Public DSO Fraternity Meeting - February 2023

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. All right. You know, a show of hands here. Well, shoot, as I talk, I keep getting interrupted by guys wanting in. Show of hands, who is brand new to one of these meetings? You've never been before. I don't know if you know how to do the little hand-raisy thingy on Zoom, or if you want to just say howdy. There's a— hey, there's a hand, Michael. All right. And let me let in Scotty G here. Michael, welcome. Michael, would you— I'm not to put you on the spot, buddy, or Joel for that matter, who just went in the chat. Would either of you like to say hello and introduce yourselves and tell us where you're from and what brings you to the world of Dad Starting Over? If you would like to do so, please chime in. First come, first serve.

Yeah, sure. Thanks for doing this. I'm Michael. I'm from Hudson Valley, New York, uh, about 50 miles north of New York City. So I've been following some of what you do on social media and, uh, I found some of your videos to be very helpful with, uh, with my current journey or where I am in my current journey. So, um, just thankful to be here.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, Michael. Thank you. And may we ask what your journey entails exactly? What's going on in Michael's world?

Uh, somewhat recently divorced. Now single dad of a 10-year-old girl. Just, you know, trying to find that work and home life balance, as well as my own work on myself as well.

So, well, welcome to the club, right? I think a lot of us can relate to your story. Welcome, welcome! And anyone else? Would anyone else like to give a similar intro? What brings you to our world? Where are you from? I'm from—

I'm stationed in North Carolina right now, and I'm struggling to figure it out, um, how to be a better man, because, uh, I tend to make a lot of mistakes and I tend to not to listen to others. So I thought coming here would be able to help me improve myself and be able to be with other men because I tend to keep myself in a group of women and push myself away from, from guys. So I think I was trying out this new experience would benefit me and help me become a better person with my family.

Okay, cool. Well, welcome. And you say stationed, are you in the military?

Yes, sir, um, uh, in the Army.

Okay, very cool. And where are you from originally?

Uh, San Antonio, Texas.

Oh, okay. Very cool. Very cool. Welcome, welcome, welcome. And Mauricio, letting him in. That's a name I don't recognize, but he's new as well. Anybody else? Would anybody else like to say hello and where you're from and what brings you to our world? Anyone? Michael, Jason, I see your, your hands are up there. Um, if you'd like to say hello, don't be shy. If you are comfortable doing so. If not, I'm going to go ahead and start blabbing away here. Did somebody have something to say? I hear audio coming in. Don't want to interrupt anyone. Let me mute some guys here. All right, well, for those that don't know, let me let somebody else in here. My name is, uh, Ralph Brewer. Um, some of you on here may have seen my pretty bald head. In, uh, in some videos going around. I've been posting videos like crazy on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and all that fun stuff, uh, simply because that seems to be a really good way of getting the message out about our Dads Starting Over world to thousands and sometimes millions of people. I've had some of those videos get to close to 5 million people, which is just insane. Um, up to— this has only been like, uh, 4 months or so that I've been doing these videos. Before that, it was basically put out articles, put out podcasts, put up books, social media posts and stuff. And it was literally the tiniest fraction of a percentage of the, of the success that I have with those little videos. So if you guys came from those videos, welcome. Thank you so much. But we've been at this Dad Starting Over world for years now. It started with myself having me mute. If you guys could mute your microphones, please. Um, for those that don't know my story, I went through much of what a lot of you guys did. It was a divorce, it was 3 kids, one of which was 1 year of age at the time, and became Mr. Mom for a period of years because my ex kind of said adiós to the kiddos and to myself and was really not involved much in their lives there for a while. So it was very traumatic, went through a lot of not so good stuff. I wrote, uh, articles, had a blog. And I'm cutting through, I'm cutting through a lot of stuff here. But I eventually wrote on a lot of different topics on my blog. And the most popular topics by far were sex and marriage. Sex sells, as we all know. And then I, from that, wrote a book called The Dead Bedroom Fix, which the first edition came out in 2017. And the second edition came out in 2020. And that sold very well. And that got me in front of a lot of different people. Um, couldn't tell you exactly how many copies I've sold to date. It's out there in pretty much every format imaginable— every bookseller, book renter, library, you name it. So I'm estimating 300,000 or so copies have been out there, and, um, that includes the Audible audio versions and all that fun stuff. So that brought a lot of people to me, into the world of Dad Starting Over. I've written 3 other books since then, the most recent one being, um, well, actually, I'm trying to think of the timeline here. It was— we have, uh, Red Flags, which is a very quick little read, which is what it sounds like, about red flags when you're looking for a partner, female partner. And, um, we have one called, uh, Real Talk. My headphones are bothering me here. Real Talk: No Bullshit Life Advice for Young Men. And then we have another one called Divorce Panic. Which is just what it sounds like. I'm going through a divorce, what the hell? Well, that's the book for you. And The Real Talk would be for, um, your young teenage boys going through puberty and the, in their, in the world of girls and all that fun stuff. And basically, the, I kind of, the selling point for me in that book is that's the book I wish I had when I was a teenage boy. I wish somebody had put their arm around me and said, let me tell you what this girl relationship shit's all about and being a man and what's good and not good. And that's what that book is. It's a relatively short read as well. And got a lot of good feedback from that. So check that out. But this meeting that you're in today is an example of what we call a DSO fraternity meeting. The DSO fraternity is our private group for men only. There is a cost involved to join the group. It starts at $14.99 a month. And you can pay that month after month after month. Some guys pay an annual fee, which is, if you do the math, it's a little bit cheaper. $149 gets you in for a whole year. And some guys pay $349 and they're in for life. They don't have to worry about any other fees as far as membership is concerned. And what do you get for your membership? Our meetings like this, of which we have now. I think we have some— we have our coaches on, on the call here. I believe we're like up to 4 to 5 of these every single week with our different coaches. And they're at least an hour, and they're all recorded, and we have them all recorded, and they're all available for you to, to listen to on your phone and the phone's podcast app if you want to do it that way. We have online discussion groups which are very, very active currently on Facebook as well as our own DSO Fraternity website. We have— what else? We have articles, we have a DSO Fraternity podcast, we have coaching, one-on-one coaching available through our Dads Starting Over coaches. The general public can get coaching from us, but it's way cheaper if you're a DSO fraternity member. So that's one of the benefits of joining the frat. And then on top of that, we have meetups. We actually meet in person. Some guys meet informally, you know, they post in the groups, I'm going to go to the so-and-so restaurant, who wants to join me? And then we have our formal gatherings that we call Bro Fest. We've done two of them so far, and we are having our third next week, a week from today. How cool is that? In Las Vegas, Nevada. And we are looking forward to that. Who is going to join us in Bro Fest this year? Maybe we should start there. As far as the chat, this was just going to be a general talk about all things Dad Starting Over, Bro Fest, and everything else that was going to be the topic today. Usually these meetings, when we have these 4 to 5 a week, is each meeting has a topic, has, you know, specific, um, subject that you cover, but this one's going to be more general. Um, so who wants to chime in? Anybody who's joining us, uh, for BroFest this year, anybody want to talk about that? Looking forward to it. Uh, anything at all? Going once, twice. Is anyone there? I see a lot of familiar names. Uh, Scott, howdy, sir. Maybe you want to give a little bit about yourself to the guys that are, uh, new to the group here.

