#235 Robert Glover - Brutally Honest Advice For Men in Their 20s

Every Sunday in the past I would read the last week's pages that I wrote and it's funny , even just over a week you can watch the ups and downs you have , how your mood shifts , how you go from being stressed to grateful . It's interesting just to go back and just do a review . Believe in therapy enough that you're going to be a therapist , get therapy .

In men it doesn't finish developing to about 25 years old . That's why our car insurance goes down at 25 . We quit doing so many stupid things because our reasoning brain is working better . But the part of our brain that's completely online at birth is down on the brain stem , down here the amygdala .

It manages survival , it regulates heart rate , respiration and it activates a fight , flight , freeze , parasympathetic nervous system , that part that we need to survive if threatened . And so when we come into the world , that's fully , 100% online .

Which means most of our experiences with the world in the first few days , weeks , months , years of our life are pretty much regulated through pretty primitive parts of our brain , including this amygdala down on the brainstem . The reasoning parts of our brain aren't even close to fully developed in adolescence .

In adolescence it seems like what happens for humans is that , you know , we have our basic temperament that we're born with . You know , every child pops out uniquely . If you have siblings , you know you're probably different from each of them . If you talk to any parent that's had more than one kid , you ask them did the two kids pop out the same ?

No , nothing alike . So we come out with the natural temperament . That kind of kind of sets the baseline for then what gets written on top of it through our experiences and our temperament will often filter and influence how we interpret the things we're experiencing .

So , like one child may experience a parent that's not real attentive and be just fine , another child will experience a non-attentive parent and be highly anxious . And so we're all different in the way that we're going to interpret our life experiences .

You can have two or three kids in the same family and say maybe you've got an alcoholic parent and you've got three kids in that family . All three of those kids are going to deal with that context of the alcoholic family system differently . One of the kids may become an alcoholic . One may never touch alcohol in their lifetime .

You know , one just kind of maybe scoots on through like it never happened . You know it's just , and the temperament determines birth order . I mean there's several factors that go into that , but what happens is as these things get written on our brain , in our emotional operating system , which is also part of that amygdala .

It doesn't restore memory up in picture memory or verbal word memory . It stores things up in emotional memory . What was our emotional experience of the non-intentive parent being hungry and not being fed ? The addictive parent what was our emotional experience ?

That then becomes our machine language , the operating language that all the apps in our brain run on top of . And so we come into childhood and we hit adolescence where actually we try on a lot of things during our teenage years , but it's still primarily based on you know what , what , what is our temperament and and internalized emotional reactions to things .

And then they get kind of solidified through adolescence . So we come into early adulthood and our personality at early adulthood 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 years old is pretty well set . It's probably not going to dramatically change after that . Now are there things we can work on ? Yeah , of course we . You know we can go work .

Of course we , you know we can go work on our early traumas , you know , in many different ways . We can work on releasing shame that we've stored up Well . We can work on challenging self-limiting beliefs . So there's a lot of things we can work on , but our basic personality is going to be pretty well set by early adulthood .

that I am today ? This mirror , saying like because of the things that have happened to me , is just the way that I am today , and it's almost like this kind of battle you almost have to have to kind of unwind , being like these events are events and now we can actually action and work on them .

So do you , do you see that quite common that guys will , or women will even say you know , this happened to me , yeah , and now I'm like this . But how do we ? How do we not use it as an excuse like , how do we internalize it ?

Because even it's not even conscious sometimes this could be subconscious , right , and I've even observed and I've seen people kind of like that who've gone through really rough shit you know , just assume most of this is unconscious .

And again , I've been a therapist for 40 years and I've been to plenty of therapy and I'm 68 years old and I'm still exploring myself and , you know , enjoying coming to understand myself better .

And because we can't know what's in the unconscious , but the unconscious does leave clues , right , it'll things we react strongly to is a real good clue behaviors we keep repeating things , we keep avoiding our self-limiting beliefs .

Um , the unconscious leaves a lot of clues and probably the people closest to us in our life have a better idea of what's in our unconscious than we do . You know they . They see those clues probably better than we do . They see us when we're controlling . They see us when we get overly analytical . They see us when we go into a depression .

They see us when we fall back into addictive behaviors . You know they see all that . We're in the middle of it . It's kind of like we're in the washing machine , being spun by the washing machine and think this is normal . And it isn't until we step outside of the washing machine and watch it spin that we can go .

Well , that's kind of interesting , and so what I really what I try to do in my own personal work and what I encourage people to do is just get curious .

You know , when things come up and you go hmm , that's interesting , why do I keep repeating that pattern , or why do I keep attracting this kind of person to me , or why do I react so strongly to that kind of event ? And just get curious . And that's different . I think that's different than getting overly analytical , which we guys tend to do .

You know , we can get caught up in that paralysis of analysis , trying to just pull everything apart . Curiosity is just going hmm , I wonder what that's about . I wonder what story this is telling me about me , right ?

So like we're having a reaction to our wife or a girlfriend or a kid or a business partner , and maybe we seem to keep having those similar reactions and it's easy to blame the other person for triggering our reaction . Well , it's their fault , they're doing X , y or Z , but we keep reacting in the same way and that's when we go . Hmm , that's interesting .

What story is this reaction telling me about me ? Now , we may uncover things . We may not . It may come up in dreams , it may come up in therapy , it may come up in journal writing . It may come up later on in life . We get more information and better clues about stuff .

But I like to think of it as just putting a puzzle together . If you put a big jigsaw puzzle together and you can see the cover of the box of what it's going to look like , but how about we throw the lid away so we don't know what it's supposed to look like ?

And you know we're putting these pieces together and know that we'll probably never get the puzzle all put together . That explains everything of why we do what we do when we do it , and that's OK . It's just a journey , it's an unfolding , it's an uncovering .

You often hear it's a peeling back of the layers of the onion and you just keep again in my 60s , I'm still just discovering new things about me . Just recently I've been looking at how I still , like most people , give away my sense of freedom and personal autonomy .

You know either by you know getting stuck into commitments that now I have to manage and stay in , or where there's avoiding conflict with my partner , or you know , I just won't do that because it might upset her . If I do so , I'll just eh , and I'm still looking .

