How to Bridge the Gender Gap at Work | John Gray

Confidence is, look, what I can do. And trust is I have support to do what I can do. And what we want is both. And when women don't feel trust that they have the support they need, then their stress levels go up. When men don't have confidence that they can do what's required to produce the result they need and they get the messages that they're doing that they lose confidence, their stress goes up.

Hi everybody, this is Jason Campbell and welcome to this session of your mindvalley membership. Now for this episode, I'm bringing to you someone who's quite familiar. He's been part of Consciousness Engineer in the past and he talked a lot about relationships and love. But for this time, as part of our impact category, we're going to be talking about men and women in the workplace. And this man needs no introduction. And if you're not aware of him, he has written over 20 books, has been featured on countless channels, including Oprah, Dr. Oz and countless other media outlets in the U.S. mars and Venus in the Workplace has been read by millions. And he, he is one of the leading experts when it comes to relationship psychology between men, women and how we function in the world and today specifically in the workplace. We're going to be challenging. Some of the rules and the models of reality that you're going to learn are going to shift the way that you think how we interact together in the workplace. I'm very excited to bring Dr. John Gray for this episode of Mindvalley Membership. John, welcome to the show. So most people actually know you for your best selling book, Men are from Mars, Women are From Venus, which talk about the interactions of men and women in a romantic environment. But you've also extensively spoke about how we interact in the workplace.

Absolutely. It's very important. The same principles that men and women are different apply in the workplace, but they do apply differently. They're two different worlds. There's our personal life and then there's our work life. And we can't expect them to all have the same rules. But what is universal is that whether you're at home in a romantic relationship, parental, with your children, men and women, boys and girls, they're different. There are different emotional needs and we cope with stress differently. In the workplace, you have differences between men and women. Now the old fashioned thinking is that men could do the job better. That's not relevant today anymore. We know that women can do the job. If you want to say equal if not better than men at certain jobs, women are going to be better at certain Jobs men are going to be better at. But a woman can learn to do anything a man can do to a great extent, and a man can learn to do anything a woman can do to a great extent. So the question of are women competent to be in the workplace Is out of date. Now they've proven themselves, but there's still the challenges of good communication, cooperation, and having the insight into understanding men and women's different emotional needs. As a leader the workplace, I have way better skills to create a team of people that are cooperating, collaborating, feeling valued, feeling respected, feeling honored, because I take into consideration their different needs to cope with stress, to feel good about themselves, and to get the support that will allow them to have a better personal life as well as to be more effective in the workplace.

And you mentioned a lot about how we have to do a bit of differences in treating them, because I know there's a brule that many people believe that we should just treat everybody equally, men and women in the workplace. Would you agree with that?

Well, from one perspective, we should treat everybody equally with respect. But everybody's different, and everybody has different talents and skills. You know, suddenly we've got jobs to do, and now everybody's going to take turns doing those jobs. No, some people are going to be better at some jobs, other people are going to be better at other jobs. That's very obvious. So when it comes to men and women, that's not the deciding factor. But when it comes to how to interact with a woman so that she feels valued and appreciated and honored and respected, there's extra insights that can provide that support, whether it be a co worker, your boss, your employee, a customer, someone you're marketing to. You're always dealing with people's ability to feel good. And we want people to feel good and motivated as opposed to feel bad, to try to motivate them. I think our new paradigm is how to help people feel good and be motivated. And that takes into consideration what are their needs. And we understand from my books the differences between men and women. You realize that certain things are more important to men to cope with stress. Certain things are more important to women to cope with stress. And when you know that, you create an environment which is able to counteract the high stress of our modern life today by being able to go to a workplace where you feel emotionally supported, where you go to your. When you're in a store and you're buying a product, how are you treated there? That determines why you go back to that store. People don't realize that people don't always say, I don't like the way you're treating me. They just don't come back to your store.

So you talk about stress, and it sounds like me. Like men, women, we deal with stress very differently. I'd like to be able to focus. Let's start with women. How is it the distinctive way that women deal with stress that we should be very much aware in the workplace?

Well, this is where it comes down to why men and women are different. Because from a level of consciousness, really, we all have masculine and feminine qualities. To simplify, we could say a masculine quality is confidence and a feminine quality is trust. Now, to the undiscerning mind, confidence and trust sort of feel the same. Actually, they're very, very different. Confidence is, look what I can do, and trust is, I have support to do what I can do. And what we want is both. And when women don't feel trust that they have the support they need, then their stress levels go up. When men don't have confidence that they can do what's required to produce the result they need and they get the messages that they're doing that they lose confidence, their stress goes up. So just looking at those, there's many other parameters we could look at, but the bottom line is masculine qualities. If men aren't grounded in their masculine qualities, then their stress will go up. If women are not being supported to be grounded in their feminine qualities, their stress will go up. So let's say a woman is very confident in a job, but she doesn't trust anybody to help her. She'll get the job done, but she's not going to sleep that night. She's going to be worrying and she's going to be stressing out, and that's going to eventually interfere with her performance. Okay, she'll burn out. And women are burning out today a lot in the workplace.

