 Men today are weak. Here's the six reasons why. Pornography. I mean, anything could be porn. Substance abuse. The chronic use that can then reset really our dopamine threshold. Lack of physical strength. Video games. No good role models. And loneliness. Those are the six reasons why men today are not like they used to be. I know. And this is a deadlift. This is going to be a hot one. You know, I was talking to our editing team. And so people don't know we have an editing team that puts together our videos. And it's largely made up of young men. Young men in their late teens, early 20s. Great guys. Not because we're sexist. Mostly because women don't really apply for that position. Well, I mean, that's true. That's actually quite true. But they are great guys. Like we're really, really blessed. They're hardworking, very purpose driven. That's why they came to apply to work with us. And I sat down with them and hung out with them last week. And I said, you know, what are some things you would like to see us talk more about? And you guys are all fans. Y'all listen to the show before you came to work here. You guys have been a part of our growth more recently, edit our videos. Like, what would you like to talk about? Like the issues that are plaguing young men today are not talked about enough. And they're talking about how, you know, it's like demonized to be a guy these days and everything so toxic. And, you know, how challenging things are. They were talking about things that they're aware of, like suicide rates and depression, anxiety, all true, all higher than they've been in the past. So I thought, you know what, let's do this, let's talk about this. This is definitely something that needs to be talked about. And it's not talked about enough. And we do have a large audience and a decent percentage of them are young men. So do you think that when you say weak, are you implying just physically or you mean like in general weak? Like just low morals, low integrity, low strength, low drive. Yeah. Like, is it like it all to get like everything? Yeah. So let's think of the opposite of what we're describing. Think of a quote unquote strong man in all senses of the word, right? This is typically some someone and these are the, by the way, these are the kind of men that women tend to want to be with. These are the kind of men that women want to follow their children. These are the kind of men that other men want to follow. Okay. They're typically confident. They are disciplined. Discipline is a big one, right? Because every man can be undisciplined. We can easily be ruled by our desires and emotions and all that stuff, but discipline is really important. And men know this, we respect other men that have lots of discipline, principled, you know, men with values. Why? Because they stand for something, you know, you want to, you respect people, you know, are going to be honest with you, tell you the truth and have principle. Not someone who just says one thing to you and then says something else, you know, to someone else. So basically men that are solid and strong. The opposite of that is a lot of what we're seeing. And the result of that is a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety, a lot of loneliness. And the numbers, the data on this is crazy when you look at, you know, what's going on with young men. They're having less relationships or dating less. They're, it's just really, it's really sad. So, and these are the main reasons that the data is showing. And, you know, that, like I said, I had that conversation with the fellas last week that we talked about. Today's program giveaway. The maps super bundle. That's a lot of free programs. Here's how you can win them. Leave a comment below this video, the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comments section. We're also running a sale right now. Maps Anabolic Advanced, one of our newer programs, one of our most powerful muscle building programs, is 50% off, okay? 50% off this month only. If you're interested, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right. Here comes the show. Well, on the top of the list has to be pornography. And pornography has been around for a long time now. Forever. But the access to it has radically changed in just the last decade and a half. I mean, it was, it's so different today than it was, like, because it existed when we were kids, but the access for the average, you know, adolescent, you know, teenage, there's a lot more barriers around it beforehand. I mean, it was pretty difficult to see this type of imagery. And I guess it was less socially accepted in terms of it being something that was sort of the norm. And we've seen just like how this has affected a lot of young men. And like erectile dysfunction was another alarming statistic that was going around. And this is just, I would never have seen this coming. To be honest. That's part of the reason why it's so dangerous is because we've always thought of it as kind of a bad habit, but it's somewhat innocuous. It's not like drugs, right? And that's precisely because we've never had a time in history where we have this much access to this much novelty of imagery and videos and stuff like it's never been this way. Yeah. You could have been a billionaire when we were growing up in the 90s and you would not have as much access as you have today. You could have bought all the videos, all the magazines and you still wouldn't have the same amount of novelty that you have access to right now on your phone. So we view it like, oh, it's whatever because we've never had to deal with this before. But the data is coming back and it's very clear. First off, the way that it molds the brain is very similar to drugs. Your brain actually starts to downregulate receptors and change its shape and its function because of this extreme excitement through novelty. And pornography itself, people who follow this have followed how it's become more and more extreme over the years because people's tolerance is going up. When you first have a cup of coffee and espresso is so powerful, you drink it every day, then you need two, three, four, whatever, it's got classic drug-like signs. You watch some, then you need more, then you need more and then the brain shapes itself and molds itself and there's even data that suggests that if you're watching a lot of porn, especially as a young man when the brain is still shaping, you're teaching your brain to be aroused by watching other men have sex with women and that yourself. Well, I think too. I mean, it's really shaping the behavior around interactions with women in terms of like, okay, so you figure out what works, what doesn't work, opening lines, like communication, like skills, like being rejected, like, so you go back and you self-assess a lot and you