LIVE With Ralph (DSO) and Lauren The Dadvocate!

Make sure, check on all the— on the Facebook. All right, nothing yet on my end. Give it a moment.

Yeah, usually, uh, you gotta let it stretch.

It's still thinking about it.

Oh, what a pain in the butt.

Does this say we're good? It says we're good. It says we're uploading. Um, later people will be watching the recording and this will all be on the recording. So hello, people in the future watching this. Yay, we're good. Okay, cool. We are on. Howdy-do, ladies and germs. How y'all doing? I tell you what I'm going to do here. I'm going to pause the uploading, Lauren, so that we have a good— what do you call it— throughput, a good connection with everybody interwebs-wise. Pause, pause. All right, welcome everyone. Apologize for the delay in starting here. We had some technical difficulties, hence Lauren on her phone as opposed to the normal pretty studio setup, I guess you could say. I don't know what it is, but there The program we're using here said, uh, Lauren, you can't use your webcam. So whatever. So, Miss Lauren, how are you doing?

I am doing well. I am so sorry for all the technical difficulties.

That happens.

All my fault, and I still don't know what went wrong.

The last— you're not alone— the last live stream I did was with, uh, Orion Taraban, you know, from Psych Hacks on YouTube. Yeah. And, uh, he got on and it was just all kinds of technical difficulties. There's massive echo. He had to go find his headphones. He couldn't find his headphones. I think we started like a good 15, 20 minutes late or whatever, but we still had a good, good show, I guess you could call it, or whatever. So these things happen. It is what it is.

Okay, well, so yes, misery does love company.

That's right. And I've done these where there's just— the connection is so bad that it's completely hopeless and it's awful. But we're— cross our fingers we're not going to have that problem. So So welcome everybody, it's your boy Raffalito here coming to you live with Miss Lauren the Dadvocate. I'm sure you've seen her on TikTok and Facebook and YouTube and, well, Instagram. Got a pretty big Instagram following, don't you?

And, uh, you, uh, you know, unlike my Facebook that got hacked last year and never ever recovered and slowly rebuilding that back up.

Yeah, for those that don't know, if you go to Lauren's Facebook page now, you'd probably be like, well, that kind of pales in comparison to the rest of the social media platforms. It— you were up there, you were like half million or something like that, and then, uh, it got hacked, taken from you, had to go fight with Facebook all about it.

It was just a whole drama that you involved all of us in because it was a monetized Facebook page, so I was actually able to earn, you know, a decent income off and then it just got, you know, ripped out from under my feet. So now it's kind of funny, you know, I feel like every single one of us in the space at some point gets called a grifter. And now when people call me a grifter, I just send them 22 million views I've gotten in the last 28 days. And here's the $4 I've earned from it. Okay.

But I got to— I saw that and I got to ask, why is that so little? I mean, what's going on?

All I have are stars. So I just basically only make money if someone sends me a little Facebook star.

So, but what— why isn't Facebook handed you dough for all the rest? You just don't qualify quite yet?

Yeah, I guess, um, I actually was able to open up a ticket with them and ask, you know, kind of what's up. And it's my understanding that they're moving away from their former monetization. So in-stream ads, bonuses, stuff like that is no longer be the thing. So they sent me a form to fill out my application for whatever the new system is, whenever that new system takes place. So fingers crossed. But at the end of the day, you know, at, at least I'm entertaining and spreading out some good messages, whether or not I make two bucks.

Yeah, they, they switched over to something called content monetization. They used to be like in-stream ads. In whatever, all that other crap, reels and everything else. And they, they combined it all. Oops, sorry. They combined it all into content monetization. And they asked me like a couple of months ago, I think it was, do you want to join content monetization? You're one of the lucky few we've asked. I'm like, sure. And then as soon as I do that, I go online and everybody's like, don't do it. It cuts down on your money big time. And it did. And then it's, and then it's slowly starting to go up again. So I'm like, oh, thank goodness I'm going back to normal now again. But when I saw your number, I was like, okay, that ain't right. So you haven't been officially approved yet for the content monetization. And then once you get that, then it'll probably slowly but surely creep up. Facebook's a pain in the butt, aren't they?

Yeah, it's, it's kind of a bummer, but you know, it's also something that you have to kind of plan for as a content creator. When I first started getting into this, everybody told me, you know, you can't put all your eggs in one basket. You can't expect to make all your money off TikTok or all your money off of here and You know, here I was thinking that I would be losing TikTok before I lost my Facebook, but I'll get back in the game eventually.

Yeah, uh, my current struggle is YouTube, of which I had a massive, uh, momentary influx of people subscribing and liking, and I was like, we're on our way, and then it just kind of stopped. I was like, what, what happened? Then I'm realizing YouTube is just not showing my videos like to anybody anymore, and people are telling me this, like, I don't see you on my feed. And I'm like, what did I do? What happened? And I can see, like, you know, if a video has, I don't know, 200 likes, but then it has, uh, or 200 views rather, but then it has like 100 likes and 25 comments, I'm like, this shows like it should be shown more and more, but it's just not. And then occasionally one will. I'm like, okay, maybe it is me. Maybe I just need to keep plugging away. I don't know. So, but that's been for whatever reason, I'm devoting myself to the YouTube thing I gotta make that grow. But, uh, so hey guys, it's, it's, uh, content creator talk here live. I'm sure that's what you all tuned in for today. Welcome everybody. Um, Ralph Brewer, Dad Starting Over. Help for Men is our larger organization, as this sign behind my baldness goes, you know, says help4men.com. Uh, learn all about it. And we have kind of a, kind of a, we do have a little bit of an announcement here for those that may have missed it. Then Lauren here with us to help us announce it, if you will, that next year in 2026— just a little background first— this organization, Help for Men, there's a part of it that is like a members-only group just for men. It's like a support community for men. So we get together and we have private discussions and forums away from the rest of the world. They can't see what we're talking about, which is important. And then we have live meetings where we get together, like support groups, very frequently, like 6 to 8 times, uh, per week for an hour plus each time we get together in live Zoom meetings and talk. And then we have, uh, my books and we have courses and all kinds of cool stuff and, and one-on-one mentoring and coaching with guys. And, uh, we've been doing that for years now and we, um, are having our 5th annual conference this year coming up in Charleston, South Carolina. And that sold out pretty quick. Um, so we started making plans for next year, 2026. I'm like, I want to make this thing as big as humanly possible. So we got Dr. Robert Glover is going to be joining us. He's the author of No More Mr. Nice Guy. Another gentleman by the name of Adam Nissenstein is going to join us. He's the Betrayal Shrink. He's a therapist that works with guys working over overcoming all the trauma from being going through betrayal— wife cheated on you, whatever it may be. And he also works with guys on sex addiction, kind of interesting. So he'll be joining us, putting on some presentation, hanging out, answering questions, all that good stuff. And Drum roll. Thank you. Miss Lauren the Advocate will be joining us as well in person. If you would, if you would like to meet this little lady in person— and yes, she is little, I'm not going to pick on you, Miss Lauren. It's true, it's true, she's of the tiny persuasion. She will be there with us hanging out. Are you going to give an official presentation, a stand-up talk in front of everybody?