All righty then. Can you hear me okay?

I can, loud and clear.

All right. Hi, I'm Scott M. I'm actually one of the coaches here at DSO. Um, I've been doing this for, well, going on 3 years now. Um, we do, like Ralph was saying, uh, I do a meeting almost every Tuesday or Wednesday, hour long, covering topics. My specialty is Mindfulness is self-control and being in control of your own emotions. I used to be a homeless 400-pound guy. I now weigh less than 200 pounds and, you know, have really turned my life around. Met Ralph Brewer through his private group before, or through the public group before it became private, and got in with the DSO fraternity. And I've got to say, it's been one of the most impactful things in my life, positively anyway. Um, and it's actually more impactful than losing my home 2 times to natural disasters. Uh, this has allowed me to do so much more. Uh, there's something to be said about having a group of guys that you can communicate with openly, honestly about your problems and your wins, and, you know, just get some general feedback about how you're doing in life and where you can improve. Uh, that's one of the greatest things about this is the communication that's available between all of the guys. If you're not a member of the fraternity, um, there is a promo code that's available to get you in to see what it's all about. Uh, I can't— I, I can talk for hours about it, but until you experience it, go through and read some of the posts, read some of their wins and losses in the communications, it's very hard to understand. It's the equivalent of going on that fishing trip with buddies but having it available 24/7. When you get news that there's been a major, you know, upheaval in your life you can go on to the group and ask for some feedback. I know that there have been several times that people, including myself, have posted about major things that were happening and got phone calls, text messages, DMs all over of people just concerned, wanting to help and wanting to be there for you. If you have any qualms about it, use the code— I believe it is the code is Facebook— and it gets you 30 days for $1.

Yeah, you got it.

Well worth it.