have to grow, you have to get better, you have to improve. Pornography is just one of those other options that it tends to kind of feed a certain impulsive need and now you're not motivated to grow and to work on a lot of these characteristics that actually the other sex is attracted to you. Did you know, so ancient teachings, I mean, spanning different cultures, refer to sexual desire as also creative drive and historically, athletes have done this for a long time, abstain from sex for 30 days before a sporting event or whatever. It's a driver for men. Now, yes, in the obvious sense, it drives you to go try to have sex or talk with people, but it also is just a driver in general. So in essence, it's like we're neutering ourselves and turning young men into docile, like just stay at home. Here's your processed food version of sex. Don't go out. Don't explore. Don't do those things. Here's the question. That's a cool way to put it right there, the processed food of sex, you know, that's kind of the same thing that we've seen in nutrition with people, right? Like I remember experiencing that with like fruit, natural fruit, like not eating natural fruit for so long, eating so much sugar and candy, fruit became almost tasteless to me. I had to abstain from candy for an extended period of time before I could reintroduce fruit and fruit taste normal again. Good. Let me ask you because we're all business owners. We've all owned multiple businesses. The skills that are required to go learn how to get scary if you're a guy. It's very scary to go. We're the ones that typically have to approach the other person, the other sex. It's usually not women approaching men. It's usually men approaching women. And there's a process of learning that goes through it. You got to get over the fear, then you're going to suck, then you'll get better. You'll know how to communicate. You'll learn the other sex or whatever. Those skills carry over to business, carry over to just taking risks in general. Just being brave in the world. In fact, the first scariest thing I ever did, I think was approach a girl when I was a kid. I started business when I was 12, but I walked up to the girl I thought was pretty. And you're finding men are doing less and less and less of that. And part of it, now they're showing is that because they're quelling this driver by being at home, watching pornography all the time. Not to mention erectile dysfunctional. I was going to say I was going to go that direction because obviously we've seen the rise in ED in young men. And I would also speculate that we've seen low testosterone. Do you think those are connected? Do you think that the pornography also plays a role in the decline in testosterone too? That's a good question because that's a very good question. I think if you connect it to the behaviors that it contributes to, probably. Like less likely to go out, less likely to take risks. Yes, not the actual, you know, act of it. Act of it itself maybe, but what it contributes to in terms of other types of behaviors. This is a big issue that nobody's really sounding the alarm because we've always considered it is not that big of a deal. But we're seeing now an entire generation growing up on it and there's a lot of problems. In fact, there's data that shows that if you've viewed pornography, I think it's before the age of 15, I want to say, or viewed it consistently, that your odds of having a normal sexual relationship as an adult drop, like a significant percentage, something like 80%, or something like that. One out of four men hide it from their partners. One out of three women in long-term relationships say it's a problem in their relationship. So just say that this isn't an issue. It's stupid. Now, I know it affects some women as well, but it's mostly a guy thing. And these are also people that are reporting all this stuff. I would make a case that there's a lot of people that aren't even aware that it's causing issues in a relationship or aware that they're even addicted or have a problem like anything else. I mean, how often do you meet someone addicted to anything that admits that they're addicted to something? You know what the test is for that? I'll do this to myself if I'm using something too often. I'll say, can I go 30 days without this and wait for my visceral reaction? So if you're listening to this right now and you're like, porn, not a big deal, go 30 days without using imagery at all in that way. And how does that make you feel? And how do you feel a week into it, two weeks into it? Can you make it 30 days? And I think a lot of guys will have trouble. I think our brains just haven't evolved fast enough to keep up with what happened in that leap, right? I could literally count on one hand under the age of 18 how many times I saw a Playboy magazine. On one hand, I can count. And you can count it because you remember. I do. I remember each instance. I can think of three actually. Three very specific instances when a kid under the age of 18 got a hold of that magazine and we snuck somewhere to look at it. And what's even crazier about that to me is that you can find more on Instagram or free on the internet than what we were looking at on a magazine, which was one little blip in the entire year where that happened. And this moment where it's just crazy to think that the young men today are and women are getting inundated with nudity and pornography at such a young age and so much of it so fast. Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention the pornography, legal pornography, whatever its connection to sex trafficking and illegal activities. It's actually alarming the connection. It's your supporting an industry that's not great. In fact, what was that show on Netflix? The porn hub one. Yeah, where they're showing people who are trying to monitor that. Do you remember the first porn you ever saw? This industry is going to get cleaned up. It was like they get way more views. They don't have enough people monitoring. Not even close. Yeah, they can't even keep up with that. It's the point of the whole thing. But it's like this nefarious type of like energy there. It's just that they don't have the manpower to really like go through all of those videos. And I think the reason why you hear us on a health and fitness podcast talking about this is it's now and it's impeding our health. Totally. It's like this was maybe a social issue, say 10 years ago when we're talking, oh, should you or should you not do that? Yeah, moral, social kind of line, which isn't kind of really our wheelhouse whatsoever. But it is now, it is now bled into our space. It is now affecting young men with erections, with their sex life. With just relationships. Yeah, exactly. And so now at this point, it's like, okay, we got to wake up. We have to