I think so, if you'd like.

I would love, I would love, yeah, have lots to share. Absolutely. So guys, join us. And how can you join us? Well, let me go in the chat here and put in the address. It is brofest2026.com. Can't get much easier than that. brofest2026.com. Join us. The pricing we have as a way to incentivize people to join up, we had an introductory rate that only for the general public only happened for like a day or so. For our members, they got in. We have a lot of our members already signed up, and then we are opening it to the public so you can come see what this group is all about. Join us, see the presentations, hang out. We hope at the end of it you're like, yeah, I want to join this group and become a bigger part of it. But, um, we're opening it to the general public. We hope to have a huge crowd come see us. So join us, BroFest 2026. The pricing goes up on July 1st. So you have a little bit, see what you can do. Maybe I have some folks that got ahold of me and said, uh, um, I plan on joining, but I'm waiting for my tax refund. I was like, well, understood. You know, so, um, there is two options. One is to pay upfront and you're good. Other guys say, can I like make payments on this? And so yes, we give you the opportunity to make like 10 payments. So it comes out to be a small monthly payment, um, for 10 months and then you're good to go. And next year we'll see you. So, uh, we have a lot of cool stuff on tap. So BroFest 2026, and you don't do many in-person events, so this is a very cool thing. I appreciate it.

Yeah, typically when I'm traveling around, it's, you know, meeting up with legislators and following Mark Ludwig around at all the equal shared parenting events that I can possibly go to. So it's exciting to, you know, add something a little bit different to my in-person repertoire.

Very good. Hey, here's a big question for you. Since we're on the, on the topic of like our professions and what we do and all that other stuff. Where do you see this? Here's an interview question: where do you see yourself 5 years from now, Miss Lauren? Where's this going?

It's funny you say that. Obviously I'm really happy with kind of just what I'm doing now, which is creating content, putting it out there, talking about the stuff that people want to hear about. Um, but you know, it seems as though what a lot of these creators are moving more and more toward are these coaching and courses and things like that. And for the longest time, I've been doing this since 2021, I've felt a little too uncomfortable doing that just because I don't have a degree in anything like this. I'm not like a licensed therapist or anything. And so I always kind of felt like, well, you know, who am I? Who am I to do this? But, you know, now that it's been years of doing this and there's hundreds of thousands of people watching and listening to me, you know, I've started to have more and more people emailing me asking for it. And so now I'm starting to enter a place in my life where I'm like, well, who am I to tell someone who wants my advice and finds what I have to say valuable that they're wrong? So I think I might start moving in that direction. I actually had my first coaching call ever this week. Asked for it. And I, I was like, you know, let me do this. I, I think I can handle your case and, and talk to you about this. I don't know what to charge you though, so here's my PayPal. Just tip me whatever you feel comfortable. And it was, it was very fulfilling, and I genuinely do feel like I was able to help, especially because, you know, this guy— I'm not going to give away too much of his information or anything, but he's going through what I think a lot of guys in your group are going through, uh, separation after being cheated on, you know, probably a song and dance sadly familiar to many. But it seemed like the advice that he had gotten was such a mixed bag. You know, the last therapist that he talked to, he was like, you know, I'm dealing with all this betrayal trauma and the separation, and I'm going through a hard time. And the therapist goes, 'All right, well, let's talk about how it's your fault.' Not unheard of. And I, I was like, my jaw hit the floor. I was like, that's the approach? I've got to imagine a lot of guys just hang up the phone right then and there. And he said, 'I almost did.' And so that's why he was kind of seeking out other opinions. It seemed as though they were able to still work on things, you know. He's, he's kind of glad that they brought him to an area where he was able to work on his own self and kind of dive deeper into, you know, what role he may have played in these kinds of things. But I was looking at it through the lens of, well, you know, as ashamed as I am to admit this, I have cheated in a previous relationship. And when I did, I, I know that it was mostly issues that had to do with me and failures of communication on my end. So, you know, I'm talking to him like from the cheater's perspective. I don't think it's fair to put it all on the person who was betrayed.

Yeah, well, that's, you know, this topic is deep. And when you're dealing with a guy coming to another person for help and saying, I was cheated on, you've identified or you've witnessed what a lot of men in that position experience, which is unfortunately, all right, dude, what'd you do? Like, what do you mean, what did I do? I caught my wife cheat, or girlfriend, or whatever, cheating. Women cheat for a reason. They don't just cheat unless you did something really, really bad to push her towards the arms of another man. So what'd you do, dude? I didn't do shit. That's the initial reaction from a lot of people. That's sad. And it's interesting how it's like it comes from like a couple of different camps. You're more quote the red pill guys, the kind of a hyper-masculine mindset, whatever you want to call it, group. Um, they kind of push that a little bit. For a woman's cheating on you, you need to be more of an alpha male. This is, you know, indicator number, whatever, that you suck as a dude. Work on it. So they get it from that camp. And then let's like all the way the other end of the spectrum, like maybe a hyper-feminist kind of thing. It's like, yeah, well, women don't just do that. They're angelic at baseline. If they're forced to do that, that's as a result of you must have done something. So they're getting it from like— they're sorry, keeping up my microphone— they're getting it from both sides. And you know, you get that message enough and it breeds a lot of shame in men. Like, yeah, maybe there is something to this. Maybe I am kind of a shithead. Maybe I do need to work on this, and maybe I do need to stop driving women away from me. Maybe I do need to man the fuck up and whatever. It sucks and it's terrible. And what it does is, in both cases, both ends of the spectrum, is it completely removes any accountability autonomy or whatever from the woman. And it kind of belittles the woman and makes them less than, doesn't it? It's just like they're a little kid, they don't— they can't help themselves, they don't know any better. And you know, they did it because you did bad things, Mr. Adult Man. And I don't buy it. Obviously there's these things, these stories are complicated. And there are entire industries, by the way, if you don't know this, that capitalize on that, oh, lack of self-esteem codependence on the part of these men that will sell them on, hey, you drove your woman to this, let's teach you how to be a better man so that that doesn't happen again to you. And, uh, by the way, you need to crawl on all fours and beg for this woman's forgiveness for letting her down as a man, and so forth. And by the way, you need to pay us thousands of dollars to teach you how to do that. And these men fork over a lot of money for that. And because I talked to the guys that leave these groups And that's precisely what they tell them. There is one group— I've talked about it several times— that actually tells men, oh, your wife cheated on you, you know what you need to do? You need to go find the affair partner and befriend him, and he needs to become your mentor, in essence, to teach you how to be a better dude, because he won obviously the race. So you need to learn from the guy who wins the race, so to speak, who won the prize of the female. I couldn't believe that. Until I actually talked to one of their coaches and he confirmed, yeah, we— that's something that we suggest.