I've been looking at that for a while and it still kind of keeps surfacing of wow , I just have this natural tendency . One of my favorite books is called the Wisdom of no . That's another one , wisdom of no , escape .

The other one is Escape from Freedom , and it was written after World War II by a psychiatrist , and basic premise is we humans are terrified of being free . We're terrified of being untethered , unrestrained . So we will tether ourselves to things , whether it be relationship .

I often joke that I get into a relationship and I put a handcuff around my wrist , put it on my partner's wrist , give her the key and then blame her because I don't have my freedom anymore , and so that's a pretty natural thing . And we can tether ourself to trying to be successful , making money , trying to get the approval of parents or friends .

We can tether ourself to debt , we can tether ourself to addiction , we can tether ourself to religion , all these things that we do so that we don't have to live completely independent and free , make our own decisions and live with the consequences of those decisions and not know does everybody else agree with that . So that's the thing I keep exploring is okay .

I think maybe this is pretty much a human nature thing . I give away my freedom and every time I do I pay a price . There's a consequence , but there's also prices to be paid for pursuing freedom and independence and differentiation .

So , to kind of go back to your question , to me this is just fun stuff that we get to explore and , yeah , a lot of this will take us to maybe old trauma . And I tell people all the time we can be victimized without being a victim . We can get hurt without wearing that as a badge or carrying that as an identity .

An example I'll give is that back when I was in private practice working with men and women and just all kinds of different situations , I worked with a lot of people that did have childhood trauma , maybe childhood physical abuse , childhood sexual abuse , and that , you know , usually lends to a lot of therapeutic work .

And what I experienced was people tend to deal with that trauma in two different ways . Some deal with it is that this happened , it was painful , it was scary , you know , and it happened . Right . That's it . The others are . This happened , this was terrible . I'll never get over this . This is who I am .

This is my identity now and the kind of analogy I'll give is maybe you were seven years old and you fell off the jungle gym in the schoolyard at school and you broke your arm right .

All right , that's going to hurt and if it's dealt with , if you go to a doctor , if it's set , you can wear a cast , and maybe you got to use knitting needles to scratch yourself , but your friends all sign the cast and the arm heals and you go on and you have a healthy life Now . You broke your arm , but it's not who you are , it's not your identity .

It was painful , it was trauma and if it was handled right , the likelihood is it'll heal and it will never bother you again . But what if you fell off the jungle gym , broke your arm and that became your identity Now that every story you tell to every therapist , to every new partner , to every dinner party ? I fell off the jungle gym when I was seven .

It was the most terrible experience of my life and I'm forever wounded because I fell off and broke my arm and that becomes an identity that personally , as a therapist working with those kinds of people , I never found a way through . I never found a way . It was like they were determined to hold on to . This is who I am versus .

This happened to me and it was painful , or it was scary , or you know , and so we , in a way , I believe we get to choose . You know , do we get to handle these things like it happened and it sucked , and it maybe is one of the reasons I am where I am today , so I'm grateful for it or this happened , it sucked .

I'll never be whole , I'll never be the same . I mean , there's two different ways we can deal with it .

It feels like to me that those earlier experiences there's so much of that ruminating brain that goes on that at the point of addressing it in their 20s or 30s or 40s , it's almost like they have built up so many miniature stories that , like you know , robert or robert or jim or stacy could never understand , right , that's the .

That's almost like the logic in the brain which is like they don't understand what I've been through . But of course there's different ways to to frame that and use it . And I've definitely even looked at as well in terms of . You know , I come from ireland . There's a deep history of alcoholism abuse . It's very common ,

right ?

I , just when I moved to asia , I was like I think alcohol is kind of stupid to some degree . Of course there's moderation , whatnot , but the excessiveness that I was obviously doing , uh , was too much . Right , it's just too much . It's just too much .

And overall but you've made some amazing points and over this and it's it's we need to kind of dive into different elements . I kind of want to start going to the therapy and we're just kind of bouncing ideas around . Right , I know you mentioned a lot of people go through therapy . I've actually gone back to therapy , uh , so I was in .

I just you'll find it's quite interesting so myself and my fiance being together like five years , almost five years , and I was super stressed . I was working in a tech job , you know , I was like 24 years old . I was managing like 40 people , all this , the usual stuff , right , and I was like super irrational , just like abrasive , and so on and so forth .

And then she was like , look , if you go to therapy , I'll help you . And at the time I was like , oh yeah , like I'm stressed , but the stress was obviously symptomatic . There was obviously a deeper level , but it helped , it was fantastic . And I will say it was great and it was online and so on .

And then two years later , a lot of those kind of earlier experiences of like PTSD have kind of started to come back up .

And then I've gone back to therapy and it's been super helpful for me because it's almost like getting a non-biased opinion is how I describe , you know , and sometimes like they , you know they're not going to tell you to ring this person or call that person , but it's a non-biased opinion . So it's been very helpful for me . Why do you ?

Do you think there's still a stigma around therapy for men and what will be your logic around that in terms of how it could truly help people ?

I like hearing that I don't really identify the work I do nowadays as being a therapist . I do too many things to just limit myself to that , but I believe in therapy . I remember having a professor in graduate school . He said if you believe in therapy enough that you're going to be a therapist , get therapy .

And yeah , I think getting my own therapy years ago was probably went a long way to making me a better therapist than getting a PhD in therapy , you know maybe practice it , you know , because , again , as we do our own work , it helps us better understand the work other people are doing around us .

And you know , in terms of a stigma , I don't know if the stigma is so much around therapy I've actually I've seen a couple headlines recently of that kind of Generation X , for whatever reason , really seems to be open to therapy that it's not stigmatizing . For people , you know , now in their late teens or into their 20s , it doesn't seem to have that stigma .

What I think might be more stigmatizing is not so much saying , oh , I'm going to therapy or I've got a friend in therapy or you know somebody I respect's in therapy . I think where we men really get hung up is around vulnerability and shame . On my men's program I have a guest every month where I get to interview people .

This Thursday I'm interviewing Mark Manson , so I'm really excited about that Awesome .

