Why Entrepreneurs Are So Lonely, and What To Do About It

What has changed for men in the last 25 years?

Wow. Good question. I think there's a whole generation of men out there where the golden rule of masculinity is don't piss off a woman. Life is best when you're challenged, when you're leaning into challenge, when you're welcoming challenge, then you don't have to seek the approval of the feminine anymore. It comes to you.

Amen. Entrepreneurs struggle with loneliness, anxiety and depression more than the average person person. Men also struggle more than women. And if you work a digital job, then you're likely isolated most of the time. So if you are a male digital entrepreneur, you are very likely to deal with isolation, loneliness, anxiety and or depression. That's why I invited Robert Glover onto the show to talk about what we do about this. Because here is the upside of this conversation. If you can keep your wits about you and if you have a strategy for dealing with these very natural feelings, that will come up. And if you are well versed in building a network of people with clear agreements who can support you on your journey, then you will stand out from most of the other people who are your peers and colleagues. I've been an entrepreneur for nearly two decades. This has been a lingering issue in my life because I was an entrepreneur very young. This is more than just a passing thing that we need to manage. This is more than a lingering emotional issue that we need to get control of. It is also a secret to performing at a high level in business. And that is because if you are able to maintain strong relationships with clear agreements, you have your pick at what you want to charge at what you want your business to be like, and the direction that you want to take things. So if you master this skill of creating relationships with clear agreements and having a support structure for you getting what you need on your journey to success, you will outperform everyone else who is trying to do it on their own. This is a far reaching interview with Robert Glover, the author of no more Mr. Nice Guy. And if you stick around long enough, you'll hear him talk about his nipple fetish. Let's dive in. Robert, you published no More Mr. Nice Guy in 2000. I'm curious, from your perspective, what has changed for men in the last 25 years?

Wow, good question. You know, I would say two or three things come to mind. One, probably that we're pretty conscious of is is maybe the whole lump it under the toxic masculine category, maybe hashtag me too falls into all of that, where all of a sudden it became really A bad thing to be male, to be a guy, to where, like I hear parents tell me their, their, you know, eight year old sons come home from school saying, mommy, Daddy, what's toxic masculinity? Am I bad because I'm a boy? So I think that's been a really, really big change. I think that was in process even before I grew up in the angry feminism of the 60s and 70s where I, you know, we think toxic masculine. Back then it was every man's a rapist, an erection's a sign of aggression. But I think with social media and then just the Internet in general, those voices that were there really got magnified and, you know, kind of put into the forefront. So I think this.

Anti male, anti masculinity vibe is stronger than it was even when I published no more Mr. Nice Guy, you know, right turn of the century. So I think that's one piece. Another piece is maybe partly due to that. I think there's a lot more nice guys out there now. When, when I first started working with men around this 30 years ago, when I was working on my nice guy stuff, most of the men I talked to said things about their father, for example, that dad was either not there, parents were divorced when he was young, dad worked all the time, so not available, dad angry, alcoholic, not safe. Now the majority of younger men, especially I, when I talk to him about dad, dad was a nice guy and makes Sense. My son's 39, so he's a millennial and he grew up with a nice guy dad. And the younger men I talked to now said all that their dad really taught them was don't piss off your mother. Because that's what dad was trying to not do either. So I think there's a whole generation of men out there where the golden rule of masculinity is don't piss off a woman.

And maybe, maybe that's always existed to some degree because it makes sense that throughout human history, you know, we're born to a woman. Our earliest caregiver is a woman. We're needy, we're dependent, we're vulnerable. So we need to be on good terms, you know, with the woman, mom or whoever our caregiver was. We go to elementary school, most teachers are women at the early grade. So not only do to get from second to third grade, we not only have to learn our reading, writing, arithmetic, but theoretically how to please a woman.

And, or at least not piss her off.

And not at least, yeah, not do anything.

At least not get in trouble.

I get in Trouble. And it makes sense that maybe that to some degree has always existed, but in previous times, maybe even just going back World War II, prior to that, is that little boys, once they reach a certain age, they were taken out of the presence of women for the most part. Right now, if we go back a few thousand years ago to tribal times, we had masculine initiation. That's what in tribes were the tribal leaders and elders would take the boys and take them out and put him in a near death kind of experience. Think of like the movie 300, when the boys in the cave with the spear and wild animals out there, that is what happened to young men for most of human history. But even for the last 10,000 years or less, that we've been more agrarian.

Even if we just look at two lifetimes, I mean, one lifetime ago, my parents were born in the 1950s. If you look at one lifetime before then, we're talking about the 1860s, 1870s, how much has changed? And just one hundred and fifty years. Well, even in the late 1800s, you still had the men going out to the farms with grandpa.

Right. With uncles, with cousins.

Only one generation or one lifetime of growing up in what we would call the nuclear family. And now growing up in what we might call the isolated family where you don't even have to go to an office, there's three or four or five of you in the same house, and you never leave. Yeah, it's a very different dynamic.

Main difference is, is boys for this last two, three generations are not taken by the men to initiate them into the world of masculinity, which means they stay in the world of the feminine, seeking feminine approval. And I call it the nursery, where nowadays, if you look at so many young men, they just hang out.

In safety, basically getting information pushed to them through the Internet, whether it's Netflix, Internet, social media, pornography, everything's pushed the young, younger generation, millennials, Generation Z, they're the, they're the best informed generations ever walked the planet. My son is a walking encyclopedia. Go even to generation Z, they know even more. I mean, they've had a smartphone in their hands since they were three days old, getting Nickelodeon or whatever pushed to them. And the real, I think, struggle for men nowadays is that we've never had this, some sort of break of just trying to please the women, the feminine, and taken out and taught that life is best when you're challenged, when you're leaning into challenge, when you're welcoming challenge, then you don't have to seek the approval of the feminine anymore. For it comes to you.

Amen.

Because you have what they're looking for.

And this idea of going into challenge, if you have been raised to be comfortable, if you have been raised for safety, pursuing challenge feels really freaking scary. And yet it is also what makes us, at least as men, feel alive. And so few people are willing to do that, to feel that discomfort enough in order to pursue the next challenge.

And so for me, that missing piece is. You and I were at a dinner gathering with some men last night. You left a little bit earlier than some of the others, but may have been right after you left. One of the younger men there said he's actually has joined my men's membership program. And he said, you know, I haven't been real involved with it. And he said, I. I've never grown up.

Trusting in men, never knew what I was missing by having a depth of connection with men. So if I don't know what I'm missing, how will I, how will I ever know that's what I'm missing inside of me? And it really hit me listening to him talk, that a man almost needs to, in a sense, be fortunate enough to land in a tribe of men, a gathering of men, or be pulled into it some way, or be led into it some way. Whether we call it masculine initiation or whatever it might be, is as if a man has to experience both the connection and camaraderie with other men, the love of other men, the support of other men, and the support and accountability of challenge to really know what that's about, to have had that experience, if you've never had that experience, you can't really know what that feels like. To have gotten out of your comfort, comfort zone, had other men have your back, who are role modeling the same behaviors. And you challenge yourself, you let all your self limiting beliefs come up, all your fears come up, all the worry about the unknown fears of success come up, all of that gets to come up. And then you lean into it, you go through it and then you go. It's like riding a roller coaster for the first time. It scares you to death. But when you get off, that was so much fun. Let's do it again. But until you've experienced it, you can't know what that feels like.

The brain is going to try to keep you safe by having you not do that. Whether that is starting a business or it is approaching a girl out in public, it's all the same of trying to keep you safe rather than pursuing challenge. Tell me if you agree with this, Robert. It is my observation or my belief that because most of society, at least where we, where we live in the west, we have enough abundance to where we've gotten kind of soft. And so as a result, if you're willing to pursue, challenge and deal with that discomfort, there's very little competition right now. There are very few men who approach girls in public. There are very few men who are willing to start businesses and commit to them for five years and eat dirt for five years and come out the other side.

I wonder if it's ever going to, you know, because you don't know, approaching that woman, you don't know, starting that business, is it going to even turn out well, you don't know, that's. Well, I'll just, I'll search social media. One more day of looking at, I'll look at one more day on Netflix.

I'll look at other people's Ferraris rather than work on my own.

Yeah, you know, isn't that cool? Wouldn't that be neat? But that's not me. Yeah, I'm not. Because we don't know. And I'm convinced. Kind of going back to your original question of what's changed? It was already changing when I wrote no more Mr. Nice Guy. But I think the thing is, what's changed is that more and more is that boys are growing up, having to figure out the world on their own. And you know, you hit adolescence and you want answers, you want to know things. And so where do you go find it? Do you find it on social media where it's all about likes and, you know, status and, you know, having things the easy way? You know, I like that there's such an entrepreneurial spirit in younger men, you know, generation Z. But most of them just think, oh, I'll just build a click funnel and make my first million dollars. Is that easy? You know, look around at these other, you know, millionaire 20 year olds if they. And the beauty is if it can be done, it can be done again. Well, one man can do, another man can do. It's one of my favorite mantras, has helped me get my book published when I was against all odds. But I think without some sort of support system to, you know, model the behaviors to hold you accountable, to support you when things you're struggling, we will go back to safety, we will go back to comfort. And you know, a lot of young men don't even have to leave their parents homes till they're 35. You know, they can just stay in mom and dad's house.