That's, that's absolutely so bizarre to me. It is. After I got off this call, I was talking a bit to my husband about it, and, you know, I was telling him, I was like, I can't believe that there are guys out here who are willing to pay to be told that their wife cheating on them is entirely their fault. Because again, when I did it, it was because I was a selfish asshole, and that was it. I, I was just being being a selfish, awful, terrible asshole. And sure, did the guy that I was dating have his own flaws? Absolutely, we all have our own flaws. But at the end of the day, I don't think there really was much that he could have changed to prevent what I chose to do because I was being an asshole. And I learned that lesson very hard. I learned that I do not feel good when I do that. And I ended up, you know, basically making this guy break up with me because he wasn't going to. I told him I did, and he was not going to break up with me. And I'm like, dude, you deserve better though. Like, asshole. Like, I need to grow and learn from this, because if you just take me back, like, what am I gonna learn from this? You know what I mean? And, you know, beyond that, there's— there's— I want to really address this whole, you can learn from the affair partner because clearly he can teach you something. I don't think that's true at all. I think that affair partners are just objects of which an insecure person going through their own thing can project all of their wildest fantasies onto a person. Because at the end of the day, you're not living with your affair partner. You're not finding their balled up stinky socks under the couch or their unwashed dishes all over the house. There, there's no way that they can annoy you in day-to-day life. You have these like hidden secret moments where you can just project every amazing thing in your head. You're like, if I could be with this person, it would be the perfect relationship. They would have all the things that my partner doesn't. And what happens in most of these relationships, if when they finally end up going legit or whatever they call it, is it's not the perfect, incredible situation, you know. In this guy's case that I was talking to, you know, I was asking about the affair partner for his wife, and he was like, yeah, he's also married. And, you know, lately, now that it's been a few months of them being separated, the wife is suddenly interested in maybe talking about reconciling. And I said, well, you know what happened, right? She realized now that she has the chance to be free, he's not leaving his wife. She, she was really projecting and thinking, you know, like, once I'm free from him, once I'm totally separated, we're finally gonna get to be together. And a lot of people, it really hits when they realize, like, most people do not end up leaving their wives for their affair partners. Ursa.

Yeah, there's, there's a whole TikTok— you know that world better than anybody— there's a whole series of videos. You can go down the rabbit hole of these women who are the, the other woman in an affair with a married man crying because they realize it's Christmas and I'm not with him, he's with his family. It's this event and I'm not with him, he's with his family. And you look at the comments and it's just thousands of people saying, he's never going to leave her, sweetheart. It's, it's— you are the side piece, sorry. You're the little extra on the side to make life a little bit more, give it some more oomph. You're not the main ingredient there. And it's terrible to hear, but that's the reality. And affairs in general, I've often said, you know, you have this thing called like new relationship energy. So you dump your partner, you're divorced or whatever, and you're out on the market and you're dating. And we all feel like this. I haven't felt this in a million years. This getting to know somebody, holding hands, making out in their car, and first date, second date, this is magical. This is— we all feel that. And you're right, fast forward, if you stick with this person for 20 years, it ain't going to be like that 20 years later. I'm sorry. Well, the affair is like extra super duper that, because it's that newness plus the secrecy, the forbidden stuff, the little secret life and everything. And it's very titillating and exciting. And if it's two married people, it's like doubled And you're right, as soon as that is exposed, as soon as one says, I divorced my, my, uh, real spouse, huh, it just all stops. It's like the, the, uh, the fantasy of the whole thing, just, you know, record scratch, it's just all over. Everyone just stops. The lights are on, everybody goes home, and somebody's left holding the bag going like, man, that sucked. And then they turn around and go back to the person that they cheated on saying, can we work on this again? And as I say to a lot of people, that, that experience of that affair and everything, that high from that— it is kind of a high— is so potent. And it also points to some issues on the part of the person. They're a married person with kids and everything else. Doing that in secret shows, you know, they got something they need to work on. They got something going on up in their head. If they don't work on it, plus they've had a taste of the good life, so to speak, the chances of them doing that again are pretty high. So to all you saying, we haven't addressed it, we haven't gone to therapy, haven't done anything, we just kind of brushed it under the rug and we ignore that it happens— like, that ain't how you deal with those things. And these things happen again and again pretty, pretty often. It's a phrase I often use for guys is when they're telling me about they discovered this affair and it was so long with this guy and he's heartbroken, I look at him and say, what if I told you that it's probably not her first rodeo, my friend? You just caught her this time. And sure enough, he's like, yeah, about 10 years ago I did suspect something. I never could prove it, but she was acting funny then, very similar to what she's acting now. I was like, yeah, dude, that's, that's who she is, man. You know, sorry to say that.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting, you know. And I, I do honestly believe that men and women tend to have affairs for different reasons. I do think that there is something to that kind of manosphere red pill idea that, you know, like men cheat for sex and women cheat for love. I do think that there is a lot to say that, you know, women tend to look for emotional fulfillment more so than the physical. But that, that being said, you know, while some people might cheat because of sex addiction reasons, I think that plenty of other people cheat for escapism reasons. I think that a lot of people become addicted to escapism, much like how some people become addicted to playing video games, you know, to escape their reality. Some people become addicted to trying to find relationships and these connections that they can just project all their wildest fantasies onto to escape the problems in their marriage. And, you know, affairs are easier. There are a lot of people who hate saying that. They're like, don't call me easy, it's— what we have is a real love. No, it is easier though. It because like I said, there's not the day-to-day squabbles. There's not who's going to take care of the child care, who's going to fulfill this domestic role. You know, affairs are easy and marriage is hard.

Yeah, and there are some cultures that recognize that— oh, I don't know how you say it— that combination of the domestic, the safe, secure, the family life although it can be, quote, boring in some ways, especially the sexual erotic ways or whatever, that, that's— we need this part of our life. And then like France, for example, in other countries, they're more lackadaisical about saying— and we understand if you need to get, you know, what's the term, get your jollies over here on the side with a little something extra or whatever. It's just what people do, you know. You have to have that little extra part of you. So they recognize like that's such an integral part to the human experience that they have— they're like It's just what you do. It's okay. We don't necessarily like to advertise it to the world, but it's understood. Husband has a little mistress on the side, wife has a little something because it's gotten boring between the two of us. So for a lot of places like here in the US, we tend to culturally say, no, that's not a good thing. We don't want that strict monogamy. Gosh darn it. It could be argued, I guess, that that kind of makes things even tougher because let's say you're this person who has this urge to live out this fantasy life. You feel very constrained. I don't know how to say it. Maybe it's— we're all pointing to the same thing, which is people hungering for a taste of their former independent, sexy self. I don't know. But whether it's men or women, I think there's some truth to that. And, um, when you suppress, suppress, suppress and you don't have any other outlet for it, kaboom. Pornography, cheating, and all these other things. I don't know if— I'm not necessarily saying maybe we need to be more open-minded about that. I don't think that's the answer necessarily, but maybe We need to be much more open and honest about how the hard work it takes to keep the monogamous traditional relationship sexy. I think that will solve a lot of issues.

Yeah, absolutely. And it was interesting too, when I was talking to, um, this guy, he said, you know, I think one of the issues that, you know, maybe was my fault— because again, he's been working with this other guy who's just focusing in on all the ways that it's your fault, which I, I do believe that there is some benefit to that.

