Interview with Dr. Robert Glover - Author of "No More Mr. Nice Guy"

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. Hello everyone, DSO here from dadstartingover.com, and with me today is the lovely and talented Dr. Robert Glover. Dr. Glover, how are you today, sir?

It's always good to see you and talk to you.

So good to see you. Good to see you. For those that don't know, um, Dr. Glover and I have— this isn't our first rendezvous together. Dr. Glover attended our Bro Fest, which was a weekend getaway we had with our— for our DSO fraternity members in Austin, Texas. Is that right? That was in Austin.

Austin. Great memories.

Yeah, that was fun. That was a lot of fun. Thank you again for doing that. That meant a lot to a lot of guys to meet the Dr. Glover. You know, the guys are a little starstruck there. So there are— we mentioned before you and I started this that there are a few men out there that still to this day and in this space, this relationship talk space, who don't know who the hell Dr. Robert Glover is. Which always surprises me. So maybe if you would like to maybe give a quick 30-second or however long you'd like speech on exactly who the hell you are and why I'm talking to you.

In 30 seconds? Yeah.

And go.

All right, well, probably the reason we're talking is, is I wrote a book, um, began writing it close to 30 years ago, but the book's been out 20-plus years called No More Mr. Nice Guy.

Wow, that long? Wow.

Yeah, it— the hard— the print edition came out early 2003. So yeah, it was 20 years right now. And it had been floating around in an ebook a little bit longer than that. And the book has made a very slow at first kind of impact, and then over about the last 10+ years is blown up. And, you know, we should— my agent shopped the book to a lot of editors, a lot of publishers, and a lot of editors said, Robert, we like your book, it's well written, but our marketing department says men won't buy a self-help book. And apparently they do. And maybe thanks to Amazon, you know, you go on Amazon, you hear about some book, people who bought this book also bought this book and be, oh, I'll buy that one too. So, you know, the sales of the book keep going up every year. It's been translated into multiple languages. I get emails all the time from men all over the world to say, Robert, thank you. You've been following me around. How did you know me so well? Your book changed my life. Which I like knowing that, of course. And I think the book has made such a big difference because it really filled a void in its time. And it's been around, like I said, 20+ years and, you know, growing strong, which most books don't do. Most books have a little bit of a peak, you know, usually about 45 days, and then they're done.

Yep.

And, but you know, when I wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy, you know, there wasn't a lot out there for men looking for answers. There was Iron John by Robert Bly, great book. You know, The Magician Warrior King, I always get the order of the title mixed up. Flying Boy, The Myth of Male Power. Will Ferrell, Warren Ferrell was out there.

Warren Ferrell.

Yeah. So that, you know, there were a few books, but not much. And, and so I wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy, came out at a time David Deida's Way of the Superior Man. I didn't bump into it to a few years later, but it came out just a little bit before mine. And so I think both his book and my book were really kind of, wow, here's some really practical information for men. The other stuff was more mythopoetic and a little deeper, a little kind of meatier to chew through. And so I think when No More Mr. Nice Guy came along, there was a real void of men seeking for answers, often relationship answers. People will often ask me, well, Robert, when do people tend to come to you? When do they tend to find No More Mr. Nice Guy? And it can be a lot of different contexts, but often around relationship, either men that are, that are struggling with dating, getting laid, you know, just finding a girlfriend, finding love, uh, men that are struggling in a relationship that's not going as well as they would like for various reasons. And you hear a lot of those, maybe men who are in relationships coming to an end, it's just ended, going through divorce, or men that are out there starting over, you know, where, you know, the relationships ended. Now they go, how do I do it different this time? And so often, you know, when men are at a stuck point, crisis point, pain point in a relationship, they go looking for answers. Now, of course, with the internet, you can go find answers from all kinds of sources, some of them really good. Others, as you and I chatted a little bit, maybe not so good. But there's a— the good news is there's a lot out there. There wasn't 30 years ago, and I'm grateful for that.

Absolutely, absolutely. I'm trying to think how I first heard about you. I think I heard about you via another author who you may or may not know named Mark Manson.

You know, I was just thinking about Mark a couple days ago, um, because people would ask me a lot, do you know Mark Manson? And I go, well, I know who he is, but he mentions you in his book. That's back when Models was his only—

Models, that's it, you're right. Yeah, that's the book. That's it.

So, and so, um, what, what, what was funny to me is then the reason I was thinking about him a couple days ago, um, they just, uh, I was reading an article, a documentary about his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck has just come out.

Oh, really? I didn't know that.

I didn't know it either. I was reading something in New York Times about that a couple of days ago, and I thought, I'm so grateful for Mark Manson because I have no doubt that when he hit it big with The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, and I don't know if he even got bigger after writing Will Smith's biography, maybe. I thought, you know, a lot of people went back and read Models. And I was curious a couple years ago. No, this is about 5 years ago when I was sick. I had a tumor and nobody could find what was wrong with me. So I was just reading a lot. I was just worn out all the time. And so I thought, well, I'm gonna read Models to find out, you know, what Mark Manson said about me. And so I read the whole book and to get to the epilogue of it. And he says, you know, Robert Glover and "No More Mr. Nice Guy," probably, I'm paraphrasing, you know, the most significant book written on men's issues, you know, talks about treating things as a gift. You know, whatever happens, it's a gift. And I thought, how cool, you know, that Mark said such nice things about me back when he wasn't anybody. He just, this was a self-published book that he'd put out on Amazon and he mentions me and "No More Mr. Nice Guy." So I know, when he hit it big. And I'm thinking, fuck yeah, he's got a documentary out now.

There you go.

More people are gonna go read Models and more people will buy No More Mr. Nice Guy cuz he says such nice things about me.

You're gonna see another wave of big sales coming, I'm sure.

I, I, I got no problem with that. So, and Mark and I've chatted a couple times, you know, so, you know, I, he, he's doing good stuff out there and, and I, oh yeah, he is.

He's doing really good.

People, people like his approach. He's, he's, he's got, such a practical, down-to-earth kind of look at it from a different way kind of approach.

He's an excellent, excellent writer. I would love the opportunity to chat with him one day. I'm sure you could probably chat with him at some point, being that he holds you in such high regard.

Well, and the other thing is also, I was thinking about him, uh, Tim Ferriss interviewed him for his podcast series.

Oh, okay.

A week or two ago, probably in conjunction with the doc.

There's another big name.

So again, you know, between the documentary and Tim Ferriss interviewing him, people are going to read Models. No More Mr. Nice Guy will sell more books.

There you go. There So I'm not an opportunist, believe me.

No, no, I'm just filled with gratitude.

I was going to— you're filled with gratitude and energy, which is something that, you know, being in this business and been in business, period, I've been in marketing for years. It's something that I— and I work with a lot of CEOs and stuff over the years. If there's one defining characteristic amongst those uber successful men types is their level of energy. Very, very high. Go, go, go. They don't rest, and when they rest, they're still doing something. And so I can see that in you too. You still get very like, oh my gosh, this guy knows this guy who knows this guy, and this is great. And this is— that's, as you probably know, relatively rare, um, for people to maintain that level of energy over so many years.

