Interview with Rudy A from TikTok

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 Rudy A from TikTok. And, uh, some of you may be saying, well, who the hell's Rudy A from TikTok? If, if you're on TikTok and you are looking at the— what do you call it, like the male relationship-oriented space, if you will?

Yeah, post-divorce live, going through divorce, that type of event. Yeah.

Yeah, you will see Rudy. Rudy has made quite the name for himself. You have bazillions of views. Do you know how many total views you have on there?

I, uh, over— I don't— I really don't know. Maybe over 10 million or more.

I would assume so.

Yes, because it's been a lot.

You have one— the, the— what, uh, turned me on to you, as they say, was one video in particular that you really got— like you say now, it's like 4 million views alone on that one video. And that's what got me further looking into you and then contacting you, saying, you know, I'm relatively new on the TikTok platform of like about just over a month now, and I just, I just hit 17,000 followers, so I'm happy about that. Congratulations. Thank you. And so, but I would love to have 100,000 plus like you. And as this is one, if there's one, uh, key to whatever modicum of success I've had in this business is when I see somebody that has done it, been there, done that, I just reach out to them, you know, right away and just say I would like to chat.

So absolutely.

Dr. Robert Glover, the author of No More Mr. Nice Guy, was one I reached out to, and now he's a buddy of mine. We've done events together and everything else. And GS Youngblood another author, uh, Dr. Psych Mom, she's big in this field, Suzanne Banker, and all those guys, just sent out an email. And it's just how all you guys are just so friendly and open, saying, yeah, let's chat. So here we are. And so I would love if you could to share your story of what got you into this world. It sounds like a divorce. You want to start there?

Oh yeah, where do I begin? Divorce, yes, uh, divorce. It happened back— and just before I even go into the story, uh, DSO, uh, my story is you're gonna find it's incredibly unique and rare. Probably less than 0.001% have gone through the scenario I have. Okay, okay. So, uh, the ex-wife and I were married 16 years. She was my high school sweetheart, so adding the years prior to getting married, 20 years, right? Uh, it ran its course. Uh, I've been very public about my infidelity. I cheated on her and I spoke about that on TikTok, and that's kind of how my notoriety kind of kicked off. I was the most hated man on TikTok for about a month, but as people were just listening to me and I wasn't blaming her I was— I didn't hate women. I more or less took accountability and owned up to my mistakes is how I kind of got, I guess, the street cred is what you want to say. But, uh, yeah, I got— I got divorced and it was probably the most horrifying and painful experience I've ever been through, but I made it through it thanks to therapy. And, uh, that's really it. And just kind of trying to find a goal. I started a YouTube channel 6 years, uh, in 2016, reviewing movies because all my friends kind of abandoned me through the divorce and pick sides, you know. And, uh, the— every friend I had was married, and the married women did not want their husbands hanging around with single Rudy. So that all severed. So I had no outlet. So I started a YouTube channel reviewing movies, and I talked to the camera like it was a friend because I had no friends. And that's kind of how I started on social media. Uh, you know, it's at 7,800, uh, followers. It's doing good. It's still my passion. I love movies. But TikTok came around and I started sharing my reviews on TikTok and nobody cared. I was getting a couple hundred hits here and there and then I'm like, well, you know what, I'm, I'm dating in my 40s, I've been divorced, I've been dating for a while, I've had a lot of great stories to share, so let me share a story. And I shared a story about how the bar was set so low, uh, for men when I started dating out there because I remember my first date and the story of the video is this: I went on a date, I picked up a woman And I went to her door and knocked on the door, and she was totally freaked out. She was like, oh my God, you knocked on the door? Guys don't do that anymore. They text when they're here. I'm like, well, I'm old-fashioned, you know. So I knocked on the door. When she came to the car, I opened the door for her, and she said, oh my God, this is prom night, Rudy. No one's ever done that. Oh my God, you're such a gentleman. I'm like, is the bar that low? Yeah, guys don't do this anymore. So that's kind of the first TikTok I did that was non-movie related, and then it just took off from there.