Yeah, very good. Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Thank you. And I forgot about the promo code. Yeah, we have several different promo codes out there depending on the different social media channels. But yeah, Facebook would work. All one word, Facebook. And that gives you 30 days for exactly $1. And if you continue on past the 30 days, 30 days, excuse me, then it's $14.99 for every month after that. And canceling is just a matter of emailing us and saying, I don't want to do this anymore. Cool, canceled, done. No worries, we're not going to keep charging you indefinitely. Um, I've had some people that have accidentally said, you know, I forgot to email you 2 days ago, as you can see I haven't logged in since then, blah blah blah, or 2 months ago rather, I haven't logged in since then, blah blah blah. We refund those 2 months, very easy to deal with. I'm not out here to rip you off. I'm trying to build a, um, a community, trying to build an international community of men from all over the world that just need somebody to talk to about stuff, guy stuff. How many of us can relate to men who say, you know, I work all damn day, I come home, I do the kids' stuff, I drive this kid to that thing, I drive this kid to that other thing. If I'm lucky, I sit down for maybe 45 minutes or so and watch a game or something like that after dinner, and by that time I'm exhausted and it's You know, 10:00, it's bedtime, and I do it all over the next day. That's life for a lot of dudes. And in that life, there's a lot of stuff to talk about. As I've learned from my book, one of the biggest pain points for a lot of men is I'm just not intimately connected to my wife anymore. And this really sucks. That's a major component of my life that I'm missing as a dude. I need this in order to feel healthy and normal, and I have nobody to talk to about this stuff. Certainly can't talk to my wife. Every time I complain to her about it, it gets me absolutely nowhere. And then how many of these guys we've talked to say, I thought I was all alone in my pain and in my struggles when it came to the bedroom. Say, no dude, you're one of millions, literally, of men that are going through this. Welcome to the club. Let's talk about it. It's not a hopeless endeavor on your part. There are things you can do. Read the book. That's just one example or one topic. And we have guys that are I'm in an emotionally abused relationship and an abusive relationship. I don't know who to talk to about it. Um, I'm divorced and I haven't seen my kids in so long. I don't know who to talk to about it. My ex-wife is alienating the kids from me. And these are unfortunately common topics that we hear often within the group, and it's good to talk to somebody about it. It's, uh, you know, a, um, a good therapist, as I always say, is worth their weight in gold. If they're good. They really are. There are some really, really good ones out there. They can make you, you know, push you up over the wall, give you those aha moments and so forth. But there are a lot of really bad ones and there are a lot of really kind of boilerplate textbook. They just, you know, it's like they're reading a how-to guide whenever you're meeting with them. They just go through the typical stuff and a lot of them have not been there and done that. You know, we have, you know, hundreds and hundreds of guys who have. So when somebody sure enough raises their hand and said, my name's Joe, my— it's funny, you hear this often, my situation is a little unique, and then they'll talk about their quote unquote unique situation, and then 20 guys get on there and go, yeah, me too, same thing. It's a, it's the human experience, the common human experience. And for whatever reason, as men, we feel very alone and we feel like there's nobody else that's going through this. And even if there was, no one wants to hear me talk about it. And, uh, you hate to say it, but for a lot of men, they're right. There's a lot of men, it's like, you know, shut up and go to work, shut up and drive this kid to this thing, shut up and fix that other thing. We really don't want to hear about any pain or any kind of emotion that you're going through. Doesn't really benefit the family unit anyway. It doesn't benefit work. And sometimes some of your buddies, they don't really— they're not, um, they're good for the occasional beer, but they're not there for that, those deep down vulnerable conversations. Wouldn't it be nice to have some guys to talk to about this kind of stuff? Voilà! That's what the group is for. And I'm a little biased, but obviously it's a— I obviously think it's a pretty good thing, and I think a lot of men can benefit from it in a, in a big, big way. And we, like I said, we talk about anything and everything. Nothing's off the table. And we have some guys that are just downright embarrassed to say stuff, you know, the physical stuff. The most obvious physical stuff like erectile dysfunction and things like that. Um, we've heard it all, you know. Welcome to being a human dude. These kind of things are the things that we all run into from time to time. Um, Jonathan says— I'm reading the comments as they pop up here— I've only encountered the cheerleader type therapist. Is there something to look for to find a more effective therapist to do the work? You know, I wish there was a, a foolproof way of saying Here's how you find one of the good ones, but really it's, um, try and, and, and you don't like it, fire them, go on to the next one. Don't like it, fire them, go on to the next one. Uh, we have a, um, a, a deal through a company called BetterHelp. I don't know if you guys have heard of this. Um, betterhelp.com, go to betterhelp.com/dso and you get like 10% off your first month. And that's actually a, um, I guess you could say a virtual method of, uh, connecting with a real therapist. They're— it's real therapists, counselors, and licensed. And, um, the process of going through BetterHelp is this is where I live, these are the issues I have, I'm a man, this is the kind of people I want to talk to, and they will match you with the right therapist. And you talk to them via text message, phone call, chat. Whatever. And instead of having to set aside an hour of your day to drive over to the off— their office and sit on a couch and leave, it's very much, you know, it's, uh, way more flexible. And the pricing, from what I understand, is, uh, pretty reasonable, especially compared to some of these therapists, from what I've heard. And, um, uh, try that out. And that seems to be a much, uh, I guess you could say less intrusive or less, uh, formidable way of getting the therapy. So if that doesn't work on BetterHelp, you just go click find me a new therapist and connect with a different one. So that's one way to go. Maybe you want to try that out. Um, Scott M, did you mean to have your hand up again to chat some more?

Yeah, I actually wanted to talk about the therapist thing. Um, cheerleader-style therapists are— is something you encounter a lot, but I can tell you with coaching, all right, not only do you get a cheerleader, but we have a tendency to give you a good kick in the ass. We will listen to you, we'll understand, we'll talk to you about it, but we'll always ask you the question, "All right, that's nice, but what the fuck are you going to do about it now?" And we have a tendency to motivate you and push you, not just to listen and sit back and go, you know, everything will be okay. We're going to tell you when shit sucks. All right? And we're going to tell you who's been there, how they've gotten out of it, and that it is possible to come out on the other side. If you're looking for a cheerleader-style therapist, um, go for it. But if you're looking for somebody to hold you accountable, you know, call you out when you're, when you're honestly being whiny or, or not being your best, um, and you want to get out of that victim mentality that often comes from just the cheerleader-style, uh, motivation, coaching is the way to go because it's a one-on-one guy kind of conversation rather than an analytical, scientific, you know, psychological thing. It comes where, you know, the guy that's spotting you pushes you for one more rep. You know, the guy that is with you watching you go through the pains and the struggles because they've been there before. And we will be there for you not only to help you and lift you up, but also to keep you in line and keep you straight because I can tell you there's many times where guys have come on and, you know, said, hey, this is what's going on. And we've said, okay, we understand you, but are you doing anything about it? What's your next step? We hear you, but are you taking action? And that's one of the big differences, I think, between therapy and coaching, where if you wanted somebody to complain to, okay, great, go find a therapist. But if you want somebody to get you moving get with a coach.

And with that being said, there are, um, there are avenues where as a coach, of which we have, uh, 7, 8 of us now in, in the, in the Dad Starting Over group, um, where we will talk to a guy and, you know, something will be said that will raise our eyebrows and we will say, maybe you want to talk to a licensed therapist about that. And it could be something such as substance abuse It could be I'm suffering a great deal from depression, from severe anxiety. We are not licensed therapists in that way, and part of our coaching may very well be you need to go talk to somebody very specifically to address that, whatever that may be, and then come back and we'll— you and I will chat again next month. And that will be part of the process of what it is we talk about as you and I work together. We're basically mentors for hire, if you will, guys that How many of us said, man, I wish, you know, you're learning some new skills, some new thing? And how many of us have learned over the years? You can, you know, go to the YouTube and go Google it and or in the old days, go to the library and get a book on it or whatever. But nothing beats somebody literally standing over your shoulder going, do that instead. You're like, oh, okay, cool, quick, done, boom, away you go. That's basically what coaching is. I've been there, done that. Here's what worked for me.

Oh, cool.

Um, let me give you an outside perspective. What you just said was stupid. And, uh, here's another way of looking at that. Let me give you my perspective on that. Okay, cool. That's in essence coaching, if you will. Um, but, uh, there is still room for therapy for, for some, and maybe want to check out that betterhelp.com/dso. Or look for a good therapist in your area. If something like depression, like I say, substance abuse, severe anxiety, whatever it may be for. But for everything else, you want to check out the Dad Starting Over coaches who are ready and standing by to help you guys. A bunch of dudes have been there, done that. And Jay, you have your hand up. I apologize. You've had it up for about 5 minutes now. Whenever you're ready.