And you have a failure to launch because you have not developed the muscle to fly. But you have to be thrown out of the nest.

You do.

And I don't just mean that in living in your in parents home for 35 years, I mean in pursuing any new adventure, in pursuing any new challenge, there is always that resistance that comes up. Always, you will always fight it. And most people, when you have abundant safety, you will go back to safety. And I like to say that you figure things out real quick when you have to, but it takes a long friggin time to figure it out when you've got other options.

Yeah, because there's other options. I was sharing this last night at the dinner about three years ago, a good friend of mine, who actually I met him when he took coach training in my program, my coach certification program. So he came to workshop with me and I, I mentioned during that workshop I needed a men's group. I, I was living in Mexico in a new marriage, feeling isolated, already having struggles in the marriage. And I just knew when I'm at my best, this one, I have men around me. And so I just said I, I gotta find a men's group. And he said, well, I'm in one and with a guy that's, you know, studied with David data for 15 years and we have these retreats and I go, I'm in. And so I, I signed up for that. And I think I hold the record for the most continuous years in that program. And the same guy, Ted, I started that in that first year of the new program, I started my own personal accountability and support group with six other men that were in the program. I said let's, let's meet every other week, meet on the week, so we don't have calls for the programs and let's just support each other. And then I said, I want to do this for the rest of my life. So we all said we're in it for life. We've been doing it about seven years. So these guys know me, they know me as well as anybody. When I'm down, when I'm doing well, when they know it, they know all the sides of me. And about three years ago Ted said, Robert, I think you need a bigger challenge. I'm going, Ted, what are you talking about? I'm 65. Most men at that time, I'm 68 now. Most men at that age are playing golf, watching Fox News, you know, that's their life, you know, commitzing about, whatever. And I said, I'm living in a foreign country. I'm learning a foreign language in my 50s and 60s. I'm married to a woman 22 years younger than me. I'm raising two step kids that are the same age as my granddaughter. I'm already running a business, I'm doing workshops, I'm doing coaching, you know. And he said something just, I just think you need a bigger challenge. I could not conceive of what that was. And then about a year or so later, another guy attending one of my workshops said, robert, I think you need to channel all of your information into a men's membership program. And I go, oh, that sounds interesting. And you know, I kind of started looking at that, what's that about? And that sounds like a good idea. So I pulled some other guys together, got my tech guy and launched my men's membership program. I did not realize how big of a challenge that was going to be. I'm, I'm, I'm swimming in deeper waters than I ever have in business wise in my life and I'm loving it. You know, I have some sleepless nights and some stresses and you know, now at 68, people are going, robert, I can't believe you started a new business at 68. And I can't believe how much energy you have and how excited you are and how passionate you are. And I am, you know, I could retire, I could retire on my book royalties and I'd still want to get up every day and do the things that I'm doing. And if there wasn't a challenge to it.

I'm not sure I'd have much of a reason to live. So we need that challenge. We thrive on that challenge. And often we undersell and underestimate what we're capable of. Just like I thought I was when Ted said, robert, you need a bigger challenge. I got challenges, you know, right and left and, and, and there may still be bigger challenges ahead of me, but that is how the masculine in us thrives and, and gets excited and gets up every day and puts a dent in the, in the cosmos is through that kind of challenge. And I'll just keep coming back to this though. We need our support systems to help us do that. Trying to do it alone is suicide. And so I'm just, that's just what I've been preaching is community. We need community of like minded. I'm primarily create communities of men, but we need communities of like minded people who will both support us, hold us and hold our feet to the fire.

I always cringe when certain groups of humans call out their specific challenges, as if they're unique and special to everybody else. It's like every group has their time in the sun in which they get to broadcast their unique challenges and everyone gets to feel sorry for them for a little bit. And I see men do that from time to time. Of men have this group of challenges, no one understands us. And I try to reframe that as the opportunity on the other side of that. There's a selfish reason why I know that when I'm thinking about the challenges I've dealt with, the challenges that are unique to men. When I feel sorry for myself, I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. But when I think about the opportunity that's on the other side of that, or the fact that you know what? Everybody's got shit and everybody's going through something. And if I'm the one that can accept the challenge to overcome this, then there is abundance beyond what I've experienced at this point. Now I have something to work towards. Now I am fighting for something rather than resisting whatever my unique challenges are, I have something to overcome and that fuels me. I tell the story of I feel like I cured my depression in three days by just saying I'm going to get up when I don't want to and go to the gym and I'm going to fight through it and do things I don't want to do. And within three days I felt alive again.

There's lots of forms of depression out there caused by lots of different things. And so, you know, we could have this quick, easy answer, well, just get out of bed. And, you know, that's not always the answer, but that pity party, I think the answer is get up and do something. Because whenever men come to me, I do not support men playing the victim. That does not serve us as a. So back when I was in private practice, a guy joined one of my groups or came to me for therapy and was complaining about his wife or his boss or whatever. I'd always tell them, you get two sessions to complain. After the second session done, no more complaining. It's like, what are you going to do different? What can I support you in? In changing and challenging. And same thing. I remember when I started working with nice guys and they'd come in, they'd all want to complain. Yeah, you know, the whole media is anti male and you can't watch a sitcom on TV where the guy's just a bumbling idiot and the woman and kids are all so smart than him and blah and the guys, I'm going, can it. Don't want to hear it. Yeah, that stuff's in the media because it sells. Apparently people watch it, right, and it'll come and go. But as soon as men get into that, poor me, I'm a victim. I. I'm a victim to my wife. I'm a victim to my job. I'm a victim to the economy. I'm a victim to. Even to, you know, all the. What is it, dei, you know, diversity, equality. Soon as we start playing the victim role, we're toast. We're toast. There's no. There's no way forward.

So let me ask you about what seems to be kind of a paradox to me. One of my favorite lessons that I've heard you teach is about needs. About getting your needs met and communicating your needs and doing it from a place of strength, not a place of neediness. So what is the balance? It seems kind of a. Kind of paradoxical of.

I'll just tell you.

Of communicating your needs, but also not being balanced.

So we'll go after the balance word. Okay, so what's the difference of having.

Needs, communicating needs and playing the victim.

Playing the victim of.

Of casting this idea of, well, men are. Are portrayed in this way, but at the same time, we do. We do have needs that we don't communicate.

Okay, we're human. Humans have needs. All living things have needs. And what I tell the people I work with and nowadays is almost all men.

We were born needy, vulnerable, and it was our parents jobs to recognize our needs and meet them in timely, judicious, and consistent ways. But as adults now, their job's done. No matter how well they did it, how poorly they did it, their job's done. As adults, we are solely responsible for our needs. To me, that's the definition of being adult is basically responsibility. Responsibility for our choices, our decisions, our mistakes, our needs. That's being a grownup.

Yes.

And so we all have needs. Now. Having needs is different than being needy. As you know, we'll just kind of pull that apart. Being needy is like.

Is having needs but not accepting responsibilities for our needs and expecting that somebody else should be okay. So, yeah, I do talk a lot about getting our needs met because one of the things I've realized working with nice guys is.

At an early age, we learned. We internalized a belief either we're bad for having needs or everybody else's needs are more important than ours, or I've got to give to other people before I can have my needs met. Our personal Needs just got pushed away one way or another. A lot of nice guys grew up taking pride in being needless and wantless. Never a moment's problem. But my dad was the needy one. I don't want to be like dad or my brother was the needy one. I don't want to be like my brother. So we almost get this badge of honor for not having needs. But we're human. We've got all got needs. And I had to start consciously both working at making my needs a priority, giving to myself, surrounding myself with people and resources and systems that want to help me get my needs met, and then letting them and practicing receiving. That's all several steps I've been working on throughout life. And those are the steps that I work with nice guys. So we have to begin by just acknowledging what are our needs and wants. And guys will want to, you know, parse that apart and get intellectual. What's the difference between a need and a want? I go, I don't give a. Who cares if it's important to you? If you need it, want it, value it, honor it. Okay, it doesn't matter.

I'll share with you how I've, I've practiced this because I noticed kind of a loop that I was falling into at one period of my life where when I, when I felt attachment to a, a male friend or someone that I respected, I would either try to solidify the relationship via business immediately say, how can we work together?

Okay?

