Men, Mojo, and Boris Kodjoe

flannel shirts and cargo pants and the same. It's true. I'm sure you're right that that's so true, because um my wife when she met me, she goes, nobody wants to read your T shirt And so now you look at me, Oh, you're wearing a blank one. My T shirts are almost blank t shirts. Yeah, that's funny because I almost flip flops. My dad does that. So that that deep, deep Roman voice you're hearing is a guest co host we have too. Yeah, have you want to introduce?

You want me to introduce? I want you to introduce. This is your special So we have Boris Kojoe with us in the house to celebrate an actor. Family man. We're gonna get more into your story and we have Eve Rod Sky in the house with us celebrated. We're diving into a dynamite. Are all fighting? Three minutes ago before we went on, Literally there was Forest and I were fighting so much that he called his wife and

I took her side. Amy is super fried out about this podcast is all about and I can't wait to hear you guys talk about it. I can't wait to hear what she's all about. So, Eve, you have a new book. It's called fair Play, and it's a game changing solution for when you have too much to do and more life to live. And it's out now. So let's talk about this book. Your goal with this book and you said before it was your gift. Yeah, so my goals is to get men to do more in

the home. Yeah, that's my goal. Um. But actually, so I wrote fair Play as a love letter to women, and I'll talk about sort of how this started. Started with a text my husband sent me where I was sobbing on the side of the road. So we'll get to that. But but sorry, but I'll just really quick, but really with this book, fair Play became my love letter to men because I interviewed five men and women

for this book. Um from that mirror the U. S Census in terms of ethnicity and social socio economic status, and I learned a lot. I learned a lot for men, and I learned that you're being locked out of your house is over glue sticks and other things like that. So I can't wait to get into it, but I will tell you quickly about that fateful text that was sent to me seven years ago where I was pulled over the side of the road sobbing, and the text my husband sent me, Seth, his name is Seth, just

said I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries. And so I'll just picture the picture the seat. I have a breast pump and a diaper bag on the passenger seat. I have buddy returns for a new baby, because you know the story policies like two days in the back seat.

I'm a lawyer. I'm a Harvard Training attorney. I have a client contract on my lap with a pen that's falling between my legs as I'm trying to mark up a client contract in between traffic stops trying to pick up my first kid, who was three years old from his transition preschool program that in America, because we really value working parents last literally like five minutes. And so as I'm raising to get in, Yeah, I knew I was gonna be late to pick up Zach, but I

get this. I'm surprised you to get blueberry sex and I just no. But you know what I was thinking. I was thinking if my marriage was going to and it should be over something way more dramatic, like my affair with an NFL player, Like that's what was going to happen to me. I thought, that's that's how my marriage would end, right, like some really dramatic, cool fight in the Caribbean or this awesome affair. But instead it's over offseason blueberries. And that marriage actually did end. No,

it survived. It survives question, And because I'm just getting the context of this, Yeah, did he know all of that that you had going on at that moment? Was he like, oh, my wife, is this, this, this, this, this, And I still choose to send this to the father of your child. He is, but you know, I know about the breast pumps and the baby, and he did know about that. But I will say that from a

woman's perspective, right, I'm thinking, I'm so overwhelmed. I can't even manage a grocery list, and I used to be able to manage an employee team. Um, and slowly my career is sort of fading away from me after my second son. And more importantly, I'm so overwhelmed from literally all this. What I what I found out is called a second shift for women, the mental load invisible work. Um that I couldn't even at that point communicated to him.

And I think, Brooks, what you just said is so important because he didn't know what was happening to me, and I didn't even know what was happening to me. Literally, I had no idea what was happening to me except for that I knew my marriage and be ending over offseason blueberries. I just can't believe you could forget blueberries? Right then? The organic ones, what's the problem? They come on your pancakes from rooms, you know. Apparently I became

the fulfiller of my husbands smoothie needs, right. I mean that that that's that's what you become watching ESPN with socks and pretty much pretty much well, you know, men, men statistically have twice as much leisure time as women after kids. After kids, Um, they do five to fifteen five to fifteen hours a week less after kids come along. Um.

But again back to my love letter a man. What I found out when I went on this quest after the blueberries fateful day seven years ago was not only that this phenomena has a name, second shift, mental load, all these emotional labor things that women talk about. There's three articles alone on this issue. But my favorite was this idea of invisible work because of what Brooks you were just saying, how can you value? How can you men value what I'm doing if it's invisible? And so

I went on a quest. I went on a quest to make everything visible that I've ever done for my family and my husband. That took more than two minutes. And I don't know if you know Excel, if you ever work with Excel, but I write I did write things in my hands too, That's what I mean. But I do write things in my hands. I love. That's a very nineteen eighties or nineteen nineties way of studying. Ninth.

So basically, this Excel spreadsheet I I created from seth after that day that was crowd source from women all over the country who didn't even know me turned into tabs and I in about twenty sub tabs over a thousand items of invisible work, and I titled the Okay, well women, women I didn't even know, we're calling me. They were getting this Excel sheet from friends of friends, and they would say things to me like, well, you

didn't you forgot applying, You forgot applying sunscreen. You forgot raspberries right right, You forgot buying the blueberries that was in their groceries was easy, but you forgot applying sunscreen. And so I'd say, well, no, you just don't how to know how to use Excel. Just have to scroll right. It's under tab ninety two under medical and healthy living well some have zero, some have zero. So I mean,

then you have to blame the wife. If you're getting married to somebody who's zero in so many different ways, then that's your fault. Because the problem is that women fall in love with the potential. They never they never just say oh I love you, who you who you're standing in front of me. No, I love you once you do this, When you do that, when you maximize your potential in this area, when you stop wearing flip flops and socks. When you do you own blueberry smores.

