If I'm reactive or holding onto pain from the past, then I'm not able to stay present to my vision because I'm holding onto something else. Welcome to the One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
good Wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Lewis House, who we interviewed way back on episode thirty one of The One You Feed A long long time ago. Louis grew up as an athlete, and he was a two sport All American, played almost every sport in high school and then went on to play football professionally. He then transferred his competitive nature from sports to business, building his podcast, The School of Greatness
into a global phenomenon. His new book is The Mask of Masculinity, How men can embrace vulnerability, create strong relationships, and live their fullest lives. And here's the interview with Louis House. Hi, Louis, Welcome to the show. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Eric, happy to have you on a second time. Unfortunately we are doing this remote this time. The first time we were lucky enough to be it
and in your studio in Los Angeles. But now I'm in Columbus and you're still in l A. And we are here to talk about your new book called The Masks of Masculinity. And we will jump into that in just a minute. But let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, we have two wolves inside of
us that are always a battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it. For a second. He looks up at his grandfather. He says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you. It means that we have for me
that I have a decision to make every moment. And I could step into a decision of wearing a mask to protect myself, to project a certain identity that I want people to see myself being, or I can take off the mask and reveal myself for the true essence and love that I was born in. And every moment I get to decide which mask I want to wear or if I want to fully reveal myself. Yeah, that's great. Let's talk about the book The Masks of Masculinity, which
is a great title. I just like saying it. Um. I was kind of surprised it hadn't been used before. But talk to me about the genesis of this book, because I think it's important. It's stemmed from deep pain and suffering and me feeding the bad wolf for my entire life. I fed the bad wolf in terms of needing to look good, needing to win at all costs, needing to be right at all costs, and needing to
accomplish things to fill up my self worth. My self worth was based around accomplishments, making money, winning, being right, being smart, being funny. And I realized that I had a deep sense of darkness and sadness and loneliness within myself. The more and more I fed these masks and infused into my face, the more I achieved at the highest levels.
So it was so confusing because I was like, wearing these masks work, I'm getting results, I'm getting the girl, I'm making money, I'm achieving things in business and sports. It's working on the outside, but on the inside, the inner wolf, as you will, was suffering. It was constantly lonely, sad, angry, resentful, unforgiving of so many things. And I was reactive as opposed to graceful. In my life. It's reacting to certain things.
And I was so triggered. I gave my power away so often to the bad wolf as opposed to embracing the good wolf inside of me. And four years ago I started opening up by being sexually abused as a kid, and I didn't tell anyone for twenty five years. I opened up about the sadness I felt from feeling and secure my entire childhood. My brother went to prison for
four and a half years. My parents were always fighting um they were divorced when I was younger, and I was always in the special needs classes, and so I always felt like I was insignificant, and in order to find significance, I needed to be a great athlete. That's what I attached myself to. I needed to achieve things so people would like me and accept me. So I did things to fit in and again, all these things worked.
I got friends, I got the girl, I made money, but I was still suffering and I had anxiety and stress inside and I didn't know why. I couldn't figure it out. When I started to release and share these things. When I started to share, I started to heal. And I was so afraid to let people see me for who I am or the things I've been through. But I didn't want to tell them because I was so ashamed and embarrassing and guilty. But when I started to
share them, the most beautiful thing happened. Other men and women said, Wow, I've been judging this whole time, and now I trust you, Now I see you. I'll follow you anywhere. When I talked about being sexual abused, men were like, you're my hero, Like you give me the courage to open up. You know. Men would say that they hadn't told their wives and they've been married for twenty five years about what had happened to them because they felt like they had to have it always together.
So the freedom that I got from just sharing, expressing, healing, letting go of stuff that had power over me was profound, and I realized, Wow, this is that kind of inner peace I've always been looking for, that sense of like the way of the world isn't on my shoulders anymore needed to be to look good all the time and feel like I have to be perfect all the time.
