Confidence Traps: From The Nursery To Endless 10x with Dr. Robert Glover

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you if you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Welcome to today's episode of Shrink for the Shy Guy. Today is a special episode because we have a guest who's actually been a guest of the show since several times and is one of my favorite people to talk to and someone that I've personally learned a large amount from. And his book, one of his books, which is called no more Mr. Nice Guy, was a significant turning point in my life. When I read that realizing that nice wasn't necessarily a compliment, at least not in the context of when someone hand me to that book. And actually it has some pitfalls to it. And that really opened my eyes and really led me on the path that I am now. So there's been a profound influence there. So excited to have you on the show, Dr. Glover. Robert, thank you for being here with us, Doc.

Good to be back with you again. It's always fun to come on the show and talk with you and your, your listeners.

Yes, yes. So we'll, we'll cover other aspects of your work over the course of this episode and we've talked before about niceness and other things, but I think one of the beautiful things that you offer that people might not know is it's not just about, you know, how to be less nice and more clear, more assertive, more authentic, all of that. But you've done, you've dedicated your life to working with people, and primarily men over many decades across so many different challenges. And I'm curious, having worked with people in relationship issues, self esteem issues, confidence, all these things, what would you say are maybe one or two of the. The biggest reoccurring problems that you see people having again and again? Maybe it's a mindset or a pattern of relating to people or something that people just, you see so many people doing again and again. It's almost like what am I continuously helping people address or resolve? Have you seen any major themes over the years?

Wow, that's a good Question? Yeah, I've been at this for a while. You know, every now and then I sit down and try to do the math in my head, but, you know, the numbers are getting too big, so I have a harder time. But yeah, I, I started working with, with couples. Got my master's in marriage and family therapy in like 1979 and, and then my doctorate in 84. So I've been working, you know, that's my background's marriage and family therapy. And so I'd been doing that for a few years when I started looking at my own nice guy issues and then started noticing that a lot of guys coming to therapy with, you know, for me, either in relationship or single guys were saying a lot of the same things I was saying. You know, whether it's a guy in relationship saying, I'm a nice guy, I treat her better than her ex, I'm raising her kids, I do everything for her. It's never enough. She's never happy. When's it going to be my turn? And then there were the single guys that. It took me a little while to recognize there was a connection. But the single guys were saying, I have lots of, lots of female friends. And, and you know, I, I listen to them talk, I help them solve their problems. I listen talk about their exes that they keep going back to. And they all say they want a nice guy, but none of them want me. That's before the friend, friend zone terminology probably had come along. And I started realizing that, you know, there's a lot of men out there with the same paradigm I had of being a nice guy. And I thought, if I'm just, if I'm a good guy, if I treat people well, if I'm generous, kind and caring and not like my father and not like all the bad men I've heard women complain about and don't just want one thing from women, you know, then, then, then I'll, I'll be approved of and be liked and valued and have love and get my needs met. So that's when I started working a lot more with men. And that, that's, that's been almost 30 years ago I started doing that. No more Mr. Nice Guys. Been out for about going, coming up on 25 years. And then, then about time. No more Mr. Nice Guy came out. I got divorced. I was in my late 40s. I had to learn how to date, really for the first time in my life, I was in my late 40s. I hadn't done it well in college or high school. I Used nice guy seduction again. Listen to a woman talk about her problems, try to help her solve her problems, volunteer to help her sister move, you know, make a car payment for whatever.

Never heard of that being referred to as nice guy seduction? I know exactly what you mean. As soon as you describe it, I'm like, oh, yeah, that was my playbook too.