Or I would put that person on a pedestal because I didn't have enough connections in my life and I would almost go into like people pleasing mode with a peer. And so the way that I started practicing this was when I would have a colleague and I could see that we were starting to become friends, I would start to communicate. Hey, it seems to me that we're starting to become friends. Here's what that means to me. Are you cool with this? Which was really weird and uncomfortable at first.

Great communication.

And at the same time, the, the guy on the other side would be like, wow, that's, that's actually really helpful. And also, I just want to make it clear we don't ever have to do business together if we're friends like that. We can take that off the table. If it happens, it's fine, but it's okay if we're just friends too. And all of a sudden, there was an agreement between two consenting parties of what this relationship looks like, which seems, which on paper seems both obvious and trite at the same time with. But it was very freeing to be able to communicate. This is where I stand. This is what I think is happening. Are you cool with that? Are we on the same page? All right, great. Let's go have a beer. And it changed the dynamic between the relationships that I have. I think that communication of the status of a relationship is kind of a lost art because we have lives where we're friends with everyone we work with, but they're all on social media, and there's no real defined connection about where this person fits into my life. Would you agree that that has.

That.

That that has kind of been lost? And as a result, we're feeling maybe more isolated than ever?

Isolation, probably a lot of things. But, yeah, I love that communication. I love the clarity of it. I call these what you're talking about. Cooperative, reciprocal relationships. CRRs, they're cooperative, mean that everybody involved gets something of value out of it. Is we're cooperative because we both want to be here. It's reciprocal in that we both get value out of it. Now, you and I have a crr. We both agreed I'd come out to your house, sit down at your table. We do this interview together. It's reciprocal that we both get some value out of it. I'll get some visibility for my work, my books. Maybe you get more viewers, more likes, more subscribes, and we just have a connection with each other. There's multiple layers of value to it. And you're right. Rarely do we sit down and define what are all of those.

And so I. One of the practices I teach men is about creating what I call these CRRs. And there's about three steps to it. To really look at what resources do we have in our life right now, what do we need or are missing in order to live a full, complete life, to fill our bucket, to take responsibility for getting our needs met. And the third part is what relationships do we have that maybe are no longer cooperative or reciprocal, that we either need to have a conversation about, renegotiate a contract, or just cut it off altogether because it's not serving us. And keep filling that first page with as many CRRs. And I call those people professionals, practices and packs.

One of the things that Robert preaches is that if you decide to go on any journey that is different from what you've experienced in the past, you will fall back into old habits if you do not have a support structure around you. That is why it is so important to be plugged in with other people who are on the same vision and same journey as you. If you feel isolated, like you have been trying to make something happen for a long time and it's just not happening. One of the things that we do is support entrepreneurs on their road to building a million dollar business. If you want our free resources to discover how we can support you and some of our best case studies, go over to capitalism.com playbook, enter in your best email address and we'll send that over to you. And whenever you're ready for full support on your road to a million dollars, you can join the 1%, which is our mentoring community for entrepreneurs who are building towards their first million. You can find out what we do and get on the waiting list@capitalism.com 1.

So your friends, your associates are the people that are on that page one. Those are the people that help you get your needs met. They help you fill your bucket as you help them get their needs met and fill their buckets. It's a reciprocal transactional relationship without the scoreboard, right? With that, without the score, the scoreboard now. But if everybody, if not everybody's getting value out of it, it's really no longer a crr. It's not reciprocal value. And then we may have to look, do we need to have a conversation, you know, renegotiate, cut it off completely? Because maybe you had a drinking buddy in college that used to love hanging out with and he still just wants to go drink and, you know, do stupid stuff and you've moved on and you still like the guy, you care about him, but you don't get anything out of it anymore. Well, you may need to move on. So we have those CRRs. So it's the people, professionals, my doctor, my dentist, my financial advisor, my accountant, my chiropractor, my nutrition coach. I pay them, they get value and that they get to pay their bills. I get value and that I get a resource. And as long as everybody's happy with what they get, you know, they're getting paid enough, I'm getting enough value. We'll keep this going on until maybe one of us says, well, I'm not making enough or I don't want to do it anymore, or I'm not getting value. People pay me, they come do my workshops, do coaching with me. They pay me money, I get value, I can pay my bills. They get value in that they get a training, a resource, a connection information that they maybe couldn't get elsewise. And if everybody's happy with the exchange, it, it works well. And again, it helps if there are definitions about what those exchanges are, this.

Makes total sense to me. And I think we all can. We can observe this because we all have these relationships. But I think the rub is when it changes that conversation of renegotiating a social contract. Can you, can you talk about approaching those conversations? Because that's, that is, that's still where.

You'Re the only person I know that does it.

Well.

I'm not, I'm not even proud of the way I've done it with my stepson.

This, this is. I. I have practiced them, but they're still really hard.

Yeah.

And. And I think the difficulty is, at least for me personally, is there's a concern of disappointing someone. And we are.

That's huge.

We are, Are trained not to disappoint each other, especially as mental. We hold responsibility or we're supposed to don't rock the boat. And so disappointing someone is rocking the boat in some capacity. And so I can. I can think of when I hit a plateau or when I'm. I'm experiencing a recurring difficulty in my life. There's often a renegotiation of relationships that needs to happen. And that is hard.

Yeah.

Or there's a lot of resistance that comes up to that. I'm always glad when I do it. For example, I've never regretted firing someone. There have been times that I wish I had done it differently or times that usually sooner.

I've never regretted renegotiating or at least having an open conversation about, here's where I stand, here's what I need, and this is what I'm perceiving. And we need. We need to battle this out some, but it's still really difficult. So how do you. How do you approach those kinds of conversations?

Well, I'm like you. They're difficult. I would say a core driving factor in my life, maybe for good and bad, but it's a core piece of my nice guy dynamic is I don't want. Not only do I not want to disappoint anybody, upset anybody, it bothers me if anybody I care about is upset about anything, whether I caused it or not. And I jump in and want to help, want to fix, want to soothe them, want to support them. And, you know, that can be a valuable trait. And it can also be codependent and borrowed, functioning and enabling and not loving. And so it is a piece I've had to learn to really pay attention to.

Am I, like, helping somebody out purely because they're unhappy, uncomfortable, in distress, and that distresses me. So I'm trying To manage my distress and. Or am I avoiding those kind of conversations you're talking about because not so much that it's going to make them uncomfortable, but it distresses me. Right? And so I've said to men for a long time, when guys say, well, I don't want to hurt anybody, I said, no, you're covering your own ass. You don't want to feel uncomfortable, you don't want to feel anxious. So that's why you avoid doing the things that hurt people. But here's the paradox. When we do these things where we don't step up and deal with things head on, don't have the conversations, don't set a boundary, whatever it is, we actually end up hurting people more than if we just had that, that upfront conversation about things with love and respect and. And again, I'm not, I'm not good at it either, mainly because of my own anxieties. But like you, every time I've done it, and hopefully done it before, I let resentment build up and I came off in a pissed off kind of way that usually doesn't produce a lot of constructive change or people usually don't hear their part of it well when you're pissed off. So if I can either soothe myself enough or deal with it before, you know, I let it build up and get pissed off, it's usually productive. And you're almost always productive in one way. Either we come to a better understanding of something, the other person makes an adjustment, I adjust my expectations, I remove myself, whatever it might be, it works out better. And I'm thinking probably the best example I know is that I've got an employee who's worked for me for 10 years and does all my tech work, used to do well, still does some customer service. Over the years, I found out customer service is not a strong suit. He tends to put it off and avoid it. But that's the thing I want done right away, because that's good customer service. And it's not that he can't do it.

Whatever reason, he avoids it and he'll go do a deep dive on some tech things. That's what he loves doing. And I've told him I've almost fired him a hundred times, and I'm glad I didn't because he's actually a very good employee. He's very loyal, he does really good work. If I give him good direction, clear expectations and manage him well. So what I've found out in all these, like a hundred times, I was pissed off and wanted to Fire his ass. It was really an issue of poor management on my part either. I wasn't putting him into situations in which he could excel and exceed, expecting him to do things that he just wasn't good at. Not checking in with him regularly, not giving him clear direction of how I wanted things done, it usually came back to me. I was the one not communicating well. And whenever I've communicated well, put him in situations that I know he can succeed at because it's in his wheelhouse. He's just the best employee you could want. But when I don't do those things, my, My wife, My wife knows him. He lives in Mexico as well. And he's. He's Mexican, speaks fluent English. His mother was an American English teacher married to a Mexican man. So he grew up in Mexico. So he, he's met my wife. My wife knows him. She calls him El Huvon now in Spanish. That's kind of a slur for a lazy person. Huevos are balls. So, you know, and so in, in, you know, male culture, if you, if you, if you're sitting around scratching your balls, you're a lazy person. Away vote. So she says, whenever I say, I'm going to talk to Henrik. And, and I love you, Henrik. My. And my. He does know that my wife refers to him as Elway Bone, and. Which is just say hi to the lazy surprise.