They never fall in love with the actual person is standing in front of him at the time. They always fall in love with the potential. That's when your expectations become the death sentence. Well, you just said something very important. Literally, the most important thing that I found in fair Play is about expectations. That it's all about communication and expectations, right, because that should I do spreadsheet? That I that I did? Should I do spreadsheet? And should be part of vows

did I do spreadsheet? You're about right? Actually so well, I can learn more about you from talking about those tabs like garbage, and I'll talk about them in the second. But the should I do spreadsheets? Remember I just told you I'm a lawyer, but I'm also trained as a mediator, so I'm trained. I'm actually literally trained in communication. I grew up in a single mother household where I helped my mother eight years old, manage eviction notices and utility

bills in piles for her at eight years old. But that that that is a whole different disposition that you have to add to the book title. Because the fact that you grew up in a single mother house already conditioned you to think and live and breathe a very very specific certain way because single mothers, single mothers, single I'm generalizing now, but single mothers raised their their daughters to be completely independent and never never, never need anything

from a man. That's the very generalization. I get it. But oftentimes, uh, women come out of a household like that, not just being empowered and being self sufficient and being and being confident, but also completely rejecting the notion of a man being a partner or Yeah, learning how to communicate even if you're trained in it, that's right, And I think that's you're right. I think that's before he sent the text, Seth knew what my my mother, what

she brought to the table. Um, she's a very interesting person. But I think what he realized, right, was that even in a household where I vow this was not gonna happen to me, and where I thought I was setting myself up for success before you even get into the relation. Yeah, well, I think that's that's right. You've got to start fresh. You can't. You can't project all of your paradigms from from your failed relationship. You need to rewrite this book

now bring But there there's learnings. There's learnings from because I think what happened was I did have all those learnings you're talking about. It came too late, right, It came a little bit too late where I had to be sobbing on the side of the road over blueberries and send my husband a nineteen million megabyte spreadsheet with zero contexts that just had a subject line said, can't wait to discuss, can't wait to discuss regarding the blueberries.

Should he have not sent the text at all with the blueberries praise the blueberry thing different? Or should he have gone and gone blueberries? I get your own blue Because if you're married to this woman and she just gave birth to two children, she's still breast pumping, she's a lawyer, she's working, which means she's working. Unless you've been on vacation Siberia for six months. You have been part of this life, so you understand where she's at.

So you don't need to have her pull up the side of road and letting you, letting you know the state of mind she's in. If you're a husband who is somewhat present, you totally understand that you don't bother her with with blueberry text messages. You got the blue Bears and you made her favorite smoothie and maybe even put it in her bag before she left. I love that. I love why. I think you're very woke because I will say that there's not I don't think but it

is well, but it is. It is why you were disagreeing with the list thing that she was saying, because you just knowing you now you your father of two boris to so special needs child, which is like thirteen children. So in my mind I didn't know that. I just learned, not now that. In my mind, you're like, uh, men do like I'm you were making the noises earlier. You're like, men do so much and it's because you, I believe,

do so much. So you can't understand a man that doesn't do these things for his family or his wife. I get that because I align. I aligned with you. There are no absolutely I think that men are to It's the same things, the same I have the same list, but this is what was happening. Mine is getting tampons made. But other than that, I have the same list for sure. I get up at five every morning, I do everything. What happens though, when you say I do everything and

the other person says, I do everything right. And so every book, every single book that had been written until fair Play, well, there were some very unhelpful solutions, like women should just strike and walk out of their house. Other ones said, moved to a foreign country where your husband knows the language but you don't, so he has to fill out the school forms. Okay, that's in New York Time Times New York Times, it's actually suggested that.

But even the most helpful situations just said make a list. So as you saw, I made that I do spreadsheet, the best list in the world. And what I realized is that it unleased a storm. In my house, there was a scene, no evil, but in other homes, women were texting me things like w TF, I'm doing it. All other women were saying to me, at this rate, I'm not going to stay in my At this rate, I'm not going to stay in my marriage. And so what I realized is that sometimes consciousness raising is not

always the best thing unless there's a solution. And so that's why I went out to understand what was happening and speaking to men. And here's what I found. I have to cancel all my stuff after this second. Okay, so this is what I found. I found that the smallest details were causing the biggest problems. I had a man tell me that he was locked out of his home over a glue stick. You can't make this, He's not. But here's my I don't know the story. He's not out of the home. I bet your wife does. YEA

stick was just the less straw. Yes, it's not actually locked out over the glue stick, just like you weren't actually or he wasn't you weren't so mad at the text. There was so many things layered into that. That's exactly right. No, literally, that's that's what I say, is immediate or I say the conscious man ud know that you won't of course you won't send it. There's something the text clinically aware of the emotional, physical, and spiritual place my wife is

in at every moment. Because say that again, that's a beautiful line. I think most men, it's true. That's the secret to happy Now, that's a dedicated ded dedicated to his kids. I know that you know, happy life, happy wife, happy life. So I know that her state of mind, her emotional state, her spiritual state, her physical state. Uh, controls and influences what the rest of the world looks like. For us. She's the nucleus, so my job is to make sure that at all times that she is in

a state that is conducive to a happy living. Right. It's very you know, but that's why I'm happy you're here. Simple. Life is not easy, trust me, I know, but it's simple, especially for men. We can we compartmentalized. For us, it's very simple, which sometimes also leads to issues between us and women because for you ladies, Uh, your brain doesn't

