Financial Feminist - 15. Can Men Be Feminists? With Actor Justin Baldoni

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

What is masculinity, really, and is a traditional view of masculinity actually harming men? What does that have to do with money? Today’s guest is actor, director, writer, producer, and podcast host, Justin Baldoni. Justin joins Tori to discuss what “undefining masculinity” truly means in light of a world that doesn’t quite understand it. In their conversation, they discuss everything from life’s purpose to compound interest (no, really, there’s actually a shocking amount of investing chat), Yak butter, and TikTok. Learn more about Justin’s work on our show notes page, and make sure to follow Man Enough on Instagram, TikTok, and wherever you get your podcasts: https://manenough.com/podcast/  Pre-Order “Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy’s Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love”: https://bit.ly/3PpHvlC Grab Justin’s “Man Enough” paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Enough-Undefining-My-Masculinity/dp/0063055600/ref=asc_df_0063055600/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=532660552781&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3285176613126000751&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9030973&hvtargid=pla-1408389667893&psc=1 Our HYSA recommendation [affiliate]: http://sofi.com/herfirst100k Check out the show notes for this episode for more resources: https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-show-notes/  Follow us on YouTube for behind the scenes and extras: https://www.youtube.com/c/HerFirst100K/featured Follow Financial Feminist on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/financialfeministpodcast/  Follow Her First $100K on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/herfirst100k/ Crush your debt with Debt Defeater, Her First $100K’s newest course offering: https://www.herfirst100k.com/debtdefeatercourse   Not sure where to start? Take our FREE money personality quiz! https://treasury.app/herfirst100k/money-journey-quiz  Leave Financial Feminist a voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/financialfeminist  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we dive into today's episode, you've asked for it time and time again. So we built what is probably the most requested resource for the First 100K community, introducing Debt Defeater, exactly how to understand, make a plan, and pay off your debt once and for all without shame or judgment. This is one of our most affordable courses, which was important to us because we know that if you're looking for this information, the last thing you want to do is spend a ton of money on a course. When I tell you that this resource is packed, I mean it. We're covering topics like how to smash your debt in five steps, how to negotiate your interest rates, why credit cards are important and how to use them responsibly. We're talking student loan refinancing and more. We've also built a brand new bundle that includes Debt Defeater

and our bestselling course Back to Basics because we know that getting out of debt is only one step in your financial journey. Head to herfirst100k.com slash debtdefeatercourse to grab the course or the Back to Basics bundle. That's herfirst100k.com slash debtdefeatercourse. We'll also link it in the show notes. And as a special offer to financial feminist listeners, take 10% off Debt Defeater with code FFDEBT. That's F-F-D-E-B-T. Okay, back to the show. Financial feminists, welcome back. You're going to love this episode. Oh my gosh, this episode. Okay, this conversation took on a life of its own and um we asked none of the questions we had planned we had this whole research document that me and my team spent hours on and

in the most beautiful way possible this this interview went off the rails and turned into like a genuine authentic conversation and a beautiful exchange on masculinity, femininity, patriarchy, society, life purpose, and we even somehow weaved in compound interest. And so I'm so excited for you to hear this episode. Our guest today is actor, director, producer, author, podcast host, entrepreneur, and changemaker, Justin Baldoni. Justin is the co-founder of Wayfarer Studios, an independent financial and production engine pioneering purpose-driven multi-platform film and television productions that elevate and speak to the human spirit. He is also the founder of Wayfarer Foundation, a nonprofit which seeks to change

the ways communities see and respond to unhoused populations. You may know Justin from his incredible TED Talk. We'll link it in the show notes. It's fantastic. His podcast and book, Man Enough, also linked in the show notes, and a little show you may have heard of called Jane the Virgin, where he played Raphael. I am so thrilled with this conversation, and I'm so excited to share it with you. I mentioned this briefly in the episode, but I have been a devout follower of Justin's work for, gosh, five, six years. time with him, talk to him like a friend and colleague, and just have a really beautiful conversation that felt like we were in the room together. And I'm so honored to have him share his vulnerability. I was just blown away continually by his work both on and offline to really showing up as the best man he can be and as an ally for not only my work, but the work of every woman

doing positive things in the world. So a few disclaimers before we jump in this conversation. Towards the end of the episode, we spend some time talking about feminine masculine energies. And we want to remind our audience that feminine masculine in this conversation, we're not gendering feminine masculine. We're talking about energy specifically. And Justin explains this so well in our conversation and uses so many great examples to explain what masculine and feminine energy are and how we need both, regardless of our gender identity, to thrive. So please know that when we say masculine, feminine as we're talking, we don't mean them as gendered statements. We more mean them as energies.

All right. Without further ado, Justin Baldoni. You know, I think you know how long I've admired your work. So I'm just excited to chat with you. That's very kind of you. I've been, I watched Eating the Virgin every single episode, every single season, and then found all of your Man Enough stuff and just been,

just been in awe of you and your work. So it's so needed and so necessary. So thank you. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Tori. I'm happy to be chatting with a financial feminist. I want to learn some stuff i don't

want you to great i am i'm here i'm here for all of it i'm not here to teach i'm here to learn i mean ask whatever questions you want but um yeah i i also want to respect your time and just appreciate you being here i have a a question. Sure, go. If I start now at 38, does compounding still work in my benefit? 100%. Yeah, I always say that it's never too late and never too early. Because regardless of what time you start,

if you give yourself enough time, right? The best day to start is now because you're not waiting to start tomorrow. So if you can get started in 10 years you'll have more money of course because of compounding than you do now right but what about something i've never understood about compounding and i'm totally at risk and fine uh sounding ignorant or uneducated here but i appreciate you being vulnerable i know i know if i know if i if i were 18 and i started with you know a thousand dollars or a hundred dollars a month right what it could turn into but if i have a a good amount of money in uh the stock market or in these accounts and i put in

just a lump sum yeah let's just say for example let's just say tomorrow i put in just a lump sum, let's just say, for example, let's just say tomorrow I put in $50,000 into an account that I already had something in. Is that not as good as if I had 50 grand in there from compounding from before? It's hard to say you could do the math. Because that's where I get confused. To kind of make up, I'm putting make up in quotes, make up for lost time, you want to put more money.

So when you're 18, you probably don't have $50,000, right? So you're relying... You have 10, 20, 100 bucks a month. Right. You're relying more on time than the amount of money when you're younger, right? Because you probably don't have a lot of money. We hope as you get older that you do have more money. And we hope that you started early.