It started to just go away. And the more I shared, the more I healed, the more I talked about it, the less my lip quivered or I was heart palpitations because I wasn't worried anymore what people thought about certain things. And I realized, this is probably the most impactful thing
I've ever done in my life. And the stories I was hearing from other men as I started opening up about things in my podcast, I was like, Wow, this is like way bigger than online marketing or business or you know whatever, podcasting or any of these other topics. I was like, this is actually what's healing me and
healing other men. And it blows my mind that, you know, Charlottesville is happening, with the racial tension, with the political tension that's happening, the conflict, with the wars, the bombings, the Vegas shootings, with all the suicides that men commit, all these acts of anger, fighting, aggressiveness, I would say, if I looked at them, all recently come from men who are hurting inside, men who feel like they need to protect and defend their masculinity or their manhood, or
needed to be right, or need to win. And it's all false sense of masculinity that we've been taught as men are boys growing up, whether it be through peers, in schooled coaches, through society, through movies, whatever it may be, is this false sense of masculine and through relationships. And I realized it's not working for our world and humanity
anymore to live this way. And I wanted to go down the process of how I can continue to heal and make sense of all my entire life and realize that human being, and I still wear masks, and I'm still triggered and still feed the bad wolves sometimes, and I wanted to continue to dive in deeper of the psychology and the research behind why boys become men a certain way, and how we can start to remove these masks that have been holding us back and causing so
much conflict in the world, and see if I could be a catalyst in some way, because there's not many big, white athlete, jock looking men who are talking about being raped and who are talking about sexual abuse and insecurities and fears and you know that they have challel just that they're going through. You know, there's not many of the people that look like me who are willing to lay it out there. I wasn't willing to do it
until I finally did. And so I want to hopefully be somewhat of catalyst to just get a few men to open up and see what they can do in their life when they do. It's a great story and it's so true that as men, there are certain boxes were put into. We had a guest on the show, Rosalind Wiseman, who talks about the box that men are in. You know, you've you've got to behave a certain way. And and I love in the book you make this point.
I want to make it too before we get too far down the road here, right, which is that we are talking about the challenges that men face in this case because you are a man and I am a man. It's not to say that the challenges of men are greater than women, you know, because a lot of people could be like, look, you're a white male, like you've got the whole world, and there is truth to that privilege. And there is truth also so at the same time to the fact that we do have an idea of
this is a certain way we have to be. And it's interesting to me because as somebody who didn't have the athletic let's say, you know, I was, I was out classed athletically by about ninth grade, right, like, you know, it was fine till then and then, And as somebody is like that, you know, I have sort of I would say, in a lot of ways, I have been more open than the average man to acting differently than
the masks that you talk about. And yet still I look at these masks that you talked about, and I go, yep, right there there it is, you know, pick your one. I'm you know, we may each use a different one at a different time, but it's still there. It's still and I think that to go a level deeper, it's probably if you wanted to go. If you want to go a level deeper than that, that's the human condition, which is too, I don't feel worthy in some way. So here is what I'm going to present to you
so that I can feel worthy. And if you then think I'm worthy, then maybe I'm worthy. So this is a human condition. But but we're talking about it specifically in the male sense right now, because again, that's what you are, and that's the perspective you come from with the book exactly. Is there a mask that you represent with the most that you feel like, oh, yeah, I could see that's something I maybe wear more frequently than
others or I have in the past or um. I think it's probably the know it all mask, or or perhaps the invincible mask, one of those two. You know. With my drug addiction and my heroin use, there was this like you know, I'll do anything kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, and then the know it all mask, you know, I just I I know everything. That's so much. And it's been amazing to me, is this podcast has gone on and I've realized more and more that like, my growth
depends on me unknowing things. How can I set that aside? How can I set knowing aside and actually be in certain cases? And boy, that's a challenge. Yeah, And uh, it's it's hard to grow if you already know everything. It sure is. It's hard to grow and feel like you're growing and improving in life if you're like, I've already got it all figured out, and that person is
hard to relate to and connect to. If you alreadys feel like you're inferior than someone else, you don't want to be around that person if they're gonna make you seem stupid all the time, Like, oh you don't know this, well, let me tell you because I've got these degrees and so yeah, it's funny because I have no degrees. I never went to college. But but I think I think that there is you know, if I but they're all there.
You know, I've had the joker mask. Um, you know, there's the sexual mask, right, had that one, the material mask. You know, I think there's sort of an overriding mask which is a like I've got it all together mask, right, whichever these various things are more important at the time, but you know what I've got it under control is into the mask that might overlay or underlay all of those. Yeah, and that's you know, it's kind of like the stoic mask.