Well, as you know, you and I were talking just before we started, you know, this call, is that, you know, I, I was sick for the last couple months, had surgery about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and just now really beginning to feel like my old self again. And, you know, just talking to you right now, it just excites me to talk about men's work. I am so grateful, you know. For those, again, a little bit more about me. I live in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I've lived down here for about 10 years. And you poor bastard, poor bastard, you know. And people will say to me, Robert, you're so lucky, you know, you live in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, you got a great sexy wife who's younger than you and wants to fuck you all the time. You're making a difference in the world. You're doing what you love. You're just so lucky. And I always look at them straight face, say, no luck involved. You know, this took a lot of hard work. Getting a PhD at 29 is a lot of hard work. Moving my entire business to where I could do it online, live in Mexico is hard work. You know, just getting a book published when everybody said men won't buy, sell, it's hard work. But then I smile and say, yeah, I am lucky. A lot of doors have opened for me, but I remember the, the great wise person says, seems like the harder I work, the luckier I get.

Yeah. But yeah, they say that the luck— what is it? Hard work and opportunity when they intersect. That's, that's the definition of luck.

There's luck. And, you know, another— Louis Pasteur said, luck favors the prepared mind.

There you go.

I always tell my single clients, luck favors the guy with a condom in his pocket. So You know, if you go out, go, I'm gonna go out tonight and pick up women. You got a condom? Uh, no. Okay, that's, that's not at all optimistic, positive thinking. So anyway, it's a whole nother subject. But, but the, the point is, I've been working with men exclusively for, for 20 years now, and, and I, I love, I love working with men. I, I love, I love the men. I love that I can take a big stick to their head and say, listen, what you're doing doesn't work, you know. It's stupid. You want to, if you want better results, you're gonna have to do something. And men will listen and they'll take what you give them and they'll go apply it. And then they're fucking grateful. Come back and say, Robert, thank you. That's what I needed. It changed my life. And I hear men tell me all the time, Robert, you're like the good father I never had. You're the best mentor I ever had. People that I don't even know are telling me that. I'm going, that's why I love working with men. And I get excited about it. And you know, you and I were talking, dealing with this illness that I had a couple months ago. It's one of those things that gets you in touch with your mortality. And, you know, and I'm gonna die. And how much time do I have left? I don't know. None of us know. But I am so grateful that the work I'm doing is meaningful work. And I love doing it. That's what I think I'm happiest about, is it never feels like work. You know, when I saw, okay, got a call, you know, with Ralph Brewer to do an interview today. Fantastic. I'm happy. What a great day. You know, it's like, What I get to do is, it's just, I get excited. So yeah, yeah, I do have a lot of energy about it.

We're both extremely blessed is the term, whether, whether you're religious or not. I think that's the apt term, blessed. Um, how many people we know, men especially, that work day in and day out, put on the suit or put on the work boots or whatever and go to a job that's just not fulfilling in any way, shape, or form?

They don't—

you hate to say it, but do they leave their mark on the world? Not necessarily. They're, you know, they do the noble thing, which is provide for their family, provide for their wife, and keep a roof over the head and so forth, and give a good life for their children. But in the end, when you ask them, you know, when they're on their deathbed and you ask them for advice, what do they all say? Take advantage of every single opportunity that you get. Yeah, every— go for it. Who the hell cares what everybody thinks? Don't do what I did. Don't play it safe. Don't play, you know, follow your dreams. This is— this life just goes by like that.

You know, and I've heard very similar things that most people on their deathbed, um, don't have regrets about things they did. They have regrets about what they left undone.

Amen.

You know, which is, you know, going through, you know, again, going through an illness over the last couple months and having a surgery and, you know, again, looking at reality of death. I've started playing with a model that I've been creating And I've been using it now just a few days, and you're the first person that I've even told about.

Let's hear it.

And it's really— I'm calling it splitting the uprights, you know. So we think about, you know, the ball field, you know, and, you know, kicking that field goal, extra point, whatever, kicking it down the middle. And I'm thinking in terms of the uprights are two columns of my day. One is the stuff— column one is what do I need to do to die complete today, to, to say I, I did what I needed to do. And I break that down to, I only have to do 15 minutes of whatever that is. And it might be 3 or 4 things, but it's only one thing at a time. So today I need to spend 15 minutes working on this video script. That's top of my call. If I get 15 minutes done on that video script, I can die complete. Now I'm probably gonna spend more once I start and probably check that off and do a couple more things. That's one upright is that I look at this every morning. I got a list of things that need done, not today, but sometime in the next 3 months or a year. And I prioritize them. What is number 1? What do I have to do to put my head on my pillow tonight and say, I'm complete? So that's one side, one upright. The other upright, there's a whole list of things that make life worth living, that make, you know, living enjoyable. And some things I can do daily for— and think, this is, this is a great day. Some things I'll do, you know, a few times a year. So all the way from my morning meditation to taking the dog for a walk in the park, spending time with my wife, spending time in nature, exercise, meditation, going camping, travel. Like I said, I don't do them all every day, but there's a list of about 25 things. So I prioritize those first thing in the morning as well. And okay, so this morning I got up and I had my morning meditation time, took the dog for a walk. I also wrote about 45 minutes on that video script I needed to work on. So, and then I, once I do them, I highlight them, put them in red, and I leave them there. I don't check them off because it is, well, I mean, what's the joy of, okay, I got that done, I'll erase it from the to-do list. No, I'm gonna let it stay there and say I did it, it's in red.. And then at the end of the day, I look at it, I leave it. The next morning I look at it again. What did I do yesterday? Now I change everything back to black, unhighlight everything, reorder my day, and start again. But it's splitting the uprights. How do I do the things that need to be done today? I like it.

I like it.

Yeah. And how do I do the things that make today my ideal day? Cuz if you think about it, what are we living for? Are we gonna have our best day of our life sometime out there in the future? And I tell people, every day of your life is led up to today. And if it hasn't been leading to today being the best day of your life, there's something fucked up with that. There's something wrong with that. Cuz your best day of your life ain't gonna happen sometime in the future if it can't happen today. So today I've got a list of things that will make my day, you know, the best day of my life. I've already checked, not checked off, but already highlighted in red, red, you know, 4 or 5 of them today. So I'm, I'm already on a great path of just having the best day of my life. And so every day is a new day. Every day is a new day of what I have to do to die complete. Every day is a new day of how many things can I put in there to where I've lived the best day of my life. And, you know, I'm having fun with it. It's, it's really— it's helping me get things done, especially things that most need to be done. I'm like everybody else. I can procrastinate and put off the things that need to be done. Then they hang over me, then I feel overwhelmed, and then I do even less of them because I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed. So I only have to do one, and I only have to do 15. I actually started a timer this morning when I started working on that script. I started the timer, it went off, and I go, oh, I'm not done. Hit the timer again, and I hit it a third time. And, you know, and it's like the script is for all intents and purposes done, just needs a little polish. But I sat down, got it done. I can lay my head down tonight. I'm complete.