If you don't, that's okay. So then you're kind of making up for it by contributing more money but it's fifty thousand dollars and again it's an arbitrary number it's fifty thousand dollars in my account but let's say i started two accounts one account when i was 18 yes with and one account tomorrow both accounts tomorrow have fifty thousand dollars and do they compound this is kind of like,000 in them. Do they compound? This is kind of like one of those SAT questions. Do they compound at the same rate?

Craig and Stacia have two. Yeah. So one of them has been compounding to equal $50,000 tomorrow. And the other one I put $50,000 in tomorrow. When I'm 50, is the same amount of money in there? I'm trying to think through this math. If you are 18 and you have $50,000, let's say now you're 28 and you have $50,000.

It's the same $50,000 that somebody put in just now. Got it. So it doesn't change the rate of compounding. No. It compounds the same. Got it. No, it's just if you are doing more heavy lifting when you're younger, you can kind of ease off the gas. So for me, my whole thing, her first 100K was my own 100K journey.

I'm trying to save $100,000 at 25. Now I've contributed more than that. Thank you. Thank you. If I never contributed more than that, that 100K would be 1.6 million at 65 years old. never contributed more than that that 100k would be 1.6 million at 65 years old yes i just literally just like let it do its thing right so that compounding works regardless of how old you are so so having a hundred thousand dollars at 28 or 26 which was your journey at that point you retire equals 1.8 million or whatever you said 1.6 yeah yeah 1.6 is the same as if you were to tomorrow put a hundred thousand dollars in at your same age it would still equal 1.6 at retirement yeah because i don't know why the like you know i get it and the dave ramses have confused me because you see all those things i know well they've shamed you that's the big thing is they've shamed

you but it's funny because and then sometimes i've done the math and i'm like i don't know how that quite works tony robbins i appreciate you but i don't quite understand how that all works so i know a lot of people confused about compounding yeah so it's just your interest makes interest right so in the same way that like student loans suck because your interest never stops compounding, right? That's compound interest working negatively against you, where you have so many people, right? And I get tagged in TikToks all the time where somebody had $100,000 in student loan debt. They've been paying it off for two years and they still have like $98,000.

And they're like, how? And it's because... That's most of my friends and people in my own family are struggling with that. And I think it's a criminal offense what we're doing to young people in America. I completely agree. Could not agree more. And that's not even to mention things like payday loans

that are 400% interest, which I could talk to you about another time. But it's the same thing with compound interest, just it works in your favor when you're investing. And it's like on average 7% to 8%, we've been seeing like 12% returns as of the last couple years. And a lot of people don't even realize they're paying the interest only.

Right. So then they end up being 30 years old and it hasn't come down at all. They've only paid the interest or part of the interest. They've been paying the interest for 18 years, 15 years. Right. And I have a whole episode that we're doing right about you the way you pay off debt is you don't if you can you don't just contribute your monthly payments you contribute extra money and you make sure it goes to the principal and you literally most times have to

call your debt provider and be like hi how do i contribute to the principal of this debt because they don't make it easy because no it's set up that way right exactly the that way. Right. Exactly. They make money the longer you stay in debt. Of course. Yeah. And when you tie that into our educational system and then the fact that the majority of young people don't have a job that reflects their degree at all and or don't make enough money starting out that actually allowed them to even afford their college payment. Right.

You wonder why nobody can afford to buy a house you wonder why lattes justin it's too many lattes you've bought too many lattes and that's why you can't afford an 850 000 home that has two bedrooms in it it's starbucks fault yes it's the four dollar latte which is transition, the most gendered bullshit as well. It's not like you bought too many, I don't know, season tickets to your favorite NFL game. It's specifically you bought too many lattes, which is seemingly this very feminine thing. So a lot of the advice is very gendered as well. I think men drink lattes, no?

I'm sure they do. Oh, no, no,'t know we like it we like it black with no sugar black and yeah yeah it's it's the nitro cold brew right yeah i don't know let me get it let me just get as much caffeine in me as possible just just before i have a stroke i know that's what i want i want it to be like just before the stroke and the heart attack just before my heart and the heart attack, just before my heart literally explodes. Where you put the butter in your coffee too. Isn't that a thing?

Hold on. Hold on, Tori. I can't. Okay. Now we're crossing a line because I actually, well, I'm on a keto diet, so I'm actually pro butter. I'm pro butter. But that actually started, it's a biohacker named dave asprey but uh that was a this was a himalayan mountain monk practice i mean so if you go up into the himalayas they've been putting um yak butter in their tea for thousands of years like their black tea it's not like herbal tea right it's like the caffeinated yeah okay whatever they whatever kind of tea they would brew yeah i don't have any uh friends um in that part of the world who have been practicing that and um but i do know you're gonna say i don't have any friends with yaks who i can get butter from that would have been a better joke tori you're funnier than i am that would have been a much better joke uh i don't have any i'm looking

at yaks yak butter is very expensive um but we have we have a property here in the mountains i could have yaks technically uh no but yeah so i'm actually pro butter in things like matcha because it actually makes it taste really good and it's a and fat is a good brain food we're diverging uh no but i'm talking about the gendered stance on so if we're gonna put butter in it i will put butter in anything to make it taste better it does taste like grass that's why you got to put a lot of honey in it as well i make it one day tori i will make you a great matcha and we will talk all about gendered finance and you can doesn't that sound fun for you doesn't that sound so fun

what most people don't understand is i'm actually quite an introvert and i'm not great at small talk so these conversations are much more interesting to me uh yeah and i like to learn in conversations so any place i can learn uh i enjoy i enjoy being there this is a so i've learned something so now I know tomorrow if I were to put a certain amount of money in an account, I wouldn't be that far behind. I could start tomorrow. Yeah, it's either like,

I mean, time is always better than the amount of money. I say that to anybody, but if you don't have as much time and you're privileged enough and to be able to contribute a bunch of money, contribute a bunch of money

because that's how you make up for that kind of lost time so i recently was talking i have a wonderful business manager he's a dear friend shout out to michael brown he's amazing um and he's been really helping me a lot we started when my kids were born we started um college funds for them but but i've been thinking so much about how I don't think that college as we know it is going to exist for them. I don't think, I don't, I can't imagine my generation and your generation, because we're a few years apart, being okay with the way that colleges run in America. And I, and so one of the questions I asked him was like, Hey, I'd love to do this. I want to do this, but in the event they don't go to college, because I'm not going to make them go to college. I didn't go to college. Yeah. in the event they don't go to college because i'm not going to make them go to college i didn't go to college yeah in the event they

don't go to college or college looks different in 15 years in terms of how much it costs you know ways to actually go what happens to this account and then he explained it's kind of just like a regular investment account um but but i guess i would be taxed if i don't use the money on their college that's what that was the i believe so yeah it depends on there's like certain state restrictions there's just certain rules tied to these accounts there's some that are more flexible of like they can go to trade school or they can use the money for something else but yeah there are some that are specifically like for college and that you're you're taxed if you don't contribute with your beautiful mind welcome to my podcast now i'm asking you questions great i'm here for it with your beautiful mind

that understands all of this don't you think it would be in america's best interest to almost pay people to go to college similar to to Scandinavian countries, as an example? I mean, of course, in theory, I love that. My brain immediately goes, where's the money going to come? And then my brain goes after that. Well, from the military, from our military budget. Sure. Yeah.

