EFR 737: The Mindset to Fix Your Manhood, Level Up Your Marriage, Make Better Male Friends & Stop Being the Nice Guy with Adam Lane Smith

0:00:00 - Speaker 1 Adam, welcome to the show, man. Thank you for having me here, man, I'm so stoked to have this conversation. This year on the show and this year in my life I've really kind of made an intentional shift to highlight men and hopefully kind of solidify for me personally a lot of ways that I believe I'm being a good man and a lot of ways that I want to grow into being a better man, but also to kind of help other men in the audience and in the world, because I know that I've been there and I've needed some help and I've needed other men, frankly, in my life. But to go in a slightly different direction, we're team metal over here. If you guys don't know, I'm metal as in my blood Metal, hard rock, all this stuff.

And I was listening to an Avenge sevenfold song right before here in the gym. This means war and I kind of felt like this was a great kickoff for our conversation today. So it's somewhere like in the middle they go. I see the man ripping at my soul. Now I know the man. I know him all too well. There's nothing here for free Lost who I want to be. My takeaway on that was for men, but also, you know for humans in general. I guess, as a man, I feel like the man, the man that we want to be is, is there, like we already know who. He is just waiting beneath the surface, but a really thin line, really thin membrane, that is fear, that is family history, family trauma, genetics, that is belief systems, that is religion, that is all these things are really thin but very strong membrane keeping us from letting the man that we know is in there come to life. How would you interpret that?

0:01:49 - Speaker 2 Men live by rules. Either we set our own rules or somebody else sets them for us, and there's way too many men in this world letting other people who are not qualified set the rules for them on who they get to be, and that is shutting out the men that we need, because we don't need men who obey other people's rules. We need men who make their own rules and follow them.

0:02:12 - Speaker 1 Damn you guys, he's good, he's good, he's good, I've done this before, he's good.

I feel like me personally, I didn't know who I was as a human being, much less really when I looked through the lens of who am I chase the man. And so about two-ish years ago I was three now, when I was 35. And in thinking about that I wanted to ask you I feel like that's because I had not yet gone through all of these kind of male archetypes, I had not done as many things as I feel like maybe a man should have done by that point or could have done. I've done some things. I've been a son, I am a son still.

I'm a brother, I'm a husband, I was a soldier. I've done a lot of different things, but for some reason it wasn't until that point I kind of saw the connectedness in all of that. So my question for you is when we are thinking what kind of man am I, or maybe what kind of man do I want to be or should be, do we have to kind of go through all of these various archetypes, or can we really stand firm in the ones that we've experienced and have that clarity of this? Is the man that I am, even though I have not yet maybe done blank?

0:03:35 - Speaker 2 That is a great question. We figure out who we are by differentiating. I am not that man. I am not that man. I am not my mom. I am not whoever it might be. Who did you first decide you were not? Who was the first person that taught you who you were not?

0:04:00 - Speaker 1 I guess I would say I was not this upright law-abiding, rule-following yes sir, no ma'am kind of man that I believe to be. I still stand firm in a lot of my values and ethics and politeness, but I realized that that was just something I felt like I had to adopt.

0:04:22 - Speaker 2 That right there. That is very important. Who am I? Am I a man who just silently obeys everything that I'm told, or am I a man? To be honest with you, you differentiate based on other things. Pain differentiates you, the pain of not being you, being uncomfortable. It should chafe right. If you wear boots on, they're very comfortable. My friend helped me pick these boots out.

I know that they are good boots because they do not chafe me anywhere when I wear them. Some men, your father slides you into a pair of shoes that works perfect for you. This is the old days. Your father would say this is the right shoe for you, wear it and see how it fits, and that man would slide into it very comfortable. Some men your father either slides you into the wrong shoes or says, hey, try it for yourself. Our father doesn't even know how to slide us into shoes. We have to find everywhere else that it shapes and eventually we cut off those parts and we get to ourselves, to where we're wearing the right boot. You are wearing the right boot and it has taken you time to get there. Most of us in this world right now, we men, are doing that, but we're not raised to tolerate pain very well. We're not raised to tolerate chafing very well. We're told that if they're chafing, there's something wrong with you. No, you're differentiating.

0:05:34 - Speaker 1 Not the thing, Not the thing. We're not even in this article of clothing, whatever.

0:05:39 - Speaker 2 but us Correct. This is what's so deadly about all the narratives online right now about men should be this. Men can't be that. If you're this, you are bad. No, if you're not that, then what are you? Who are you? Don't let the outside world define you. Be the man that you're supposed to be. We need those men. There are enough men hiding who they are. There's very few men like yourself being who they are.

0:06:04 - Speaker 1 Out here, trying, out here, trying. You got me thinking now how, quite literally, sometimes, many times actually, when I think back to how I maybe evolved or how I felt solidified in who I am as a human, as a man, quite literally, it was the shoes I was wearing. It was the clothes that I was picking out and wearing. You know, it's kind of funny, but can you unpack that a little bit? You know, quite literally, trying different clothes, trying different shoes, seeing what feels right, seeing what feels like a stretch, yeah. Seeing what feels like absolutely hell, no, is there actually a way to equate our attire to the type of man that we are?

0:06:45 - Speaker 2 Oh, absolutely. I was reading a fantastic book called the Appearance of Power, and in it they talk about how every tribe of men, every group of men, has signals of power, even down to the watch that you're wearing, this watch. I have a phone. You're wearing a watch. I'm wearing a watch. Why do we wear watches anymore? Right, we have clocks on the walls, got a phone in our pocket. What does this mean? My time is so important that I need to wear a device on my wrist that I can look at at any moment to track the minutes that I'm spending. When a man wears a watch, his time is worth tracking. That's what that means. You shoes, the shoes that you wear, the shirt that you wear, the way that you've got your necklace there that you've got going on Everything about you sends a signal to other men like you that you are their tribe or that they should not mess with you. That's another thing. Oh yeah, power. Right, I got big shoulders, you got big shoulders. People don't mess with us.

0:07:41 - Speaker 1 It's like, hey, we're going to vibe or hey, we're going to have a problem.

0:07:44 - Speaker 2 Correct. So we're separating out from men that we find that we connect with. There's there's facial features for this that are tracked into genetic pieces. There's there's everything, but it's differentiating yourself from other tribes, but zeroing in on your specific core of people that you want to work with.

0:07:58 - Speaker 1 Damn, that's so intriguing. As you're talking, I'm just unpacking all the different clothes that I would wear. But more than that, like it was identity, I went to a small private Christian school growing up, middle school, high school, so I was in the dress code.

0:08:13 - Speaker 2 I was.

0:08:14 - Speaker 1 I was told what to wear and what image I was going to portray. Right after that, I joined the military. For six years I'm wearing a uniform, a few different uniforms After that. It was the first time, really, I had the luxury to choose on a daily basis who. Who is chasing, what version does he want to quite literally show everybody? And also there was an East Coast aspect to it too. You know, I felt like I need to be prim and proper, I need to tuck in my shirt, I have a button down and all this stuff. And then now, coming out to LA for five years, I feel like, you know, I'm wearing the beads. I'm wearing the beads and oversized shirt and, you know, and the sneakers. And you know, I have never felt more like, ah yeah, so comfortable in my clothes, comfortable in my skin and in my identity. Yes, and it seems so dumb, but to have you kind of explain it, that is such a strong representation of outside matching inside, or how to maybe choose to let your inside finally have an external expression. Right, interesting.

0:09:13 - Speaker 2 Manhood is not about hiding. Manhood is about revealing and it's about power and not. I say manhood is about power. It's not power to hurt people or to control people. I get that all the time, you know. You just want people to abuse their wife. No man. Manhood is about the power to make changes in your world. Feeding your children every day, that's power. Taking care of somebody who's injured, being able to take them into your home when they have no real skill, that's power. The power to change your pain, the power to change your life, to affect your own circumstances. Manhood is about power and you embody that power and what you wear, right? Some men wear steel-toed boots everywhere they go because it's what they wear on the job and it signals other people. I wear steel-toed boots. Look at me. This is what I do. I probably do it for a living, but I'm also tough. No mess with me, I can kick your teeth.