realize like it's unhealthy for us. Regardless of where you stand morally on this, like you need to recognize that it's unhealthy for us to continue down this path. And lastly, just to add, and by the way, this probably goes with a lot of what we're going to talk about today. Self mastery is a very important thing that a man needs to train or to work on or to focus on or to concentrate on. And women are attracted to men with self mastery and men want to follow men who have self mastery. Now, why is this so important? Because men are capable of terrible things. Like the most violent crimes and most terrible things. There's a larger percentage of men that do those than women. We know this, everybody knows this. When you look at the extremes, there's a higher percentage of men on those. So a woman wants a man who is capable of defending her, who could be physical, but who's also got self mastery because I don't want him to beat my kids or hit me. I also want a man who's attractive. And it's attractive to me that lots of women are attracted to him, but I want him to have self mastery because I don't want him to father other people's children. This is an innate thing. And this is something that men have through thousands, for thousands of years have had to work on and focus on. So pornography is just one of them. It's like avoiding this and it is training a part of self mastery. It's a discipline, yeah. That's right, that's right. And you have to work on it just like anything else. And it's a definite pull. I mean, this is a very strong one for young men. I mean, going through puberty and just having all those like crazy feelings that lead you to all these decisions you feel definitely like you're under the influence of something because it's such a powerful, new experience with this testosterone that you get in. It's a bit challenging to actually even have a conversation around because I don't even know how I would have handled it if I was a teenage boy right now. Like where I'd be at in my life. I know where I was at. Imagine if you had access. Yeah. So there's, I try and come from a place of empathy, right? Because I don't know if I would have had the level of self awareness to self mastery, the discipline to refrain from that. I mean, I see as a 40 year old man how tempting it is to go down the rabbit hole of Instagram. You know what I'm saying? And I can recall back to being a horny 16, 17 year old boy and if I had access to that on my phone or on the internet all the time, boy, it would take a lot of self awareness and discipline to really harness that. Well, one of the points we're going to get to is going to be, is just a lack of good role models. And without going into that, because we'll cover other ones first and we'll get there. But I think if us as kids had really good role models that talked about its virtue and self mastery, then maybe because I worked hard and avoided partying because I idolized successful men in that sense. I didn't eat garbage and I worked out because I idolized men in that sense, but there's no like good role models right now talking about, you know, that particular thing. We'll get there. All right. So the next one is substance abuse. This is actually on the rise as well. And really what substance abuse boils down to is you are either distracting or numbing or running from something. Your willingness to not face some of your challenges or issues and this is also on the rise with young men. And this is, I mean, it could be weed. It could be certain supplements. And then of course the illegal drugs that are out there, you know, confluence. Yeah, this one of all the ones we're talking about, I feel like this has been the most prevalent for the longest, right? Or the most awareness maybe. Yeah, I would agree. You know, like I do agree that it's on, it's on the rise, right? When you think of things like Adderall and stuff like that, that young kids are getting medicated with. That's what I want to talk about because I think there's certain substances we don't put in this category. Like you say heroin, cocaine. That's why I wanted to bring that up, right? Because I feel like, I mean, back into the opium days and like there's always been drugs, hard drugs that people would utilize to escape and get away. And there's that category of people that most of us go, oh, I would never be like that. But then there's this other category of things like caffeine, like Adderall, like things that we've, food, that we've now agreed as like an accepted substance that we can start to abuse also because it's not heroin or opium or anything prescribed. That's right. So there, so there is this rise in these, you know, quote unquote accepted drugs that I feel like we're abusing. And that's why this is growing even more. I think there's, we've always had a percentage of people that like, you know, drink their sorrows away, smoke their sorrows away. But then I think there's a growing population of people that are justifying their- Well, it's like the accepted list of substances that we don't really look at. I mean, full disclosure, this one for me is the hardest. Now, I've never had an issue where I've needed, felt like I needed to go to rehab or anything like that, but know thyself, right? And if I go off or this is where I tend to have the biggest challenges. Now, why? So I'll speak from a personal standpoint because I don't like to feel bad. I don't like to bad feelings, right? I like to distract myself. That's a very alluring thing. Like you don't want to feel bad here, feel good. Take this. Oh, this boring, whatever that's going on or this challenging, you know, issue that's going on. Here's a great way to distract yourself. And I think that's a lot of what's happening because young men aren't challenging themselves. They're bored or they're depressed or anxious because they're unhealthy. And a lot of these substances are prescribed. You talked about Adderall. That's a big one. All of the benzos, like Xanax, that's now, those are being abused. Then you have over-the-counter supplements like Kratom. That's one that I've had challenges with even because it does affect the body like an opiate. And it's sold as like the safe alternative. In some cases it is, but it's addictive. And it can cause withdrawal type issues. Caffeine, like if you find that you can't get going if you don't have caffeine, like if you're not, if you're like, man, I just can't be, I'm not myself without it. Well, you might have an issue with a substance, but this is, it's on the rise and overdoses are on the rise among men. And I think this is more of a symptom rather than cause of, you know, of the weak thing. I don't think this is making men weaker, but this is more a symptom of the fact that they're already feeling weak. Well, you know, unintentionally, I