He listens to the capitalism.com podcast.

Yeah, he probably. He'll probably listen to this. So. Love you, Henrik. So. But whenever, again, he comes across as, you know, lazy, not showing up, not doing his job, not, not whatever I'm frustrated at a hundred percent of the time is my management. If I managed better.

And, and when you say management, you mean, you mean clarity of expectations, clarity.

Clarity of direction, clarity of communication, clarity of checking in regularly, clarity of knowing what he's good at and what he's not good at. You know, if I'm putting him in a position to do stuff he's not good at, that's on me.

Robert. Whenever I feel pissed off like that, that almost irrational, I want to kick the cat. Angry. Yeah, it is. I check in to see, do I have an unspoken contract somewhere?

Yeah.

Do I have a, an expectation that I have not clearly communicated, or is there something unconscious that I expect that I haven't communicated? One example of this is I've been a marketer for two decades. I see the world through marketing and sales. I've never had a job. I just think that everyone understands that businesses run via sales because I've never paid for a meal without having to sell something for it. So I just assume that everyone on my team understands the basics of marketing and sales. And when I see something and I feel that what the are we doing? I pause and I think, is there something I understand that I haven't properly communicated to the team? This is a teaching lesson. This is an opportunity for me to teach something and hand it off. Or at least to communicate an expectation to the team. And if the team can't meet it, then we've got a talent gap somewhere and we've got to go ask for help from someone. If I feel that way with one of my children.

How can you not clean up your room?

How do you leave all this shit?

It means that I have not sat down and said, hey, what defines a good morning, kids? It means making your bed, brushing your teeth, and making sure that all your shit is put away. So there, there's. Every time I feel that twinge of just irrational anger, I know I have something to communicate. And I start to have empathy for the men who get really resentful in life or deal with chronic anger because I can see why they have not developed the skill of communicating what their needs and expectations are. Yeah, I'd like to know if you agree.

Oh, I'm smiling. I came across a quote recently by Neil Strauss and I love it because it talks, it addresses.

He's the greatest living writer.

Well, it addresses what I call covert contracts and no more Mr. Nice Guy. But he said unexpressed expectations are premeditated resentments.

It's good.

Yeah. Unexpressed expectations. That lands premeditated resentments. And in no more Mr. Nice Guy, I talk about what I call covert contracts. And it goes back to your question still about needs and neediness. We're going to come across needy if we have covert contracts. That's if I do this for you, then you'll do this for me. And so we're always doing, doing, doing for others, hoping that they will do back. They'll read our mind and give back to us without us ever having a conversation. When. When I became single in my late 40s and started dating for the first time since college, I was terrible at it before, but I've been married for 25 years. If I got a woman, I stayed a long time because I didn't know I'd get another one. And so I got out in the dating world and I got pretty good at dating and met some great women and I started doing something. Kind of going back to your conversation about expressing you know, your expectations that as I. If I dated a woman more than a few times and it looked like we're going to keep seeing each other, I would tell her, I said, you know, if we keep seeing each other, here's what you can expect of me. So I laid out what she could expect, who she would know, who she was dating, you know, what was she was getting involved with. And I would tell them, if we keep seeing each other, here's what you can expect. I'll be conscious, I'll pay attention to me, to you, to us, what's going on. I'll be honest. Everything I tell you will be the truth. You'll never find out anything that I didn't tell you, that I told you, that was not correct. I'll be transparent. I'll tell you what, what I think, what I feel, what I want, where I'm going, what I expect of you. And I said, I will set the tone and lead. I'll show up with a plan. I won't burden with you. What do you want to do tonight? And every woman looked at me that I said, I probably said that to three or four different women over the years. And they all looked at me go, wow, I've never had a man tell me anything like that before. And the good women then asked, what do you expect from me? And I said, you know, I got most, most of the bases covered in my life. I've got a good job, I have enough money, I have guy friends, I have adventure, I have a full life. I said, just treat me well and make my world beautiful. And then when their eyes would kind of cut to the creative thinking side, how could I treat him well? Make his world beautiful. So we laid out expectations and, you know, these women all said, robert, you need to write another book. No man has ever done this with me before. No man has ever had a conversation about what I can expect from them, what they expected from me in relationship. I think we all just hope the other person figures it out, that they'll just guess, you know, okay, I'm a guy, you're a girl, we're boyfriend, girlfriend. You'll do this for me and I'll do this for you. We just assume it's just kind of wired into us or it's a given. But I mean, we have so many unrealistic expectations when it comes to relationship. It's good to get some clarity about what, what really can we expect and, you know, whether it's laying out our terms, our boundaries even. There's funny Stuff that comes up when you start talking about this. I remember I was dating one woman, and pretty early on, you know, we're. To the point of where we were being physical with each other. And I remember she and other women had done this before. Like, stuck her tongue in my ear, you know, gave me, you know, wet willie.

This is exactly where I saw this going.

Yeah, you knew this. How'd you know that? And then, then she wanted to like, to stick her tongue down my throat, you know, and, you know, this is all. She was doing this because it apparently turned her on or she liked it. You know, we often do the things we want people to do for us. Again, covert contracts. We're not clear about it. And I don't know where I got this idea, but I thought we can have a conversations about likes. And. And I asked her, let's talk about things you like, things you like, that you know when you're being sexual, that men do. And let's talk about things you don't like. And she goes, okay. And so what we did, we talked about. And she said, well, how about? What don't you like? And I said, well, we'll be vulnerable here. I said, actually, my nipples are really sensitive. I don't like having my nipples be really rough. And I said, I don't like having a tongue in my ear. And she goes, oh, that's good to know. It never had dawned on me. I was probably pushing 50 years old at that time. And it never dawned on me I could have a conversation with an intimate partner about what I liked and didn't like.

And most people would just let that carry on for.

Because I don't want to hurt their feelings or upset.

And they might even go down the rabbit hole of what? What is wrong with me that I don't like this?

Or I might end the relationship because she was rough with my nipples and kept sticking in my ear like, oh, no, this is the wrong woman for me. All we had to do is have a conversation.

It's easy to see this in a dating relationship because the dynamic is so passionate. But this happens in business as well.

You got the nipple thing and the tongue in the air. In business, every.

Every time. That's a prerequisite for every business contract that I sign. My nipples will not be touched.

Just off limits.

When we sit down and negotiate a contract, or the one that's, I think, most awkward is when you've been kicking around a business idea with somebody and then it's time to decide the ownership of a business and the default that everyone in my peer group kind of defaults is you start with 50. 50.

No, you never can.

And then. Then you might negotiate from here. And that always gets people into trouble because it's just. It's just the easy way. It's the way to not communicate. It's the way to not sit down and say, what are you bringing to the table? What are. What are the expectations that I have of each party? Let's just divide it up equally, and let's hope for the best.

Oh, some of the best advice I got, you asked before we, you know, started talking about my companies. And. And when I launched my most recent Integration Nation, my men's membership program, I had seven of my coaches that I invited to help me build this. And I saw it as a partnership that I would own, you know, at least 50% of it, so I'd have the controlling interest. And when I started looking at just the dynamics, I went to the attorney who had set up my previous corporation. He goes, I don't do partnerships. I've had too many of them come back and bite me on the ass as an attorney. But I do have another attorney who does. So he referred me to her. And I also brought this up with my accountant. And he goes, he says, are they all American nationals? Are they all. I go, no, actually, they're all over the world. And he goes, and then I talked to this other attorney, and she goes, can I talk you out of this? And I said, please do. Everybody I talked to said, don't form partnerships. I'm not saying I know enough about them, but especially not with seven other people, you know, with everybody's expectations. What I was told is all it takes is for one person to want a divorce from that marriage to affect every other person. Now every other person has to lawyer up, start doing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Best advice I ever got was make it sole proprietor, you know, your. Your. Your corp, and you can then work out some other working agreement, contracts and.

Agreements between the two other peoples, you know, and so.

And then when I thought, oh, this may upset all these people that I've said will be partners. But when I went back to them and said, okay, good news, you guys don't have to invest a dime. It's all on me. Bad news, it's going to be my company. You're not going to be partners. I. I think they all breathed a sigh of relief. None of them said, oh, you. They were all go, oh, yeah, I'm okay with that. You know, as long as they had clarity about what was expected of them and what the payoffs would be for them, that's really all they wanted. I don't know that any of them wanted the burden of being an owner, shared owner in that. So the fact that going back to what you've been talking about, clarity of communication, you know, rather than, oh, I promised them this, I don't want to hurt their feelings. Well, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, and they are all still participating in this company that I started, and none of them have been paid a dime yet. And, you know, we're like two plus years into it. But because we have clarity of expectations, they know what's ahead. They know what we're working for.