0:09:59 - Speaker 1 Yeah.

0:10:01 - Speaker 2 There's so many things that we signal to take care of each other and to say get away from me or come toward me. That's good. That's what manhood is supposed to be. We are supposed to send signals. We're not supposed to be a black hole that no signals emerge from us. If you're a man who's slinking through this world, hiding, being secretive, that's not who you want to be, not really. Someone told you to be afraid of you. Someone told you to hide. Someone told you that manhood is too risky for you to live in.

0:10:29 - Speaker 1 Do you feel like maybe right now, collectively, we'll just say here in the US do you think men are struggling more with how do I obtain this kind of power you're talking about? Or do you feel like I've got it? I'm there. I'm just really struggling with how to accurately kind of share and represent it, Shoot.

0:10:50 - Speaker 2 You didn't grow up in California, right? I did not in over junior. Okay, what was schooling out there like? Did they teach you that men are bad and evil and the power is evil and men are not to be trusted, that boys are rapists? Did they teach you that growing up in public school?

0:11:03 - Speaker 1 No, no, it doesn't sound familiar. It was really. You know, anything outside of the church was quite that.

0:11:09 - Speaker 2 So I grew up here in California and I remember my female schoolteachers telling us how awful boys were, how awful men were. I remember in high school telling us how awful men are and how to hold your handle, your hormones and everything or you will rape people, you'll be awful, you'll be evil. I remember them saying why can't you be more like the girls? I remember all of that. So a lot of men. It's not a matter of can I get power or should I use power. It's. I am bad if I have power. Wow, I am bad if I have power. I am bad if I try to use power. I am bad if I am a man. There are many men in this world, in America, especially in California, especially ashamed of their own manhood because they think it makes them evil innately to have power. Ashamed, ashamed. Well, have you met men like that?

0:11:59 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, I don't know if some have really kind of maybe not said that, but kind of reflecting on them.

0:12:06 - Speaker 2 How do you feel when you're in their presence, when they're hiding, they're covered up, they're ashamed. Do you feel secure? Do you feel like they've got things handled? Do you feel bonded with them? No, there's definitely a missing link. That's kind of the opposite, isn't it? They make you uneasy because you wonder what they're going to do. I know what to do. I want they could do anything.

0:12:22 - Speaker 1 You're a little shifty, exactly.

0:12:24 - Speaker 2 They're going to do anything it takes to minimize their pain and escape from blame or guilt. They're going to throw you under the bus. A man who stands for who he is was visible, who is seen, who is consistent with his moral principles. You can trust that man to always be himself, no matter what pressure is going to come down the pipe. I can trust Chase to be Chase. I don't have to say if someone comes in and treats Chase a certain way, is Chase going to turn on me? No, chase is going to be right there. He's going to tell the guy to shove it. Yeah, I can trust you to be you because you are consistently yourself. If you are not consistently yourself, nobody can trust you. That's why, when a man walks in a room and he's consistently himself, everyone gravitates to him and they feel safe around him because then he's predictable.

0:13:11 - Speaker 1 Immediately. I kind of want to ask you know how do we get there? But let me fine tune that question a little bit, because I do want to drive home this importance. I think you would agree In order to be the best man we can be, we need other men in our lives, absolutely. What role does a community of men that could just be one other guy or your own little guy tribe, what role does other men in our life play in becoming the best man we can be?

0:13:38 - Speaker 2 That is such a great question. So many of the men that I work with in my coaching or that I encounter in all of my work. They have spent their life surrounded by women. They were raised maybe by a single mom. They had a really absent dad.

They only had sisters all women and they differentiated themselves from the women. I know I'm not a woman, but sometimes they had to please those women. Sometimes they develop an attachment issue, an anxious attachment, somewhere where they have to please those women, make them happy. Make them happy, everything is wonderful. Please them, earn good boy points.

0:14:08 - Speaker 1 And there's some things like that. Good boy points, they call it shore play. You do the dishes, you can sleep with it.

0:14:12 - Speaker 2 No, so often we are so used to tailoring ourselves to women that we don't even know how to connect other men. Our father is supposed to be the first model for us Men. We bond best through a hormone called vasopressin. In the military they really specialize in throwing vasopressin at you. You go and you storm that hill. You bond together. You will do any activity that you achieve together bonds you together like super glue right.

0:14:38 - Speaker 1 Any guy that I've spent time with in a foxhole or any kind of significant event. Yeah, you leave and you're bonded, Right, yeah he's like yeah, I lost my hand.

0:14:46 - Speaker 2 You're like here, have mine. That's the connection that opens the door for emotional bonding. For a lot of men is vasopressin bonding. We have more receptors for it than women do.

0:14:54 - Speaker 1 Sorry to cut you off, but that makes me think of is that different from just trauma bonding? Yes, okay.

0:14:59 - Speaker 2 Trauma bonding everyone makes that connection. It's very similar. But trauma bonding is also about behavior modification. It's about mapping you onto the other person so that you will do certain things with them. Trauma bonding specifically yes, that can happen. The suspension bridge effect that can happen too, People.

When they talk about trauma bonding, they mean a couple different things. But yes, it can be. What it's supposed to be is solving problems together. It's hey, I need to restore this car, son, can you work on it with me? Dad's just supposed to initiate you into vasopressin bonding. Okay, hey, I'm gonna teach you a lesson at one year old about how to eat with a fork. You vasopressin bond together actually, by doing that. If your dad teaches you lessons, he initiates you into the world of male bonding.

0:15:43 - Speaker 1 So there's a task at hand, a problem that needs to be solved, an obstacle that needs to overcome. So you're saying that really needs to be present, more than just let's just sit on the couch and kick it, kind of thing that's oxytocin bonding.

0:15:56 - Speaker 2 Women really thrive with oxytocin and men get that too, but we thrive with vasopressin. We need it. If we don't get it, we don't do well. And here's the kicker when we have that vasopressin, our brain tells us in certain signals that we are safe because we have those vasopressin bonds with men. So if a problem hits, we have allies who will help us. Now we are open to facing new challenges and risks. A man who has no vasopressin bonding with any other men, his brain says I'm a lone wolf, I have to minimize all my risks, I have to stay safe, I have to be secret, I have to be out in the jungle alone. Nobody else is gonna help me. That's it. And when you have vasopressin bonding with other men and when they can just pressure you and say hey, step up do what you gotta do, my buddies do this to me all the time.

I love it All of that. Male bonding is so crucial to be the best man that you can possibly be.

0:16:47 - Speaker 1 So let's say we have maybe actually I'm kind of raising my hand a lot on this as well I would say in general I have more currently any male relationships in my life. It's more that kind of oxytocin experience. No longer do I have the quantity of guys in my life or the types of guys in my life where we're problem solving Definitely had that in the army. My brother and I a lot of friends are appeared in my life. We were big wrench heads and fabricating cars and jeeps and all this stuff and problem solving and I guess maybe like gym buddies, guys that you're active with we're problem solving, trying to figure out how can we lift more weight or do more things If we're there, if the guys there, maybe right now they're realizing actually I don't have vasopressin connection with guys. I'm more oxytocin. Is it a matter of I just need to cause a problem or how can I go from oxytocin?

0:17:39 - Speaker 2 to vasopressin. I love that when I teach women about that that's what I'm here. Oh, so I should be higher drama is what you're saying? Yeah.

0:17:46 - Speaker 1 So if we're chilling on the couch, do I need to break the couch so we can pick together and build a new one? Yeah, no.

0:17:51 - Speaker 2 It could be as simple as he shows up. You don't have a couch and you have an IKEA set right there to build the couch. It could be that it could be.

0:17:57 - Speaker 1 Though it could be, I would probably leave it was an IKEA couch, right Right, I don't have four hours, it'll break the friendship. Anyway, try to do that?