think there's going to be this underlying theme for all of it. And I like how you placed it as self-mastery because that's how I would position that too, is that, you know, a lot of those things, a lot of those things on that list, I've indulged in myself, but I've always had this thing where, and maybe that's because I grew up and I've seen a lot of drug abuse and I saw stuff like that. And I never wanted to go down that rabbit hole. And then I got to an age where I felt like I'm old enough and mature enough that, oh, if I want to try this, I can try this and just be mindful of what I'm doing. And so I've always had this kind of check-in with myself. Even if it's as simple as something like caffeine, it's just like, if it's been a while when I haven't abstained for extended period of time, I always want to challenge myself with, okay, can I go 30 days and it not be torture? And can I do that? Check-in on all those substances is so important. That's exactly how I do it. Because you and I are very similar in that sense. And that's how I stopped myself. As I'll say, do I need this? Yeah. If I feel like I need this, then, okay, I should probably stop and then it becomes a challenge. Yeah. Like, am I too weak to stop this? Am I not strong enough or brave enough or whatever enough to stop this? And then that becomes the challenge for me. Can I do this without that? Can I go through this feeling like tired, crappy, because I'm not having my caffeine or whatever it is? Right. Or can I go to sleep without having weed or whatever? Can I do this? Am I strong enough? And then that positions, that puts this in a position that I think is very beneficial for young men. Because I think a lot of young men, this gets them motivated. When it becomes a challenge, when it's me versus that, who's going to win, I think that makes a lot of young men feel excited. You know what? I can meet that challenge versus they're like, this is bad and you should it. Because then it's like, well, I'll do what I want type of deal. Yeah. Because I mean, there's a lot of things like for me, I can easily justify caffeine because my productivity, the way my mood changes for the better. But you see patterns and you see these patterns where it becomes a conversation of I need this and I have to have this. And this is the first, it is like an identity thing at that point. And I, to that point, I'm worried about stuff like that where it will have a bit of a foothold. And if you're going to allow something to now, like you identify as that person, that's something that I need to address that and know that I can at any moment, I can not have it. I can operate just fine. I can go through and work on myself and my health and maybe I'm not hydrating enough and maybe I can do other things and alternatives that will produce the same result, not better. I still have to explore that. And I do like caffeine, so I'll probably come back to it. But I just have to intermittently go in and make sure that it's not, it doesn't have this hold on me. Yes, that'll be ruled by it. It's interesting that you guys are both, you're highlighting something that, one, I kind of figured out on my own just trial and error and it worked for me. And then I felt like that was confirmed when we had that great conversation with Adam Lane Smith. And he talked about how we're doing things wrong in therapy with men and the way men handle or handle challenges is show me the problem, tell me what it is, give me a goal to overcome that. And give me a way to do it. And give me a way to do it. Yeah, and then let me go do it, right? And so I really feel like that's how I've looked at all those things. It's like, oh wow, I didn't, I had a hard time getting rid of that caffeine or I had a hard time kicking that cratum. Oh, that, here's my challenge. Challenge myself 30 days, can I do this? And I'll, even if I have to suffer for some of those days, like I will, because I have a goal in mind. Yes, now I want to add this to that. Okay, sometimes being strong means you know, you need to go ask somebody for that kind of help. So when it comes to substance abuse, if it has such a grasp on you, and you're strong enough to admit to yourself, like I can't do this alone, because that takes a lot of strength too. Then you reach out to somebody in a real way. Listen, I want to do this thing. I can't do it by myself. I need your help. That sometimes requires more strength than being like, oh, I can't do it, but I'm going to try to do it on my own anyway. That's essentially- That's a good point. You know, you got to be honest with yourself. That requires a lot of strength. But for most people who kind of teeter, which I think is a lot of men, I think a lot of men are not full blown, you know, crazy substance abuse. But if they're honest with themselves, they don't have a healthy relationship with certain things. You can do it by toughing it out, literally. Sit down and look in the mirror and say, does this rule me or do I rule myself? And okay, this is going to be hard, so what? That's what I'm here to do. I'm here to do hard things, and I want to master myself. And that'll turn me into a better man. All right, the next one, which we talk about all the time on the show, and we can spend a lot of time here, but I don't think it's necessarily necessary, but it's a lack of physical strength. This is an interesting one because, I mean, God, there was a study that came out not that long ago. Men between the ages of 25 and 29 have lost roughly 26 to 30 pounds of grip strength in a squeeze test. That's a lot. Yeah. Okay, in fact, a 19-year-old today has the grip strength of a 60-year-old in 1980. Okay? Just to give you an example of how physically weak we've become. Now, lack of physical strength is not a great feeling, or let's speak of the opposite. Let's reverse this so people understand what this feels like. If you're listening to this or watching this right now, and you're a young man, imagine if somebody snapped their fingers and made you twice as strong instantly. Okay? And you got up, and you started moving things around, and you started lifting things, and you started just going about your day. How would that change how you felt? Right? Tremendous difference in how you feel. So lack of physical strength is not just about your physical body. It literally makes the world harder for you, and it makes you more vulnerable, literally. Well, yeah. And when you're not strong enough, it tends to lead towards being fearful of more things. Of course. And so, and this is, I've always, I don't like the narrative about, like, strong, toxic, you know, toxic masculinity, when in fact it's the weak men that are the most toxic. They're the ones that are fearful. They're the ones that are always looking at everybody as a threat. And so, when you're in that