And so what would you say is some of the biggest errors that both men and women would be doing when, let's say, interacting with women in the workplace? And, you know, it's a stressful situation, they're not offering that trust. Is there a common mistake that we often do that actually doesn't help the situation?

Oh, there's so many. It's a big, long list. Two books on this subject. Okay, so the. There's an old paradigm, but the old paradigm worked for men in the workplace. And there's a lot of thought today, which is that the workplace is against women, workplace was against the people. That is for the people that used to Be in the workplace. All the rules of the workplace are really designed to support masculine qualities and it's also to support the best environment for men because women weren't in it. So it's, it's all the rules, so to speak, are there to support men. And women don't feel supported quite often because these rules are not there to support her. And but it's not personal. It's not like somebody said, let's create a bunch of rules that won't support women. It's just like the men were doing that while the women were pregnant and so forth and staying in the home. They weren't doing the work for money thing, they were working for love. And so it's a difference, it's a whole two different planets here. So it's not like it's against women, but it doesn't have a consciousness of women need. And that's what we need to bring into workplace for men, a greater awareness of what women require to have a more positive experience and for women to understand what men, why men don't provide that for them because they're oblivious. They don't. You know, you can easily take it personally when you're feeling ignored by someone. But if you understand men, you realize that, well, what men do when they're focused on a problem is they tend to forget everything else, including you. And when women have a problem, what they do is they tend to expand and be more inclusive of others. And so if we understand these are sort of natural tendencies, when they show up. They don't always show up, but when they show up, you don't take it so personally. For example, one of the ways that women will feel good and stimulate and this is actually very biological, it's not just psychological. It is psychological, it is conditioning, it is nurturing that makes us this way, so to speak, but it's also nature. It's both because there is this biological reality which is very different for men and women. Certain interactions raise the stress hormones in women that might relax the hormones for men. A simple example of that is when I drive fast, I, I relax, my wife gets stressed. It's as simple as that. Risk and danger actually stimulate testosterone. Testosterone lowers stress in men, helps men to effectively cope with stress until they lose confidence, then risk and danger. Without confidence, his testosterone turns to estrogen and his stress goes up. Now for women, risk and danger basically will stimulate testosterone in her. But what testosterone does for women is it lowers their estrogen. And estrogen is the hormone that women need for well being. So you See, all these women today are actually taking estrogen or taking drugs because they're antidepressants and anxiety pills and sleeping pills and everything, because their hormones are out of balance. Often they have to. Now they're now taking hormones as opposed to learning how to make those hormones. The workplace can be a setting that supports women in producing more estrogen and other female hormones. Progesterone, oxytocin. And for men, it's a place which is really designed to promote testosterone. And as we look into the masculine and feminine qualities, then we can start creating an environment which is more habitable and supportive for women in the workplace without having to sort of kick all the men out, which in some environments get rid of the guys that just have women and they kind of have their way of doing things or the guys have their way of doing things. The workplace will always flourish when you get an integration of masculine and feminine, because that is. It's true. It's true that all of us have a male and female side. And when those two sides come forth in harmony, then we're in flow and then we're in a creative state. Then our hearts are open and our minds are clear. We can achieve our goals. We don't have the stress that impedes success. And that's the whole thing, is keep the stress levels down, keep our hearts open, keep our minds open, and then we're working together to produce the desired result. As soon as our hearts close, we're not doing that.

Wow, you're going through so much content in one sentence, in one snap. I love it. And this, to me, it's like it's music to my ears because, you know, I'm fairly new within the workplace. And what I found fascinating is thinking about how it's this whole industrialized format of working and women joining the workforce. It's actually quite recent in the history of humanity that this has happened.