work that way. Your brain works differitely, right, So you have a literally an orbit of a million different satellites and things all playing into one at the same time. That's why you don't go to sleep at night. I laid my head down and twelve seconds later I got you on the same gone. That's how man for seven hours straight. Because what happens is we we go to the to the sleep box. We say okay, now I can leave everything behind. Now it's time to sleep, sleep,

and we go to sleep. Right. It doesn't work that way with you, guys, so we have to learn skills in order to communicate effectively. Knowing that we have different brains, we can literally be like I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm busy on board at all. At the same time, there's there's something my wife says all the time, all the things. That's what she said. So we go to a restaurant. We go to a restaurant. We sit down, like, babe,

do you know what you want? She's like all the things, all like I want these four appetizers and these three entrees and six pounds. You're not pounding that and then eat your food? Yeah, And then she want mine comes to and ordered the same thing for twenty years at the same place, and she always looks to be adventurous, and then she orders stuff that looks great, and then she envisions how it's going to look, and then it comes and doesn't look like joy and the pain of

men and women. It's a beautiful thing. It adds. It adds for men, I believe it adds. Yeah, it adds vibrance and color and like just variation to our life. And look, I shouldn't out this, but I was dealing with a little bit of a broken heart. So I called Rick one of our co hosts, and I had called him a few days in a row to talk about my broken heart, and finally he was like, Amy, I have to coach water polo, coach baseball. Although the car cooked dinner, I don't have time for this with you.

And it was like, but I get it, like he had his things going and I was just one more thing throwing him off. But you also want and I'm like, he just felt at the little girl with the broken heart, but you know he saw it very differently. Well, yeah, back to Brooks. What you were just saying, no about it's not about the blueberries, right, or it's not about the glue stick. Why is this man being locked out

of his house over gluestick? Right? So when I spoke to his his partner, she said to me, I've been working for three weeks on a homework project for our kid where we went to the library, we xerox copied pictures of Albert Einstein, cut them out, did the captions, put them in order, worked on the book, report, got the costume because this kid had to be impersonating Albert Einstein.

All I needed was just that one thing, the glue stick. No, well, she did she but she she texted in the middle of the day, and so this is what was happening right when I. So men were saying this all the time, right, I'm getting these So I ended up calling it the rat. And what I realized was happening. The number one thing men were telling me they were frustrated about with home life was this idea of nagging. So what is nagging? It's the rat. It's the random assignment of a task.

Get me tampons, Go get me a glue stick, go back to the store. From the point, because men, if they want something, we'll just go do it. Well, I won't ask him to go do I won't ask Gavin to go do something for me. I'll just go do it. Well. That's exactly what fair plays about, because I found that with men that when they get ownership, everything changed. She'll just let me tell you one last thing about the system and then we can go into it. Everything you

need to know about the way the system works. And it's based, like I said, a lot of data for men. Most of the experts actually in my book are men. Um It was about mustard and I'll explain what I mean. So somebody has to know eventually that your second son, Johnny likes french Is yellow mustard. That's the only way he eats protein. He dips his his mustard, you know, his protein and mustard. That's what I call conception. This

is a business concept. Conception. Then somebody has to notice that the mustards running low and put it on a list with other groceries for the week. That's what I call planning. That's another business concept. Then someone has to get their butt to the store to buy the French's yellow mustard. That's in my data where men came in. They stepped in at the execution, and it was always a problem because that you come home with spicy dijon, you come home with a nasty mustard with the seeds

in it. And so men all over the country were saying to me, I'm not doing anything for my wife anymore because every time I bring home the mustard, it's always wrong. And women are saying to me, ready to burst, okay one second, and then women are saying to me, last thing, I'll just finish my little round thing. Women are saying to me, Eve, you want me to trust him with my state planning. He can't even bring home

the right type of mustard. So that becomes brooks. Like you said, not about mustard, not about blueberries, but trust what it is. But it's about trust, the trust cycle. Can we go down and take into a trust cycle? It's it's it's comes. What do you think it's about? Okay, we have the same My wife always brings up the same very this very example about orange juice with it without pulp. She always brings that that up. See, the thing is this, wait, wait, are you do you bring

home the right type of orange juices? Or were you criticize? No, no, I want to hear that. Do you have a do you have a spicy dijon situation? Okay? So we tell me how every day. Okay, but tell me tell me a little bit about those okay. Well, the text message, she she she likes to involve me in group text messages. You hate, I hate myself. I never I never pull into things where I can handle it. Wants to be inclusive.

And then she wants to put me in a text message and say hi to some people that are doing some stuff for us at the house and and yes he's coming to the house tomorrow, so just and then she texts me individually and says, just send, just text into the chin, just chime, just chime in, and just say that you will You're happy to see them tomorrow. I'm like, okay, and then I say great to see you tomorrow. And then she calls. Did you say that? You should have said that if they want anything, they

can call you. And why did you say? And I'm like you, I'm here board, meeting sixteen things and you text me this. I thought I was helping Cleario. Wasn't. So don't put don't don't just don't. Don't pull me into the situation. If you have to monitor and control every single word that I tell or or texted for me, I'll copy it and I not texting myself. I love it, but I'm still more interested in the orange shoes non pulpe versus pope. How did you have the conversations? Okay,