Robert, I'm just having a brain gasm moment where I'm realizing something for the first time, because I have. One of the questions that I wrote down ahead of time is, why do you think men are so lonely today? And my theory has been, well, we've always been a little bit more prone to loneliness because we're made to be in packs, and we're not in packs anymore.

And even in packs, I think we kind of always crave a little bit of our loan diet.

Sure. But what I'm realizing for the first time is that I think, at least for myself, the reason why so many men struggle with loneliness at the level they do today is because of the lack of clear agreements that we have with one another.

That's your brain gas.

Yes.

The first time I've had an interview, somebody had a brain gam. Well, I don't know if it goes back to the nipple thing, but that was.

The foreplay that got us to this. The. The.

I think most men are going through life operating in the world with this set of assumptions of how we've been.

Assumptions. Yeah.

And we crave connection, partnership with. In a business sense, in a romantic sense, in a friendly sense. But there is not a clear agreement about where do I stand in this relationship, what do I bring to the table, what are my expectations out of this relationship. And as a result, there is this. Just this internal caging that prevents you from being able to be present in the relationship. One of the things that I will say in a business context is the point of transacting. If I pay you for coaching, I am paying you enough for you to be present with me. That is the agreement. And if you can't be present with me, then you need to charge more, because it's the presence and the ability to connect that we're paying for good strategy. And that is also true when it comes to a romantic or a business transaction, is when we have that clear agreement, we are agreeing to support one another in the way that we need to be supported. And most men don't feel supported. And it's just making me rethink where in my life do I have difficulties that are actually a lack of clear agreements. Yeah.

Well, if you will let me break it down even more. I talk a lot, and this comes out of an influence of David Data and masculine and feminine energies. And I break it down real simply. The masculine does, and the feminine is done too. And so the masculine in us, as we've talked already, is activated by challenge, is internally validated through challenge. The feminine, on the other hand, is externally validated through praise, approval, desire, recognition. And we all have masculine and feminine side. And going back to what we're talking about with lack of masculine initiation, it makes sense. As little boys growing up, we would seek feminine approval. The problem with feminine approval, feminine is the weather. It's ever changing. Masculine is constant. It's just forever, eternally like this. Okay? And trying to get hit feminine approvals, like throwing darts at a moving target. You know, one day you do it and she smiles and she's happy. The next time you do the same thing, you get punished or scolded. It doesn't matter if this is mommy, you know, girlfriend, you know, wife, female boss. Trying to hit feminine approval is a moving target. So most of us guys, we either just keep trying to figure that out, how do I do it? How do I get that smile on their face? Guessing, maybe withdrawing from it because we can't figure out how to do it or trying harder to do the same thing that worked last time. It doesn't seem to work this time. But the difference between masculine approval is we know where it is. We know where the markers are. You go in the military, you know what the ranks are. You know, in school, you know what it takes to get a grade. In the business world, you know what it takes to get a promotion. You know, if you've. In sports, you know, if you've hit a home run, you know if you've scored a touchdown, you know if you made a basket, it's clear it doesn't move. The basket doesn't move. Around the goal posts don't move, around the fences don't move.

The golf ball doesn't move. But in the masculine world, there's clarity about the markers. In the feminine, it's a clear goal.

And we're working towards and we know.

How to get those.

We're getting better at going.

We know what everybody's job responsibility is. That's very masculine. Now men and women both can do that. In fact, women are excelling at that in the business world these days. Men seem to be getting worse. Going back to men not having the masculine initiation, still in the nursery, still in the world of trying to please the feminine. And because that can't be done consistently, you might occasionally light up the feminine and get the smile or she goes, yeah, sure, let's have sex. Yeah, I'll show you my breasts, whatever. You might hit that occasionally, but there's no consistent rule or checklist for getting there. But we keep trying to do that. And so we either feel like a victim, feel overwhelmed, quit trying, withdrawing, and I'll go back to a big piece that's missing. For so many men in our culture that leads to that victim stuff we were talking about earlier is that again, they've not been initiated into. Here's how the masculine world works and here's the rules that it's played by. And if you follow these rules and build teams and clearly express expectations and have things, you know, the odds are really great of moving towards success. I mean, it's been done before, it's not, you know, you don't have to figure it out, make it up every time. Every business you've built, you've built it on the principles you learned from build in your previous. You probably didn't go in and say, I think I'll do it 180 degrees different and see if that works. No, you're going to go and do what works because you know, what works in the world of the masculine. So again, I keep coming back to all these things we're talking about, like having clear expectations, expressing our wants and needs in clear ways, finding people who can and ruling out the people who can't meet them, letting people know what works, what doesn't work. All these different things, that's all the masculine world. And we need to be trained, we need to be initiated into that to learn how to do it. Otherwise we're just flailing and you know, throwing darts and hoping it hits a target.

I'm curious to hear how you suggest people start to pivot out of that assumptive behavior and into more of a clear life defining behavior. For me, it always starts with just make decisions that just, just pick decisions and go. And, and the perfect example is when I first got out of college, I was friend zoned by A girl that I really liked. And the way that I got out of the friend zone was I just started making decisions where she would say, hey, let's go over here. I said, no, I'm going this way is just make decisions and start just going your own way and be okay with other people not going with you. And that was kind of the portal through which when there's stuckness in a relationship or in a life, it means we just need to pick a direction and start to go. How do you recommend that people start to get out of that?

That's a good question. Yeah. Also, I say that women don't put us in the friend zone. We put ourselves there. You know, we do because we don't make the decisions and we seek approval. And so I like what you're saying is that there's a boldness when you make a decision and go there, you look bold, that is attractive to the feminine. And like I said earlier, when a man's been initiated into the masculine world and is making decisions and, and going where he goes. My, my, my. I. I've shared this definition of, of how to attract the feminine, and Chris Williamson loved it and picked it up and just put it in his newsletter again this last week. But it's this. The feminine is highly attracted to a man who's comfortable in his own skin, knows where he's going, decisions, and looks like he's having a good time getting there. And every time I share that, people go, yeah. When I share it with, like, women life coaches, they all go, oh, oh, this wound. Oh, yeah. That is so attractive to the feminine. And feminine is everything that's not nailed down. Remember, masculine is constant. Feminine is women, baby dogs, cats, money, adventure, opportunity. Everything that's out there just moving in a state of flux and creation. And when a guy, when. When a. If you want, if you identify with the masculine pole and this whole polarity thing of yin and yang, masculine, feminine, in terms of, you know, that's how you want to penetrate and be seen in the world. Yeah, that. Number one, getting comfortable in your own skin, liking you, respecting you, taking good care of you, valuing your own opinions and desires and wants and needs. That's how you get comfortable in your own skin. Trying to please other people, get external approval that never comes across as confident or secure, knowing where you're going. And a lot of. A lot of men struggle with this. I don't know my purpose, I don't know my passion. And I often, when Guy says, I mean, I just can't I don't know what my purpose is. I'll go. Have you been reading David Data? Yeah. I just can't find my purpose. And I go, okay, here's where I love David Data's work, but here's where I differ a little bit. He thinks purpose is karmic. We're here to fulfill something, and maybe that's true, but I teach that purpose and passion is just how you do everything. You know, you look like you trim your beard with a little bit of purpose and passion. You paid attention. You showed up with consciousness when you. When you trim your beard. What if you do that in all things in life? You know, how you make your bed in the morning, how you brush your teeth, how you pay your bills, how you drive, how you interact with your partner, your children. What if we did them all purposefully, part, passionately, consciously, fully in the moment? I think if you start doing those little things every day with purpose and passion. I'm a big fan of making the bed in the morning as well, you know, flossing your teeth daily with purpose and passion, that all of a sudden you notice you're doing that in every, every way. And that is highly attractive to the feminine. And it is also highly attracted to the masculine, because the masculine, it recognizes mastery. Right. And so doing everything with purpose and passion is a masterful way to live. And the feminine will not only be attracted to that, so you don't have to go seeking feminine approval. You don't get put in the friend zone. The feminine goes, I want what you got. I want to be close to you. I want to be around you. I want to get on your train and ride the direction you're going so we don't have to pursue anybody's approval, anybody's recognition, again, that masculine is that internally validated through masterful action. So just getting up and do whatever you do today masterfully, even if you just get up and watch Netflix, do it masterfully, do it consciously, do it with full awareness and enjoy it. And you'll probably reach a point and go, it's time to move on. You know, that time to do something different.

That is kind of a silly example, but I sometimes when my children say, dad, can I watch something on tv? I will turn it back to them and say, if you can tell me what you want to watch, then I will let you watch tv. If you're going on to surf to kill time.

Yeah.

Then no.

Yeah. Killing boredom.

So there. There is an attentiveness or an intentionality.

Yeah.

That when you bring to anything makes life more enjoyable.

Yeah. And watching Sharp week masterfully, you know, full attentiveness.