Just to make that point again, it's so, so significant. Never, ever and thousands, millions eons, men and women did not work side by side. They had their separate roles. And the roles that women had traditionally actually are behaviors that stimulate estrogen, safety, oxytocin, socializing, working for love. Stimulates progesterone, estrogen, oxytocin. These are the hormones that have to be in balance with their testosterone to keep their stress low. But a man, this is biological truth. A man requires 10 to 30 to 40 times more testosterone, depending on the man, in order to keep his stress levels down. A woman requires 10 to 20 times more estrogen than men. In order to keep her stress down. So the bottom line, if we want to lower stress for women and men in the workplace, we want to have new skills that have never ever been even thought of, weren't necessary, and that's why they're new. Sometimes somebody would figure this out before, but they didn't need it because women were over here doing this thing which was jobs that had to do with nurturing, loving, cooperation, collaboration, sensitivity, interdependence and mothering. All that feeding, all that stuff is all estrogen producing. And so women had a greater sense of well being than women today. We see today high levels of stress in women. And it's even proven we do tests to test the hormones. Women are way more stressed than ever before. And the irony is the more educated a woman is, the more financially successful a woman is, the more stressed she is. Now that's not every woman, okay, there's going to be. Women go, oh, I'm happy. Okay, okay, so go ahead and be defensive, even get angry with me and then you're not happy. But this is just a reality is that the progress we've made is fantastic. Equality is the basis of evolution. I mean, this higher level that we've gotten to, but with every new change, we have to work out what works and what doesn't work. And so we haven't worked out how to keep the stress levels down. And so what we see is the amount of burnout, amount of dissatisfaction, the amount of inefficiency and the problems at home. Because when this workplace so stressful, you bring that home. And then if you don't have personal relationship skills, all my many other books that provides the foundation to come to the workplace without stress. Because there's certain stresses in the workplace that you go to your personal life to let them go, to forget them, so you come back rejuvenated.

I love framing this into a model of reality, which is actually to say that we need to acknowledge that we are in extremely transitionary times.

Yes. Crisis and danger, opportunity, the friction, the.

Evolution, everything's happening right now. Which actually ties into my next question really well, which is one of the problems that we see. And I, I like to possibly frame it as a brutal, maybe as a challenge to the current reality. But you know, we've heard the phrase the glass ceiling and you look at the, you know, the upper echelon of an organization, you will see there's a predominance of male. And so I'd be wondering to know is this something that we can be actively challenging Are there certain ways that we could look at that scenario to encourage women to actually have more positions of power within our organization?

Well, you said a really good thing there to encourage women to have places of power. Actually, in America, there's way more middle management as women than men. Then you get the very top level, which are called workaholics, to talk about glass ceiling. To me, it's kind of silly because there's a glass ceiling that keeps you out and me out. And 99.9% of all men are also kept out of the glass ceiling. So it's not just 100% of women, it's 99.9% of men are also not getting through the glass ceiling. This is a very small club up there. So let's just put that in perspective, because without that perspective, it's kind of like men are against women. And there's no. Men are not against women. Men go to war to save the lives of women. We are these great guys. And there's a few guys that are willing to give up a personal life in order to achieve workaholic status, to be beyond the glass ceiling. Okay, so this is the small elite group who work all the time, who have very patient wives who they probably have no sex anymore, but they have a family and they love each other and so forth. But that's the price you pay. And my studies of this, and we did interviews with 200,000 men and women in one of my books, work with me, and that's with my co author Barbara Annis. And in that we quote many, many studies, and we did our own study and so forth. And some of the results of that are you talk to women, and I've talked to so many women who are very successful and say, do you want to be the top level? You know, do you feel kept out? And there's so many women says, why would I want to work a hundred hours a week? There's a certain thing that happens with women that's very common. There's gonna be exceptions to this, exceptions to everything. Everything's on a bell curve. We're talking about the major part. You talk to a woman and if she's making. And you don't have to be beyond the glass ceiling to be making 100 or $150,000. Okay? So that's still mental management and good job, whatever. When women get to that place, their security and their survival is taken care of, then suddenly women have a new priority other than becoming more money. Their priority is more time, more love, more quality of Our personal life. Women have that wisdom. Some men have it. I have it for sure. But many men, the ones that get to the top, are missing the wisdom that life is not just about making money. Life is also about being of service. Life is about love. Life is about fun. Life is about being with your children, you know, and that takes time. So you just have to do the math. If you're doing a hundred hours of work every day, and that's what's expected, you know, you're in a law firm and you want to be a partner, you got to put in 100 hours a week. I mean, it's giving up your life. And see, women have a greater wisdom to not do that. And there's some practicalities that go with that. You know, in my work as a man and my wife and our little children, there's something about the way men and women relate, which is. If my wife tells me what happened with the children today, because she tells me, I feel like I was there because men sort of enter into women, basically. So she's talking about. I feel like I'm part of it. But if she's at work and I'm at home saying, oh, it's so sweet, she took her first steps to today. She really feels like she missed out. Not that I wouldn't feel like I missed out on certain things. You know, somebody else taught my child how to ride a bicycle. I want to be the one to teach them to ride the bicycle. But there's clearly, you know, kind of a standard thing of the kids call and the wife talks and the husband goes, well, she says it all. Why should I get on the phone and do it all over again? So, you know, hand the phone to the wife. And certainly men are becoming more connected as nurturers, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing. But to a certain extent, it's easier on most men to be away from your children with your wife being there with your children, because then you feel you're there and turn that around. And I'm talking right from clinical experience here. This is just, she's at work and he's at home, and she misses those kids, and she starts to resent that she's not able to be with those kids. It's a much different situation because those kids came out of her. It's a big difference.