that's what's happening. We're fighting over. Does that sound like you want to get married? It's not the problem. It's not about that man. Don't get married. It's not a pulp it's not about the problem. Don't worry about it's it's about effective communication, right, And the problem is, and I keep reminding my wife about this too, when she tells me that Sophie was wearing the wrong outfit to the dance or to the this out of the ask, and that that Nicholas should have I should have get

the hair product and put it. We became parents the exact same time, the exact same moment. We became parents. Right. The notion that people who get married become one is bullshit, don't believe it. Yes, you coordinate, you collaborate, your synogize you, it's more fun to do together. Great, you will always remain individuals, and therefore you have paradigms that anchor it in your hard drive, which is a subconscious mind that will not change, will not change. That's from zero to

seven years. A lot of information is put in a hard drive and then it's done. Right, So I'm the person who I am because of what happened the first seven years of my life. Same with you, right, So that's never gonna change. So all we can do is learn each other's dance steps, which is the execution that's based on the paradigms that we have been taught when

we're zero to seven years old. Right, So we have to learn how to effectively communicate around those paradigms that have made us who we are, and it won't change. So the fact that we became parents the same exact time means that I will do things my way and it won't change. Because I'm a great father. I'm a hell of a father, I'm present, I'm there, I do everything great father, and I will continue to do things the way I do things. Sometimes my wife doesn't like

the way I brush my teeth. Sometimes she doesn't like the way I chew my food. Sometimes she doesn't like great It happens on both sides, But I, for some reason, men have the capacity to accept who their wife is and the way she does things, even the things that she tells us to do right vice versa never doesn't happen. Disagree with that, but this is the problem. So I had a boyfriend spent the night the other night. Girl, Well,

what's the point of spending that doesn't matter? So he used my toothpaste, and the way he squeezed the tube freaking bizarre to me that I had to go back in and smooth out the tube, and I thought, whip, Could I live with this? Could I live with this? And then I thought I guess I would just undo the tube every day different Now you wouldn't do that. You just get resentful and you'd finally end up dumping stuff on your husband's pillow when he forgets to take

out toothpaste. Hold on, we need to take a break. I'm gonna get to that and this whole conversation because Gavin, I had just been listening here, this is really interesting. Let's take a break first. We'll come back and set back from break. This brooks like in a studio even though you haven't heard him yet. We got my buddy, Gavin DeGraw, We got even Boris with this, and we have a This is one of our most polarizing debates that we've ever had. I love that we have different

energies coming from different sides of us. Now to touch on just listening. My thoughts here is I'm listening to you Amy about the toothpaste, and I'm listening to you Eve about wanting to know from Boris the pulp or no pulp. My thoughts when I'm listening to this discussion is I go to the macro level we live in for the a very fortunate country. We're very fortunate people. You can afford toothpaste. You can afford the choice between

pulp or no pulpe. We live in a country where you can go to a store that provides it for you, and all you have to do is give them a little money for it. Like when I when I hear these things and that we're bickering over them, and that families bicker over them, and that your husband says, where's the blue bear, I'm surprised you didn't get blue bear?

The fuck cares? You are so fortunate to be living in the United States of America, with the people around us, the loved ones that we have, that I can't even really engage in this, that I don't even know what to do with this, to be in the United States not paying Canadian taxes now what you meant to say. But also so that's for I have another thought of this now. Now, the other side of this is, and

I've learned this through being, are and women of color paid. Okay, So the other side of this is that I've learned this through being is that details matter immensely, especially to my wife to females. So whether how the toothpaste is like that was an issue from my wife. She's like, can you put the toothpaste in the drawer? And I'm like, you're going to bed right now. The lights are gonna be out for nine hours. I'm gonna be up before you come back. I'm gonna use that toothpaste before you're

ever going to see it again. But I was like, you think that, No, I said that. I said I said that, And I'm like, why does it matter that's in the drawer, And she's like, it just matters. It's just like I just wanted in the drawer. And I'm like, we have that conversation the first two years, and then we stopped, and then we don't have the conversation more because you just now resentment. No, she she keeps bringing it up. But we just swallowed and we go, you're right, okay, okay.

And that's when the man goes into the couch. And that's when the man that's when the man settles on the couch, and that's he won't get up anymore. Because every time we attempt to do something, our way we're being told is the wrong way. So that's that's the whole we are. We are on the bench, we are on the couch, and that's where we stay for the remainder. That's when he starts texting someone else. Well, I found a lot of actually anything. That's what I will say

that nagging men, men who were saying that they were nagged. Right. I also did that to my wife. And of course, put your coffee instead of in the in the sink, can you put it in aswasher? That's six away. But this is the thing, like what you said about being fortunate, We are fortunate, right, And this is why I just wrote an artifiction about course did fortunate. But this is the thing I talk about this in Harper's this Week that this is the real midlife crisis. This is the

real midlife crisis. You think it's about breast implants or green Ferrari. And I'm saying this for you, Kevin, because you right, but but I do have breast implants, okay, and and you're and they look really good right now. The real midlife crisis is like what happens right when you're in midlife and the person who's supposed to love you the most ends up presenting you the most over

this bullshit, right, And it is because of communication. I had a woman who said to me, this is about how women communicate, and maybe it's different for men because you would be willing to come to the table. And that's why Fair plays my love letter to men, because when you think in systems, which is this book is about any man. So a man who plays sports said to me, I love systems because I watched sports and I play sports, and I would never put my point

guard in as my center. Right, you know your role. So it's all about knowing your role. But to get there, you have to communicate. And one thing, I'll just end up. I'll just no, no, no. Then you want us to be spontaneous and advance. I don't. I don't actually spontaneous comes out of systems. No, but it doesn't. I don't really have to tell you to do it. I want to all women say that women say, and the time it takes you to figure it out, I could just

