Habits and Hustle - Episode 482: Dr. Robert Glover: Why Nice Guys Finish Last (And What Women Really Want Instead)

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Ever wonder why the "nice guys" often finish last in love and life? What if everything we've been taught about being likable is actually sabotaging our relationships and success? In this episode of Habits and Hustle, I sit down with Dr. Robert Glover to discuss the hidden psychology behind "nice guy syndrome" – and why it's not actually nice at all.  We explore how people-pleasing becomes a manipulative strategy and why women aren't attracted to overly accommodating men. We also discuss why vulnerability with other men is crucial for growth and practical strategies for becoming authentically confident instead of just "nice." Dr. Robert Glover is a licensed marriage and family therapist, bestselling author of "No More Mr. Nice Guy," and founder of men's development programs worldwide. For over 25 years, he's helped thousands of men break free from people-pleasing patterns to become integrated, authentic leaders in their relationships and careers. What We Discuss:  (03:05) What defines a "nice guy" vs. someone who's genuinely nice  (08:27) Why nice guys are often underachievers stuck in middle management  (21:30) What women actually want vs. what nice guys think they want  (32:02) How long before nice guys show their true colors  (42:01) The difference between being nice and being authentic  (46:09) Why successful men can still be "simps" in relationships  (51:27) The dating crisis: why fewer people are in relationships  (57:02) Creating positive emotional tension in relationships  (1:03:17) What makes a strong, lasting relationship work  (1:05:04) Practical strategies for polarizing your partner  (1:13:07) The masculinity crisis and why men are isolated  …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohen and use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. 99designs by Vista: 99designs.com/jen20  – click "Claim my discount" to get $20 off your first design contest. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout.   Find more from Jen:  Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen   Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Dr. Robert Glover: Website: https://www.drglover.com/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrGloverOfficial 

Hi, guys. It's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Thank you for being on the podcast. We have Dr. Robert Glover. And he is the leading expert, PhD. What do we say? Is that a doctorate in marriage and family. Marriage and family therapy. He said I shouldn't call him a psychologist, even though that's where all to think, that's what everything is coined has. The psychologists get all pissed off and, you know, stuff like that. All right. We don't want that to happen. No. And what he is an expert in is nice guys. He wrote a book that's still a major bestseller called No More Mr. Nice Guy. And we're going to get all into what a nice guy is and the syndrome of a nice guy. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you for inviting me. It's always fun to come back to L.A. I get here on the day that they impose a curfew on downtown Los Angeles. Can you believe? Yes, this is what's happening right now. What we do to start the show, actually, I don't know if you've ever seen. an episode, but what we do is we take a healthy shot. These are like these magic and healthy shots. Yeah. And we cheers and these, the reason why we do this is it keeps us very focused and it gives us like that extra edge of being alert and on point. So people love them.

If one of us has HD HD, it really helps. And one of us does, you know. Salood. Cures, yes. Take it all down on one. I've had a few though today, so I'm scared to have more. But my, this, actually, this one's caffeine-free and sugar-free. So there's all just adaptogens. Why drink it? I know, right? Well, you'll tell me after if you feel anything. Okay. Okay. That'll go with the Americana already had this morning. Okay, well, there you go. That's why these ones are caffeine-free just for the people who drink a lot of caffeine like me. But they work really well. You'll see. And they have great ingredients. Okay. Anyway, let's get into it. Mr. Nice Guy. What is your definition of a nice guy? Let's start with

the basics. Okay. Elevator pitch, a nice guy. Yeah. He's a man who's inaccurately internalized and emotional belief that he's not okay just as he is. Probably has happened very early in life. It can begin at three weeks old, three months old, three years old. We can go more into that. But because he believes he's not okay just as he is, not lovable, he tries to do two things. One, become what he thinks other people want him to be, so he'd be liked and loved and get his niece met. And the second thing is trying to hide anything about him that might get a negative reaction.

that might get him punished, abandoned, scolded, shamed. So he's walking around like a chameleon, trying to become, trying to hide, and there's no real him in there. That's so interesting. So what about this idea of, like, you know, some people have a disposition and their temperament is just kind of more passive and nice and easygoing? That's me. That's you. Yeah. But what you're saying is this nice guy, when someone says, oh, he's such a nice,

nice guy. It's this other type of situation where it's more of a facade, so to speak. Nowadays, that's not a compliment. No, I know it's not a compliment at all. People don't take that well. Yeah, because what we think of now and what I write about in Mr. Nice Guy is a guy that is passively pleasing, conflict avoidant, goes along to get along, doesn't want to rock the boat, doesn't want anybody pissed at him. So there's no real him there. So often he's not honest, he's not transparent, he's not straightforward, you don't know what he really thinks, wants, and feels. And as a result, he's often frustrated, passive-aggressive, and could even be extremely not nice at times. If all those conversations he's rehearsed in his head about why you're

not appreciating him enough or giving him enough or why you don't like him or treat him better, all of that builds up and it comes out and he's not at all very nice. So the nice guy actually is not a nice guy? It depends on when you catch him. Right. Well, the core problem is he's inauthentic. You don't really know who he is. And deeper than that, the nice guy, and I'm a recovering nice guy.

So I tell people, my book is my autobiography. I use other people's stories to tell mine. Right. I thought that was a good thing, that I was a nice guy. I was different from my father. My father was selfish, and I guess we'd say patriarchal, would boss my mother around. Mrs. Glover, get me that. Mrs. Glover, do that for me.

And my mother even told me at a young age, she was raising me and my brother to be different from our father. I grew up during the angry feminism of the 60s and 70s. Every man's a rapist and erection's a sign of aggression. So I didn't want to be that bad guy that disappointed women, pissed them off, hurt women. And so really what a nice guy does is he starts just taking everything off the table. Well, I can't be that. I can't be that. Well, I better not be that way. Or women complain about men that way. So there's no real him left there anymore. And he doesn't even realize that. He doesn't often realize how hard he's working to get people's approval. So, you know, if you and I are having a conversation and if you nod and you smile, well, I'll keep doing more

of that, right? I got that smile. You've got the dimples a little bit. Oh, good. I'm on the right track. But if you kind of lean back or scow, I won't say that again. Or I better explain what I meant by that. And so, again, is chameleon-like? And he's not happy. He's not getting his needs met. He's going along to get along. And the people around him, number one, they're nice guys aren't very attractive. We think we're going to make women like us, but usually women are disinterested. They may take advantage of us or walk on us, but they're not going to ever be real interested in us. And if you do get close to them, you get that passive aggressiveness, the occasional blowup, the victim puk that I talk about in the book. So, and nice guys tend to be underachievers, you know,

we're good at being good, but not great at being great. So there's a whole, you know, that's so interesting. A lot of issues that go with it. So nice guys are technically, or not technically, are usually underachievers, not overachievers. I have an online course I wrote 20 plus years ago called Nice Guys Don't Finish Last. They rot in middle management. So they're good at being Because they're conscientious, but, you know, they don't want to rock the boat. They don't take risks. They won't start their own company. They'll think about it for years. But again, they go along to get along. They're codependent in the workplace. They'll help their co-worker get their stuff done, but their stuff gets neglected. Everybody else gets to credit. So, yeah, they often fail to live up to their full potential.