So I would like to frame that as a model of reality here, saying that, you know, the glass ceiling is actually not just pushing women away from these top positions. It's actually, you have to realize the people that are in these positions. When you mentioned that, the first thing that I thought about was actually an article written by an ex wife of Elon Musk and said what it was like to be with a man that constantly is focused on pushing humanity towards an interplanetary species. And the man has no life, he works and all the time. And, and so something to realize is it's not a movement of men against women. It's just a choice and a predisposition and a typical trajectory for men who are very, I guess, testosterone focused are okay with making that life choice when it's not necessarily the most wise at all times.

Yeah. And you know, you hear this thing about men, particularly those men, and as they get older and they're on their deathbed, they have a lot of regret. And ironically, it's because if they're older, it's a natural thing for men's estrogen to increase as we get older. And that's called wisdom. Wisdom comes from estrogen, okay? And so we soften as we get older. The problem for men, again is they stop working. Since we're talking about men and women in the workplace, men should never stop working. Work for money is the major testosterone producer in our world today, you know, which is a challenge for me. I don't need to work for money. So then you really have to be clear that you're working to help the world. Okay, But I still work for money too, even though I don't need it. There's something in our society, you get paid, it means you did a really good job. And that's just our conditioning out there. And so I like to get paid and it feels good to get paid. And if I stop working and just going to go play golf, this is. The insurance companies will tell you that you've got three years to live. That's on average. There's going to be exceptions. Men have to work, you have to do. You have to get up when you don't feel like it and do something. You have to sacrifice. You have to put your will over the pleasure. See, pleasure is your female side will to do, to serve, to solve is your masculine side. And if the pleasure side gets more than the will side, you become weak, you become grumpy old men. So you need grumpy old men who are dying because they stop working. So this is like really important that men have. They have to work and they need to receive recognition and appreciation for what they do. The key to it is the love, the appreciation. And if I do a job and somebody says Great job. Thank you so much. You made a difference in my life. That's what keeps me young. That's what keeps me healthy. That's what keeps me motivated. It's feeling appreciated and valued for what you do. Now, for a woman's male side, she needs to be appreciated and valued for what she does. However, that's her male side. Her female side needs to feel that she's included, that she's heard, that she's appreciated, that she's seen that she's a part of the team. And even when I say the word appreciated, really, she needs to feel respected. That's the most important thing for women, is respect everybody. You know, what will happen for women, and this is part of one of my books in the workplace is women will often complain. One of the top complaints women have is, I don't feel appreciated. And so then I analyze that and I help them understand. Actually, what your complaint is, is you don't feel included. If you were included, you would feel appreciated. But the problem is you're not feeling included because you say to a man, I don't feel like you appreciate me. He goes, he doesn't know what you're talking about. I mean, women are amazing. I have all these women working for me. I appreciate them totally. And if they say I don't feel appreciated, I go, what are you talking about? And this was actually my first revelation when it came to understanding differences between men and women started in the workplace. So it goes back 35 years ago when my assistant Helen, who ran my business, I was a counselor and seminar teacher. She put on the events, she got the hotels, she got the clients, she got paid, she put in my bank account, she handled everything, paid all my bills. So who wouldn't appreciate that? And it was a no drama relationship. She just got it done. And she was always happy. And it looked. I mean, it's like there's nothing better. I thought I was in heaven with this lady. And so she worked for me about six years at that point. And then she said, you know, I want to. Time for me to leave. I'm quitting. I said, why? And she said, I don't feel appreciated. And I thought to myself, what? And I said to her, why don't you feel appreciated? Help me understand that better. Magic phrase for every man to know in the workplace and at home. Anytime a woman talks, you want to create more estrogen for her. Want to help lower her stress, don't speak right away. Instead, say, help me understand that better. Get clear about every place she's coming from. And then say, tell me more. Let them know they're welcome to express themselves. They're part of the team anyway. So I didn't know all that then. I just knew that I appreciated her. I paid her very well. She just got a raise a few months before. I said, you didn't get paid enough. She said, no, I get played plenty. You're very generous. And I said, well, why don't you feel appreciated? And she says, you don't know what I do. And I thought, that's why I appreciate you so much. I don't have to know what you do. You just get it all done. So then I said to her, I said, well, don't quit yet. Give me two weeks. Because I heard what she said. She said, I don't know what she did. So I started finding out what she did, and I took five to ten minutes every day when I would come in, I'd just check in with her. We'd check in. What's going on? What are you doing today? And what are your reactions to this? And the secret to it is she'd say, oh, I still have to call that hotel. They're not getting back to me. They change things. And I said, oh, that must be so frustrating. Put a little validation into it, you know? And then the next day say, well, did you talk to the hotel? Did they get through? And let her complain a little bit, let her express herself a little bit, Let her talk about her victories a little bit. Let her say, oh, I stayed up all last night trying to finish that thing. I couldn't get to. Oh, my God, you stayed up all night. Just acknowledge what she did and what she goes through. Kind of like for men, that's not important for us, it's kind of like, look what I did, appreciate what I did. And I'm not going to say, oh, this was so hard for me, and I did this. It's like, we're going to go. No, piece of cake. I handled it. I'm the man. I can get it done. But for her, for a woman, she wants to be acknowledged. That's her male side for the outcome. But she wants the journey to be understood and she wants you to be included in that process. Now, there's always going to be exceptions on this bell curve. There's some women who just. Or like a guy, you know, just leave me alone, let me do my job and whatever. And unfortunately, though, they're going to be more stressed. They're too far on their male side. They're Making testosterone so they don't even know that they need to make estrogen on the other side. It's kind of like, you don't know you like something until you experience it. There's so much today that women don't know that what would make them feel good until they've actually experienced it. And the same thing for men. You know, the thing that builds testosterone in men is when somebody says, good job. Wow, you really made a difference in my life. Oh, you're here. And then what? A guy will say, oh, you don't need to say anything. You don't need to say, no big deal. No big deal. Well, men do