That's right.

And that's what my boys always wanted to watch.

The. The. The danger that I think a lot of men or people get into in kind of where we are and just the scope of society right now is we think about how the world is kind of stacked against masculinity. We started talking about that like, there's. There's this lack of masculinity. No one taught me how to be masculine. And the way that I try to flip that in the optimistic is if you're willing to pursue challenge, if you define the terms, if you're willing to have the hard conversations, man, do you stand out right now. There is. It is kind of like sometimes people will say that we're more polarized than ever, and I say we're craving unity more than ever.

I agree.

If there are people who are willing to build bridges, they can start cults. If people are willing to make decisions, there are people who will follow. There is this craving for people who take responsibility, who pursue challenge, who do hard things, who are comfortable losing and therefore making a hard decision and going in one direction. And I was just hoping you could speak to this idea of the optimistic side of what happens when you are willing to pursue that challenge and endure the discomfort.

Yeah, I am an optimist, and, um, that. That can work against me. You know, if I'm in a relationship, I'll be optimistic. Well, they'll get their shit together. They want to work on their. And then they're not always, you know, as committed as I am. But when people ask me even about the state of kind of the whole masculine, feminine, toxic masculinity, all the stuff going on, I actually am optimistic because things tend to change initially by. By pendulum swing.

Yes.

Going from one extreme, the other. And, you know, so just as an example, you know, kind of the whole, you know, attack on patriarchy.

Yep.

You know, so.

So it's exactly where I was thinking.

You know, at one time, we had a system where men owned things. They. They owned their land, their cows, their woman, their children. That led to colonialism of owning slaves and owning peoples and lands and. And a lot of abuses came out of that. Now, part of patriarchy was also providing and protecting for things, so it wasn't, like, completely inherently evil. But now we swung the other way, threw the baby out with the bathwater. So, you know, everything patriarchal, everything to do with men, especially white males, you know, is bad. It's evil, you know, and we now need to give everybody who's ever been oppressed or marginalized all the goodies and benefits and take them away from, you know, the people who had it all before. And so because they're evil. And so we've had the extreme, now we've got extremes reacting to that. Whether it's all the way from, you know, white nationalism to red pill to, you know, whatever. Oh, we're going to swing the pendulum back the other way. The good news is what I see coming out of these swings and some people, like I said earlier, I'm not a fan of the word balance because nice guys always, well, how do I find the balance between like expressing my needs and wants? No, no, no, I said I've never yet met a successful or happy person that was in balance. Most of the people I know that are like getting shit done and having good lives are out of balance in some way. I'm out of balance. My wife tells me you work a lot. She's right. I do. I, I, I probably work too much for a 68 year old guy, but I like my work. It's making a difference in the world. It gives us a good life. My wife actually has a great respect for me. I don't think she's known that many men in her life that work that hard.

Robert, I'm enjoying this, but you're right on. I'm, you're, you're playing just the tip with me on this. Point of the pendulum swings.

Are we talking sex again or.

Well, ever since the nipples, I just can't get off it.

All right, I'll give you more than the tip. So what happens is, I see that not, we're not just going to swing back the other way. We're going to go up, up. We're going to raise this thing up to another level. And you're talking about that unity to where, okay, we don't have to fight each other. We don't have to have one culture fighting another, one race fighting another, one gender fighting another. And I think that's going to come out of the good leadership.

I agree.

Of the things we're talking about, of men who refuse to play victim that don't go, it's not fair, I'm being attacked. Who refuse to play victims who can embrace both their masculine side consciously in the way that they penetrate the world, penetrate the feminine, get things done that are meaningful and embrace their feminine side in that they open to connection and the flow of love and feeling for those who have been hurt. And I think we're rising up.

I agree.

And it's not going to be this battle anymore. I think it is going to be people seeing the benefit of what happens when we. When we get integrated, basically, when we quit having divisions. And we can. As a man, I can integrate the masculine side of me that can consciously get things done and make a difference in the world, and integrate that with the feminine side of me that can be open and creative and spontaneous and loving and playful. All of those find a place. And I think the world finds all of those pieces attractive and wants more of it.

One of my heroes is Gary Vaynerchuk. I've known him on a somewhat personal basis for about 10 years, so I've gotten to know him enough to see behind the curtain. And the thing that I admire so much about him is he is clearly defined in his aim. He is public about that, willing to lose, and also kind of. And that to me, what a nice mix. That, to me, is integration. That is someone who has defined his path, knows exactly where he wants to go, clear in his expectations, willing to fall on his own sword if he loses, take responsibility for those losses, not blame anybody else for those losses, and is kind in the process. Yeah, to me, that is like. That is how I want my life.

What is there not to like?

And that personality, I think, wins. In what you're saying with this pendulum swinging, what comes out of that is, I think that you will start to discover that it is that personality or that constructed human that ends up leading into the next generation, leading into the next innovation. And so we will stop chastising that. We will honor it when we see it. And I think that's when we. When the pendulum stops swinging, I think.

Even deeper than honoring it. It is so fucking attractive as a man, as a woman, doesn't matter. When you see somebody that. That can embrace both consciously, that masculine, feminine part of themselves, no victim in there.

You say can take full responsibility, is positive, optimistic, making a difference in the world, having fun doing it. They're fun to be around. Yeah, that's a magnet that. That. That attracts men and women. Both people want more of that. And I think kind of like any initiation is hard to be initiated into something you can't see, to just be told, all right, we're going to take you out and help you face your fear of death and dying and, you know, being attacked. But what does that look like when you get to the other side? Oh, we have nothing to show you. But if you can Actually see people personifying and manifesting. What healthy initiation and integration. Could you.

Could we go into that a little bit more?

Yeah, that's the idea.

Something to shoot for now, I have struggled myself with. Once I get to a plateau or a mountain, seeing the next mountain of, okay, you accomplish a goal, we get real miserable when we don't have a clearly defined aim. So the next mountain is.

Kind of overwhelming. Sometimes it feels that way. So what I have chosen to do is during those times, that's when I just practice doing hard things. It's when I build the muscle of building capacity to be able to withstand challenge, so that when I feel clear about what that next challenge is, I'm ready for it. How do you suggest that people get through those periods?

Well, let me throw another piece into that. Um, and I'll keep, you know, reverting back, you know, because I primarily work with men, going back to. To the. To the masculine part of ourselves. And again, I'm not conflating that with male. But. But most of the men I work with do identify as masculine. I'm. I'm actually pretty feminine. And you have some feminine sides to you as well. Most of us do nowadays. And that's good. It's beautiful.

Was it the beard trimming that did it for you? Was that the trigger?

It's just. Yeah. Your eyes. Beautiful. Your eyebrows. I mean, there's this work.

Wait till you see my nipples, Robert.

Yeah, yeah. I'll be gentle, I promise. So.

You'Re the one getting us off track, man. So the masculine thrives on challenge. The masculine, especially when it rises and meets it masterfully, usually in the presence of other masterful men. Other masterful players, let's put it that way. You know, when you ask, like, why are women attracted to rock stars and sports stars and stuff like that, it's typically because the feminine loves to see masterful men doing something. Well, I got to see the Rolling Stones live a few months ago. I'd never seen them live before. And you know, Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards, they're all either late 70s or early 80s, right? And they're still. It's a good concert. They're still masterfully doing what they've been doing. And I'm surrounded by women. Had my wife with me. Women. The women are still going crazy about them. You know, they go crazy, you know, the sports figures. And it's not just that a man does something masterful. It magnifies when masterful men are performing well together. Right. Again, I'm using a lot of gender here. But. But the feminine is drawn to that. Now. I don't think the. The masculine, if you look at it in just purely yin and yang, energetic terms, the masculine masterfully meets challenge so that it can rest in nothingness. Challenge solved. We're done, right? And David Data says in the masculine errors, to think that someday it'll all be done and I can rest and, you know, my woman will be happy and stay happy. My, you know, my company will be.

Running well, it'll be profitable, and it'll stay profitable.

Yeah. I don't have to do another thing to it. I built the machine, the machine will keep running, and then the next challenge comes. So what I tell men that in general, I don't think we have to go looking for the next challenge. I don't think we have to go looking for purpose. I've never even asked myself. People say, robert, you're so lucky. You know, you live with purpose. You're making a difference in the world. You've created a job that pays you well. You can live in Mexico. You've got, you know, a young wife, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they go, how did you. How did you discover your purpose? And I go, I never went looking for it. It tended to find me, and it usually found me in challenge, challenge in relationship, challenge in business challenges, health challenges. Something I didn't understand that I wanted.

To know more about and what I'm processing and wrote down, as you were saying. That is, if I don't know what my purpose is or if I don't know what challenge to pursue, I'm avoiding something.

Maybe, maybe not. There are periods I am.

I can identify where that is in my life right now.