The man that doesn't show emotion, that's like always strong, that's always the rock that's always got everything under control, and he's unable to express himself because he somewhere along the line someone said, no, you've got a tough enough. You can't cry, you know, stop crying. Or in a relationship, maybe they were going to express themselves something they're afraid of, and the woman and their partners said, I need you to be strong for me right now we're going through
this mess. I need you strong for me. And he's thinking, well, you just told me you wanted me to open up, and now you're telling me you need me to be strong. I just want you to be happy. So I'm never going to express myself again, and I'm always gonna be put together. Right. It's just like this condition not to make men victims to like these things, but it's like we want to please people and we're human beings as well,
and it's funny the one with that. It's interesting for me because I've never had a problem really admitting that I have emotions or that I cry. But it's one thing to say I have these things. I felt sad, I cried. It's a different thing to actually do it with someone else around. And that's the that's right, that's it's it's easy to acknowledge it for me, like yeah, but but the showing it is the much harder part.
And it's funny. I so badly didn't want to raise my son that way, and yet I think to some extent it's you know, it's just it's part of it's so deeply baked in. He just went off to college. He's nineteen. Do you see him. He used to wear the athlete mask. I don't see it very much in him. But but there's apparent child relationship, so there may be
things of his that I don't see. He probably has the I've got it under control thing, you know, he's got that, like he doesn't want to trouble anybody with what's going on with him. He's got it. It's okay, you know, Yeah, yeah, I remember when I was when I was eighteen. I had to know it all. I thought I knew everything, and yet I do nothing, you know.
But so it's interesting to me because you said four years ago you started sharing about what had happened to you sexually, and you started to peek through or peel these masks off a little bit, and yet you described a time that wasn't that long ago, after your book came out, you were on a book tour where you were still suffering. So this is a definitely uh, it's
not my favorite word, but a journey, right, Yeah. I mean I started on the process of like healing from and sharing about the sexual abuse, but yet I was still needed to accomplish to feel worthy. I still needed to like hit these marks and accomplished, and I felt like I needed to, you know, I was single at the time, and I felt like, what's the point of all this if I'm like doing things to feel like I'm a real man, like I'm a worthy man, like you know, by just dating more girls or making more
money or hitting like lists and all these things. And I was just like, I'm doing these things to like prove people wrong. Still, maybe I was healing with the sexual abuse and I was starting to let go and surrender, but I was still doing things to like prove people wrong and to fit in and make myself look better. And I realized, okay, I'm still not embodying the ultimate man, which is to live of service and to lift others up. I still wanted to look good and win as opposed
to create a win win in all experiences. And I realized my mission in life was just a little bit off. Like, yes, I was a fun person, loving giving. Yes, I wanted to like make meaningful stuff, but I was so attached to the results of what I wanted to create that and it happened, and I was like, huh, well, I thought I was gonna feel something now, you know. I thought I was gonna like feel fulfilled when I achieved
these things. But it just made me reflect that, like, wow, this is what it is to like make these things so that I impress people, that I look good, that I prove these kids wrong. That made me feel stupid
when I was younger or whatever. And so then I decided, you know what, Okay, I'm going to shift my vision to doing things to lift other people up, to being an inspiration, to creating meaningful work that is a catalyst for people for good or something that's in service as opposed to and yes, what I like to hit the New York Times list and hit these marks and accomplish
these things. Yes, but it's like I have so much more ease whether or not it happens because I'm so focused on the vision and it's like it doesn't affect me anymore. And maybe some people will say, well, like, you've already done it, Lewis, and you're already making money, so of course you're not as stressed. But I don't know.
I'm just like my identity is not wrapped around it as much anymore, and I'm so excited to just have the conversation and make the impact, and I just believe that it's going to work out one way or another.
I always think it's interesting because we're a bag of mixed motives to a certain point, Like, I bet there was a big part of you that was doing what you were doing because you cared about people and you wanted to lift them up and you wanted to help him, right, Like that's always a part of it, and yet there's that other part, and it's always kind of keeping the eye on at least for me, I have to go back to, like what is what is the underlying desire?