It's a piece I've struggled with. I've hit a number of glass ceilings in my life that go, how come, how come this as far as I seem to be able to go. But it's because a nice guy's nervous system can't handle all that visibility, all that extra demand that we think's going to be out there, the fear of failing, looking bad, making a mistake. Because again, we want to look good. We want everybody to think we're good. So trying to be good enough really prevents us from truly living up to whatever our potential might be. So usually they're wearing a mask. Nice guys are typically wearing a mask. And a lot of times, like, I always notice that the people who always seem not necessarily a nice guy, but the people who always seem perfect on the outside are usually the most broken on the

inside. Like, the people who are always like, they seem like they're just like everything seems great and everything's so positive, Polly, and like they're always smiling. And it's like this, it actually, people who seem like that seem too perfect always make me uncomfortable. Good. They should. I've got a good friend like that. And, a couple years ago, every time we got together, how's doing? Oh, life's good. Life's amazing. Life's great. Why? I said, I won't say his name, but I said, you know, really? Nothing ever goes wrong. You never have any problems. And he goes, actually, right now, man, I'm going through this issue with my girlfriend and my company struggling. I got, why don't you just say that? Why don't you

just say, actually, I'm struggling right now. I'm having a hard time. Now all of a sudden, we got something to talk about. Right, because you then become like a, I don't know how much you know about me or not, but like my, would I talk about a lot? I went on perplexity and asked about you while I was waiting for you. Oh, you did? Okay. Well, what did it say? Oh, it said that you help Olympians and movie stars, but you're not the athletic director at USC apparently. No, I'm not the athletic director. I know everyone always thinks that, but no. What I was going to say is like my, a lot of what I speak about is authenticity and being your real, like being who you really are. That's what we're talking about here. And yeah, and like people gravitate to, that, that's

makes someone likable when someone can feel like you are human and that you also are like you're relatable and that you're authentic and that you are all these things what i find very interesting though the the flip side of that or on the other side of the coin is people who are complainers are very unattractive also right like people don't want to be around because they're victims they're they're often wound collectors it's not because they're just telling you oh i've had a hard day. Right. They're telling you all the things that they're victims of. Well, what if someone just, I think that there's a, but there's also this ideology that, you know, I don't want, if I was somebody and I just don't want to, like, I don't want to complain. I don't want to, like, air my

dirty laundry. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer. So I'll just be like, I will smile through things just to kind of, you know, get through the thing. That does, that's, that's, that's not the same thing, though, that we're talking about. So it's all contextual. Yeah, it's context. Yeah. It's context. Yeah. For example, you know, this buddy of mine, we're a good friend. Yeah. Why is you not telling you the truth? Exactly. Right. And I've got groups in my life. I got a men's group. I got guy friends that if I'm struggling, if I'm down, if I'm lethargic, if I'm in a state of existential angst, right, I talk to them about it. I let them know. I don't just carry it around in this echo chamber

in my head and put on a smiley face. Now, do I tell the flight attendant, all of that stuff? You know, on the airplane? No. Right. Right. Right. Right. I might get on a podcast and share some of it. But I say in the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy, that nice guys are like Teflon, man. They look like everything's okay, right? But I say that people are actually attracted to other people's rough edges because that's what we can relate to. You can relate to somebody that looks perfect. And, you know, they say, oh, life's great. Everything's always good. Hunky dory, yeah. And in the same time, every time you get around her friend, you don't want to hear just a liturgy of complaint about everything that's going wrong. And usually those kind of people, they're not looking for solutions to take action and improve whatever the situation is. They just like complaining. I think there's like chemical payoffs in the brain for playing the victim. Right.

Otherwise, why would people do it? And there's certain category people that do that. So you got your people, everything's amazing, everything's great, life's good, to the people complaining all the time. But the real authentic person doesn't present a facade like everything's great, but they don't go dump everything on you either. They've got their resources for dealing with it. And they actually look for solutions that they can apply to their life and go address

and whatever address, it's kind of like the serenity prayer. You either go figure out what I can go do or accept what's out of my control. But once you accept that it's out of your control, you don't complain about it. You just go, okay, this is what is. What are some, like, what are the psychological roots of how someone becomes a nice guy in the first place? Well, you mentioned earlier, one, that I think is where a lot of nice guys begin. It's our temperament.

And you've got kids, apparently, more than one? Two. Two. Did they pop out the same? No. No, exactly. And, you know, one's probably a challenge, and one is easygoing. And, you know, you love them both, but these days.

One's super sassy and one is much easier for sure. There you go. Yeah. And the easier one probably doesn't want to compete with the sassy one and can't compete. And so they may even let the sassy one get more of the attention. They may, you know, kind of get more in the background. And just because that's their temperament. My mother used to tell women I dated.

She said, Bobby never did like conflict. I go, thanks, Mom. Right, right. But I'm thinking, who the fuck likes conflict? I mean, nobody likes conflict. Oh, no, I marry women that love conflict. I tell my wife all the time, she's Latina, she's Mexican. Oh, so she's, like, very fiery.

Oh, she's fiery. She's strong. She's a Guerrera. She's a warrior. But, okay, let me ask you something, because women typically don't like nice guys. They're not, they're not that they don't like them. There's nothing to flip the switch to turn them on to say, yeah, I want that. But why do women always, like, women are usually more attractive to a jerk or one of these, like, guys who are more aloof.

and rough around, like, kind of like doesn't give you the attention. What is the reason for that? Oh, you want to go down that, rabble? Yeah, I do. All right, let's go, man. Yeah. So there's probably a number of reasons for it. Probably the core part of it is evolutionary, that, you know, the men that had the most

capability of providing and protecting for the females and the tribe probably weren't the most available. They probably weren't the one sitting around and go, yeah, I hear that Debbie pissed you off. Man, that was really hurtful of her to say, no, they're out killing stuff, right? They're out warring stuff. They're the ones they're going to provide and protect. They're the ones that are going to bring back the food, the furs, and the fucks. So those are the ones that, evolutionary, that, yeah, yeah, that's a turn on.

The nice guys, I refer to them as girlfriends with a penis. Yeah, they'll listen to you talk about this and talk about that and they'll hide their sexual agenda from you, hoping if they hide their sexual agenda, they're not one of those bad guys that only want one thing we've heard women complain about it. Right, right. The irony is if I pretend like I'm not interested in you sexually, you might want to take your clothes off, right? There's no logic to it. Yeah. It fits nice guy logic. So I actually teach, I have a whole class I call positive emotional tension. Okay. The basic premise is that women have to experience emotional tension with a man to be attracted to him, aroused by him, and stay attached over time. Unfortunately, most men,

but especially nice guys do not like emotional tension, especially in relationship. We want everything smooth and calm and predictable. And so while the nice guys trying to keep everything smooth and calm and predictable, there's no emotional tension to turn your crank. Get you excited. Go, yeah, he's interesting. And so I tell guys, it doesn't matter to women. That's a generalization.

It doesn't matter if it's what I call negative emotional tension or positive emotional tension. Positive emotional tension typically feels good to everybody. Negative emotional tension usually feels bad to the guy. The woman doesn't care. You know, you can slam cabinets, you can get the silent treatment, you can scream. I mean, that feels fine. For most women, they don't care. But for guys, nice guys, no, no, no, I got to fix that, got to fix that.

And I tell guys, either you create the positive emotional tension, you know, create, you know, some healthy coming together and moving apart, not too much availability, a little bit of unpredictability, a little bit of playfulness, some leadership, some leadership, some telling her what to do, tell her to do what she already wants to do. A little bit of that creates emotional tension for the woman. And I said, if you don't create that, if the woman wants that connection and arousal and attachment to you, she'll create the kind of tension you don't like. She'll flirt with your best friend.

She'll give you the silent treatment. She'll slam cabinet. She'll throw dishes down. She'll, you know, she'll be cold. Are they doing that subconsciously to get a reaction? Both. You tell me. Because women have told me, yeah, I've started fights when I'm bored.

Women have told me that. And I'm a therapist. I've listened to it, you know, a lot of stories. I mean, maybe, I don't think, maybe, I don't know if I do it on purpose or not, I mean, but. But what you maybe do to express frustration, I don't know if you throw dishes down or slam cabinet doors or give the silent treatment. You probably do something when you're. I'm perfect.

What are you talking about? You're perfect. Just keep drinking those shots, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but what I'm saying, even if you're distracted with something, and if, if, if, And let's say if you're with a nice guy, he'll go, oh, there's something wrong. I haven't heard from her. She hasn't messaged back. She's this, she's that. And he'll go try to fix it, make sure everything's okay and make it better. And to most women, that just, that doesn't feel good. It feels like a little boy

trying to make sure mommy, you okay? Is everything all right? Do you still love me? Do you still like my pee? Do you still like my pee? And so, and again, most women aren't turned on by a little boy. Yeah. And so, and that's how nice guys are. We're still seeking the approval of a woman. I'll share a quick quote with you. One of my No More Mr. Nice Guy coaches wrote a book called Sipping Fear, Pissing Courage. It's a really good book. So about addiction in men. You'd be a fun interview, too.

Oh, is it called Sipping Fear? Sipping Fear, Pissing Courage. Okay. And there's a line in that book, and I was actually driving in my car from California to Washington one time, listening to the audio book. And there's a line in the book that says, a man does not mature until he quit seeking the approval of a woman. And I started trying to replay that over and over again on card play, and I finally just pulled off the freeway off I-5 and just listened to it, even when God bought a hard copy to read it.