do it myself. Right, That is completely counterintun but it is not. It is cultural gener is that it seems to be acceptable in Western civilization for men to be browbeaten in conversation. I would never do that. It's almost like the conversation that you let off with started with a browbeating on the husband and like, just look at

our entertainment. Every single sitcom is based off of the honeymoon, which is what the guy some sort of a dunce and the wife always knows better than him, and he's an idiot, and his best friends an absolute moron too, and it's, you know, the same, the same formula on every single show. So we're sold this sort of idea that sort of made this has created these these these preconceptions going into marriages. I think that we're taking Hollywood

to heart when we go into these relationships. I think women are looking at their men like they're these incapable morons who hang out on the couch because they're not thinking sensitive enough, when actually all they're saying is all right, relax, I'll get to it in an hour and a half, or like I gotta I just got out of work too, I'll fix the dishwasher tomorrow. Well, I think that's right, you know what I mean. I know, and women were even saying to me worse than that, So I agree.

I think there is a lot of there is a lot of man shaming, especially a lot of a lot of man shaming, and and so I think that's no. I think that's correct. And so when you look at something is a system though, where you know your role and you have explicitly defined expectations. There is not man shaming because men also do invisible work that women don't see. But women were saying things to me even worse. They were saying, my husband doesn't have the brain to wash

the dishes. Literally, they were saying to me that he can't even multitask. You know, I do. I don't think talk that in that caddy way about women. It doesn't happen. But I appreciate that that's not what we do. Men are really private about their relationships. But and so what we're trying not to shame. I think for some reason, I hear a lot more shaming about men between women than shaming about women between men. Well, I love that,

so thank you men. I think that's I think that we're innately we like to hang out and we like to both with each other, but we're very private. I think that bad our relationships, which is a good thing.

It can be a good thing. What if I tell you that I went to the top neuroscientists though in the country, right to find out whether women are wired differently, if we're better multitaskers, right, and so this one and the first of all obviously the answers, No, men have just as great executive function and multitasking abilities as women do, and even better everything. You're you're better, you're you're not

better at multitasking. But but but you are just as good as that are good as it is a serious subject, it is seriously, of course it is different. We totally do. But you know, I want to say one thing too. It starts much because it starts. It starts with numbers. It starts you know, women out number men. Okay, So so in terms of eligible women and eligible men, women out number men. So your pool of of eligible men is much smaller than my pool of eligible women when

we start dating. That's where it starts, right, So, so you're more likely to compromise on your values and principles when you're picking your mate. Then what if we do it as men? So that's where it starts, and that's why women are more likely to accept a mate giving the potential that he brings to the table. Whereas we look at women said, if she's not all that right

then and there we don't we don't want it. So that's where the show starts because you're already compromising before you even step to the to the to the what is it called podium? But where do you get married? You're already compromising and already in your brain, and your brain starts working about how to improve the situation. What it really means is how to better him. Right, So that's where the communication starts being. But I didn't compromise.

My husband was literally perfect before we had kids, perfect and perfect well statistically, well, what happens, right, is this invisible layer of keeps growing and growing and growing, and you stopped communicating. You stop communicating. That's what happens. And what happened. Then I had a woman say to me, I can't communicate with my husband. It's so sad. Women all over this country don't feel like they can talk

to you men about these things. Because I had to write you a damn paperless post in my book because they were afree to bring up these conversations. And woman said, I will never bring it up. And then you know what she tells me twenty minutes later, and ironically, the same woman who says she could never talk to her husband about doing more in the home or the fact that she would like him to maybe move the toothpaste

or help her with the transporting of her kids. Twenty minutes later in the conversation, she says back to man jaming, she dumps wet clothes on his pillow when he forgets to take him out of the wash and put him in the dryer. I mean that I have a woman who's locking her home. I have a woman who locked her home, as you said, locked her husband out of our glue stick. Another woman's telling me, are people getting married? How about this? What about how do you get married?

But that is the real method, because you said up your expectations and your communications early. That's why I had to write a book. It's not just a card game. It's a book about how you communicate about these things. And it took ten years of mediation experience to figure it out. I can tell you, yes, well, there's so much. There's so much in this, there's so much. You should get to put that cup in the sink. If she wants,

she still does she did yesterday yesterday. I want to I want to go back to one thing you said, possibility change between the sink and hold on hold It is a possibility to change ye of the counterwher done. Let's go that's a reasonable person standard. I talked about that the book. One thing that really irritates me is when somebody says, I can't talk to my husband about this.

How dare she say what he's capable of? I know if my wife says I can't talk to you about this, how how dare you limit me and box me in that you're the person I love the most in the world, that I am not capable of being sensitive to your kneeds or just listening. Drop the MIW you want to take them and take that clip out listening, don't discount, don't discount your men. Maybe may not discount for us a little bit because I know and that's a mic drop.