state of fear and you're constantly feel threatened, your first button is violence because you feel like you're cornered. And to have that kind of self-confidence and that strength and know that you're going to be fine and you're going to be able to handle yourself and operate accordingly, you're going to be a lot more tempered in your approach. Dude, in the defense of the, you know, the past few generations, not all of this, I feel like, is their fault or our fault, right? Because we're part of that generation because it is now required that you go and you seek out these hard physical things to build that Christian. That's 100%. There was a time just 50 years ago. You were default strong. Yeah. Because you were doing hard labor. Yeah, I was out, right? Country last week or like that. And just because you're doing that, you have to do physical things. I was moving big, heavy rocks sometimes. I'm carrying all this stuff down the lake and hiking a mile to get in. And I'm just thinking to myself, like, wow, this is such a rare occasion for me because we live in this such a comfortable climate controlled environment most of the time that just didn't exist for people just 50 years ago. And so I think a lot of that has to, I don't think that we're like, you know, they were like super, you know, gym goers and like lifting weights. More people go to gyms today. Yeah. It's literally that just the everyday life has changed so radically that you now have to go seek those things because if you don't, the body will adapt and you'll just get weaker because we're replacing all the hard things with easier shit. In the spirit of self mastery, it's not your fault, but it is. It's not your fault that society changed and things got physically easier. That's true. That was progress in the sense of becoming more efficient, making things less injurious to your physical body, less demanding on your physical body. But it's also your fault because if you're aware that you're physically weak, it is your job and your duty to go out and make sure that you're not by scheduling time or doing things that strengthen your body, strengthen your muscles. So it's, yes, things have definitely changed which means you just now have a responsibility to add this to your list of things that you do that you focus on because otherwise you're not the same person. I can't stress this enough. I used to love training kids for this very reason. When I would train like teenagers, okay? I used to love pointing this out. It was my favorite thing to do. They would do five push-ups this week. Next week they'd do seven and I would always make this point. It was like such a powerful point. I'd say, wow, you did seven push-ups. Last week you did five and they'd be like, yeah, that's cool. I said, no, you don't understand. You're not the same person. You're literally not the same person. The you, last week, could only do five. Who you are today can do seven. Now that's both literally true in the sense that your body isn't the same but it's also true in terms of how you view the world and feel things and move around. Changing your body changes you or changing yourself requires you to change your body. So physical strength is a big one and the changes that lifting weights a couple of days a week, literally, like two days a week, the changes that makes in young men today is incredible. Just that alone makes a huge difference. All right, here's another one. This one we're going to get the most negative feedback on. Video games. They're still on YouTube. It's like they just jumped off. Video room call of duty. This one is, it's become a distraction, a numbing agent. It's become a replacement for going out and taking risks and talking to people. It's become a way to just kill the time. Video games are fun. They're entertaining. But it's guys that have issues with video games. It's not girls. So let's be honest about this. I'm going to once again come to the defense of our generation, like just again, you know, the games have changed just like the world has changed on the physical side. The game has changed today than what it was just 30 years ago. Like, I don't know if I, I think I told you guys, I told you guys, I don't know if I brought them there or not, that I bought the original NES for Max. And we took it up to Truckee, so we have it up there. And I don't know, once every other day, I let him play for about a half hour. So, so easy to not let him play, to pull him off of it and so like that, because the games just, we weren't there yet. Like it was such a big deal that we could create these animated characters that you could play with these two buttons at that point where the science was. We hadn't evolved it into getting into the brain of the gamer, right? Like the science in gaming now is like processed food, the science in processed foods have come. Like it wasn't like that with like back then it was like, can you make this thing work? Oh, not only can we wake it work now, now it's like, how is the gamer's brain working and how do we keep them in this loop and not make them want to stop? How do we fully immerse them and all of their attention, all of their senses, like bring all their friends in there, everything all in one place. It's so wild to have a young child, right? A four-year-old who has got this just, you know, almost like a clean slate, right? Like he's not biased in any way, hasn't been indoctrinated by anything and to be able to compare and contrast this for me is so wild to see. So his very first game that I ever introduced him to was Angry Birds app on the iPhone. And I told you guys this is what led to me pulling the iPad and removing it because it was like he got up and he was thinking about it and he wanted to play it and he kept asking about it and I realized like, oh, shit, this quickly became a problem. I just literally introduced this to this kid. The Nintendo is not like that. I have to tell him like, hey, do you want to go play Mario? Yeah. Oh, okay, Dad. Like where the Angry Birds game, he'll sit in front of that for as long as I will let him sit in front of that. It is the craziest thing. And it's because they have been engineered now to suck you into these games and young men that grew up in the 80s and 90s and above, man, they really, if you got introduced to it at a young age, you don't even realize you got sucked into that thing. Yeah. So here's a crazy thing about video games because men are much more likely, many, many times more likely to become addicted or create problems to the largest purchasers and users and consumers of video games. So you got to ask yourself, why men and why not women? Now, there are women that have issues with these as well, but it's like way, it's disproportionate to men. Why is that? Because men are driven to pursue a goal and to