There we go. Goddamn, trying to like— yeah, my bad there, trying to get the mute off. Uh, I just wanted to say how like, uh, I was— I've been in this group. I'm like, I feel like I'm an extrovert. I think like Ralph Brewer is an introvert, and I pictured Ralph as like this total exactly like me. Like, I found this group 18— I was 18 years in with marriage. Before there were any coaches. So I've been in this like about 3 and a half years, and I'd done therapy with different women, and they always made me feel bad or guilty about my like sexual feelings and stuff. And then, I don't know, I, I couldn't talk to my guy friends because it just— everyone is in the same boat. Everyone's just like, I think, embarrassed to like say how like they're not getting any with their wife or whatever it was. I don't know. But finding this group made a difference in my life. Like, I I was like, oh, there's a lifetime membership? I didn't second guess it. I was like, yeah, man. Like, I went to a Bro Fest last year in Austin, Texas, and it was like worth its weight in gold. I don't know. I was just thinking about that guy earlier that's stationed somewhere. I think his name was Joel Howell or Joel Espinoza.

Yes, Joel.

Okay.

And I was just like, dude, I could hear in his voice like, ah, dude, like, take Scott M. up on that, that $1 Facebook promo thing and just try it out, you know. Uh, I, I've had coaching sessions with like 5 different coaches within this, this group, and every time it's like so much better than any therapist I went to. Because if you've ever had like played sports and had a good coach, it's like They're your coach now and they like, it's almost like you're not, you gotta have someone there pushing you or you're not gonna do it, I think. Or there's like some kind of like intrinsic motivator cuz you like, they give you some homework or something. You're like, all right, now I guess I really gotta do it instead of just like putting it off or something like that. So that's, that's, that's all I wanted to say, Ralph Brewer.

Excellent. Thank you so much. Yeah. Jay's been with us for a while. We've seen, um, we've seen you at your lowest and we've seen you now, and it's a completely different story, isn't it?

Totally.

Yeah, it's awesome. It's awesome. And we see that all the time with our dudes. Uh, but thank you. Thank you again. I appreciate that. And, uh, make sure I don't miss any messages here. And I also posted a link for those guys that are interested in joining. You can go to, uh, dadstartingover.com/join. I posted the link in the chat.. And when it comes time to purchasing, when it asks you to put in a coupon code, you can put in Facebook and get it, try it out for exactly $1. It's pretty cool stuff. And Hugh says the coaching is actually pretty reasonable pricing-wise if you compare it to what a therapist costs. Yeah, I've, um, how many of us coach guys have heard from dudes, I got more out of this one session, uh, than I did spending, after spending like 10 grand with a therapist. I heard that just the other day from a guy. It's like, well, that's good to know, but that's Is that not necessarily, um, you know, to be, to be honest, is that because we are so great, or is that a condemnation of, uh, the, the therapy in general that we're seeing, which is just too boilerplate, too cookie cutter, it doesn't really apply to us necessarily, or a combination of both? Probably a little bit of both. But, um, trying to think, my, my, um, therapist experience was one where I remember distinctly, and this, this should have been a red flag for me of like, man, I need to go somewhere else. But it was a woman, and, um, she was listening to me saying, and then my, my wife said this, and then I found this evidence, and I found that. And her, basically her whole thing was, um, yeah, you just need to let that, you need to let that kind of stuff just roll off your back. She's basically a woman, and they emote like that. And what I had shared with her was basically the wife saying, you know, I'm out, I'm done, I, uh, I, I'm not sure I've ever loved you, and blah blah blah blah. And I was like, this is like My, my world's imploding. This is it.

This is—

we're done.

I just—

that's the way women are. She's not having an affair. You're being silly. I just think, oh, okay. Obviously she was wrong, you know, a decade later and then a whole new career later. Um, but, uh, I think that's a good example of just— she's like, uh, this, this kind of falls outside of my purview as a female therapist. I'm not quite sure how to deal with this. And you just— you're going off script, Ralph, and let's bring you back to This is what we need to follow as your therapist, and these are the kind of exercises and things you need to do. And it's like, no, this— you need a guy just to listen to you and go, yeah, dude, doesn't sound good. You need to protect yourself. This is, this is what you're going to be going through. I've been through, been there, done that, etc., etc. That's— men are, um, we're fixers. We're not sit around and emote and talk about it nonstop. We need to be like, cool, I get it, so now what? And I think that's where a lot of the therapists fail, is the now what portion of it. Um, friendship. I'm reading the chat here. Friendships, taking time to cultivate. This is true. Um, Ben, if you have men in your inner circle and sit down and talk about your relationship, challenge is an awesome— um, yeah, but that's tough. That's very tough to find. And we have hundreds of dudes that are just— that are there just for that. Um, would anybody else like to chime in with anything about your experience in the DSO fraternity or anything else? We have any new guys that have come into the group since I've been blabbing away here that are brand new, never been to one of these meetings, not in the frat yet. Would you like to introduce yourself and say who you are and where you're from and what brings you to our world? Anyone at all? Let me mute— got a couple microphones open here. Anyone? Anyone? Okay, then how about any existing DSO fraternity members? Would you like to chime in about your experience in the group and what, what brought you to Dad Starting Over to begin with and where you're at now? I see some— a lot of familiar names in here, guys. Don't be shy, please chime in with your experience. Would love to hear from you.

Anyone at all?

I think it's not only the coaching that helps. There's, um, on the archive, there's hundreds of hours of previous meeting recordings, and I listen to them regularly, and I've listened to like over 100 of them. And these guys are talking about real issues to each other, and they're not just any guys, they're guys who know how to handle shit. And after listening to that and taking it all in for a long period of time, I'm completely different now. And that— those previous recordings are just absolute gold.

