Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 635 - It's Hard For Men To Open Up, But We HAVE TO

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

It's time for the circle of trust as we open up about our marriages and previous relationships. This time around Mark and Andrew share how they met their wives and some of the difficulty opening up and sharing emotions while being a manly man and Nsima reveals why he didn't end a previous bad relationship. Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Vertical Diet Meals: https://verticaldiet.com/ Use code POWERPROJECT for free shipping and two free meals + a Kooler Sport when you order 16 meals or more! ➢Vuori Performance Apparel: Visit https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order! ➢Magic Spoon Cereal: Visit https://www.magicspoon.com/powerproject to automatically save $5 off a variety pack! ➢8 Sleep: Visit https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Christmas package? We're rolling. We're rolling? Yeah. See me rolling. Honestly, I'm going to go back home and eat after we get done with this podcast. Actually, probably a few hours, but I have a lot of meat to cook. I have a lot of meat to cook.

I'm probably going to make some of the... The Hop Dottie Patties are my favorite. If you guys don't know what the Hop Dottie Patties are, they're from Piedmontese. They are these 75-i patties are my favorite. If you guys don't know what the Hop-Nauti patties are, they're from Piedmont Tees. They are these 75-25 patties. They're so good. I make them like Flying Dutchman's. So I'll put some cheese on top of it, patty cheese, patty, and I go to town. You got some sort of specialty cheese?

What's your flavor? Just cheddar. I think In-N-Out also uses cheddar. Or are they American? I think they're American cheese Yeah, I don't know the differences American cheese has like a Me neither

What's the difference between the cheeses? One's yellow and the other one's orangey? No Because they can both be both colors Which one's the one that has holes in it? That's Swiss That is still yellowy though Because they can both be both colors. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which one's the one that has holes in it? That's Swiss. That is still yellowy, though.

Swiss is white. It can be. It can be a little. Swiss is still also? Swiss is, it's usually white. It's usually white. It's usually pretty white. It might be able to have a yellow tint to it, but. Yeah, but when I see Swiss, it has little holes.

You might be thinking of Munster cheese. That's kind of yellowish-orangey. It could be. I've never heard of it. It's pretty good. Munster cheese is somewhere between cheddar cheese and American cheese. Do you have any heart attack? I started thinking of trypophobia.

I think I have trypophobia. I know I do. But I don't get it with Swiss cheese. I know, but I just started going down the whole rabbit hole in my mind you know what trypophobia is? don't say it if you're going to say it I got to close my ears it's like all these little tiny holes in succession

Mark has the perfect one and it makes me almost throw up every time wait what is it? go ahead what is it? he had to go for cover what is it it's the frog oh yeah i've seen that i've seen that yeah disgusting oh fuck that will mess me up it's weird like i get these like the hairs on my back start coming up like i'm not even it's disgusting it It's so odd.

You want to tell the people how they can get this meat? Yeah. Meat that has no weird holes in it. I can give you trypophobia. No trypophobia. Just awesome high protein, low fat or high fat meat. Deliciously tender and amazing. Over at piedmontese.com.

That's P-I-E-D-M-O-n-t-e-s-e.com at checkout enter promo code power project for 25 off your entire order i'm still freaking out yeah and uh if your order is a hundred and fifty dollars or more you get free two-day shipping again piedmontese.com promo code power project links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes we'll get through you guys uh we'll get through you guys being afraid of these holes makes me kind of wonder it's just multiple holes just like yeah you know in a group oh what about something like a cream pie can you handle that cream pies like actual cream pies

i've never had one are we wait what are we talking about here's i'm a real cream pie like a donut that's got the cream coming out of it yeah oh yeah no i've had a cream don't cream filled donut yes i don't like those either but not because of the trypophobia all right but pause real talk though are now outside of the sexual thing are cream pies really a thing yeah i didn't i really thought that the only we... We're going to make some today in SEMA. We just had a very important episode about... Remember when Tony Huge was on and he's like... I just like... He started talking about porn.

And then I was just like, well, I don't know. Like, what's your favorite kind of porn? It's like cream pie. Like right away. He was just like, boom. I don't remember. What the hell? He got so excited. His eyes lit up. That's how I remember. It's like cream pie. Like right away. He was just like, boom. I don't remember. What the hell? He got so excited.

His eyes lit up. That's how I remember. I was like, whoa, okay. He knows, he knows what he likes. I just remember him talking about working out with like the hottest porn star in Thailand

or something. Yeah. And he's like, oh, she's so hot. Like he's freaking out. It's like, hmm.

Yeah. Like, I mean, I saw, we were talking about, we saw the picture. We were just like, yeah. Like, I mean, I saw, we were talking about, we saw the picture. We were just like, yeah,

I felt the same way, but California six. That's rough. That's high praise. I don't know. Yeah. California. Who are we to judge?

He's having a good time. Yeah. And he's our boy. So we gotta be happy for him. Living his life. Living his life. I don't know. Can you live your best life possible though during the holidays i think so i think so definitely as long as you don't have any swiss cheese in there so you know there's the thing about it okay so if it

was just like a block of swiss cheese with more holes but you couldn't see the other side where those holes ended up you don't know if there's bugs crawling in and out of those holes okay that's where it gets that's true but on a slice you can see it's like oh straight through like a straw is not gonna fuck me up you don't have this like you don't feel uncomfortable when you see like mark's not uncomfortable with anything is this straw only one hole oh we're going down this rabbit hole again aren't we uh i remember the poll we put out on YouTube and people had some very complex answers. No, a straw is one hole. I mean, does it depend on how long it is?

Yeah, it's one hole. Okay, how about this? What if we're talking about like a giant pipe, right? And the pipe goes from California to Nevada. There's a hole on the Nevada side and there's a hole on the nevada side and there's a hole on the california side right no or is it just one hole that runs through both states it's one long hole that runs through both states because when you're when you're inside yeah when you're inside the tunnel or hole is it two tunnels can you put uh more than one thing in into these

holes yes you can put more than one thing into this holes. Yes, you can put more than one thing into this hole slash tunnel, just like in a straw. If you wanted to, there could be two different liquids. Think of mixed slushies. Two areas of penetration would equal two holes. Right. Right? Like your nostrils? Yeah, there are two holes.

There's two holes. Wait. But it's all part of one thing. It's a canal. Hmm. Hmm. The two ends of penetration makes a lot of sense. Yeah, the penetration.

Pause. Wait. What are you talking about two ends of penetration? Wait. Are we talking? Wait. Have we switched subjects? No, we have not.

No. Because if it's a, we'll just call it a tube cylinder. Yes. Okay. Here's the tube. You can penetrate on this side and you can penetrate on this side. Yeah. Like the Chinese finger. Yes. Yes. Okay, here's the tube. You can penetrate on this side and you can penetrate on this side. Yeah,

like the Chinese finger. Yes, yes. Like the finger trap. Yes. Chinese finger trap, yeah. So,

if you can. Can't it just be called a finger trap, guys? You're right. Seriously. I'm sorry. The finger trap. Don't.

When I was a kid, it was. Yeah, it was blah, blah, handcuffs, right? Oh, man. So so how many holes are needed to be penetrated like how do you have to have at least one right yes the thing that the finger trap is a one hole item it has one hole that you can stick both your

fingers in just like if a straw was big that you can stick both your fingers in. Just like if a straw was big enough, you could stick both your fingers in the one hole of the straw. Just like this right here. My pinky can't fit, but this is one hole. It is not two holes. Because it's too thin. No, no, no. We can't add

a size. How many circles does a straw have? It has one long circle so on okay okay or it's more of a cylinder so we talked about this we need like neil degrasse tyson or something like you really do because he'll bring us some space shit yeah we need somebody that's uh definitely smarter than the three of us what was the last time we talked to elon yeah we got to call him up he's got a new phone elon he's working on the pie phone have you guys heard about it no are you joking i'm serious serious yeah he'd be doing the most trolly shit yeah i know i guess like it had it stems from like

this rumored beef that he had with uh apple and uh apple's been trying to make like a car and he's been trying to make like a phone yeah i know yeah can you look this shit up do we have a model yet or um i don't know i don't know how i mean i saw it on youtube so i don't know how true it is but it looks like it it looks like they had a lot of information about it if elon musk sets into the phone game he will destroy the phone it's pronounced pi like p i p i phone i'm stupid like three yeah three point no but he's still clowning on people yeah um so i guess what it's supposed to do it's supposed to be linked to starlink which is his internet service thingy which i actually have it at my house because i live in the boondocks and it's perfect for people that kind of live in the middle of nowhere. So they're talking about it being connected to, like,

travel to Mars and stuff like that. Like, that's his whole, he's got this whole Mars colony thing, you know, planned out a lot more than people might think. He doesn't just have, like, a rocket that's going there. Will it have iMessage, though? PiMessage. Yeah, I don't know all the features, but it sounded like the phone might be able to be like a,

I don't know the correct word, so I'll say beacon. It can be like its own Wi-Fi thingy. Like a hotspot. Yeah, it'll be like a hotspot. So where it will always be fairly accurate. They're also talking about Neuralink as well and how it could be connected to some of the stuff with Neuralink. And Neuralink is the stuff for neurodegenerative diseases, the chip that you can put in your brain that will probably be utilized for evil rather than good. But we'll see what happens with all that stuff i feel

like it'll do a lot of good before it reaches evil because for neurodegenerative diseases like that's going to be amazing but once it comes to like if we have the ability to just have neural link like let's say if like it does allow you to load things quick because i remember i think it was his interview with rogan yeah where he like, we won't have to communicate by talking anymore. We just look at each other and our words, like, I wonder about that. I also wonder if there's something beyond words that we can like somehow speak to each other because like words, words are very limiting.