We don't think a good woman would want us just for us. We've got to make that good impression. And usually that also means hiding our sexual agenda from her. Oh, I know. I'm not like those other guys, you know, which is nice guy seduction doesn't work very well for a number of reasons. About the best you're going to do is get usually a problematic person because that's what we're doing is we're helping solve their problems. So we tend to get problematic people. But the logic of if I hide my sexual agenda from this woman, then she'll want to get naked with me. Well, there's not much logic to that. You know, again, you end up in the friend zone. So I started dating in my late 40s and 50s and realized after two marriages of about 25 years, I had to become both a better picker and a better ender. And I soon came to realize that dating is a series of bad picks. Because that's what you do. You go on a date and go, no, bad pick. Go on another date now. Bad pick. And hopefully, if you're a good ender, you keep ending those bad picks until the doors open for, you know, a good pick to walk in your life. So out of that, you know, my clients are saying, robert, teach us, what are you doing? Well, I'm not a dating coach. Well, teach us, you're having success. So that led to a course on dating. I call it Dating Essentials for Men. I've written two books on dating. One, Dating Essentials for Men. The other faq, Dating Essentials for Men. I never saw myself going down that road of being, you know, a dating coach. In fact, at one time in my life I said, you know, I'm a marriage therapist, has been divorced twice, and a dating coach that doesn't have a girlfriend. And guys are still paying me money. So, you know, can't go wrong with a gig like that. So, you know, really, for the last 20 plus years, really, since no more Mr. Nice Guy came out, my sole focus has been working with men around work and career issues, around, you know, relationship issues, sexual sexuality issues, pornography issues, dating issues, just living their best life. And I love doing Workshops and I love, you know, speaking with men and I love teaching. And so that's just been, you know, my passion. So I've worked with, you know, worked with a lot of people over, over the years and then like I said, for the last 20 years. 20 years. So a lot of men, you know, that to your question, what do I see recently? You know, you know how it is, you know, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So you know, of course for a long time I saw lots of nice guys. And then, you know, several years ago I wrote a course called the Ruminating Brain and that's a piece I still, as a program I need to turn into another book because I still see so many people whose brain just spin and ruminate, rehash the past and replay things, mistakes, missed opportunities and, and, and if you do that enough times, you feel like a total failure or they're projecting in the future, you know, you know, becoming perfectionistic. Everything I have to do exactly right. And if I can't do it right, I shouldn't do it. And everything that might fail or go wrong or this comparison or measuring self, you know, for example, you know, I, I, I don't spend a lot of. More recently I've started watching more like interviews and podcasts. You know, I'm on a lot of interviews so I don't really have the time to watch a lot. But every now and then when I, you know, I'm on somebody that's good interviewer, I watch some of their podcasts. So lately I've been watching, you know, some of the kind of, you know, the, the higher end podcasts for men and interviewing kind of high performing men. And I think a lot of these high performing men have ruminating brains. They're just driven by fear of failure. Not good enough. They've got to be, you know, more and more success. It's never enough. And you know, you even listen to people like Tim Ferriss and people like that talk about it and you know, a lot of the guys will acknowledge, you know, of how they've been like just driven and with you know, these voices in their head that just constant criticism. So I really see that quite a bit. And it's almost as if we've taken what I might consider a problematic issue of having what I call the Ruminating brain, this constant spinning. And we've also almost turned, maybe turned it into something to be worshiped. You know, I, I often say we're, you know, men are like, we bow at the altar of Navy Seals and high performing and, you know, super xing your performance. And that's not all that life's about. It's just to keep driving for the next win, the next gain, you know, 10xing, whatever you're doing. So I think, I think social media and media is driving a lot of what already exists in that ruminating brain. So I see a lot of men feeling not. Not good enough, you know, saying, I don't have a purpose, I don't have a passion. And then probably the flip side of that is men just reverting into distraction, you know, watching a lot of podcasts, watching a lot of television, playing a lot of video games, surfing for porn, smoking dope, drinking, you know, just. I call it hanging out in the nursery where nothing's really required of them. So almost see these two, you know, polar context, you know, the. The really driven guys that, you know, they're, you know, watching the next podcast, going to the next webinar, going to the next workshop, reading the next book, just everything. Just driven to perform. And then I see the other end of the spectrum of guys not even showing up. Yeah. So. And I think both contribute to the other. Believe it or not. I think both kind of fuel the other. So I'm just thinking out loud with, well, I love.

I mean, I'm so glad that I asked that question in that way and it led to that, because that there is so much there that I relate to and people that I work with, but in my own self, my own journey, going from the nursery to the. The hyper driven and seeing that it does come from that ruminating brain and that you, when you said that we've turned it into this thing to be worshiped, it does seem, you know, even terms like 10x and high performer, there's almost like no question about, oh, is that what you'd want? Or it's like, oh, yeah, oh, cool.

And either we just all assume, yeah.

Yeah, or, or, oh, I'm not doing that. And I feel bad because I. That's probably what a better person does. And I, I had a really interesting, very brief interaction with Tony Robbins in my life where I was at this event and then there are people afterwards could go to his house. It was like one of his houses, and there's like 400 people there right at this house. And at one point a handful of people went to this hot tub and I went to the hot tub and. And Tony, like pops out of the side door and gets into the hot tub and he's going to be mobbed everywhere he goes, he's mob.

Tony, let me touch you.

And. But there's like about five minutes before people realize he's there. Right. And. And people are just. There's like maybe three or four of us there, and we're just chatting with it. I'm listening to him and it's like, oh, it's a normal human. Right. We're having. He's having a conversation. But he said something that really struck me. He just turned 60 and he said, this was probably my first birthday where I didn't feel like for all the other years before. It's almost like the exact wording escapes me. But it was like, this is the first birthday where I. I feel like I've done enough in my life. Every year before that, I always felt like I hadn't done enough in my life.

Yeah.

And I was like, holy crap. Like, this is the. This dude's done a lot.

Yeah. He's. He's raised the bar really high.

Wow.

Right.

And I'm not saying I don't know if he's got ruminating brain, but it's that, that. That culture of go, go, go and excel and achieve more is unexamined and can be really exhausting. And basically people are feeling like chronic failures almost regardless of how much we achieve. Now, a question I have for you is, so someone like Eckhart Tolle might teach that. That ruminating, you know, brain, that is like a pattern of being totally identified with whatever. With whatever your mind tells you.

Yeah.

And the condition in mind. And that as long as you're listening to that and. And giving that a hundred percent of your attention, you're going to suffer. Do you agree with that? Or is there. Is there some value in the pursuit of growth and more and more, or is it like, hey, the way we got to deal with this ruminating mind is really learn how to not just.