By the way, if I bring it up, I know the answer I will get and it will not go well for it. But you hear that, so I think, Amy, so multiply that time. But that's what I heard there. Afraid to have conversations ex Okay, okay, let's let's say this happens, right, You go to your partner and you address something and it doesn't go well. Here's here's that that, here's the defining moment, the pivotal pivotal point. What do you then? What do you do? Then? Right? Do you

give up? You dump clothing this pillow? Do dump clothing his pillow? Make it worse? You you grow resentment? No, no, seriously, because because when when when Sylphie was born, we were just hot Hollywood couple and Sophie was born and she's diagnosed with and we crash and two months into our marriage and it's just the most traumatizing crazy I don't

wish it on anybody. So as an example of adversity challenge, right, like communicating, So now we're here with this baby and we have no idea what this is and what happens next. That that that's the most trauma tizing experience you can

have PTSD immediately all this stuff. Now, we got help and we figured out how to communicate and speak to our different approaches in terms of pain, sorrow, um um um, anger, fears, right, because we process this thing completely different, because we're different people, right, But we didn't let it divide us. We used it

to eventually became invincible together. Right. And it's the same with communication, because that's an example of heightened stakes in the communic in in a moment of communication needs right, Same with the with the pillow, same with anything else that What matters is how do you react when there is a lack of communication when there's an issue. Do you let us drive you apart? Okay, and because then it compounds against worse and worse and worse, or do

you battle through that moment? Right? You figure out there's things that you are on the same same page about, which is very important. A lot of people forget that. You have to remind each other of. Let's step back three paces and say, okay, what do what do we agree with? Uh? What do we agree on together? In your case with the clothes, it would be clothes need to be watched. Okay, we agree on that, we can we agree. Let's work our way up from there. Um

So in this coin, I'm from another country. Um by now you've probably heard it, but I'm from Germany. So so it's the culture is very different over there. It's everything is very different. And here there's this This is we live in this instant society where everything is instantaneously, has to be instantaneously. Everything is hyper sensitive, everything is hyper competitive. It's like you got to maximize your potential at all. You've gotta be the birst you. You gotta

be the birth. Like it's NonStop here and people killing themselves for it. Um. And it's the same with the relationships. It's like, if it doesn't work right now, we've gotta right away, we're gonna we just got this plastic bottle this. Yeah, absolutely, and I agree we we have. There's there's certain blessings and stuff that we have here and then there's a lot of curses about what this is right now, especially

in this country. But communication is another example of in this throwaway society, we are very very fast to give up, to walk away, to run for the hills, and and and in marriage, what's so precious is to use those moments and those challenges in order to grow and to be able to grow as individual and also grow together. And and that's what I always remind my friends off when they asked me for our secret, I always say, we we give each other the space and the opportunity

to suck up. That's what it is. We give each other the opportunity up, and we don't turn our backs and we don't run away, and you give each other that. Yeah, But you also sounds like you give each other permission to actually communicate. Yeah, but it starts with it starts with knowing that right now it's not and it's okay, that's right, but that is communication. But this is the thing, so that what she was telling me, she's dumping the clothes on her pill or another woman who said she

started backed up man shaming Gavin. A woman who again said she doesn't want to talk to her spouse about it, but she started an Instagram account called my husband doesn't pick up and so literally she takes pictures of everything that's out of place in their home and she publicly shames him on Instagram. Um, this happened in Japan. Literally,

I don't think peop would believe me. People don't even believe me in BuzzFeed just came out with the Japanese version and the woman got five hundred thousand followers within one week. I guess because she has the Japanese version of the ship my husband doesn't pick up? If this is how we're communicating, right, this is why we're and no husband, right, will you end up a worse do you end up resentful? But when you can actually come to the table and that's why this is I'm so

happy Brooks what you said. I'm literally gonna take that clip and take it with me everywhere. When women say to me, when I go to the out in the country and I interviewed people, and I say, play fair, play, bring read this book together, bring it to the table. Has all the communication tools. It's a system so you know your role, so you understand the expectations. You're setting yourself up for success. And women say to me, well,

I can't. I wouldn't even know how to talk to my spouse about this, even though I wrote, write you the paper lest post. I give you a deck of cards so you can have hard values conversations in a very fun, easy way. Women are still saying to me all over, he wouldn't hear these conversations. He doesn't want to know. I'm resentful, he's tired, he doesn't want to talk about these things. What do you say to women

all over when they're afraid? So I'll say this, man, we can miss a lot men, we can miss a lot. In in my relationship with my wife, I'll miss a lot of things, things that meant something to her. I didn't know that I should have like had a nicer place matt out or I didn't know that that meant something to you. I didn't know that having candles lit when you came home meant something like I'll miss I'll miss a million things in my relationship. But I'll say this.

Men can move mountains when it comes to their significant other when and it's it's select few times they will movecking mountains. For they will. There's they are unstoppable when they want to and when it's when it's brought to them in that So I I apologize I didn't have flowers. I apologize I didn't have But when it comes to it, if something's important to you, I will move mountains. So

I'm sorry it wasn't the dijon. I'm like, but I am here, and sometimes it takes like it's it's sometimes you have to go through a valley to figure that out.

You have to like communications off, things are off and you're not connecting, and then just whatever it is that brings it out, Like I just don't want women to discount their men because their men love them and something there's a reason why whatever it is they're not connecting that their man isn't delivering this because boris you know, being married, when you're super connected to your wife, you're doing every little detailed thing you're like, you get so

much joy out of it, giving her joy. And then when you're not connected to your wife, like really dialed in connected, you're not doing all of those things. But it doesn't mean that we still aren't capable of it and won't move mountains if it's brought to our attention and not in a let me dump laundry on your pillows makes you up, um, But in a way that's communicated, and men are capable. We say this on the show a lot too. I think humans need to work on

the skill of listening. I think it's a powerful thing of the skill of listening. And my wife and I in our relationship, we say, um, listen to understand, don't listen to respond, And I want to read our like our wedding song. I have the lyrics from our wedding song. Just what you were saying about this, um instagra, Graham account stuff he leaves laying around or whatever. Um. This is in our wedding song. It's called all this time by one republic Um. We've got all these words, can't