No, I think, isn't it Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and a bunch of people they're trying to get four-year college or, excuse trying to get to your community college for free. It would make sense. Also trade schools. It makes sense to me. Vocational schools that teach young people actual trades versus going to school and just picking your poison and then not using it.

Right. If we have such a labor shortage in so many areas of the country i'd feel like wouldn't that be an interesting idea is to be encouraging young people versus penalizing them right well and i'm not an economist but i i think to your point earlier the the like american dream for so long right was something you aspired to is not only the you know the house and the two and a half kids but like go to college and college your degree is your ticket into yeah certain rooms or you know opening doors for you and especially after 2008 that's not a thing anymore like just because you have a college degree and even if you have a master's degree that typically doesn't mean

anything anymore so that's a larger conversation about just this expectation of like oh i'm 17 i guess i need to go to college and i went to college and i think that was 100 the right decision for me but i also graduated debt free and that was a combo of my parents having saved a little bit of money and me working my butt off in college to pay for it and so privilege there's some privileges totally totally privilege i'm the first person to acknowledge that and so you know a bunch of bunch of my friends as well absolutely saddled with student debt and then they're also working jobs that actually really have nothing to do with their degree and they're like well what did this get me yeah they're working those jobs to pay off the student debt

and oftentimes they're miserable because they're not chasing their dreams so they're in the workforce miserable not being as productive as uh the patriarchy would like them to be and because they're not happy right right but they're forced to work anyway because you have to send 500 a month to sally may and or your credit's ruined which again credit is a whole nother issue right it is a whole nother issue i don't know how to transition out of all of this uh what do you what did we come on what did we come on to talk about i i just i came on i came on masculinity i thought i came on the podcast to learn about uh financial literacy because it's never too late

you're welcome to ask me any and all questions. Kristen's in here like, hi, Tori. Get back on track, please. Yeah, Justin, fun fact. I went to school for theater and marketing. It was not finance, not business, not anything like that. You're kidding. Nope.

That's amazing. No, I wanted to be an actor. That was the goal. That explains why you're so good at TikTok. Thank you. Because I have to be honest. I feel like it's a skill I didn't know I was going to need. I'm like, Tori, you're going to have to get good at this app that a bunch of 17-year-olds are on all the time.

But it takes skill and personality and theatrics. Thank you. time but it takes it takes skill and personality and theatrics um and it makes sense that you're using both of those things to market a skill set you didn't go to school for i just i'm really surprised you didn't go to school for it how did you learn it again welcome to my podcast story no again i love it it's my parent it was my parents it was my parents really being frugal and making thoughtful financial choices because they didn't grow up with a lot and so i was their investment and so you know the money that they have saved how did you become an expert on finances and yeah all of this it was my parents teaching me you know how to manage a credit card responsibly how to save save money. And then I graduated college. I'm a young and I'm 27.

I graduated college in 2016 and Trump got elected like six months after. And I was the friend all of my friends were coming to for advice. And I realized, you know, I really was activated to do something. I was coming into adulthood in a different America than I expected. I realized, you know, I really was activated to do something. I was coming into adulthood in a different America than I expected. I thought, oh, first female president. And of course, that didn't happen. And so through those conversations and through my own financial journey, I was like, oh, this is like the best form of protest we have for marginalized groups is I don't think we have any sort of equality until we have financial equality.

And if we can get more money into specifically more women's hands i think everything starts to change and so i started learning a ton both to better my own life and then i would share it with friends and then started a blog that later became her first 100k and everything took off from there so yeah i think it was the viewing money as the form of protest so no i think that's such a unique perspective and it's what, it's what gives me so much hope for the future meeting women like you and people like you, um, despite how dark and heavy and negative it can feel sometimes looking around because again, you're, you're taking what you know and doing what you love and finding ways to contribute with your unique skillset, which I believe every human being on this planet,

even as a Baha'i, as a part of my faith, we're told every human being on this planet has the ability to affect the world in a positive way. All of us are given a unique, meaning that nobody else on the planet has the ability to contribute in the way that we can, perspective. And we can all be of service.

And true prayer and faith is blending your work with your service so finding a way to affect the world through your work is such a gift to humanity and i applaud you tori for justin that's that's how i feel about your work is it is so Look at you transitioning. It was twofold. It was I wanted to give you a compliment and I also wanted to transition. It was not an inauthentic compliment. It was not an authentic compliment.

What you and your producer don't know is I didn't come on here to talk about me. I really was excited to just talk to you. We can forego all questions. I'm good with that. I'm fine with that. We can keep talking. I'm just here to talk. I think you're a badass. I'll forego all questions. That's fine. You can still ask me questions,

Tori. I just thought it was really funny. Now it's the principal. That was, hey, good one. Pun intended. Thank you. I'm very interested in talking to you oh i love it i love it out of nowhere wow that i'm more awake today than i thought it's the butter in my coffee you have to put that on tiktok but use like uh i don't know one of those like jingles at the end like oh yeah sure yeah sure that sounds great no i'm i'm here for it i'm here for all of it i was honestly trying to give

you a general i do appreciate what you were saying thank you i hear you clearly i'm not good at taking compliments none of us are how you're gonna really appreciate this i i think it was actually on tiktok i saw a quote the other week that said, I'm going to give you your flowers regardless of if you water them. That's great. So like, I'm going to compliment you and then what you choose to do with it. Is yours.

It's yours, but I'm going to keep doing it. I'm going to give you your flowers regardless if you water them. I'm like, oof. I love that. I know. TikTok's a great place to learn you just have to be really careful uh i think i think it's important that everybody

also understands that it's really a game that a large company is playing with you yes so so long as you can set time limits you can be aware of yourself you can be aware of your brain and how it's working how your dopamine is increasing or decreasing you can trust your gut so when somebody says you can make money and retire tomorrow it's maybe not true maybe not true all of these things are are important so tiktok can be a great. Social media can be a great thing so long as you have the awareness to use it correctly. Right. What most of us don't have is that awareness because our brains are oftentimes the ones in control.