Be its slave, you know, That's a good question. And I don't know if I have the clear answer for you. I also am very drawn to a mindfulness mindset. You know, I love Eckhart Tolle. His book Power of Now is my road trip. Go to audiobook. If I'm going to be driving three or four or five hours, I'll put in Eckhart Tolle. And every time I listen to it, I go, did he like to rewrite and rerecord this whole book? I don't remember any of this. This all sounds new. And. And you know, I love Thich Nhat Khan. You know, recently Passed away in the last couple years. And his writings. Right now I'm listening to a book that I heard Tim Ferriss recommend called Awareness by Anthony Demello, who was actually a Jesuit priest raised in India. So, you know, he's got a guy with a British name, but speaks very Indian. And, and he talks about, you know, not identifying with the self and, and the mind and where the eye watches the me. It can be the observer of the me. And, you know, he talks a lot. Basically, you know, as a Jesuit priest and a psychologist, he talks, you know, you think he was a, a Hindu guru. Just talking about the suffering that comes when we identify with this me, the, the ego, the performing self, the body self, the thinking self. And you know, pretty much all the great philosophers have kind of been telling us the same thing. You know, when it's over, it's over, you know, and then, you know, what have you spent your time doing and accumulating? And you know, I, I could relate to what you were saying about Tony because I, I'm 68 and. Coming up on about seven years ago, I had an experience where I had a tumor blocking my small intestine and nobody could figure out what was wrong with me. And I went to doctors here in Mexico and the United States. I got undiagnosed, misdiagnosed. And so for a period of over three months, I was in misery, which is constant stomach pain, cramping. I couldn't eat, and I lost over 30 pounds. And I, I knew something was killing me, but I did not know what. I, I didn't think this was just normal old age setting in in my early 60s. And you know, one, one doctor in the United States, a gastroenterologist, said, well, maybe you just got a Mexican bug you have to outlive. Well, I wasn't going to outlive what I had. And luckily a doctor here in Mexico ran the right test, found it had a tumor, and I went in. Day or two later, him, his partner did surgery, took it out. Two weeks later I got on an airplane to fly to Seattle later workshop. I've been fine ever since. So I surrendered into the pain that was constant of just a cramping and stomach. Like I had a bowling ball in my stomach. Constant pain. And the only thing that made the pain better was just surrendering to the pain and, and learning to breathe into the pain. And I, I still remember at one point I just surrendered into. This may be killing me, and I may never know what it is that's killing me. And, and, and it was, I, I, I probably wouldn't have lasted more than a few more weeks. So I'm extremely grateful, you know, we stumbled onto the right doctor who found the problem. But you know, there's one thing about having kind of a near death experience, it does make you reevaluate, reevaluate your priorities.

Now.

I, I still work, I work a lot. You know, I still got bills to pay. Like Ram Dass says, even after you attain, you still have to take out the trash. So, you know, even if you get awareness of, you know, what is real and what's important and what, what isn't real, you know, we still have to get up every day and brush our teeth and take out the trash and love our loved ones and take the dog for a walk. And so I don't, Again, I don't know that I have an answer to your question other than I feel like my life has already exceeded my expectations. I, I am as proud as I could be of what I've accomplished in life. And so I don't feel like I have anything else to prove or to gain. I don't have to make. And I've never been extremely driven as a person. I just, I'm more driven by if something interests me or something I don't understand, I want to dive into it. I want to understand it. That's why I ended up writing no more Mr. Nice Guy and my reading books. It was just, I wanted to understand, I wanted to know better how to do something, how to, how to operate, how to function at a higher level. But it was never this drive that I got to get better. I gotta outperform, I gotta make more. I got. So I'm not that much of a driven, I'm kind of, I'm an overachieving type B personality. But I've never been a type A. Even with a PhD at 29, you know, I still, I just, I got where I like going to school, so I just kept going to school. But I really do believe that there's great value in, in saying yes and welcoming every experience of life rather than trying to push through and drive through them. For example, I'm just getting over a cold. And so, you know, none of us like to catch a cold. And you know, it, it hit me last Wednesday, today's Wednesday. And first I thought it was allergies and I thought this is going to pass pretty quickly. And then, you know, it kind of lingered and got a little worse, you know, a couple days ago. But today feels like I'm about 80% back. Now, nobody likes catching a cold, and nobody likes getting a tumor in their small intestine. But, you know, this is life. And if we can find a way to say yes and welcome whatever comes in life, that doesn't mean we just have to lay down and accept everything. You know, while I was sick, you know, with the tumor, I and my wife kept seeking options and doctors and I did what I could and. And. But the funny thing is the way it finally got resolved wasn't any way that anyway either of us would have planned out. It was very serendipitous how we found the doctor that found the tumor. So. Having a cold this week, I've been saying, okay, I got a cold. If I need to cancel some clients, I'll cancel some clients. If I need to cancel some interviews, I'll cancel some interviews. And so I've been. When you take some naps, I've probably been taking one or two naps a day for the last week and just doing it totally guilt free. Yeah, I need to rest. Listening to that, that book Awareness by Anthony Demello. I put my phone on my chest and just close my eyes and listen to, you know, this. This British guy talk with a, you know, an Indian accent and. And you know, a Catholic priest talking like he's a Hindu. And I, you know, I really welcome this time that I was sick, you know, I. I got to listen to a good book. I got to take some nice naps. I got to slow down a little bit. I got to, you know, focus on priorities. And so I'll put it in this context, you know, kind of like you were saying that, you know, we just assume that 10xing everything is the right way to go. It's kind of like the way I. I guess this is still out there. The way the dating materials used to be of, you know, these dating gurus would post, you know, you know, stuff, you know, with these, you know, loops on, you know, get, get, get instant, instant success with every hot woman. You know, any 10 you want, you'll ever, you know, get her digit in no time. You know, all. And, you know, they just sell this stuff like, get any hot, amazing 10 woman. And I'm going, did anybody stop and ask why that's a good thing, why I need a 10 in my life? Know, we just assume it's a good thing, right? And. And men just assume, well, if there's a quick, easy path to get, you know, these tens into my life, yeah, I'll pay my good money for that. And. And, you know, they did and. And they do. But what's the advantage of having a 10 in your life if, you know, like I say in dating essentials for men that, you know, beauty is only skin deep, but moody and entitled lasts a lifetime, you know, so, you know, would you go looking for your heart doctor, your mechanic that. Well, I want a 10, you know, so we. We have these things that we. If I. So. But what we do then is we go what I call it, pounding on closed doors. I want that one. I'm going to go. I'm going to learn approach and I'm going to go pound on that closed door. But what about all the open doors all around us?