I heard somebody the other day say, you're only as good as your communication skills. Yes. And I thought about that more. I was like, oh, my God. Like, that is fucking crazy. That is so wild that that is how well you can articulate yourself through writing or through speech. And even the most articulate person still can't explain a lot of stuff because we're limited by the words.

And then being someone that's traveled a little bit, I haven't traveled a ton, I haven't been to like a bunch of different countries where they speak different languages, but I've been to a few. And they'll sometimes reference something and they're like, oh, that means this. And you're like, we don't even have an equivalent to that.

That's interesting. We don't have a word that represents this like phrase that you just said. So it's really interesting. I mean, I wonder, I wonder what all that's going to bring us. It'd be interesting shit. More emojis. Yeah.

But just think about how difficult it is for like many people talk about like how us as men, we're not as good at talking about our emotions, but just think about like how difficult it is when you really are trying to voice to someone how you may feel about something and you're just trying to find the words for it. What if there's going to be a more interesting way for you to be able to communicate that in just a deeper understanding? You know what I mean? Yeah, I wonder without being offensive.

So if someone came to you and they went to say, like, hey, good morning, and you were clearly a little grumpy, and like you're like clearly like a little grumpy and if you said oh i'm sorry i'm just kind of in a bad mood i might be kind of offended by it especially if it's like a relationship thing people get they're like well that's and then they're trying to get you out of the mood but maybe it could be something to where uh i don't know like you send out a message or signal that your energy is low you know like my energy is low and it's like oh okay well just I'll give him a minute and then he'll his energy will be up later on after he goes for a walk or maybe after he does jiu-jitsu and he'll be good to go and he'll be

down to like hang out or podcast yeah I mean we we don't have that exactly but like if my wife had access to like what my Garmin watch tells me, she could see like, Oh, this is your body battery. Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're tired and you're stressed the fuck out.

Like, okay, maybe, maybe I shouldn't like, you know, I don't get on his case about like throwing the trash out or something like, you know what I mean? Like maybe it can help pad some of that,

like, or soften some of that. Like she can see when your body battery's high, you better take out the fucking garbage. I can't like bullshit about it either. You know know what we did have a topic we were going to talk about and maybe we still will talk about it but now i'm a little bit curious about you too i mean you you've been in a long relationship like what how many years it's yeah almost as it'll be 10 years 10 years right damn bro and 10 years of lifting we got a lot to celebrate i know is that

like around the same time? So when I got divorced, it was like, I got to get in shape so I can find somebody. And then I'm like, oh, she does CrossFit. I need to get in shape. It's like a good excuse to go hang out, right? So that's how it happened. Okay. Damn, bro.

I know. And you're more than two decades with Andy. Have you, have either of you guys had any type of issues with potentially sharing your deep emotions or voicing that to your partners or has that, cause like the thing I hear from a lot of men and thing I did have a problem in the past with was like sharing with my partner how I may have felt about something because I felt uncomfortable sharing that with them. And those would be more so things that maybe me and a homie would talk about

and maybe we'd have discussions about curious like because dudes feel like they have problems with that i know i did but how about you guys you know for me i was lucky to have uh parents that communicated well and i never really saw instances just making sure this is totally accurate i never really saw instances or recall any instances where my dad was um like some some men and some dads will act weird where you feel like you're uh walking on eggshells type thing yeah where they're just like kind of pissed and you're not really sure what's going on my dad had his moments where of course he was frustrated with this or that. And we're like, oh shit, I better clean up my room. I better be a good kid. I better like, you know, I don't pretend I have my shit together in case he asked me or something like that. You

know, he had his moments where he's like frustrated with stuff, but it was, it was clear. He was either like in an amazing mood or maybe he was a little bit grumpy from work or just pissed that he had to deal with us when he got home from work. And so my dad, while I have normal conversations, when I would call my house when I was older and left my house and I would call and I'd talk to my mom for 90 minutes, we'd be yapping away. She'd be yapping away mostly. And then she'd say, okay, here's your father. And I'd say, hey, dad, how's it going? He's like, good. He's like, how are you?

I'm like, good. He's like, all right, here's your mom. So we didn't really express like, oh, I love you. It wasn't like a lot of that kind of thing, but he wasn't hard to read. I didn't have a problem reading him. um i didn't he wasn't hard to read i didn't have a problem reading him so for me in my relationship um there might have been times early on where something would because i think as men you you feel um you're kind of mad at yourself you know if you get like i know for me if i get jealous of somebody i'm sort of frustrated with myself i I'm like, dude, come on. Why are you

jealous about this or that? So when you are in a relationship early on and your significant other talks to another person, God forbid, dances on a dance floor with another person or anything like that, you don't know how to react normally because you really maybe haven't been in those positions before. And maybe you never had someone that you really cared about to where you were sweating it. Maybe you were never in a big relationship before, a long-term relationship. And then, so you got to like, but I think as men, we're like, we're very irrational. You're like, okay, what are the limitations of some of this? Like your significant other can't talk to anybody else at all. Like, you know, they can't tap someone on the shoulder when they're communicating with

them or they can't laugh or smile or say a foul joke or something like, you know, so a lot of those things had to be worked out. But my wife would recognize that I would normally, for myself, I would normally get quiet for a bit and then I was usually fine. I just had to like work it out in my own head because it was me in my own head having my own problems that didn't really have anything to do with her. She wasn't doing anything wrong. She was being herself.

My wife is very animated. She likes to talk a lot. She's flirtatious. She's happy. She's excited. And I don't want to deflate any of that, really. I don't want that side of her to die off. It's what you fell in love with yeah it's what I fell in love with exactly is so I don't want to sit there and be like you can't act this way if that was the case

then I would be better off just looking for somebody else that acts a different way or has a different type of personality quick question quick question about that you mentioned that when like because like for me it was a very similar thing when I was in certain relationships. And even nowadays, when I feel some type of jealousy or something negative, I'm going to go into my head and think about why I'm feeling this and try to analyze it and try to rationalize it. And I might go into myself a little bit. And sometimes it would be like, why are you doing that? Tell me how you feel. I'm like, give me a second.

Just give me a second. Like, just give me a second. Did she ever, was there ever an issue with you not voicing how you felt in the moment? Because what I've found is like, and, and like, for what I've been talking to recently, I've had discussions about this. And if, if it's communicated, like, Hey, I'm feeling something, but let me think this through. Cause this is how I – if that's communicated that this is the way you think things through, it's a little bit easier. But when that's not communicated, they think that you don't want to share your emotions with them. I'm wondering if either of you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, because you're guarded and they want you to open up to them and they're maybe even kind of hoping that you're one one of the few people they that they that you do open up to since you are in a relationship so i definitely think that's a factor i mean think about it as a guy you know if a girl was getting real quiet and it seemed like she wasn't having a good time you'd be like what's up yeah what's up like i because i think

i don't know how it is from the women's side but i know from the men's side like you a lot of times you do want to fix things you want to make things better you want to make sure they have a good time make sure they laugh not that everything's perfect but just make sure that shit's good so if we got that treatment our way

we would probably really be flipping out we'd probably be really worried or concerned but I do remember my wife telling me that she would be frustrated if i got really quiet she's like it's kind of the worst thing you can do so she was just like maybe like how about we just sometimes give it some time but let's talk things through and then just i think a lot of couples have this kind of rule like don't don't go to bed angry type of thing. Like let's, let's talk it over the best that we can. Maybe you can't

resolve everything in one, in one night or something. And you got to talk it through more in the morning, but just try not to have those like bad feelings. But I remember her telling me that her stepfather would get real quiet and he would be kind of grumpy and so she's just like just she's like let's just figure out a way to avoid that because i'd never liked that feeling because i always felt like i was doing something wrong even though i wasn't doing anything wrong so we we worked through that and the only way to work through that is to is to talk about it so i would just i would say okay uh rather than even telling her like i need a couple minutes i would actually just tell her what bothered me

and i would say i don't even really i don't know why this seems so i'm embarrassed to say this but uh i kind of felt like you were flirting with that other guy you know and she'd be like what like oh my god like and maybe who? Maybe that was my interpretation of it. Maybe she has a different interpretation of it. Regardless, it's like all that stuff needs to be worked out and figured out. Like, is that okay to like flirt with someone else? Or like, what's your, like, do you have to have a new form of communication with people for both sexes or for both partners? Right?

for both sexes or for both partners, right? You got to, it's all stuff you got to work through because some people might be totally comfortable with their significant other flirting and being flirtatious, but they're like, oh, it doesn't matter to me. They go home with me. It doesn't bother me. But I remember I had to kind of communicate that.