that because it's, again, as human beings, when we have a really important need and it doesn't get fulfilled, it's too painful to continue feeling that. So we go into denial. So men go into a denial. Ah, I don't need the appreciation. Oh, you don't have to say anything. I can do it myself. We need applause, okay? And women need applause, too. But more, what women need is to know what they do, to have empathy for what they do, to see what they do, to offer support for what they do, to be involved. And this goes in so many different layers. If I'm selling a stereo to a woman in a stereo shop, she's buying a sound system. What a guy will tend to do. Let's say you're a guy. You come to me. I know you need testosterone. So I'm going to go, okay, what is it that you're interested in buying? You might say something like that. Well, I know the very best one. I've been doing this 25 years. I've sold more stereos than anybody in history. I've done this. And this is like your moderate price, but this is the best, best one. I know this will work. What I'm going to demonstrate to another man is background competence, confidence. I have the answer. And a guy will go, oh, good. I don't have to worry about it. We're always going to go with, hey, if he's an expert, I'll let him do it. You boost yourself up with great confidence. And a man goes, okay, he knows what he's doing. Then he'll pick this thing out and I'll get credit for it. That's what men want. They want credit. And when we know we're not experts at something, then men will go ask for help. They'll find an expert, and they take credit because I found the expert. Okay, so basically, you always. A bank is marketing themselves We've got this much money. We, we do this, we do this. Men are most impressed by that. Women are impressed a bit. But what women are really looking for, and we saw this whole revolution when Men are From Mars came out. The banks came to me for consulting, for marketing. How do we market to women? Because women are a big audience. Well, whether she's buying hysteria or going to a bank or going to a consultant for something, you market yourself differently by understanding her primary emotional needs, which are to feel that you care about, you have empathy, you understand and you respect. Okay, so, you know, even right now, I'm leaving my bank because I'm treated like a number. I've got all these personal bankers wanting to work with me and so forth. Take me out to lunch, you know, get to know me or whatever. Why should I be treated like a number? You know, I'm one of their best customers at my bank. I'm leaving them. That's my female son, because we got both. And then when it comes to making big decisions in the workplace where there could be fear of loss, then a man is going more to his estrogen side. Then you need to use some of the skills you would use with a woman, which is show more interest, more understanding, ask more questions. But in other settings, if you ask a lot of questions to a man, the man's kind of like, you should know that already. You know, just give me answers. Men want answers, solutions. Whereas women, they don't want your answers and solutions right away. They want you to understand what they're going through, what their needs are. And even if you do understand, that still doesn't work. They need to tell you. And once they've said it and they see your response to it, which is going to be a sense of empathy and calm and focus on her. Then she feels the understanding, then her estrogen comes up, then she can trust you. So everything in the business world, everything is confidence and trust. You need to have confidence, demonstrate confidence. And that particularly impresses men, which is, I can do this. And what would most impress women, and certainly some confidence is good. But more important is that you're trustworthy. And so there's all kinds of ways to do that. Once you just, you know, if a man asks me questions, I got answers, answers, answers. If a woman asks me questions anywhere where I have any doubt, I will purposely say, I don't know. I'm going to find out. They love it when a man says, I don't know, because they know. Men think that they know everything and they know Men don't. So it's showing a little vulnerability. Okay, So I don't know. And think about the plight of men never being able to admit that I don't know. Imagine I'm this surgeon and I've got a team of nurses helping me. And I kind of say to my nurse, gee, I don't really know what to do here. What do you think? So you can't even ask for help because everybody goes, oh, you don't know what to do. Life and death situation. So there's no discussion, there's no learning, there's no process. Because there's this whole thing for men you have to know well, particularly when women around. If you don't know, you should know a lot, okay? But you don't have to know it all. And to not know it all shows humility, which creates inclusiveness. So you say, I'll get back to you on that. Women would be a good time. I could call you probably next Wednesday, around 2 o' clock on Tuesday and she might say, oh, yes or no. Set up a time. Then you make that time. Exactly. Because deep inside of every woman there's always this question, why doesn't he call back? And there's a woman that will go, and she'll be testing you. You say you're going to call her at a certain time. It's going to be a little test. It's going to be, let's see if he remembers. Let's see if he remembers. No, call exactly at the time. Call at the time. Just keep your word about little things. When you keep your word about little things, women go, oh, if he keeps his word about little things, then he'll really keep his word about the big stuff. Men will think he's probably busy with something. He'll call me later. Because it's a little thing to call exactly at the right time. Not a big deal. And that's again one of the big differences between men and women. It's the little things that make the difference, particularly for women, the big things that make the difference for men. Okay, well, I'm going to make you all this money. Why should I even talk to you or treat you like a human being? I'm the big shot here. I lost $3 million in a deal one time investing in a company that later became a company like Google and the early investors. And I brought in an investment manager because for a company to go public you have to have somebody who's actually done it before gone public. Great reputation. He's going to be the CEO. So I invested in this company knowing that they all wanted my friend who was a CEO. He just sold a company for 300 million. So I'm like, this is all great. Good thing. I'm gonna invest in it all. But I wasn't there when the woman who developed this software from ucla, she was there with her board of directors of men, trying to convince her that this CEO could be the CEO of the company. So she would say, well, we're not like any other company. He says, doesn't matter. We'll get it done. We'll get it done. And she said, no, you don't understand. He says, no, no, doesn't matter. We can do this. I've done this before. Three months, we'll sell this place. $300 million. We're on the road. She says, no, no, it doesn't work that easy. You know, this is a complicated thing. You don't understand what we have to do. He didn't listen to her. He was just showboating. He was just like, I can handle it. I'll do better, you know. Believe me, we can do this. Look what I've done before. Totally turned her off. And the company went down. It didn't sell. She tried to do it herself, and nobody would invest in the company. It was just that. It was simply. He didn't take the time to listen to her because he was bragging about himself, and all the other guys are salivating. He can do it. It was just got a done deal. And she just like, bunch of men around, they don't hear me. They don't understand me. It's a priority