Ultimate responsibility, as we call it. Yeah, there's something to that. Absolutely.

You know, doing, doing inner work to see like, what have I been doing to drive a wedge between us, is important. But I think it's more important to look at it through that lens as opposed to, how can I prevent getting cheated on? I, I don't necessarily think that you can. But one of the things that he believed that he was honestly doing to drive a wedge between himself and his wife was when he noticed that there had become a lack of intimacy, he began complaining about it a lot. And, you know, it's almost like at that point, you know, if you're being nagged to do something, you know, you're either going to be like, oh, now I really don't want to do it, or fine, let's get this over with. And neither of those are real intimacy at that point.

Which is what I talk about in my book, as you can see it behind me. Over there, the dead bedroom fix. Talk all about that. That's such a common thing. The guy's nagging, nagging, nagging, and it doesn't work out too well. That's not the sexy solution that a lot of us are looking for. But again, to your point, that doesn't necessarily say, well, obviously she has to go get an affair elsewhere to get that part of what she needs. No, that's, that's not the, the end solution here, and that tends not to go well. And back to your also your controversial take for some for those who've been around in this world for, for a while like I have, it's not a controversial take. It's pretty common knowledge. Yeah, there seems to be a difference between men and women when we go out and cheat. If we have to kind of try to explain it, it would seem that there's something within the male psyche that is better able to compartmentalize and say, that is a fair temporary moment of pleasure that does not define the rest of me and my family and everything over here, which is completely separate. They do not mix at all. Oil and water. They are two separate little worlds. This is over here, and this is family over here. Still love wife to death, love kids, love this, that. But this is my extra little thing over here. That tends to be what a lot of men— not all men, some men go off the rails and leave for the secretary and all the other stuff.

Yeah.

But that seems to be what we see a lot in men. And in fact, when I polled men and said, have you cheated? And those that said yes, when I asked them why, they said, because I wasn't getting sex at home and I needed it really bad. Or number 2, I don't know, it was just off-the-cuff stupid thing. I never did it again after that. Like, there wasn't a lot of thought, drama behind it. It was just like, uh, shit, what am I doing? And they stopped it. A moment of lust, if you will. While the women, it was a much more involved— they just like wrote a story, a novel, as to why they did it. And a lot of it pointed to, my husband sucks, our relationship sucks, and here's why it sucked for years and years and years. I basically had no choice but to seek out this other form of relationship with another person and on and on. So that seems to be the difference. It seems to be— and I interviewed a lady by the name of Michelle Langley, who was the author of Women's Infidelity, two books, Women's Infidelity Part 1 and 2. And she said, yeah, it seems to be like an all-encompassing, life-changing moment for them, this affair. It's like it calls into question everything about them. Who am I? What am I? My role as mother, my role as wife, Do I even love my husband anymore? I haven't felt like this in forever. Does that mean we weren't meant to be? Maybe I'm meant to be with him. And on and on and on. And we see that reflected when we are the, quote, victim in this and we're watching our spouse or whoever, like, completely transform in front of us. Like, who is this person? Why is she acting so different? She's dressing different. She's talking different. She's lost a lot of weight. You know, I don't like to talk too much about my experience because my ex and I are co-parenting just fine, getting along just fine. But I can totally relate to a lot of those stories. This was 12 years ago, so it was a while back, but I remember just simple little behaviors like how she texted and how she spoke to me and all those things. Like, who is this person? Why is she acting like this? This isn't the one I've known for the last 15, 20 years, whatever. And then you— oh, she's going through this major life thing and whatever that is. And that doesn't seem to be the case for a lot of the guys. Now we say that and we'll have women that are like, my husband's completely changed. He's lost all this weight. He's acting like he's 12 years old all over again or whatever it is. But I don't think that's the typical. One's not good and one's not bad. Let's just put that out there. But it's just different how they process these pretty big life moments. Um, Shane, if we want to take questions here, Shane from Facebook, is it worth dating again after 3 failed relationships? And 7 kids in total.

Oh, Shane, I think therapy needs to come before dating. I'd say don't give up entirely, but I think we might need to, uh, look into ourselves a little bit there. Yeah, it's funny, I got a comment on, um, one of my posts the other day. Actually, I was just talking to my husband about this one. It was a post that I made where I was talking about, you know, common excuses that, uh, Hold on, did I pause for— on your end?

My wife? Yeah, you're frozen.

Hold on. Now what happened here?

Oh geez, I just gotta go and do something.

Hold on, let me swipe out and then kind of swipe back in, see if that helps. Now what happened here? I just want to let my dog in the room so he would stop crying, but I don't know. Why I'm frozen here. Can you take Miles? He's just coming in. I know, I asked him if he wanted to go outside. Uh, hold on, should I leave and come back?

Oh, I don't know, maybe. Or you should already shut off your camera and came back.

I did, yeah. I don't know why it's doing this. Hold on. I'm trying to do a bunch of— hold on, I'm gonna leave and come back. Okay.

All right, all right, cool.

All right, one sec.

All right, while we wait, um, back to you, Shane. Uh, 3 failed relationships, 7 kids in total, which include quadruplets. Holy shitballs. Oh, here comes Lauren. Maybe. It said she was trying to come in. Maybe not. Riveting, uh, I was gonna say radio, it's television, it's neither of those, is it? Riveting internet entertainment? What do you call this? Is it entertaining? I don't necessarily know it's entertaining. Okay, let's try this again. She's trying again. All right, hold on. Come on, Lauren, let's go. Oh, come on, come on. She's trying again. Lauren is in the lobby. Let them in. Yes. Oh, here we go.

Okay, there we go. I just texted you. Okay, but, um, yeah, what I was saying was, you know, I made a post about, you know, common excuses that, um, women will give to not allow the baby daddy to have overnights, and a woman ended up commenting something like, well, you know, sometimes we just got to do what we have to do. I have to protect my kids from all three of their baby daddies because they're all terrible. And I'm like, nope, all three, all three of your baby, you know.

Let me, let me pause you there. I can't see you. Oh, I can hear you too. Oh, hold on. Well, something's happening.

Am I back yet?

No, I don't know if others can see you. I assume they cannot if I cannot.

Interesting. Yeah, I'm seeing the percentage of trying to upload keeps pausing at 47%.

Yeah, that's— I paused that.

Oh, okay, man, this is wild today.

Um, let me just upload again. Hold on. Because you came back in. There we go. Now I paused you again.

Okay, anything yet?

No, on my end I see an L.

Oh, this is so sad. Should I leave and come back again?

Maybe.

Okay, okay, one more time. Third time's a charm.

The joys of live internet chatting, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, that's how these things go. Yeah, Eric says can't see it. Okay, good, so it wasn't just me. I wasn't having a stroke. Very good. All right, let's try this again. All right. Yay, there you is. Well, now I can't hear you. Really? There you go.

Now you're good. Good. Thank goodness. April Fools, right?

Somebody needs to figure out how to make this whole thing better. I don't know how. Maybe everybody just needs fiber internet or whatever.