waste them on another. So I'm straight in a straight line running back to you. And we picked this song because of those words like I can't talk to Gavin about something wrong with my wife, like and and complain to him. I need straight in a straight line back to my wife. I'm not wasting these words on another. They're coming to the my heart, They're coming to my

compass points. I will say that this is what what ended up happening after the book came out it's been out ten days, was that I got over three emails to just info Evrodsky, like not even something that they knew. They had to find my name and men saying I want these communication tools my my partner. I want to play this game. I feel like there's invisible work that I'm doing that my wife doesn't know about. I don't want her to be at RESENTO meter ten. I want

us to bring us down. I wanted to work on our relationship, and I do feel like I feel that way women did to throw away the script that we have written. Thank you. We want you to say that is the biggest thing that women, in my opinion, need to do. We all have that script. If he just did this just said that we have to throw that burden toss. How about also the other thing, The most important thing that I say as a mediator is when emotion is high, cognition is low, do not give feedback

at the moment women men will retreat. That. It is just sort of the pattern I see and all of my my work, ten years of work doing you retreat. Women will go in and they will keep going in and feedback in the moment when you can have emotion is low cognition is high, that's when you have those conversations. But you know what you said, Brooks was phenomenal about moving mountains, because what's so pointing about that is that men are driven by emotional validation. Women are driven by

emotional attention. So what that means is that if we haven't gotten the acknowledgement or the appreciation from our spouse in a while, yeah, because we do move mountains invisible mountains, right, We're moving mountains every single day. So if all we hear is the yap, yap, yap, and never the honey, thank you for this, or wow, this was amazing, we completely One of the biggest things to men is acknowledgement.

They just appreciation. That's how we s that's how we're seeing because I believe, like you, you do ten million things. I'm sure behind the scenes that your wife isn't even aware of it. You made a list. It could be ten times the size of that um. But any little slightest acknowledgement of you're a good man means the world everything, everything, and that could come verbally, it could come in shape of a sandwich. You can come just thank you. I love.

It's huge acknowledgement to a man, he'll move mountains. I can. I tell you something interesting though, that I found though I tried to introduce gratitude into the system. So this the fair place is really about sitting down to talk about your values, about these things in the home that matter. That's what I mean by that is that we're talking about values over garbage. Very similar to what you were saying before, about the fact that this is not about

when we said these small little details. But really it's what I came to the table. You're you're saying to me before about I come as a single mom with all my baggage. You're talking about the years of stuff we bring into our relationship. What happens right when you sit down, and I forced you through this card game to have to have a values conversation over garbage. So I'm not fighting with you and saying just take out the freaking garbage with no acknowledgement. But I say to

my partner, I care about garbage. The reason why I'm stalking you over garbage and why I keep asking if you put the liner back in and seeing if it's if it's spilling over is because I grew up in that single mom household because it was a lower reset in Manhattan, and in the eighties, we didn't have a garbage can, and we had one of those take out that egs and garbage spilled out over onto the floor, and so I was a dehydrated child because if you

turned on the light in my apartment, there'd be water bugs and cockroaches that scattered everywhere. So if I can say to you, I'm triggered by garbage, and that's why I care if garbage goes out. And then my husband when we started communicating better where I wasn't just crying and sobbing over blueberries and not telling him, and he was very generous and wanted to move mountains for me said things to me like, well, I don't value garbage the same way you did. I grew up in a fraternity,

and I lived in the fraternity. I had a Domino's pizza boxes my pillow, and so what happens when we're at different places. What he said to me finally was I care that it means something to you, and I see that it mattered to you because of your childhood and so, but I also care about what's reasonable. What's not reasonable. It is for you not to acknowledge that I'm I am taking out the garbage, for you to stalk me with the garbage liner. But what's reasonable in

our household? And we talked about these types of conversations in the book. What's reasonable is to expect the garbage will go out once a day. Why don't you just make the garbage your task? Well I did. Actually, we readal we redeal what I call the daily grinds, the hard ones that no one you have to hold forever, like dishes or laundry. Yeah, you read deals every week. It's sort of like a staff meeting, and treating the

home like an organization, our most important organization. But when it was his task and he wanted to take that task. We decided what's reasonable for both of us. Garbage goes out at seven pm. He said, I'll put it in my calendar like a work appointment. I will move that now and get that garbage out as long as you never mentioned the word garbage again. And then garbage started going out at seven o'clock in our house. But we had to have a values conversation over garbage. And nobody's

having these conversations because he wouldn't know that. He didn't know he was triggering me. And everybody has triggers like that. And but you have to be able to put him out on the table. And and and I love what Amy said about the script. You've gotta you gotta be flexible enough to change the script once you understand. And people always strote his word out love love language, which is no, no, no, you know what I mean, But

it's but it's it's learning how each person communicates. And then go from there and and stop stop judging and stop what he said, stop changing and man shaming and something that's something that guys just can't we don't we you want to drive a man away, that's you want a man to leave. Yeah, you just all you gotta do is shame him a couple of times. It will never see him again. That's right. Period, he's checked out. What about that guy who's I want to find him.