You know when I look at the numbers of my podcast and every wee Lewis has thirty five million dollars, it's my god, you know, right, Like, Okay, I appreciate that. So I I go back to kind of what what
I was doing. But I told you before the conversation, I went on this one week silent retreat and I had some pretty profound moments in there, and in some of them for the first time, all that other stuff really fell away temporarily, you know, it comes back, but I had a glimpse of what it would be like to be motivated not by the ego related things not and all of a sudden I was like, wait a minute, Like I don't want to do that anymore. Right, I'm
doing that. It's part of this thing that I do, and I'm no longer interested in it because of it was about how it made me look, and of it was because I thought it added value and it was good and and so it's just it's just this ongoing process of evaluating and being honest with ourselves, which is so hard, so hard, especially with Instagram and social media,
and you know, the comparison game can crush us. You know, you might look up my numbers, but I'm like, oh, look at Tim Ferris got two hundred million downloads, and I'm like, gosh, I'm like nothing compared to these results, you know. Or Joe Rogan gets twenty million downloads a month. It's like he in two months, he gets more than I've had him in five years. I can constantly compare, but I think we just get to be clear on our vision and the journey where we're at if we
want to have at least some peace of mind. Otherwise we're constantly going to compare and constantly trying to one up others to fit in and to be accepted with these material masks that we're wearing. And it's definitely not easy. It's a journey. And I think the reason you do this podcast is so you can continue to learn and grow. The reason why I wrote this book was for me to like realize, Wow, I have probably the biggest mass
of them all. And if I'm not talking about this every single day and meditating on this and being mindful of this and having people around me who are like quality people that give me feedback. Whenever my ego flares up, then I'm probably gonna go back to that place of still being a good person and like caring, but needing to be right and needing to win at all costs
and needing to be the best no matter what. And when that doesn't happen, when I lose, it's like I'm the worst loser in the world because my identity has at stake. And when I'm wrong, it's like I'm the worst person in the world to be around because my
identity was needing to be right. And when we strip ourselves of these egotistical desires to fit in and we allow ourselves to be who we truly are, we start attracting people who receive us for the giving heart we have, for the compassion we have, for the service we have in the world, And that's way more meaningful. So I think that gets to what I wanted to ask next, is when you take the masks off, right, what is it that's there? You know? Do you do you have
a sense of underneath the mask? What what is there? Yeah, it's it's it's the real you. It's the person that you've always wanted to be, but you've never been able to because you've been trying to fit in. You were trying to fit in in school, in the locker room and the acquire the musical whatever it is. You've been trying to fit in with your peers to be accepted for the way that you think you need to be.
And when we remove that and we become truly are, it's scary because we've never done it, or maybe we did it when we were kids. And you look back to the time when you're a kid and you had the most fun, You were the most joyful, the most expressive, and then we start to lose that sense of our child like self. The older we get to fit in and so we gain that sense of childlike energy again, which is the most youthful, fun, fun to be around,
expressive self. Uh, And that's what's powerful. You mentioned being mindful of and being around people like, what are the things that you're doing in your life to try and make this process continue for you? I work on having those very uncomfortable conversations and relationships that I don't want to have because they suck and their hard and they're hurt and they're scary. So I work on cultivating that and and not having devices around when I'm having them
so I can fully be present. I work on meditating every single day when I can. I'm not perfect, but I try to every day, and I and for fifteen minutes, I go to a place in my mind, connect to my heart, and think about anything that could upset me throughout the day in my relationships and business. Something online happens, I think about, like, Okay, if any of these things happen, how do I want to respond and show up in
the world. Do I want to show up reacting like most of the people in the world, or do I want to show up with this graceful sense of humanity that responds with love and thoughtfulness towards my vision. Because every time I react to something in a negative way, I'm saying to that thing or person or experience that it has power over me. I'm actually saying I'm a weak human being because I don't have the ability to gracefully process this and stay committed to my vision. I'm
giving that person power over me. I'm getting angry at that person. I'm holding resent that person. I'm frustrated with the person who cut me off in the car I'm not the ultimate human being that I could be, And so I think about during meditation that process, who do I want to be in the world, What example do I want to set? How do I want to be of service? And if I'm reactive or holding onto pain from the past, then I'm not able to stay present