0:18:03 - Speaker 2 No, here's what men do. Here's how we really bond. Hey, chase, I have this problem with something. I need some help on something. I need you to give me some feedback because I'm trying to accomplish something. I'm trying to hit a new record at the gym with the deadlifts. You're amazing at deadlifts. Can you please help me hit a new record at this? But here I gotta tell you what the catch is. I need some help before I can do that. Can you give me some feedback on that? Here I've got this issue. I've got this injury. I know you have overcome this injury in the past. Can you share your solution with me?

0:18:34 - Speaker 1 So it's beyond just problem stating and connection time, it's recognizing. You have overcome this and I find value in your power.

0:18:42 - Speaker 2 So give me your solution, I will apply it and then we will have solved it together. That's vasopressin bonding too. Men solving problems. Here's a kicker.

The male brain is not meant to operate. Every single man has to invent fire, invent the wheel, invent the spear. No, the male brain is supposed to work in a connection, a data node set, a huge network of male brains throughout history that have solved problems, and then pass down that solution to the rest of the network as far as we can. That's what the male brain is for. So any problem you or any man in the audience has, another man has already solved it. Our network right now is so broken up. It's all these individual little data nodes trying to reinvent fire, reinvent the wheel. It is supposed to be you and me coming together and saying I have a problem, you've solved it, can you give me your solution? Do you need any solutions from me? If not, do you have other people that can solve this problem for me? Do they need my solution? It's solution sharing. That's what the male brain is supposed to work.

0:19:41 - Speaker 1 I like that solution sharing, but I also kind of feel like I've been in some situations and maybe the listener right now is going I can't even get there with the guys in my life. Maybe the limiting factor we think in not having as many or as strong male relationships is it's just not the right guy, or I'm only friends with this person because it's my wife's friend or the girlfriends or whatever. So would it be just that? Let me just implement a problem solving experience. What is the hurdle that we need to get over? Or just give a fighting chance to really see if that can happen?

0:20:19 - Speaker 2 Most guys, a lot of guys, have that struggle because they have what's called attachment issues and I specialize in fixing that. It is the belief that no one else is ever going to help you. It's the belief no one else cares. It's a belief that other people treat you like a burden. It's a belief that you don't deserve for people to help you or that other people aren't to be trusted as they'll take from you. If you try to get help, you exhibit a weakness and they're gonna attack you like the world's.

0:20:42 - Speaker 1 I was gonna wonder yeah, is it a weakness thing?

0:20:44 - Speaker 2 To avoid an attachment. Some guys break this way and saying don't trust anyone else ever. Shut out the world. Some guys break this way and say I am not good enough, no one will ever care about me. Fear of abandonment and not being good enough, fear of other people attacking you if they get a chance. It can split those ways. So some guys are. They have 10 male friends around them, but they've never connected with any of them, and some of them have no male friends around them and they feel utterly alone. It really is as simple as learning that it's okay to share solutions. When you hear what the male brain is for, that we're supposed to click into each other, that our fathers and our uncles and our grandfathers are supposed to initiate, that. Did you have some of that growing up?

0:21:23 - Speaker 1 Men, initiating you Absolutely, camping hiking boy scouts with my uncle, with my grandfather, with my brother, my father, Absolutely.

0:21:30 - Speaker 2 When you hit a frustration point, now you get hit. You hit a wall. What do you do when you are stuck and you have no answers? Who do you go to? My wife, yeah. I mean that's a good one. That's a good one. Who else do you go to? She says I have no idea.

0:21:46 - Speaker 1 Probably my brother.

0:21:47 - Speaker 2 Yeah, why?

0:21:49 - Speaker 1 Even though he's younger, he has some very unique life experiences. Solutions, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's collected solutions. Damn, he got me Think of everything.

0:21:58 - Speaker 2 Everything is a solution to everything else. Right, I'm on this podcast because your audience has problems that I might have some solutions for. You're doing it right here. This is what the male brain is for. We mine other people for solutions. We give them our solutions in return. This is I hate is okay if I rant really quick, please. I hate, hate this idea on the internet of mansplaining. Let me mansplain for you about mansplaining really quick.

If a man believes somebody else is worthy of his time, a man will sit and will explain the problem and the solution to them in detail. We expect the other man to say, hey, I know that part, skip ahead. Hey, I didn't know this place, skip ahead for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Women will never do that. So they will sit through the entire lecture, from start to finish, and the man will say, well, I guess you didn't know any of that. But he will say I invested all that time giving her this knowledge, giving her this information. She must love it. And women are sitting there saying I would only have explained it that way to a child. He must think I am a child. So this idea of mansplaining? Are there some jerk men in this world who yes, there are. But most men who explain in that depth are trying to give you love and connection and most women are spitting back in their faces because they have no idea why he's spending the time doing this because he likes you.

0:23:17 - Speaker 1 I've been there. My wife is pretty kind in those circumstances. She lets me finish, at least, and then rolls her eyes and she's like thanks for mansplaining. Yeah, exactly, I'm like what do you mean?

0:23:26 - Speaker 2 Exactly. I gave you my time because I care about you. Tell her that, help her understand that.

0:23:33 - Speaker 1 It's men and women. Watch out, baby. Hey, I learned something new today.

0:23:36 - Speaker 2 Hey, get on the phone with me, I'll explain it.

0:23:39 - Speaker 1 What about for guys? Again, kind of like myself, and I weave a lot of myself into a lot of the conversations because we would not be here talking if I did not find value in what you're doing and that's basically how I live a life ever for it and I want to share these experiences. So I'm always very transparent. I just generally and I feel, naturally have way more female friendships, relationships in my life. I have always felt easier and more genuine, deeper connections to women than with guys, and my explanation for that and I'm curious to get your feedback here, I'm sure I'm not alone is that I'm not the typical guy. I really don't give a shit about sports. I mean, I'll go to a game, but it's even more than that.

I've realized that I'm not a service level guy. I would rather talk about something very real, or let's problem solve, like you're saying, rather than just let's just make. I'll make some dumb jokes, but I don't want to catch up about the game, or I don't want to do something that I view as Worthless Worthless, yeah, it's a harsh word, but really. And so I feel like with women, I feel like it's easier right out of the gate. We can get to a real subject. We can talk about emotions and feelings, or I've even been told, and I kind of have this safeness about me where I think women also naturally gravitate more towards me, and friendships and even intimate relationships. It's just, I don't know, it's my vibe, my energy, whatever.

But any guy like that. You naturally have more female friends. It's easier for you to make female friends than males, but you want to maintain and develop strong, meaningful male relationships. How can we kind of segue out of that? I know you've hit it on a couple of things. I can answer that, but I don't. I hear you. But if that's the guy right now, how do we really get there? Well, let me ask you something.

Okay.

0:25:34 - Speaker 2 What if you don't naturally gravitate toward female friendships? What? What if men are failing so hard at knowing that they can have those relationships with you? What if our society is breeding men who can't have substance and are afraid of it?

0:25:51 - Speaker 1 and the women are having this stuff. You just got my head all flipped up like a pretzel.

0:25:53 - Speaker 2 What if the women have to step into the role of being more masculine and solving problems and having the serious talks and pushing hard, damn. And in fact, what if the women are resentful that they have to take on those masculine roles in our society?

0:26:06 - Speaker 1 I. This was a huge, huge moment for me. I was with my wife and a close mutual friend of ours, another woman, and she was talking about her less than ideal experiences in the dating world right now, and she said something that my wife had said, but I didn't realize it was something with women collectively, or another woman outside of my wife. She goes I'm so tired of acting in my masculine energy, I'm so tired of being the man I just you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it clicked with me and I go, because my wife has this running joke. She's just like, just handle it, just handle it, just handle it. And I'm like, okay, all right, go on life one, I'll tell you just whatever I'll get to it. I'm like, oh, this is a collective female thing. It's more than just the task that needs to get handled, it's the whole masculine presence and energy and weight that that requires. That blew my mind. Is that what you're talking about here?