I just got fiber optic, actually.

You got fiber? Okay, well, but you're on your phone. But you're on Wi-Fi on your phone?

Yeah.

Oh well, it should be the best then. Who knows? Uh, you know, if you think about it, it's amazing this works at all anyway, to the degree that it does. So we're like, you know, just a couple of spoiled brats just sitting here complaining. I can't believe this. This is like, this is sci-fi magic here that we're doing here. But anyway, back to Mr. Shane. 3 failed relationships, 7 kids in total. Including— I don't know if you got this last time— quadruplets. They're in there with the 7, so he's got quadruplets in there. Um, should he, um, is it worth dating again, or should he just stay single and give up on relationships? And he is 43 years of age.

Oh, he's definitely going to be on hard mode at this.

Yeah, we gotta follow up. The first 2 are adults now, and, uh, he says me and their mother co-parented them without issue. And they are both nurses now. My 3 re-child is 15, and— oh, 3-year-old child, I think you mean to say. Wait, no, that's not right. 3 re-child, whatever. Uh, 15 lives with me full time, and then there's the quadruplets, and they are 5 years of age. I'm gonna take them— take a knee, you know, after reading that. Quadruplet, 5-year-old quadruplets. Yeah, exactly. I think it's time to cut a certain part of my anatomy off, he said. Shane, a little fertile Myrtle here, Mr. Shane. Yeah, you know, vasectomy, they got, you know, just an idea, just throwing that out there if you want to, you know. I assume you have enough, and you, if you got with another lady and she said, I'd like to have a kid— well, that's a question, Shane. Play pretend you're in a relationship, it's going well, years go by, and the lady goes— I don't know, you're 40, what'd you say you were, 43? Let's say you get with a 33-year-old and she says, I would like to have kids of my own. Are you all for that, Shane? Parent of 7? You smile. I don't— I've heard this before. A lot of guys are like, yeah, I wouldn't mind doing that again. I'm always like, really? Yes, some dudes really like having kids.

Yeah, and the dude's clearly got game. Okay, we got to give it to him.

Yeah, he's got it going on. He's doing something right.

The ladies, by pulling back, clearly they're, they're all over him. I, uh, I knew one of my friends dated a man with less kids, 5 kids, but 5 different moms. And I was like, he's got to be smoking hot, cuz.

Well, you know, the, the number one predictor, like when we look psychologically at personality traits, and we're like, they have all these, there's these 5 personality traits, and we all like rank high in some, low in others. So which of each of those 5, if you rank high in which one is like the biggest predictor of your success as a dude getting women, and it is extroversion. If the more extroverted you are, the higher the chances of you getting laid, basically. So anytime you see one of those guys that's 5 zillion kids from so many different women and you get to know them, you're like, I can see it. He's outgoing, he's never met a stranger, he's a friendly guy, he's a charming dude. Not necessarily the hottest, you know, physically hottest dude in the world, But that's true too.

I will say, in previous relationships, there have been guys that I dated where when I first met them, it wasn't like this big physical chemistry spark, but, you know, they just had a personality and they, you know, really kept pursuing and they were very interesting. Sorry, I gotta let my dog in here. He's continuing to just cry.

Oh geez, here we go. We're gonna lose you. Oh boy. You're playing with fire here. No, so far so good. Oh no, you're frozen.

Did you lose me again?

You're frozen again.

Oh geez, why is it that I— when I stand up and open the door, I'm constantly messing everything up?

You got a little Wi-Fi dead spot there. You're like in a Bermuda Triangle of dead spot.

Yes.

So yeah, we lost you visually now if you turned it off.

Yeah, it's not bringing me back.

Still the same frozen. It's an interesting— it's kind of an artistic look there. Yeah, wow, what a kind of a modern art thing.

I just saw something about reconnecting, but I don't think that it is. Should we— fourth time's a charm. Leaving.

Sure. Yeah, we'll wait on you.

I'm so sorry.

Oh, the internet, folks. Show business, what can you do? Here we go, she's coming back.

All right, you're back. Okay, this has been a very difficult conversation. And yeah, just—

you have to stay right there. You cannot budge. Put walls around you.

All right, my dog starts crying again, I'm just gonna yell it to you.

The house is burning down. You just gotta sit there. Yeah. Okay, so, um, uh, he says, that's exactly what happened the last time, and then 4 came out. I think being Irish Catholic didn't help. Well, you know, wherever there's 4 Irish Catholics, there's a 5th, as they say. That's a double entendre joke. 5th as in 5th of whiskey, 5th person. Anyway, so, um, yeah, well, back to your original question, Mr. Shane. Should you like give up on the whole dating thing or whatever? I, you know, but here's the thing, Shane. Does dating always have to lead to you getting hitched and making babies? Whatever happened to just enjoying time with women, getting to know them, and just, you know, putting it out there initially? Like, ladies, just so you know, I have like a whole like football team full of kids and I've been married 3 times. I'm not interested in doing that again. Are you going to lose some women? Yeah, probably, because they'll be like, no, I want to start a family and everything. And you're like, that ain't me, sister. Then that's cool if they say no, then that's fine. But some women will be like, yeah, I just enjoy your company. Let's go out to eat. Let's, let's spend time together. What, what's wrong with that? Um, but if you are saying like, no, Ralph Lauren, I know me, it just ends up being marriage and kids. Well then yeah, maybe you should take a timeout and figure out why that is and what's going on with you and why is it that you ended up in this situation, I guess you could say. Now, is it a bad situation? Not necessarily. Um, it sounds exhausting. And you have 3 failed relationships points to something's going on there. So I don't know, how do you think you contributed to those 3 failed relationships? Is there something about you that attracts a certain kind of person? Are you the certain kind of person that people like to dump? I don't know. A lot of stuff to think about there. What do you think, Miss Lauren?

I think it can be a good thing to take a break from dating. I get a little bit sad when people come into my comments and they're like, this is why I've completely given up on dating forever. But I do think that it can be healthy to step back sometimes. You know, I personally, um, after quite a few failed relationships myself before meeting my now husband, um, I chose to step away from dating, and I was voluntarily, optionally, willfully single for about 2 to 3 years before I met him. And I really just focused on learning to appreciate solitude, learning how to love myself, learning how to be independent. And it wasn't for lack of suitors, it was just I had committed at that time, like, nope, I need to do this for myself. And it was right around the time that I started to kind of toy with the idea, you know, I might be ready to date again, that I met TJ. And at that point, it seemed as though the universe decided that I was ready because, you know, that was it. And then I never had a date again.