I had definitely had some insecurities when it came to that. So I was just like, apparently I'm sensitive and apparently I got some insecurities i didn't know about but i was like this is kind of the way it is and so she's like all right i'll be more mindful of it yeah i mean extremely similar all the way from like my dad like we never said i love you or anything like that like it was we never shared emotions or anything so when i got stephanie it was like what do you mean you want to talk? Like what the hell?

But even before like the past two years where, you know, we had, my camera's getting weird, where we had to like keep separated from everybody for whatever's going on. I had told her, I'm like, you know, some people like to recharge around a lot of people. Like some people like to recharge completely alone. I was like, I'm the person that I get rejuvenated when I'm by myself. Like I do not like when I'm tired or whatever, I don't get fired up to be around other people.

Like that doesn't energize me. Like I'd rather be by myself, quiet. And that way I can think through things and whatever's bothering me, I can work it out myself. But you know, when you get married and you have a family and stuff, it's like,

I'm not going to ditch my family at this point you know like I can't so what what I found though is like yes like Mark just said like it's it does bother you if something bothers you you know you feel like dude am I not strong enough to be able to handle like you know another dude talking to her or the way you know she likes someone's picture on Instagram or some shit like that. I'm just throwing out examples. But what I noticed was it sucked way more to just keep it in than to be like, hey, babe, like, I don't, like, this, I don't know why this makes me uncomfortable, but this does, like, can we, like, figure this out? You know, like, that sucks as a man. Like, that's fucking hard to tell your woman.

Like, I have have feelings you know like this i'm a big fucking baby i'm a big weenie yes like i i'm sorry i feel this way but this is you know what's going on and it i mean i can't think with in my relationship right now like there's never been a time where i've come out and been like, hey, I'm a little bit upset at this to where it doesn't instantly get way better. If it was something like, I don't know, I can't even think, but it's never been bad. It's always been like, this sucks right now. I have to rip this Band-Aid off. But because I did that, it got better.

better you know a very interesting thing about what we're talking about right now is that i've seen quite a few videos from like um there's uh if you guys are listening you guys know about this whole red pill community thing right um and there are certain guys within that sector that i've seen them talk about men sharing their relationships with women and they're very anti go like telling women about the way you feel about things like they think, hey, don't tell her you feel this way about anything as she can weaponize it against you. And that has happened to me in the past. In my last relationship, I did open up about certain things. And then in later arguments, that was weaponized against me.

But that's not because sharing the way I felt about things was a wrong thing. It's because the person that I was sharing those things with was the wrong human to do that with. Some people are not good or I'm not going to say some people aren't, some people like, yeah, you cannot trust them to do that. And that's not because what you're doing in terms of sharing those emotions is a madness of wrong thing. And I'm not going to carry those experiences into whatever relationship I get into in the future. I'm still going to figure out healthy ways to share the way I feel about things with my partner.

But I'm just not going to be with a partner who chooses to weaponize my emotions against me. And a lot of men are afraid of that because they've experienced that and they carry that to future things where now women are like, well, why don't you share your emotions? Well, this happened to me in the past,

but that's not a bad thing necessarily to share them. And a lot of men are scared of that. I was scared of that. Sometimes like overly talking about your emotions can be a little bit of a dead end street too because you're like, okay, I don't even really know what to do about any of this. But I think to your point,

I think is really smart is to, you know, just recognize the partner that you're with. And I think we can't ever control anything that anyone else does. The only thing we can, that we have control over, uh, is, is always just our own thoughts.

And so something to walk yourself through anytime that you feel like disturbed or you're, uh, sad or you're upset with a, a partner, you have to think, okay, you have to recognize, okay, I'm hurt. Like something hurt me. Like something bothered me. And there's no other good way to put it other than you're hurt. Something's hurting. Something's off. Something's wrong. Now you have to walk yourself through how do i interpret this so i don't hurt the other person because there's no reason there's not a good reason in this instance i mean

unless something crazy happened but there's not a good reason in this instance to have the other person hurt just because you're hurting so just communicate and normally when you say something something somebody goes oh my god i had are you they're like holy shit i had no idea that that bothered you when i said that your pants looked funny or something like that it could be the littlest thing because this is the person that you know uh that you care the most about you chose this person maybe to spend the rest of your life with and they make a little comment or something and you're like, oh man, like for some reason that, uh, that cut deep for with, in my personal relationship, I have not really had that happen because my wife doesn't really, uh, do stuff like that. But my wife is, uh, less like huggy kissy. Like she does all that. And she, um, you know, um,

we, I, I do it all the time. I'm more that way. I'm more lovey-dovey than she is. But that's something I also had to just learn. Like, oh, maybe she just doesn't want me smooching up on her all the time. So I'm just going to, you know, I'm going to kind of judge the situation and then go in for the kill later on or whatever. kind of judge the situation and then go in for the kill later on or whatever. But I think, you know, you have to kind of recognize like what your partner is looking for, what they need.

And then you also, it's your job to communicate what you need. But I think that main thing of like, anytime you get hurt, don't start looking around the room to start hurting other people. You know, we've heard the quote before, hurt people hurt people, right? Be more mature than that. Be a little stronger than that. Just because something they did or something they said hurt you doesn't mean you have to fucking drag them down. Let me ask you guys this.

Mark, you mentioned that your parents had very healthy communication styles. You never really heard them argue or yell. Did your parents ever name call each other? Oh, they would fight here and there but uh i just meant like my dad my dad wasn't like you know overly talking about his feelings and stuff either but it was very clear on whether he was in a good mood or bad mood my parents would argue here and there normal um but were they like healthy arguments like did your parents ever like like you no hurt each other within that? I'm just,

I don't know if that's too much. No, no, no. Not that I've ever seen. I think that name calling is off the table amongst adults period. Like I don't, I don't think there's any,

I don't, I mean, you should be able to communicate without calling you like doing that. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's no scenario, no matter what would happen where I'd ever call my wife a bitch or a yeah i mean there's there's no scenario no matter what would happen

where i'd ever call my wife a bitch or a slut or there's just there's just no it wouldn't matter what she did or how she did it that just wouldn't happen um she doesn't call me names we don't we try not to even joke around too much about like little digs like we might do little stuff here and there um amongst each other but not like uh you know kind of quote-unquote like defaming each other in front of people i see couples do that a lot you know where uh the guy usually makes a sexual joke like i can't get a blow job or whatever and i'm always like fuck man like yeah i'm always i'm always like that is i'm always thinking man that's that's not good that ain't good that you can't that's that's

and it just makes you so uncomfortable because you know and she throws something back at him and it's like oh my god here we go and the worst part is like oh shit we're all together and you guys are revealing shit about your relationship because he's not he's joking but he's not joking and neither is she and it's like oh wow he's he's not satisfied and he's the person's being serious you know the person like they and maybe maybe that's not the right way to approach it like maybe that's not a good way to get a blowjob maybe say hey look i really enjoy this i would love if we if we did this more often what do you like that i can do better for you you know do you want me to research how to eat pussy or something like i will i'll do whatever you want me to do just let me know and i will

fucking try to do the best I possibly can. Yeah. When you were talking about like, has there been a time to like stuff to, you know, reveal or whatever, like it hasn't been hard after we had this conversation about porn. Like that was, I went home and it was just explaining like the whole topic of the episode