0:27:03 - Speaker 2 Let's think back 5,000 years ago. I mean, shoot, let's think of 1,000 years ago. Right, the Vikings roll through and the Vikings wipe out and kill all the men in your village. All the men are dead. So the women ran off into the hills and survived. The women come back. They have their kids with them. It's women and kids. Who's gonna hunt? Who's gonna protect? Who's gonna pick up a spear and stab a thief? Who comes into the night? Who can't just not have men? Who fulfills the man's role? Women when there's a vacuum, they're wonderful, they can step right into it, but they hate it. Imagine hunting a mammoth. You have six very pregnant women with spears waddling out there. My wife's on her fifth baby. They waddle when they were in their that home. You have six very pregnant, waddling women with spears trying to go hunt a woolly mammoth. Is that ideal?

0:28:06 - Speaker 1 I would say no, I'm sure they would agree. Do you think there's something that's?

0:28:09 - Speaker 2 gonna go wrong. Yeah, you don't put women on the front lines like that. You just don't. Can some women handle it? Yeah, maybe so. Are they meant for that? Well, no, that's you and me. That's where our communication evolved. That's why we vasopressin bond. That's why the oxytocin bond safe in a safe, low stress environment. Together sharing and nurturing. That's why you and I bond out there killing the guys in the other tribe or hunting a mammoth. Together, we bond by achieving. Women can step into the masculine, but it costs them twice as much as it costs us to just do it the first time. Damn. We're built for this and they resent us when they have to double the energy to do what we're doing. They are meant for that and they can thrive in that. But men are failing and women are picking up the slack.

0:28:59 - Speaker 1 What about the opposite? Can male step into the female, the role, the energy? Not well.

0:29:04 - Speaker 2 Okay, not well, we're just not made for that. Interestingly, we can try. I've got some. One of my best friends in the entire world is a single father. He is a fantastic father, 24 hours a day taking care of this child. It's exhausting watching. It is hard for his brain to shift between childcare and work and childcare and work. He had to hire somebody to come in and step in just for a couple hours a day and just take over that role, because he just can't. Women their brain works that way and it can work Men very hard, one at a time. Laser focus. It is harder for us to step into the feminine than it is for them. We just pull back, we escape.

We just escape into anything, anything Over in Japan, they've got a whole generation of young men who have completely checked out. Their birth rates collapsed. South Korea is one of the worst in the entire world. Men are just gone, and the men in America are following suit. It's not.

People are not usually in cells because women are not wanting men. I have just as many women coming to me begging me to connect them to a good man. Women want marriage. They want kids. A lot of women do Maybe not every woman, but a lot of women do. A lot of guys cannot find a woman because they don't know how to be a man. Damn, that's something to think about. Nobody ever trained them. No one ever initiated them into manhood. They're doing the best, they know how, and all they know how to do is be a good boy, and they try to good boy themselves into a marriage. That's just not gonna happen. She's gonna be the man. And if she's gonna be the man, why would she want you? Damn, what about? I feel like we just killed someone and the woman's right, you know what I mean.

0:30:52 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm just frequently putting myself in the position of the listener and I mean I'm having so many little just like moments.

0:30:59 - Speaker 2 Hit me with it.

0:31:04 - Speaker 1 I think you kind of solidified what I was talking about, this concept of how much more than I realize women want to be taken care of, or just one and a lot of, I'll say, typical, maybe gender role situations, just to have things handled, you're good.

And I kind of viewed it as and this is maybe my own ignorance I always viewed it as well. If we're a collective unit here and we're doing these things, like if you can do this and I can do that sometimes, or vice versa, whatever, then cool my brain's like as long as the mission gets accomplished, as long as the thing happens, then we're good. But better understanding the dynamic of typical, I'll say, gender roles. But also just what is the situation need? Does it need more of the masculine, does it need more of the feminine, and when the situation could really require more masculine, and then I'm able to do it. Usually things after that are a lot better and also I kind of get this unique feedback, like these moments of oh, it's more than just the task, it's more than just the mission, it's my role in this situation and how I can feel fulfilled, but also letting her know that I can handle these situations and then I know that she's fulfilled yes it's wild.

0:32:25 - Speaker 2 Well, and then she's free to do what she needs to do. She's free to fulfill the feminine role, which is absolutely vital.

I tell people this men build structures right. We build the buildings, we build the castles, we build the house. Women build within the structures and between the structures. We build the house. They make the home right. That's it. But they also network between the homes. The feminine energy is about filling the home and about connecting and bonding and nurturing between. So a bunch of dudes right, if there's an apartment building of 10 dudes who live alone in an apartment building, they're not gonna do anything.

They're gonna, and they're all in the room like each one of them has a bench press and that's it, like they won't speak, no eye contact. But if you have a bunch of women living there, with them, a bunch of married couples, they all start networking and building and connecting Like they fill their home and they also connect with the other women around them and fill the network and they connect between the structures when they're in their feminine energy.

That's what the feminine energy is for. It can only work when they're safe. That's why you and I are on the outside. The military is the masculine in our society, but the domestic is the feminine. Think of it that way. The domestic can't function if enemies are coming in and just raiding and killing and taking the masculine on the outside. The military force exists to protect the structure so that then inside the feminine energy can work. The Spartan kings had this structure. They had the masculine king on the outside, the military king, and they had domestic, arguably the more feminine energy king on the inside, and the masculine king had precedence so that he could protect but the internal one. They weren't supposed to bring their armies in and cross pollinate and as much. They shared that power in different spheres, and that's the masculine and the feminine. It's not you're less than me because you're a woman. It's here is where you thrive and here is what you can do that I can't do. Let me protect that so that you can do it. That's what it's supposed to be.

0:34:20 - Speaker 1 I love that, I love that. So I feel like we're in a good place to maybe transition into. We've been kind of establishing the man, the masculine, how maybe we can raise the bar there, tap into more of who we are as a man and let that person finally shine through relationships. When we're in relationship as a strong man, what, in your opinion, are some of the largest obstacles we're facing? Now? Let's say we're a strong man, we're presenting, we're in relationship with partner. What then? What next? Like, finally, I got my manhood, okay. Well, now, shit, I hit this other wall, because I know you work with people all the time, all the time.

I mean, you're day in, day out, kind of navigating these conversations.

0:35:03 - Speaker 2 That's like I coach men through this all the time, and women and women too, but men, the men who come to me, they don't know that it's okay to be themself. They tailor themself to the world around them. They're either trying not to be abandoned or they're trying to protect themself because they don't trust anybody else. So here's what they do is they do not be consistent with their morals and their values. As I say, three things, you need to pick out three principles that you will never, ever, violate, ever again, for the rest of your life. This is your honor code. You already have it, you just don't know it. You violate it to please other people and you hate yourself. And you make justifications and rationalizations for doing it. But you hate yourself and other people don't like you for it either. So three things for me.

That's honesty I can never, ever tell a lie or let someone believe a lie. I have to be fully honest all the time. If I can't, if I'm not, I can't sleep at night. Integrity if I give my word, I must keep it Must, and if somebody else believes that I gave my word, I still have to honor it. It's the biggest one for me as well.

Reputation your word is your bond, your word is your life. Number three is compassion, doing what is truly best for someone who is hurting. Those are my three values. I must live to those consistently. Imagine if someone comes to me in my DMs and says, hey, adam, I need some help, but I say screw you, man, I don't have time for you right now. I'm inconsistent. Who would ever come to me again, right, if my wife comes to me and tries to get something and asks me a question and I just lie to make her feel better and then she finds out later, why would she ever trust my word ever again If I tell my wife, yes, I will take care of that project this weekend, and I don't take care of that project this weekend, I say it's not a big deal.

0:36:36 - Speaker 1 What are you?

0:36:37 - Speaker 2 whining. What are you nagging me for? And I put it off, and put it off, and put it off. Why would she ever trust my word ever again? It's not the thing, it's not the squeaky door that you never fixed, it's that you are not a man she can trust to do. I'm not saying you, but everybody in the audience. It's.

0:36:54 - Speaker 1 The thing is never the thing right, the thing is never the thing.