There is something like kind of magical about the whole thing of, you know what, enough of the crazy. I'm just going to take a timeout, focus on more important things, forget about the dudes or the gals or whatever for a while. And then once you do that for a while, it seems like the universe or God or whatever you want to call it says, okay, good job, here's some normal people for you now. Finally, oh well, and here comes the influx of normal people. And then people recognize that about you, like I know somebody that you should meet. I'm like, oh wow, they're perfectly normal too. What's happening here? As opposed to when you're in the throes of, I've just been freshly dumped and I want to go out and meet as— get under as many women as I can and everything else. And then what you'll notice is like, wow, I'm 12 for 12 as far as crazy women are concerned. What's going on? Because you're crazy too, dude. So Shane, you need to take a step back and go like, what is it about me right now? Um, is this kind of a fresh breakup that you're going through here? If so, it's probably not going to end well, you going out and doing this all over again. Um, you've said— oh, here you go— I'm single for 18 months. For a year and a half you've been single. Um, was only married once though. So of those 3 failed relationships, you were married once. Full custody of a son from that marriage, he's 15 now. The other 2 relationships lasted 10 years each. That's relatively unique. Wow. All right. And if I'm doing the math right, you got started young then. Um, well, okay, so it's been 18 months. So are you concerned that you— you know, like I say, go back to the original. You're concerned you're going to do this all over again. You don't have to.

It's—

I always get that from men. It's almost like they, they're projecting like they're powerless against their own tendencies towards there is the guy who's just like, I meet a gal and next thing you know I'm handing over my paycheck, she's moving in, I'm going to adopt her kids. I mean, he's like, dude, you just met this woman, chill out. And maybe, Shane, that's what you're saying about yourself, is like, I know me, that's going to be me. Then yeah, I would cool it with that. Um, but if you think you got past that, what's the harm of just meeting some ladies? It's been a year and a half. I don't know. Um, oh, here's a good one from Eric.

I mean, it seems as though he's able to make relationships last a significant period of time if each and every one of them was a decade. So I guess I'm curious, like, why and how did they end? Were there any commonalities between why they ended, or— I don't know.

Well, I mean, what he's talking about is serial monogamy. You get with somebody, you and me alone, stick it out, maybe have a kid or two, or 7, whatever it is, and then go, all right, we'll drift and go our separate ways and do it all over again with somebody else. That seems to be— as cynical as it sounds— that seems to be kind of, um, I don't know, like the basic programming in the human animal. That's kind of what we're wired for, and we kind of have to work on a relationship and let's work on this and let's stay together, let's do date nights, let's be very intentional and purposeful about us— is fighting that tendency. Because once we're together forever You mentioned it earlier, it gets boring. You're doing this and doing that. The spark is gone and it's nothing like an affair. It's nothing like a new relationship. Yeah, that's Mother Nature saying, you too, you know, let her go and let him go. He wants to go impregnate Shane. He wants to go impregnate some other women. Let him go do that thing. And she's done with you, dude. You know, get away from her. You got to fight that. Like, no, I don't think so. And, um, Shane, you're kind of playing that whole thing out. With the serial monogamy on your part. Um, but Mr. Eric says, question for us both, what do you think about abstinence until marriage?

I'm just gonna be honest, you wouldn't buy a car without test driving it, would you? I don't know.

I—

look, I, I do respect the idea because I definitely don't think it's a good idea to be running around and fornicating with absolutely every single person you find mildly attractive because you might end up with quadruplets, right? But, uh, you know, I, I also don't think it's like the, the worst thing in the world if you've built a connection with someone to engage in safe, consensual physical activities as well. But, you know, I'm also not the most religious person on the planet. If it's important to you, then it's important to you, and You know, I think a lot of people would also argue that sex is not the most important part of a relationship, and a lot of other people would argue that, you know, even whether you start having sex on your marital day or prior, you're still going to have to teach each other what the other likes over time anyway. So I would say I don't think it's the most important thing in the world, but I also don't think it's the worst thing in the world to be abstinent until marriage.

Same. I agree with you 100% on all that. I mean, if we just want to be technical about it, um, the sex thing, as much as we like to romanticize it— maybe I don't know that's the right word— like, this is this glorious, ultra-vulnerable, sensitive thing, wonderful thing between two people and so forth, hence why we need to wait until the ceremony of marriage and everything in order to do such a wonderful, amazing thing. It's also a technical thing, and it's also a thing that you just may not be matched up well with this other person, and you don't know it until you do it type of thing. And so I know plenty of men who went down the road of let's do the abstinence until marriage thing, then they had their honeymoon and they go, well, that wasn't very fun, um, maybe it'll get better. 20 years later, okay, it never improved, it was just— she's just very boring. In the sack, and she doesn't want to do much of anything unless it's for the purpose of making kids. Wish I would have known this earlier. Well, some of that could be remedied by getting to know them in that way prior to getting hitched and making babies. Let's just be technical about it. That's, that's technically true.

And there's a lot to be said too around religious shame in that regard, especially when it comes to women, because I know so many women who they, throughout their whole lives, it was, wait until marriage, wait until marriage, it's this dirty, disgusting, awful thing, and you're a whore if you partake in it. And that, that gets really deeply ingrained in their psyche. And so now, even when they have the ring on their finger and God gives them the thumbs up to, to go ahead— why did that happen? That was funny.

But can you please do that again for us?

That is not how that works. Wow, okay, I guess I can't replicate it.

Maybe it was combined with something you said, I don't know.

Crazy.

For those that missed it, an impromptu fireworks show just went off behind Laura. It's like, um, hello. Yeah, I hope you all saw that too, or else we had like a shared delusion here. I don't know what that was.

Anywho, but even once she's, you know, religiously allowed to partake in the act, all of that, like, you're a bad person if you do this, you're dirty, this is sick, is still living in there. And so there are women who, like, this is why you hear about so many women who aren't even able to climax and fruition, because they've never become comfortable with that part of themselves. And so this is also, I think, one of the negative sides to the kind of, you know, slut-shaming culture that we live in is, you know, absolutely, I'm not saying that the solution is to enable and endorse promiscuity, but I do believe that sexuality, especially for women, is a little bit too frowned upon to the point that, you know, we've got all these red pill manosphere guys out here who are like, oh, women with these high body counts of 5 are so disgusting. But then they get with a woman and they're like, why aren't you a freak in the bed?

And it's like, you can't have it both ways. Yeah. It's a, it's an interesting topic for sure. He did one. Some guys are just vehemently anti— it's strange. It's anti-woman, overt woman sexuality. They're very anti-overt women sexuality. But when, when she's with me, she better crank that up to 11. It's like, dude, she may not have that within her thanks to a lot of the stuff that you're propagating here, a lot of this shame that you're talking about, female sexuality shame. But again, there is— you can swing the pendulum over way too far. And there's the, the, uh, the debate of body count. Does it matter? And it's like, in a lot of people in your more progressive modern-day thinking are like, no, it's just crazy talk. People having sex with other people doesn't affect your relationship now, what happened then. But let's try to illustrate the point of how it can make a difference. And I say, okay, well, what if I told you that the gal over here has been— and she's 23 years of age and she's been with 200 individual men? And a lot of people go, well, I mean, come on, Ralph, if you put it that way, yeah, that's— that points to something going on. So, okay, so we've identified that it can go too far. There is a tipping point. Now, where that tipping point is varies person to person. You've been with 20 guys? Holy crap. You've been with 200 guys? Holy crap. You've been with 5 guys? Holy crap. You and I agree the 5-guy thing is a little much, a little, little— it's a little extreme, I guess we could say, as far as your, uh, what you put up with. But hey dude, if that's your thing, that's your thing. But understand, like what Lauren's saying, you're setting yourself up for some potentially disappointing adventures in the bedroom with that woman later on in life because she probably has some sexual shame, sexual inexperience, and her process of sexual self-discovery with you may include, oh, I really don't like it all that much, or I'm just not that much of a sexual person. Some people are, I'm not. That is a very real possibility, and I've talked to a lot of guys who realize that and like, oh shit, what have I done?