That's amazing Well done and last month I interviewed a guy named Robert Augustus Masters who wrote a book called About a man and he's 10 years older than I am , so he's been doing this work for a long time and he said that he thinks the most difficult emotion for men to deal with is shame , toxic shame , the sense that I'm unlovable , I'm defective , I'm not

good enough , I'll be found out . And I can relate to that . When I for a long time not even just going to therapy , getting a coach of any kind , getting guitar lessons , getting golf lessons , getting a coach I always felt some sense of I should already be good at this . You know why . You know , oh , if I make a mistake , you know that's . That's not good .

And that came from growing up in a fundamental religion , a critical father . You know a lot . It made me that way . My critical dad made me that way .

It did play into it , of course , where but that seems to be the biggest struggle for men is to take the vulnerability of feeling vulnerable , you know , of releasing shame , and that's one reason why I began my personal work of recovery in a 12-step group that was all men . I later got into another men's group I was in for four or five years .

I was in that group when I wrote no More , mr Nice Guy . I've been in a men's program now for five years . When I got married again about seven and a half years ago , uh , living in Mexico , kind of socially isolated , I realized I I still need a group of men .

And uh , what I find is that if you could get men in a safe group , safe environment , one guy opens up . I do workshops here in my house , right here in this office that you're looking at . I can get eight guys in here and we'll start Friday night . It'll be Friday night , saturday , sunday , friday night . We just spend three hours getting to know each other .

Why did we come here ? Why did we fly to Puerto Vallarta ? What do we want to get out of it ? What do

we want to be different ? When we leave and I tell you what , as one person kind of opens up and shares a little bit , the next person gets more vulnerable . Then one person shares about his pornography addiction . Then another one shares about their struggle with pornography .

Then one person talks about their struggle with alcohol , and then the next one talked about how they quit drinking , you know , 20 years ago , and all of a sudden , these guys just open up and get real and start taking chances .

And then , like a lot of times , saturday morning we'll get started and a guy will say something Can I say something more that I didn't share last night and it's all night long .

I should have said that I should and they'll share it and maybe start crying because you know he's never told anybody and I've just found it is so amazingly powerful when , when people say , well , men just don't show their emotions or men just bullshit , bullshit , you get men in a safe environment with other men that are being real , sharing who they are , being

vulnerable , feeling that , putting their shame out there . Well , how are people going to judge me if they know I can't quit looking at porn ? How are people going to judge me if they know I'm in a financial crisis and I think I'm going to have to file bankruptcy ?

How will people judge me if they know I've never had sex and I'm you know , I'm 30 years old ? That's shame that you know this fear of being known . So I don't know if the stigma really is that . So much around therapy per se , but it is challenging for men to take that first step , to be known .

And again , if I found , if I can get them in a group of other guys , you know , and if just one man is open and vulnerable , it's just like it is . Is that is uh , it is , you know , it's , it's epidemic .

You know that other people start doing the same thing and I tell these guys they come to a weekend workshop and I'll say you're looking around the room here friday night wondering who is each of these person ? You , you're , you're , you're , you're already stacking everybody up . You're judging each other . Who are you going to like ? Who do you think's a dick ?

Who reminds you of somebody you don't like ? You know , you know why is that guy even here ? Oh yeah , I wish he'd quit talking . You know all that goes on Friday night and I said , by the time you leave here Sunday , you're going to feel like you've been frat brothers for 20 years .

And it happens , the guys will , you know , they'll go out Friday night , saturday night , connect by Sunday . You know they hate to leave . They stick around another day and still do stuff together . They'll get on , you know , texting app and they'll stay connected . They'll start doing Zoom calls together .

They'll continue , you know , once a month , twice a month , calls with each other . I've got guys who did workshops with me five and six years ago and the guys in the workshop are still in touch with each other on a regular basis . Some even travel , you know , to foreign countries to go be with these people they met at a workshop .

And if you go back to the jigsaw analogy , this is why , like the personal development , pursuit in many ways is never ending because you never fix the entire puzzle together , but you're still moving forward and that can be a blessing and a curse for some people .

I think someone who's a bit more type a might be like I want this to be complete , but by the end of the weekend .

It's just like I really enjoy going to the gym , I enjoy this workout , that workout , and so on and so forth . So it's almost you forget about the end goal . But I think the only bit of like criticism that comes in from people and this is definitely in like an irish uk culture is when that person isn't willing to identify the change .

So they're like I don't need therapy , fuck that , I just couldn't have a few beers with the boys , or I can go to the gym . Or like the red pill community is literally like don't go to therapy , go to the gym . And like I've gone to the gym for 14 years and I can tell you that I still need to go to therapy , right ?

So it's just an interesting observation , right , to see that it's just people who are willing to make the change move the most often in society , right , and I want to go into the shame element again and go a little bit deeper into the validation and the , the sense of approval .

Um , I find that , like a lot of high achievers um , you know why they've got to that point is almost that sense of they're looking for that validation , approval . Maybe it could be a mother , a father and so on and so forth .

Um , and sometimes that can be a bit of a bit of a problem , because the pursuit that they're on is different than what , let's say , their parents thought that they were going to be .

Let's say , their parents want them to be a doctor and they ended up being like an entrepreneur , making micro , making , semiconductor chips in like japan , right , it's like something very very different , so they still don't have the validation . Does that make sense ? It's like they don't understand and , as a result , there's that kind of gap .

How do you think about that ? Because I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs just keep pushing and pushing . I come on the show and there's not really an end goal in sight . Sometimes do you want to launch a podcast for your business , but you don't know where to start .

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Um , one may be , you know , in , in the part of the world you're in , you may see this um , you know , I , I work with a lot of men from all over the world and it's interesting when I see people in asian culture , and especially india , pakistan and china is that .

But it's saying , and here's the parents , especially in a certain cast , let's say , say , indian men , you know their parents , you know , you know you're going to get straight a's , you're going to go to stanford , harvard , mit , you're going to be a doctor , you're going to be an engineer and you're going to , you know , give us bragging rights .

You know to , you know , to your , to your cousin . You know to all the people we know , oh , ash raj , you know he went to stanford or he . You know to all the people we know , oh , ash Raj , you know he went to Stanford or he . You know he works for Google , he's vice president at Google , whatever .