0:36:56 - Speaker 2 It's what the thing represents. It is you being predictable. Women love predictable, no matter what they say. They love predictable. They love predictable values and they love a predictable mission because they wanna know where you're going and how you're acting as you get there, so that they can join you on that journey and invest in it with you. So any man out there who's struggling with this, if you want a good relationship with yourself and others, recore values and then find your mission and tell everybody you meet about them.

Here's my values here's my mission, and here's how I live them every day, and if you ever don't fix it, it's called accountability. I love that. Who do you have keeping you accountable in your life right now, chase? Who keeps you accountable? Who yells at you if you go off the path?

0:37:40 - Speaker 1 My wife. I mean, yeah, that's most guys If you have a good relationship, my wife too.

0:37:44 - Speaker 2 If you have a good relationship, she's gonna call you on it immediately. Who else do you have besides her? So the pressure's not all on her.

0:37:50 - Speaker 1 Myself. I hold myself very accountable.

0:37:52 - Speaker 2 Good. Do you have anybody that you talk to, any married men that you talk to and say, hey, let's be better husbands together? If I ever make this here's something I am weak on I need you to hold me up for it. Once a week let's check in and see how we're doing on this task. Do you have any guys like that, or are you going to in the next couple of?

0:38:07 - Speaker 1 weeks. I was gonna say I have guys like that in my life that I can start that with, but that has not happened yet.

0:38:12 - Speaker 2 That would be vasopressin bonding, by the way. All right.

0:38:16 - Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, that's the thing I feel like in any area of our life we're trying to improve or even just maintain. Sometimes I think we already have the solution. Yeah, we do, we're extremely close to the solution. It's again just that thin membrane of whatever, of fear, of limiting beliefs, of worry, of stress, you know, in our own heads. But yeah, I mean, as you're talking, I'm like, yeah, I got there's one guy for sure in my life, another married guy that I have vasopressin and oxytocin bonds with. You know, I feel very comfortable and very myself, and likewise him. So I'm like, all right, chase darling, there's your guy. There's the thing.

0:38:54 - Speaker 2 Like you know, this Go to him and say, hey, I want to be a better husband. I'm not a bad one, but I want to be a better one. If you want to be a better husband too, why don't we get a suggestion from our wife about what we want to fix, about what maybe we should be working on, and let's be accountability buddies. Every Saturday, we're going to check in and say, hey, man, one to 10, how did you do this week on it, and what are you going to do to bump that number up by one by next week?

0:39:16 - Speaker 1 Too easy, baby Too easy. That's it. I like it, that's the system.

0:39:21 - Speaker 2 He gets to laugh at you, or be like hey man, what are you doing?

0:39:23 - Speaker 1 Like hey, I went up a number. Where are you at?

0:39:26 - Speaker 2 Right, I was on Mind Pump a couple of months ago and I was there. I was like well, my stomach looks a lot bigger than I remember looking last time. I was on TV.

0:39:33 - Speaker 1 Well, compared to those guys, especially Sal, lately, man, jesus Christ, and they're incredible.

0:39:37 - Speaker 2 But I was like man, I don't look, I don't like this, I've settled in. I got the dad butt. Okay, I need to fix this. I went to my buddies who are fit and I said okay, I don't like this. And they said yeah, we saw you, man. I was going to say something about it. I said okay, I need you to call me and harass me every day to make me go to the gym, or every Monday make me go to the gym. So he said I got you. So he harasses me every Monday. Hey, man, where you at, you at the gym, are you up? It's like five in the morning. Hey man, are you up yet? Are you going? Yeah, all right, I'm getting out of bed, go to the gym.

I would not do it if I didn't have someone at my back saying hey man, I will make fun of you if you don't do it. That's every man everywhere. We all need some guy who's saying hey man, where you at, I'm gonna laugh at you. You're just stabbing with the stick. You were in the military. Was it a polite suggestion? Like hey, chase, you should do this thing over here. If you do this, you'll be better. Was it a polite?

0:40:24 - Speaker 1 friendly, helping suggestion, 100% all the time. Just super friendly. No yelling, no demand, right, yeah, comforting, they hugged you, they braid your hair.

0:40:30 - Speaker 2 What was it for you? What drove you to be a better man in the military?

0:40:33 - Speaker 1 Fear of death, fear of other people dying? That'll do it. You know, extreme circumstances, getting in trouble, did you want to?

0:40:41 - Speaker 2 be the one letting your guys down? Absolutely not.

0:40:44 - Speaker 1 Why I don't want anyone else to think of me as anything other than reliable. I want everyone to know that they can rely on me and to uphold the same standard, as I'm depending on them as well.

0:40:55 - Speaker 2 Use that there are so many men out there afraid that they are worthless and can never achieve anything. So they shy away from that and they say I won't let anybody know what I'm doing so that when I fail I won't feel as bad. There it is, lean into it. Say you know what. I'm gonna make it harder for me to quit than it is for me to keep does not even start. I will go to a friend like I did. Hey harass me every Monday. I'll go to the gym. I'm feeling a little bit better because he's been harassing me. I'm eating a little better, taking care of myself. I talked to Sal from Mind Pump. He's got me on some programs. I read his book. I'm only doing that because I said I don't like how I look and I would rather be embarrassed than just quietly live this way.

0:41:38 - Speaker 1 The question comes to mind have we lost the ability to call other men out appropriately? I feel like maybe it's a lot of men stepping more into the feminine or just the culture. You know, when nobody wants to get canceled, we don't want to say the wrong thing, we want to point something out that you know, trigger warning, whatever. There might be a time and a place for that. I think having more emotional intelligence can help you kind of decipher that. You'll know, the end of the day, if you're being a dick or not, but also you'll know if hey, you know, if you're my guy, you'll, bro, fucking like, get your shit together. So how we lost the art of calling other men out and how can we get back there?

0:42:14 - Speaker 2 I saw I was. I love that question. I was just on Twitter earlier today and there's a guy named His Twitter game is strong Everybody, by the way, thank you. I get in trouble, but it's fun trouble.

0:42:23 - Speaker 1 If you're not getting in trouble on Twitter, what are you doing? That's what.

0:42:25 - Speaker 2 Twitter's, for there's a guy named on there, named Rivolino, and he's anonymous. He's the Green Line guy, right. You've probably heard of him, Okay so he says if a woman is, if you're a man's leaning into the woman, it means their relationship's in trouble. And he like maps out with celebrity couples and they'll always get divorced later on. If he mapped them out, it's the dude is. He is very offensive and very, very on the dot with all of that stuff.

0:42:48 - Speaker 1 You can't even tell me he's wrong. No, it's a self. Don't get on his radar, he's amazing.

0:42:51 - Speaker 2 but he and I have chatted in DMs, but he posted something very interesting earlier, which was when you need to call someone out. Here's what you say You're better than this, wow, yeah. Hey, bro, is this who you want to be? I know you're better than this. What do you need to take the next step? Can I help you? Accountability, resources, training. What can I do to help you? You don't shame them, hey man. You know I'm really disappointed and I've got a seven year old son. I tell him this hey man, is this who you want to be? Let's think through the consequences. Is this who you want to be? Do you want those consequences? I know you're better than this. What do you need from me, as your father, to help you get through this right now? How can I help you get through this journey? I'm initiating him into manhood. Hey, I'm going to call you out and I'm also going to offer you resources and support to get you through it. Initiating him into manhood what do you think of?

0:43:50 - Speaker 1 that Actually, what I'm thinking of, who I'm thinking of is my father in these circumstances, perfect. Like I was saying in the beginning, I feel like I'm a very introspective person in the work that I try to keep in my life and the progression I try to have and how I live a life ever for it. As I say, as he said, I'm realizing more and more how innate so much of this stuff is in me, but it has nothing to do with me, maybe in the sense that I've decided to honor it and to uphold it and to build a life around it. But I'm realizing just that last blurb you were just saying right there and the last part you were talking about, not a blurb.