There you go. It shows there's a real demand for this relationship post-divorce man talk, isn't there? Surprisingly so.

It's, it's scary, people. There's a lot of people who are contemplating it or thinking about it, and they want to hear how it is at the other end once you go through all the hell and make it through there. So, and again, divorce, uh, is mine, is completely different as everybody else's, uh, it was still a very painful experience that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

You say completely different. Um, I speak to a lot of people found me via a book I wrote back in 2017, and then there was a second edition 2020, and it's called The Dead Bedroom Fix. Oh, and it's all about men who are in a dead bedroom, low sex situation marriage, and what to do about it. And so I do coaching for a lot of men, and so I talk to a lot of men, and sure enough, you know, dudes Depends on the dude and their options. A lot of them are, you know, yeah, I famously spoke to one guy, one of the very first men I ever spoke to from Europe, and we did the video chat like this, and he was a very good-looking guy and very charismatic and everything else, and he was in a dead bedroom not getting anything, and it just wasn't adding up. And I was like, you, you know, and then at the end he says, I do have a confession to make, I've had 11 different affairs.

Oh wow.

It's like, so, but he's not the first to, you know, give me a drop of bomb like that. I often say men cheat. Not all men, obviously, a relatively small percentage, but it's not unheard of. And in, in my world, um, you can very quickly go down the rabbit hole of all women are terrible and all women are conniving, very easily. Um, and we lose sight of us dudes ain't angels either. And you had your— you stepped out on the marriage, and I don't know how much you want to go into the detail what precipitated that.

I don't know if it was a dead bedroom situation as well for you, something Believe it or not, on my podcast, I actually committed 20-minute episode to me just kind of telling the whole story. So if you, you know, if you, you was wondering the entire, the entirety of it, it's there. But in a nutshell, it wasn't just physical for me. It was emotional because we got married very young. And as you know, people tend to change who they are from their, their 20-year-old person to their 30-year-old person. They're totally different, right? And we grew apart. I found that she just wasn't happy with her career and she blame me for a lot of things. Like, it's your fault I didn't finish school, it's your fault I'm not happy. And I didn't know any better, so I just took it upon myself to, hey, I gotta make her happy. So I spent years and years trying to make her happy, give her motivation to lose weight, go back to school, and she would always blame me for some reason. Um, I found myself succeeding at work, climbing the corporate ladder, and I found myself being respected and my, my voice and opinion really mattering in the corporate space, and then I come home and it's like, you didn't do this right, you didn't do this, uh, the kids, take these kids, I'm tired. And keep in mind, we both worked, and I'm, I'm a, I pride myself in being an amazing father. I love my kids, so I was always involved. But the change of just coming home and feeling after a while like I felt like a failure, because I truly loved her and, uh, her words matter to me. And when you're always hearing You're not doing enough. You're not making me happy. We don't have any money. It really gets to you. And this went on for years. And the point where I cheated was we were both gaining weight. And, uh, you know, let's go, we're gonna have sex tonight, honey. We'll do it at 9. Great. You know, I'm all motivated. I'm thinking about it all day. I put the kids to bed at 7:30, 8, you know, and then I'm ready to go, go to the bedroom. She's tired and she's asleep. And then what do guys do? They go to the restroom and jerk off or something like that. Cause you're just so pissed. God, I wanted it. You know, I've been thinking about it all day. That happened for a while. Yeah. I started, I started losing weight and I found myself really getting, having energy and I wasn't tired at night. So I started telling her, hey, let's work out together. She says no, she never wanted to go. Let's ride bikes together. She never wanted to go. So that kept on and I started getting attention from women cuz I had lost weight.

There you go. There you go.

Yeah. And I pride myself back then like, I'm not gonna cheat. I'm not gonna do that. There's a temptation. I'm gonna fight it. But years, in years of the same thing at home, nothing changing at home, and you're just feeling like a failure. And then there's women at work, one particular one who thought I was a brilliant man, I was funny, I was sexy, all the things I wasn't getting at home. So it was all these things. And finally, ultimately, I gave in and I did it for a few months, but I felt so guilty about it that I actually confessed to the ex-wife. I said, look, I can't live with myself, I did this. And I feel horrible about it. I feel horrible about it. And this was in 2009, and we divorced in 2016. So there's other things that happened.