So we don't even realize we're becoming addicted to something. So until we are. they've built it like that and i think we're only just understanding after now becoming addicted oh this thing was addicting you know what i mean well everything is built that way it's all random reward theory right it's all built and created to keep us scrolling not not being sure what happens next because the longer we spend on the app, the more money that they make. So we are users. And there are only a few industries in the world

that call their clients users. Users. Yeah. Well, if you're Facebook, it's community members, right? Drug companies, drug dealers. Right, right. And of course, all of us who are on social media and uh it's casinos have been using the same technology forever i mean that's

yeah when you walk and there's no difference i look i look around now and i know we're not talking about anything you wanted to talk about i don't care but let's dive in we can talk about masculinity we can totally talk about masculinity but when you walk into a casino have you ever just seen you see like all those older people generally some younger but they're just sitting on the slot machines and they're kind of slouched over just pressing the button you don't even get to like fully do the action anymore now yeah now it's just a button you're just pressing the button pressing the button pressing the button there's no difference between that generation and us if you just if you go to a park if if you walk around, if you go to a

mall, if you watch children interacting or kids interacting that have phones, it's the same thing. We're just pressing buttons, pressing buttons, scrolling, scrolling. And that's what's dangerous. That's the thing that's dangerous, which is why if you can learn from somebody like yourself in that scroll, and you're kind of saying like get off of the app go do this other stuff i think that's also really important so again trying because i'm addicted to it too like i'm no better like i think we're all i remember literally i think i turned 18 and my nana who loved my nana i called my nana nana too yeah really yeah she's my only living grandparent she's my nana um andana too. Really? Yeah. She's my only living grandparent. She's my nana.

And she was like, okay, I'm going to give you $25 and we're going to go to the casino. And she was so excited. And I remember that was like the worst hour of my life. It was so depressing. It was so sad. And yes, it was a lot of older people who slack jawed just pressing buttons. And you're exactly right. That's how that generation got their dopamine hit in many ways and what's so sad about it the hard part is that a lot of those people

are are sitting there because they genuinely need money right and they're and they're hoping they're hoping for that hit if they could just if they could just get it if the lucky sevens if all three sevens that'll, they can pay their rent. But it's no different than what we're doing to young people on TikTok. The illusion of fame. The illusion of, oh, wow, I could go viral. And what they did on TikTok was so brilliant is they democratized virality. Yeah, totally.

So that anybody, regardless of your followers followers has the chance to go viral and the more people that experienced virality and took a little bite of that that five seconds of fame the more they stayed on the app searching for the next one this is so funny you say this justin because i'm literally about to give a keynote in an hour and a half about how to grow on tiktok and i feel incredibly called out in the most beautiful way. Because I'm about to literally go teach people, here's what I did to go viral. And here's how you can do it too and apply it to your business. So all I would say is this. So you're not asking me for my advice. I'm on your podcast.

I would love your advice. Here's what I would say to you going to talk to all of these young impressionable kids who look up to you is their their sense of themselves and their why and their purpose must be bigger than their desire for virality. Yes. And we have six slides about how you have to serve your audience before you try to sell them on anything. But even the fact that everybody wants to go viral, I think it speaks to a bigger issue, which is a collective experience of nobody feeling enough. And wanting to be seen. Well, that's at the core of enoughness, right? Right.

I want to be seen. I want to be valued. I want to be liked. I want toness right right i want to be seen i want to be valued i want to be liked i want to be loved i would be i want to be appreciated so really social media and tiktok and this casino uh who's going to go viral next game it's a deep desire to be loved i just want to be loved and this illusion the mirage that well well, if I go viral, then I'll be liked. And that is a mirage because when you get there, the only thing that awaits is a desire for it to happen again. It's a quick dopamine hit and then a desire to repeat whatever the process was that you just did so that it can happen again because when you don't get it then you feel terrible about yourself and it's nobody's fault either it's just it's it's our brains and then an app conditioning our brains to expect it

and it's not just the app i mean we can we can happily tie this back to your work and also my work but that is the goal of the patriarchy it's to make us feel like we are not enough as we are that's how it tie it ties into everything from racism to capitalism and and the element of control and power that uh that a certain group is uh possessing is so sad because it makes everybody else feel like no matter what they get they just want a taste of that power they want a taste of that virality they want a taste of what it feels like to be seen and then they get it for a second right but only long enough to give you a sense of the power so that you want it more. That thing that's happening on TikTok

is what happens with men from the time they're little boys. And it is one of the reasons why our country looks the way that it does and the world looks the way that it does. We just so desperately want to experience enoughness. We just want to feel like we're in power, like we're enough, like we can provide, which is why my wife and I had these amazing conversations of how the patriarchy and how this system is hurting us both.

It's not just women. It's not just gender nonconforming and trans and queer folks. It's also the men. We are suffering and dying. Yes. Because we are willing to suffer at all costs in order to experience and feel just a little bit of that power. To feel safe enough, manly enough, man enough, financially stable enough.

Because the world is working against us. Well, and I don't know how much you've read. So I am literally like five days from submitting the manuscript for my book. And it's very terrifying. I'm so happy for you. Writing a book is hard. Thank you. I'm so excited. We'll talk about another time. Oh my God. I don't know how anybody does this. And I am extremely ambitious and very hardworking. And this is the hardest thing I've ever done. It's fucking awful. One of the things that unfortunately shouldn't have shocked me but did was when I was doing

research. So there's one stat in particular on the census. The last time we took it, I'm trying to remember what year that was. But in heteronormative couples, where a woman made more money than her male partner. She lied and said she was making less. And her male partner lied and says he was making more. Yeah. In the 21st century. It's, again, it shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.

Of just still these narratives that are perpetuated, not just about money, but about specifically how money relates to masculinity or traditional masculinity, right? Of like, men still have to be providers. They still have to, you know, make more money. And that it is a threat to their masculinity, assuming they're in a heteronormative relationship, if their female partner, their woman partner, makes less than they do. Or excuse me, makes more than they do yeah it's i don't know

what it's crazy to me still that this is perpetuated and i see it in my own life it's not crazy to me just like just like i'm not surprised that racism still exists sure it's more just like i i just want us to be better than we are you know yeah but what i when you say that what i feel is sadness yeah i feel when i like what what i feel in my body as you said that is like i feel so much empathy for that man that had to lie right and for that and for the woman right right right because what we're looking at is a system that has taught them yeah their entire lives that they have to pick and stay in a lane yeah and and and well and then punishes them if they choose to leave exactly leaving that lane is dangerous yes because there's a very good chance the woman loves the man and the man who is the father to her children and he's a very good

man and she doesn't want to hurt him because of his fragile ego that has been conditioned since the time he was a child which is the other which the other. I don't think we can have these conversations. And I think, you know, I think a lot of men have a hard time having these conversations because there's so much anger and aggression towards men on the other side of it. It's like, we blame,

we're blaming the men. We can't blame the men because the men are hurting too. Yeah. It's the, it's the, it's the insecurity. It's the, it's the fact it's the bullying that happened. It's the insecurity. It's the bullying that happened.