I'm just having all these flashbacks to conversations with my father and I'm like damn this dude. He was way smarter than I thought. He knew his shit. He was blocking the generational trauma. He was making adamant daily choices in how he showed love, how he talked with me, and I'm just going back to so many times as a kid, as a teenager, that's exactly what he was saying. No wonder I have this kind of innate capacity and alignment to these beliefs and just how I view the world and what I'm looking for in other men. That's exactly what was happening.

0:45:08 - Speaker 2 I could tell that when I walked up outside, outside your studio, here you walked up, it was a immediate eye contact. You didn't shrink when hey, man, how you doing? You just came out. You're like hey, here's who I am, come on in, come to my place. It was like whoa, when you meet a man who's secure, who was raised by a father who initiated him in, it's a different experience. It's a different experience right the street out there. This place is gorgeous. We're in LA. There's places where they'll take your kidneys. You think twice before walking into any place.

0:45:38 - Speaker 1 Yeah, we're gonna need one after you're done, by the way. Yeah, there you go, there you go. Just one, that's okay.

0:45:42 - Speaker 2 Between friends. Hey, what are you?

0:45:44 - Speaker 1 doing Well. Trauma Bob. Yeah, exactly, that's fast-pressing, I'll staple it and you hold it.

0:45:48 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I didn't think twice about walking in here with you. I didn't even think twice because you showed up and I could already tell who you were within moments. I could tell. And most men they're hiding. They're hey, hey, how you doing. Oh, hey, hey, hey, it's not who they are. They're hiding who they are. You don't. You are a man who was raised by his father and initiated correctly. Most men don't have that. Most dads don't know how to do that. I've mapped that out. Over the last 100 years, men have died and died and died and been traumatized and pulled away and we have lost that. We're multiple generations of men raised by masculine women by now and we learned about manhood from women. And now we're deep into this where we're trying to say, okay, the Vikings killed everybody. When do the boys grow up into men? Now we're trying to do it again and you, you are making that happen. All the men watching your show right now are becoming men, that next generation. That certainly needs to happen. That is your father's legacy.

0:46:51 - Speaker 1 Thank you, thank you. It makes me think and have a lot of gratitude for that. I think in my journey of solidifying and finally letting Chase but Chase the man come through and stay alive in every way possible, a lot has been my work, absolutely. But, like I was just sharing, a lot has been just reflecting on and kind of dissecting and just reverse engineering, if you will. Things that I already have, tools are already in my toolbox. How would you kind of maybe unpack that for somebody who doesn't feel that way? But let's just say we want to do the same work. Let me reverse engineer my life. Go back to my childhood, go back to maybe my relationship or lack of, with my father or the father figure and maybe just see, maybe I do have more than I think. Maybe I do have more of this masculine, of this type of man I want to be in my life already. I don't need to go build as much as I think. I need to just go inward and bring to the surface more.

0:47:56 - Speaker 2 First of all, there are so many men out there wanting to connect, right, wanting to connect your audience. Do you have any idea how big your audience is? Big, but do you have any idea how big your audience is?

0:48:05 - Speaker 1 We're low over three million total. Well, well, what do you mean for?

0:48:10 - Speaker 2 the show? I don't know. That's fine. Three million's a good number.

0:48:12 - Speaker 1 Well, I mean, it's not collectively. There's not three million listening right now, but you know there should be, I'll take it.

0:48:17 - Speaker 2 But think about this, right, if you have three million, you have 100,000 here, you have 500,000 here, you have two million here, right, everyone comes in on different pieces.

0:48:25 - Speaker 1 You reach you reach a little bit. Each month is reaching a little bit upwards of like 70K. That's a lot. I don't know what to tell you.

0:48:31 - Speaker 2 But that's not even just the same 70K, over and over and over, you're reaching, let's say, three million.

0:48:35 - Speaker 1 Ideally. Tell your friends, everybody tell your friends, that's right, let's play with three million though.

0:48:40 - Speaker 2 Men survive through the solutions we pass on and the strength that we give to others. We survive by the power we give to others. That's called legacy. I said that a moment ago. Your father's legacy lives through you. There are many fatherless men out here in this world that are learning from you and thus learning from your father. So, your father, you have you and your brothers. Your father didn't have two sons. Your father has three million sons three million and two that he's living through, that he's guiding. They are learning from other men who have handed down solutions. Find men who are handing down solutions. People do this all the time. They go and read Marcus Aurelius. The dude had great solutions. Like I'm reading Marcus Aurelius, no, you are carrying forth his legacy and learning solutions from a man who was ancient. His solutions were so great we wrote them down and we kept them for thousands of years.

0:49:31 - Speaker 1 Do that Meditate?

0:49:32 - Speaker 2 it's fantastic. Do that. Study what you have. When I went to school, I got a master's degree in psychology. I didn't reinvent psychology. I went and studied what people have preserved, the knowledge and the solutions, and then I carried it forward and I built my attachment communities and my attachment boot camp course, and all that I've built is here. Here is the knowledge I have learned. Here's the solutions. Take them, please. That's what you're doing with this podcast, is you find people who have solutions and you put them in front of people who have problems. You're facilitating that. So, men out there, number one, sit down and make a list of the skills that you have, the solutions you can solve. Do that and then, where you find gaps Probably the things in your life that make you feel crappiest Write those down. What skills are you missing? I do not have good conflict resolution. I don't know how to share my needs. I don't know how to connect other men I am mostly surrounded by women because I don't know how to build. Yeah, you're making a list right now. That's awesome.

0:50:27 - Speaker 1 Actually you're bringing up. Sorry to distract you, but you hit on conflict resolution. I want to, as a reminder myself, to actually bring this up.

0:50:35 - Speaker 2 Perfect.

0:50:36 - Speaker 1 I did want to dive into this a little bit.

0:50:37 - Speaker 2 That's perfect. That make a list of the skills you have. Make a list of skills you don't have. Then find men who have the skills you don't have and learn from them. That's how you become a rock solid man who knows all the skills.

0:50:52 - Speaker 1 Yeah.

0:50:53 - Speaker 2 And then find someone to give those skills to your son, your adopted son, some dude on the street, someone you mentor, whatever build a legacy and that's what men need. You need your principles that you live by so people can trust you and you can live as a man, as honor. That's honor. Forgotten the word honor, it's not customary to use it. Honor, that's your honor code and your mission. Pass on the legacy to other people. That's what a man needs. That's all. Honor legacy.

0:51:24 - Speaker 1 Reminds me of this framework of thirds that I've talked about before. On the show I really attribute a lot to my life, but specifically through the masculine lens. If we can try to keep this balance of thirds, if there are a group of people above me meaning teachers, superiors there's a group of people at my level, we're peers, we're maybe same intellect, same life experience, same all these things and then a third, another level, that's not beneath you in that context, but that you can teach. Basically that are a step or 100 steps behind you. The more I have made sure to kind of keep that balance as much as possible, it does wonders for a lot Ego check, for continuous learning and making sure that you can continue to pass back your continuing legacy, maybe even building your own. But also that's what I think is necessary for not only my life to excel in the way that I want, but for every other person that I can hopefully come in contact with.

0:52:21 - Speaker 2 A man will never hit 100% every skill on earth and be at the top of anything. And if you ever think you are, then you don't realize what you are missing and you don't have enough goals in your life.

0:52:33 - Speaker 1 Amen, brother, amen. But you did bring up conflict and this was an area that I had written down that I've been listening to a lot of your stuff and I love your approach to conflict. I think it was either on mind pump or modern wisdom. I was listening. I heard this, I'm kind of paraphrasing you Conflict is an opportunity to trust other human beings or grow apart. Yes, walk us through choosing to view conflict as that. This is an opportunity to trust another human being or grow apart.

0:53:04 - Speaker 2 Absolutely so on the way over here I was a little bit late, right, I was a little bit late on the way over here. La traffic, I you know, you don't call me for LA traffic.

0:53:13 - Speaker 1 Until you are in LA, you say whoa, this is horrible, it's really traffic.