Yeah, we have over— thank you so much for that, Steve. Yeah, we have over 400 hours now, I believe, of meetings recorded. And so literally they're accessible on your phone. We have a thing where we send the members a link via email saying click here, and it adds the audio feed from— for those meetings directly to your podcast app on your phone. So you just go to it like it's any other podcast, and you go and you just have hundreds of meetings to scroll through and So, I often tell guys, I go, "If you got a road trip or something coming up, just hit that, hit play and just sit back and relax and enjoy because you're never going to run out of stuff!" And just when you think you're catching up while you were playing, we just added 3 more and so on and so on. So, we're never going to run out of stuff. If there is one criticism of the group is that there's so much stuff And this is going to sound like a humble brag, but it actually is a legitimate criticism, is that there's so much stuff that it can be kind of overwhelming. Like, if you were to go to the meeting archive and just go, all right, let's see what you got, you're like, shit, I can scroll through 400 hours of these meetings, where to begin? And we have all the meetings there, uh, the description of the meeting, the topic is in the title, and who's leading the meeting, who the coach is that's leading the meeting. But it can be a little overwhelming. And then you go to this discussion groups, and, um, I, uh, uh, shit, I want to lie, but I think it was something like 40-some thousand, 40-some thousand separate discussions have been started within the groups over the past several years that we've had the private Facebook discussion groups. And they're private, so no one in the world knows you're even in them or what you're doing or anything. Um, 47,000. That's insane! So I mean, this is all just testimony to just how much demand there is for this stuff and how much there is to talk about. Now, we never run out of stuff to talk about. You'd think we'd be like rehashing the same shit over and over again. No, it just keeps adding to it and keeps adding to it, and it's amazing. And, um, if you're— if you're like a lot of men that we have in our group, a lot— what we've noticed is a lot of guys are kind of anxious, I guess, and Part of the anxious-y mindset is to, um, take in a lot of information. So a lot of guys like to— once I really get into something, I like to learn more about it. So I'll read 19 books on the topic and watch YouTube videos and listen to podcasts about it. So those type of guys really love our stuff because you're never going to run out of stuff to learn about. It's pretty cool. Uh, let me let in some more guys here. We just keep having guys jumping in. Um, I'm going to— unless you have something to say, I'm going to mute your mic there, Tariq.

Oh yeah, thanks.

I should put you on the spot and make you talk.

Actually, that's why I clicked the mic.

I was going to talk, but I wasn't sure what the process was.

Please, dude.

Yeah, yeah, awesome. Um, just to let you know, this is my second time back to the group. I was in the group, um, previously and had left just because of financial reasons. Okay, well, welcome back. Yeah, thank you, man. Thank you so much. It's great to be back and connect with some of my old friends from the group. Um, what I wanted to say was I got so much out of the book, so much. I— but I followed the steps, and I know you— I'm not sure if you really laid out steps in a particular order, but just that assertiveness that comes with being a man and growing up And, um, you know, my wife's reaction was like— was insane. I mean, it was insane.

I—

a couple of weeks after following the steps, she began to react as if I was giving off pheromones. I mean, suddenly she was like, meet me in the bedroom in 10 minutes. And I was like, are you freaking kidding me?

I couldn't believe it.

And it kept going, um, it kept happening. It does ebb and flow. Of course, the holidays and things like that, we have less time together. But I was amazed at the changes that were happening to me and how that was affecting my wife. I just wanted to share that and you can take it from there.

Awesome! Thank you so much! Yeah, thank you, Tariq! I appreciate that! Yeah! Now, that is admittedly not the story for every single man who reads that book and applies what's in that book. Um, there's an infamous chapter 7 in the book which says, uh, not to, you know, spoiler alert, says, hey, it may not work. And but the, uh, the, the, the twist to that at the end is basically, yes, but if you followed everything there is laid out in this book, you are an objectively really good dude and a really big catch. And if your wife takes in everything that you've done and that you continue to do, and if you're in the proper mindset and you put in all the work and your wife just yawns and says like, I don't give a shit, that's her problem, isn't it? Because there's plenty of other women out there in the world who would kill to be with a dude like you. It's basically the ending of the book. Um, but with a guy like Tariq and with a woman like his wife, the way they're both wired, seems like it worked great. And for a lot of men, they experience exactly what he has, so that's awesome. I love it. But again, that's just one aspect of guys that we're talking about. Um, Tariq's version of starting over, if you want to go back to the, uh, the brand of Dad Starting Over, his version of starting over is, I don't want to be Tariq 1.0 anymore.

I can't. It's—

it got me to where I'm at now, which is this, this kind of stale marriage, and the, the bedroom department is kind of, uh, and, um, I've decided that I want to kind of become Tariq 2.0. I want to restart over again. And let's see what happens. And voilà, it's worked for him. So congrats, Tariq, that's awesome. I'd love to hear it. Love to hear those, uh, positive testimonials. Keep them coming. Uh, does anybody else want to chime in with anything? And Steve, thank you again for sharing. It's good to see you.

I'm gonna jump in.

Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry, no, yes.

Okay.

All right, I always get nervous. I'm just gonna breathe real quick. What's up? I know everybody starts laughing, it fucks me up.

Okay, we're laughing.

All right, okay. What's really cool is we're men, we're tribal, and we need to share information. Now the majority of the men here, it's discovery of like, it's just so pure. Okay, and anybody that's really— if you're on the fence of like, I don't know, maybe this is like— dude, any mistake you're gonna do is gonna cost you time, cost you money, cost you all these things. Having this— I don't want to say investment, but having— investing your time, investing all this knowledge that you're going to gain from being around all these guys. Me personally, I would have probably never met any of the really cool guys that are in this group in my life. I would have never been exposed to this atmosphere, and I would have never probably put myself in situations that I've done in this group. And that creates character, it creates, uh, self-discovery. I, uh, I know value now. I know, um, a lot of, a lot of amazing things that I've been exposed to and that I've gained myself now that I share. I share it as, uh, as a person every single day. I share with other people, uh, in, in every category in my life. Dude, I can go on and on, but all I'm saying is just, just fucking do it. It's amazing, life-changing. I've yet to see anything that's compared to this. This is really amazing, and I am involved in this every single day of my life. I mean, every day now, every single day I'm involved in this, um, happily. I love doing it. That's it, man.