Because that really resonated with me and what I teach men and what I'm working on. If I'm seeking the approval of a woman, if I'm seeking the approval of you, I'm going to give you a shitty interview, right? It's going to be passive and tame, and people aren't going to want to watch it. But if I don't care if you approve of me or not, that doesn't mean I'm going to try to piss you off. But if I don't care, we'll have a lot better conversation. be more interested. I'll have more fun. Your viewers will be more interested. So as long as a man is seeking the approval of any woman, he's still a little boy. And we don't truly get initiated into the tribe of adult masculine men until we give up that need for feminine approval. Now we recognize we have

what the women want. We've got the things that evolution wired you to be attracted to in men if we're not seeking your approval. So that is such a key piece with nice. guys is confronting that, I got to make the woman happy. I have to have her approval. I have to, you know, she's always got to be nodding and smiling at me all the time. So, there we go. I've got you well trained. You did. Exactly. But then what in your opinion would be the opposite of a nice guy that people should seek or try to be, if not this nice guy? Well, and that's how we tend to think. What's the opposite, right? And when I wrote the book, I think the publisher hoped that there'd be a little bit of a blowback because, you know, the title's a little bit,

we probably have all said at one time or another, no more Mr. Nice Guy. I'm not taking it anymore. Right. But you see that on a book title and you think, why would somebody write a book teaching men to be not nice? There's enough not nice men out there. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that too. There never was any blowback. I think the publisher was hoping they're, you know, it's good publicity. Yeah. In fact, women like the book. All the emails I get, women say, thank you. Thank you.

I just got long email from a woman just yesterday telling me, how much it helped her understand the men in her life. What I find very interesting and what I like about you is you don't mince words, right? I think we live in a time when people are trying to be very PC and very, oh, okay. I've tried that. I'm not a fan of it, to be honest. Like, to your point, like, I rather just, like, shoot from the hip and the people who appreciate it, great.

And if you don't, well, then I'm not your vibe. And that's fine, too. Exactly. And I do believe that being that way, you'll attract the right people, too, right? Like, your tribe or the people or the man or the women or whatever will like you for the right reasons. So because you can't, the facade eventually comes down anyway. But like the way I was going to say, why women will like this is it may not be 2025, you know, friendly with masculine, like toxic masculinity. and all of these things we're going to get into later.

But I do believe it's very accurate. Like there is, like, especially for women, I think women like men who are, like, somewhat more strong than they are, who can, like, lead, who can make a decision, be decisive, and kind of, like, you know, kind of not put you in your place, but, like, have, like, some kind of backbone where they're much more, masculine, you know? Well, let's roll that in with the other question

we didn't finish about what's the opposite. What's the opposite? Yeah. Because a good term for what you're talking about, we'll call it polarity. Polarity is a good word, yes, yeah, yeah. What we usually think of, kind of going back to the title of the book, well, if it's not teaching men to be not nice, what is it doing? Because we tend

to think black and white. Is this or that? Does that mean it's a jerk? Yeah, no. And I say that in the book, that I'm not teaching men to be jerks. There are enough jerks out there. We don't need to teach more And by the book called The Game, that's basically what that is. Like, there's a whole, you know that whole thing, right? Neil Strauss, yeah.

Neil Strauss, like this whole thing is about, like, if you show disinterest and if you play these games and not be attention to the girl, they're going to, like, they're going to, like, automatically like you. That also is, like, kind of, like... That's, again, going from one extreme to another. That's written by a guy. Neil says he now wishes he hadn't written the book, but I assume he still takes the royalty checks.

Yeah. You know, that one from a guy that... that, you know, low self-esteem, didn't know how to talk to women, and, you know, let's go to the other extreme. Now we're going to do this and play on women's low self-esteem and try to manipulate that. Being authentic doesn't do that. Being authentic is just you being you. And when talking about what's the opposite of a nice guy, the way I look at it is that I think the nice guy in the asshole are actually on the same continuum. I think both of them are living in what we'll call fight, flight, freeze nervous system. They're both in some.

sympathetic nervous system. The nice guy is in flight, freeze, or fawn trying to manage their anxiety and manage situations around them. The asshole jerk is in fight mode. So he actually just intimidates people to manage situations. I think they're both in sympathetic nervous system. So just guys will say to me, well, I know being a nice guy isn't right, but I don't think I want to be a jerk. I need to find a happy medium. And I go, I don't know what the tipping point is between two toxic extremes because they're both on the same continuum. So what I teach is we actually have to rise up above, not just become more this way, right? Become more like the asshole jerk. We have to become more conscious. We have to become more assertive. We have to become more differentiated.

That's the ability to ask ourselves, what do we want? What's important to mean and follow through on it. We have to learn to have boundaries. We have to learn to make our needs of priority. Those are all things that make us healthy, authentic adults, not one or the other down here. And as you've indicated, if we're just talking about polarity and relationship between men and women, I think most women are going to find this guy a lot more attractive than either this one. But I have empathy for women, because if you think about it, through most time, these were your two picks and men. You either pick the asshole jerk or the passively pleasing door mat. This one kind of turns you on, but he's going to, you know, sleep with your sister.

do drugs, steal your money, shit like that, lie to you. This guy, you know, he's going to look like, you know, he's going to treat you well, do things for you, but he also might sleep with your sister, lie to you. Would the nice guy do that, though? Oh, they do because they, everything that nice guys do is, most of it is they go underground at a pretty young age. They go along to get along, so they hide their wants and their needs. So, yeah, that is one issue with nice guys, is that they'll surprise you. Go, where'd that come from. I didn't see that coming because I thought everything was okay until fill in the blank. What are some like subtle signs that women can look out for that the guy is a nice guy

besides the obvious ones? Besides he doesn't turn you on? Besides the fact that yeah, he doesn't turn you on and or that they're people pleasing and all these things because like you were just mentioning like and I also read in your book like a lot of the nice guy I guess a lot of the care, like a lot of the obvious or not so obvious character traits of a nice guy is a lot of it's embedded in shame and anxiety. They have a lot of shame and anxiety. Can you just expand on that a little bit? Yeah. When I wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy, I wrote it over 25 years ago. Yeah. About six, seven years to write it. Just quickly, a lot of publishing companies back then said, Robert, we like your book. It's well written, but our marketing department says men won't buy a self-help.

belt book. I said, well, if you don't publish them, they can't buy them. That was pre-Amazon, pre-podcasts like this, where, you know, you put the show notes, people click on it, go to Amazon, buy that book, buy a bunch of others. Right, right, right. But as I was telling you before, we start talking, you know, this annually brings in over six figures in royalty check every year, every year. So apparently, there's more and more nice guys out there. And, you know, now we call it the younger generation, simps. Yeah. Would you call them? Simps. I didn't make that up. What is that? The Gen Z, Symps for, it comes from Sympatico, sympathetic, They're the guys that basically, you know, let the girls walk on them.

They're pleasing, trying to make them happy. So the kids- That's what's called. It's called Sims? Go online. You know, get Eddie to bring it up on chat, GBT. What is it? Yeah, it's like sympathetic, like, doormat, basically. Door mat.

So Simp is kind of. It's a derogatory turn. Right, so Simp is kind of, is another way of saying a doormat. Yeah, how old are your kids? 10 and 12. Ask the 12-year-old, what is. Oh, sure. He has all these things.

I have no idea. I've never heard of any of them. I'm sure I was thinking about that. I got such an education from my boys, too. Oh, my God. It's hilarious. Yeah. So your question is, how does a woman know? Okay. Number one, he might seem too good to be true. Really? Is he really this nice? You know, is he really this calm? Is he really this giving? Is he really this generous? Something, you know, in your gut won't feel right. The other thing is you may want to be turned on by him, but you're not, even though you think, what's wrong with me? He's a good guy. why do I always pick the jerks? You know, I think I finally found a good guy, but I don't want him. You know, I should want him. So you'll probably feel that. And you'll also probably often feel a certain amount of emotional indebtedness in that he's going to be trying to do so many things for you that you never feel like you get a chance to like do anything for him or return a favor or surprise him. Because he'll turn around to do something right back for you again. Because nice guys are terrible receivers. And we, we, we've

operate with what I call covert contracts. If I just give you all these things, you'll appreciate me, you'll love me, you'll want to take your clothes off, even though you're not turned on by me. So, and then after we do enough of that, and maybe you don't appreciate me enough, or don't take your clothes off, or don't take them off enough, all that resentment I've got that I kept my end of the contract, you haven't kept your end, and then that's where the passive aggressive, the victim pukes come out. So for a woman, if, again, if he just seems too good to be true, and he does so many nice things for you, above and beyond, wanting to fix things for you, plan trips for you, take you on expensive dates early on. You know, all that stuff, you're just going, why is you