And that's excellent. The foundation under everything you're talking about is this term which has been popularized here recently amongst in the world of man self-improvement relationship talk, and that word is discipline.

Oh, we don't like that word.

Well, you are personifying it. Which is I know what I need to do and I'm getting it done. I'm very— another term, I'm very regimented. This is my day. Boom, boom, boom.

Consistent is a word I hear from a lot of people that Robert, you're just so consistent. And I look and go, oh no, you don't really know me. You know, you don't know how much I put off or how much is hanging over me. But you know, I'm reading a book, I mentioned this to you, called 4,000 Weeks. Subtitle is Time Management for Mortals. And the basic premise of the book is we're never going to get done all the things we think we need to get done. We'll never. And he said, even if you get more efficient at getting things done, that's not going to solve the problem because you're just going to take on more things that need done. You'll never be done, basically. And so the book's really good. And that's where kind of my splitting the uprights idea came from, is reading this book and the illness that I had combined. It's like, yeah, seems like every book I've read over the last year has been about death, whether it's about fiction or whether it's nonfiction, they're all about death. So I thought, okay, so this thing, you know, we all procrastinate, we all put things off, we all avoid the things that scare us or feel overwhelming to us or think if I start, I got to do it all and I got to do it perfectly. Probably all of us do that. And we, I should be more disciplined or I should, you know, but But yeah, the truth is, I, I think we have to break things down, break 'em down to their smallest unit. Don't have to do it all. Don't have to do it perfect. Just have to do something. And if we just get up every day and consciously do something, that gets us on a flow to after a while, we've done a lot of somethings and it, it adds up and we, and we feel a sense of accomplishment cuz there, one of my mantras is consistency over time. You know, if you want to get into good shape, you got to eat well consistently over time. You got to exercise consistently over time. You want to write a book, you've written books, you got to write consistently over time. There's absolutely no substitute for doing anything of value or changing any significant habit without doing something consistently over time. It's that simple.

You got it. You got it. Well, I'm ready to, uh, you ready to start the interview? Good stuff. Good stuff. Well, so, you know, uh, uh, as I've gotten to know a lot of different people and I've been on different podcasts and stuff, and if it's invariably, if I talk to a woman and your book or the subject of your book comes up, which is the quote nice guy, the knee-jerk reaction from a lot of women is, uh, what's wrong with a person who's nice? You are, um, what are you saying, men need to be more assholes? No, no, no, no, no, timeout, we don't want that. It's like, no, I nice guy is another word for— you tell me, Doc— a psychology term. I guess it tiptoes towards codependency.

You know, it really is. I— we won't even tiptoe. It's codependency. Um, when I wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy, I intentionally, consciously did not use the word codependency, even though that's what it was. And I did that— my reasoning was, is that at that point in time, the word codependency was primarily used with family members, you know, spouse, children, partners of addicts. And that's where the word originated. And it had begun to be used in context of women who, through most of, you know, the last 10,000 years under patriarchal culture, were trained to be codependent, sacrifice themselves for their children, their partner, and things like that. And so I avoided the word because I wanted people to hear what I was saying about how this showed up uniquely in men, this trait, um, and, and without them giving a preconceived idea, oh, well, that's, that's only for family members of addicts, or that's just women. I wanted to see that men aren't any different, but it shows up in very unique ways. And so it is codependency. Another term for codependency that I really like is called borrowed functioning. Which means I don't exist as a separate self. I only have exist and have meaning, at least that's our internal story. I only have value in terms of how I exist for somebody else, how they need me, how I can make their life better, how I solve their problems, how I put up with their bad behavior, how I'm a martyr, how, you know, whatever. It's like that borrowed functioning is I need the other person for me to have a sense of self. Okay? Now we do need other people, granted, but we need them in a healthy, interdependent way, not a dependent or codependent way. And so that's what the nice guy is. He gets his sense of value, his identity from, I'm good. I'm different from other men. I'm different from my father. I'm different than the asshole jerks women complain about. I don't only think of one thing when I'm talking with a woman. We actually do. Think of that one thing, or we wouldn't be talking to the woman. And the woman knows that, actually, she knows what's on our mind. And so, but we think we'll pretend like I'm different, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll become the good listener with women, we'll help them solve their problems, we'll, you know, repress our sexual interests, our sex drive, then they'll think I'm a good guy, then they'll value me, want me and want to get naked with me. Which, if you can just kind of back up from that logic a little bit, it's really flawed, you know. If I, if I hide my sexual interest from a woman, then she'll be sexually interested in me. No, it doesn't work. Um, but so the nice guy is, is in a sense trying to manage people and situations outside of him to do a couple of things. To try, usually try to minimize what's called toxic shame, his sense that I'm not good enough, I, I'm not lovable, I, I've got to, I've got to be, become lovable, I got to do the right thing so people will value me. And he's also usually trying to manage his anxiety. I, I, I don't want to be found out. I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want conflict. I don't want to be left. I don't want people to think bad of me. So it's usually what nice guys are doing is trying to manage those two things, that I'm not good enough, toxic shame, and I'm in trouble, or I'm gonna get left, or I'm gonna be found out, which is their anxiety states.

And unfortunately, these men open themselves up to toxic relationships with very avoidant partners and partners that basically latch on to them by virtue of their codependent nature. And as we know, these codependent types don't attract the most healthy individuals in the world for relationships, and it just propagates this, this nice guy tendency.

And it does, you know, in, in the, the red pill world, they call that Captain Save-A-Ho, where, you know, I'll, I'll get my value. I'll, you know, I, I call it, you know, the diamond in the rough. Well, yeah, this woman, you know, she's kind of struggling, she's depressed, or she can't hold a job, or she's got money issues, or you know, she's, you know, had a lot of bad relationships. I'll be the good guy. I'll show her, you know, a lot of love. I'll make her life better. Then she'll see what an amazing man I am, and she'll, you know, blossom and be this diamond in the rough. Um, and it almost never happens. Uh, I, I tell them— and I've done that because I'm, I'm a nice guy. I'm a codependent. Um, I try to manage my shame and anxiety like every other codependent. Um, and so, you know, yeah, I've done the same thing. I've gone out and picked women that, oh, I can do this for her, I can do that for her, or I'll be— I'll just be real patient with her, or I'll listen to her talk about her problems, or I'll, I'll offer up solutions. And the thing I've discovered over time, and I basically teach men this, is how you find them is how they are. You meet a woman who's struggling in life, it may just be a temporary setback, but more often than not it's her nature to struggle in life, to have problems, to not get along with people, to not manage her money, to not be able to hold a job, to be depressed, to be narcissistic, to not like sex, to, you know, think men are bad, to have bad relationships. How you find them is usually how they are. Now, that's not a putdown of any human being. It's just, it's just a reality that if we can live in that reality, we don't go out trying to find somebody we think if just a little fixing will make this woman just, you know, just you know, that, that, that, that, that, that perfect woman for me. And they— and then that's just a terrible way to begin a relationship. It's actually a real unloving way to begin a relationship. I think you need my help, and I'm going to give you enough of my help so that you'll love me back, and then you'll turn into a, a, a, a, not into a problem-free person that doesn't need my help anymore. But unfortunately, if you get to where you don't need my help anymore, I'll wonder why you need me, and I'll be afraid you're going to leave me. So I need you to keep needing my help, but then I'm also going to resent the hell out of you that you never get better because I have to keep helping you.