But life is okay. Yeah, that's a good. Life is like this, right? Business is like this. When I launched my first counseling practice.

I got, you know, maybe a year or two into it, and even though it wasn't as big as I'd like it to be, I realized at a certain point, it will always be pretty much like this, but just maybe different scale. It'll always have some times where I'm just working my ass off. Like, where's. You know, how I've got more work than I can handle, and there'll be times where. Where'd everybody go? Dating's that way. I found that out. Date. Sometimes I. I didn't have enough time to go on all the dates with women that wanted to date me. And other times I'm going, what, do I have, leprosy? Is it the nipple? Thing how come women don't want to go out with me anymore? Life is like that. And so I, I, I, I led a workshop in my home weekend last weekend. And, you know, we were talking about this, about challenge, and, and some of the guys were bringing up, you know, seeking challenge. And I said, I don't know that we have to. I think challenge will present itself.

Well, the way I'm processing this is things like, I have 19 different projects at work.

Probably that's too many.

Probably. And it, and my way of avoiding or procrastinating or feeling victimhood is to just feel overwhelmed with all of it.

Yeah.

Rather than to pick one and say, this is my challenge, my challenge, and this is what I'm going after. So I will often say, like, if I'm feeling depressed or anxious, I don't know what my purpose is. I don't know what lights me up. I don't feel connected to any of my goals. What I'm really experiencing is that I have not picked from this tree of challenges and said, this is the one I'm going to pursue for three to six months. It's actually bringing me back to. I remember.

When I, when I graduated college was, I was already an entrepreneur and a digital entrepreneur, which meant that I sat in my apartment and looked at a screen for 12 hours a day.

Yeah, there's, there's other terms for that too.

Well, there weren't. There weren't back then.

But. And I was so depressed, I was so unhappy. And of course, the girl I thought I was gonna marry was like, I can't be with this guy. Like, now I get it.

Right.

I wouldn't wanna be with me either. And at that time, at my low, I pulled out my journal, and I remember the first journal entry that I ever wrote. I was like, I'm struggling with purpose. I might as well just pick one. And I said my purpose for the next six months to get back up on my feet, start moving again. It means this, and it means this, and it means this, and it means this. It means this. And every time I had a decision to make, I opened that up and I said, does this match with this? And, man, did that pull me out of a dark time. And now when I experience that, it is just at a bigger scale. I'm not sure which project to pick. I'm not sure which multimillion dollar idea to pursue. I'm not sure which investment is the right one. Well, you know what might pull you out of this? Just picking one and going with it.

And that is a discipline that I think is essential for success. I've found through my life that I can focus on maybe two and a half major things at a time in life because I find, for example, if I'm really like focused on fitness, I'm eating well, I'm getting to the gym regularly. That leads me about one and a half things business can be. One, writing a book might be one, having, showing up for my relationship, and three major things like fitness being one, work being another, full, you know, being fully in my relationship being a third. I'm still straining to do those three things. Yeah, yeah. And so two and a half seems to be where I'm at my peak. And so I've had to learn to find my limits.

You know, in launching the integration nation business. I have books I want to be writing, but I can't get to the gym regularly, eat healthy, launch a business, write a book, and pay attention to my wife, to where she actually knows she has a husband. I can't do it. Something suffers. Usually the getting to the gym suffers first. I mean, I just know me where, I know where I'll start paying the price. And so, especially at my age, and especially knowing how multiple family members have died previously, my father, sister and brother all died within 11 months of each other about 10, 12 years ago of lifestyle related diseases. I know dementia, strokes run in my family and I'd like to be doing what I'm doing 20 years. In fact, I've made a personal commitment. I'm in with what I'm doing for the next 20 years. So that'll take me to about 88. I gotta fucking take good care of myself to make it to 88 and still have a brain that works well and be able to sit and do things like this and challenge myself and have early mornings and late nights and. Yeah, so I've got to make nutrition and getting the gym and doing my zone two cardio, you know, every I. I gotta make that a high priority.

That's gotta be one of your two and a half.

It has to be. I can't sacrifice it because then the others don't matter. Right? Yeah. Whatever else I have is if I'm dead or not functioning.

Robert, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm curious. For some people that won't take up one of the two and a half because it's such a habit, it's so integrated into their life, do you think that there is a period in which something is ingrained into you enough to where it's no longer taking up the two and a half. Is it two and a half new things or do you.

Oh, it's just bandwidth. For me, it's just bandwidth. You know, I can only run so many apps on my computer. You know, it's bandwidth.

I just wonder if when something is truly integrated into your life, if it takes up less bandwidth.

I think so, yeah. I think you're right. Because, like, the. The work that I do, it's like it's no brainer. I can just sit down and do it.

And I love my wife, but that's easy. If she's busy or whatever, I can let that slide. I love writing books, but writing a book is challenging. As you know.

It'S a crazy idea to think it's a good idea to write a book. And I've written four, and then I have about six more I want to write.

So for me, it is a matter of bandwidth. And we haven't talked about this piece, but there's a piece in here around commitment as well. I've said that commitment is only necessary for things that don't come easy or naturally for us. Like sexual monogamy has to be a commitment because it actually doesn't come easy for humans. We're not wired for it. And for me, like, my wife's a gym rat, so if she doesn't go to the gym, she's in a funk and in the dump, she'd rather be in the gym two hours every day. We have a gym in our house. You know.

I got to put it on my calendar. I've got to, you know, I got to play all kinds of mental gymnastics to make myself walk the 12ft from my office to my gym. I like being in shape, I like being fit, I like exercising. But there's always so many other things that, oh, man, but this first I need to do this. So, yeah, the things that don't come easier naturally do require commitment. And I found also need support and accountability for me to do those things well. So you may be right that me including the fitness part of that, because it requires extra energy, focus for me to do it. It's not just a thing. First thing in the morning, I get, oh, great, I get to go into the gym this morning. I go, I'll do my meditation first, I'll do my journaling first.

So you're probably right that the more commitment it takes.

The more bandwidth it's probably going to take up, the more it's just right in our wheelhouse. And we can't believe how Lucky we are. They get to do this thing every day, be with this person, whatever. Probably it's less bandwidth, but it still does require bandwidth. So again, I'm talking about me, the two and a half things. Everybody. Maybe you got three or four. Tony Robbins maybe had 150. I don't know. I don't know.

He's a different kind of human being, freak of nature. But I find that my energy is dissipated. The more effortful focuses, of course, that I. That context switching is a very expensive use of energy. And, and so I'm, I'm actually, that's.

Why I said the discipline to narrow down.

That's exactly what I'm not having.

19 things you're focused on pick three that just move the needle and bring all your energy.

And the truth is, any of them will move the needle. Yeah, anything done with purpose and intent and consciousness will move the needle. Any of them.

Any of them.

Because they'll make that area of life better and give you a new set of circumstances to make the next decision.

And in that process.

I think kind of tee you up to do those other things well as well. So if you're doing one of them purposefully, masterfully, that will get generalized to the other 2 to 3, 4 to 5 if you're certain people, things that you're also doing masterfully at any given time. But I think the people like you and I that are creative and have so many ideas. My biggest discipline in life is saying no to all the good ideas either I think of or somebody else proposes to me. When people come to me and propose a partnership of Robert, how about if we get no, not even probably is a great idea, but no, because I can't even get all this stuff done. I got six more books I want to write. So, you know, if I, if I get Those done in 20 years, I'll be happy.

Well, what, what I'm thinking about is when you consciously pursue one area, it creates some level of excess. The trap, I think, is especially for entrepreneurs, the excess that they're pursuing is money. So they pursue a project and it bears fruit. And there's excess, there's capital, there's more energy to work with. In most cases that I've seen, the entrepreneur does not stop and say, where do I invest this excess money into improving one of the other areas of my life? They say, I'm just going to shake this tree a little bit more and double down on what's producing excess. And so you get a lot of unhappy, lonely, overweight entrepreneurs who Have a lot of excess energy in one area.

And it's money, but a bunch of money.

Yeah, they have a bunch of money.

Okay, what's wrong with that picture?

I think the fix is to take where there is excess, and now you can invest that into one of the other two and a half or three and a half areas.

You know, something that we haven't talked about yet that I think is part of that, maybe that. That new breed that we're talking about that, you know, consciously really connects that masculine, feminine energy.

A part of this is also through service and generosity and giving back. That's one thing I do like about Tony Robbins. You know, he just talks about, you know, I started listening to his book on money, winning the game, and it said, make money so you can serve. And that's. That's what it's for. And we'll kind of go back to, you know, talking about when we're in the dumps and we're not feeling motivated and we don't know what's wrong. This week, I've kind of been waking up just feeling low energy. I mean, I'm, I'm. I'm hanging out in Austin, Texas. It's a great place. I'm, I'm getting to interviews. I love it. My relationships well, and. But yet I'm still kind of low energy and kind of waking up feeling I don't know what it is. So what? Another thing I've learned to do is I check in with what I call my grade, my inked, my key ingredients for a great cake of a life. And I. I found for me. And, you know, and again, even trying to do all five of these at one time can be challenging. I need challenge in my life, so I need to be leaning into challenge. I need regular strenuous exercise. I need good guy friends. I need to be hanging out with my bros. I need some sort of.