and stuff. And it was hard for me to explain to her like, yeah. So like a majority of the stuff that I'm into, I'm like, even though I don't watch porn, I'm like, there was a majority of the stuff that i'm into i'm like even though i don't watch porn i'm like there was a phase where i did watch porn and you know that's why i'm into what i'm into and she's like huh like there was a long pause but like she's like well thanks for

being honest and letting me know like and thanks for like how did she put it she's like thank you for thinking that i'm enough you know because it wasn't like me going like oh that's what i'm into and i have to keep searching that out like getting it the way i was before yeah i was like no like let's just do this together now like so it was hard to like i was like stuttering like i am right now like it was a hard conversation to have because i was like you know so yeah so that was definitely something that i struggled with but now that it was out there it's just like oh yeah that's why and she's cool with it and just like i'm into some wacky shit steph's like here watch this she like hits a painting on the wall

and the fucking room slides over yeah giant sex swing yeah got whips chains like this is like super training yeah i've been waiting for you to talk about that like this whole time you know the reason why and you know andrew i want to ask you also if you don't mind going with your parents did they have a fairly healthy communication style too uh i mean for the most part but my my dad you know he's he's mexican so just like macho hardcore never once shared anything about feelings. Um, my mom would get frustrated,

you know, that sort of thing. And so like, yeah, they would have, you know, like arguments back and forth, but never any name calling,

never anything like that. I would say some of like the worst of it would be like, if like dinner wasn't ready, like my dad would come home and be like, Oh, dinner's not ready. All right, cool.

I guess we're not eating today. And then she's like, no, like I i'm still like let me get it together and he'd be like no there's no point like you missed it he's like dude really like what the hell like come on dude so it was shit like that was where it was like really bad things my my dad would do shit like that would that was just like it helped nothing you know it didn't advance anything and so stuff like that you know it was it was pretty tough but it frustrated him more probably than anything too like everyone else was probably like upset and worried about it and concerned but it probably weighed heavily more on

him even though he was trying to figure out a way to express that he was unhappy about something yeah yeah so instead of just saying something like like hey, I've been bondoing cars all day long. I've been breathing in chemicals and busting my back all day long. It'd be sick if there was some food. Next time, let me know, and then maybe I'll pick up something on the way home or something. I don't know whatever the answer could have been, but yeah, so that's what we saw when I was a kid. But over time, even though you saw certain things, you had to learn how to be better. Like you didn't just take the example from him and emulate that as an adult.

Yeah, and I've given this example before on the podcast, but because I am like seven or eight years younger than my brother and sister, I saw my sister in a very bad relationship. So where there was like lots of arguing. Um, I later found out that there was abuse that, you know, I didn't just, I was too young to either recognize it or I just, you know, didn't see it, but I thought that was kind of normal, you know? So that led to me kind of going into relationships, like arguing is fine. Like there's no big deal here. So that I did see. And then, then I learned like, wait, this isn't normal. So I learned exactly what not to be like. And so that was actually like very beneficial. Unfortunately, it had to happen, but it did. And it taught me what not to do. Dude. And the reason why I was asking you guys, this was my mom growing up. She was, I was,

she was a single parent, but she never name called anybody, even though she was divorced from my dad. And my dad, he made some mistakes as a man, right? She never talked bad about him. She never cursed about him. She never spoke badly about him. So I do not name call people. I'm not a person who yells at people or whatever. But I was in a relationship for quite a few years, four years, where the individual I was with came from a background where people name called. It was fairly normal for people who got in arguments to say, you're a bitch, like, fuck you, whatever. The first time that ever happened, I'm like, huh, this is different. But I did love this person.

So over time, I was like, maybe this is the way that the individual just shows their emotion. Because every time afterwards, they'd be like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. And I'd be like, wow, how could you not mean things you say, even though you say them in the moment,

they're your emotions. They're what you're feeling in the moment. You can't say things you don't mean. I'm not one who doesn't say things I don't mean. So what I'm saying here is that like for guys and for women, we all need to learn how to communicate, communicate. Basic effective communication is necessary.

You, you and Andy been together for decades. Y'all don't name call each other. That shit's not normal. It should never be normal in any context. It doesn't matter. It would never be normal for you to say, Andy,

you're a fucking bitch. No fucking way. Right. But I was with somebody where that type of stuff was normal and I was with them for a while because I loved them, but you should never be okay with that because that can never lead anywhere good. I'm so happy that I learned, I learned a lot in that relationship, but it's like, if you want to have, if you want to be able to communicate effectively in terms of your emotions as a man, you also cannot just say – if you're thinking your partner – if you're thinking some bad things about your partner, you can't just say those things. You got to maybe sit back, evaluate, and then talk to them about the situation rather than blowing up at them for anything, right?

Did you share this with your mom? Did I share – oh, did I share what happened in my relationship with my mom? Yeah. That's did i share oh did i share what happened with in my relationship with my mom yeah that's what she saw a lot of what happened she was trying to get me out of that relationship for a while but i really i really loved this person so i was like they're trying to work on it must have been like i'm gonna whoop your ass she was not she was mad that i stayed in that because like she saw it and she was just like this isn't the i don't communicate this way you don't communicate this way why are don't communicate this way. Why are you with someone who communicates this way? Well, I love her.

She's saying it's wrong. She's saying she'll get better. I want to help her get better. I wanted to help this person get better. And there were times that they did. That's hard for you because you're into self-development, self-improvement. And I think people can generally improve and become better people. I don't believe that people are stuck where they are.

But if an individual doesn't really want to do that for themselves, you cannot make that. And you're probably like, hey, I heard this from Jordan Peterson. And hey, I heard that. And they're probably just not, maybe not ready to receive that information. And you're thinking like I can,

you're thinking to yourself, I heard of situations that are like this before. This is why these things happen, and these are potential solutions to these problems. And then someone won't even open up the video that you sent them or whatever it is. You're just like, oh, okay. Yeah, but those are the things, man. I learned a lot from that. But I also learned that, hey, if a person cannot or is not willing to learn to effectively communicate – because I have seen people that have been like that, that have learned, that have gotten therapy, that have become better, that have learned how to effectively communicate.

So I know that people can do that. But if you find yourself in that situation as an individual, if you find yourself with somebody who just doesn't communicate well, they wear their emotions on their sleeve and everything that they communicate is based off of their gut emotion. Don't fucking stay there. Get out because you cannot communicate with somebody like that. That project family has going. You guys know who Stan the Rhino everything is. We've had him on this podcast three, four or five different times. Well, we partner with Stan and vertical meals.

It's going to be awesome because now you guys can have Stan effortings cooking and his nutrition sent right to you, right to your door. Andrew, can you tell the people how to get in? Absolutely. You guys got to head over to verticaldiet.com and check out enter promo code power project for free shipping. And if you order 16 meals or more, you're going to get two additional ones. Again, that's at verticaldiet.com promo code power project links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes notes let's get back to this podcast and sema what do you think was the the biggest i'm just gonna say blindfold because we had talked i mean i think maybe on air or off air even like oh if this was one of our friends we'd be like what are you doing because i have out my home i have homies that have come to me in situations like that i'm like br, bro, get the fuck out. So what do you think was going on that gave you the biggest blindfold to not get out?

There is a few things. Number one is the sunken cost theory. Because a lot of these things didn't rear their ugly head until about a year and a half in. A year and a half, two years in. Sunken cost. Yeah. I thought you were talking about sun-kissed. You put time in.

Put time in. Put time and investment into this individual. Right? You put time in. Put time in. Put time and investment into this individual, right? And then these things show, but coming from a background where people can get better, people can improve, if people can do that, there was a time element. There is the time element. There is the love element. Because when you do love somebody, you do your best to try to help them become the best version of themselves in

whatever way you can. I'm not trying to change a person, just trying to help them become the person that they want to be as you think your partner is trying to help you become the best person you can be. So love blinds things that are kind of obvious. Because when I look back at myself in that situation, my God, I should have been gone three years earlier. I should have been gone because this relationship lasted four years. I should have been gone on year one. There are things that happened on year one that were an obvious sign that, boy, you need to get the fuck out of here. But when you do love somebody and all of that, it can blind you to the obvious things. So I'm very thankful because a lot happened in that relationship, but I'm very thankful

for everything that did happen because a lot of homies I talk to about relationship stuff and they come to me with problems and I'm like, dude, just do this, do this. And it's always good, right? But I've never been in those situations because my relationships before that were actually pretty healthy, right? But I'm thankful for this because I dealt with so many just wild and healthy things that I know what I can absolutely, I know all of the red flags. Cannot compromise, cannot try to work through,

will not even ever deal with for the rest of my life. I know what those things are and I know what those red flags are because I've truly experienced it. I'm just so thankful that it didn't get anybody pregnant. It's, uh, well, yeah, that's a whole nother, a whole nother, uh, I think ultimately, I think what we're looking for is, uh, just figuring out ways of, of having a lot of respect for one another. So if you, so if you can respect how the other person is, and then you can identify, like, hey, you know, for whatever reason, when this person gets mad, they get really mad. And I don't get that mad. And I don't talk to people that way. That's their way of dealing with stuff.