It's the fact that genuinely men feel as if they are not male. This is how we've conditioned men, that they are not male. They can lose the rights to a club simply because they don't earn as much as their woman and that is an example is just one of a hundred right can you give me some others more i know i know there's a million i mean and then and they're not all they're not all um they're not all uh financial i mean of course sex i mean we could look at sex right as an example we could look at sex as an example. We could look at penis size. We can look at emotional stability.

Oh my God, we could look at height, right? This myth that a man is only a man if he's over six foot tall, when in reality, a very small percentage of men, especially in America, are over six feet tall. The average height is what? Between 5'7 and 5'9? 5'9. 5'10 and you're up 5'9 here. I've Googled it. Apparently.

Clearly. And so what are we seeing? What are we seeing? We're seeing shoe companies coming out with shoes that help men look taller. As if that eventually the woman's not going to find out that he's shorter. But we're programmed to feel less than in every area. So at the very least, what are we told as boys growing up? That our job is to protect women, to provide for women.

That is what's programmed into us as young boys, as if the schools we go to are little factories turning us into robots. We're not allowed to feel we're not allowed to to ask ourselves how we're doing or how we're feeling we have to keep our head down if we're in pain we can't say anything we cannot cry we can't show emotion unless it's anger or rage we have to provide we have to protect we have to make more money i mean these are all programmed into us so it's no wonder we end up the way that we are and then when we do finally fall in love when we do finally um experience uh those of us that are in hetero relationships like the the strength and the power and the beauty of women um we then

become even more insecure because society has told us that these women, if they do find their voice and their power in this society, are threatening. And we are not manly enough or men enough if we're not able to then control that. Like it's a reflection on us, right? Like it's God forbid, god forbid our woman then wakes more than us what are we doing wrong versus the question should be how did you get her how did like how did you how did you pull that that's awesome because it's because because we're killing ourselves we're slaving away we're we. We're grinding ourselves to the bone and we have nothing left.

Yet, what would it be like if we found a woman that made as much or more than we... It would mean we have to work a little bit less. It would make us happier. I am like grinning because the vast majority of my own romantic relationships have ended largely because nothing I did directly put this person down, but the very act of like them seeing me be successful and be independent and know who I was, was a threat to themselves. And rather than seeing that my healthiest relationships have been when that person, when both of us see what the other person has that maybe we don't and say use it as a healthy challenge of

like how can i rise up and how can i this is amazing right rather than a threat to myself or threat to them i mean it should be it's like a gift it's like a benefit like it's right it's it's but like oh he's a better communicator than i am okay well then how can i learn to communicate better great how can i rise to his level how can if this person's amazing how can i continue this relationship okay i need to learn how to communicate better great challenge accepted let's go we all have yeah right we all have things we're great at and things that we bring to relationships right um but we have been brainwashed and so many and these like fundamental ways that these things are deal breakers because they reflect poorly on ourselves and if you really tap in if you're a man and you really tap into like what you want your life to look like the idea of like the subservient

woman who's at home and available for you whenever you are ready and has dinner on the table for you and is just with the kids like that that 1950s idea that really you know really i think existed because we went to world war ii um and the men had to go and fight for their country and this is what ended up happening and then we just got used to this idea that oh yeah women are just like you know they're just there they're just there to make us feel better about ourselves they're just there they're just there to have a dinner cooked for us no that was i think it was a byproduct of years and years of sexism but also like the fact that we went to war and and and that was the way our country looked at the time. But, but let me go, let me

just go back to this idea of what do I want my life to look like as a, as a man? If I really tap into who I am as a human being and the father I want to be and the husband I want to be and, and who I want to be in the world, what's the most important is showing up for the people in my family and being present. Because that is what I'll never get back. I have my whole life to work. I only have 18 years to raise my children. And we forget about that.

And we spend our life, we think that we have to work, work, work, work, work. And then even when we find a woman that maybe makes, that also works or makes more than us, it's almost like, no, I want that burden because we've been conditioned to need that burden. Because that's how we're validated and feel enough. Well, that's your identity. It's tied to your identity. Our identity is tied to productivity in a patriarchal society. If we're not producing, we have no role. But what about producing wonderful children as fathers?

What about being a role model? What about being present? What about taking your kids to the park? What about having a wife sure that maybe works and you have some extra time to be with the kids yeah what about the joy of being able to feed your family actually feed them like make the food versus put the food on the table we don't think about the other benefits that this type of equality can bring into a marriage but they're they're there and they're beautiful. I always joked with Emily.

I'm like, hey, if your company takes off, I might retire early. Great. Now we know how compound interest works. We can go for days. I feel like I just learned I'm going to put money in the bank account tomorrow. I'm not going to kick myself about not starting when I was 18. There's always room. There's always time.

You go win. I'll win at home. I mean, those things are options. Right. But we have to be willing to look and address that root, the thing in us, the thing that we were taught at such an early age that causes us to feel terrible when somebody else has the illusion of more money or power. Or success or whatever. Yeah. My brain immediately zooms out further too and goes,

of course I want that for men in my life and just in general, right? We still exist in a society that not only, if we bridge the patriarchal narratives for men, we still exist in a patriarchal society where if men take the children for the day, it's like, oh, that's so nice for him to babysit. It's like, these are his children too, right? Or we know, and again, I can bring the financial into this. We know that when men have children they are actually it's called the fatherhood like benefit is that they then make more money right because they have children and need to quote unquote provide but when women have children right they are they are penalized for it and so there's data there's actual data that shows that what you're saying

is a hundred percent accurate right women are at the bottom of that totem pole even if we overcome that and emily i think on the podcast she gave this beautiful thing of like mothers are at the bottom right it's like of the like benefit to capitalism or to society like mothers are at the bottom of that totem pole and so even if we're able to overcome a lot of the traditional masculine perspectives or commitments that men are forced to make, we still exist in a society though that is demanding conformity. Yeah. Bell Hooks writes a lot about this.