trying so hard? Let's just get to know each other. So that's a bad sign. Not a good thing. Not a good thing. Now, again, you're going to question in your mind, well, you know, all the other jerks I've been with, you know, I knew right off they weren't good, but I was so turned on by them. This guy seems like such a nice guy. How come what's, you'll probably, you'll probably questioned there's something wrong with you. Yeah, I think a lot of girls will do that, right? Why don't you like this guy? Yeah. That they don't like the guy who is really nice and kind. Because you've always been saying, I want to find a nice guy. Exactly. The nice guy comes long and you go, yeah, but he doesn't turn me on like the jerk. But there's, there's even more

to it. Your spidey sense will tell you, this is too good to be true. It is. How long until they show their true colors, or is it just these, like, outbursts that you were saying, or just in general? Like, let's say you kind of give the nice guy a chance, then what happens? That's a good question. It probably depends. Probably, I know back in my second marriage when I wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy, I'd have one of those victim pukes. Mike's wife called him that. She goes, I think everything's fine. She'd rather be with a jerk. At least a jerk treats me bad all the time. You treat me well. I think everything's good, and then you blow up. And so I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd have one of these victim pukes. And again, I'd just puk out everything I'd rehearsed, wanted to say,

held in. And then when things got calm and cleaned up all the mess, she'd say, how long that'd been bothering you? I'd go, I don't know, six months maybe? And she said, it never crossed your mind to just say something. And I go, not really. And if I had, it probably just would have pissed you off. She goes, I'd rather you say something. So, you know, I had, I think about a six-month cycle that I, but probably everybody's different. Probably, I'll get guys, they'll write me and say, Robert, how do I take a woman on a coffee date and then get her to come back to my place and take her clothes off?

And they go, you know, they'll conflate different stories I've told into one. Like that happens all the time. Right, right, right. Yes. And I go, well, that kind of agenda probably isn't going to work so well for you. But so there may be some that, you know, if he took you on a coffee date and you don't go back to his place and take your clothes off, he may get pissed about that. And if you blog, I mean, if you go, if you Google, nice guy syndrome,

nice guys, and just go online and read like blogs, especially that are written by women, most of them will make a point of how the guy was so nice to them, treated them so well, and then when they didn't want to be his girlfriend or didn't want to take their clothes off, how then he like went on the attack, blew up, said hurtful things, and like that. So there's enough women out there that have experienced that piece to, you know, probably make them leery of like all nice guys. Now, every guy's different. So some guys may just say hurtful things. Some guys may just ghost. Some guys may just try harder, trying to do more of getting the woman to go along and appreciate them. So I can't give you a definite answer. It's going to be three

days or six months. But sooner or later, if you're with a nice guy using covert contracts, he's keeping score. Not only is he the scorekeeper, he's the judge, he's the referee, he's the doer. And if you haven't done your share according to what he thinks that should be, you're going to get it sooner or later. That's so interesting. You know, I'm sure you've heard the expression. Was it like unexpected expectations? That's Neil Strauss again. Is that? Is that Neil's unexpected expectations? Was it premeditated resentments? Yeah. I love that quote because that spells out the covert contract. So, beautifully. The unexpressed expectations always lead to premeditated resentments. It does. It does.

If you're not asking for what you want, if you're not clear with yourself, you know, if you're just giving to get, yeah, at some point, you're probably going to get frustrated that leads to pissed off that leads to not nice. So you were talking about before the nice guy who has this anxiety and shame. Where does it come from? And can a nice guy change? Yes, all the above. So where did it come from? Child Development 101. Okay. The first thing I remember learning in child development is that for every child, abandonment equals death. Children are completely dependent and needy at birth. You've had a couple. You know they can't take care of themselves. And so they're completely dependent on the attentiveness and the skills of their caregivers and just, you know, an abundance

of surroundings where they get their needs met. Every child has experiences that feel like abandonment, that feel like death, that trigger a state of anxiety, and or lead to an sense of internalized shame, where the child internalizes I'm the cause of that. I must be bad. That's why mommy left and doesn't come back, or that's why daddy's angry, or that's why I'm cold and I don't get, we don't think that is purely emotional internalization, gets stored up in our amygdala that you know is the source of our flight-flight freeze mechanism.

So that stores up all emotional memory. And so that can build up states of anxiety, because that's what the Mediola does. It keeps us ready to fight, flee or freeze. It's a survival mechanism. So most of us carry some degree of anxiety and shame from infancy, childhood, into adolescence, and into adulthood. We all develop survival mechanisms. We try to do two things. Everybody does.

Now, we're not conscious of doing this, but one thing we're trying to do is how do we soothe and manage the discomfort we feel right now. That state of anxiety, dis-ease, discomfort. I sucked my thumb until I was in kindergarten. So that's one way I managed my states of anxiety. Some children might cry, some might eat, some might perform, some might sleep, some might just be depressed. Every human being tries to manage those uncomfortable feelings. The second thing we try to do is try to, using a very, very undeveloped brain, developed strategies to prevent those uncomfortable situations from happening again.

And again, there's any number of ways a human might do that, a child might do it. Trying to be nice, going along to get along, never being a moment's problem, avoiding conflict, especially being needless and wantless, or trying to make sure everybody else's needs to get met, and then maybe ours will get met. Those are the nice guy pattern.

So nice guy syndrome is just one of many what's called neuroses, neurotic ways of dealing with our discomfort of life, our anxiety and our shame. So, you know, even the asshole jerk is trying to do that. The perfectionist is trying to do that. The kind person, the overachiever. Everybody is trying to manage some interstate of discomfort or disease using tools, techniques we learned or we developed when we were three months old, three years old, and then we get to be adults and we're still using them thinking they should work.

And that's my definition of neuroses, says we're all neurotic in some way. We're all using life tools that we developed when we're three. Right. They don't work well when we're 30 or 60. And so that's really what life is about is learning through therapy, through coaching, through experience, through lots of different avenues, how to shed those old neurotic roadmaps and develop healthier ones. I'm sure it's what you do and teaching people to be authentic.

because most of us thought, oh, I'll hide these things about me because that leads to me getting hurt. Well, then as we hide things about us, we also wall ourselves off from being loved and treated well and people being able to give to us. Well, I think eventually when you acquiesce to like, I think there's a lot of things. But before I even get into that part, I think the word nice guy is difficult because we all, everyone wants to have someone who's like a nice person right like just because uh you're authentic and you know ask for what you want in life and strong or like kind of like let's just go with authentic doesn't mean you're not a nice person no they're not they're not they're not you can't

just because you're authentic doesn't mean you're not nice no and you can be authentic and be very assertive and some people might take offense at that right so like being a okay that's great being assertive or being authentic and asking for what you want and have like some kind of like being demanding in one sense or the other. Doesn't mean you're not nice. I'm asking for a friend. But I think, but there's different, there's different definitions in like there's different ways we kind of think of the word nice. But nice has a really kind of like negative, the word nice has a very negative connotation to it.

Well, in the way I use it in no more Mr. Nice guy. Yeah. really is talking about in authenticity, right? You're not being truly you. And people, you know, when they find out, I've written a book called No More Mr. Nice Guy, they'll often say, but you seem like a nice person. Yeah, you seem like a nice guy. Yeah. And, you know, I don't take that as an insult. Because I think I am, you know, pretty easy going. I'm pretty generous. I'm smart. I'm funny. You seem like a pretty good guy. Yeah. Yeah. I can engage with people. Where does the, where does the road kind of sever and come into two, you know,

forks here. For me, it really is around that in authenticity. It's the all in it. And around the covert contracts and underneath that, the shame and the anxiety. If I'm trying to manage my shame and anxiety in all situations, very unconsciously. And as Jung said, until we make the conscious, unconscious, conscious, it'll rule our life and we'll call it fate. So if we're being driven by our anxiety, our fight, flight, freeze, we're in sympathetic nervous system, we're in states of shame so we don't want to be seen or known or make a mistake or look foolish. Here on the surface, what we show people is meant to manage all of this. So this is not authentic. This is not honest. It doesn't have an integrity to it. And so it may look nice on the surface,

but it's inauthentic. Now, the person, once they start dealing with their anxiety and their shame, I mean, they get some rough edges to them, right? We all have rough edges. And for example, I did something in a previous relationship several years ago that really bothered me because I heard somebody I cared about. What did you do? I got involved with somebody else before I ended that relationship. Okay. And I felt bad about that because that one person was predicting the entire time we were together,

you're going to kick me to the curb, you're going to cheat on me. You're going to kick me to the curb. So I don't know if I just fulfilled some car-made thing they were bringing, but I struggled with it. And I asked a good friend of mine, who is a psychologist. And I said, you know, I can't believe I did that. It was really hurtful. When my mother found out, that's the first thing she said to me. What the hell were you thinking?