Yeah.

Um, I never like to talk negatively about her because she's a wonderful co-parent. We have a great relationship now. She wasn't an angel, trust me, but we tried for years to make it work, and ultimately it didn't. And I was the one who filed for the divorce because I was like, yeah, I can't live through this, I need to move on.

That's a pretty common story. And it's— I'm kind of laughing because I've just recently done some TikTok videos about this, and you've, you've hit on a couple of points that I made videos about which got a lot of views. One was, um, I just posted the question of— I hear so often from men, my wife is extremely anxious, overwhelmed, depressed, and I just can't pull her out of this funk. And I just posed the question, when men and women, what do you think's going on here? As you know, all you have to do is say, hey ladies, what's quote wrong?

And yeah, just sit back and watch the thousands of comments.

And when I hear pretty much the consensus is we are way overworked and way overwhelmed. Yeah, we have the weight of the world on our shoulders. It's kids, it's work, it's everything. Everything and I have to take care of my husband and he does nothing. That's very—

I hear that a lot too. Yeah, I hear a lot too in, in my circles. I've heard a lot of men pride themselves on being good dads and that's just the circle I'm around. So when I hear that, it's alien to me. I'm sure it exists.

Same here, same here.

Men do nothing? I mean, what the hell?

Yeah, I'm sure it exists, but the vast majority of men that I speak to in my coaching pride themselves on their domestic duties. It's because it's been kind of hammered into our heads, guys, our generation of help out around the house, be a good dad, wipe some butts, change some diapers. And so I have guys, I have some guys that are like, I do all the house cleaning, all the cooking, like all, all. Wow, really? Yeah. And she does, you know, these 2 or 3 other things, but I do. So very non-what you would, you know, traditional masculine kind of role here. So to hear all these women say that, I'm like, I say, I'm not denying their reality. I'm just saying it's surprising to me from our both of our circles that that's so common. But there you go. Um, And then the other side of that was your, uh, rapid self-improvement and how that changed your mindset and the dynamic. And a lot of women, when that happens, will base— pretty blatantly sabotage their men when they're going through this change. Such as, let me bring in some fattening foods, let me shame you for going to the gym, why are you going for a walk, you should be sitting here on the couch with me, you know, all kinds of stuff to make the man feel bad about what he's doing.

Yep.

And a lot of men are like, what the hell is this all about? And well, it's because she's nervous and anxious because she knows what's coming potentially, which is what you exemplified, which is, I think I'm kind of outgrowing my partner and I'm a lot less tolerant of shitty behavior from her because now I see, oh, there's options out there. I'm a wanted man. I come home to this tyrant and then you go to work to some cute little thing saying, you look so handsome in that shirt today. And you're just like, oh geez. Yeah.

Yeah, and they're 10 years younger than you. You're 33, they're 23.

Like, oh God.

Yeah, it's like, come on, you know? And you try to fight it, but ultimately, like you said, uh, it's just— I guess it is options, but again, I felt like I had no choice. And a lot of people, a lot of women have said, why didn't you just leave? Well, I couldn't afford to, and, uh, I could not afford to leave. That's more or less why a lot of people cheat.

Yeah.

And, uh, yeah, it was just, uh, like I said, I did it. I— it was like a need that I had. I thought I could keep emotions and you know, the physical act separate from each other. But ultimately, uh, somebody grows feelings, and I'm like, you know what, I can't do this anymore, I have to confess. And that's why I wanted to just try to save my marriage for the remaining 6 years.

So for some couples, it's reported that when one steps outside of the marriage, that's a gigantic wake-up call for, we need to change our dynamic here and our connection between the two of us. And usually the betrayed person will sometimes, what's wrong with me, what did I do to lead to this, etc. And there's sometimes a, um, oh, what do you call it, kind of a, um, a hype, hysterical bonding moment where they get together, you know, in a very intense way for a period of weeks. Did you see some of that?