But in a respectful way, I'm going to let them know, like, I don't know how to deal with that. I don't understand that. I don't communicate that way. It's just hard to be really upfront with somebody sometimes, especially when it's somebody you really care about. And then there's, there's just like, there's a lot of awkward, there's a lot of awkward stuff when it comes to relationships. I remember when I was a personal trainer in Los Angeles, I mainly trained women. I probably trained like 40 women. And cause the gym I was at predominantly, there was a couple of men in there, but not, not many. And these women, like, I wouldn't even know them for, you know, more than like a week. And they would just start dumping all this stuff that happened in their relationship.

Yeah. And you know, who knows why? I'm not sure exactly why, but it's like, I'm just thinking, man, like, especially at that time, like I think I just got, just started to get to know Andy. We were dating and stuff like that. And I just remember, I'm like, man, why does, I wonder why they just don't tell their husband this. Like this is, you know, it just, I mean, it was just like small stuff. Like their husband never takes their kid to baseball practice or something like that. And they wish that he would do that once in a while because they got so many other things to do.

And I'm just thinking, man, like that would be really helpful if you sat down and had a conversation and just said, hey, I know you're busy with some of the work you do, but it would be great if you could help out the kids more because I'm kind of getting, I mean, who doesn't want to help their partner out? And if you find someone that isn't looking to assist and to make the relationship as a whole a lot better, how do you make the relationship better? How do you make the relationship stronger? How do you figure out ways to love each other more, to be interested in each other more? If they're not into that, then you're going to kind of plainly see like, I just don't think it's in the cards for us to be able to figure this out. And if we try to force it to work, remember what I said in a previous podcast, you can't make somebody like you. You can't make somebody like you. You can't make somebody love you.

I guess like you maybe. Like you might be able to give somebody something for free and then they like you. Right? But I'm talking about like a relationship. You can't make somebody love you. And even with the stuff that we've done here at Slingshot, it took me a long time to recognize I can't make people like my products. I can't just send people products for free and then expect them to post about it. It's all out of my control completely. The only thing I can do is share with people why I created these things, why I'm

passionate about these things, why I like these things. And if they identify, hey, that sounds good for me too, then they're in on it. And then they're in on some of the other stuff that we do here at Slingshot and at Super Training. But I can't force anybody to do that. And even in cases where we've paid people to be sponsored by us, it still didn't work out great because it doesn't work that way. People either love and are super attracted to what you're doing or they're not. Absolutely. Let me ask you this, Mark. I don't know when you met Andy, if it was just happen chance or if you were looking for somebody at that point.

But what were some things that you're like, this is kind of – everybody has the checklist, right? Not everybody can meet the whole checklist, but everybody has things that they look for. For example, I've learned that the things that I look for in an individual is are they an individual that is actually an individual that's interested in self-development? Like not – you don't have to be reading all the books and stuff, but are you interested in improving yourself and whatever you're doing over time? Do you have things that make you feel fulfilled outside of what you do as for work? Like,

do you have a thing that makes you maybe feel fulfilled? Um, do you like, what are the things that you pay attention to on a daily basis? What are the things that you watch? What are the things that you input? Because I can generally have an idea of if I can see your social media feed and I know the things that you kind of watch, I can maybe have a gauge of the way you think, right?

Those are some things that I look at. But when you were with Andy, what were you thinking about? Because y'all are multiple decades in. Were you even thinking that much about things when you got with her or just ended up working out great? Yeah, no, I wasn't really. I mean, my checklist ended at pussy. There we go.

All right, chick. All right. I found the first person that wants to hang out with me for, you know, a little bit. Let's go. Yeah. No, you know, I never really had a checklist or a type I was in search of. I also met her very young.

I was 20, whatever the hell I was, 21 or two or something, 22. So because of that, yeah, I didn't really have a checklist, but in meeting her, I met a lot of people in Los Angeles. I worked at a bar in Los Angeles and I ended up running into a lot of different people and meeting a lot of different people and just

nothing ever really seemed to click in terms of like my conversations with people, especially with girls. It just never seemed. And even if I did meet a girl, I lived in Santa Monica. And a lot of times when people would go to this bar that I worked at, Sharky's in Hermosa Beach, a lot of times they would live in like a completely different state or something. So if I did see somebody, it'd be for however long they were there for or something, and then that would be that. But with Andy, I got in some conversation with her and she's like, oh, I live in Venice and Venice and Santa Monica right next to each other. Um, you know, I love to exercise. I love to lift.

She loves to swim. You know, there was a lot of like similarities right off the bat in terms of, uh, having some common ground and some common interests. And, um, I, I am like, I don't know, I'm a little weird in a sense that I'm pretty shy by nature. Like originally,

I started out being very shy and pretty introverted and didn't talk a lot and now I'm just, I can't shut up. I'm talking all the time. So, but Andy is very,

you guys, you know, we see her like doing the meetings and stuff like that i mean she's very animated she likes to talk a lot and uh i was just mesmerized by her i'm like this person's fucking awesome like they they have like she has the energy uh outwardly that i have in my heart i feel like you know like i i don't express it the same way just because i like to just be a little bit more chill and not have tons of ups and downs. It's been something that's been beneficial to me.

But I still feel that energy. I feel, still feel the flows of the day and stuff like that. And I am still really excited by life. But if you talk to her for just a couple of minutes, you recognize how excited she is about stuff or even just how fired up or pissed off she is about something because she doesn't have any problem just like kind of letting all that go, letting all that out there. No, that's, that's, that's, it's, it's great that all of that worked out for you. And I do believe that for a lot of people, things can work out. And what I've noticed by watching a lot of the content that's created like for example a lot of the people in our audience know who varolo tomasi is the man who wrote the rational male we were just talking about him because he uh used um our thumbnail from our mckayla peterson podcast as one of the topics of his videos um so he's he's the guy who

was like the red pill guy right um and you watch a lot of content from guys like Kevin Samuels. I don't know if you know who that is. He's a relationship expert that works on pairing couples together. That's his big thing, but he makes a lot of content. And the thing that you see in a lot of content that's kind of geared towards, ideally, it's geared towards men, is it's really somewhat, it's making men look at relationships critically, which is good,

but it's also making, I feel like it's forming them to be very angry, somewhat angry at women, angry at the idea of relationships. And I can also understand how sometimes marriage isn't the best thing for a lot of people. Like people, it's good that people are looking at marriage critically because of somewhat you see the rate of divorce. You see what happens when if a man gets married and gets divorced, you see what happens to their assets. So you see all these things and it makes people very, I guess, scared of relationships in general. But then, you know, I see individuals like you. I know a lot of individuals in my life who have had amazing, great, long lasting, beneficial relationships with great families. And it's just unfortunate that you don't see more people like yourself and more people that have

done the thing successfully, fruitfully, have a family, putting out content, talking about that stuff. Because a lot of dudes are just kind of mad at what's going on right now as far as like the dating marketplace, women, all this type of shit. And it kind of needs something on the other side of – not the other side, but not so deep into red pill. There's a lot of great things about red pill. And there's a lot of things that are just – What's red pill referred to? Oh, God. This is going to be a rabbit hole okay so

in our audience um when you guys think about red pill and guys chime in in the comment section because i'm gonna get quite a few things wrong about red pill but but red pill is not the same thing as elliot halls came on the podcast and talked about migtow okay migtow is men going their own way so I love Elliot. I love Elliot too. He's batshit crazy and I love it. Guys, I'm going to preface this saying I'm going to kind of butcher some of the red pill ideology. But when I watch some content from a lot of guys who are red pilled, there is a general arc of don't really put all your – there's a general arc of don't put all your eggs in one basket with a woman, which is kind of a good idea if you're on the dating marketplace.