Yeah. The late Bell Hooks and a will to change. yeah the late bell hooks um and a will to change and a part of that is also and again this is where it can't just fall on men a part of this is also reconditioning that female perspective because everybody suffers from internal misogyny yeah right so again it's like because because guess who are the ones saying like oh it's so nice of them to babysit? Women. Yeah. Women. I had a whole internalized misogyny thing around Taylor Swift.

I didn't like her for years. I was just like, I don't think she's that talented. I don't get it. Why does she have to keep writing about all of her exes? Like, why can't she write about something else? And I did this for years part of it was weirdly i was jealous which makes no sense of random me being jealous of taylor swift but then literally last year when olivia rodrigo blew up you know olivia rodrigo

who is very much like has talked about taylor swift's influence on her where she made this whole record about this one boy breaking her heart and I'm like yes get your money take your trauma if you want to and turn it into money and then literally in real time I was like that's what Taylor Swift has been doing this entire time very brilliantly right it's like I'm gonna take my heartbreak and even if I'm 17 this heartbreak is valid and I'm gonna turn it into a song and then I'm going to take my heartbreak and even if I'm 17, this heartbreak is valid and I'm going to turn it into a song and then I'm going to turn that song into a global thing. And I just realized, I was like,

oh, interesting. I have been sitting on misogyny against Taylor Swift for almost a decade. But again, Olivia Rodrigo comes up and I'm like, oh, how brilliant. And I'm like, wait, Taylor Swift has been doing this shit for like 20 years. So are they called you're a swifty now is that what i guess which even feels weird like she's not my favorite musician by any means but now i

have so much more respect for her of like i don't think she's the most talented singer that's okay she has taken something really smart which is like, all these boys broke my heart and I've made a fucking brand out of it. And I'm just like, I didn't. I was so the misogyny around. Oh, why does she have to keep singing about all of her boyfriends? Is she just dating men to have stories? That's literally what I started thinking to myself when I was like 21, 22. Yeah.

Yeah. That that I've heard. I've heard similar things. not just about taylor by the way i have a taylor swift tattoo i'm just joking it's just a scarf on your peck just a scarf um no it's a real it's a real thing i've heard a lot of women talk about this uh uh, female to female competition, jealousy, because I mean,

but it makes sense because it's, we've created a, uh, culture in which success is so scarce that it's almost as if you have to like, it's, it's the same thing that men do. You have to like pull down another woman when she's winning in order we've been told there's one seat at the table there's one seat at the table for women

and so competing and of course the patriarchy does this because then they're like if we tell them there's one seat at the table they'll just all fight each other for it and then we don't have to do anything yeah but it's also important as we think about this is i think that there's a difference we have to in these nuanced conversations separate the patriarchy from men yes and that's not what's happening right now which is why so many men feel under attack yeah tell me more about that because I hate the not all men thing like I hate that you mean the hashtag not all men yeah I just feel like it's it feels to me like like all lives matter oh it is but no but that is but that is very much what that is it is very much uh i feel like it's men's it's a man's well hopefully well-meaning well-intentioned response to them feeling

attacked right so yeah but that's what it is right and but then it's like not all men and it completely um i don't know if disenfranchises is the right word it removes their or any man's responsibility yeah accountability yeah exactly and it really and then it makes women feel like completely unseen and unheard. I've just lit. It is exactly that. I mean, that's the whole thing. So so what I mean by we have to separate men from the patriarchy is that these are nuanced conversations because I or, you know, Joe Blow over here did not create the system. Right.

But we are benefiting from it. Right. And sometimes contributing to it and sometimes upholding it. All of them. But we didn't create it. What we have to figure out how to do is recognize that the system is hurting us also. And we have to then figure out

how to change the system while we're in it. It's the matrix it's literally the matrix sure right and especially when you look at the matrix which most men love right one of the greatest like action movies of all time and then you realize that the two directors created the matrix uh really as a metaphor for trans identity really as a metaphor for trans identity. I did not know this. The Wachowskis, right?

They're trans women. And it's very much looking at the patriarchy in that way and saying like, okay, we're all in the same team now, living in a system we didn't create. Some of us are benefiting more. Some of us without even realizing it are upholding the system. We've also been conditioned at such a young age to believe that this is the system that we have to uphold. And oftentimes fix, but fixing it can also end up hurting people we don't realize we're hurting because we have privilege and what does

privilege do it makes us it it unfortunately uh prevents us from seeing uh all of the things that we should be able to see because we have these unconscious subconscious internal biases so what i mean by that is like looking at men and like looking at men as as partners and i'm talking about myself here versus looking at men as the enemy yeah because nobody is going to win the system will never be taken down if men are the enemy right true equality and we know from a feminist perspective is all of us on the same team figuring out how to blow this thing up yes but men will never join the team if they are the bad ones if they're the ones that are terrible or screwing up which is why i understand and i don't support it the not all men hashtag i've gone public and said like what

are what are you like of course it's not all men, but there's way too many men. So just shut up. Don't say all lives matter. Don't say not all men. Allow the women to say, I don't feel safe walking in my car at night. And it's not because of women. It's because of men. So if you've ever walked too close behind a woman, it's also partly your fault.

Women are not out there making it unsafe for other women. We know that. Yeah. Therefore, when this hashtag starts, maybe you should be quiet and not allow your ego to jump up and say, but some men are good. I'm good. Right. right that's what i mean it's like i can speak to that as a white person during the resurgence of the black lives matter movement in 2020 right as you want to be one of the good ones and i put that in quotes right is you want to be like yeah those white people are terrible but like

i'm trying and i even feel this in myself still like Like I don't, I don't want to fuck up. I don't want to make a mistake. Right. I want to be seen as one of the good ones. And I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine last week. She's like, if you're more focused on protecting your ego versus hurting somebody else, that's the issue,

right? Is like, if you're, it's called performative allyship, right? Right. else that's the issue right is like if you're that's called performative allyship right right if you are more worried about your reputation than what kind of hurt you're causing potentially or could cause that's the issue right so i feel like that's and it's a very common response because again we want to be liked and we want to do good and we feel like we're

well-intentioned people and so i feel like that is the response from men with the not all men thing it's like yeah men are terrible but like it's not me and it's like it might not be you but you're still doing some shit you know but and a lot of those men who are writing those things are genuinely good men who if they saw another man attacking a woman would intervene right but what a lot of men don't understand is it's our it's in our daily behaviors it's in the micro aggressions and the moments that we should intervene and don't it's in the conversation and the way that we talk about women yeah it's it's it's our inability to stand up and say something when a friend makes a deeply uncool sexist joke.

