didn't I think of that during the podcast?"

   25. CWChris Williamson1:09:03

       Goddamn. Yeah, you can tell me it but I don't... Um, that being said,

9. 1:09:07 – 1:21:29

   What it Really Means to Be an Alpha

   1. CWChris Williamson1:09:08

      it's so... Uh, there's, there's another element in there which is implicit in me asking for something from you, is the sense that in future you probably get to ask something from me. Right?

   2. RGDr Robert Glover1:09:22

      That's okay.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:09:22

      And, but that, I think, is... The opposite of that is here is me giving something to you, which means that in future I'm going to ask for something in return. Here is a gift-

   4. RGDr Robert Glover1:09:38

      Well-

   5. CWChris Williamson1:09:38

      ... which in f-

   6. RGDr Robert Glover1:09:38

      ... covert, that's the covert contract.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:09:39

      Correct. Which in future is going to be a debt.

   8. RGDr Robert Glover1:09:43

      But the other person doesn't know about the contract.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:09:45

      Correct.

   10. RGDr Robert Glover1:09:45

       A- and that's why when all of a sudden they're not giving to us and we're all resentful and frustrated and pissed off and passive-aggressive or whatever, and they're going, "What are you even talking about? I didn't know that there was any strings attached to those things you gave."

   11. CWChris Williamson1:09:57

       Mm-hmm.

   12. RGDr Robert Glover1:09:58

       Now, I'm a giving, generous person. I, I, I like to give. Most people like to give. But when nice guys go seek... I- I'll give you an example. I, I, I teach men to be social animals, kinda, kinda going back to, um, these isolated men. As I mentioned, when I, when I got divorced from my second wife, I was in my late 40s, had never lived alone as an adult. I married my first wife two days after I graduated from college. Moved out of the dorm, moved in, right? And there wasn't much gap in between my first and second wife. And when I got on the online dating sites, match.com, that was before the swipe right apps, um, and I looked at profiles, I looked at women's profiles, you know, all of the things they said they did, you know, the wine country, the wine tasting, the skiing, the trips to Europe, and I go... And I wrote my profile, and, and I thought, "Uh, I spent the last, you know, 25 years, (laughs) you know, going to my kids' sporting events, walking the dog, and trying to make my wife happy. That's, that's what my life looks like."

   13. CWChris Williamson1:10:59

       (laughs)

   14. RGDr Robert Glover1:11:00

       And, and, you know, I thought, "That's not gonna attract a lot to me," but more than that, I thought, "I want more of a life than that."

   15. CWChris Williamson1:11:07

       Mm-hmm.

   16. RGDr Robert Glover1:11:08

       "I want more of a life." And so the, the act of wanting to learn how to date drove me... Was part of what moved me to start creating the kind of life I wanted to live.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:11:19

       Mm-hmm.

   18. RGDr Robert Glover1:11:20

       Right?

   19. CWChris Williamson1:11:20

       Well, you have two choices, right? You can either lie about the sort of life that you're going to live or expose to the world the boring as fuck life that you actually are having.

   20. RGDr Robert Glover1:11:28

       A- and that doesn't, that doesn't go well in the profile, you know? So I, I, you know, I made my bucket list, you know, "I wanna learn to shoot a gun, I wanna ski, I wanna learn Spanish, I wanna travel, I wanna do this." And, but mainly, I, I, I worked at becoming a social animal.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:11:42

       Mm-hmm.

   22. RGDr Robert Glover1:11:42

       If, if there was anything that I could do, and I could do it in public, I went out in public and did it, whether it was, you know, reading my New York Times or, you know, eating my breakfast or going out to have dinner. I'd go to, you know, happy hour bar in a restaurant. I'd take my laptop. I'd take my books. If I could go be in public, I'd go be... And I practiced talking to, to people around me-

   23. CWChris Williamson1:12:04

       Mm-hmm.

   24. RGDr Robert Glover1:12:04

       ... just... And, and then I started being successful in terms of dating and getting laid, and my clients start saying, "Robert, teach us." "I'm not a dating coach." They go, "But you're having success." And so I, I... What I teach men, the approach I take is don't, don't... You know, y- you, guys wanna go learn these pickup techniques and this magic and the NLP and the hypnosis and the peacocking, and I call that pounding on closed doors. "She's hot, I want her to, I want her to pay." That's, that's approval-seeking at its ultimate. I tell guys, "When you go approach a woman just 'cause she's hot, you've made her the alpha. She's the decider now. And remember, she's got lots of men a- lots of men approaching her. She's the decider. You're not. You've made her the alpha, you're the beta." Ah, you know, all these red pill and pickup guys all think, "I'm alpha, I'm-" No. You're chasing her because you want her approval, you want her to say yes. You've just given her all the power.

   25. CWChris Williamson1:12:56

       Mm-hmm.

   26. RGDr Robert Glover1:12:57

       But what if you don't need that? What if you're just living this good life and then all these doors open around you and you notice women, you know, are smiling at you, you know, walking in front of you a couple extra times unnecessarily, you know, bending over when they put the plate on the table? What if you just start noticing all the doors that are open? Now this-

   27. CWChris Williamson1:13:15

       Mm-hmm.

   28. RGDr Robert Glover1:13:16

       ... this is, you know, dating, but this is life, right?

   29. CWChris Williamson1:13:18

       Mm-hmm.

   30. RGDr Robert Glover1:13:18

       This is the abundance. You can go pound on closed doors all day long. That's a lot of work. I'm a big fan of walking through open doors. And then guys go, "Well, but..." You know, it, it seem... And y- I, I love this quote by David Deida. "Choose a woman who chooses you." If you, you know, if you just, "Well, I chose her. I want..." No. You're gonna chase and you're gonna work and you're never gonna feel her approval. But then the guys say, "Well, the-"

Episode duration: 1:58:42