Yeah.

What about the doors that are just. That don't need to be pounded on, that have lots of adventure and opportunity and. And novelty and, you know, even catching a cold can be, you know, all right, I'm walking through the door. I got a cold. Let's see where this takes me. So I'm more into, you know, let's walk through those open doors and say yes to what is surrender to the things we can't change and change the things we can. Kind of like the serenity prayer. Yeah. And I think that's. I. The longer I live, the more I really like the serenity prayer of, you know, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change. All right, I got a cold. All right. I got a cold. Change the things I can. All right. I'll take my vitamin C. Vitamin C and zinc and drink a lot of fluids and take a few naps and. And the wisdom to know the difference. All right, I got a cold. It's not going to change. It's going to last about a week. I'll come out the other side.

Yeah.

What if we apply that to everything in life?

Yeah. I love that. And that's such a.

In.

Interesting question about why. Why do we feel we need this particular type of beauty and, and the. As. As a partner or someone to date, you know, look who's under my arm.

Yeah.

And I, I feel like it's, you know, you're talking about the identifying with that self and the, the ruminating mind. It almost. When I observe it in myself, it's. It's really always comes back to status and security or safety. Those are the two things that it's always checking. You know, if I have enough resources, enough whatever, then I'm secure. And then if I got security, then I want a power grab. It's almost like Empires, right? Like, we got enough borders and let's, let's go for more.

Yeah, we need more. Because we all know why, why we need more borders, right? It's just understood, right?

Same pattern again and again on, on a, on a nation or empire level where it's like, we expand our borders, we expand our borders. We expand our borders. Oh, they're too big and we collapse. Why did we need so much? Right? And that's because there's some like, I.

Think.

There'S an insatiability to it that people think, oh, I, I've. And, and so if someone's living in the, in the nursery, as you called it, and they see, oh man, if I just had that muscular physique, if I just had a hottie wanting me, if I just had the career, success and status, then I feel so awesome. And the people that do go pursue that and achieve it, if that's. That's all there is, then they find there's like this, there's. It didn't work. I'm not satisfied. So maybe I need a 10x again. And I think that's part of the drive.

That's what we all do. We all double down on what didn't work. Thinking, I just need.

Well, you just didn't get enough yet. You just gotta. She wasn't hot enough, right? And then, and then, and then there's this crazy kind of almost like tragedy playing out for. I see some people and some men where they've spent a lot of time in the nursery and then it's kind of distorted their perceptions of, oh, because I need the 10. Because that's all I've seen in all the porn. I haven't really dated actual women, but I've mentally had sex with 17, 000 women.

Gorgeous. Gorgeous.

Yeah. Who look this way anywhere out in the world except for maybe in a club in Hollywood or something. And so.

And Instagram.

Yeah, and Instagram. So it's. Oh, it's there. It like tricks our brain. Like it's a. It's everywhere. And it's like it's not really everywhere. It is in, in one pipeline of, of your phone, but. And then there's this sort of almost entitled to like, I deserve 10. And it's like, but what have you cultivated in yourself to. To bring a value to someone's life such that they would be drawn to you? And there's like, there is a matter I think of like stepping out of the nursery and becoming and cultivating who you really are meant to be in the world, which is truly powerful and truly attractive because you're, you're, you're going to the open doors, you're stepping into your life. And so I sometimes, you know, I think we talked about this the last time we spoke was, was one of the things we touched on was, well.

You have a better memory than me. Yeah, so what, what did we talk about last time?

But we talked about po and, and sort of its effects and, and I. It's been, I don't know how many years since we last spoke, and I've just continued to observe and reflect on my own experience. And there are so many years where I was like, hey, whatever, everyone does it, who cares? No big deal. But as I've not used it for more time and really observed kind of the patterns with it and worked and talked with men about it, it's, it's not a moral thing where I'm like, your shame on you. It's bad. It's more like, what does this do to our capacity for intimacy, for our distorting of what I should have access to and be able to date in my life? So I think you get this almost widening gap is where people are almost like trapped in the nursery and then expecting these 10 x's and these tens to date them. And it's like they've drained the capacity. Even if they wanted to go out and achieve in that way, it takes such a level of determination, effort over time that we've drained away with all the dopamine seeking in the nursery. So I don't know if there's a question what I'm saying, but it's more like, oh my God.

Wow.

And I'm curious what you see in that.