You know what I think might be the perfect middle ground between, uh, a woman who is comfortable with her sexuality but not like overly promiscuous is BookTok. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Please, please tell. What is BookTok?

So BookTok is the part of TikTok where girls discuss, you know, the types of books that they're interested in. And if you go down this rabbit hole, you will find out that women are interested in some, uh, some spicy literature. This is, uh, this is a whole new world out there. And so there, there is a world of very quiet, introverted women who do not come across as sexually promiscuous, and you would have no idea. But I think if men dove down this rabbit hole to find out, like, wait, what are the books that my girl is reading? I think you might, you might find out that there— who is awakened in that way and who is not.

But, but, but that's a somewhat dangerous road to go down because a lot of men are so sensitive to the fact that, let's say he finds the Kindle and starts reading some of this stuff, and he's like, my woman reads this smut and she's reading these stories? My woman has never even approached anything like this in real life with me. She's Miss Lights Off, Nobody Makes a Noise. If the kid's anywhere within 5 miles of the house, we don't do anything, you know, really the cold, kind of boring in the sack kind of woman. Yet she's reading about werewolves and vampires getting it on in orgies and all this other stuff. And he's like, okay, what the hell? This doesn't— now, a knee-jerk thought for a lot of men is that energy's in there. But just not for me, husband. I suck. I'm a terrible husband. I'm the most unsexy creature ever. I don't bring that out of her, blah blah blah. Or it's just a very difficult thing for us to, um, come to terms with. There's a very real difference, difference between fantasy life and real life. In the fantasy world, your wife in the total imagination world is free and open to do those things. In the real world, there's a million reasons why she doesn't. And very few of them may have anything to do with husband. That's just, that's just the reality. Yeah, it could be the shame, the way she was raised, she hates herself physically, whatever. In her little imagination, she's this perfect princess, whatever, that looks amazing and is 20 years old, but in real life, she's a 53-year-old woman of 4 kids, and on and on and on. So, uh, you— I guess that's a warning to guys: don't go down the road immediately, the knee-jerk world of insecurity and I hate me and this has— she's this and she's that, I'm this and I'm that. Not necessarily. Or it could be, you know, for your more positive thinking guys, I got something to work with here. Maybe, maybe this is a green light for me to be a little bit more permissive and pull some of that out of her to show her she's safe to do so. I've kind of fallen—

it might help to at least start asking questions, you know, maybe, you know, just ask, what are you reading there? Maybe look down the BookTok trends, because some things that I found really funny are, um, the trend where guys try to replicate scenes from the books. They do? Wow, that's a, that's a new one. And, uh, they'll, they'll try to like act it out with the girls, and it's like, to A lot of times it's like an epic fail, but it at least gets them both like rolling on the floor laughing at the situation. So I, I do find those pretty funny.

And you know, let's stick with that. The guy who does that shows that he's very comfortable in his own skin. He's not afraid to look like an idiot. He's not afraid to talk about sex stuff. He's not— that's an attractive, fun, funny, yet somewhat sexy open dude. That dude is far more likely to let's be, be crass, get laid, then the guy is just going to take offense to that and smash her Kindle and run out of the room and say, you whore, and all this other stuff or whatever. That's not going to get you anywhere. So something we learned from that. That's, that's, uh, that's cute. I like that. Um, don't let your testosterone lead you to making bad decisions in the opposite sex. If I had seen your content 7 years ago, I would have ended up happier sooner. Thanks again for being there for the guys. Great to see you two collaborating. Well, thank you. Yeah, don't, don't let your testosterone lead you. Don't think with your little head, as we often hear guys say. You know, we, um, Lauren, there's in the manosphere and all this other stuff, of which it could be argued I'm a part of— I would like to think I'm a more centered, rational part of that, more empathetic to the ladies' side part of that world, um, simply because I have two daughters, two daughters, wife, ex-wife, moms, mother-in-laws, all that stuff. God forbid I have some empathy towards the opposite sex. Um, but, um, there is this thinking in our world of women are these emotion-driven creatures that don't have a rational bone in their body. If it wasn't for us, they would just be flying off the handle. And ever— I'm like, dudes, do you know how many men I know who have done stupid shit to go get laid by a woman that they should never be with? Like, some crazy woman 6 hours away says, come come see me tonight, and he's in his car and he's driving cross-country to go see her. Guys that drop their family and their wife. Or I've shared with before with, with folks, not to give away too much information, in my own personal circle— this was shit, it was 10 years ago or close to it— 70-some-year-old, very, very high status gentleman, 70-some-year-old, mind you, been with his wife for 50-plus years. Kids, grandkids, whatever, suddenly leaves her and runs away with a 30-year-old, um, and dumps the wife, damages his career, loses the respect of everyone around him, all because of the hot little Brazilian— yes, literally Brazilian— 30-year-old. And they had kids, they had twins at 70-some years of age and all this other stuff. And we're just like Guys do that kind of stuff a lot. That's, you know, thinking with his little head, not with this big one. People do it all the time, so we're not immune to such irrational kind of behavior as this guy is saying. What? Oh, we're talking about— with these discussions, we're going all over the place, and the comments are always hearkening back to something from like 20 minutes ago. It's better to, better to not know and have it pan out However it does, or test drive and have it be great, like driving a Ferrari, and then it turns into a Prius after a couple of years of marriage. That's pretty good. Hey, that's the thing. There's no such thing as a foolproof plan. Like, dude, if I tell you, like, this is the foolproof way to make sure you pick the right gal, I can guarantee it's going to be great in the sack from now until the day you die. It's going to be very little drama. You're going to have kids and it's going to be wonderful. Here you go. I could make a bazillion dollars. That doesn't exist. There's always risk for all these things. You don't know if you're gonna hit a wall, and you could get sick, you could get injured, you could get— who knows, when he gets cancer and you're not able to do anything anymore. And these things happen, um, it's terrible, but such is life. As I find myself saying a lot to guys, like, there is kind of— maybe you've seen it too in your world— there is this overwhelming sentiment of I made this decision and it's— and everyone is telling me it's the right decision. It really hurts to make it, like leaving an abusive spouse or whatever it may be, but I did it. Okay, but it's been a couple years and I'm still suffering. It's— there's still a lot of chaos in my life. There's still a lot of shit because I left him or her. Now I'm like in this shitty apartment and I've lost half my money. And it's like, yeah, just because you do the right thing doesn't mean like suddenly the world's like, congrats, and millions come to you and everything's wonderful. No, you still you still got to deal with it. You know, doing the right thing doesn't necessarily mean everything's going to be peachy keen after that. And that's something that I found with the guys that I talked to, that's really difficult for them to process. I don't know if it's a Hollywoodization, Disney-fication, or whatever of life, but they just think it's going to be magical and wonderful because they did the right thing. No, not necessarily true. Uh, anything else, ladies and germs? It's been about an hour. That was fast. Yeah, Miss, uh, Lauren, you— oh, talking back to your, um, maybe you want to do the coaching thing. You know, I've, I've, in my language, have kind of veered away from— yes, we have coaches, myself do coaching, but it's such an overused term and there are so many dipshits doing it. They have no business doing it. I almost say like it's mentoring, I think is a better term. And how it started for me was I had no intention of doing it at all until people asked me, can I pay you for your time? Or actually, it started off, can I talk to you about something that was in your book? Or book, rather. And I was like, yeah, I have time, want to do Skype? And I would have long text Skype conversations with people. And next thing you know, I got 6 of them going on. And the next one of them says, can I talk to you via audio on Skype? And I'm doing the audio chat. And one of them said the magic words you know, it's not fair that you're doing this for free. You should charge for this. And I was like, I never thought about that. Interesting. Yeah, there's— you could do like coaching or something like that. You don't have to be a licensed therapist and all this other stuff. And you have something— I was like, oh, all right, cool. So I did, and the rest is history. And now I'm just basically— my whole thing is I've been there and done that. I'm a guy who's talked to hundreds and hundreds of other guys, so my perspective has some kind of value here. And my, uh, my experience and what I went through and everything else. If you want to learn from me and talk to me, it's going to cost you for my time, but here you go. And, um, that's worked out well. I don't see any problem with that. I'm not a licensed whatever, anything. They even have, uh, oh, what do you call it, certifications for coaches. So you could go to Life Coach Academy, whatever, and get a certificate.