to my vision because I'm holding onto something else. So which of the masks do you find is hardest for you right now? Obviously it changes, but right now today to let go of, I would say the aggressive mask is a big one that has been hard in the past because I would would be easily triggered. Like again, I'm very loving and affectionate and kind and giving. But whenever I felt attacked, and it goes back to like
feeling attacked as a kid all the time. Whenever I felt attacked in any way, online, in person, in a game, it's like I had to defend my manhood. I had to defend myself and attack back with aggressiveness, like assert my power over my attackers or whatever. And it's something that I continue to learn how to let go of. You know that I'm just my ego is so attacked that it's like I feel like I have to defend
my ego. But when I breathe in those situations where I want to react, I realized, like, Okay, this isn't even about me. This is about like something else that happened. It's about them that are upset or they're judging or whatever it is. And why does it matter that I need to get defensive and angrier or aggressive in this moment. I've just been because I've conditioned to do it my whole life and I didn't know anything else. But now that I have the awareness around it, I breathe in
those moments a lot better. It's still not easy. There's times where I still get frustrated and things like that, but I'm I just breathed, and I asked myself, And this is perfect. Because I had the situation that the airport actually last week where I missed my flight, I left my wall at at home. It was the first time I ever done this. I left my I D
so I had to like rush through. I had to go through like a whole check process of like calling T S A. And they had to like strip me down pretty much naked, and like the whole process where normally I get there, you know, thirty minutes before I got T s A prea check. I have first class. It's like I'm in and out, like I know I'm gonna be fine, but since I wasn't there early enough, like I should be, um, this process took just a little too long, and the t s A was like,
You're gonna be fine. This is just gonna take a few minutes. The gates right there, and I'm like, it's boarding. The doors are closing. Now, we gotta go, like do whatever you need. I'll get naked right now, like strip everything, let's go. And she was like, you're gonna be fine. I trust me, you're gonna make it. I was just like, I just feel like I'm not gonna make it. And
I always make my flight. And sure enough, I'm sprinting to the gate and the gate of just close and and they're like, once it's closed, it's closed, and I'm like, are you serious? The plane is right there, I'm here, Here's what happened, trying to explain myself, like getting defensive, and they're like, there's nothing we can do. There's not a flight until tomorrow. And I'm like I wanted to punch the wall, kick a trash can scream at this customer support person. So I just had to sit there.
I literally did not say anything for about ten minutes. I just like I was fuming, and I was like, Okay, I'm like, in my mind, I'm piste off because I'm looking at the plane literally sitting on the runway that hasn't taken off or hasn't the gate it's still there. And I'm thinking to myself, isn't this fitting that I'm writing a book about masculine vulnerability and I'm going on a trip to go speak about this right now, and I have a perfect example for me to see how
I'm going to show up in this moment. And so I literally just sat there frustrated. But I didn't say anything. I didn't punch anything. So I was like so proud of myself that I was like, Okay, I might be a little fuming right now, but at least I'm not saying something I'm gonna regret, or hurting someone in the process, or acting like a fool around all these people, or
making a scene because I'm upset. Oh no, boo hoo. Instead, I just said, Okay, I'm gonna breathe and I'm gonna be calm and I'm gonna walk out of this airport calmly. I'm not gonna scream anyone. I'm gonna walk out of here and calmly go outside and figure out the next solution because there's nothing I can do in this moment.
And if I scream and get angry, then I'm saying I'm a weak man because I'm giving this moment power over me that I don't have the power to gracefully experience life and to gracefully figure out a solution and diffuse the challenge. And I think the ultimate alpha man is not the one who can like get angry and defensive and beat up anyone, and the strengths are like defend himself at any moment. It's like the ultimate like
alpha gorilla. The silver back is really like the one who doesn't have to beat his chest constantly, but the one who's just kind of like kind of chill and like kind is aware of the whole surroundings in his jungle, and when there's like two apes fighting, he just kind of like walks up and just like has an energy about him where they just like, oh, we don't need to do this, or he just like gracefully puts a
hand and like moves him to the side. He doesn't need to like scream all the time and yell at people and like beat people up. He's just like, we don't need to do this. Let's separate this energy from our space. Let's come back to our vision of a family unit. And it's just like it's beautiful to watch like this massive gorilla with silverback that doesn't need to scream or lie out or fight. He's just so confident with his himself and he's able to gracefully diffuse any situation.