Well, yeah, we've got a distorted reality and I'm like, you. I, I don't. I think shame keeps people in the nursery and keeps them in watching porn. So I don't, I don't shame people about that. And if we can release the shame of watching porn, fact, the most effective way I've, I've ever found to help men break a porn habit is to watch it with me. You know, showing your therapist the porn you look at and talking with your therapist about, you know, why it turns you on and you go on what you click on next and how you might masturbate to it. That releases so much shame. Once you take the shame out of porn, it's actually pretty boring. Is pretty repetitious and boring, especially if you, if you turn the volume off. It's just, it's totally Boring. And so. But it does create, you know, these distorted realities. I will say to, you know, men that our grandfathers, great grandfathers maybe saw three beautiful women in their lifetime and probably didn't see any of them naked. You know, now, as you say, we see hundreds of thousands of them just go to the mall and watch the women walk around in Lululemon. I mean, they're all but naked. And I got nothing against Lululemon. I buy it for my wife all the time. I wear Lulul. But, you know, nowadays, nothing's left to the imagination. And you go on Instagram, go on porn, just beautiful women everywhere. And I'll have guys say, you know, they have no dating skills, who never can even talk to a woman, said, well, if I can't date a 10, I'm not going to date. And I said, that's like saying, if I can't drive a Bentley, I'm not going to drive. Which is really basically what they're saying. I don't want to drive, I don't want to date. And they found a safer route. Hanging out in the nursery is a safe route for living life. And here's the deal. My sense of, you know, what I see, looking around, kind of going back to your. Maybe your first question as we began talking is, what do I see? Is I see a lot of lonely, isolated men. I mean, they're well connected. You know, they've got all the bandwidth they need. They've got their phones, they've got, you know, their multiple monitors. You know, they got their computers. You know, they got everything they need to be connected. But they're, they're isolated and, and, and lonely. And, you know, I've been reading about, you know, the epidemic of loneliness, especially in men, and how that raises suicide rates and health issues and addiction issues and early, early death kind of issues. And I, I think a big part of this is many men, especially younger men, that maybe grew up with the Internet and never learned how to have social interaction because they were just, you know, they can always just go, you know, my, my son is 39. He'll turn 39 in a couple weeks, a month, I guess. And, you know, he and my stepson grew up, you know, we got broadband Internet when they were like 14, and all they wanted to do was download porn and steal songs on Napster. You know, so they grew up with that and everybody got phones and social media and, you know, I guess these things are all great. We're talking to each other because of this technology. But as men have gotten Isolated. I believe the majority of isolated men are isolated by choice is because if they have to, you know, and no more. I mean, my dating Essentials for Men. I ended every podcast I did with get out of the house, expand your route, linger in public, talk to the people you meet, test for interest, walk through open doors. That's being social, that's connecting. That's getting out there and having real conversations with real people with no agenda. Right? Not trying to get that 10, but just becoming a social animal and, you know, Covid kind of squished us back kind of into this, this isolated place again. But, you know, there's no, there's no excuse other than fear and a lack of skills for not getting out and working on yourself as a social being. Now, where I, where I kind of put the culpability is that, you know, we probably only have to go back three or four generations, that our father's fathers were, you know, taught to get out in the world by their fathers, by their grandfathers, their uncles, maybe most. You know, if you go back three or four generations, we were still pretty agrarian people growing up on farms. You know, the boys were out helping dad, helping grandpa, helping uncles and cousins. And then if we, you know, go back more than just a few thousand years to tribal times, most tribal societies, the men initiated the young boys into the scary world of the masculine. They took them out and had initiation rights where boys learned how to get uncomfortable, feeling uncomfortable. The other aspect was that it also stripped them away from their mothers and kind of the whole maternal influence over them, put them more in the world of men, where now they belong to that tribe, that community of men. And the men had a very different tribe than the women did. Whether we're talking about tribal times or even just, you know, a few thousand years of kind of more of an agrarian society, it's only been since World War II that men really spent much time with women. You know, men went the military or men played sports, men went to work. Then primarily, you know, it's meant. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, good or bad. I'm not trying to say we need to go back to anything. But what I've said, what I'm saying is now a lot of boys grow out, grow up without fathers. You know, I, I mean, you know, I'm sure we can find the statistics easily. How many boys are raised in a single parent home, primarily with their mothers? And when I started working with nice guys, most of the men, I was 25, 30 years ago, most of the men who were my age or maybe a little bit younger were saying that their dad was either absent or angry or addicted or abusive. And so most did not have a good connection with their dad. Most of the younger men I listen to now tell me my dad was a nice guy. And, and that makes sense. I mean, my son's 39 and he had a nice guy father. And what most of these men say, all my dad really taught me is don't piss off your mother, because that's all he was trying to do, is not piss off their mom. And so that's kind of become the golden rule of masculinity, is don't piss off the woman. I mean, I'm sure social media hashtag, me too. You know, government regulations have all added to that, that, you know, again, men are just playing it safe everywhere we go. And I think the core problem is that we don't have tribe and initiation for men. Now. I'm really grateful because I actually see that dynamic growing, even like, you know, podcasts like this, you know, men's coaches, men's retreats, men's programs, masculine empowerment, you know, where men get to go connect with good men and learn to challenge themselves and learn to get comfortable feeling uncomfortable and learn to trust other men. That is so huge because most men I work with do have father wounds and maybe got bullied and never really fit, you know, and athletically with other boys. So a lot of men don't trust men. A lot of men think that, that women are the only source of love. But I've come to find that the masculine love is a lot deeper and more enduring than any feminine love I've ever experienced. So I'm. I'm actually really optimistic that, you know, here we got, you know, the 10Xing over here, you know, whether it's, you know, the X, 10X girlfriends, 10X money, 10X, you know, entrepreneurship, and then the nursery over here. But I think maybe we're actually rising to another level of men becoming more conscious and more empowered and more connected with other men, more connected with their purpose. And I see that making a significant difference in the world. So I'm. I'm actually optimistic. I. Yeah. And I actually believe that, believe it or not, I know we're going more towards, you know, virtual reality and AI. I have a feeling at some point we're going to just get bored and tired of all that and go back to, you know, I think people are going to start putting their phones down. I. I already know people that are getting off social media. I'm not on social, you know, media. I, I, I put stuff on YouTube, but I, I don't have social media accounts that I look at. I tell guys, if nothing else, get the social media apps off your phone. If you can do social media, sit down at your computer and do it consciously. Don't just sit and scroll on your phone, whether it's swiping. Right. Swiping up and down. So I'm optimistic that I think men are realizing, you know, the state that we're in of either trying to be hyper performance or hanging out in the nursery, neither one are going to satisfy. And that there are other ways of living our life that are much more fulfilling.