Spiritual process, whatever we might call that. For me, that's meditation. It's journaling. It's just quiet, still time, time with my dog. And I need service. I need to be giving back. So when I do get, like, I'm low energy or just kind of waking up and going, why? Why am I down? Why am I kind of sad? Why? Why? I'll check in. Where am I out of whack? You know, am I leaning in challenge? Well, I pretty much always am. Am I regular strenuous exercise? Well, it has been, you know, a week since I really got a good workout in the gym. Connect with my guy friends. That's Usually those are the two that either I'm not doing a regular exercise or, and, or not connected with the guy friends. Usually it's not always the meditation or, but sometimes I'm off track in the spiritual part and then there's a service part. And I think they're all key ingredients. And if, if we don't need to keep them all at the top, but they need to be in a floating balance of some sort. And where I'm most likely to get out of whack is in approval seeking, looking for validation somewhere else, trying to make somebody happy, trying to solve somebody's problems. Those aren't on the key ingredients of great cake of a life.

So approval from others is not one of the key, not one of the.

Key ingredients for that great cake. But since I know for me what those key ingredients are, I can check in. So kind of going back to what you're talking about.

It seems that the, the excess as you call it, whatever the fruits of our labor are, is how can we bless our life, bless other people's lives with that fruit? Because why else are we doing it? I mean, you know, when you get to my age, I sound like an old person now, but at 68 and I've had a couple brushed with death, one very near death experience that the doctor didn't find, the tumor that was blocking my small intestine that nobody seemed to be able to figure out what was wrong. I would have died. I was close and I was, I'd surrendered into whatever is killing me. I might not know and I might die. But you know, when you kind of get towards this stage of life and you look at, okay, I've got a home that I bought and paid for in three years, I'm remodeling it, I'm building businesses, I'm creating this, creating value know, building 401ks I may never would take money out of doing. And then I go, why I'm gonna die. That's all. Just gonna be sitting in a bank somewhere, sitting, you know, somebody else is gonna be living in that house. So you actually do start questioning, you know, why do I keep doing this? Now hopefully you don't question that at 35 or 40, that should come a little bit later, you know, of why. And at some point I start realizing, how do I.

How do I live my best life based on the fruits of my hard work, but also how do I distribute the assets I have in ways that are meaningful, not just, you know, so that my kids can drive a nicer Car or whatever, but really in a way that is meaningful in this world. And I think maybe that's even a piece of that. If you see, watch most people that have really made a big chunk of money at some point, whether it's the Warren Buffetts or the Bill Gates or the Tony Robbins or others, you notice that they, they kind of the. One of the top things on that list becomes how do I give back? Yeah, how do I give back? Because if it's really all just about, oh, here's another challenge. Here's another way I can. After, after you've met enough challenges and made enough money, you know you can do it. And so, yeah, there might be challenge in doing it in a different way than you've ever done it. But after a while you go, okay, been there, done that. I know I can do it. It's kind of like, you know, when I was out dating and got good at good at dating and good at, you know, having sex with a lot of women, I went through what I called my integrated man whore phase. And after a while I go, okay, I can do it. I can get women.

There's nothing left to prove here.

Yeah, nothing left to prove. I think I kind of like the idea of just limiting myself and having sex with one person I really care about. So you kind of get to a point where once you've figured this out and you've done it well and done it masterfully, it's kind of like new. A different kind of challenge comes in. How do I live more meaningfully in this world? How do I show up more in my relationships? And it's, it's kind of. So I don't know if that answers your question about what do you tell men who've got this excess, but I think, I think there's enough role models out there to show that you find ways to start giving it back.

I want to close with a selfish question, because you brought up.

I'm a big fan of selfishness.

Great, then I'll be selfish for a minute. It seems to me that no more Mr. Nice Guys. I think one of the best selling self help books ever at this point.

Man, I, I have no way of knowing that. But I do know it's lasted longer than most.

Yeah. It's still relevant. You're still doing.

My royalty checks keep going up every year.

Okay. Phenomenal.

That doesn't happen.

That's a perennial seller. Right. I have a book that has done fairly well.

You know, goes up every year, about 350,000 copies sold at this point, but it seems like part of the length of success from no more Mr. Nice Guy has been that you have consistently done interviews and made connections and getting better at teaching what you teach over and over, continuing to sharpen that sword for 25 years. 25 years ago, there were no podcasts to go on.

I'm still hustling.

Okay. That's my question. Is. Is. As you have continued to plant these seeds for 25 years, do you see a correlation between that bearing fruit? Because you've got more connections, you've got more name recognition and more books being sold. Do you see a connection there?

Yeah. It's kind of like the phrase, the harder I work, the luckier I get.

One thing I do say to entrepreneurs, because, you know, every young guy's got this dream of being an entrepreneur. I. The word entrepreneur didn't exist when I started my first business. I just. It's what I wanted to do. But I tell people, you better love the hustle, because that part never ends. Doesn't matter how many good ideas you have, how many click funnels you build, you better love to hustle. And I do. You know, I came to Austin for two primary reasons. To get a tattoo and to do interviews. Because there's so many great people in Austin doing interviews. I. I love doing the interviews. I do. I love. You know, I didn't. I never met you before last night. And most of the people I do interviews with, I never meet. You know, we do them on zoom. So I love it. And so it's partly altruistic and partly. I just enjoy it. Like some people like going to the gym. I like doing this. I love the Hustle.

But it seems to me evidence of just the compounding returns of doing something. Good way to put it. Compounding of doing something consistently for a long time. And whether you did it consciously or not, the book, to me, is an example of everything we've talked about up into this point, which is for a short period of time, it was one of your two and a half things.

Meaning about six or seven years writing the book.

Okay, so for six or seven years, that was one of your two and a half things.

Three years trying to get it published. And then it was probably seven years before the royalty checks even made a hit. And then it just. People were recommending it to people, therapists were recommending it, coaches are recommending it, buddies in AA were recommending it to each other. And then, yeah, the whole interview process.

It was the hockey stick. It was slow. And then it did go like that it continues to climb.

I love hearing stories like that more than I like hearing stories of the things that just take off because.

I like compounding returns that start small that I have to work for and earn because going to the gym, first of all, I can control that because I can control my inputs. And second of all.

I think we value it more when we have earned it from that. And I think my generation and the next one is so attracted to allured by tempted by the fast win, the viral video, the product that hits the 20 year old millionaire, the thing that just smashes that as a result they don't develop the habit of doing something for a long time that creates a compounding return that allows them to. I'll sign off, have long term. Long term victory.

Yeah.

And I think I, I think that's why if you can keep your wits about you in today's world, which looks like choosing a few things to focus on and working at them and planting those seeds and watering those seeds and.

Surrounding yourself with good people. Yes, help you do it.

If you're able to do that while everybody else is pursuing the fast distraction. Those are people that win. And I think those are the people that become that next generation that we look up to.

Yeah, I agree.

Robert, it's great to see you. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for your work, thank you for the invitation. This has been great.

It is kind of a paradox that we go out on our own as entrepreneurs and yet we only really know who we are and where we create value when we're in the context of other people. That is why relationship management and managing ourselves in the context of relationships is kind of a lost art or a secret skill that most entrepreneurs don't develop. But the ones that do tend to be the ones that get ahead. As you grow, this skill becomes more and more necessary for you to get to the next level. Because as you grow, you will pass other people who used to be in your support network. You will need a different level of support than what you've become used to up to this point. That's why this skill is so necessary. If you need some help being supported on your road to a million dollars, the best place for you to dive in is to download our free resources over@capitalism.com playbook. That is our playbook for how to build a million dollar business. Our best case studies and a free course that will get you to choose your first product, get it launched and get to 25 sales a day. And of course it only takes four products at 25 sales a day to have a million dollar business. It's a lonely journey. I can teach you how. I can show you what to do. I can tell you all the ways that it does work and it will make sense in your mind. But until you are plugged in with a group of people that can support you on that journey it will be a cool idea rather than something that you are actively pursuing. So I invite you to make, make the decision that this is going to be one of the few things that you prioritize in the next 12 months because if you prioritize it, choose it and get plugged into a group of people that can support you, the getting is really good. Right now we can support you inside of the 1%. You can find out what we do over at capitalism.com 1 I'm Ryan Daniel Moran with capitalism.com thank you for being here. Thank you for listening to this very long wide reaching interview with Robert and I hope to see you on the next episode. Take care.