My mother was the first person she called. Of course. There you go. And my buddy who knows me well, and again, he's a psychologist. He basically said this, Robert, you can be a dick. He said, but you're not a dick. He says, once you can integrate those two things, you'll be okay. And this is what I call the integrated man, the authentic person.

I can be dickish. I can be impatient. I can, you know, be, I'm a critical motherfucker at times. But I'm actually not a hurtful person, and I'll take ownership of when I'm not at my best. So I've learned to where I can look at my dark side, look at my shadow, look at the parts of me. And that's when I talk about integrated man in the book, I'm talking about a man that's able to hold all aspects of himself, the parts about him that are kind and loving and caring, and the parts that are impatient, and selfish and dickish. Can we hold all of those parts together and own them? Then you can actually get close to that person

because if he does do a dickish thing, he'll own it. He'll go, my bad, I hurt you. Because we never think of it that way, right? When you think of a nice guy's a doormat, you don't think that they have these other qualities. Oh, they can be dickish. Like that's the part that's so the whole thing here is like girls like assholes,

girls like guys who are kind of dickish. let's say. But you're kind of saying the nice guy is the guy who's not authentic and can do all this dickish things. But what I find interesting, like, let's talk about success and nice guys. Sure. Because you're saying that nice guys are typically not successful. They usually are like in middle management jobs. They're they don't want to be seen. They want to, they want to, they're fear of failure. They're scared of like, so does that mean the people who succeed are what? Not nice guys? Not nice guys.

Are they the assholes? Are they the ones that are what? Okay. Either are, right? Right. And you're saying it's not the polarity, right? Well, here's what I've found, and it's just my experience, is that, again, a lot of nice guys, they do reach their glass ceiling. Just because for whatever reason, their codependency, fear of being found out, fear of success, fear of the being too many demands, they don't think they can meet.

So we will find ways to distract ourselves from truly living up to our potential. With that said, I'd met a number of guys. I have a number of clients who are very successful, who've made millions. And they still come to me because they turn into total simps in their relationships with women. You know, they may go chase the only fan girls or, you know, the making arrangement girls. I don't know what all those things are, but they tell me that. Sure, you don't. And so, and then they're total simps with them.

You know, they take them on really expensive dates or trips and buy them expensive toys and things. And so they've actually reached a pretty high level of success, but their nice guy patterns still show up. What I found that the men that identifies nice guy who have achieved at a certain level of success are often driven by a high insecurity, a need to, I've got to accomplish, I've got to succeed if I'm going to be loved, if I'm going to be valued, if I'm going to get the pretty woman that I want to love me. So they actually do, many men do find ways to be relatively successful, but often if they identify with the nice guy stuff, I mean, if they call me up, want to work with me. Nice guy's still showing up somewhere else in life. And this might have been

an overcompensation. Look, look how good I am. These are guys that maybe got, they either got straight A's in schools because they had helicopter parents or, you know, and they've gone on to do, you know, really well. Or they're the ones that, you know, had ADHD and fucked up all the way through school, but they were really smart and they finally got it together as an adult and, you know, started trading in cryptocurrency or something and, you know, made a bunch of money. But they still don't believe they deserve that or they're good enough and they still, again, will bring the covert contracts to the women in their life. Let me, you know, spend a bunch of money on you and then you'll like me and want to be my girlfriend. And the women often know that there's no real

him inside of all that, the gifts and the money. And the women will take the money, but often don't want to become his girlfriend. Yeah. So I mean, like, but that's also because, like, people, it comes down to, I think what, it's another way of saying, like, I think women, And men, I think, to be honest with you, I think what is attractive to men is also what's attractive to women. People like don't like to be a, I mean, this is my opinion. I'm no, I'm not a psychologist. I think we're here both offering opinions. Yes. Exactly. In my opinion, I don't think anybody is attracted to people who have, who are insecure and uncomfortable in their skin and seem kind of like literally just like uncomfortable in their skin. I think it's very

attractive on both the men's side and the women's side when someone is real and they are vulnerable and kind of relatable and like also honestly has like true inner confidence and self-esteem. And I think the problem is a lot of people, you can you can coin it any, you can coin it any way you because a nice guy, nice girl, whatever, nobody's, like, interested in anybody when they are just, like, uncomfortable of who they are and not, not seem like they have a lower self-esteem. Well, here's how I put it. I've been saying for a long time that I'll just say the feminine. We can say women, but just say feminine. Feminine energy is, you know, the yin of things. Okay, feminine. There's women, dogs, cats, energy, money, opportunity, adventure.

I say the feminine is highly attracted to a man who's comfortable in his own. own skin, knows where he's going, and looks like he's having a good time getting there. Right. Typically, when I say that to women coaches, they go, ah, I said that on a Chris Williamson interview. And then he told the same thing in an interview he did with Alex Hormosey right after that and asked him if he'd heard of me. And then he quoted those three things. And Alex Hormosey just started riffing on, yeah, even you just had one of those that'd be great. Two, three. So, yeah, men, women, it doesn't matter. A guy's comfortable in his own skin. He likes himself. He's not riddled with anxiety. He doesn't have... So let's say all three of those things again. So you say

comfortable in his own skin. So women like men who are comfortable in their own skin. Know where he's going. That's purpose. No where he's going. And looks like he's having a good time getting there. See, having fun. Is he playful? You know, does he not take everything so seriously, but yet still knows what he's about and where he's going? And men and women both, like you say, you know, apparently Chris Williamson and Alexer Mosy both liked that description, of a dude, of a guy who's coming, Chris called it three essences of a secure man or something like that. Okay, let's take a quick break to talk about something that's completely transformed how I approach

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head to 99designs.com slash gen 20. That's the number 99designs.com slash gen 20 and click claim my discount to get $20 off your first design contest. Your brand deserves this level of creativity. Trust me. Okay, let's flip it. Let's flip it here, right? What do you think men like? What are the three qualities that men look for in women? That men look for in women? Hot, young, skanky? I don't know. Men are pretty shallow. I like the honesty, though, you know? The truth of the matter is, I don't think men like nice girls. They don't. I think if we're going to be real here,

women don't like nice guys, like, you know, men don't like nice girls. And I think it's constantly like a conflict within ourselves. Like, do we go for this nice guy or do we go for the safe and stable? Do we go for the one who's a little bit more this way? And guys are, they're not, they're not looking for, they're not like picking a woman because she is, she's got a really great 401K. And she's super successful. Intelligent, responsible. Responsible. I think it's such a joke when I speak to guys, they're like, you know, I just want a girl who's like, you know, has her shit together and has this and has that. And then they end up with like the only fans girl who's like 19 or whatever, you know what I mean? Like the truth of the matter is I think that we, we are, we can intellectualize what we think we should want. That's easy to do. But what we actually want if we were being honest with ourselves a lot of times. always. This is not like a, you know, a paint, everything, but I would say for the most part,

you know, I don't think, I don't think guys like nice girls. They'll settle for a nice girl if they, when they feel, when they're too scared to maybe like get out of the, you know, to, because of fear of, you know, of being alone or because of like society. I won't find another one, you know, or family expectations or whatever reasons. But like, it's not all. always, if that's not. After I got out of a 14-year marriage with, you know, nowadays, everybody breaks up says their ex is a borderline narcissist or social. I know. I was going to say that too. Everyone says when they break up that, like, oh, it's because my ex was a narcissist. That's like, that's the tagline of 2025. Yeah. If anyone breaks up or has a hard time with a girl or a boy or either way,

either way, it's because they're a narcissist. It's the most overused word of the year of the of the decade. As a therapist, I probably have met two true narcissists. Really? There aren't that many out there. Even all these podcast people are saying, yeah, overfit. No, I don't think so. Now, do we have problems getting along with each other? Yeah, probably.