Yeah, yeah, I love that and I agree with that. There is something that happens when we connect with others and men and anyone shares more openly. Right. Because so much of that, those pursuits, whether it's the nursery, it's very, there's a lot of shame and sort of isolation. But even the 10x thing is, can be very, I watch the videos and I study and I take the action. And it's can also be very isolating.

Yeah.

I'm curious because I know that you have created communities for many years and you have one now that you've launched in the last year that is designed to create a place for that. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about that. And also, sometimes people hear initiations and they think like, oh, I mean, that's like, send the young boy out into the forest to have them survive the night.

Yeah.

And come back. And depending on the tribe and the time, like sometimes there would be a, a certain percentage death rate with that. And so, you know, and people kind of are like, oh my God, does it have to be really intense like that? Do you see initiation involving kind of not maybe necessarily fatal risk, but physical or other challenge? Or do you see it more now as it can be done in the context of being able to connect and share and be more open and real with people. Does that serve that function?

Yeah, you know, all the above. All the above, yeah. You know, I think part of the thing that made masculine initiation, especially travel times, powerful is, is there was at least the young adolescent male thought he might could die. Right. Whether or not there was as much risk as he thought. I think part of the initiation is feeling that fear. I could die. And, and, and to, and to move through it anyway. I probably have all seen the movie 300, you know, where, where the boys, you know, in the cave with a Spear and you know, the wild, you know, and our initiation can come from so many different ways. I mean, it can come from playing sports, it can come from being in the military, it can come from, you know, focusing on something that is scary and challenging and with the help of a coach or a mentor or support group, you know, you push through that. And I, I think the core piece is we just need to be able to connect with men. You know, I, I did most of my early work on my nice guy issues either in a 12 step group that was all men and a men's therapy group that I was in for five or six years. Last six years I've been in a men's program myself. I launched a program just a year ago, July, Integration Nation. And my desire is to give a place at every man in the world who wants to be in a men's program to have a place to connect with men. Because I'm kind of one of the selling points on my landing page for Integration Nation. As I said, basically, wherever you're stuck, wherever you're repeating, you know, the same ineffective behaviors, wherever you're unhappy, wherever you're underperforming, my guess is it could be attributed to a lack of good men in your life. Because I know when I've had good men in my life, I perform at a higher level. When I'm isolated, no, I'm surrounded by feminine, not so much. I get distracted in drama. But when I have good men in my life. When I joined a men's program six years ago, I was about a year into my, my current marriage. We were struggling already. I, I was doing well enough in life, but I knew I was isolated. I about one and a half good guy friends. And one of them was a half because he was on his way out the door. I was about to close the door on him. And so six years later, I know I've got 25 to 50 men. I could call up and say, I need you. Can you get down here to Puerto Vallarta? And they'd be down here. I'd go fly to wherever they were at. I've had many of these men in my home. I've been in their homes and I've just built it. And during that time my marriage has improved dramatically. My business has grown. I bought a house and paid for it in three years. Got completely out of debt, put a quarter million dollars in a 401k that I didn't even have six years ago. Anything I purchase, I pay cash for. I've launched a New company now. And I could not have done any of these things without really good men around me, Both modeling, supporting me, encouraging me, holding me accountable, calling me out. I remember, you know, a good friend of mine that is also one of my normal Mr. Nice Guy certified coaches who turned me on to the men's program I've been in for the last six years. He and I are in a group. There's six of us, seven of us. We've been meeting for six years. Every other week, we're on zoom. And our commitment is, we're going to do this for life. And about three years ago, he said, robert, I think you need a bigger challenge in your life. I said, what are you talking about? I'm in my 60s, living in a foreign country, learning a foreign language, married to a woman 22 years younger than me, raising step kids the age of my granddaughter, running a business, writing books. I go, what. What bigger challenge do I need? And I think he was right and that that became integration nation. It's a big challenge to. To launch a program big enough and comprehensive enough that. That. To attract men around the world in a way that they can connect and be with other men. Now, in terms of the initiation, I don't know that there's any one right way to do it, but I'll give you an example that may seem kind of silly. At the end of every integration nation call, and. And we have over 55 calls a month, so, I mean, there's all kinds of calls. I'm on one every week, every Thursday that everybody can join. We play music and dance at the end of every. Every. Every. Every call. You know, our. Our mantra for integration nation is good men doing better. So we end it with good men dancing badly. And, you know, different people can pick all the way from hard rock to. To, you know, to rap to, you know, classic rock, you know, you know, it doesn't matter what the song is, and, you know, how it got started is that number one. I've always liked music, and the men's program I've been in, you know, often has music on, and men will just kind of spontaneous dance and, you know, have a good time. And planning integration nation with. With some of several of my coaches, and we were, like, having a call one time. We were kind of stuck, and somebody said, let's just put on some music and move. And we did. And it just opened everything up. And I said, we're doing that. That is going to be a hallmark of integration nation. Now, whenever we end the calls and I Say, all right, you know, time to dance. I talk about shedding our sds, our shy dance syndrome. And I say, this is power, actually powerful masculine initiation. Because if you can be sitting wherever you're at and get up in front of your computer screen and move your body to music while watching a bunch of other guys on Zoom move their bodies and overcome any sense of insecurity, or I look stupid, or women have told me all my life, oh, just feel the beat. Just move your body to the beat. You know, oh, don't do this. Don't do you. And just, it doesn't matter. Don't, you know, don't give so many. So I remember we were. I was leading. We have a couple of drop in calls every month for people who are interested in the program. And one of the guys on the call said, do you have to. Do you have to dance? I said, no, you really don't. We do a couple of other things. We have everybody introduce themselves, their name, son of their father's name. We don't require it, but we model. It is to connect us to our masculine heritage, for good or for bad. Most of us have a father wound. And even just saying, I'm Robert, son of the late Robert, connects me to both the good and the bad of my masculine heritage. And the Buddhists say, you know, all the healing we do heals six generations back and six generations forward. So we try to do things that, again, make us a little bit uncomfortable. I'm Robert, son of Robert. Some guys refuse to say their father's name. That's fine. But the dancing. This guy says, are we required to dance? I go, no, of course not. I said, you know, a certain percentage of people drop off the call at the end.