And you know , because it's India , you got to be a doctor and engineer because the British built all their universities around doctors and engineering , medicine and engineering .

And you know , I've worked with enough Indian men that say you know , and then , so we got to do that to keep them happy , and then they expect to retire and that we'll take care of them . And I've asked enough Indian men about what age do your parents expect to retire ? And you take care of them . About 45 . Like what the fuck ? And ? And you know .

But that is so ingrained in the culture you know , especially the the Indian and Pakistani men that come to the U ? S or or the UK or Europe , and they see a different culture that doesn't have what's called that fusion where you have to follow the rules of the family because that's what you were told to do since you were little and your whole culture .

You know that can be difficult to break out of that . So I had one client , a young client , years ago , pakistani heritage , living in the US , and his dad .

He had to go to medical school and the young guy was in college but he wasn't actually going to any classes because he wanted to be a musician and he was pretty talented musically and it took about three years of working with this young guy before he ever got around to telling his father dad , I'm not really even going to college and and he , he was literally

afraid his father would kill him , literally kill him , if he wasn't , you know , going to college , to pre-med to , to go to med school . Um , I've told , I have enough . Indian people have told me that , for example , that they may be successful entrepreneurs and that brings shame to their family .

They're a businessman making good money , but their family's embarrassed because they're not a doctor or an engineer at a prestigious institution . My COO for my company , integration Nation , is in Pune , india , and he has an MBA . And I remember asking I said Sid , I said , were you an embarrassment to your parents when you got an MBA ?

And he said no , my dad has a PhD in economics . And I go , oh , so he was an embarrassment to his father . And my colleague's mother has a PhD in English . So you know they'd already broken all those molds , but those can be hard to break so we can have cultural , familial influence that if you don't do this , you're an embarrassment to the family .

You know , maybe , where you come from . If you're not an alcoholic , you're an embarrassment to the family . What You're , too good for us to drink .

I mean , I'm connected , I know what's going on in the world , um , but I just didn't watch it . And guys are like , have you watched this podcast ? And then once I kind of started getting on some podcasts that you know where people would say , oh yeah , you're , you're going to be on .

You know Chris Williamson , I go , who's he , you know , and I go , oh okay . So I started watching more and more of these kind of podcasts for kind of your audience young entrepreneur , entrepreneurs , gym bros , body hacks , longevity , fitness .

You know Peter Atiyah , chris Williamson , stephen Bartlett , you know got all these guys that just you know just really good at what they do , really good programs , and I'll watch when they interview a lot of these kind of well-known names in the world of success marketing .

You know click funnel building , you know 10Xing your business , and I'll listen to these people that so many guys like your age just have on a pedestal because you know they've you know they've built and launched three different billion dollar companies by the time they're 28 , or whatever .

You know , whatever you know , they're bringing in $100,000 a week with their ClickFunnels and I get that . That gives them a lot of cred . But I'll listen to these guys . I won't name names , but I'll listen to them and I'll go . I don't fucking want their life . I don't want their life Because this isn't that .

These guys and even I even heard one of them explain it , and and who's highly successful and highly respected I've got no criticism , other than I wouldn't want to be him .

It's that not only are you pursuing a goal , something you want to accomplish , you're also running from this thing that scares you to fucking death , that you don't want it to catch up with you and devour you . That is insecurity , that is fear , that's shame , that's being fear of being found out , that's fear of not being good enough , not having approval .

So I'm I'm not , I'm not a big fan of goal setting . I think they can be good short-term starters to kind of get you going in that direction . I think people tend to have greater success with more of an inside out . I desire this , so I'm going to surround myself with people that will help me get there .

When I wanted to learn to meditate , meditate consistently , about eight months ago I hired a meditation coach and I got a hundred consecutive days of meditation and I'd never done it before . Was it my goal to go a hundred days ? No , but I just wanted to learn , I wanted to get regular with it .

And about three , four months ago in one of my workshops here , I said you know , I'd kind of done a fitness challenge , an eight week fitness challenge , and you know I'd kind of done a fitness challenge , an eight-week fitness challenge , and you know , I saw some good results and I thought I need to carry on .

And so I mentioned in one of my workshops I need to get a nutrition coach . Two guys raised their hand . I've got one . It's two different people . I connected with one that has a master's in gerontology , so they primarily work with like old guys with me , that like me , who still want to accomplish and still want to , you know .

And so what I found is , if I have a goal that I'm going to do X , y or Z I'll also often find myself sabotaging myself , but if I just get a coach that gets me on a program and I check in regularly , doesn't matter whether it's around nutrition . And now my coach is starting to get me , you know , around .

You know specific exercise plans that help , you know , maximize my testosterone at this age and reduce belly fat . You know all that good stuff . I mean , I've been in and out of these kinds of things through my lifetime . But , you know , at the age I'm at now , I want 20 more good years of doing what I do .

I got to take care of this container , want 20 more good years of doing what I do . I got to take care of this container . Right ? So I , instead of setting goals or running away from something , I just go .

You know , where is it that I want to be , how is it I want to live my life and who do I have to surround myself with to have the highest chance of succeeding at that ? And so I don't think I'm running from anything , that I'm scared of it catching me and kind of showing to the world look , how defective he really is .

So I don't know , I don't know how to bring all that together , but what I really see is that , especially if you know , because your generation grew up with three days old , your parents put a smartphone in your hand to entertain you . You grew up with yeah , quite literally . I know you grew up feeding on information . My son is 10 years older than you .

He'll have to be 39 in a couple of weeks . He even he grew up , you know , at teen years

. We got broadband internet . You grew up with high-speed internet . You're consumers of information in your generation . You've got the best information out there and you consume it and you take it in .

But , kind of going back to something you mentioned earlier that you were saying to me , there's all this information about your body hacks and your business hacks and being an entrepreneur and a digital nomad and all this stuff . But guys are struggling with stuff , with friendship , with love with you know , sexual insecurity , you know , and it just makes us normal .

That's all normal . So , even though you've grown up with tons of information , more information isn't always the answer to get you where you want to go , and I often tell people you probably already have enough information to make whatever changes you need to make to significantly impact your life .