Yes, exactly. Or a lot of is pretty immature? Yeah, probably. But I'll tell you what, when I got out of a 14-year marriage with, it was a difficult relationship. It led me to write a book, so I'm very grateful. But when I met nice girls after that, I wasn't turned on by him. I dated one woman who, like, I used to say,

you know, on paper, you check off every box of whatever. I had to quit saying that because I knew that sounded dismissive into me. Right, right. And, you know, after I broke up there after about three months, she was a great woman. She goes, am I just not crazy enough for you? And I go, could be, could be. But then we stayed friends for quite some time. And later on, she said, you know what? I think I figured it out. She said, my daughter's pointed out that every man I get with, I kind of just adapt to him to whatever he likes, you know, one guy who's fishing, one guy was riding bikes, you know, another guy who's this. And she goes, I realized there probably wasn't enough me there. You could have just steamrolled right over me.

Right. Yeah, you're probably right. And if you are a strong enough person, you don't want to steamroll over your partner. And, you know, and if you, and that means you don't want to be holding back with him either. My wife, you know, just is lovely. She's, She's fiery. She's fiery Mexican, been a gym rat since she's 15, kickboxing, Mai Tai. She walks into a room and just lights the room up. She can out squat me. She, you know, she's just a tough, grew up eight out of ten kids in poverty in Guadalara, in Mexico.

Wow. She's tough. She's a sweetheart. She's the most generous, open-hearted, loving person I know, and I call her my mafioso. You know, if we have to negotiate anything, I put her in charge because she loves to fight. Yeah. So she is strong. So this woman treats me like gold.

I'll be sitting at my desk, you know, doing an interviewer, working a client, and my door opens and a hand comes in and puts a glass of coconut water on the corner of my desk, and she sneaks back out. You know, she's sweet and loving and generous, but she won't take shit off me. And she loves it when I tell her, no, she loves it when I lead. We go into a restaurant. We live in Mexico. And the waiters always ask her, should I give him a menu in English?

No, he's in Mexico. He'll order in Spanish. And then so they give her in me and you, she says, no, he's my boss. He'll order for me. And so she likes it that she knows she can kick my ass. You ask anybody that knows us, who's the stronger personality-wise, strength-wise in our relationship, though I'll point at her, no doubt. But she loves it that I tell her to wait for me and I open her door. She loves it that I order for her in restaurants. She loves it that, you know, I'll set the boundaries with her and I'll let her know. No, we don't cross that line. Yeah, you know what I was going to say, earlier that I forgot to say, which I think is so important. I think there is, like, there are, men and women, I feel, have to have some role, right? That there's like, there's like, you know, you do, you have a more masculine and then I have a more feminine role. And then I have a more feminine role. And I think what happens a lot of times is the, the roles get crossed a little bit. The women becomes very masculine. The man becomes very, like, effective.

eminent, and then everything. I call that reverse polarity. Reverse polarity. And that reverse polarity, I think is because that's, I think that's like the kiss of death right there. Right. Because like you were saying, because I think a lot of it is like, I do believe men like girls who are super sassy and spunky and firing. It's a attractive quality. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. So I don't even believe that the girl has to be like a knockout hot. I don't really believe that. I think that's a fallacy. I think if you're, if you are attractive enough, you're good. If you have, like, self-esteem, confidence, sassiness, like personality.

Yeah. Right? Because you could make someone a five into, like, a nine or a ten by just having, like, a fun, loving personality. I think the problem is on the men's side with the women is like that, like, when it becomes, like, I was saying earlier as a joke, like the 401K and like, oh, I have, I have a degree from Harvard and I'm very, diligent and organized, that to me is like, that's not attractive and that's not sexy. But I tell you what. If they had a playful way about them, but that would make it more sexy. You know, I'm around a lot of men.

I listen to a lot of men. Yeah. Guy friends, men I work with. And I always love it when a guy, usually a millennial, is telling me, I met this amazing woman. She's just so amazing. She's a CEO of her own company. You know, she mountain bikes, downhill mountain bikes.

she snowboards, she does river rafting, she does this and she's that, and I go, man, you're describing a dude. And what I found is that most men nowadays, you know, sometimes we're prettier and we take more time to get ready than our woman does. And I'm fairly feminine in my energies. No, you're not. I've had to work at being more masculine. Really?

Yeah. Oh, okay. Because I, you don't seem feminine to me. You know, I like nice stuff. I like comfort. You know, I... It's not very feminine. Yeah.

You don't come across them. And by the way, this is what I'm talking about. I'm not going to try to talk you out of that. No, no, no, what I'm going to say, this is what I'm talking about. Like, even distinguishing in 2025 as a feminine quality or a masculine quality is, like, not PC. Which I think is like why we're in a situation where we're in, where people are not dating, this whole idea of masculinity, there's more people single than ever before. not dating. Women can't find a man to save their lives because guess what, there are very few out there. Well, you know, okay. Unfortunately, that's the truth. We live in a culture where

guys can go to dating boot camps, learn how to meet women. We got swipe right apps. You know, we do have only fans. We do have, you know, we've got every technology under the sun for men and women to meet each other. And in spite of all that technology, like say, fewer and fewer people are getting married. Fewer and fewer. I think the most recent study I saw for, for the first time in America ever, over half of all people under 35 report not being in relationship. That's a lot of people, not in relationship. More and more men report not having had sex in the last year or maybe ever. And I'm thinking, we've got the technology. Everybody's using it, but we've got this hookup culture. And I think there's a lot of factors that go in, but I think both men and women have their own fear

of FOMO. Men is, well, yeah, if I settle for this woman, there's that younger, hotter woman that I can't go for if I get in with this woman, so I'll wait, because I might find a younger, hotter one. For the women, their FOMO is, well, I get all this attention from men all the time. Men want to take me out. Men want to spend money on me. Men are hitting on me. If I get in with this one guy, I've got to let go of all that other attention that I like so much. So we've got all the technology, and there's other stuff going in. I think if we grew up with broken families, where we're more leery about, you know, commitment and relationship. I think there's a lot of factors.

Does that play a big factor? Apparently, stuff I've read. I don't know that a lot of people tell me that, but I've kind of read a couple articles recently that people that, you know, with broken homes or don't want to make that same mistake or put kids through the trauma so they put off having kids, don't get married.

But I think that reverse polarity is part of it, too. that as men are more passively pleasing. And the way I define masculine, feminine energy, there's nothing to do with man or woman. But the masculine part in me and you is the doer part. It gets stuff done. It conquers and then rest in nothing does. So when you're running your show,

running your podcast, you're in your masculine. The feminine part of ourself is done too. It receives. It's receptive. It's got an empty bucket that wants to be filled. This gets filled through good conversation, through connection, through music, through watching a movie, through sitting in nature and watching clouds and listening to birds.

That's the feminine part of ourself that wants to receive. Now, unfortunately, the feminine part of ourself often gets done to and feels victimized. So we've all got a masculine, feminine side. And so when I said I'm fairly feminine, I'm not aggressive by nature. I'm not controlling. I'll go along to get along. Somebody says, hey, let's go here for dinner. I'll go, sure.

Great. So I'm pretty receptive that way. But do I want to sit around and listen to drama and gossip and this and that? No. So I'm much more masculine. I'd rather go do with the guys, right, that doer part of me. And we all have those sides, and we can consciously move in and out of them, a relationship, a man and a woman, or, you know, gay men and lesbian get this stuff a lot better than straight people do.

Straight people, again, we're so PC, we're afraid of making a mistake. Gay men, they know who the top and who the bottom is. You know, lesbian women. Is that true? Oh, yes. Ask them. Really? Oh, yeah.

I live in a gay friendly community in Porta Vallerta. It used to be pretty much every guy friend I had was gay. Yeah, when gay men talk to each other in a bar, they're not trying to figure out if they're going to have sex. They're talking about who's top, who's bottom. Really? They usually already know. That's what they tell me. Ask what they tell me.

And if you look at the women in relationship, there is usually one that's obviously stronger, more dominant than the other. They get it. feels good. Now, can we trade those rolls back and forth? Yeah. Can I tell my wife, wait, I'll open your door. Can I order for her? Do I make all the money and pay all the bills? Yeah, I do all that. When the car needs fixed, she goes and finds the mechanic. When we're buying a new car right now, she's handling it all, because when a white guy shows up in the car showroom in Mexico, we get the Gringo price. Really? So my wife can manage all that stuff. She's got that strong masculine. But I tell you what, she's in Colombia right now at a dance, a salsa event.