Is this, is this sounding crazy yet? Yeah, exactly.

You know, analogy, this is me, I've done all this. Yeah.

And an analogy that I often use in my writings and stuff is, um, watching a crazy homeless, a crazy homeless person out in the street doing their thing, and you sit back and you watch them and you say, um, you know, watching everybody avoid making eye contact with the man, walking around him, trying to avoid him, and you, you have a moment of empathy and you say, you know, that was somebody's baby. Yeah, that's somebody's son and brother and possibly father. And what got him to this point in life? But do you take the next step and say, come here, let me, let me take you to my home?

You know, here, I'm gonna adopt you.

Here's the keys to my house. Let me get you a cab. You go to my house, get you something to eat, you know, get you a shower. No, because you know what would happen. The guy would destroy your place. He would enter into your world. It would become chaos. Then you'd have to get rid of this crazy homeless guy. Yet we do much the same in our interpersonal relationships. Men and women both do this where it's, I can fix them. They bring a world of baggage with them. I can fix them. It's okay. And in fact, I see myself as being, and you mentioned it, better than the next guy because I put up with those things.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Who hasn't gotten that martyr badge? Oh, no other man would put up with this kind of bad behavior. Or if it wasn't for me, this relationship would have ended a long time ago because of, you know, all of her bad behavior. And again, I can raise my hand for that, that those are dysfunctional patterns that I've shown in a relationship. And I promise you, there's no referee in the sky that's going to call a foul on these, these, you know, evil partners that do you harm and put them in the penalty box and say, oh, you know, Robert, Ralph Brewer, oh, you're such a good man because you put up with this. You're going to get an extra star, you know, in heaven. That just doesn't happen. No, there is no reward for— for, like I said, it's unloving. It's not loving. It is that somebody needs you to fix them.

Yeah. And, um, I always tell men, um, you can have love and empathy for a person and, and genuine care for them, but there's a line that you cross when you bring them into your world in a romantic relationship. That's a whole other level of love and care and everything else that you don't necessarily need to enter into. You can care for the person and say, I empathize with your plight, and life has took a giant shit on you and I get it and everything else and we can be friends, but girlfriend, wife? Yeah, a lot of men don't have that mechanism that says, ooh, I don't think so. And it's kind of scary. Now, with that being said, we— you and I spoke about this earlier. We have a growing— I was going to say an army. That probably is the right term. A growing army, a growing group of men on the internet And I see them in the comments on my videos and articles and so forth. Facebook, TikTok, you name it, they're on there. Which, uh, they're— for most of them, the story is— I'm— they don't say this, but you can read between the lines— I'm probably a very codependent person. I have my own toxic baggage in my background. I got with the wrong woman, and oh boy, was I hurt in a really bad way.

She treated me bad.

And, um, you know, my remedy for this is I'm done. I'm out.

I'm gonna rage it. I'm gonna rage at all women because they're all the same.

They normally don't just step out of the relationship game and do their own thing quietly. It's usually, I'm stepping out of the relationship game and for the next 20 years I'm going to let everybody know just how pissed off I am. And, um, it's a pretty outspoken group. You know, there's, there's this, there's the phenomenon of the vocal minority on the internet. You don't hear a bunch of people that are like, I'm perfectly happy and everything's fine, let me make a comment about it. No, those people don't comment.

Yeah, no, I think that, I think the internet, you know, especially, you know, uh, discussion forums and social media are, are meant to complain or meant to attack or met. And, and yeah, there's, this is a, you know, and I understand it, I really do. You know, I remember when I got out of my second marriage after 14 years of heavy lifting, um, you know, I was a volunteer, I wasn't a victim. But man, I sure could tell the stories, the horror stories of the things my ex-wife did. And you know, I got to a point where people that cared about me started saying, Robert, I think it's time you move on. I think it's time you quit packing your ex-wife around. A cousin of mine, Danny Glover's his name, for real. He's a physician in Tennessee. He's like a big brother to me. He said, Robert, I think it's time you quit telling stories about you. And women I'd be dating, they go, Robert, I'm starting to wonder if you're as crazy as your ex-wife because of all the things you put up with and how long you stayed with her. And I go, well, maybe they're right. Maybe I am, you know, as crazy. And so I, you know, I had to take a lot of ownership that I wasn't a victim. I was a volunteer. And that was a real growth process. And it let me take charge of my life and let me create healthier relationships. Unfortunately, in modern culture, especially with social media and the internet, Nobody has to take responsibility for themselves. And you know, I've been a, I got a PhD in marriage and family therapy at 29 years old. So I've worked with a lot of couples in my lifetime. And I've never seen a relationship that it was all just one person, you know? And I'm not saying everything's always equal in the dysfunction, but maybe what's equal is it is co-created by two conscious adults. So everybody in relationships don't exist unless everybody in the relationship needs it to exist in the way that it exists. Otherwise it wouldn't, right? That's such a profound thought that it's hard for us to grasp. You mean everything I complain about with my partner or my ex, you know, I needed that or otherwise it wouldn't have been that way? Yeah, probably.

Yeah.

Again, there's some real unconscious stuff there. But yeah, now with the internet, whether it's, you know, men going their own way, incels, red pill, people railing against all the hypergamous women, you know, they're all out to get us and take us for everything we're worth and Um, one reason I love working with men is that, yeah, you know, yeah, we get hurt, you know, we, we make mistakes, we get taken advantage of, we, we get abandoned, we get cheated on, we get lied to. But one thing I love about working with men is that we also, we can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off with the help of other men, and learn from what we've had, be grateful for what we've experienced, and, and go try something different, go do something new without living in a perpetual state of blame, or it's their fault.

Victimhood.