But it's easy to keep being a funnel to information and that's where I think again , kind of going back to what we're talking about before just getting into a group and being open and being vulnerable , you know , not sharing information . Oh , yeah , I saw this podcast . I saw that podcast .

Well , I was reading this article , I just finished this book or I went to that seminar . No , not that . Just talking about , yeah , I don't always get it up with my girlfriend . Oh really , yeah , sometimes I come too quickly . Uh , sometimes I say , oh man , sometimes I can't come at all .

You know , I don't want to let her know that I can't , I can't , I can't come with her , unless I'm thinking about something I saw in porn . You know , you get guys starting to get real about that shit .

Then I don't know that it matters that we 10 X our business , right , I think we start finding a happiness and contentment within ourselves that lets us flourish and and live a purposeful , meaningful life without constantly chasing that next 10x of our business and and there's so much different ways to see like how that's kind of happened , like what I'd like to say

is that we already have all the answers inside of us .

At the same time , I am one-on-one prime case to keep pushing , pushing , pushing , like at 28 . I've hit some good milestones in the business . It's grown quite a lot , but the podcast , personally , fitness wise . So I've done a lot of good things . But I've known , and I know that when we get to the new milestone , it's this isn't for like a happiness stage .

It's like we're doing it uh , like at a metric level , for maybe for the business , maybe for like the potential future . Maybe there's other aspects here , but I'm not doing it specifically to be happier . Does that make sense ? Like drawing it .

This is so interesting to have your perspective on this , because you know one narrative of marketing and I'm a internet marketer at the end of the day , right ?

bigger , a bigger boat , a bigger , better Rolex and so on and so

forth . It's the opportunity costs and the fear of missing out , of not being inside that segment , whereas , like for a lot of people , even if they're further on their career , they might just think that , like , if you get more out of it , if you get a little bit more out , that's where you're going to be better .

And I saw a great hormosi uh post on this recently which was like he said he spoke to a billionaire and the billionaire looked at him and was like alex , if I just had more money I'd be happy , because he's surrounded by billionaires who have 10x more money than him .

Yeah , and the irony was just that it's like we know this , but it's like we don't know the repercussions at a lower level of the friendships and relationships and really what's being built . I think that's what you really allude to .

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And I like to tell this little story about , about , you know , because you know the buddha taught that that attachment was a cause of all suffering . So so , basically , longing and desire is suffering , and you know .

But you know we live in a world like no , you do desire that nicer watch , that nicer , nicer car , that nicer vehicle , that bigger click funnel , yeah , and it's all about desire . Well , you know , I didn't make this up , buddha didn't make it up . We will suffer .

The attachment to an emotionalized attachment to any specific outcome will lead to suffering and the getting of things is not going to relieve our suffering . So the story I tell is that when I bought this house back here in Puerto Vallarta , you know we started . You know it is an older home , it hadn't been well taken care of for a while .

So you know , we just have been redoing stuff as we go and , and you know , early on we kind of cleaned out the front yard , just right behind those windows there , and you know , we were just , you know getting new plants and pots and just , and we went to one of those statuary places you know , a concrete place , like with bird baths or tigers or you know

stuff like that and there was these concrete statues of Buddha , the kind of sitting lapping Buddha with the big belly , and I thought I want one of those in my front garden , and you know they're concrete , one of those in my front garden , and you know they're concrete , they're heavy , you know , and and you know we had to we're on a budget , trying to decide

where we're going to spend our money . So I remember for a couple months thinking I really want one of those Buddhist statues and I'm not even Buddhist and and I even told my wife , I said I don't know how I'm going to explain this one to my mother , who's fundamental Christian , and she said , oh , you can blame it on me .

I go , yeah , she's going to believe that that my Catholic wife wanted a Buddha in the front yard . But yeah , and so we went back to that statuary place and they go oh , we can deliver it , you know no big . And I go okay , I want the Buddha . So you know we'll deliver it in like two days . So two days later I bought it . I'm so excited .

I already knew where I was going to put that statue . So they bring it . I said , right there , they put it there . So now it's in my garden , it's in my front yard .

I stand back and I look at that Buddha statue that I've been thinking about for a couple of months and I look at it and I go I'm not any happier than I was before I got it , and I thought it took the Buddha to teach me that that getting the Buddha statue wasn't going to make .

Now still though I mean , that's been a few years ago and I , just today , I kind of came through the front gate and looked over and there's Buddha sitting there , just still as always , and I thought I'm glad I've got that Buddha statue . So it didn't bring me happiness . Now am I glad I have it ? Yeah , I am glad I have it , and so it's okay to be

glad . You have the things you have in your life . You see a shirt you like yeah , I like that new shirt . Or the car you like . If you like the car , enjoy the car , just know that you can enjoy the car , but it ain't going to be the source of your happiness . I enjoy my vehicles .

I've got a 17-year-old Mercedes ML63 AMG parked at my mother's house up in Seattle . It's a fast , beautifully built car . It's over $ hundred thousand dollars new . I got it for 14,000 three years ago and it's only got 108,000 miles on it and , and you know it'll last , it'll last longer than me .

I love getting in that car and driving it and , and so I'm glad I have it . Um , but it's not my identity and I don't depend on it for my happiness . So , um , um , love , happiness , contentment , joy these are all internal pieces . We don't find them outside of ourselves , we find them inside ourselves .

So you can be at peace and joyful and content and happy and build an amazingly big business , because you know that the business is not going to give you the joy , the happiness , but if you're joy and happy and content , you can build a big business , or you can go backpack around Europe or you can , you know , go write a book , and and I I think , once

we've found that contentment and joy and happiness inside , the doors are open to do anything , and I'm also a big fan . If you're going to do it , do it well , do it well . I love doing things masterfully . I'm building a company now . You know , in my sixties , that I'm way over .

I'm swimming in way deeper water than I've ever been in terms of running a company and it stresses me , but I'm having a blast . I'm so glad . You know , some days I wake up and go what the hell was I thinking ?

But you know , for the most part I'm really , really enjoying it and I see the difference it makes in the world and I like knowing that , and so you know this stuff we got to find it on the inside . Getting it on the outside isn't the answer .