accomplish a task. That's all there. So when you're playing a video game, what you're doing is you're satisfying this need except you're actually not doing anything. Yeah, you're simulating. The purpose leads nowhere. You're simulating something you're supposed to do in real life. In real life. One of the things that I think has made me the most success in my life was cutting off that. I remember, and I've told this story before on the podcast, my buddy who was about five, six years older than me who was teasing me when I was still in my late 20s still fucking around with video games. And he kept looking at me like, when do you drop this? And in my head, I'm like, I have my house. I make six figures and I play video games. Like I got it all figured out. And he's like, bro, you understand how much that's keeping you, holding you back from reaching your real goals that you say you have in life. And it took me a long time for that to really make that connection. And it's silly because when I think about the math on the amount of hours per week that I was putting into playing conquering levels and beating people online, if I just replace that with books, that's it. Just trade the hour of video games a night for an hour of reading something that is gonna teach me a skill or make me better at my craft. Holy shit that accelerate my financial growth. And that's all I needed for that switch to go off for me. Then I went, oh, okay, life ball moment. So that's what I like to communicate to. First two things. One, this is an innate drive and desire that men have. Men are the builders. We're the pursuers. You give us a goal, like you said, you give us a way and you give us some purpose and we'll drag ourselves over broken glass. What video games do is they quell that except you do nothing, you're playing a game. They quell that. So your potential becomes much lower as a result. It's much lower as a result because you're playing the game and you're quelling this driver. Imagine if you took that away what this driver may propel you to do or what it may propel you to become. And I know the argument's like, well it teaches me hand-eye coordination skills all about stupid, stupid dumb. You know you can learn that. You get good at video games. That's it. You could learn that other ways in much more productive and more successful ways. That's just an excuse. A lot of those articles are written because this is also a massive industry now. And they have their own people out there trying to make it look like it's, by the way, there's nothing wrong with having fun. You're hanging out with your friends. We're not talking about like the occasional. But there's a lot of guys that spend hours a week playing video games, building stuff or pursuing goals on a game and not doing those things in real life. Listen, I feel like at least for me that was such a light bulb moment. Everybody has their range of what's justifiable as far as the amount of time. I just said that I played video games with my son half hour every other day or so we played whatever. Okay. So if you can be honest with yourself and say whatever a lot of time that you supposedly justify in your week, if you were to replace that with reading something or acquiring a skill, ask yourself, how long would it take you to become fucking great at something else or great at what you currently do if you were to just dedicate yourself to replace that time with that craft? Yeah. I know that we didn't add this one on the list, but it kind of goes in conjunction with this is just mindlessly scrolling. Sure. Because I just see that. It is the same thing, really. Yeah, it's the same need in terms of just being able to kind of go through and get these sort of hits of dopamine and be able to see everything going on and it's giving you that kind of same stimulation. Yeah. It's not providing any substance. No, and I'll say this. Here's what's interesting with some of these. Like video games, for example, when you start to master this, you actually stop wanting it. Yeah. Like, you love video games. Yeah, I love video games. Matt, let me ask you. How often do you play video games? Rarely ever. Yeah. Rarely ever. Why? Because that drive, you start to apply to other things and they actually feel more satisfactory. Way more satisfactory. You have way more satisfaction. It's not the, like I said, the process. I mean, that was the come to Jesus moment my buddy had for me. He knew, like, we went way back and so he knew how ambitious I was as far as financial success. And, you know, and he was looking at me like, dude, as ambitious as you say you are and the things that you're trying to accomplish, you really think that this is getting you closer to that. Like, and if you didn't, if you just replace that with reading books, like where, and it was just like, it really was like this. And then when you, then when I was like, okay, like anything else I like to do, like, okay, well, maybe there's a little truth in what he has to say. Let me go apply that for a period of time and see if I see a return. And of course, you know, it didn't take long of knocking out a few books in the replace of that time I played video games to realize how much knowledge I was starting to gain. And then it was like, oh my God, this was the hack for life. Get rid of video games, add in books. It also happened to be way better. All right. The next one is that we have a lack of good role models. Now there's good role models that are out there, but they're not the ones getting all the attention. So the message here is to find a good role model, male, a good male role model and look at how they're living and what they're doing. And men do very well with this. Men do very well with having a mentor, following, seeing what they do. Now the problem is that the role models that are out there for men are terrible. They tell you either you got to be the version of masculinity that drives fast cars, sleeps with everybody, parties all the time, like this weird billionaire character that, but he's also super happy and satisfied with life or whatever that version. Or you get this other version where it's like this emasculated, weak, docile, subservient, you know, kind of whatever type of dude. When in reality, the best role models show you that they're good fathers, they're good providers, they're good partners, they're disciplined, they're consistent, they're honest. And it's like... They have integrity. Integrity, like media does not highlight that at all. You don't see any of that. All the models we get in media are terrible. They teach men to be either violent assholes or docile sheep. Very interesting. Yeah, I feel like social media has done a good job of highlighting the like superficial things that we desire, especially as a young boy. And I think that was the