for women. They need to feel equals in the situation. And they have a set of instinctive rules that women have had for thousands of years, which is sharing. So let's take another practical example. Let's say I'm the boss, and I have women working for me. So Halina works for me now. So Halina comes into the office and she says, oh, there's this traffic jam in the parking lot all the time because somebody's doing this and this, and we need to open this up. We have to do, you know, whatever the problem is. And so she's talking and talking, and I'll just say, oh, just call so and so and tell them not to park there. Because she's talking a lot about the problem. I can get the problem in a second and give a solution. So if I do that as a boss, she'll walk. She says, yeah, good idea. She's already thought of that. She's not stupid. But what women will do before they give the solution is they want to talk about the problem and then they want to create a space for you to talk about the problem as you see it. We're going to cooperate here together. I wouldn't presume this is the woman thingy. I wouldn't presume to have all the answers. Together we come up with a better answer. But certainly I've already thought of the one you just offered. So he jumps in with his solution again and again right away, rather than hearing her talk a little bit and then talking about, yeah, I relate to that. I can see that you're right about that. And then instead of being the boss and giving the solution, you say, and what do you think we ought to do about that? Give her the glory. Give her the chance to express what she's already thought but didn't say. Because she's following Venusian female etiquette, which is. I wouldn't presume to just come in and say, do this. Okay, we're going to share in this. So she'll share the problem, expecting me to sort of go along with it. Then together we come up with a better solution. Then she could come up on her own, or she'll say hers. So, men, if you just could just give the space, whenever there's a problem, ask the woman, well, what do you think we should do? And if she wants to talk more about how hard it is or whatever, ask, if you help me understand that better and validate that from another point of view. And then say, what do you think we should do? And then you say, well, I think we ought to do this. If you're the boss, you have the final line of command, so to speak. But you've included her in that process. And that's what's going to make the workplace a better place for women. And it's going to make it a better place for solving problems. Because you're looking at both the female and male perspective. Being in my business, where I'm marketing the women mainly, actually I have half men read my books, but I market women are your best marketers. One piece of study that we did not do, that we found, which is amazing, is if a woman's in a board meeting or in a business meeting or she's working for a company and she doesn't feel appreciated. And remember, when she doesn't feel appreciated, actually what's happening is she doesn't feel seen, heard, respected, understood and cared for, but she's not feeling appreciated. And she feels excluded. They don't hear what I have to say. They don't value what my points of view are, whatever it is. So she'll leave that meeting, or she'll leave that time where she was dissatisfied, not feeling appreciated, and she'll tell 32 people. A woman who comes to your company is dissatisfied, will go out and tell 32 people. This is what they found. If she's satisfied with your company, if she likes your company, she's a raving fan of your company. She's a tell 32 people unsolicited. They are the marketers. They're basic marketers. And a man, if he's dissatisfied, he'll only tell three people and only fast. Because, see, it doesn't support testosterone to go, gee, you know, they treat me bad. It's like, well, you're probably a loser. Men want to brag because bragging is, look what I did, look what I did. Not like, look what I didn't do. They don't even ask me questions in the meetings. He's going to his female side, and that's weak for men, so they're not going to naturally go there. Whereas women will say, oh, you know, they mistreat us. They don't ignore me. They do this and another. You know, it's like I was once at the counter at United Airlines and I was really upset that they didn't tell me that this plane with the instruments, it was a thing they had to repair. And they kept us there saying they were going to be able to fix it until all the other planes had gone. And then they told us going tomorrow. So everybody was so upset. And I remember this woman at the counter basically going, this company is awful. I cannot believe they do that. It's terrible that they do that. You know, I've seen them do this again. And she just. She went in total empathy. But that's not what I needed to hear. What I needed to hear is, yes, this is really inconvenience you and we're going to make it up to you. We're going to, you know, go to our website, you put it in, you put the flight number in, you get a reward for this, and I'm terribly sorry about this. You feel empathy, but you don't go into a collusion, that this is a terrible company. You know, it's like, we're working on this. We want to make this a better service for you. So there's times and places to express empathy and times not. This is all about understanding what human beings need at a particular time and a particular place to represent the company in a positive way. But the bottom line is, if women are not happy, they market, you're a lousy company. If women are happy, they market, you're a happy company, you're a great company. They are amazing, and they have all the money today. They're the ones that we need to make sure that the workplace becomes a better and better place for them. And not that it's a bad place for men. The idea is both people getting what they need in the workplace. And one of our studies we saw, we asked the women, this is a big study, we asked the women, do you feel appreciated by men? And over 60% of the women said no. And they asked the men, do you appreciate the women you work with? And 95% said, totally. So the appreciation is there, but it's not communicated in a language where women can feel that appreciation. Because, as I mentioned, women will not feel appreciated unless they feel included, unless they feel heard, unless they feel that their voice has been heard. So it's a matter of just being more inclusive. Now, let's say I'm this really inclusive guy, okay? I'm this great boss, everybody loves me, and so forth. But if I don't know this, I'm in a business meeting. There's three guys and there's three women. One woman's a bit more. I call it, actually, my daughter Lauren, in her courses teaches it. Venus in blue versus Venus in Pink. It's just where you are on the bell curve, how much masculine feminine qualities you're expressing. Venus in blue is going to be a bit more assertive and speak up whenever she has something to say. But Venus in pink, which is a lot of women, they're kind of going to wait for you to ask them. Men don't realize that because imagine we're at this meeting of all men, and every guy's, like, in there. Like, we're, like, playing basketball, grabbing the ball, trying to get credit. I got this idea, well, that's a good idea, but we ought to do this. The men will throw the ball back and forth like that. And I'm leading this whole thing as my team of guys, and I noticed this one guy's not talking at all. We'll call him Bill. Nobody's going to say, hey, Bill, you haven't said anything. What do you think? Because that will embarrass Bill. Because we all know that if Bill has something smart to say, he'll say it. That's how men are so out of Kindness and compassion. We don't point out, Bill, you're not saying anything. What do you think he would actually think?