Awesome.

Thank you, thank you so much. Well said, well said. Yeah, Noor is, uh, Noor's been around for a while. How long you been in the group now?

I think 2 years, man.

I think, yeah, 2 years, maybe.

Yeah, yeah. And Noor is one of our coaches. You—

this is—

Noor is a gentleman that you can actually, um, uh, pay to, to, um, to talk to him about your issues and learn from his past and his expertise and his experience and what he's done. Uh, uh, Noor's a relatively young guy. How young of a guy are you?

I am 36.

Young.

Yeah, but, uh, but I tell you what, you've lived a life, haven't you, in 36 years? I mean, how many of us can say that we've been strapped to a, uh, I was just gonna say a lawnmower, basically. Like, I was gonna say like a lawn chair with a fan, you know. Attached to the back of it hovering over the Great Pyramids, right?

Yes, yes, yes. I've, uh, I mean, that's the way I like to describe it. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

No, go ahead. Yeah, I was gonna say that's insane. I'm not joking, you've done that.

I— the way I like to describe it is I've had many different chapters in my lifetime, and I'm a different person every chapter, uh, and I have experienced things within those chapters. Most of them have been adrenaline and, uh, pleasure. But, uh, the exposure to other men and things in, in this group— and thanks to you, Ralph, like, dude, many thanks to you, uh, I mean, yeah, going into BroFest, all these things, right, uh, was made me discover is there's more to life and there's such things as happiness and contentment. And it starts with you and what you define it as for who you want it to— you want to be and you know, all these things but yeah! If we're gonna go back to Adrenaline and what I bring, I think I bring more reality. I am not a stranger to living life on the edge and the reality of death and it's at our doorstep and I've I've met that motherfucker a few times, man.

So I don't know if we can curse on this, but yeah. No, yeah. And recently, Nora put his hand into a propeller of a plane, so that was cool. And, and lived to tell and still has his hand, right? How is the hand doing, by the way?

Oh, it's great. It's really good. I do— yeah, I, um, I could have lost the whole hand.

Yeah.

Um, the recovery was a journey in itself, but yeah, I'm very blessed to be in the situation I am now.

Uh, it's—

it really stupid decision, and, uh, I'm a better man from it, you know.

What an experience you lived through, putting your hand in an airplane propeller. That's pretty cool. Not many people can say that, nor do we want to, really. But, um, back to, uh, Steve shared a story. Thanks so much for that. Steve is a new man. Um, you've been working out like crazy. Your body has changed completely. Your, uh, your mindset has changed completely. This is is another young man who we've watched, uh, blossoms— the right word, that's not the manliest word in the world, is it? Blossom. Blossomed into manhood. You don't hear that very often, but you know what I mean. So it's cool to see, um, guys from all different age groups and from all over the world. And Steve's over in the UK, correct? And, um, yeah, and your wife is from China. I mean, and so we have very much an international contingent here. We have a big big following in Australia. And one of our coaches, Steve, is an Aussie. And you know how we talked about we have our in-person group called, or meetup called BroFest? They do the same thing in Australia, but they call it MateFest.

Get it? Mate.

And Scott, you're going over to MateFest, or is that still the plan? Yeah, cool. That'll be, that'll be a lot of fun for you. Have you ever been over there before? Because I haven't.

Nope, never been out of the country.

Um, oh, you haven't? Oh wow, okay.

This is an opportunity that I've wanted. Um, actually, Steve was one of my first coachees, and now that he's a coach and running a BroFest in Australia, um, it's not just a coach, you know, coachee type relationship. You develop friendships. I mean, these are guys that you eventually, you know, we have each other's cell phone numbers, we talk to each other, we check in, you know. On my way home, I made 2 calls yesterday just checking in on brothers from the fraternity just to see how they're doing because I haven't heard from them in a while and I wanted to say hi. It's not just this— it's a tribe and it's a truly connected tribe of friends that, you know, it— there's so much you can say about it that you run out of things to say. It's really hard to describe. If you find yourself being alone, you know, this is a group where you can get your feet wet, especially if you're a little bit of a social introvert, maybe have a problem with face-to-face confrontation, things of that nature and have just want to be able to open up. How many times have we had guys post in the group, "Oh my God! I found out that my wife did X and I'm losing it!" and they just get inundated with responses, advice, support, help. When you're in that moment when the adrenaline is pumping and you don't know what the fuck to do and you just need to bounce it off of a friend, imagine having 100 guys listening to you and wanting to help.

Yeah, that's huge. That's huge. Well put. And I mean, how poetic is it, your, your relationship with Steve and then going full circle to you actually go all the way over your first trip out of the States and you picked only the farthest point imaginable, I think.

That's true.

You're going to be on a plane for how many hours?

Uh, 36 in one direction.

Jesus.

Wow.

It's exhausting just thinking about that.

Oof.

Are you gonna— are you gonna fly the normal coach in, in the back with all the— oh man.

Wow.

Yeah, that'd be tough to get up and walk around quite a bit. But, uh, wow. Well, thank you for doing that. Thank you for going. And, uh, Well, I hope we'll have lots of pictures and videos to share of your experience there, and we'll continue growing that Australian chapter. For whatever reason, the, um, the book The Dead Bedroom Fix really resonated with the Australian population. Must be something there to explore. I don't know if somebody wants to do a study on that, of why the dead bedroom thing is so big in Australia, but apparently, uh, it is because that's— the book sold very, very well there, and the audio version as well. And, um, Hence the big fraternity group we have there in Australia. Nor, you had your hand up. I don't know if that's on purpose or if that's from when you previously spoke. Did you want to say something, or are you on the phone right now?