Yeah , like where I want to be in my 60s , exactly where you are now , like healthy , fit , building stuff , making shit , breaking stuff , putting things together , looking at , looking at the buddha how much fun those things right , yeah , how much fun what's ? what's the alternative ?

Right as in , like the alternative is that you just sit there and accept it , but I think there's a there's a line that I need to draw , like looking at myself , which is like looking , not looking to over optimize everything , uh , and I think this is actually interesting , like I think it's part of we can kind of tie this into another area , but it's like ,

for me , what I kind of struggle with is I don't want to do things half-assed , as you point out out , and therefore , as a result , if I'm not doing it fully , then I may as well not be doing it . I'll give you another example . So bodybuilder moved into endurance running and it was funny , that's an odd combination , by the way . A hundred percent .

But what's even funnier is you know people say it's a marathon , not a sprint . It's actually . That's actually actually not true . The second you go down the marathon funnel , you realize that the marathon is a sprint and it is a race , and it's about your time and it's about your heart rate .

So , again , similar to you , I got coaches , all this kind of stuff . I was up to my eyeballs and coaches physiotherapists are in the house every single day . And then I got dengue .

However , what I'm just trying to say is I almost sapped the love out of it for myself , but I also enjoy the level of detail that's in it , though this is where it's really weird for me , because it's like I liked that I was working my times down , but it was really tough and it was really strenuous and I had to get physiotherapy like twice a day , but at

the same time , do I lose the love for it ? My future wife , who's type b personality and we can kind of bend into relationships this way too she's type b and she's much more like . Can you not just enjoy going for a run ? And I'm like I actually can if I'm looking to do it really well ?

No , I went from hating school in high school to kind of liking it in college , to liking it more in grad school and then really enjoying it with my PhD . So I enjoyed it . So I kept doing it really . So that's really what it was . So , no , I enjoyed it , so I kept doing it really . So that's really what it was .

So , no , I'm , I'm not a type A , I'm , I'm . I'm not a a high achiever , hyper achiever , but , like I said , I'm an overachieving type B . I'm like your fiance . Yeah , you know , I'm going to go for a run . You know I want to enjoy it and I can get in that place .

I was running 10 Ks when I was in graduate school till , you know , got runner's knee and you know , back then didn't have the science that they have nowadays of teaching you how to run .

Well , type A people , you do enjoy things in a different way than the type B is , and you're gonna go do it , you're gonna accomplish something , and you know , and move on to the next shiny thing , and that's okay . That's okay , and believe me , I'm never going to criticize anybody that if they decide to do something , decide to do it well .

So yeah , have fun with it . Now , recognizing , though , things like dengue fever because you and I were talking , my wife's had it as well Some of these things are a gift that come

along . I almost died about seven years ago Nobody can figure this out , but I had a tumor blocking my small intestine and I went to doctors here in Mexico , doctors up in the United States . I got undiagnosed , misdiagnosed ulcers , you know , spastic colon , impacted colon , this . I went to acupuncture , you know , for three . I lost over 30 pounds .

I was in misery all the time . I could hardly eat , um , couldn't use , couldn't shit . At fact , after the surgery my doctor said I don't know how he was eating or shitting , and this is all in Spanish . My wife said he wasn't , because I wasn't . I was living off my wife's chicken soup and insure . That's all I could get down .

And I knew it was killing me . I really knew it was . I didn't know what was killing me . A doctor in the state said it might just be . You know some Mexican bug that I had to outlive . Well , I wasn't going to outlive it . Now , luckily , found the right doctor here in Puerto Vallarta . He did , ran the right test . He found the problem .

He said you have a tumor , we need to take it out . It could kill you . So give me 48 hours , let me go hide the porn . So that's a joke , you know . Let me at least get everything you know in order , where everybody knows what my accounts are . And my brother-in-law says can I have the Krispy Kreme gift card that I gave you last month ?

I go , yeah , it's yours if I die . So got the surgery and you know , like , like you were saying I'm , I'm , I'm playing on house money now , right , everything's gravy for me . I should have died seven years ago . So I love living life . Know that .

You know I'm , I'm in overtime , you know , and everything I do already exceeds , you know , what I was put here to do and exceeds , you know , any expectations . So I like living like that . So , yeah , I , I like what you're doing , you know . Okay , if you're going to go to the gym , hey , let's do it . Like you know , I'm bringing my A game , you know .

If you're going to run . Why not run ? Well Again , it's kind of an odd combination for a bodybuilder to start running marathons , but you know why not ? Why not ?

And even before this walk like six , seven I was going for a walk and I was like you know , you need to be able to to almost like relax and enjoy the process , right , even like even our conversation today . So I think you know , even I messaged you before I'm being like my mic broke , yeah , and just like fixing that at seven o'clock in the morning .

It's just , I don't know , sometimes we get , sometimes I and this is like such a an internal discussion is like I can overlook the lesson by just focusing on the problem or the process and , as a result , I missed the lesson and then I'm 28 and I've welcome to the club .

But I know I can go in and register where I've been . So it's been a big thing for me to be at the document , which I kind of advise people to document a lot of their journeys , especially the entrepreneurial journey , because it's really it's , it's a . I always say that entrepreneurship is a journey of self-discovery , disguising the path , path for profitability .

I've heard him reference that , where she just about doing morning pages , tim Ferriss does them . I've heard him reference that where she just says write three pages every morning , doesn't matter what you write , you're not trying to figure anything out , you just write three pages religiously every morning .

And I was already doing journaling with no real goal to it before I came across this course , the program . A friend of mine was teaching the course and had me as a guest speaker and I thought , well , I better read the book . I'm going to come on on this course and be the guest , a guest speaker and I thought well , I'm already many chance it was not .

It was not .

Sometimes it's about what I'm feeling , sometimes it's about what I'm grateful for , sometimes it's what I'm pissed off at my wife about . It could be , you know , anything .

And when I sit down to write I don't know what I'm about to write , but I know I'm going to write three pages and so even just doing when you mentioned having your series of podcasts to document where you've been one of the things and I don't do this every week , but I should I'm going to put a should on myself because when I've done it , it's meaningful .