She loves to dance. And she's just sending me pictures and telling me everybody just loves her. They're so excited. She's there. She's the head of the party. Because she is that way. When any room she goes in, especially if it involves dance. And she's in her feminine, just soaking it up, receiving, being loved on. And, you know, and I'm out here getting the work done and paying the bills. But we trade off back and forth because we each have strengths and not so strong areas. I like that. What do you think then makes a really good relationship, a strong relationship? What do you need? Maturity. All the things we've been talking about, are you willing to show up and be you, let the other person see you, be authentic, take ownership of where you're less

and perfect, where you mess up. You've got to be able to talk about stuff. I think most of the relationships I'd been in that didn't make it, it just, we'd reach a point where the other person would dig their heels in and just go, nope, not going to deal with this, not going to talk about it. And so that's all the farther you're going to go. So you've got to be able to talk about it. The interesting thing is, when I met my wife, I basically had decent restaurant Spanish. She didn't speak English. Still doesn't speak much.

I can leave her for a weekend with my mother, and they get along just fine. But she won't speak English to me. Maybe she'll say a few swear words, because I taught her. So I learned Spanish, okay? And so here I am in my 50s and 60s, learning a foreign language, the basis of communication between two people, and I think she and I have the best communication of any relationship I've ever had. Maybe for two reasons.

One is we don't have so many words that we can use and get caught up in all the words. So we just got to figure out the basic words to communicate. And there's still, I mean, there's occasional confusion that happens that maybe wouldn't have happened if we, but she's also willing to communicate. She'll talk about stuff rather than just like keeping it in or, you know, letting it build. And I've learned to talk about stuff. So I think that's really important. And then throwing that piece about polarity, I don't think it matters who's the masculine

pole, who's the feminine pole, as long as two people in a relationship kind of have, by default, chosen, a default, masculine pole, somebody's got to get the ball rolling. Somebody's got to be the one, because, like, you know, most women I know have jobs, they have careers, they're making decisions, they're getting stuff done, during their mask and from the moment you get up, even getting your makeup on and what you're going to wear, you're still, you know, you think that's real feminine, but you're still, you know, it's planning out, how's my day, what's this, you got to commute, deal with, you know, managers, customers, salespeople, this, that, that, come home, there's laundry to be done, dishes to be done, dinner to be made.

You don't want to walk in the house and have your man go, what do you want for dinner tonight? You know, it'd be nice if he just said, hey, babe, I got a plan. Great, run with it. It's not that you can't make the decision. You're making them all day long, and I tell, man, if you want to polarize your woman, when she comes home, most women aren't real happy when they've been in their masculine all day. And so I tell the guy, you know, start telling her what to do as soon she walks in the door. And I know that probably doesn't sound PC, but something like,

right, go get on something comfortable. No, I got, no, no, go change. Then you're going to sit down on the couch. He's taking the masculine pole, telling her to do, maybe what she doesn't want to do, but most women aren't good at getting themselves back in their feminine poll when they've been in their masculine pool. They may do it with wine. They may do with gossip. They may do it with television. But I call those pseudo junk feminine releases. But what if you're a man, you came home? You know, you've been stressed today. What if you got home and he said, you had a hard day, didn't you? And he goes, but I know you had a great conversation with that Dr. Glover guy. But he says, sit down.

I'm going to take your shoes off. And he sat and started rubbing your feet. And he said, you got five minutes of my undivided attention. Tell me about your day. How did it go? And he's just rubbing your feet. And everything he told you to do, if you did it, he's polarized you into your feminine. Now you're more relaxed, more open, your evening's going to, even if you guys make dinner together

or figure out you can go eat out or, you know, include the kids and something, you're in a much more relaxed, open, receptive state than if you've just been in that hard driving. No, we still got to get stuff done. Got to get stuff done. So that's just a little hack that I teach men to polarize their partner back into their feminine. And now that opening process has begun. You're happier when you're open and receptive. When you're masculine, you've got to kind of close that to, you know, to reduce the drag as you're getting stuff done. That's a great hack, actually. And that makes a lot of sense to me. That's a really true, that's a true statement right there. So I'll tell you one, just like it. Yeah. I dated a woman who sold me shoes at Nordstrom. So I met her at the

mall. And so there was a Ruth Chris right in that same mall. And they had this great Happy Hour with these great cheeseburgers, glass of wine, baseball game on the TV. And she loved baseball. So we were a good match in that way. So I'd go meet her at Happy Hour. And she'd get off work at the mall, you know, come in and she would just be bitchy. And, you know, just complaining about the Microsoft Russian brides in there, snapping their fingers, bossing her around, and my mother called me today, and you wouldn't believe what my mother said. Yeah, I know what she said, because it's what she always says. You need to eat a career.

She'd be just, I'd take my phone out. I'd put it on the bar, set five-minute timer, and I tell her, you've got five minutes for my undivided attention. Tell me everything about your day, and then we're going to enjoy a burger, wine, and baseball. She couldn't even fill five minutes, because she didn't want to stay in that crabby move, but I gave her a container to let it out. She'd usually be done in one or two minutes. She goes, yeah, my mom pissed me off, but, okay, what's new?

Yeah, the Russian brides, yeah, what's new? And then she goes, who's winning? But when I created that masculine frame, that container, to just let her let it out, then she was good to go, and not another complaint the rest of the night. That is a great one also. You should do this for a living. Eh, I thought about it. Okay, so wait a second, because I want more of those,

because hold on a minute. Because it does say here, like, you are like, you basically help, like, you basically are emotional development, relationship, masculinity for men. Like, you do this. I'd like to do it for a living. No, you do it for a living. Obviously, but you actually, like, teach people these actionable ways to do this. It's not just, like, talking from an ivory, you know, from, like, from over here.

No. It's everything that I've learned the hard way, right? I was that passively pleasing nice guy. What do you want to do tonight, dear? And, you know, I just heard as a marriage therapist, I got to hear from a lot of women what they didn't like about their relationship. Can give me one more really, really good strategy that's actionable that men and women can use to really help their relationship?

Okay. I'll give you one more, like, similar to what we're talking about. I was taking, actually, the Nordstrom lady, on a date. We're going to the winery for a concert. And nice evening. we have food, we're going to go drink good wine, listen to, you know, a 60s band or something. And so we're driving, you know, I think I was driving Mercedes at that time. So, you know, it's a date night, right?

And she's over there in the passenger seat on her phone. And I look over and I go, you texting the babysitter? She looks at me like, we don't have a babysitter. She had a 17-year-old daughter. I go, she doesn't have a babysitter. I go, if you're not texting the babysitter, put your phone back in your purse, we're on a date. And she looks at me, go, I like, I like, she put her phone in her purse, and now she was fully there.

Right. So you can do this. I mean, I made a joke of it. I was playful with it. So for men, we have this fear that we're going to come off as controlling or a jerk. And I know, even using words like dominance and submission makes everybody anxious and antsy.

But there has to be each poll. Otherwise, we're just two friends hanging out with each other. Somebody's got to be in a dominant pole. Somebody's got to be in a submissive poll. And again, that can change, right? and just helping people, men and women, understand that that's okay. Somebody dominant, somebody, otherwise, for example, if it comes to sex, if you don't have a dominant, feminine, a dominant submissive pole in sex, you just have two bodies laying next to

each other waiting for something to happen. You do have to have a pitcher. You have to have a catcher. You have to have a top. You have to have a bottom. You have to have, there has to be that for anything to happen interpersonally, sexually, otherwise. So I think what I begin with men is saying, listen, it's okay to play a dominant role if you're doing that in a conscious, open-hearted, loving way. You're not trying to control the

woman, get her to do anything. You're actually inviting her into a more open place where she can be more receptive, whereas I love David Data's term, where you can fuck her to God. Where, you know, you know, without polarity, that doesn't happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so helping men come to understand that that's a gift that they give their partner, even like the subtle telling her what to do. I said, tell her to do what she already wants to do. And then if she does it, you polarized her into a receptive, feminine place.

And now she's open for all the goodies that come. How, what do you think of what's happening, though, now with, like, masculinity? With, we just talked about it. People are not like we were just saying, they're not dating and all. all of these different things, and now people are not even interested in dating. They're rather just, like, watch porn or... I just do that? Yeah, they watch porn. And, like, they're now, like, AI is now creating these girlfriends, artificial girlfriends. Like, what, like, there is a lack of interpersonal

relationships in general. This, this is a whole other podcast. We can, we can talk about next time. I mean, I, but it's a problem. It is. It is. And it's, it's, I started a men's membership program a couple years ago, the Integration Nation, mainly because I think maybe one of the biggest problems we're dealing with today culturally, especially men. It's just a lack of contact with other people. Everybody's going it alone, right? You've got your big towel, you've got your in-cells. You just got guys with social anxiety or no social skills, and so many men are just isolated.