Yeah, the whole victim thing is, is so unattractive. And which is ironic when you get with, you know, like the, the incels and men going their own way. The truth is they want love, they want a woman in their life. They wouldn't be bitching so much if they didn't actually want a woman in their life. And unfortunately wearing our victimhood around on our sleeve is not particularly attractive to women unless they're really wounded and broken as well. And so we all get hurt, you know. I, you know, I've talked a little bit. I, a year ago, I, I got invited to be a guest speaker at, uh, a wellness center in Costa Rica that does plant medicine, ayahuasca journeys. And I'd never done plant medicine, ayahuasca, before, and I did 4 of these ceremonies while I was there for a weekend. All men, it was fantastic. And, you know, I had lots of different ahas, lots of different things that, you know, were really, really impactful from those 4 nights of using plant medicine. But I think the most profound thing I came away from is that the realization that we're all here to get our hearts broken and To put it simply, if something has the power to break our heart, we're all going to experience loss. Uh, David Snarch, I think you're familiar with his writing in Passionate Marriage. He says in every relationship, somebody's going to get left, right? I got this 2-year-old pit bull, sits here at my feet in my office. I'm going to leave her, she's going to leave me, one of the two. And she's gonna have her heart broken, or I'm gonna have my heart broken. I already know that. So I love on her every day. And make sure, you know, my wife, one of us is gonna get left. She's gonna get her heart broken or I'm gonna get my heart broken. So my only answer is I'm, I'm just gonna love her every day that, that I have her. I'm, I'm gonna love her fully. So if we know, you know, our life's gonna end, everything else is gonna come to an end, that means let's get up every day and love it and love it and live it fully. Because if something has the, the inherent goodness to break our heart, isn't it also something we wouldn't want to have missed? And so that means the really good stuff is the stuff that's going to hurt us. It's the stuff that's gonna, that's gonna make us cry, that's going to keep us awake at night, that will send us to the depths of depression. If it wasn't good in the first place, we wouldn't miss it, right? It wouldn't even leave a dent. So here's the irony. We all want good stuff. Everybody on the internet is complaining, is complaining because they're thinking, I don't get the good stuff. Everybody else has the good stuff, or people are keeping me from getting the good stuff, or there's a conspiracy, you know, the others, the other gender, the social justice warriors, or, you know, whether it's women, it's all the bad men, it's the patriarchy, it's toxic masculine. We all think somebody's preventing us from getting the good stuff. Now here's, here's the truth. The good stuff means you got to be willing to be vulnerable, take a risk, open up, get hurt. You're gonna get hurt because, you know, as a therapist, I've spent my life watching people say, I want love, I want my partner to love me. But since childhood, we've all armored up. We got our protective defensive armor and we got our offensive weaponry that we're ready to use, you know, in a heartbeat. So now we're going out trying to get love, trying to get laid, trying to, you know, have a good life, trying to, you know, experience everything we deeply desire, all armored up in ways that nobody can hurt me. You know, I've got my guard up. I won't get too close. I'll use my sarcasm. I'll use my humor. I'll use my anger. I'll use my depression. I'll use whatever to keep people at a distance. I'll use my unavailability, or I'll keep picking the wrong person. You know, and then I'll also have my, you know, my lightsaber, my sword, my, you know, my AK-47, my nuclear weapon, whatever. I'll, you know, what was that song? Hallelujah. You know, what I learned of love is how to shoot somebody who outdrew you. You know, that's how most of us are in love. You know, I'm ready to be hurt by this person, so I'll hurt them first. I got my weapon. And if that's how we're living life, Yeah, of course we're not going to get the good stuff. Of course we're going to be bitter. And so the truth is, we gotta open up and get hurt if we're going to have the good stuff. We're here to get our hearts broken. And if we're not willing to have our heart broken, we're going to sit around in a pity party, you know, crying in our, you know, crying in our own beer, going, it's all those mean women, it's all those toxic men, it's, you know, whatever, whoever we're blaming. It's their fault. No, the fault is I'm so guarded up, armored up, nobody can fucking get close to me. I won't let them because they might hurt me. Yeah, they are, they are going to hurt, and we're going to hurt them too. Are we willing to take the risk?

So how does your, how does your typical codependent guy reconcile the need for vulnerability with— he tends to, when he's vulnerable, he goes way over the line, so to speak. He doesn't have a sense of boundaries. He doesn't have a sense of So he's like, here I am, woman, and then some. And then these are the guys that get taken advantage of and they feel like a quote, chump, or the current internet term is simp. I don't know if you've heard this.

Oh, simp. I actually own the URL simp saga.

I know. No way.

You know, you've written, you've written a book for boys. I'm planning a 5-book series for boys and teenagers called called Simon's Simp Saga, about starting— be 5 books, uh, every, every other birthday. 11-year-old, 13, 15, 17, and 19.

Oh, I see.

Tracking this, this nice guy, nice boy, uh, simp, all the way from, you know, 11 through 19, 20 years old. And teaching the kind of principles you and I teach men. Because, you know, every, you— every man you and I work with say, man, why didn't I learn this? Needs to be taught in school. How come I didn't learn this 20 years ago? Okay, you've already written a book for boys. It's been on my agenda for some time, a fiction book for boys. Well, I'm gonna write a 5-book series. It's gonna have a kind of fantasy built into it. It's gonna have, you know, a talking chihuahua. It's gonna have, you know, mentors. It's gonna have all the struggles that every boy goes through from 11 to 20 years old. You know, sexual confusion. How do I get women to notice me? You know, how do I get what I want? How do I deal with bullying? How do I live up to my Full Potential, you know. So to answer your question, I, I'm a recovering codependent. I'm a recovering simp. I'm a recovering nice guy. I still get anxious if my wife seems upset at me. I, I want to, I want to fix it. I want to make it better. And what I've learned to do, what I'm learning to do, is to stay open-hearted, have good boundaries have empathy and compassion for my wife, let go of attachment to outcome that she's got to be in a good mood, or she's got— she shouldn't be mad at me, or she shouldn't accuse me of things I haven't done, and know that that's her fear of abandonment, is, is her life story. And, and to, to— it's a practice, it's a lifelong practice of staying open-hearted, conscious, taking good care of myself Having appropriate boundaries, not trying to fix, not trying to make it better, being willing to let go of what I can't control. And it's a process, and it's not easy, but I think again, it's why we're here. We're here to go through that process of, you know, even like Eckhart Tolle in his book, you know, he talks a lot, um, um, Power of Now. Yeah, you know, he'll talk a lot about, you know, how do we be in the moment, be open-hearted, be conscious, but to know when it's time to leave, to know when this person is just gonna keep hurting us. And that's their nature. You know, they're not in the game to actually use this as a way of growing themselves. So my bottom line is one reason I love my wife dearly, we've been married a little over 6 years. She's got her baggage. She grew up in poverty, 8 out of 10 kids in Guadalajara, Mexico, an alcoholic father. She's been through more abuse than any person should ever go through. You know, often within her own family. Um, and she's still the most open-hearted, generous, loving person. And her mantra is, si yo quiero, yo puedo— if I want to, I can. If she has a fear, she faces it. Now, she has a fear of abandonment, like a lot of people. And because every man she's ever known in her life, beginning with her father, has been a serial cheater, she just knows, I'm going to cheat on her, I'm going to leave her for another woman. She just is She's as sure as, you know, the day is long, she knows it's going to happen sooner or later. So, you know, that's her internal stuff. It's her wounding, it's her pain. And, you know, that doesn't always come out real pretty between the two of us. I don't always handle it well. But you know what I love about this woman? I love so many things. Mainly just that big, generous, loving, open heart. But what I love most about her is that she is committed to working on the most difficult things in her life. She, she won't just say that's key, that's key, right? So key, you know. And, and she is so fucking creative in the ways that she goes about working on her biggest fears. And, um, I can't ask for more, you know. What more can you ask from, from a friend, from, from a partner, from anybody, that they're willing to be creative and keep working on their own stuff, their own baggage? Yeah, nobody's gonna be perfect. I'm not perfect, you're not perfect, your wife isn't perfect, my wife perfect. But I tell you what, if they're, if they're willing to keep being vulnerable, growing, facing fear, telling the truth, being all the way in, what more can you ask for?