No, you took it.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's, uh, I want to kind of put you on the spot, uh, Ralph. Can you kind of fill us in, like, how, how this started, the fraternity, like, it snowballed into what it is now? And the majority of people now, the men are overcoming their problems but also helping each other. But how was it when it started to kind of get that snowball rolling?

Yeah, well, I mean, the origin of it was a little— it's not as romantic as what it may seem— was that Tony, the gentleman that I hired to help me with the backend part of running the business and stuff, basically I went to— I was searching out for a IT guy, some kind of online business expert to help me with growing this business because I was getting so many leads and so many sales of this book and I'm like, "I'm not really doing anything with this other than just selling more books. Like, what can I do to help grow this any further? I know I'm missing some big pieces of the puzzle here." So I hired Tony and Tony, much to his credit, said, "You know, the book sale thing ain't gonna last forever." and you've been blessed with all of this, all of these, uh, this audience that can see your stuff. You need to do more with it other than just sell books. And I think by that time I was also selling my time one-on-one coaching with guys, which was doing well. So, but it needs to go beyond that. You need, in order to scale this business, you need something that is recurring, some kind of recurring revenue in the form of, you know, regular monthly something from people. And you need to provide more content, more What's the word? More benefit to these guys that they'll keep— they'll want to pay every month or something. So that's when we put our brain together, and I think I actually polled my, uh, my readership and stuff. I think by that time, if I remember right, we had— yeah, we had our, um, Facebook group discussion groups that were free and open to the public and that were relatively active. And we asked all those guys, what is it you would like out of the group? What would you like best? And what was funny that I had put together the idea of let's do live Zoom meetings, let's do this discussion groups and all this other stuff. And the thing, if I remember right, that came— one of the things that came in last as far as what people would like was live Zoom meetings. Guys said, uh, yeah, I'm not really interested in that. I don't think they like the idea of going live and talking with other people. They like to kind of hide behind the anonymity of the keyboard and the, you know, texting messages, but actually speaking with the voice and the pictures and And not really much into that. Well, guess what? It's not like one of the most popular things in the group are these meetings. So, um, I guess that's a good example of kind of follow your heart and follow your, um, yeah, I, I knew that these things would be a big deal because they're such a big thing for me. When I left a meeting like this, when I was talking one-on-one with a guy, which energized me. So what if we could, um, duplicate that at a bigger level meeting-wise and so forth? I think guys would love it. And sure enough, they did. So anyway, Um, so we started the fraternity and we said we want to create more of a community, bring more people in, have these meetings. Um, one of the first guys, Jack/Jason— um, Jack was his pseudonym that he had to use. He's in the military, so it's important that he kind of keeps his personal life separate from this world. Um, hired Jack. I believe he was my very first guy that I said we need to partner together and you become a coach and you provide your services, because he was so active in the in the meetings, and I was very impressed with what he said, and he was active in the discussion group. So he became a coach, which led to another guy, which led to another guy, which led to another guy becoming coaches. And here we are today. And how active we are in the, in the discussion groups and then the, uh, the in-person meetups, it all just kind of happened very organically. You know, you get a bunch of dudes together and everybody talks, sure enough, people kind of, I guess, graduate in the process, and certain people stick out from the rest. And it's just like, I think you have something to offer to the group on a more formal basis. Let's call you a coach and let's get you, um, running meetings and talking to guys one-on-one. I never really went out. I never really— I never have gone outside of the group to say, let's find some coaches to hire. Um, I have been approached by maybe like a dozen guys just in the past few months saying, I want to be a coach. How do I make it happen? It's like, I don't know who you are. I've never heard of you, nor have any of the DSO fraternity membership. Good luck, you know, hanging a shingle saying I'm a coach now. They're going to say, and who are you? So this is organically, we say join the group, make a name for yourself, join in on the discussion, join in on meetings, partner up with some existing coaches. Let me get with Scott on a meeting about so-and-so. And then people will get to know you and then, um, people will trust you and people will want to learn more. And then that's when you can kind of graduate and become a coach. So that's kind of the genesis of all this and, um, how we went from nothing to where we are now. Um, my one— and I'm just going to get into this during the BroFest, I'm going to do a presentation, all kind of the, uh, State of the Union of DS— the DSO world. And one of our main struggles right now is retaining members, but not what you think. Not because they're like, I don't like this. Basically because we have a lot of guys with credit cards getting denied. Um, $14.99 a month doesn't sound like much, but it is for some guys. And, um, you know, if you don't have that $14 in your account and it comes back and bounces back and says, um, um, charge is no good, or people, you know, get new credit cards, lose cards, all kinds of stuff. That's been the biggest hangup is Do we get like 40, 50 of those a month? And then, you know, you get back half of those and then 3, 3 or 4 months later, guys come back and say, hey, how come my membership's not working anymore? Well, dude, we emailed you several times. No, I missed it. So we have to deal with that constantly. That's a major headache is dealing with all these credit card things. That's why I wish everyone would jump on the annual or the, or the lifetime, even though probably long term that makes me less money. It's also just less of a headache to have to deal with the processing of all these payments. It's just a royal pain in the butt. Um, so that's been my one hang-up, and that kind of gets in the way of us being hundreds more, uh, a net gain of hundreds of more versus a net gain of just dozens of more, uh, members after each quarter. So, um, I would love to see an influx of like 100 new guys a month, but we're not quite there yet. Right now we're doing about, uh, anywhere from 30 to 50 new guys a month, which is great, but when you lose 30 or 40 to credit card bounces, it's not such a good number. So see what we can do to make that number bigger to kind of get a nice bigger net gain over a period of months. Scott, yes, you had something to say or no? Oh, hand went away.