That you're putting him on the spot.

That's right. Exactly. Exactly. So now let me put some women in the group. Okay, now we've got a bunch of guys, we're all talking, and Venus in Blue, she's in there, but we got a Venus in pink over here. She's not saying anything. She's listening, listening, listening. And we just. And so I'm not going to want to put her on the spot and say, well, Venus in pink, you haven't said anything. What do you think? I don't want to embarrass her, but actually, she's waiting for you to notice. She's obviously not saying anything, and she's communicating to you. Nobody's asking me what I think. So that's where this knowledge, you realize you've got women and men, they're all assets. You want everybody to contribute. It's differences coming together to create a new whole. And so, you know, on our team, it'd be Marcy and Marcy, I would just say, so Marcy, you have so much experience with this. What do you think about this? And she'll sort of. Takes her a moment to sort of shift from this basketball game to pulling forth her ideas. And she always brings forth something. Wow, you know, just came out of the blue. It's another perspective. It enriches the whole perspective. It's not like it's always the thing we're gonna do. It adds to what we're gonna do. And it's a resource that we don't use because we don't know it's there. And that's another aspect of it. You know, then there's aspects of women managers over men. A whole scene of misunderstanding there. You've got the kind of like the helicopter parent you get the helicopter manager, where she's constantly asking men questions. And in our big survey, we asked men, what is your biggest complaint about women? And about 80% or 90% of men said they asked too many questions. Particularly women leaders and bosses. They come in your face. The way a man feels it, well, why are you doing that? Why don't you do this? And often women will use rhetorical question or questioning, sometimes rhetorical to make a point. Other times they'll ask questions to lead a man to agree with them. But don't you think it would be better if we did it like this? And he's going to go, no, but really, don't you see this? And this? She's trying to convince him with her questioning to agree with her. So we all agree. But what she doesn't know is that men are very hierarchical. I'm okay if you're the boss. You're the final word. Here's my ideas. Tell me that makes sense. Tell me it's a good idea and this is what we're going to do. And it's something different. Thank me for my contribution. But I respect if you're the boss, you have the final line. Whereas you'll get women who are bosses. And it's kind of like, well, let's not decide till we all agree. That's not the business world. That's not how it works. And men will take offense at that. I don't mind doing it your way, but it's your way. Don't make it doesn't have to be my way, but you're the leader, so I will follow the lead. And men are amazing for doing that. It's like we have some gene that says, well, if I don't have to do it, great, let somebody else do it. So these are all subtleties. So you get a woman manager, she'll ask a lot of questions, she'll involve herself, she'll give instructions. You could do it better. There's a gene inside of women I playfully talk about in Men are from ours is the home improvement gene. No matter how good something is, let's make it better. And that's part of the contribution that women make to the workplace is no matter how good it is, we can make it better. This is improvement. Improvement. Improvement is a great thing. The male side of us, well, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Just leave it the way it is. You know, I have a very, very successful website, and my daughter, who's half the website, she wants to improve it. You know, we got this big, huge improvement thing going, and we're about to move into it. I'm kind of like, it's doing so great just the way it is. Do we want to change it? You know, if not broken, she's oh, it could be so much better, dad. It could be so much better. So that's the male and the female. And so it's always bringing these worlds together, which is, if it's not broken, don't fix it. But everything can always get better and better. So this is, again, respecting the differences and taking time to recognize that my way combined with another way is going to be better. That's the secret to this, guys, you've.