0:53:16 - Speaker 2 Every billboard was are you in an accident? Do you need to sue somebody? Like LA, traffic is very lucrative. So I texted you and said hey man, I apologize, I'm gonna be about 20 minutes late. That was a conflict. That was a conflict. Hey, chase, I am going to be 20 minutes later than I thought I was going to be. What did we do? Did Chase come back and say hey man, you know what I'm really disappointed in, that I expected you to be here on time, did Chase or no? You came back and say hey man.

0:53:44 - Speaker 1 I appreciate you being here at all.

0:53:45 - Speaker 2 It's gonna be awesome. We're gonna have a great conversation. I'll be ready when you're here. Wonderful, we either could grow apart, you yelling at me, or we could grow together. Either you could show me that you're someone I can trust during conflict to work with me, to cooperate, cooperate or not. That's conflict. So, men, if you're married, what are you telling your wife? What do you tell your wife during conflict? Chase, do you cooperate? Uh, yes, do you make her feel like you are always going to cooperate? I hope so. Okay, if you ever get it wrong, do you go back and apologize that you got it wrong and then cooperate? I do, that's it. You don't have to be perfect. You have to be show cooperation.

0:54:29 - Speaker 1 Maybe not as fast as maybe she would like sometimes, but it's never gonna be. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:54:33 - Speaker 2 That's fine. Yeah, that's still consistent. That's trustworthy. If you would come back at me and say, hey, man, you know what? Fine, whatever, I'll see you, I'd be reading the whole way. You're like what the hell is this guy?

0:54:44 - Speaker 1 Yeah, like you never thought about LA traffic before, right.

0:54:48 - Speaker 2 Or I could show up and you'd be like, hey man, it's all good, I appreciate you being here. Thank you for being here. I'm like oh, so in the future, if there's another conflict, if I spill this water on the floor, chase is not gonna scream at me for spilling water on his I mean, my, this is a really nice carpet. But you're not gonna scream at me. You're gonna be like, hey man, you know what mess has happened, it's all good, I appreciate you being here. Oh, okay, you have set the precedent. Every conflict we have from now on will I'll be keep correcting toward it. I'm gonna watch you forever.

0:55:14 - Speaker 1 So conflict's really not as much about this conflict as it is the precipice that's right we're setting for every other conflict, always, that's the precedent that you're building forward into Presently yeah.

0:55:23 - Speaker 2 It is. Can I trust you?

And if you can, you move closer and you move closer, and you move closer and you move closer until, like, it's infinitesimally small. We can never be separated. And if you can do that, that's what conflict is. You define yourself. You define yourself in conflict. A man defines himself in conflict. He doesn't define himself when he's sitting on a couch in his underwear drinking beer. He defines himself when he's in conflict. He defines himself when the wife walks in and says, hey, you're drinking beer in front of our son in your underpants. What message are you sending? And he says oh shoot, you're right, I should give up and fix that.

Or hey, you know what? Be quiet. I worked hard, I can do whatever I want. You define yourself in conflict. Men can and should embrace conflict, don't run away from it.

0:56:11 - Speaker 1 Amen, brother, and I'm fighting my mic here again. That's.

0:56:15 - Speaker 2 OK, bear with me, guys, that mic is in conflict with you.

0:56:18 - Speaker 1 You know what. We're resolving this conflict. I'm not tossing it out the window. What's up? Oh yeah, ok Sweet.

0:56:28 - Speaker 2 But see you even treat the mic gently.

0:56:30 - Speaker 1 Well, because I think that's probably how I got in this position. Sometimes, if you lock it down and then try to manually move it up and down, it messes up the oh yeah. Ok, there, we go A little higher, Because then if it'll drop. Thank you, sir.

0:56:43 - Speaker 2 Hey, look, you can trust him. During a conflict that was a vast oppression, bonding right there.

0:56:47 - Speaker 1 I need these guys. I have to have the trust Right.

0:56:50 - Speaker 2 There's a problem, came in and solved it. There you go.

0:56:53 - Speaker 1 One question too. Ok, what you got so?

0:56:54 - Speaker 2 go back to relationships.

0:56:57 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

0:56:57 - Speaker 2 How do you combat masculine energy in a woman?

0:57:03 - Speaker 1 OK, all right, guys, we just got a great question from a man. You're well here in the studio. Can you say how do we combat masculine energy In a woman, in a woman, and how do you?

0:57:13 - Speaker 2 in part two how do you get out of the?

0:57:14 - Speaker 1 nice guy's face. And how do you get out of the nice guy's face?

0:57:16 - Speaker 2 All right, OK, so women do not want to be in their masculine energy. Women are in their masculine energy because some man somewhere has failed them Usually their father and set them up to be in that masculine energy, so they think they have to be in it all the time.

0:57:29 - Speaker 1 Like we're kind of talking about earlier with my friend dating yeah, absolutely.

0:57:32 - Speaker 2 They're the ones actually that find the dudes who are nice guys, who are like I'm going to make you so happy and like. They resent them, but they also connect with them. So a lot of nice guys are in sexless marriages with men, women who are resentfully in their masculine energy. So a lot of women hate it. They're waiting for him to come out of it. The way you fix that is two pieces. Number one if she is so deep in her masculine energy from her father failing you may not be able to fix it. You can invite her into better by being consistently yourself, live to your principles, be a man of honor and a man of mission and invite her into a better life.

0:58:07 - Speaker 1 So here is a consistent man, absolutely.

0:58:10 - Speaker 2 Yeah, the research shows, interestingly, 97% of the time if a man converts to a new religion, his wife converts with him. 97% of women are likely to follow their husband into a new religion. That's huge, that's enormous, and we should be looking at that and saying, okay, women want to work with their man, even if they're really resistant, really resistant. I went through a religious conversion in my own room and my own marriage and my wife at first was like, and then leaned into it and we did it together and we built it together. She was petrified at the beginning and it worked great because she trusted me to lead her into it. I invited her into it instead of dragging her into it. So if you are a man who's doing that, if your wife is masculine and you are checked out and nice guy, it actually goes together. You have to fix the nice guy problem by stepping into.

These are my principles. I will never violate them again. I'm never going to tell a nice white lie, ever again. I'm never going to cover things up. I'm never just going to please people. I will be upfront.

If I'm insecure, I'm going to ask you hey man, you know, let me pretend to be a nice guy for a minute. Hey man, I showed up late. I didn't even say anything about it, so I was so scared. I'm not saying anything about it now because I'm afraid that if I mention it you're going to be mad at me. So I'm just covering it up and I'm just hoping you're going to be really nice.

But I'm going to promise you a lot of nice things. I'm going to promise to like blow this up all over my social media. You can see the body language, like I'm going to take care of it and I'm going to make you feel so happy that you'll forget about the thing I did. That was wrong and you won't abandon me or yell at me. Nice guy, energy. I texted you. Hey man, I'm going to be late. All right, I showed up here. Hey man, sorry I'm late. It's all good, cool, and I've used it as a teaching moment because I'm not embarrassed Like oh, it's never mentioned again. He's going to be mad at me.

0:59:45 - Speaker 1 No like it's really the bottom of that just owning your mistakes.

0:59:48 - Speaker 2 Yeah, it's owning your fears and mistakes and calling it out, saying hey, man, sometimes I overthink things in my head. Sometimes I'm worried you're mad at me and I'm not going to ask you about it.

0:59:57 - Speaker 1 Sometimes I'm doing this and this Own it and express it, own it, express it.

1:00:01 - Speaker 2 Give context and then say I hate it, I never want to do it again. So here's what I'm going to do instead. If you ever see me doing these things, call me on it and I will fix it. It's accountability. It's exposing yourself, differentiating and saying who you are. You fix nice guy by not being a nice guy. You just do it and people will either accept you, they'll love you or they won't. The people who are sick and toxic man they won't like it because you're stealing, you're not giving to them anymore, sacrificing yourself for them. They'll leave. But people love a man who's consistent and honest, because stress is zero. You just say hey, man, are you mad at me? Nope, hey man, did I do something wrong? Yeah, you did, but I already told you about it and how to fix it.