So if you're dating one person, have other options if you're dating, right? But there's also the red pill makes men look at marriage as probably not something that you want to do. Because if you do get married, then if anything happens, if anything happens, you guys divorce, there goes a lot of your assets. When it also does come to relationships, there's certain guys like, this guy named Steph is cold, et cetera. They want men to kind of have a rotation,

a rotation of women that they not just date, but a rotation of women that they sleep with. It's more so an idea of not putting women on a pedestal, which, again, that I can – Not putting a woman. Not putting a woman on a pedestal. And I can understand that. who's actually looking to potentially be in a monogamy relationship and start a family, it's going to be pretty hard to follow the red pill ideology because the red pill ideology is fairly anti-marriage. Um, even though Rolo is married, but it's fairly anti-marriage. Um,

but yeah, it's like it, because marriage doesn't seem to favor men overall, it kind of doesn't want men going that way because of what we see happening. Guys, I know it's been butchered a little bit, but that's kind of what it's about. It's kind of what it's about. And the big aspect, again, of not putting women on a pedestal, I can understand that. If you're dating especially like analyze the person you're with don't think everything is perfect and peachy and examples like when people think about disney movies you know i mean then the way that disney movies are put forward you're going to

find this or a woman's going to find this knight in shining armor who just wait around for your prince to come save you prince Prince. Exactly. Right. It's kind of the same thing with the red pill community. Not, you know, not doing that necessarily. So, yeah, our society is like is pretty screwy. I mean, if you watch you watch like older films or even shows that kind of take place a long time ago, the way that women have been depicted and the way that, I mean, it's going to take forever. It's going to take a long time to crawl out of that.

It's just, and there's just so much like, I see these like, nowadays they're kind of made or they're still like relevant more so because of humor than anything else because because it's like a, you know, it's like an old school woman from like the fifties, uh, with a broom. And it's this list of things that she should have done for her man, uh, every day. And it, it talks about like, you know, cleaning the house and like all these different things and, uh, meeting the man at the door when he get home from work and having dinner ready and all these things.

And I look at stuff like that and I'm like, man, it's going to take a while before. But I think what has happened is just like happens a lot in the United States, there's a massive overcorrection. Remember I said before, I think the power has kind of swung a little bit towards the women. So some of this red pill stuff, while I don't really agree with it, I can see why. It's like trying to like kind of center this balance because as we've said many times before that like, you know, women do hold the power in terms of like they're being pursued and persuaded way, you know, way more than what we're used to. persuaded way, you know, way more than what we're used to. It's, it's a little, it's easier in a lot of ways for a woman to find a companion, to find somebody.

Massively easier. Maybe not in terms of like finding somebody that's great for them, but, but in just, you know, going out and getting some ass or whatever, they can, they can figure that out. Get some Zach. Yeah. That's so silly. That's how Kevin Hart says it. Yeah. They, uh, they have a lot more access to that. So it kind of makes sense. But I think, I think that, you know, you got to think, uh, this whole thing, it's, it's always kind of referred to as like falling in love. And you don't really hear

too many other things referred to in that way, like you're falling into something. And I think that it's something that is, it's really hard to be descriptive of, of like, what does it mean? What does like being in love mean? And what does like falling in love mean? Like you're like falling is like kind of a natural fear that we have in our, like you're like falling is like kind of a natural fear that we have in our in our like in our system like i don't want to fucking fall you know but falling in love is kind of this like gracious amazing thing um and for those of us that have experienced it it's it's a it's a wonderful place to be but i think there's a lot of concern about like oh man i fell in love and then this happened yep man I fell in love and that happened but just because like if you think when you're a kid growing up I mean it sounds like you had

an amazing relationship with your mother yeah and just because there's chances of of something potentially bad happening to anybody including your your mother. When you're a kid, it doesn't mean that you don't totally love her. It doesn't mean you don't take that risk and saying, you know, this is my mom. She's the most bad-ass person on the planet. And I'm going to, I better just listen to her because she, she seems to know what the hell's going on here, you know? And so I think that it's easy for people to give up their faith in some of these things. But I do believe in marriage, even though I think that marriage should be – it should probably be re-evaluated for each individual. You should really think about it a lot, and you should think about how do you want to be married.

Like does it have to be a contractual thing that the state and government are involved in? Or are you, you know, there's, there's many different ways of examining it. You can change the wedding vows. You don't have to say, cause like a lot of the stuff is kind of fake. It's like, it's not really true in sickness and in health. It's like, well, I mean, it kind of depends. I mean, if somebody, if you're married to somebody and five years into it, they become an alcoholic, I mean, it's just like, that's not healthy for you. That's not healthy for your kids. You might have to get yourself the hell out of there. So all those things are things that you probably need to kind of look into and re-examine,

I think. And I think that's a big deal. You can't just go in blind, right? Like a lot of what, a lot of when people think of marriage, especially if like you were, you don't pay much attention, but maybe everyone around you around you is married. You don't evaluate it.

You're like, this is what people do. You know, they fall in love and they get married and they live happily ever after. That's just ain't the case. Like I think it's 80% of divorces are initiated by women. And that's a statistic that scares a lot of men. And I can understand it.

So marriage massively needs to be evaluated from both perspectives, but especially for men. Like, we need to figure out kind of a better way to go about things. need to figure out kind of a better way to go about things but if you're someone who does want to have a family if you're someone who doesn't want to have children marriage might be something that does need to happen but how are you going to do it yeah i wonder out of that 80 percent how much is uh the man cheating you know it's probably fairly probably fairly high and out of that 80 percent how many of those men are wealthy right oh. Oh. You know? So, I mean, and it's- Some people trying to, some women are trying to get a bag. So, of those, the dudes that are red-pilled in this context, how many of them are living

like Tony Huge, and how many of them are maybe in a relationship that they don't like, and they're just like angry? You know what i mean like it seems like tony isn't quote red pilled but he just put himself in a situation where he can have multiple girlfriends he's in thailand it's normal over there to be sleeping with everybody but it seems like a majority of those fans and or subscribers to that video and commenters are not living like tony huge they're more angry upset either lonely or lonely right yeah okay so you get what i'm trying to say here like it doesn't seem like that uh that crowd is putting themselves in a situation to be able to i guess follow that red pill lifestyle i don't even know i wouldn't

well actually i i also don't really fully understand it yeah our audience don't grill us too hard i if some if some of you guys want to i want you guys to chime in in the comments maybe some things that you think we're missing see if you can look it up andrew yeah you can look i want you guys to comment down below what are we missing right here is because you think we're missing. See if you can look it up, Andrew. Yeah, see if you can look it up. I want you guys to comment down below. What are we missing right here? Because I know we're, as far as red pill stuff, I haven't read The Rational Male by Relo Tamasi. Yeah, I have the book.

I haven't read it yet, though. But I've watched quite a bit of his content. There's a lot of channels out there. There's this channel called Fresh and Fit. I don't know if you've heard of them, Mark or Andrew. But Fresh and Fit is interesting. They bring a lot of people. They primarily bring women onto their podcast, like different women in the Miami club scene, and they'll have conversations about relationships and stuff. And it's very interesting, but Andrew, to your comment, how many men are putting themselves in the petition to be like Tony Huge? When I look at a lot of this stuff, it seems that some people have been in a bad relationship or maybe multiple bad relationships.

And they take those things and then they apply it to the masses. They take those things of that woman and they apply it to all women. They take those things of that woman and they apply it to all women. Like, you know, it's like in my past relationship, my girl cheated. I'm not going to now think that all women cheat, but I put myself in a situation knowingly being in a relationship I shouldn't have been in. This happened. It's not because people are like this. It's because I didn't pay attention to the red flags the person i was with was i was i i didn't pay attention a lot of things i let a lot

of things slide because i was very attracted to the person i was with extremely attractive woman i was in love with this person so i let a lot of things kind of just slide made a mistake but i'm not going to take the negative things that have happened there and say, well, this is just the way women are, et cetera. The problem was the way I analyzed this individual, the way I analyzed the situation was wrong. That was my responsibility. level up, right? All we're saying, or all I was saying, because I don't want to put words in any other people's mouths, is that you need to take the responsibility onto yourself, right? To do more things, to level up yourself, to level up your business, your level of communication, your physicality, your mind, so that you now have the ability, number one, you will be desired by more people,

but then you also have the ability to find somebody who is desirable to you so you can actually find the right things because you cannot control anybody else or the actions they take. That's why I don't blame my ex for anything. It's not her fault. It's my fault for staying there, but all I can control are my decisions, my actions, the person. I can control my choices. And if I can better that skill, right, of my decision-making and my knowledge and my physicality and all of those things, I can put myself in a good place. That is my responsibility. responsibility. The thing I see from a lot of these channels, the Fresh and Fit, et cetera,

is that they're throwing blame at the other sex. They're like, women are like this, and women need to do this, and this is the way women are, and blah, blah, blah. That is taking the onus off of the individual, you as a man, right? And it's putting it and saying, ah, they're just like this, so we have to do this. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think the relationship that you had, I think, is probably exactly what you needed at that particular time in your life. I agree. For who the hell knows why. You're not going to really be – it seems like you can already tell why because it seems like you're a better person for it. You've mentioned it yourself and we see it ourselves too where you just have had a lot of self-improvement.