Exactly. You got a good one. Now, would you say that's relatively rare to find such a good one?

A friend of mine told me the other day, and this is a person that works a lot with relationships, and He said, Robert, you know, you and Lupita are in all my list of people of the 10% of the population that I think have good relationships. So his term was maybe 10% of the population have good relationships. And I go, well, you know all the struggles Lupita and I have. And he goes, that's why you're in my 10% is you guys have the struggles and you just keep after it. You keep after it. And, you know, I, I'm committed to that. And, you know, people will sometimes say, Robert, you know, you, you, you have a doctorate in marriage and family therapy, you're a professional, you've been married 3 times, you know, what happened? Kind of like, you know, I should have it figured out. Well, again, you know, I'm a codependent. I, I do tend to be attracted to my— I, I found out, you know, after a couple marriages that I'm, I'm amazingly attracted to unhappily married women. Now they don't even have to be married. If they're just unhappy with every past relationship they've had, that, that works. Well, my first love object in life was an unhappily married woman, my mother. I was trained to be different from my father and be the good man and listen to my mother and be there for her. That's my earliest training in life and relationship. So I know how to do that. Those are the tools in my toolbox. I know how those work. Unfortunately, they tend to keep attracting and, and going to work on women that are, you know, unhappy. And that's not a good idea. So what I say about, and this isn't me saying I'm so good, but really, as I look back on my relationships that haven't worked, is that at some point, the people, and this includes friends as well, not just women I've been with, at some point, the person basically dug their heels in and said, fuck it. Don't expect any more of me. You know, I'm— and, and one of the things I've been saying for some time now, and this is— sounds kind of sad, but it's kind of like in every relationship somebody's gonna be left. It's just reality. One of the things I've been saying is that in my experience, most people will choose their neuroses and their defense mechanisms over love.

Yep. Yep.

And you've probably experienced that. You just wanna love somebody. You wanna give 'em all that you've got. You wanna bless 'em. You want 'em to have a good life. And they're going, no, I'd rather hang on to my neurosis. I'd rather keep drinking. I'd rather keep being angry all the time. I'd rather, you know, hang on to my depression. I'd rather keep pushing you away. And after a while you go, why? And after a while you go, there's no reason to keep doing this. There's no reason for me to like, you know, try pulling you along behind me like you're, you're an anchor on a chain. You know, there's no reason. And at some point you realize if the person isn't willing to keep opening up, being vulnerable, risking, challenging themselves, asking for help, getting help, that you've, you've gone as far as you can go. Nothing's ever going to change. And, and, and that's the point where we have to lovingly let go and say, I'm grateful, you know, I'm grateful for the experience, but it's not ever going to be any more than it is, and I want more. And, and the more that I've always wanted is Let's keep growing. Let's just have the best and the most of everything we can have. And if the other person, you know, a good guy friend, and I have so many good guy friends in my life now, so many people, people like you, professionals that I know that surround me, I'm surrounded with people that go, let's keep working, let's dive in. You know, we're not done. You know, every day, let's bring our A-game. And I only surround myself with those kind of people now. My wife thankfully is one of those kind of people. She brings her A-game every day. She's never done. Yeah, she struggles, she gets down, she has depression, she has hurts, she has, you know, fantasies of me leaving her that aren't true. But she gets up every day and says, you know, let me tell you what's on my mind. And, and, you know, we work on it and we move forward. So what more can you ask for?

You surround yourself with winners. You have a nice little tribe of winners around you.

I, I, I've never quite used that term for it, but, you know, yeah, it's people again, it's people who treat me well is one thing I I told my wife this yesterday because she's having a struggle with her family. She has a big family and she's always kind of been the black sheep in her family. And I said, you know, I just, I made a decision 20+ years ago that I'm only gonna hang out with people who think well of me and who treat me well. And not just I got a bunch of people around me glad-handing, Robert, you're so great. Robert, you're so great. It's not that. The people in my life go, Robert, you fucked up. Robert, look, Robert, that's your shadow. Robert, that, you know, that's a blind spot you need to pay attention to. But they do it with love. And I'm grateful for it because I wouldn't have it any other way. Excellent.

So on that note, there's a trend now where the, the marriage rates are going down. Rates of childbirth are going down. In other words, the man, woman, kid, nuclear family, blah, blah, blah. It's starting to— yeah, much to the chagrin of your more socially conservative types. This is the next fall of Rome, a lot of people will say.

Oh, okay. Um, maybe it's the one thing that'll save the planet, but I, yeah, I don't know. Fewer people probably is a good thing.

Well, I was going to ask you, do you see this from a relationship, uh, I guess counselor perspective? Do you see that as a bad thing that fewer people are getting married, or do you see that as maybe a good thing that fewer toxic marriages and relationships will result.

Well, I kind of look at it a little bit differently. You know, I got a little bit different angle on it. I don't know that seed is good or bad. I think statistically you could prove the Earth would be better off with fewer people, but that's a whole different discussion. I ran across a couple of studies probably related to the kind of studies you're talking about. Both of them are about 4 or 5 years old now. Ralph Brewer: I ran across them the last 2 or 3 years, and I'm gonna probably misquote the exact numbers, but they, they, I, I'll reference them because they surprised me. And one of the, the statistics was this. I said about 5 years ago, the study, for the first time in, in US history since they've been counting these kinds of things, for the first time, over half of all adults 35 and under reported not being in a relationship. Now, I don't know if that's the same as being single, but I think it's a little bit different, uh, feel that they report not being in relationship. Now, it's not even just married, not— that's first time in history over half the people 35 and under, adults, report not being in relationship. And I thought, that's interesting. Not, not that I think it's good or bad, but to me it's just interesting. The second study I saw that was probably unrelated but, but had a similar, uh, kind of impact on me was that a study— I think it was primarily of men, I think it was all men, but again, I could be misquoting— that men under 35, the number of men reporting not having had sex in the last year was some phenomenal number. Might have been over 50%. Yeah.

Okay.

Now what, what grabbed my attention about this is, you know, if there's anybody that should be having sex, it should be young men. You know, that, that's, that's when, that's when Mother Nature wanted.

Yeah, exactly.

That's, that's why, that's why I gave young men high sex drives and a lot of sperm, a lot of testosterone. You know, she wanted a lot of young penises and vaginas. You know, us old guys, guys like me, you No, Mother Nature did not plan on us having a lot of sex. She didn't plan on us living this long. So that's, that was the thing. So what really hit me by surprise is that, you know, we've been talking about the internet, we've been talking about technology. So with all the technology that's out there, I'll just call it the technology of hookup culture, where it is theoretically so easy to meet people and either meet and build relationship or meet and just hook up, just, you know, have a night out or go get laid. It's so easy. We've got pickup boot camps that are teaching men how to approach, interact with women. Um, you know, you know, Match.com and other dating apps have been around for a long time. Social media all the way from Facebook to Instagram to maybe Twitter, but especially the swipe right apps, you know, Tinder, Bumble, You know, especially the ones that give women all the power, you know, to, to choose. All right, we've got all of this technology, and do you think that nobody, if they don't want to be, shouldn't be single or not in a relationship? Or nobody, if they don't want to be, shouldn't be not getting laid? You know, the tools are out there, the opportunities out there. I mean, there's, there's thousands of millions of people using this technology Why is it with all the opportunity and technology, people are not reporting being in relationship and young men are not reporting having sex when theoretically that's what, you know, is driving young men to the technology anyway? Now I think if you add porn into that, I think that actually factors in a way that works against men in really, really big ways. Okay.