1:00:45 - Speaker 1 Yeah, that fast. No stress, no reading nothing.

1:00:48 - Speaker 2 Now, that's how you get a woman out of her mask and energy is by being that man who builds the structure, tells her what's happening, tells her what you need is clear and calm, asks questions, takes her seriously and says let me take your advice, let me listen to you, let me talk to you, let me actually take your feelings under consideration, let me help you, let me solve this problem. Let me be a considerate leader, but a leader nonetheless, and I will be consistent all the time. Masculine energy you want a woman out of her masculine energy. Be masculine.

1:01:14 - Speaker 1 Feminine energy Go figure right.

1:01:16 - Speaker 2 Yeah, feminine energy responds to masculine energy. The hardest, hardest wives I have seen as long as they don't have like borderline personality disorder. The hardest, most masculine, most resentful wives. If a man steps into it and starts leading without being resentful, without whining, without going hey, I did it for two weeks and you didn't sleep with me. When the guy does that now, but when he steps in and says I'm going to be me, I'm going to be a man, because I need to do it, our family deserves it, I don't care how you respond Wives, she gravitates towards, she can't even stop herself. If a woman is in her masculine, you need to be in your masculine better than she is, and she will be in her feminine almost every time.

1:01:55 - Speaker 1 I'm dying, laughing inside here as well, because this is so spot on. This was something that I did in my marriage around like late last year. It was kind of around the time where my mutual friend was like I'm so tired of being in my masculine. I had this light bulb moment the smallest little things and I think any guy can relate to this Just being less accommodating out of fear of not doing something, going somewhere, going to the restaurant that you think that she wants Accommodate accordingly. But I realized where I was accommodating just out of the sake of trying to just be flexible, the moment that I stopped that I can I mean, I know my wife but I can see the difference in there.

I can feel the energy more specifically, case by case. Whenever I do make a decision and I stand by it, it's just like she gets like ooh, more sex, intimacy, just everything, and I'm like all I did was just hey, this is what we're doing. My kind of catchphrase now is I handled it. I just want a man that's going to handle things. So I just say, in the dumbest little task, taking the dog out, picking the restaurant, I handled it. Sometimes I'm joking, but other times I like no, babe, I handled it. It works wonders.

1:03:16 - Speaker 2 Absolutely, it is. When you're masculine, they can be feminine, they can be. Hey, the masculinity is covered. Everybody is safe. Go ahead and do your thing and build us on the inside. That's it.

1:03:27 - Speaker 1 That's huge and Joelle remind me was the second party question man. We got it. Okay cool, he killed it. Let me check as we kind of get towards the end here. Yeah, oh man, there's so many other things, but hit me with all of them.

We kind of covered a lot of these things. Okay, I think maybe for a lot of men we might think it's too late to change. I'm too far gone, my marriage is lost, my relationship is whatever, I'm too settled in my ways. It could be an age thing, it could be an experience thing, a season of life. Change is possible and I believe again here I'm kind of paraphrasing from something from you Change is possible no matter the place in life you are in. It's never too late. It's a matter of finding the pieces of your puzzle that you missed.

1:04:19 - Speaker 2 The oldest man who's ever come to me in for coaching was 79 years old. He had never experienced a healthy relationship before in his life. Wow, he was very financially successful, had never experienced real love, real connection, before 79 years old. And we still built him a life that he was proud of. We still built him a legacy. We still eased his pain.

The oldest woman who ever came to me was 78. Wow, she had had a lifetime of broken relationships. She had kids, but they all resented her. They did not speak to her, but they all resented her. They all fought each other. It was a dramatic, awful family. Through her we were able to instill great peace and love through her kids into her grandkids, into her great grandkids. So she had a terminal illness, she could pass away at peace because her family was at peace. After a lifetime of women, it is never too late.

I have guys come into me for coaching all the time. Adam, I'm too old to have kids, so is there just no point in me living? No, how many fatherless children are there in this world? How many men out there who are half your age? Right, You're 40. There's 20 year old men who need the solutions you have. Go gather the solutions, bring them back and present them to men who are going to kill themselves. If you don't get them, those solutions, you have built a legacy in men who will die without you. There are men out there right now killing themselves. Is it 23 veterans a day, or something?

1:05:39 - Speaker 1 like that yeah, more than that now. It's more than that now. It's like 22,. 23 is not that average. That's what it used to be. It's like the numbers are like 29, I think.

1:05:45 - Speaker 2 Right. It just keeps going up. Every year there's people killing themselves right now because they don't have the solutions you can go find and bring to them. So if there's a man out there who's 80 years old and says I never had kids, my life was pointless, okay, who can you give solutions to and build a legacy in right now, before you die? What can you accomplish? If you hated this world? What are you going to do to make it better? It is never too late and there is always something for you to build.

1:06:16 - Speaker 1 Man. I don't wanna ask any more questions after that. What a way to kind of round out this episode. Dude, this has been so incredible. Your presence is masculine, your presence is strong, is confident, and I know that you've got just so much work and experience behind you to back all this up. So we're gonna have all the information down on the show and it's anybody who wants to dive into your books, your work, your courses, the coaching. Incredible man, thank you.

And selfishly, I wanna say thank you, because having conversations like this it's just, it's wild that this is what I'm doing with my life right now, like I would be wanting to talk with you or read your stuff, you know anyways, and I'm just so grateful to be in a position now to have you come halfway across the country, sit here with me for a couple hours and just you know, now I get to walk away with this information, with new information, but also a solidification, with a lot of stuff that is gonna help keep me being the man that I wanna be, but grow even more into the man that I know that I can be.

So, adam, I say thank you. My last question, to kind of bring it home to the theme of the show and shout out Pops, honor his legacy ever for the model. That he said before me and my family and his mantra for years is basically everything we've been talking about. But I would love to get your interpretation kind of through this male, masculine lens of living a life ever for it. What does that mean? How do you live a life ever for it? How should men keep moving forward?

1:07:41 - Speaker 2 Until the minute that you die, you are always becoming a stronger man. So keep building your skills, keep finding your gaps, keep refining yourself. Don't be afraid to look at the places where you're weak, because that's where you need to do your work next. You were once weak everywhere. I remember holding my son in my arms for the first time. He couldn't even hold up his head, he couldn't talk, his eyes were hardly open. He couldn't do hardly anything. He could poop. That was about it. It was all.

1:08:11 - Speaker 1 We can usually still do that pretty well. We can do it usually.

1:08:14 - Speaker 2 He has learned everything, everything he has become. He's seven. He's about there just a couple of days ago. Everything he has become, he has learned. Everything he will become he is going to learn. Don't ever any man out there, yourself, you, anybody watching. Don't ever consider yourself a work that is done or too far gone, because every minute that you're alive you can learn a new skill and grow and become a new man every day.

1:08:42 - Speaker 1 What a powerful reminder to maybe pull us out of. It's too far gone for me, I'm too late, there's still work to be done. But also as the humble reminder that, no matter how far I have come, no matter how happy I am, no matter my accomplishments, my peace, there's still more work to be done, damn, brother. Well, again, we're gonna have everything listed for the audience. But if they wanna go somewhere right now to connect with you, where is that? What are you doing in the world?

1:09:08 - Speaker 2 Oh man, let's make it real easy. I got a website called adamlanesmithcom. Everything's on there. If this was a hit for you, I'm on YouTube at Adam Lane Smith. I've got 400 videos on there. Oh wow, damn.

1:09:19 - Speaker 1 A lot of them.

1:09:20 - Speaker 2 I've got five or six just on male depression. I have five or six on vasopressin bonding. I have everything on there. I'm also, if you prefer, like visual stuff on Instagram at attachment. Adam, I have tons of videos, tons of reels, everything on there. I am everywhere you wanna be.

1:09:34 - Speaker 1 Guys, check them out. Incredible content, some funny stuff, some viral stuff, some good stuff, no matter what, absolutely Appreciate it.