Yeah, I was just gonna say, the lifetime really makes a difference because that allows you to come in and out as you, as you need it. The lifetime membership really makes It makes it so that way, you know, sometimes you need to take a break and work and focus on what you've got going on around you. Leaving, being able to come back, not having to worry about it, knowing that everybody's there all the time makes a big difference. We, uh, there's been many a times when we have, um, gotten groups together. Uh, I know I personally have hosted not only, uh, gun shoots where we go out for the day and go eat red meat and go shoot many firearms. We've gone hunting. I've We've gone racing down the Tail of the Dragon, you know, twisty windy roads as guys that just need to get together for a weekend away sort of thing. If you don't find yourself having opportunities to do that, this is an avenue to try to consider just finding a new group of friends. I'm a personal advocate of you are the sum of your 5 closest friends. Is that average bringing you up or down? Sometimes you need to ask yourself those questions. And that's what we do in the group is ask sometimes those tough questions that make you think. Where are you in life? Where have you been and where do you want to go?

Amen. Well put.

Well put.

Scott, you're really good at this, in case I haven't told you before. Much better than I am. Much better. You're a natural at this. And yet, how long have you been a coach now? Been a while now, right?

I think I'm about— I'm about to hit, I think, 3 years in the next 6 months or so.

I was going to say, you were one of the first. If we're number 2, I think you're number 2.

I was 3.

Number 3.

Okay, Jack Thomas, then me.

Okay, that's right. Very cool, very cool. Well, thank you again. I appreciate it. Appreciate, appreciate you and everything that you do and look forward to seeing you in Vegas. Um, guys, want to wrap it up here soon, but is there anything else anybody else would like to share? Any existing members that would like to chime in with anything, or, um, any new guys that would like to introduce yourself and just say howdy? Any questions at all? Questions of me or of anyone in the group? Please chime in. Don't be shy. Anyone? Anyone? Uh, I see, uh, Steph Himes, Stephen, you have your hand up. Would you like to say something?

Yeah.

What happened to Thomas? And has anybody actually filled like the role that he, he was since there's different specializations? Thomas was more of the, uh, he was actually in his, uh, doing his pre-law thing, if I remember right. But he just decided he didn't want to do this anymore, to make a long story short. And, you know, wish him the best. I have not kept up with Thomas. I don't know what the latest is on him. I don't know if anybody else has. But yeah, he was a pre-law guy that kind of specialized in— his story was that he had won custody of his children not once but twice, two different relationships, two different divorces. So that was kind of his niche. But no, we don't have another gentleman. Actually had a, a guy who was an active attorney reached out to me, active attorney in family law court, about joining up. I haven't heard back from him since, so I need to reach out to him about that. But I do know that we do have some attorneys in the group as members. But as you know, you can't just start giving out legal advice to people. That's, that's a real hairy thing, especially since it's so varied. State to state, country to country. You know what? Health, just in the United States alone, for our foreign guys, our laws can be drastically different from place to place, from state to state. So especially when it comes to divorce, family law, and everything else, it's kind of surprising just how different it can be. I heard that we have exactly—

if—

oh shit, don't quote me on this— I think it's 2 states now in the US, for example, who have made 50/50 custody of children between mom and dad. They've made that the default. In other words, that's when you divorce. That's just the given 50/50 unless there's some mitigating circumstance. That's what it's going to be. You have to really convince the law otherwise. Otherwise it's going to be 50/50. And the states are Kentucky, which is where I am right now, or Arkansas, I believe, believe it or not. All the other states are basically, well, we will see. Can't guarantee 50/50. We'll just have to see what happens here. And that's not a given. Kind of interesting. I think they're, they're setting the tone. For example, I know we're going off on a tangent with the conversation here, but I think that those two states are setting the tone for what may very well be the norm here soon. So that's kind of cool. But yeah, any other questions? Anybody else? I'm missing some.

Good question in the comments for you. Somebody posted, um, any—

the one from Tariq about porn. Uh, has there anyone done a meeting about porn? Uh, yeah, we've had several meetings. Um, the other Scott, Scott G, that we have in the group, who, uh, as a coach, he's been very open about his past issues with pornography and addiction to pornography. And he has talked about it in meetings. Um, not a DSO podcast or frat podcast episode. I did an interview, two interviews with Scott for the public podcast, one with him and one with him and his wife, and they talked about the porn thing. So the porn thing is not, um, verboten. That's not off limits to us. We talk about that quite a bit because obviously it's a problem for dudes, pretty common one. Because it's so prevalent and so damn addictive, as we all know. But yes, that is a common topic we have talked about. Well, gentlemen, it is exactly the top of the hour. If there is nothing else, I'm going to open up one last time. Anybody else like to say anything? Please feel free to do so. If not, I'm going to hang it up. Anybody? Going once, twice. All right, guys, thank you so much, everyone. I appreciate it a great deal. Appreciate all you guys a great deal. Thank you. Anybody here who was thinking about joining go to dadstartingover.com, click on the DSO Fraternity logo when you scroll down, or go to dadstartingover.com/join. We also have another domain. It takes you to the same place. You go to DSOFraternity.com. It all takes you to the same place. You can use the, as Scott mentioned, the promo code Facebook, and that will get you 1 month for $1. Can't beat it. Basically trying it out for nothing.. And if you like it, hang around. We'll charge you $14.99 after that. If you don't like it, tell us and we will cancel you. No biggie. And I guess that is about it for now. Look forward to seeing some guys. Fire me an email if you want to reach me. DSO@dadstartingover.com. That's DSO@dadstartingover.com. Or follow me on all the social media. I'm big on the old TikTok, Facebook Reels, Facebook videos, Instagram, just what else? Twitter, YouTube. Just search for Dad Starting Over. And you will find me. All right, guys and gals. Thanks so much again, and hope you guys have a great rest of your week and weekend. Take it easy.