Yeah.

Well, that's a whole other subject. So So my thought on these trends that we're talking about, is it good or bad that people aren't getting married or getting married older or having fewer kids? You know, they probably could argue it either way. But my thing is, I kind of even going back to, you know, whether it's, you know, men going their own way, MGTOW, incels, red pill, all the anger, all the resentment, all the victimhood, all the— underneath that all, I think we all want love. We all want companionship. We all want access to sexual opportunity. I think those are pretty, you know, hardwired human traits and drives and wants and needs. And with it seemingly so easy to access companionship, love, relationship, sex, how come nobody's in relationship or getting laid? You know, is it just a small 10% of people that, you know, which unfortunately technology does tend to favor a certain small percentage. And unfortunately it tends to favor the most attractive women and, you know, maybe the most aggressive men. Um, and then everybody else is going, how come I'm, I'm home alone, you know, another night? How come I haven't been on a date? How come I haven't had sex? How come I haven't, you know? Um, so I, I think hookup culture technology, throw in porn with all of that, um, is not taking us where we want to go. And, you know, I, I'm a big fan. I, I work— since I work with men, I say get off porn, get off social media, get out and have a life, become a social animal, you know, work on, on, you know, developing a confidence and a comfort in your own skin, you know, learn, learn to to work on your social skills, walk through open doors, deal with your sexual fear and shame, and be willing to be vulnerable. Now, I think what one of the things underneath all, all the problem of hookup culture for men and women both is the promise or allure of unlimited opportunity.

Yes.

Yeah. And so what I think happens with men is we tend to go— men go, you know, the, the terminology now in the manosphere is a high-quality woman. Whenever I hear a guy say, I don't wanna settle for anything less than a high-quality woman. And I said, you're meaning hot and young, right? He goes, yeah, of course. You know, that's just a given. High quality is hot and young. And I give men shit. I go, okay, your car needs work done. You gonna go look for the hottest, best-looking car mechanic? That's a stupid question. Okay, you need surgery. You gonna go look for the hottest, best-looking surgeon? That's a stupid question. No, it's not. You want a relationship? You're gonna, you're only, you know, you're gonna go look for the hottest, youngest person to be in a relationship with? No, I think my relationships is probably more important than my car. I want the most qualified person working on my car. I want the most qualified person, you know, Roto-Rootering my prostate as I had done, you know, 3 weeks ago. I want the most qualified woman in my life. And to me, high quality is not just she's younger than me and really good looking. Me, high quality is she's honest, she's open-hearted, she's loving, she, she can communicate, she can laugh at herself, she can laugh at me, you know, she loves me, she thinks I'm amazing. To me, those are high quality traits, right? So what happens is men get caught up from porn and looking at on social media just the hottest women they can find and go, I'm not going to settle for anything less than that. And it's like I tell guys, It's like, you know, they say, unless I can drive a Bentley, I'm not going to drive. And I go, that's stupid. You know, start with a fucking Honda Civic. You know, maybe work your way up to an Accord, you know, then maybe after the Accord, maybe you go get yourself a BMW 3 Series, you know, yeah, but work your way up, you know, and the guys don't want to because I can see all those really hot women out there. And my ego and my, you know, my addiction to porn makes me want that. I can go find it quickly and easily, you know, on social media and in porn. Why should I settle for anything less? So is that— the opportunity's there for men, so why, why I'm not going to settle for anything less than that, that most attractive, beautiful woman.

In, uh, in all fairness though, I think the, uh, the concept of settling is one that we seem on the other side of the fence, the women seem to have an even tougher time with.

Well, here's where I see what happens with the women.

Yeah.

Is, is I think for women, the feminine part of ourselves gets externally validated through attraction, approval, desire. Oh, I'm valuable. I'm desirable. You know, for, for women, I, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna make some generalizations and I know that, you know, put that on TikTok and you'll get some feedback. Um, that, that in general, women want to be seen as pretty. Desirable. That's why women say, do my ass look fat in these jeans? Or, do you think I'm pretty? Um, that's the feminine in all of us, you know, men and, and women, is, is that external validation by being well thought of and desired. Okay, so if that's wired into, to women, to, to, to crave that, to desire that, to, to be pretty, to, to be thought of as pretty, and now all of a sudden they can get constant men letting them know, I want to go out with you. I want to, you know, if they're on Bumble, if they're on Tinder, if they're on Match.com and they're just getting constant attention from men. And the more attractive they are, the more attention they're going to get. You know, again, this goes back to the problem with us men. We want, you know, the most attractive 10%. So guess what? Every guy out there on this technology is only communicating with the most attractive 10% of the women. So that means the ones that we think are high quality and we desire most, are bombarded with, with attention. Now, how many women want to close the lid on that toy box of, I get constant attention from men? If I just pick one guy, if I get off social media, if I get off Tinder, if I get off Bumble, if I get off Match, I'm not going to get constant attention anymore. And I'm just going to have this one guy and maybe he won't give me all the attention I want because he can't give me the attention that 10,000 men can give me. On, on social media and on Tinder. So they don't want to close the lid on that toy box, so they never settle in with just one guy because it'd mean giving up the attention of an unlimited amount of other men. Now maybe my theories are way off base, but I, I— that's, that's where I at least— my starting point. Men get so hyper. I've got to have the best. I got to drive the Bentley and I won't drive anything else. So instead they stay home, they're not in relationship, they're not getting laid, and they're jerking off to porn. And once that habit gets started, that's a hard habit to get out of. The women, on the other hand, are getting all the constant attention that technology gives them. All the men that have learned in the pickup boot camps how to, you know, run game and do all that, and they don't want to close the lid on that toy box and give all that up and just take a risk on one man not paying them enough attention. And so maybe I'm off base, but—

No, I think at least in part you're correct. Yeah. There may be more facets or more pieces of the puzzle, but you've identified a couple of 2 or 3, 4 big pieces for sure of the puzzle. But the problem is though, Doc, that the cat's already out of the bag.

Oh yeah, I know. Believe me, I don't think that's going to change now. But it is why I tell men, you know, put your phone down. You know, I'm not on social media. I played around with TikTok after talking with you. Oh, did you? Every time I would turn it on, I fucking couldn't wait to turn it back off. Again, you know, and I'm going, how do I train this thing to not make me crazy? And I know you can do things to train it, but it's still, it's built to push you stuff.

Oh, sure, sure.