And I realized, like, that's who I want to be, the man who can diffuse any situation with my social skills, with my you know, energy, with my presence, with my thoughtfulness, with my compassion. And that's the way that I want to live my life. It's interesting to hear you say that, Does it feel like you're putting another ex actation on
yourself to be a certain way? I think that's just the vision I wanna to live with, you know, I want to I want to be able to be a graceful, loving man, not aggressive, assertive, fearful, angry man, because those moments don't support my vision, and they usually leave me feeling frustrated for hours, if not days, and holding onto
resentment and this residual pain. And if I give my power away to those moments that make me feel like stressed out in my heart for the next three days, how does that support me living of purposeful life and my vision? It takes me away from impacting people, from building my business, from having healthy relationships, from working on my health. You know, it makes this like it creates disease in my heart, not peace because I'm in pain
and palpitating all the time. That's not good from my body and my health, and it affects every other area of my life. Oh am I ever going to be that peaceful? Probably not, But I think that's the vision every single day when I meditate and when those moments come up to breathe and to ask myself a question, I have a decision to make. Am I going to feed the good wolf or the bad wolf in this moment?
Because I can feed either one. Either one is gonna give me some type of result, but which one is going to have the biggest price that I have to pay afterwards? And and that's what I think the ultimate man and human being gets to do is be conscious of their environment, conscious of and aware of their decisions, and understand that they have prices and consequences for wearing these masks. That would be the perfect place to wrap this episode up, because you brought it all back together.
But we're not going to wrap it up just quite yet, because because I just want to spend a minute and have you walked through what each of the masks are, just for the listen there, so they have a brief sense of kind of what they are, and and then we'll we'll wrap up after that. Sure, I will, just I'll read them the mask. The first one is the stoic mask, because every man must be invulnerable and tough emotions are carefully managed and suppressed. There can be no crying,
no pain, no feeling. That's the first part of the stoic mask. The athlete mask. One of the clearest ways a man can distinguish himself is on the field, around the court. He has like a modern day gladiator whose weapon isn't death, but domination. Sports are how men prove themselves, and a good athlete is a good man. That's the
first part of that. I'm gonna pause you on that one, because there was another interesting part of that which you talked about how a lot of men go from that when their athletic career is over to being completely obsessed with sports, because it's a variation on that. Absolutely. Yeah, it's like if you can't play them anymore, they need to be obsessed to like show that you're masculine, you know a lot about and you know a lot about them.
You're you're smarter than the next guy about that, you're the best that like the at playing fantasy sports, you know all the stats. You're like, you're the know it all and you're the athlete without actually competing. There's the material mask. There is no clear sign of a man's worth than the amount of money in his bank accounts. Not only do men work incredibly hard and sometimes do questionable things to make as much money as possible, it's all for not if other people don't know how much
money he has. So that's a little bit of material mask. The sexual mask. A man is defined by his sexual conquests. His worth determined not only by his bank account, but by the number of women he's slept with. Relationships those are for lesser men, for quitters and settlers. So that's a little bit about the sexual mask. The aggressive mask. Men are aggressive. It's their nature, right, It's all men's nature to be aggressive. They're violent and tough and then
never backed down. When they see something they want, they take it. Men hate, men have enemies. Of course, they have a temper. Of course they break things, and of course they get into fights. They're the hunters, not the gatherers. It's what men do, and a man who thinks otherwise is not a man, and it's responsible for the weakening of the world. The joker mask. A man has a sense of humor and wit that can repel even the most withering critique or the most nagging doubt talk about
his problems, okay, Dr phil maybe later. Cynicism and sarcasm and a sense of superiority. Um, these are the intellectual weapons that a man uses to defend against every attempt to soften him or connect with him. So if you let it, if you want to let a man in, expect a knock knock joke, not an open door. Um. The invincible mask. A man does not feel fear. A man takes risks, whether that's betting his life savings on a company or cliff diving, or smoking and drink in