Or when we see a guy, a friend of ours, take a girl home from a bar who's maybe a little too drunk. This is where it starts. And there is no binary here. We have to be willing to lump it all in together for the time being in order to care enough about women to make sure the world is safe and really that's why the hashtag doesn't make any sense just like it's what black people have been saying forever right like you don't care enough about me you don't care enough about me to stop these things from happening to me so i have to protest and do all of the things that I have to do to get your attention.

Yeah. And the same thing. And sometimes we have to say very exclamatory statements like all men are trash or men are trash, right? And when I hear that, I, again, I go back to, I understand. I understand why so many women say it because one in four women for the course of their life i mean is that what it is now between one and three or one and five it's one in three one and three for rape sexually assaulted one and three sexually assault yeah

so you look at that and you're like of course if i was a woman and now again and then now you have again this is uh the other part of the conversation which is where intersection intersectional feminism comes into play is at the bottom of that, then you have trans women, black women, right? Black trans women. And yeah, I would hate men too, if that was my life. Because I remember the first time, I mean, I read, I just had Jackson Katz on my podcast and we released his episode today.

The first time I read Macho Paradoxadox I was blown away because I really thought violence against women kind of was a women's issue I didn't think about it as a man's issue but it's a hundred percent a man's issue and then my wife starts telling me all the things that she's had to do over the course of her life yeah to feel safe why she doesn't go you know why she wouldn't walk to her car at night, why she always has her phone in her hand, why she has pepper spray, how she would put her keys between her fingers.

Every single woman. Every woman does this. And it's not just women. I knew this when I was a 12-year-old. Of course. And I think everybody listening, and that's what I loved. Liz, on your podcast,

it was a clip that went viral. It was so brilliant of um like why are you the expert on masculinity and she just had the most thoughtful response which is i've had to deal with it so of course i'm the expert of masculinity like i know better than anybody because i'm the one who's on the way that it hurts right i'm on the flip side of it and i would also suggest that, you know, there could be another viral quote where a man could say a very similar

thing, which is why we're experts on it. Well, I've also been hurt by this, by men and the same system, which is why I'm doing my work. And what men don't realize is how much we're hurting at the hands of each other.

Yeah. The whole system is hurting everybody we're all hurting the only reason men are killing themselves at alarming rates and other people is because we're hurting yeah it's because it's this it's this it's different but similar the same reason why women are attacking each other for that one seat at the table is the same reason that we have war and that we are doing what we're doing to the world and the climate. It's all coming from the same place, from a deep feeling that we are not enough and from our worth being measured by our productivity and proximity to power. Yeah, that's it. Which is why a feminist gaze, not in a man-hating way, because that is not feminism.

And this is what I tell men all the time. Feminism is not man-hating. It's not, especially if you read, especially early black feminist authors like Bell Hooks. It's not. We have to bring everybody to the table. And that can only happen with radical acts of love and kindness and acceptance. So if a man is open to having these conversations, if a man is open to feel,

if a man is open to take account and accountability for the things he's done wrong, that's a man that I want on this team. Of course. Like we, like we have to be willing to just open that door for all of these men who maybe haven't thought about it this way. And that's kind of going back to separating the patriarchy from men in terms

of like our neighbors, our friends, our fathers. I am, I think of the system like the matrix, like almost like from the time we're born, we're brainwashed. I can't be mad at somebody who thinks that they are a chicken. Like if you genuinely think that

you're a chicken and you have feathers, how am I going to be mad at you? Like if you're walking around and you genuinely believe the sky is green, there's something in you that has been programmed that way. I can't be mad at you i might be confused but i want to figure out okay well how can i help you understand the sky is blue how can i help you see that you're you're not a chicken you're a human being it's a terrible analogy but i'm just i'm trying to make it visible no that's great i just want fried chicken that's all it's in my head i can't be mad at them that's great i can't be mad at them i have to have compassion for them yeah i have to and i'm not saying women them. I have to have compassion for them. I have to, and I'm not saying women have to.

I have to have compassion for them. I have to find a way to bring them in and help them see that, no, the system made you think the sky is green. It's actually blue and it's beautiful and you're enough as you are. You don't have to see things that way anymore. That's what I hope for the future. That's why I believe that the key to all of this is healing. That's what I hope for the future.

That's why I believe that the key to all of this is healing. The key to all of this is us men, especially men, learning how to heal, starting to take account for how we're feeling about the world, how we're feeling about things, asking ourselves questions we've never asked ourselves before because nobody gives a shit what we say as men. Men don't care what other men say. Why would women care what other men say we've been the oppressors nobody cares so here we are in a system that devalues us that makes us feel like we have power for devaluing others and in reality we're getting lonelier and lonelier and lonelier

yeah and it's through that perspective that we can all come together and heal. And I think as a society, we're just not comfortable being uncomfortable. Of course not. That's where the growth happens, right? And so it's so easy to exist in comfort but never change. And so being brave enough to be uncomfortable and ask yourself, what part do I play in it is the step to ultimately being a better man or being a better ally or being a better person, just in general, human being.

We're great at that. Well, Justin, one of my favorite things is the story you tell in your TED Talk where you're like, I had to take my male friends on vacation for me to have any sort of opening up. And you did it at the last possible moment on this vacation. Yeah, it wasn't even me. It was a friend of mine said something first.

So tell me more about that because it's my favorite story because I feel like, again, vulnerability, all of these things are hard enough just as people but i think specifically again the patriarchy has made it impossible for men to be vulnerable like so difficult yeah because because vulnerability is akin to weakness yes um and weakness is uh is akin to femininity. I mean, even I remember when I was researching early on, I think maybe it was for my TED Talk, but I was like, if I type in feminine, what happens? And I remember something came up.

And I read, even in music, there's a feminine note. It's a weak note. That was how I remember I read the description. I'm like, wow, even in music, there's a weak and strong. Yeah. And I do believe that there is something to masculine and feminine energies. Completely. I 100% believe that there is such thing as masculine. And if anything, masculine is a penetrating force.

There's masculine and there's feminine, which is a receiving force. We need these two push and pulls in life to have balance. We need it in love. But it's an energy. It's an energy. It's spiritual in love. But it's an energy. It's an energy. It's spiritual in nature. Yeah. So the divine masculine, the divine feminine, this is a whole for another podcast.

These are things that we need. Yeah. Even in nature, we need them. In the animal kingdom, we need them. In the plant, in the mineral kingdom. Right. The yin yang. This is energy flow.