And so I'm not on social media. I don't like social media. I think social media had the potential to be a great connector. I think that's long come and gone. I actually think social media in general is pretty destructive culturally. I think it's destructive to individuals. So I'm not a fan. I'm on many levels. I won't use it for marketing. I, I, I, the way I put it is I won't, I won't use any, any platform for my marketing that's owned by Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, or the Chinese government. You know, that's where I draw.

That eliminates the right there.

I'm pretty simplistic about some of my approaches to things. So, but I'm just such a fan. You know, we're built to connect in person with real-life people. I, I get that COVID really did a number on us. And we had to do the best. We had to get on Zoom. We had— we got on Zoom. You know, we did the best with that. Maybe we didn't. Maybe we could have done better. But we— with the— with the tools and information we had, maybe we did the best with it. But— and it's still out there. It's not going away. I've had COVID 3 times in 2022. But you know what? I still crave social connection. And I still do what I can to be with the people I I love, and I still do what I can, you know, to, to be a social animal. Yeah, yeah, there's more limits on that now. But if you think about it, the whole point of social media or the pickup apps, aren't they really meant to get us to connect with a real-life person in person? And if they're not doing that, I think we're fucking wasting our time, and I think we're actually harming ourselves, and we're, we're not doing the very thing that would actually open the door to have connection. I often say that miracles happen around people. And unless you got a living room full of people, you're not gonna have a miracle. So you gotta get outta your house, you gotta get around people, and you gotta open and communicate and connect and be vulnerable and have fun. That's how we're wired. That, that, and that's why social media works so well. It takes advantage of basic evolutionary wiring and puts it on steroids. And gives us a dopamine hit that just talking to a stranger won't ever give us. So I got it. My, my answer is put your phone down, get out and go talk to some people.

And I think that's illustrative of a— what I think will be a trend that will catch on, because if we have— if we're in fact seeing that a relatively small portion of people, let's say 10-20% of the individuals out there, are actually having relationships and having sex, that leaves out a giant chunk of people. A lot. And those, and those giant chunk of people are eventually gonna start talking and they're gonna eventually say, there's an alternative way of doing this. And I think what we will see is probably a pendulum swing back more to quote unquote traditional ways of doing things. And people will issue the whole social media thing and the online dating thing and let those people do that. We will do our own thing. I think we'll see a rise of more traditional and for lack of a better term, conservative type of stuff, maybe even people going back to church and, you know, all those type of things to—

how do we connect, you know, and again, there's so many ways we can do it. We're tribal in nature. We need— yes, our tribe. Now, you know, from my point of view, one positive sign is that about 6, 8 months ago, Facebook dropped about $20 billion in value in one day. And primarily what happened, their reports had come out, and their investors basically Well, told them a couple of things. Number 1, they've tapped out their world audience. There's no more people for them to get on Facebook. And they've also basically pissed off so many of their advertisers, they're losing advertising. They're bleeding money into Meta and their biggest investors are saying, stop. You know, now they're having to lay off boatloads of people. And all of these things, I'm just cheering and clapping my hands. You know, again, you know, I'm not a mean person.. But I'd, I'd be happy if, if Facebook ran its course and disappeared. Now something else will take its place. But you know what? I am seeing more and more of, of platforms trying to do this more consciously, not just being a way to push people ads and make, you know, make their owners billionaires. So, you know, I'm, I'm an optimistic guy by nature. That's, that's why I stay in bad relationships so long. I keep going, I know it can be better. I know it can be good. But I'm also optimistic that, um, just like I see, you know, power and what I'll call worldwide men's movement of men becoming more conscious and, and, and just, you know, healthier. I see, you know, relationships having the potential of getting healthier and, and stronger. And I see us learning from, from our mistakes and things that don't work well and, and, you know, doing things differently. Maybe it won't be the majority, But I think a significant minority of people are gonna start saying, you know what, I'm taking social media off my phone. I'm gonna go back to church. I'm gonna go back to the coffee house. I'm gonna go back to, you know, to someplace where I meet people in person. I'm gonna go back to, you know, having real connection with real people in real time. And, you know, I'll keep preaching it. People can listen to it or they not, you know, it can be a pretty hard, It can be addictive to be on porn, social media, the internet. You know, I was talking earlier about my splitting the goalpost thing. One of the things I'm doing to create my ideal day is I'm picking my phone up less. You know, when I go to the bathroom, I'm not taking it. You know, okay, I'm just gonna go to the bathroom in peace. I don't need my phone in the bathroom with me. You know, I, and so I'm picking my phone up less to open up more time of just other quality things that I think will bless my life better than just, you know, looking up a, all right, what's, what's going on in the— I love baseball. What's going on in the Hot Stove League? Who got traded? Who got what free agent got signed? Big deal. The news doesn't change all that much. I look at it 3 times a day. No, don't need to do it so much. So it's a conscious decision. I'm trying to practice what I preach is doing less of those things that get in the way of me having the ideal life I really And again, it's discipline.

You're a very disciplined, regimented individual. I know what I should and should not do, and damn it, I wake up every morning saying I'm going to do or not do it.

Yeah, I'll catch myself head into the bathroom looking for my phone going, okay, no, I don't need it. Let's go use the bathroom. Go, go have a urination meditation, you know, just go enjoy them.

That's right, that's right, that's right. So let's wrap this up. Dr. Glover, do you have anything that you're promoting or currently working on, uh, that we should know about?

Well, I already mentioned a book. It's a little bit down the road because I got another one I'm gonna, uh, get finished before then. One that, uh, based on one of my courses called The Ruminating Brain. It's about people that tend to ruminate and spin about—

we hear that all the time.

Yeah, not— there's nobody out there has ruminating brain. Technology seems to make it worse. So, but something you and I've actually talked about is, you know, you have a subscription community for men, is that I'm building one as well, very good, that will give men not only community but access with search engine and probably artificial intelligence to everything I've ever created, every interview I've ever done, every live Q&A I've ever done, every blog, every class. And so that, that's a work in progress. It's going to be a big deal. I'm investing a lot of time, energy, and money, and I got several people working with me on it. And I'm just so excited. And hopefully we— well, we will launch it in 2023, hopefully in the first half of 2023. Of, you know, you and I have the same goal. We want to give every man on the planet who wants a tribe the opportunity to have one.

Yes.

And, and, you know, I know people in your tribe that just love what you've built and And, you know, I, I think there's room to have a lot of tribes out there that are all, you know, bringing to men a way to become more conscious, to be more masterful, to be more integrated, to be their best selves. And so that, that's, that's the big thing I'm working on that, uh, hopefully, you know, it'll be out in the next few months.

Excellent. And website that people should go to, a hub for everything?

Well, right now it's still drglubber.com. DrGlover.com. That's where right now where everything is. And in the future, we're rebuilding that as well. It will, it will be the hub that points you to the other things.

Excellent. Excellent. There are things that will link them to your books, courses, the things you have right now. Everything is on there. So guys, check it out at DrGlover.com. Dr. Glover, thank you so much. Always a pleasure.

Always good to hang out with you, whether we're doing podcast interviews or hanging out in person. Always, always a lot of fun.

All right, brother. Thank you so much. You have a good one.

All right, man. Talk to you soon.

Bye-bye.