I mean, the studies are out there, how lonely, isolated men are. the physical toll that takes, the emotional toll, the suicide, the toll on their... It's just, it's a mess. And, you know, there are probably so many factors that play into why men and women aren't getting along with each other so well. But this is a core problem of people being so alone. How do we... What is the...

What's a fix to get people out of their own head and get them from not being so lonely? Because even though the data's out there, the information, out there, we all know it's happening. It's really hard just because you know about, know something to be some way doesn't mean that you actually take action and execute on it. What's that step to get people to? Here's, because I mean, because I'm an advocate for men. Nowadays, I just work with men. Yeah. I've actually been working with a New York marketing company that sought me out recently and said, we want to make you a star. We've made these other people stars. I won't mention their names. But you've heard of them. And what they really honed in on was,

was something that they've been calling guys night out, taking that phrase and showing the necessity for men to have a deep bond in connection with other men. And as a marriage therapist, I said for years when a couple walk in my office, I tell both people, the best thing you guys can do for your marriage is have good same-sex friends. Now, you women usually are pretty good at keeping your girlfriends. I mean, yeah, you're on and off with each other and you have your fights, we get back together. Guys, once we get in relationship, you know, we may go years without talking to our guy friends. Right. They got in relationship too and, you know, whatever. And so I'm convinced that a man's ability to have a deep, powerful relationship with a woman is built on a foundation of having

those deep relationships with men. Because, you know, when I was single and, you know, dating in my 40s and 50s, I'd have women ask me about my guy friends. And, you know, I knew what they're asking because they'd probably dated enough guys that didn't have guy friends or maybe just had one. And they came to recognize there was something lacking, something missing in a guy that can't connect with men. Because if he can't connect with men, probably is not going to, he either can't connect with her or he turns her into everything. You know, be my everything, be my companion, be my, you know. So I've been building communities, teaching, preaching to men. What I run into is coming up with a language, a marketing language, basically, to communicate

with men, just the secret sauce, how good it feels when you get real with other men, when you get vulnerable. I do workshops in my home about every other month where eight strangers come. They don't know each other when they get there. And I tell them, you're looking around the room, you're measuring each other. thinking, I don't like that guy. I wish he hadn't come. He reminds me of somebody. I said, by Sunday afternoon, you guys are going to feel like you've been frat brothers for 20 years. And it begins with going back to that authenticity that you talk about. Friday night, all we do is talk about why we're there. And all it takes is one guy to get vulnerable. You know, I've been

struggling with porn and, you know, my wife keeps finding it out. My marriage is coming apart. Or another guy saying, I'm on the brink of divorce, or I find out my wife's cheating on me. or, you know, they share, and every guy, one guy shares, the next guy goes deeper. He goes deeper, they go deeper. So there's, when men can get with other men and have a safe container for that and just be vulnerable where it's not like, oh, life's good, life's great, oh, yeah, job's good, oh, yeah, wife's good. No, where you can actually say, I'm struggling, or I'm having a hard time, or I'm burned out, or I'm stressed. And I'll give you an example of this.

I got invited to go be a guest speaker at an entrepreneur's mastermind ski event in Japan. So I was just in Japan a couple months ago. It's great. Loved it. Everybody said I would. So I was going to be the guest, the first speaker for a group of 45 mostly guys. Or maybe we're five or six women in the group, but it was mostly guys. And the guy that invited, who put it on, invited me to come to speak, I said, right, how can I serve you?

What do you want me to talk about? And he goes, well, you know, this could be a dick measuring concept. contest with all these guy entrepreneurs, and I go, let me test them. Let me see how far I can push them. So I didn't even know what I was going to talk about when I got up in front of all 45. But so what I talked about, what I had them do, I said, go pick two people you don't know. And for each of you gets two minutes. And during that, those six minutes, you have to tell the other two people someplace that you're struggling. Are you burned out? Or are your click funnel's not working? Are you struggling to find love? The love you have isn't working. Go tell these two

strangers, something's not working. All right, man, the conversation got so loud and energized. You know, I had to kind of basically yell to get them to come back, sit down, and then we kind went around the room, and what were some of the core things they talked about? Then I said, okay, everybody that is struggling to find love, you're going to meet over here in this corner. Everybody is, your love life isn't working, it's going to go get in that corner. Everybody's dealing with burnout, you get in that corner. Financial stress is over here. You know, trying to make your company work, feeling overwhelmed over. here. Then we split them up, and I said, now you know everybody in your group is struggling

with the same issue you are. I want you to get to know each other. And again, the conversations were so loud, so animated, totally energized that we couldn't get it to end. And so for the rest of that trip, it's like four days up in the mountain skiing and four or five more days in Tokyo, that group of people went so deep with each other and just engaging in posting about, you know, fears they have, you know, depression they've struggled with. And I went ahead and joined a group that they've continued having, as I'm a member of it, because it's a bunch of entrepreneurs that are really trying to put a dent in the universe, but they're human. And that's the thing. And they found a place, and it's all men, the group I joined. And the guy leading it,

who's the guy that invited me to Japan, has set it up beautifully to where we're real with each other. Yeah, we're going to take great trips. Yeah, we're going to talk about business. Yeah, we're going to help each other. But we're going to be real. We're going to talk about our struggles because we need each other. So basically having a support system. That's what we need. It's about having a support system, and that's, that's community. Community. Yeah.

That is the part, going back to finding marketing language to help men. It's like, you know, for a blind person who's never seen a sunset. How do you describe it? Or somebody who's never tasted a banana, how do you, a man who's like got dad issues, got bullied as a kid, doesn't trust men, sees men as competitive and dicks and jerks. And, you know, how do you get that guy? how do you sell them on risking getting into a group, an environment, a workshop, even guys and eyed out, going out with old friends and just taking the risk of being real and sharing

something about yourself. It's a hard sell for men because we've got a lot of walls up. But until men create that bond with other men, I don't think we're going to be very good in relationship. And I found that. In my relationships in life, when I was just wrapped up in the woman, no guy friends, those relationships didn't work well. So when I married Lepida, my wife, I had about one and a half good guy friends in my life at that time, and I knew that wasn't going to work. We were already having some

struggles. I was feeling kind of isolated, living in Mexico. And so I went looking, found a men's program that I was in for six years. In fact, next week I'm going to one of their retreats. I still come hang out with them after six years of being a part of the program. And I've built men's programs. I now, I'm not making this up, have at least 25 to 50 men that if I called them up at 3 in the morning, they get on an airplane and come fly down there to be there for them. I love that. And my wife sees that. And my wife loves it. And so many of these men have come in my home and men come into our home for these workshops and my wife sees them. And they see these men have great respect for her man. And guys tell me that I've changed my wife's world.

Not only does she wear a little lemon and fly first class, but I've changed it because she didn't trust men. Her growing up in macho culture, every man she's ever known has been a serial cheater. Because of the good men I brought around and she's seen my commitment to be a good man and help men, not be a nice guy, but be a good man, right? That's changed her world completely where she's become more trusting and more open and more receptive. And that's happened because I've been in groups of men, where I got real, where I told the truth, where I was struggling, where I was on a slippery slope noticing somebody over there that, no, that's a And they keep you on path.

They keep me on path. There's a lot of groups. There's YPO has this thing. You know, YPO is Young President's organization. They have these, it's a, they have forum. And it's very effective. People love it. And I know I have a lot of other friends of mine who have, who are in these men's groups,

not YPO, but different things. And they swear by it. And I think that, I think it's a great thing for women and for men to have, build communities, have these men's groups, have a place that you could be honest, real. you know that someone, you can be vulnerable and people can relate to you. With that being said, though, I need to wrap it because I'm late and I got to go pick up my kid. You run late? I know.

I can't even imagine that. I know. I'm so sorry. I know. Shocking. But Dr. Robert Glover, his book is called, well, it's an older book, but honestly, it does not age. It ages like a fine wine. It's called No More Mr. Nice Guy.

But he has other things. He's got other books, these groups, these memberships things, check them out. He's on Instagram. He also has a website. What's your website? Dr.glover.com. Dr.glover.com. I also want to have you back.

I want to talk to you more. I want to do a part too because I have a lot of other questions. And when you come back in town, we should do that again. Let's do it. All right. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. Bye.