Right. What we've done is we've attributed it to gender and then said you can only be these things if you're outside of the box of these things then you don't fit in this box because you have to conform and you're worthless yep when in reality that's not how the energy of masculine and feminine works especially if it's spiritual in nature. You and I, I could flip into feminine right now and you could be the masculine. And in many cases, this podcast started in that way where I was asking you the questions and you were giving. I was receiving and you were penetrating my brain with your brilliance.

Well, and I work with an energy coach and literally the last year and a half has been her just being like, I think you need to calm down on the masculine energy. And I'm like, really? And she was like, uh-huh. I was like, okay. But that's understandable, Tori. have a chance to make money be powerful um benefit from this system provide they have to develop oftentimes a masculine energy to compete in a world that says there's only one seat at the table for them well in a negative masculine energy because there's so many parts of me that are

the masculine energy that i absolutely love i think my like productivity my ambition but like my rest my softness i have lost over the past couple years in trying to build what i wanted you're not alone no because life and society and all of this is really hard and so i have i have very much defaulted to the and again when we say or feminine, we don't mean the societal masculine or feminine, right? Or like the social construct, right? We're talking about literally just like in its purest form, what is it? Right. And it's not, it's not tied to gender. So for me, it was just, you know, I was in such a building phase for so much of the last couple years and still am and I've lost

so much of the rest and the peace that is feminine energy but what's so but you're you're so right Tori but so many women are experiencing this yeah and anytime and this is why like the idea of toxic masculinity I never say it but anytime we are only allowing ourselves to be one thing that eventually becomes toxic yeah because if i were to as an example breathing is masculine and feminine if i were to take a breath i have to inhale right and then i have to exhale if If I were only inhaling, I would explode. And that's what's happening. Yeah.

That's what's happening to men all over the world. That's what's happening to women now. We are, we're like, we're trying to keep our head above water, and we're exploding, because we're not allowing ourselves to exhale, to rest,

and then to inhale again. If the ocean was only slamming us with waves, we would all be underwater. But what happens? The ocean has a very masculine aggressive force and then a very feminine pullback. Masculine, feminine. Everything in life moves in waves. It's fundamentally spiritual. It's how I believe we're designed.

So what we forget is like, oh wait, men also can be feminine. There's a feminine energy in men too. Why? Because we're human beings. We're created with masculine and feminine. And every human being is unique. Every human being is different. Some human beings will develop very masculine um personalities and energies and some will develop very feminine and that does not look like male or female either right it's not about the actual gender or the biological differences between the two now that said there of course is data and science behind the fact that the that there are many more men that exhibit early on masculine traits but what does that mean then all of the ones that don't that have more feminine traits are thrown out they're not they're

not allowed right they're not men no that's the purpose that's the purpose of my work in my book that's what that's the purpose of undefining the definition of masculinity and the same thing goes for women but in a system like we're living in when we tell women that they either have to be extremely feminine or extremely masculine you're creating toxic toxicity in both sides just like we're doing with men men who are who are so filled with like rage and anger generally those are the ones who have never allowed themselves the feminine parts to come out. Those are the men that have never allowed themselves to experience the feminine parts of themselves. So it's super important that we look for balance

in all of these things. So back to your question, the reason why us men can't be vulnerable with each other is because that vulnerability, which is ascribed feminine and weak, is used against us growing up. We can't show other men we're weak. Why? Because we're going to get bullied or made fun of or picked on or lose our standing. It's life or death for us men, which is why I have so much

compassion for men, which is why my work is with men, because we're hurting. We so badly want to be vulnerable, but we can't, because if we are, we might lose want to be vulnerable but we can't because if we are we might lose everything yeah it feels like life or death it feels like paralysis to men so when i took my friends out um because i because i wasn't able to call them and tell them i was struggling when i took them to mexico on this trip it required one of my other best friends on the third day being the one to open up because he was suffering with something for me to open up because we men learn from modeling. We need to see another man do it for us to know that it's okay. If we haven't seen another man do it, we stay away from it because that means men don't do that. And the most important

thing for us men is that we're men. That's our allegiance. It's not to humanity. It's to men because that's what the system has taught us. It's life or death. And that's why we got to reach our young boys at an early age and tell them that that's not the way that life can be beautiful and sweet and fun and joyful. And you can dance and sing and be free and you don't, and be vulnerable and have deep friendships that don't mean you're gay and if you are you're you're still a man all of the things we have to teach our young boys so they don't grow up carrying so much shame and anger in their bodies and end up hurting not just themselves but the people they love i'm over here crying thank you i admire you so deep for having me

tori thank you for being here um thank you for teaching me too uh this is amazing um where can people find you um what do you got going on in your life they can find me at financial feminists stop it her first 100k on tiktok no plug yourself please please please no really they can find me at her first 100k on tiktok because that's where they're going to be listening to and then i'm sure you'll link man enough man enough podcast um amazing movies yeah the paperback the paperback's about to come out the paperback of man enough and it's cheaper and more affordable and so i highly suggest uh those of you looking at that and if you're a woman listening to this please consider gifting it to a

man in your life and let me just say this don't tell him he has to read it don't make him feel like he's bad or that he needs to fix something because that doesn't work say you just heard it you felt like they could resonate with it don't force them to do it that's great advice and eventually maybe they'll get around to it and if they really love you and it's important to you then maybe they'll read it yep amazing thank you justin thank you for having me and thank you for educating women of course and helping create more balance in the universe what a episode oh it's so good i am so thankful thankful to Justin for sharing his wisdom and advocacy with us. And I hope you have a new view of masculinity after listening. And much like he said about his

book, this is a great conversation for anyone regardless of their gender identity, but specifically for male identifying people in your life. So like he said, maybe invite them to listen. Don't call them out. Don't force them to listen to the episode. I think it'll be a really powerful conversation, especially for the men in your life. Please make sure to check out Justin's work at We Are Man Enough on Instagram and TikTok. And of course, the Man Enough podcast. It's a wonderful podcast, also co-hosted by a colleague of mine, Liz Plank. Also, we'll link the Man Enough paperback in the show notes. It has just come out recently and since we recorded justin also announced the release of his new book boys will be humans a

book for boys ages 10 and up that helps them embrace their feelings and their fears instead of repressing them so you can pre-order that book now through the link in our show notes can't wait to see you back here financial feminists i'll talk to you soon thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel,

Olivia Koenig, Charisse Wade, Alina Hilzer, Paulina Isaac, Sophia Cohen, Valerie Oresko, Jack Koenig, and Ana Alexandra. Research by Arielle Johnson. Audio engineering by Austin Fields. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolf. And theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, episode show notes, and our upcoming book, also titled Financial Feminist, visit herfirst100k.com.