I want to find the husband who is the recipient of the Yeah, did you know on average, people spend between thirty minutes to an hour in the bathroom every day. Unlester Brooks, who spends five hours and thirty minutes in the bathroom every day. Where we've learned a little bit too much about Brooks in his bathroom habits. But that's

neither here nor there. Native is a brand that creates safe, simple, effective products that people use in the bathroom every day, with trusted ingredients and trusted performance nine thousand five star reviews. So the question is do you like smelling good and feeling clean and confident? Well, who doesn't. Native products don't have aluminum, paarabins and talc. Native products are filled with ingredients found in nature, like coconut oil, shade butter which

is a moisturizer, tapi yoga starts which absorbs wetness. They never tested on animals, and it's free shipping and returns and making the switch to an aluminium free deodorant does not mean having to sacrifice how well it works. Because Native products work, It's worth it. Native is aluminum free, safe and effective, and for off your first purchase. Visit Native Deodorant dot com and use promo code HMT during checkout.

That's HMT, as in How Men Think. Native comes in a wide variety of sense for men and women, with new limited edition seasonal sense throughout the year. They offer an unsended formula and baking soda free formula for those with sensitivities. Coconut and vanilla are the most popular, but ladies, ladies, you will love lavender and rose. I use cucumber and mint and eucalyptus and mint. Native offers free returns and

exchanges in the USA. Off your first purchase, use Native Deodorant dot com and use promo code HMT How Men Think during checkout. Use promo code h m T during checkout. Let's get into more of this, boris you gotta roll? Um? Dude? I also want your mission. I love your mission. I can align with it because you have a fitness app designed to serve people. Yes, I love that you and your wife do it together. The whole family, my brother, myself and his kids, our kids with eight of us,

and we well well really quickly. Covid is a family fitness app that basically, um demystifies workout and nutrition because a lot of people out there extremely intimidated by the fitness industry because they all they speak about is six packs in some abots and a lot of us don't have the money go to gym and don't don't have the time there you go, don't have the time to go to the gym. Um, and our kids have never

been more stationary. Um, they sit in school, they come home to sit on the couch, they play video games, they play with their phones. So this is actually in the history world, this is the first time generation as a as a shorter life expectancy than their parents. So this is this is pretty serious. Uh So, what we're sharing with people, my brother was a pro athlete like myself, and and he is a trainer and a nutritionist and a life coach. And what we are telling people is

we don't want you to climb on everest. We want you to spend five minutes with us every day, and we're gonna make it fun. And we move and we we get the whole family involved. We have kids, we have NFL players, we have terry crews came through, we have active athlete athletes were in wheelchairs and we move five minutes today and it creates a habit. After a while, it creates a how off the habit it's uh, it's it's it's spills out into your day. You have a

sense of accomplishment. You did, your relationships are better, your performance at work is better. Create energy, your energy exactly, um. And it's become this WiFi of a movement where people they send us comments we saved their life, contemplating suicide, reigniting relationships with your family, um, because finally they felt seen and they felt like they're part of something. Because working out an hour and a half is not realistic.

It's not sustainable. And the same with food. When you tell people who love sodas to stop drinking soda, it's not sustainable because they won't do it. But if you say, make an adjustment every day, even if it's just cutting your soda intake by half just one day, right or or I'm not telling you to deprive yourself a food that you love, it's not realistic. And it's not sustainable, but but it is sustainable. It's spending five minutes together as a family having a great time and then creating

habits based on that. So it's a op it app. You can download it on on your in the app store, and we we hang out every single day. We have simple and effective tips on nutrition and work outs, mindfulness. We do yoga, meditation. Yeah, I was just gonna ask you meditation. I want to. I've started to get into more arts, gab we're talking about this. I'm like painting more, listening to like instrumental music, like different things, but meditations

or something that I've never got into. But I don't download. And then when I get up, I don't touch my phone for an hour. As you become when you do, you become reactive rather than active. So I just take care of myself. What's like the fundamental approach to getting started in the meditative sort of capacity. What you do is you start with two minutes and then you you when you're ready, you do five minutes and what and

and the main thing is your stillness. And what has helped me when I first started is focusing on your breathing. And I know that's an abstract sort of word, but what it actually is, you're literally listening to yourself inhale and exhale, and you're you're imagining your lungs expanding and contracting. And that's what you start with, that's what you focus on, because that's that's what what um What calms the noise in your head down, all the thoughts that we have,

It calms everything right down. That is the purpose to have have less essentially to be uh, to have more room to think or to think less, think less. Um. Look, your thoughts are the language of your brain, and your feelings are the language of your body. So your your physical vibration is the manifestation of your emotions. Right, So the goal is to really be in your body, to really feel every your your your bodily functions of people,

the breathing and your heart rate and everything else. And that's what what turns the noise down in your brain and it gives you a capacity to be more present everyday life, sleep good, more energy, better relationships. Do you drink caffeine? Do you drink caffeine? Never have? In our drink none. Just we've been here, well, boris I want to say thank your insights. Um where can they find co fit? You already said on the app store? Where can they find you? Where your Instagram? Right there? Awesome

and we'll put it on our show notes. Everything to you, guys, gotta follow us. I love your insight, man, and thank you. Just respect for you as a human being, just your energy in this room. I can feel you're a great man, a great husband. Appreciate you coming. Thank you. We're gonna wrap this upright here, Boris, You're the man. Appreciate you coming in. But we have so much more to cover Next week. Eve is going to come back to continue

this conversation, one of our biggest polarizing debates. We want to know what you guys at home listening think and if you have any questions. When you have a new voicemail that we will answer your questions from. You can reach us at one eight eight eight four three zero seventeen seventy seven. So let let us know your thoughts, your questions, anything you want Eve to touch on next week one eight zero seventeen seventy seven. And that's it

for this episode. How men think. We always appreciate our listeners coming in Until next week. Take care of one another, love one another, and we'll see you right back here. H