But it's not going to make sense until you're 10 years down the road. I mean I just made a post the other day talking about how you can kind of have it all. Like I don't really believe that people think that you can't have like a great business and you can't have a great relationship. And you, you know, you, you just, you hear that saying all the time, you can't have it all. I was like, well, why not? I think you can, I think you can at least work towards it. And maybe you can't have every single thing that you ever wanted because it just, there are certain things that don't work out for certain reasons, but those things get you to other spots that you were meant to be in in the first place. So I think that you can get there. And what I ended the post with is like most of you won't understand what the hell I'm saying for like 30 years because until you're like 30 or 40 or something like that, I said.

35 or 40, yeah. Yeah, I'd say like 35 or 40 because Steve Jobs has a famous quote of you can't connect the dots of life moving forward. You can only connect them when you look back upon it and you're like, oh, okay. Like, okay, that's why I struggled with like hell in school. Okay, that makes sense. I needed more resilience. I didn't have a lot of resistance in my life. I had two great loving parents. I had two older brothers that were awesome. I had grandparents that were really cool. I was surrounded by a lot of great people,

surrounded by a lot of love, had no reason to have any self-doubt, right? And then this curve ball's thrown my way of like, oh, you're going to have a little bit harder time learning than some other kids. And now that I look back on it, it seems it seems so minor. But when I was living through it, it felt like hell. Like I hated going to like literally hated going to school. I dreaded it every day. I wanted to try to figure out a way to not go to school every day and fake being sick, which I didn't really do. I just was always thinking of like it would be sick if I didn't have to go to school, trying to figure out a way out of it.

But now looking back at it, it's like, oh, okay, all that should happen for this. And then different things with relationships and different things that happened even while being married to my wife and all the different things that we've done together and gone through. It's like, oh, okay, now I can see it better now. And I can't imagine like when I'm 60 or 70, when I look back on it, it's probably going to even make more sense. The picture will be painted even further. Absolutely.

Just I wanted to read. Absolutely. Just, I wanted to read. So these were, Kindle readers had highlighted these captions or quotes, whatever, from Rational Mail. Okay, cool. So this first one, here's a cosmic secret revealed for you. Real power is the degree to which a person has control over their own circumstances. Real power is the degree to which we actually control the directions of our lives, which I think we're all on board with.

Sounds very culty though, too, right off the bat. It's like it puts the onus on the individual. So that's great. Yeah. But then here's the very next one. In a relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least. So meaning if you're the hot one, you don who needs the other the least so meaning if you're the the hot one you don't need the other ones okay what the most power needs yeah i i don't really disagree with that

yeah i mean i just think it's a shitty way to look at it no it's not yeah who cares yeah who cares so but see an interesting thing is like hmm when you know when you're in a relationship with somebody, people are like, oh, I guess the Disney version of things is finding somebody that completes you, right? We can take that quote and we can be like, become a whole individual. Don't look for somebody to complete you, but maybe look for somebody to complement what you got going on. And what you were saying with Andy, know, like, but I mean, and what you were saying with Andy,

she does fill out some of those holes, you know, in terms of her expression. Yeah. We're, we're, we're into pegging. Yeah. She's filling those holes all the time,

but you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, like you're an introvert, she's extroverted, et cetera. Back to the holes. But there's, I think

there's kind of a theme within the red pill thing where there's like, as a man, there is a supposed lack of vulnerability. Because if you think of the idea, I don't need her, a lot of these guys, a lot of people seem to not want to be also as vulnerable. Don't show your

weaknesses. Don't let them know your weaknesses weaknesses as those could be potentially used against you right so it's i understand it but then there's also like as dudes we already have a struggle with that vulnerability i do agree that it's kind of a crappy way of looking at things. On the other hand, I think it's a good idea to examine, like the word power is a weird, is kind of a weird word, but why is somebody like, why is your partner so much more advanced than you in so many different areas? And why are you leaning on them and relying on them so much for so many different things? There's probably some stuff that you should start to take more ownership of so that if something was to ever happen, you're not just almost like an infant out in the street not knowing what to do with yourself. For me, my wife, she runs our bank accounts.

She runs the business. She runs a lot of stuff. So I still have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to that kind of stuff, because I don't, I don't, I just haven't really paid a ton of attention to it. She is the more powerful person in the relationship. And it's my job to kind of figure out, I'm not trying to like have this power struggle with her. I want to level up to be as strong as she is. And I would like to strengthen some of those areas where I'm weaker. So I ask her a lot of questions when she starts talking about particular things. I'll say, oh, what is that like? What is that?

I don't really know if we ever talked about that before. And she'll say, oh, this is this, this is that. So I learn along the way. And then from her side of it, like her and I were in a conversation like a couple weeks ago. I don't remember what the hell we were talking about, but we were just going back and forth. And she's like, well, you know, I'm not like on your level or something. And then I was like, well, I was like, and not on my level. What are you talking about?

She's like, I don't know. Like you're, you know, you broke world records and like did all, and then like, that's cool that you think of me that way, but I, I don't think I'm in any sort of different level than you are. I actually think that you're on a different level than me. So it was kind of neat that we kind of have that mutual respect for each other. But you see that cool thing right there, though? This is why I think that more people like you need to be talking about stuff like this, because when a lot of these guys are talking about these types of relationships, when they talk about the dynamics between a man and a woman, there is a dynamic where, or through history, you've always seen that men are supposed to be

leaders or men should be leaders. And you should look into becoming a better person, maybe lead. But in these relationship talks, we see these guys talking, it's all about like, you know, you're leading the path, you're putting this forward. She's following suit. She's following suit. It seems that in your dynamic, right? And he looks at you as this, like from what you just said, she looks at you was like,

well, I'm not on your level, but on your side, you're also looking at her like you're not, I'm not like in the back of it. It's like, fuck, she's so good at this.

So ideally you should be finding someone that damn, you do admire things about them. Not someone that you look at them, you're like, I'm way fucking better than you. Follow my lead. Like, I wouldn't want to find someone who I'm just like, look at them, and I'm sorry for them.

Like, just catch up. I want to find someone who like, damn, that's dope. I want some of that. Like, you're doing some cool shit. That's what I'm kind of looking for. How many women work here at Slingshot? I mean, there's a bunch of them, right?

And there's a reason for it. There's a reason why we have a lot of females working here. Sometimes it's appropriate to have a female lead on a certain thing. And sometimes it's appropriate to have a guy to lead on a certain thing. And it kind of just depends on what it is. I mean, I think it's kind of obvious. I don't want to get into things that might be construed as like being like sexist or whatever. But I think that women are very clearly better at certain things than men. And men are very clearly better at certain things than women. So sometimes in a relationship, sometimes the man's going to have to lead. And sometimes in a relationship, the woman's going to have to lead. I think that it would be great

if both had the skill to do so, so that one person's not always feeling the stress of leading, making a decision. Like, hey, where do you want to go to eat? This is like a really simple Tim Ferriss thing. Tim Ferriss is like, just make a fucking decision. That's what he says. It's just like, just make a decision. I don't know, where do you want to go? Don't throw it back out to the other person. Say, I'd love to go to Makuni tonight. That would be great. And then they're like, I wasn't really thinking that.

Give them another suggestion. Say, okay, maybe we'll go to Makuni some other day. How about we go here? You fire out something, or how about we just cook up some steaks here tonight? Because sometimes you get that from women. They're like, eh. Did any other interesting quotes pop up from women. They're like, eh. Did any other interesting quotes

pop up from Rational Male? Let's see. I'm going to read the book now because I feel, I want to get a really good understanding of what Rolo's putting forward.