They're like, I got to go.

Yeah, it's got to go. Yeah, I can see the number drop, you know, I see, but excuse me. And the guy said, no, you don't have to. But I said, I'd encourage you if it makes you uncomfortable, do it. You know, get out of your comfort zone, get at your edge. And then, you know, so, you know, we got to the end of that call and, you know, put on some music. I don't know. Kenny Loggins, foot loose. Could have been, you know, anything. And, you know, he got up and he. And he was dancing it kind of. He's kind of moving it slow at first, and all of a sudden you kind of. You see the. What the. And he just let go and started, you know, having a good time. So even just the dance you know, getting up and dancing in front of a bunch of bros can be powerful masculine initiation. Now, of course, there's many other kinds. There can be vision quests. I. I got a buddy, bless his heart. I think he's nuts, but he went out and did the Sundance thing. You know, you fast for a while, put the hooks in your chest, you know, you're leaning back for, I don't know, 48 hours of the sun shining down, hallucinating, you know, yeah, you could do that. Yeah, that's not in my plans, but I do. Even at 68, if I see something that scares me and I know it's just purely a psychological fear, I want to lean into it. I want to face it, I want to challenge it. I made a commitment when I turned 40. I didn't want to die afraid. And so if something scares me now, I lean into it. That's masculine initiation. I even teach men, you know, learning to be a social animal with women and create what I call positive emotional tension and set the tone and lead and differentiate and lead and let them follow and not. Not need a woman. Even. All. Even all the stuff I teach around kind of social dynamics with women is positive masculine initiation. Because if it makes you face your fears and get out of your comfort zone, I see that as a positive. Now, granted, most of this is easiest and done best in the context of other men supporting you, whether they're there with you physically or you're checking in with them on a daily basis. I mean, I. I have exercise accountability groups. I've got. You know, when I decided I wanted to start meditating, I got a meditation coach. We checked in daily. I got 100 straight days of meditation. I'd never done 100 straight days of anything except maybe sleep and, you know, but because I went and got a coach and accountability, I've got a nutrition coach now. I just now got down to my lowest weight. I checked this morning. My lowest weight that I've been in since 2010, other than when I was sick and. And dying. And it's kind of like, yeah, when I've got support, when I've got people around me, I can accomplish great things. Now I got on the scale this morning. Oh, I haven't wait that long much in a long time, you know, And I kind of. This is the funny thing is about accomplishment. You go, okay, good. I'll keep doing what I'm doing. There was no celebration, no happy dance. Just kind of. That's why 10xing stuff is kind of like, yeah, okay, I did it. I got there. So I think it's really the challenge.

Yeah.

That gives us the most joy. The challenge and the camaraderie that comes from working together as a team to master something.

Yeah. There's so much in there. Well said. I, I do think that, you know, I love this. You know, people have a fear, I'm not enough. What if I'm not enough? And one of the ways I like to respond to that is, yeah, you're not.

What if.

Maybe you're not, but we, we are enough. You plus others is enough. Whether it's a group or you and the divine or you plus something. Right. Because when we say I, we're usually referring to that small me.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, something more. And I think that's so true. We, we can create so much more. And it's not just the information from the coach or it's the, it's the fellowship and the, and the connection that brings more out of us than beyond what we can even think or predict in our mind. It's. It's something your, your heart, your soul gets activated.

Yeah.