Every Sunday in the past , I would read the last week's pages that I wrote and it's funny , even just over a week . You can watch how the ups and downs you have , how your mood shifts , how you go from being stressed to grateful . I you know it's interesting just to go back and just do a review .

Just it gives you a good perspective , because I want you know . I wonder , like , why do I wake up some mornings feeling overwhelmed ? Why do I wake up some mornings excited ? Why do I wake up some mornings sad ? Why do I wake up some mornings just lethargic and I don't know ? I think maybe that's just part of being human .

I think maybe we just wake up in different . If we woke up every day it'd be like Groundhog Day , it would be the same . But writing those three morning pages can let me watch . I can wake up in different states and it's okay . And if I read that at the end of the week it reminds me when I wake up Monday in this state , that's okay .

And maybe Tuesday's a different state , well , that's okay , because the next day might be a whole different state , that's okay . I've been there . That's life . So I really recommend , you know , especially for high achievers , do those three more , because it's coming out of the artist's way . She works with creatives actors .

She was an actor herself , so you know writers , so it's a powerful tool to maybe get you out of that analytical . You know A equals B . You know , I call it first

order change you do A , b is going to happen . Second order change is you do something radically different and you don't know what's going to happen . That's when life really gets interesting . So I'd really recommend that the morning pages to your people , listening your listeners .

It's just a way of just kind of getting to know yourself and just kind of track , track your life , tracking your inner states .

I think that's the you need to have , the detachment from the activity , and that's why just sitting at the side of the street , you know , just having like an ice cream with your partner , is like one of the best moments you're going to have , right lovely fact that , because it's just like there's no end in sight , there's no goal , there's no objective .

You're just chilling . You know , and you probably had no exact same feeling , right , it's super hot in mexico . You just go into a little shop , come out and it's having that non-goal approach . Okay , I don't want to keep it too long , but I want to ask you about relationships briefly .

Because after the last interview I did with Chris Williamson , he told me after the call I don't think he's revealing anything he hasn't shared since that he was dating . And I said , well , what's your goal of dating ? Well , I want to get married and have kids . And I go , well , that's going to cause you to suffer .

And I tell that to guys often who are in their 30s or 40s , who've been working hard all their life and now I want to have a family , I want kids . You know , now I want to go do that . And I go , you're going to suffer . And they'll say , well , because having a wife is going to make me suffer . I said , well , yeah , well , but that's not my point .

And they said , well , having kids is going to make me suffer . And I go , yeah , they will too , but that's not my point . My point is that if you date with that specific agenda , I got to find the mother of my future kids . I got to find the white woman to be my wife , A couple of well , a lot of weird things can happen , but two weird things is .

One is you start trying to force people into that certain path . All right , is she my future wife ? Is she going to be the good mother of my kids ? So you , you force that path for for people that may not be well suited for that , but you're trying to make it happen .

The another thing that happens is that you might completely rule out people that would be the most amazing partner that you could have , because on the surface , they don't check the right boxes of what you're looking for in terms of a future wife and kids .

And then the other thing that really makes dating weird is that from the second you begin having an interaction with the woman , you're already asking is she going to be my wife someday , Instead of just going ? Is she a cool chick ? Is she a cool chick and do I like hanging out with her ? Because you know the example I give I've been married three times .

You know I bumbled my way through every relationship I have , like most of us do .

And if you know and I talk with men about making good , rational decisions around dating , because how you date is going to determine who you end up with in a long-term relationship around dating , because how you date is going to determine who you end up with in a long-term relationship . But my wife probably would not have checked off any checklist that I made .

She didn't speak the same language as me . She was a poor mother raising two kids , basically living in a ghetto . She dropped out of high school at 15 just to work to have clothes to wear .

She grew up eight out of 10 kids in poverty in Guadalajara , Mexico , and an alcoholic father , Been abused and beat on and abandoned and cheated on and betrayed by everybody she's ever known . You know I grew up in . You know white bread , Seattle Washington , around Boeing engineer families . You know got a PhD at 29 .

You know never had had a hard , difficult life . You know she's 22 years younger than me . I'll add that . So it's like if I was looking for a future wife , she , she would not have checked the boxes . And you know , of the three wives I have , she's , she's the best she is . She's just amazing in so many ways . I think she has a higher IQ than me .

She is a gym rat . She'd be happy to spend two hours a day in the gym . She gives me nice , subtle encouragement to work out . You know , she's funny , she's smart , she can get anything done and she's just amazing . She's amazing , but amazing . But what I've ? If I was looking for a wife , would I picked her ? No , never so , and that's that's .

But that's all another thing .

It's like I need to have an heir to the throne , a legacy . I need to have kids . So people are trying to fit a square peg through a circle hole and it's and literally the feedback I get from people is that they're almost not thinking about the partner like at all . Where's the beauty of where ? The position I was in was that ?

You know , I was my , my partner's four or five years younger than me . I was like young and in my early 20s we've been together like four or five years . We've just evolved together . She's american , I'm irish . We just kind of evolved together . We both have a similar outlook and then it made a lot of sense to be married .

Uh , so it's like we were not at that tumultuous stage where people are like I need to get someone get married and we need to find a woman who's not too old to get married too right .

I was talking to a guy today in ireland , uh , a friend and client of mine , he lives in ireland and he's a orthodontist there and um , and he was dating a younger woman that worked in the tech industry and and he was saying you know , the tech company they work for pays for them to freeze their eggs because you know they would fuck .

So , yeah , they've worked hard because and they and they get to that , that that place in their early thirties and now they're being successful and the tech company wants to keep them around . They have an investment in them . Oh , freeze your eggs , no worry .

But yeah , the other side of this whole story but I know we're mainly talking to men , probably in the podcast is these women . They hit 38 . 38 seems to be the magic number . Their career's been their number one thing . Maybe they've had a relationship , or two or three . Maybe they've gone without for a while , but career's been their gig .

All of a sudden their clock's ticking . Now they've got to find the man that you know is ready to have a family , because they're ready to have kids and , you know , maybe they've frozen their eggs . I didn't realize that was such a big deal , but apparently it is . And he was even telling me he was hanging out a few weeks ago .