appeal to that character, right? The guy who had the fast car, the guy who has got, you know, the Dan Bilzerian's, these characters that have these material things that we think that we want so badly in our life and they're not necessarily good role models. And you don't maybe even realize that you're admiring them like that or you're following them like that, but you're consuming their content or their stuff and that's what you're learning. You're learning those behaviors and what you're not seeing is the other side of that or the dark side of that or the empty side of that, right? How many times have you guys met somebody who has this, portrays this life of, oh my God, it's so amazing. And then we hear they're on drugs or they commit suicide or it's like, wait a second, he had all this money and all this women and he had all this stuff and it's like, how could he commit suicide? By the way, I want to address real quick why young men can easily get, look at that and think that that's awesome. There's two reasons. Let's talk about the money and the women. The reason why the money looks so awesome is because it's evidence of potential value, hard work, consistency and discipline. It doesn't guarantee it and so we worship the money but the reality is the reason why it looks amazing to us is because it's like, oh, that's a guy that has a lot of value. That's a guy that provides something that a lot of people want and that's connected to the second one which is he's got all these women. Why is it that men who could potentially have lots of women? So I'll say it like that. Why is that such a, why do so many guys think that's a cool thing? Because that's not a small feat. Like women are very good judges of character, okay? You look at all the dating apps, look at all the guys that get the attention. It's a very small percentage. So if you're a guy that gets a lot of women's attention, that's not, you're probably doing a lot of things right. Like I said, women are very good judges of character. So we look at those men and be like, that guy, he's doing awesome. Now the difference is a lot of women want the guy versus the guy who sleeps with a lot of women, very different. That's what we tend to idolize in media is the guy that does sleep with all the women and has no relationships, no real ones. When in reality what's really cool is a lot of women like that guy. That's different. I'd argue that you have way better chances of finding that guy with good character that's nowhere on the media. Probably right. Nowhere. The one that just consistently puts the hard work in is good to his wife, is a good father. Just continuously does the right thing, is helpful and considerate and strong and puts in the work. It's so unfortunate that we're looking to these screens and we're looking to all this shit out there to find that and it's probably right next door to you. That's a good point. I think that probably back to the self mastery theme if you're a good man, a good father and you realize the pitfalls of technology, phones, social media platforms, you probably abstain from it a lot. I was this last week when we were up in truck, one of my favorite things about going up there for my week vacation is it's so easy for me to abstain from that. It's so easy to just put the phone in the living room or in the bedroom and then just go about my day all day long and be with my family, be present with my friends. I would imagine that most really good men probably aren't spending a lot of their time making Instagram posts busy. Here's the other one. Justin, you said it. I think that these role models exist in your life or you can find them in the real world and not through media. I was lucky that my father was my first great role model but then I found other role models in real life. These were men that I worked for. These were mentors and many times they didn't know. This is the other thing. It's not like you go up to a guy and you're like, hey, you're going to be my mentor. Is that cool? No, I don't even tell them half the time. I just watch them, see what they do and they just kind of become a mentor of mine and I had several of those coming up through the gym industry, people that I worked for that I admired for different reasons that I learned from and I think this is an important thing if you're a young man, find those people that are... By the way, you're not going to find someone that's perfect. That's just not how it works. Don't do that because that's like self-defeating, okay? Like, oh, well, he's also not good at this so that's not necessarily what I'm talking about but let's say somebody is successful entrepreneur or somebody's consistent with their workouts or something like that, something that you need help in or you want to get better at, watch what they do and allow them to become your mentor. Watch what they do. And again, I think that's why this is so difficult to point to an example and there's not a whole lot of them I could tell you guys like, oh, I know for sure this is a good, you know, moral person to follow and to listen because most of the time people when they're on the stage are trying to portray themselves a certain way and they're trying to drum up this example that they think everybody wants to hear and then they portray themselves in that direction. Meanwhile, like their life is in shambles right behind me, you'd never even know this, right? And so there's so many examples of that and you just got to embed yourself more in the community. You got to, you have to put work in. You got to, you got to get out there and connect with people and that's hard. That's another hard thing to do, especially in today's age is to actually physically, you know, be somewhere and the easiest way to do that is to volunteer somewhere and be a part of something. Well, another great strategy along those lines is actually continuing to pursue personal growth and be better yourself because someone like that attracts other people. Like, if you put the work into... You start becoming aware of people around you like that. That's right. Yeah, if you become this man, you become the person who is growing, is learning, is reading, is improving their skills or craft, is refraining from temptation all the time from being a better person, having more integrity. You'll find more and more people because you'll attract more and more people that are like that. Now, the last one actually ties into kind of what you guys talk about, which is loneliness. There's an epidemic of loneliness for all people, but especially for men, and it gets worse as we get older. It's actually bad right now for young men. It's worse for men our age because men, we just, we don't tend to not want to go out and just meet and hang out with people. If there's nothing to do and there's no one out