Yeah, um, there was like a short honeymoon phase because again, I wanted to prove that I was a good husband, so I went out of my way to make sure I did everything and everything I didn't do, uh, for her. And you know, there's a moment there, you know, the passion's reignited because you finally appreciate what's in front of you when you thought you lost it, from my point of view. And as the months go on, that those dopamine levels kind of just go back to a normal and the routine of life gets back to normal. And she occasionally throws something in your face like, well, did you see that movie with that bitch? Or the, you're watching a movie and one of the characters in the movie cheated and it just changes the atmosphere in the room. You're like, ah, come on, this is always gonna linger.

That's always going to be there, always.

Yeah. And she could, uh, obviously she could never really forget. I mean, she forgave me, but she can never forget. And it would come up on certain days, the day she found out, or movies or songs. And, uh, I don't blame her because it's, it's tough to ask anybody—

sure, sure—

to forgive you for doing something like that.

Have you noticed any major changes on both of you since the breakup? That you've obviously gone through some changes of going through these new, you know, with the, with the movie reviews and the TikTok and so forth. As how has life been for her since?

Well, uh, we, it's funny because we, I've always said we are wonderful parents. She's an amazing mother, but we were just horrible as husband and wife. Uh, she went on a dating spree and I was a man whore for a few years cuz, you know, I got married at 21, so I wanted to have my fun. And we would often meet and talk about who we're dating and share stories, but it was like a mutual thing. Like I said, I didn't leave her for another woman. She didn't leave me for another man. I just said, look, let's just call it. And let's just be respectable about each other. Let's not financially ruin you. Keep your 401. You keep— stay out of mine. Yeah. I even gave her first dibs on the furniture. Take whatever you want. You know, I just need a futon. Guys don't need much. So it was very respectable throughout the process. So it's been great. She's remarried now to a great guy.

He—

no, he and I get along great. My daughter lives with her now. My son lives with me and with my girlfriend now. We all get along great. We have dinner once a month and we all talk. We always put the kids first. Yeah, it's all about the kids, man. And I think a lot of people I can't speak for everybody's situations. I don't know how I would feel if my wife left me for my best friend or somebody I knew. That's an entirely painful different situation. Yeah. So I can't relate to that. But for us, it's all about putting the kids and just showing them a healthy dynamic of what this is like to be a good, healthy—

for you. Yeah. Good for you. Good for you. And that's, as you know, relatively rare.

Mm-hmm. Unfortunately.

Exactly. Yeah. Let's talk about, I want to go into that little bit of a social experiment you did on TikTok. Yes. Do you want to, do you want to give the listeners, viewers a little overview of what that was all about?

Of course. Yeah. Again, every now and then, since I publicly admitted on social media that I cheated on my ex-wife, and again, I was attacked and people come, oh, you're a cheater. Cheaters always cheat. You know, you're never gonna be, you're never gonna change. I'm fine with that. You know, I'm fine with that. I, my girlfriend, my family knows who I am and, you know, I've made a lot of improvements to myself and taking accountability. So I've owned up to that mistake, right? And I'm— but that still comes up every 6 months. Someone finds that old video and then like this whole wave of hate comes around. So I'm like, I'm fine with it. So I'm like, you wanna talk about cheating? Let's talk about cheating. Let's do this. So I did an experiment where all the stories that I gathered on both videos, a video more or less started like this. Here is why your spouse cheats. And I gave 4 reasons, but I— it's the same thing. If you watch both videos back to back, all the reasons are the same. I just changed the verbiage from man to woman. You know, things like that. So the first one is you're no longer trying in bed. Uh, the second one was, uh, you've let yourself go, but I didn't say anything physically. I just meant like you're just not really investing in yourself anymore. Three, um, some other reasons, but they were identical. And I noticed on Why Your Husband's Cheat video, all the women were just angry and saying, well, if he's not happy, he can leave. You know, the moment my husband is not ready, it wants to do that, he can fucking go. That was like 80, 90% of the comments. And mind you, there were like 40,000 comments in this video. And that's— and it went— I had about 3 million views.