Yeah, familiarity. Familiarity? Is anti-seductive. Nothing kills game, organic passion, and libido like comfortable familiarity familiarity so fucking hard it's spelled weird too say that second part again familiarity

kills is anti-seductive nothing kills game organic passion and libido like comfortable familiarity i can't pronounce words since i don't understand like the context like i get what it's saying but i got some homework to do i'm gonna read that book dive deeper into give us the cliff notes it looks like it's a big one it's it's not actually a long book it's it's a pretty short read okay it's a pretty short read i'll read it it's got like one chapter nah it's i i think it's maybe like 150 200 pages so the context of that the only thing i can think of is that he must be referring to having different partners yeah right i mean because if like there you're not gonna not be excited to do shit i mean unless there's something else

going on but like you're you're good i mean in my experience i'm always excited about it you know every time uh and it doesn't matter how familiar it is. It doesn't matter if we did the same couple of things X amount of nights in a row. I'm still excited about it. It doesn't matter that we've been doing it for 20 plus years. I'm still excited about it. Yeah. I do understand. Yes. Okay. If either one of us had someone different, that would be different. I get it. That makes sense. if either one of us had someone different that would be different i i get it that makes sense what after the uh the porn addiction episode that we recorded me and sim were talking and i was just like i've had it was a show but they were i've seen this before where like uh dudes were clowning on another guy for like jerking off to a picture of his wife and there's like what are you doing like that's disgusting and it's like like i don't know like why would you want to be in a relationship where like your significant other doesn't get you

fired up like i just i don't understand that you know and like yeah that's why it kind of goes back to like you know like okay if you are into something like just let them know like make make that the thing you're make her the thing you're into yeah you know so that way you can be excited every single time because you should be yeah you should be attracted to the person yeah and man i'm the same way shit if it could be the exact same thing a couple hours ago like let's go yeah like this is awesome yeah like it's today my birthday what's going on yeah yeah but yeah i don't i don't understand i i understand the the familiarity part of it good job bro the thing is though is because it's spelled way different than i thought like i've been

pronouncing it wrong my whole life familiarity yep that's that's the thing dude it's like i don't read often yeah i see a word i'm like what in the fuck i'm like that's the way that's spelled you kidding me oh i'm like i would's the way that's spelled? You kidding me? I'm like, I would have never even gotten close, not even getting close enough to have the spell check work. That's when you know you're way off. You're like, oh, shit. Like, how often have you heard somebody say supposedly?

Supposedly? Supposedly. I've never heard supposedly. Literally all the time it's used. It's supposedly. Wow, it's supposedly. I know. Wow. Supposedly it is., we use it supposedly. Wow, supposedly. I know. Wow. Supposedly it is, but I've heard supposedly.

Yeah, I've heard many versions of that word. But yeah, supposedly. Everyone always just lets it slide. Just let it go. What about this checklist thing? I don't know about this checklist thing. I don't know if you should have one. Have you ever had one, Andrew? like uh yeah she's gotta be above

five five or whatever it was pretty pretty basic like yours go ahead but no uh because of the relationship that i had just got out of like she just had to be happy like you know she had to be a little bit more upbeat couldn't be like a frowny face grumpy gills all the time oh yeah yeah and then but what ended up happening? Grumpy gills. Yeah. What ended up happening was. That's pretty good.

Well, because you know, like there's, you know, like the rest. Grumpy gills. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the rest. I never heard that one. Grumpy gills. Grumpy gills.

What? Oh, come on. You guys need to watch Finding Nemo. That was good, brother. Yeah. That's a great movie by the way yes when she goes to nemo's dad and he's like oh mr grumpy gills did you just watch it recently with aurelius uh my when my when it came out my nephew lived with

me so i watched it like 30 000 times a day okay uh that was a big part of it and then when i'm falling in love with was just how gigantic her heart was like she's the nicest person anyone's ever gonna meet like she'll do anything for everyone and i'll just like dude like how is this even like you can't be real like it's wild but why are you so happy yeah why are you so nice i don't get it so it was just somebody had to be like happy like because i wanted to life. So I wanted to find somebody that I can enjoy life with and she had to have a big butt. So they worked out. I would also say that, uh, it seems very common for women to like talk about like a check.

I don't know if they're like, I don't know how serious they are about this like checklist, but they have a bunch of rules. They can't date someone shorter than them and all these different things. What I kind of wonder is, are you maybe closing off? I mean, there's some things that are obvious. If you're 30 years old, you don't want to date someone that's 80. I mean, there's some certain things that are quite obvious. You might want someone within your age range, and you might want somebody that has some common interests.

But I don't even wonder like if there's a reason to really even have one. Yeah. Like, I don't know if you notice when I mentioned my checklist thing, it doesn't come down to, oh, she needs to be making this much money and she needs to have this. Like it comes down to habits because I think the big thing that made me really realize that was the lack of good habits that I've seen in the person that I was with. So I'm like, you need to be into developing yourself. I think men and women want to be with someone that believes that they can become better. It's hot. It's attractive when someone's like getting after it and they're trying to be better at

something. I think it's great. Exactly. And having maybe something in your life that makes you feel some level of fulfillment, because when you, when you're dealing with somebody who you know that they don't find fulfillment in anything that they're doing in life, some people turn to things like partying and drinking to feel something, right? But if you're doing something that gives you that level of, you know, you're doing whatever it is, whether it's a type of sport, whether it's things that you do out in the community that brings you a level of fulfillment, that's amazing,

right? The things that you input, that's why I'm not saying like, she needs to be 5'5", she needs to be this, like, at least I want to be attracted to you right but you know the the other thing of um making sure that the things that you pay attention to right if you can really gauge what somebody thinks like by the things they watch by the things that they're constantly doing that can inform you on their thought processes because if someone is watching you know ren and stimpy 24 Ren and Stimpy 24-7. Ren and Stimpy 24-7. Or like, think about this. I feel like Spongebob.

It's a great show. If someone's watching like a lot of, there's nothing wrong with trash reality TV. But if it's like, if they look up to people within a certain industry, let's say people in love and hip hop, et cetera, and they're all about people within a certain industry, let's say people in love and hip-hop, et cetera, and they're all about crazy lifestyles, there's a lot of toxicity within relationships within those lifestyles, and that's the thing that they like to pay attention to, you'll probably see some of that. I have this specific reference is because this is what I saw. This is what I dealt with. So I'm like, hmm, your inputs really do have a bearing on the way you act.

So those are the things that are on my checklist. And those are the things that I pay attention to. Your checklist makes a lot of sense. And I actually think that you should post that because that's really interesting. Like maybe as a TikTok thing where you list it out because though that's not your typical checklist of like oh i want a girl with big tits and a big you know yeah um and a lot of times when you hear women uh kind of like sizing up men it's they have kind of a list of like oh i want him to be this ethnicity i'd like for him to be this tall i'm not going to date

anyone who's less than six feet tall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I want them to have this sort of job or whatever. You're like, holy fuck, man. How did you end up getting this list? It sounds really specific, man. Maybe just get out there and get some dates under your belt. Yeah, no.

I think at the end of the day, when it comes to attraction, everybody has the different things that they're attracted to. So I also think that as men, since we're so visually stimulated, we do want to be someone we're attracted to. But don't put too much weight into how much you're attracted to somebody physically because I made that mistake. I stayed for a while not just because of love but also because i was extremely attracted to this individual but just because there's a physical attraction there that will not overshadow all the other issues that you have going on and there are many people that out there that you can be physically attracted to we see hot people all the time so hey just shit to think about yeah when i walk into the living room and you know stephanie has her glasses on and she's reading a book i'm like jesus calm down woman she's like what it's like you don't know

what you're doing to me right now yeah it's like uh she'll be reading some like you know motivational or self-help book or something yeah you're driving me crazy she's like okay it's awesome sitting there all cute trying to pretend she doesn't know what she's doing it's like come on i'm like what do you what you do to your hair she's like i just literally put it up in a bun like i don't i didn't do anything i'm like liar yeah i remember uh one of the girls in the gym uh years ago she was training with us and she was very attractive and uh a couple of the guys were like oh my god like can you talk to her about maybe – Cover up.

They're like, maybe she can wear something different. I'm like, she's just like – and she was just wearing a pair of kind of normal shorts. It wasn't like short shorts. It wasn't anything. I was like, yeah, she's kind of just wearing normal shorts. And I'm like, there's nothing I can say to her. But just kind of kidding around one day, I was like, hey. I i was like these guys can't concentrate on their workout i was like can you come in like a pair of sweatpants or something one day so like a couple days later she comes in

in sweatpants and she looked so cute everyone's like oh my god this is even worse and so like she tried to wear like basketball shorts and stuff we're trying to like just yeah oh my god and uh a couple of the guys in the gym are like it's okay it just doesn't matter when she's she just can't come to the gym i think that's all we got take us on out of here all right thank you everybody for checking out today's episode sincerely appreciate it please hit that like button and subscribe if you are not subscribed already. Follow the podcast at MarkBell'sPowerProject on Instagram, at MBPowerProject on TikTok and Twitter. My Instagram and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ, at TheAndrewZ on TikTok. And Seema, what's up?

And Seema Inyang on Instagram and YouTube. And Seema Inyang on TikTok and Twitter, Mark. At Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch y'all later. Bye.