I know, I do find it funny that to become a certified coach, you have to go to an uncertified coach to get your certification.

And if you've looked into it and you look into some of the curriculum stuff, you're like, this is such bullshit. I'm so— I— there are some really great ones out there, I'm sure, that went through a certification and all that other good stuff. But I have yet to be convinced that because they went through that process, they are a better advice giver than somebody who didn't go through that process. I think life, life experience probably has more to do than anything. Some 70-year-old dude who's been there, done that is going to be a little bit more than some 20-year-old who— I went through a certification, there's like, okay, I'll take the 70-year-old any day. That's just me, I don't know. Um, but anyway, I was gonna say, you know, more power to you, go for it. I say hang your shingle, as we say. Lauren the Advocate, I'm available for— so you would talk to people, I would think your primary subject matter would be if you're dealing with this child custody, divorce, and everything else, you want to talk to somebody who's helped my spouse go through that and been through all that, and I'm here for you. I think that would be a big help to a lot of people.

Yeah, apparently so. You know, like I said, I really sold myself short, which is funny because I am 4 foot 11, but you know, it's good. Yeah, there— it's— if it's what the people want, I do, you know, I'm in the same boat, you know, been there, done that, you know, went through the whole custody battle alongside my husband, and now we're on the other side. We've got the 50/50 You know, things are beautiful, gold, no more arguments, now into a healthy co-parenting era. She was just over yesterday, welcomed her into the house, our kids.

Awesome.

And I was like, we never would have thought we would have been here, you know, 8 years ago. So it's— I might not have a degree in that, but I, I definitely would say I have a lot of good advice.

And you, you know, if you think about it from a business perspective, you did it right. You built up your reputation first and showed via a lot of free content to the, to the world, look what I'm going through, here are my thoughts, here in on a variety of different subjects, not just that. And then built enough of a reputation where people trust you. And now you say, by the way, if you would like some of my time, here you go. Some people flip it brand new, you've never heard about me, I'm Coach Bob, here you go. And they wonder why it's crickets. It's like, dude, nope. Who are you? What have you done? Well, here's my resume. I'm— I've been CEO of this and that. We don't care. We don't know you. There's a lot of people like that. Anybody ask me like, how did you get to where you're at now? I say it's because of this book back here. That gave me the cachet, the expertise, if you will, that people like— I like this. I want to talk to the— who created this. If it wasn't for that, I'd be nowhere. So that's what got me in the door and got the, the ball rolling. So to anybody out there who's thinking about doing something like this. You have to have a thing. Your thing was the content creation over years and millions and millions and millions of people watching your thing. That's your thing. My thing was a book, which led to the thing, which led to the thing. You have to have a thing first. You can't just jump, skip from A to Z and just go, here you go, folks. It doesn't work that way. Maybe somebody out there has done that, but I have yet to see them. Um, but, uh, so keep an eye out for that. Folks, uh, do you have like a— can people do that now if they wanted to? Hearing this, can somebody say, oh cool, I want to talk to Lauren like tomorrow?

Can you email me at lauren@dadvocate.net if anyone is interested? Um, I'll probably start putting something up on like my Linktree, my website, that starts— maybe start advertising it a little bit more when it comes to that now that I'm starting to dip my toes in, get more. But outside of that, I have hours and hours of free content for you guys to watch besides that.

Very good. Excellent. So the Dadvocate— search for Dadvocate across all the social media platforms, YouTube, Facebook. Guys, if you're not following Lauren on Facebook, Dadvocate, look for her face. Now, if I say that, is there another Dadvocate account out there still? That's the fake one that we should look out for.

They, uh, now that I have it trademarked, uh, at least made them change their name. Okay, they didn't give me the page back, but they made them change their name.

Facebook really dropped the ball on that one. So, but we need to grow your audience back up there again so we could start getting you some funds via Facebook instead of just the stars and all that good stuff. And follow on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Threads. We always talk about Threads. Yeah, every time. So, all right, Lauren, the Advocate, thank you so very much.

Yeah, Ralph, thank you for having me and especially for dealing with all of the technical difficulties.

No worries. It happens. It happens. No biggie. We got through it. And guys, thank you all so very much for joining us today. Next week on Tuesday the 8th, I will be chatting with, uh, Dr. Robert Glover, author of No More Mr. Nice Guy Live for all of you. So bring your questions for Dr. Glover, No More Mr. Nice Guy, or what— he also has another book called Dating Essentials. Check it out. Dr. Robert Glover, if you don't know who that is, Google him and you'll come up with thousands and thousands of YouTube videos and podcast interviews and everything else. He's one of, if not the biggest dude in our world. He wrote the biggest book out there, No More Mr. Nice Guy. So we'll be chatting with him next week. Miss Lauren, once again, thank you so very much. Appreciate you.

2026 tickets to meet us both, all three.

BroFest. Yes, BroFest 2026. Let me put that in the chat once again.

One last plug.

One last plug, brofest2026.com. Sign up, meet myself, Lauren, Dr. Glover, and others We would love to see you. All right, thank you so much. It's not doing the— it's not done. And now you just look like a total weirdo. Listen, it's not gonna do it again.

All right, guys, we gotta clip that one.

All right, guys, I'll see you.

Thanks. All right, bye.