Wow.

And on the man's video, this is why your wife's cheating, you know what, you've been— you're, you're— it's all one-sided in the bedroom. She's telling you, hey, let's do this instead. And you're not listening to her. You're defensive when she says move to the left, all these things. And she's lost weight. Now she's getting attention. You know, she's putting on pants she hasn't worn since she was 19. And she feels sexy. And you're just playing video games. So anyway, I just changed it up, and in those videos, the men were taking accountability. They were saying, Rudy, thank you for this. I'm going to be a better husband to my wife. I was doing this. Thank you for opening my eyes. More men were saying, understood, sir. Thank you for the education. Thank you for, uh, letting us know what can happen. I need to get my head out of my ass. So guys are taking accountability, but on the women's side, they were saying he can fucking leave. And not one— there's only a small percentage of the women And keep in mind, this is like 40,000 comments. A small percentage of the women were saying, you know what, I love my man and I'm gonna do whatever I can to keep him from actually cheating, because all these situations and starts can be avoided if you know about it now and up front, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And I just found that only a few women took accountability, but the majority, everyone else is saying he can go, fuck him, you know, the hell with him, I don't need him, I'm not going to try to make it work. So it was pretty shocking.

Yeah. So what do we learn from this? Do you have a grand epiphany from all of this?

The epiphany I came with is that it's sad that a lot of people don't take marriage seriously no more. It's not as sacred as it once was. Uh, and, and a lot of people on the, especially on the female side, don't take accountability and they don't wanna fight for it. Hmm. As soon as the first inconvenient thing comes about, he can leave. It was the majority of the responses in that video.. And it just said, I just really just gave me a clear picture. And again, I hate being that guy that's anti-women, you know, like women don't take accountability. It's, they're kryptonite. I'm not that guy. But when the data's right in front of you and all you're seeing is just hate and blaming and not even taking accountability in the comments, it kind of gives you a clear picture. And it just really just, the epiphany I had is like, people really need to hold off on marriage. I, I believe marriage is a wonderful sanctuary when it's done right. And I think majority of people are getting married too young. And for the wrong reasons.

Amen.

You need to see your partner at their worst in life because that's the true character. But how do they react when the pressure is coming down on them? When the bills aren't paid, do they blame you?

Bingo. Yeah.

Do they say, babe, we got this, let's coordinate, let's kind of team up and talk this— they come with a solution? Or do they just blame you? You know, that's the true character. I think people just don't do that anymore. They're getting married too young, too fast, not knowing who they are as an individual and really not knowing the person. I knew him for 6 months. You don't know anybody for 6 months. It— you need to really invest time in finding out who this person is before you say I do or do anything serious like that.

You got it. Yeah, I did a video that got a lot of views of that said, um, men, you need to stop, uh, cohabitating and blending families with women that you've only known for a few months.

Exactly.

And do you want to talk about some comments on there? How dare you? I met my person of my dreams 3 weeks— we now, we've been together 27 years. You are what we call an outlier, a statistical outlier. For the vast majority of people, no, you need— it's a period of years to really get to know a person and go through all the crap that life throws at you and see how they respond. Exactly what you said. Yeah. Um, but what you are doing there is you're looking at things kind of pragmatically, um, rationally, not, not with the, you know, the whole romance lovey-doveyness of it. And that is, um, that's kind of hard for a lot of people to swallow, a lot of people's stomach, and But what's ironic about it all is that women, if you look, tend to be a little bit more pragmatic about that kind of stuff. And maybe that lends itself to what you talked about with that video of my partner did this, this, and this. They're just like, hmm, well, I view this relationship as that he needs to check these 5, 6 boxes. He has not checked them, he's out, right? Well, men tend to be more of the romantics of no, no, we're in this for the long haul, from now to the day we die.

Very true, very true.