So what I would love to do is I want to, you know, do a kind of a lightning round here with you where I'm going to ask some of the questions are going to be, you know, big questions that might involve, could be a whole 20 minute, 30 minute conversation. But I just want like the, we're going to just get the zingers of wisdom and feel free to just, just throw opinions out here. I know that in some situations it's better this and there's a nuance there, but we'll just get some broad strokes.

Well, we'll just cut through the crap and get right. Right there. Yeah.

Cut to it. You know, let yourself do a whole.

A whole interview of lightning round. That, that would be fun. That would be fun.

Okay, let me take a breath.

Let me get grounded. Let me get.

Yeah, get grounded. And let's say the, the answer is going to be just a couple sentences.

Sure.

How can men heal sexual shame by.

Revealing their sexual shame to safe people?

When is divorce the answer, like the best answer in the relationship?

When you both, when the marriage has, has helped you both look deeply at yourselves and realize you've learned all that you can learn from that situation.

That's good. Psychedelics for personal growth like psilocybin or LSD or ayahuasca. What do you, what are your, what is your sense of that?

Promising. Promising. I've often said that. I think we'll look back at one to one therapy, talk therapy as, as the dark ages of psychotherapy.

How can someone who. They want to face fear like you do, like that commitment you made. How can they get started if they've been so, you know, haven't have lacked courage for so long?

I was in Reno and on my 40th birthday when I decided to face every fear. I went down and put a hundred dollar bill on the blackjack table and bet it all on one hand of blackjack.

What advice do you have for dads with young children? Like you know, not even teenagers yet, you know, age 5 to, to 12. Boy children.

Okay. Love them like a grandfather loves his grandkids. I get to say that because, you know, I got a 17 going on 18 year old granddaughter and now my step kids are the same age as her and I just love on them like I love on my granddaughter and it seems to work pretty well. I think kids thrive on a lot of love indeed.

What would you, what message would you want to give to teenagers directly, maybe particularly teenage boys?

Put down the social media.

Any tips on the practice of surrender? What's the, what's the best way for us to choose that or practice that more fully?

Oh, my life will bring all the opportunities you need. I, I love a Michael, Michael Singer quote. He wrote the Untethered Soul and, and surrender experiment. And he said the best way to open is to not close. The best way to open is to not close. So when your body and your mind, everything is saying no, how can you make it a yes? How can you say yes to what is.

What would you say or how, how would you, what advice would you have for the, the man who is in that 10x everything dry hyperdrive, who feels like I can't, I have to keep going. I can't not. I'm not enough. What would you want to communicate to that man?

Get sick and almost die? Maybe, maybe another route might be go, go spend some time alone in nature.

Yeah. Eat some, eat some random plants and induce an nde and yes. I love it. And then one, one final one in your final breath. If you could transmit a message that would live on and reach all the people in integration nation and all, you know, generations to come. What would you most want to transmit to people?

It's time to dance.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Thank you, thank you for that. It was the lightning round we needed.

I love lightning rounds.

Yeah, well, there's just so much, so much packed in there. Well, I love it. So if people are drawn to Your work and, and you know, curious about Integration Nation or other things that you have. You've mentioned workshops and other things you do. Where could people find out about what you're creating and offering?

All right, my website, Dr. Glover.coM-R-G-L-O-V-E-R.com has my courses and workshops and, and programs. Excuse me. And then my men's community is Integration nation. That's just. Integrationnation.net.net.

That'S great. Yes. Well, beautiful. Thank you so much, Robert, for sharing Doc.

It's always good to talk to you. Always fun. It's a good way to start my day.

Yeah, I love it. All right, well, I look forward to. And I would encourage anyone who's drawn to any level. And if you haven't read any of Robert's books, that's a phenomenal way to start. I obviously would Recommend no more Mr. Nice Guy. Obviously, if you're dating, I have clients who've, after I interviewed you around that, who went and read your dating essentials for Men Dating Essentials faq. And I could really see the, their thinking change. Their. The best way I would describe it is they, they started approaching it in what I would consider a much more mature way.

Yeah, I call it.

And I'm like, oh, that's so good because so much. And I haven't been plugged into the dating advice out there. I know that's what I started with in my 20s and a lot of that was, let's just say, not very mature and, and, and, but, but not in like a. I'm looking down on it way, but more just an oh, this is going to create more suffering. You know, it's gonna, it doesn't actually address the underlying root of what we really want. So I think your work really helps men grow. Not in the 10x get all the stuff kind of way, but in a, in a growing into who you really are, who you're meant to be. And then of course, as you step into more who you are and who you're meant to be and have good people in your life, as you said, you do create and accomplish, but maybe it's what you're really here to do and it'll be very satisfying as opposed to trying to get something that you think you need to be enough. So I love your work. Thank you so much, Robert.

And just a plug for your listeners that you're coming on to be interviewed on Integration Nation coming up.

Indeed.

I can't remember what month, but I.

Know, I think it's on my calendar.

It's on my calendar.

Yeah, I got it.

We'll plug it. But yeah, I look forward to interviewing you. And by the way, I, I do some one minute type questions too on the interview.

Right.

So we'll have fun with that. Yeah, I look forward to. I look forward to getting the. You got to give them ahead of.

Time and then I'll pretend no, I just came.

No, ain't gonna happen. Ain't gonna happen. You know that wouldn't be any fun. Yeah, no, I look forward to talking to you again soon on Integration Nation.

Sounds good. All right, Robert, thank you.

Have a great day.

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