there, then we'll just kind of, we can become hermits and be okay with that when it's really not okay. There's this kind of epidemic of loneliness and modern technologies only enabled this or made it much easier. Now a lot of people are like, well, I talk with my friends when we play video games together or we get on social media. The data's clear on this as well, but I don't think I even need to cite the data. This is, come on, let's use common sense. Real relationships are with in-person. That's how you build real relationships. And real relationships require work and consistent work. So it's like, you know, I want to have my family over. We're all going to have dinner together. Like, oh my God, so much work, so much mass. Let's just forget about it. Like it takes work. It takes work to have them come over. It takes work for us to hang out together. It takes work for me to clean up afterwards. But the dividends you get in terms of your mental health, physical health, physical health. Men who are lonely are far more likely to die of chronic disease than men who are not lonely. They're several times more likely to have depression, anxiety, commit suicide. Like this is a huge one. In fact, this one contributes to the rest. The more lonely you are, the more likely you are to have challenges with all the other things that we talked about. What do you think is the major contributor to loneliness? Like what do you think that it's tech and social media? Do you think it's how divisive the society's become? What do you think is like the main contributor? I would say we have more effective distractions and then just technology in general. So when we were kids, you were bored if you were at home. Before I got cable. You had to go to your friend's house. I remember when my parents got cable. Because when they got cable, I went out less because all of a sudden I had 50 channels instead of just the two that came in with the antenna. But when we had the shitty TV with the three channels, first of all, I had to wait for a show to come on that I liked. It was like I could go watch what I want. It had to be broadcast. And nothing was on at the times I wanted to. So I was like, what do I do? I'm just going to stay here by myself or go outside. And I had to go out and meet people. You know what really struck me was that great talk that we heard Jordan Peterson do. And he talked about ages basically three to five, right? Or the three to four range, right? Yeah, four years old. Yeah. Right in that range, right? For the cutoff was four, right? Or two to four is what he said. Yeah. So two to four age range. And I think why it's blowing up like this is because he talked about the importance of them playing and playing with other kids is really what they're doing. We look at it as play, but really what they're doing is acting out real life, but they're going to be and how they're going to be introduced into society. And this generation, the last generation and a half was the iPhone generation. And many parents use that as a babysitter. And I don't think realized how much that made them and able to use these skills that we're talking about to go over to a friend's house and say, I want to go play. I want to play and knock on their door and be afraid to be rejected or them not be home or whether they're not home and I can go play by myself. And like, yeah, that's all things that most kids before the 80s all had to figure out. You had to figure that out. And it made us better actors in society. And now you have a generation of kids that have grown up that got to skip that. Yeah. And if you miss that cut off, you know, you get ostracized. Yeah. It's really hard to integrate at that point because the other kids who've had those interactions learn play, they learn those boundaries. They learn like, you know, what they can say, how physical they can be and like how to interact appropriately when you don't receive that feedback and information. Now you're trying to jump into that group of kids. Like it's just, it's a disaster. So I've seen now enough gatherings with teenagers, right? I have two teenagers. And something remarkable happens sometimes. These are all kids, friends, right? We're all meeting up together. And at some point everybody will get on the phone and nobody's talking to each other. And that is not uncommon in the same room. We had my niece and nephew visit. We took everybody's phones away. And then they all started to interact. Now people are like, well, what's the big deal? The reason why they're not interacting on their phones isn't necessarily because the phones are more entertaining or fulfilling. That's not the case. It's because interaction with others requires you get over some fear. You got to stop being shy. You got to kind of build some skills. You're a teenager that's hard and challenging anyway. Now as you get older, it gets even more challenging because you're not in school. So how am I going to meet other people? So someone watching, especially a young man, might be like, well, okay, what do I do? Go outside and just talk to random dudes? No, that's not going to work. That's unless it's true. Yeah, let's try and make a different kind of friend. That's not going to work. But probably the best thing to do, and this is just what men have always done, that's been successful, is you sign up for men's groups. Now what does that mean? Typically it means you sign up for some kind of a sport or something you do together. Poker, basketball, baseball, softball. Or there's also men's groups now at churches, community centers. Where men just get together and talk about cars. We'll talk about muscle cars. Or we all like working out. We're all going to be at the gym, whatever. Men's groups are the best ways to do it. It's scheduled. It's disciplined. And I know myself that if I didn't do this for a living, because we get to all hang out every single day, if I did this, I would have to join some kind of a group. Because I wouldn't go out and just go do it on my own. It would have to be something structured. I would have to sign up for some kind of a men's something. Maybe not a sport, but something like that. So look, that's what this episode was all about. And I do want to be very clear. We're not all speaking from ivory towers. These are all things we've all had or continue to have challenges with ourselves even now. But this is a pursuit of growth and discipline. So we hope this episode helped you out. Look, if you like this show, check out mindpumpfree.com and look at all of our free guides. We have free guides that can help you with many, many health and fitness goals. You can also find all of us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm on Instagram at Mind Pump. This is Stefano and Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Adam.