And, uh, the negative though is I see so many men let so much stuff slide to the point of you're just like, dude, Yeah, yeah, I caught her in bed with two men. You're like, dude, you know, oh God, yeah, that's, you know, like horrible stuff. Yeah, um, you know, women are serial cheaters and, you know, substance abusers and all kinds of stuff, and men just hang around and hang around. So there's some tipping point where it goes from being a hopeless romantic to being kind of a codependent, very mentally unhealthy type of person. Um, but that's interesting, your little experiment there, and I— that really, um really got the old wheels turning. And I see a lot of the same, um, accountability— I don't know if that's the right term or what it is— or quick to hit the ejection handle, um, in a relationship. I don't know what it is, but you're right, it does seem to be that the women have the monopoly on that whole mindset.

Yeah, and where that comes from, I don't know.

Exactly, that's the next question. Why? Where does it come from?

Yeah, I, I have no idea. And I think maybe social media has maybe, uh, tainted the idea of what marriage is supposed to be, because if you type in relationship couples on any platform with the hashtag, right? What do you see? You see like a young fit couple like on extravagant trips or like in Italy and they're at the beach and they both look beautiful and all that. And to a young impressionable mind, they may see that and think, okay, that's the way life is supposed to be. And that's complete bullshit. That's why, I don't know if I, you don't know this, but every couple account that I see on social media, I block because it's, they're just doing a disservice and projecting the wrong idea. That's a piece of it. Yeah. But marriage is not all about that. That's not what— that's 1% of a few people in the world. That's not the reality of what goes on daily with us.

Yeah.

And what marriage is, you know, there's financial troubles, uh, there's illnesses sometimes. Uh, I knew a guy and he was dating this beautiful woman, uh, on social media. Every time she— she— they walked into a room, everyone checked her out. She was that beautiful. And they loved to dance. The guy worked in the oil fields here in Texas, and I don't know if you know about that, but they can make a lot of money.

Oh, sure, sure.

Yeah, and, uh, he pampered her. Every social media post was her with the Louis Vuitton purse and traveling, best steakhouse, whatever. The guy gets hurt and messes up his back. Guess what? He can't work there anymore. And guess what she did? She left him because that's the life she wanted. And I think a lot of people who get married young don't think about, okay, what if my husband gets into an accident? What if my wife gets diagnosed with cancer? What if something medically happens? Yeah, is that person going to be holding your hand in the in the emergency room. And that's another thing I hear— men and women leaving their spouses while they're in, you know, life-threatening situations medically, which blows my mind. I hear that from men and women. I can't believe that.

Yeah, yeah, sad. There's one troubling stat of— there's two ways to look at it. One is the— you, you measure the relationship based upon Oh, what I'm not getting versus what I could get from somewhere else. I'm trying how best to explain that, but one good illustration of this is that the troubling stat that when people go through gastric bypass surgery and get a lot— lose a ton of weight really, really, really fast.

Yes.

Um, the rate of divorce is like 80-some percent.

Really? Yeah.

Wow. What the hell? That's insane. Yeah. And, uh, and it's gotten to the point where a lot of doctors before doing that will say, sign here and, and show that you recognize that this is in fact, you know, a statistic and you've read all the stats. And are you sure you wanna go through with this?

I wasn't aware of that.

Wow. Okay. Well, I wasn't either until I've spoken to so many men that have gone through this. And the typical thing was wife was sick and tired of being sick and tired and, you know, 300-some-odd pounds. She qualified for the surgery, got down to a good felt 140 and goodbye husband. Wow. And he's, you know, heartbreaking that as soon as she saw all these options, got all this attention that looks, you know, across the dude and said, I don't know if he's, Worthy of my time anymore because look at, look at, look what I could have.

And to be, to be honest, I, you know, if we think back, I mean, when breast implants first started, we've all heard those stories. I got her a new pair of boobs and she left. I mean, so I guess that's a tried and true cause and effect of what can happen. But, you know, honestly, for me, when I was what, 250 and I dropped down to 200 and, you know, I looked great back 10 years ago, I started thinking about that as well. Like I started seeing options.

I started, there you go.