He actually recently broke up with this young woman . She was younger than him as well and he was hanging out with her and three of her friends that all worked at the same well-known tech company and this is in Ireland . And the women he said pretty much all agreed that . You know , they're all now in their mid to late 30s .

They're wanting to , you know , get married , have a family . And every one of them said whatever man they got had to already own his own home and make at least twice as much as what they're making Now . These are women probably making decent money working for a tech company , but their standard was he's got to be at this .

Now I'm thinking , looking at how most men are doing nowadays , know , good luck , good luck finding that dude that wants to take you on it pushing 40 , you know , you know , and you're wanting to have kids . Maybe he's not right . So it's , it's messy out there nowadays , relationship wise , okay . So you're wanting advice for you moving forward , marrying the woman .

If you've listened to many of my interviews , one thing I'll say is that pair-bonded , long-term sexually monogamous relationships with a member of the opposite sex is not in our human DNA . We're not wired for it . It's a challenge , but because it is such a challenge , these kind of relationships , conscious relationships , are a powerful personal growth machine .

These kind of relationships , conscious relationships , are a powerful personal growth machine . They'll grow you , especially if you don't have this attachment . We've got to be together forever . Statistically you won't be right .

Dr David Snarch wrotea book called Passionate Marriage I highly recommend it , by the way and there's a line in there where he says in every relationship , somebody's going to get left . If you think about it , that's absolutely true , right , unless you and she die together .

You know , but you're going to lose your parents , you're going to lose your friends , they're going to lose you . So you know somebody's going to get left in every relationship . So the statistics are 100% . You guys won't be together for the entirety of both of your lifetime . One of you will leave before the other does .

Now , just statistically , from how relationships in general do , the odds are that this relationship will not last your lifetime . Okay , that's just statistics . Could you be the exception ? Yeah , okay , that's just statistics . Could you be the exception ? Yeah , but my point is what if you didn't try to be the exception ? What if you didn't ?

We got to keep this together . Couples used to come into my office as a marriage therapist and they said we have this problem , this problem . We want you to save our marriage . And I go , I won't do that . I said that's not my goal . I won't get joy out of keeping you guys together forever if you're not happy .

And I said if I wanted to try to make it where you guys stay together forever , I'd teach you both to be good liars , because that's probably about the only way to really do that . And I said but if I can help you guys learn to communicate , resolve the problems that you're stuck on and help you guys find out , do you like hanging out with each other ?

Great , keep hanging out with each other . If you don't like hanging out with each other , you probably should get away from each other . So I don't get attached to how we're going to make this thing last forever , and so I discourage those kind of attachments .

Now , going back to what I found to be the number one predictor of people with the least amount of effort having the most amount of longevity together and joy is when the two people speak the same , or very similar love languages . And that took me a long time to figure that one out .

Probably where I really figured it out was why do I really connect and get along well with certain people and other people that I liked and loved and wanted , but we just never , we didn't make it work . And so this thing around the love language you know you can get a book on it Five Love Languages I think there's five .

But you know there are things like you know , uh , you know , shared time together . Uh , you know , words of praise and affection . Uh , you know , maybe physical , physical connection gifts , you know I'm I'm not , I'm not saying them all correctly , but that's kind of how they go .

So let's say , for example , your way of showing love is to you know , make everything in your fiance's world Great .

You know , I , we were on an airplane just this last Saturday , my wife and I , and we're talking to some people behind this and we're sitting in first class and and we're , you know , somehow we're getting off the plane and the joke came up that , yeah , that you know my way of showing my wife love is that .

You know she went , like I said , from being this kind of poor working mother , that she flies first class and wears Lululemon . I go , and that was on me . I said I introduced the Lululemon factor into it . You know she didn't demand that , that's on me . So that's my way of showing love .

I want to give a good life to the people I care about and any way that I can do that , I like doing that . But what if my partner's love language is spent time together ? And as my wife occasionally has said , over the last years I've been building this company . She says haven't seen you much in the last year . I go .

I know I've been very busy , I've been very occupied . And what if that was her key love language ? Now it's not , but what if it was ? That would be he doesn't love me . Now she's flying first class wearing Lululemon . Her kids go to a private school . She's going to Cozumel this week to a salsa event . She was in one in Playa del Carmen four weeks ago .

We've been up in Seattle camping in my RV . That's at my mom's house . You know she has everything she could ever want . But what if that's not her love language ? And she's unhappy and feels unloved and I'm going ? What else can I do ? I've given you everything I can give you , but what if that's not the way she feels loved ?

And what if her way of expressing love is not the way I feel loved ? What if her way of expressing love is well , hers is actually going to the gym and looking good and , you know , wearing nice clothes and being sexy . That's a way of saying I love you , mine is . I'd like to hear a lot of appreciation . That's kind of my way of feeling .

And so what I found is that if a couple gets together and they're pretty similar in that way , it seems to make things a lot more effortless in relationship . Now it's still going to be be challenged . There's always a challenge .

But I tell you what you could love someone to death , but if you don't express love in a way that they feel loved , they're going to feel sad and unhappy and unloved and critical and wondering why you don't love them in the way they want to be loved . And you're going . What else can I do ? And if you don't know how to you know .

If you can't see a way through that , that's where therapy can come in handy is to help people see . Well , look , your partner is expressing love . It's just not the way you feel love and then they go . He can have all the Lululemon , I don't care , I want him to spend time with me . Well , he's .

You know his work is a big priority , that's you're always going to rank . You have to recognize , you know he . He's in the gym every day , he's running for right many marathons , he's running companies , he's doing podcasts . He doesn't have unlimited time , but that's what I want to feel loved . Well , you might love her to death .

So that's , that's some stuff maybe you and your fiance could have a discussion about is what makes you feel loved and what does the other person do that makes you feel most loved ? You know , sometimes we don't know that Sometimes you have to actually tell your partner . You know , when you do that , I really feel loved , I really feel desired and appreciated .

They may not even know that , they may have just kind of done that by chance and you go . You know that really felt good by chance and you go . You know that really felt good .

So that would be the thing I would say you know , just you and your fiance , kind of chat about that , what makes you feel loved and desired and valued , and have some just good discussions about that .