incredible quantities. A man doesn't have time to think about consequences. He's too busy doing. That's a little bit about the immencible mask. It's two more than know at all masks. A man is not only physically dominant, but intellectually dominant too. If you don't understand why that is, a man is happy to explain it to you with all along with all the other subjects. He's an expert in UH. And
the alpha mask is then the last mask. At the most basic level, men believe that there are only two types of men, alpha's and betas, which are winners and losers. No one can stand to be the ladder, so a man must dominate one up and win everything. A man can never defer. As a man, he must be in control, and he can't ever do anything a beta or a
woman would do. So these are the masks that we've done a lot of the research on with the psychologists who do all the work with boys and men and UM it's not easy taking any of these off because they protect us, they make us feel comfortable and safe, and they allow us to fit in to our society. UM and that's why it's really challenging to take it off, especially if you've been wearing some of these mass your
whole life, because they get you results. It works to do these things, but when it works in the external world, but we're suffering in the internal world, it's time to rethink about what some of these are and how they're hurting us. You could argue that it's not working in the external world very well, well, look at look at Las Vegas, look at the political conflict, look at Charlotte'esville,
look at all these bombings around the world. The abuse stats it's stemming, I would I would bet to say is stemming from men who are hurt, men who are suffering. You know, all these things we just talked about, it's men who are leading the charge with Charlottesville with the torches and saying we're scared, we're hurt men inside, and
we're afraid to reveal ourselves, so let's attack. You know, all this stuff in Las Vegas is probably the stoic man who's never expressed himself and it's not always felt misunderstood. And now it's time to get some of my energy out. And this is the way I know to do it. The guys who go who commit suicide stoic mask. They've been trying to be tight, hold it all together, strong for their family, their friends, their businesses, but they've never
been able to fully express themselves, so they can't. They can't express themselves. It's a prison inside. So it's time to end it. Boom, I'm dead. This is how we've been condition to live our lives as men. There's not hotlines to express yourself as men. It's not acceptable generally to share like with women where they'll meet every other
day and talk about their fears and insecurities together. They'll talk about the things they're going through in their relationships, the problems in their marriages, their stresses with their children, They'll talk about their insecurities with their weight, whatever it may be. They're not a to open up with their girlfriends, whereas guys men say they don't have a good guy friend they can just talk things through with. And so no wonder men are struggling inside. There's no one to
talk to about it. There's no one to express it and open up about. And when you're in that place, you you start to suffer inside. And as I'm sure you're aware. Men do things like addiction, Men watch porn, masterbate constantly, men drink smoke to cope with their feelings inside. And I just think we need more opportunities to share. When we start to share, we can start to heal. And that's the first great step. Yeah, I think it's I don't think I forgot what I was gonna say.
You're revealing yourself. You're not to know it all. It's a perfect Chris, edit this out. Um. I think I read in your book, and I've heard this before, like the suicide rate for men is like six times women. Crazy. It's crazy. Yeah, again, Why why is that? Is it because men are just conditioned to kill themselves more? I don't think so. I think when men don't have the emotional capacity to express themselves and they have the way to the world on their shoulder, and they feel like
there's no way out, there's nowhere out. So this is the only thing I can do. Yep. That's the conditioning we've had as many and I think it's so important. I'll go back to what I said at the beginning that you say in the book multiple times, which is this is not a poor men thing. This is not a victim card thing. But if you work under the premise that unhealed pain causes pain somewhere else, you know, it always flows out. And and as we've talked about,
you look around. This isn't just good for men. This is good for everybody if men learn to to to take these masks off humanity. Again, where does a lot of the pain and so coming through in the world, in our environment and politics and you know, relationships. A lot of the pains coming from hurt men that are causing anger, aggression, fighting, killing, wars, racial tension. A lot of it is from scared, angry men who have yet to heal. And I'm saying all of it, but I'm saying, yeah,
most of it. Yeah, there's a lot of it there. Well, Louis, thanks so much for coming on again. Um, thanks for writing the book. As a man, I appreciate it. It's certainly good. You know, it's it's great conversation that we should all be having. So thank you. Appreciate it. Man, Thank you all right bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One you Feed podcast. Head over to one you Feed dot net slash support