People look at me and smile like, oh my God. And I had never been that type of guy to get that type of attention. So the attention was like in a way addicting but also validating. And I started thinking to myself, I can do better than what I've got. Should I? And then you're kind of just letting that thought kind of infect your brain like in Inception. You just like, should I do it? Should I? It just kind of plagues you for a while. But I'm— I can, you know, I, I don't want to talk bad about them because I, I did it myself, you know, because it's it's just a change in just attention you've got. You get like, it's very addicting.

Sure, sure. And, um, none of us are immune to that, which is why, uh, my, my baby girl— I have a baby girl, she's, uh, 16 months old. She's knocking on the door right now.

Oh, that's sweet. Like I said, my daughter, my girlfriend's having our son in 15 days, so congratulations.

Congratulations. And how old are your, your other two?

How old? Old. My daughter just went to college, and she went to college, uh, this past May. I'm like, I'm done, finally, yes!

Same here, same here.

I'm pregnant. What? And my son, he's, uh, 16, so they're old kids.

And here I am, very, very similar. I have an 18 and a 15, soon to be, uh, 19, 16.

So we're practically twins.

There you go. We had a little one right here.

So yeah, and we're in—

right now we're in the same state of Texas, so we, we should get together sometime.

Yeah, definitely. Me and my son were just in Dallas this past weekend. We saw The Misfits.

Oh cool. Oh, Misfits. Oh, how cool.

Yeah, and Alice Cooper, uh, that was at the Dos Equis Arena, so that was pretty fun.

Is it Misfits with Glenn Danzig or—

Yes, the original. Oh, check you out, you knew the difference. Yeah, yeah, I like Graves himself. I like Graves himself, but yeah, it was Glenn Danzig.

Cool, very cool. Yeah, beyond Glenn Danzig and the makeup and the cool hair and maybe a couple songs here and there, I don't know much about it. So, but yeah, I'm a big music guy. So very cool. Well, how can people find out more about Rudy and beyond the, I'm a dude on TikTok making cool videos? Is, are there services that you provide? Any, any kind of plugs you can give for Rudy?

Well, for, that's a great question. And for right now, TikTok is really my only platform when it comes to advice. I'm there a lot. I'm trying to go to YouTube. I've made a page called Rude Advice. It's just kind of a play on my name. People have been calling me Rude Dog for years.

Well, right away as a marketing dude, that's an awesome name.

Rude Advice.

You like it? Awesome.

That's awesome.

That's very good. That is good.

Yeah. So I'm working on that and TikTok hasn't been the most friendly platform when it comes to, you know, people speaking their mind. Cause you know, I've seen so many creators like you and I get banned for just telling the truth and I don't like that. It's not, I don't feel safe anymore. So I haven't posted a lot, but primarily TikTok, but YouTube as well. I'm trying to grow there. And as far as services, I'll be honest. Yeah. So I, there's a, there was a moment, a few, I started that, but I think I got in over my head. I still wanna go through some certifications and, you know, get more experience before I start dealing one-on-one with a person's life. Because, uh, that's a lot of responsibility, and I'd hate to give somebody the wrong advice.

Because I was going to say, because you're sitting on a gold mine with that many eyeballs looking at you on a daily basis. My first thought as a businessman was, how's this guy monetizing this thing?

And I need to—

and I didn't see anything. So it's like, I must be missing something. So yeah, dude, yeah, you gotta jump on this.

I, I do, I do. But like I said, I'm just like, uh, how do you say it? Like I said, I just don't want to give anybody the wrong advice, and then Well, something happens to them.

But I tell you what, food for thought. There is this world of certification. I wanna be a certified life coach and I wanna be, and I've looked into, I've looked into that and I've explored it quite a bit and got pretty close to get into that. And then I kind of, the more I read into it, the more I realized I, this is gonna sound terrible to belittle people that have done that. A lot of it's bullshit. Is it really?

Okay. Good to know. Yeah. A lot of it.