Been with us and we've been hearing you. John, it's no question how much, you know, so much depth into this subject. It's amazing. I'm listening here and, and we're on a studio here and I'm seeing everybody that's around and on the set, we're all peering in. I've never thought of looking at so many situations in the way that you've just described. And if you guys notice, we transitions to systems for living quite seamlessly and you've heard so many different examples that I'd love for you to think about when you're in the workplace. How does that apply? What are the situations? I'm sure many of you are listening and going, oh, wow, that situation, and start thinking about it in a very different way. John, this was amazing. And you know, I'm here and I'm just in awe because every single situation you've mentioned for me, I went like, oh my God, I remember this example. Oh my God, I remember this example. Oh my God, I remember this example. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that are listening that went through the same process and what I wanted to do to close this off. And first off, everyone who's listening in this is just the tip of the iceberg of what we can cover in this episode. If you want to have so much more insights from. From John, not just in the workplace, but in every scenario, when you're understanding, when you want to have an understanding of how men work, how women work, go to Mars. Venus.com he has so many articles, so much content there that you can go deep into any of these subjects, even further than what we've done today already. This was absolutely wonderful. And I did want to bring it to a really fun question to actually close off this interview. And I wanted to ask you, what do you think is going to be the future of the workplace? How do you see this? Because we are in these turbulent times. If we're advancing, let's say 20 years from now, how do you see us, men and women, living in the workplace and working together?

Increased harmony, increased productivity, increased success, increased respect, increased employment for everybody. And a workplace that has less hours, creating space for people to have more fulfilling personal relationships. With personal relationships, we're able to bring more love into the workplace, creates a fairer place, a more positive place, and a creative place that can solve the problems of this world.

Beautiful, John, thank you so much for your time. I hope you guys had as much time watching this episode as I've had being part of it. Thank you.