I, I'm sure there are wonderful programs out there, but the ones I got into and dug into it, I'm like, Really? I, and I was, but before I really started digging into it, I had people that were just like, would you mind talking to me after reading my books and stuff? And I had a blog for years and sure. And I do Skype sessions with them. And then eventually somebody said, it's not really fair. You should charge for your time doing this. And I was like, yeah, never thought about that. And then I looked into it and I was like, what does it take to charge somebody just for talking to you? Nothing. You don't have to be a licensed counselor, therapist, whatever. You can just be like, hang your shingles. Say I'm Joe Schmo. You wanna talk to me? It's, you know, $100 for an hour or whatever it is. And, um, so don't discount your experience and everything else just because you don't have some letters after your name or something else, because frankly, what's that gonna give you over, you know, the guy who does have the letters versus no?

You're right.

No one sold me on it yet. So yeah, great point.

Like I said, uh, how do you say, uh, everyone's their own worst enemy sometimes and their own worst critic. And sometimes I'm just like, you know, holding myself back. But that's, you know, I'll look into that, man. I definitely will. Yeah, you need to hear those words.

In our Dad Starting Over world, there's so much of a demand for it. There's 8 of us in Dad Starting Over that do coaching.

Oh wow, I didn't know that.

Myself and 7 other dudes. Yeah. And we have our— we have a, a group that we belong to. I give you access to it called the DSO Fraternity. We have live meetings, we get it together in person, we have an online discussion forum, we have coaching, all kinds of cool stuff. So yeah.

And this is kind of like a group on that you created, or is it? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

I started it years ago and it's grown quite a bit.

And this is kind of like a, do you, let me ask you this, cuz I work a real job, quote unquote, and I just do this on the side. Is this something that you do full-time?

It is.

Is this your business?

It is now about 95% of my time. Yeah. Wow. That's good. It was a lot less than that as, as of a few years ago, but I still do some work on the side, marketing work, design work and stuff on the creative side for people. Just occasionally they shoot me work to do and I do that, but this is the majority of my time. Yeah.

Oh yeah. That's ultimately what I'm striving for. So yeah, man, definitely. Maybe we can seek out a line. I'll pay for your time to actually coach me how to do this, how to do this right. Yeah. This is part of it. Very cool.

And we are getting together in Las Vegas in February, so you should join us there if you have the time. But you got a new little one on the way, so that may take up a little bit of your time.

So yeah, at least the first 6 months to a year. But, you know, time flies by.

They grow so fast. That may not be the nicest thing to go, oh, new baby. See, I'm going to Vegas.

Right. I couldn't do that. I'd feel too guilty, too guilty about that.

Yeah. Yeah. So how do people find you on TikTok, for example?

Rudy A. Rudy A. Rudy A. Divorce in the search window. You'll see a lot of things pop up under my name. I just, things have, couple things have gone viral in a, in a negative way with some other creators kind of using my story and kind of making assumptions and going wayward. So yeah, just type in Rudy A. You'll see a lot of previews come in, but Rudy A. Divorce is what you'll see, or just Rudy A..

But let me, let me comfort you again with the, uh, you know, what, what's the phrase about the all, all attention's good attention, even the negative? Yeah, all press is good press, even the negative. You're getting your face out there, getting your name out there. For the 1,000 people that are like, this asshole, there's 5 of the, the 5 of them are like, this is my kind of guy. And you got, you got millions of those. Yeah. So don't worry about all that. And no matter what it is you do, if you get any kind of inkling of success, you're gonna have people that'll be this guy's awful, terrible, he's the— that's true.

There's always going to be haters no matter what you do. Yeah, that's, that's absolutely true.

Exactly. So just gotta roll with the punches.

Absolutely.

All right, Rudy, so check them out, TikTok and your YouTube, the film review.

Oh, that one's called, uh, Gen X Reviews. That's G-E-N and then E-X as in X. Gen X Reviews.

I like it. Very good. You're good with the names. Thanks. And then the Rude Advice TikTok. So Rudy, thank you so much, brother. I appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

Appreciate it. Best of luck to you. Have a good one.

You too. Thanks. Bye-bye.