 good morning I'll tell you a story about a brilliant man. This is a friend of mine. We'll call him Mike He's aware of what I do for a living and he urges me to share the story whenever I can Mike was going into his second marriage and you know not his first rodeo the first one was kind of rough and marriage was important so he got back in the game and he was doing it upright and he was about a week out from his marriage and This thing was taken on some momentum Because he had bought the venue and he'd rented the swanky restaurant up in the mountains for the reception and friends and relatives had taken their vacation time and they had bought their plane tickets and rented their hotel rooms and This thing was barreling down the tracks like a like a runaway train. And it was a Sunday morning kind of like this feeling mellow maybe a little hungover. I don't know and Him and his lady his fiance decided to go to the coffee shop Just to get away just to have a minute alone. And as they were chatting There was a lull in the conversation and she said something interesting to him. She said I know how I'm going to die Now some guys with us. Oh, that's nice dear and go back to their iPhone But not Mike. He's inquisitive and he's sharp and he said well What do you mean? How are you gonna die? And she said you're gonna kill me so yeah, this is a hell of a thing to hear on a Sunday morning with your wedding about a week away and It wasn't the first time that he encountered something like this with her. She's a wonderful woman smart and motivated successful intelligent But she'd had these moments that we all get where her emotions sort of took over her reality of the world and That didn't bother him so much because like I said, we all experience that what troubled him was there was a little bit of lack of insight when this happened to her like she This would become her reality whatever it is that she was worried about the moment and for a few days She wouldn't be able to bring herself back to reality and that was kind of troubling to him so he heard this statement and he was starting to notice a pattern and guess what he did he he canceled the wedding and You can imagine that people were not too happy with him because of all the investment monitoring and Time investment that people had put into this wedding all the activity and on the bride's side all of the women around the bride frantically doing Whatever women do when they're getting ready to dress their friend up like a princess for a day because we're a weird animal and we do that and So all this anger and hostility and the social pressure. Don't do that to a woman Don't leave her at the altar. What kind of man are you? but that's what he did and I'll tell you later how it turned out because it's an interesting story and it's a positive story But what I'm here today to talk to you about is that I don't think it's ever been quite this dangerous To have the wrong woman in your life and it doesn't matter whether you your values are more aligned with Hunter Drew or Caleb Jones or anywhere in between if you want women in your sphere This is a risky time If you're an old guy like me and you bring the wrong woman into your life Maybe you get to take a trip to family court and won't that be fun? If you're a young guy on a college campus Maybe you get to visit one of these kangaroo courts that's popped up all over the country where your future and your plans can be Decimated by an unsubstantiated anonymous complaint And maybe you're just a guy who has an average one-night stand like a guy who came into my office several weeks ago He had a one-night stand about a year ago and over the course of the last year this woman who by the way She pursued him She initiated and once she had scratched that itch She changed her mind and she has spent the last year tormenting him. She hasn't called the cops She's just systematically been destroying his personal and his professional relationships And that's not counting just just the average risks of having a woman in your life who is personality disorder addicted Traumatized or has some run-of-the-mill mental illness that she refuses to get treated And did you know that this morning in the New York Times a Sunday, New York Times? There is an article Advising successful men how to handle it when they get accused falsely of rape It's become that mainstream. This is where we are and by the way the first step is to publicly endorse the Me Too movement Just tell them you like big brother. That's all just say you love big brother. Just say it. That's where we are guys So I don't think it's ever been particularly easy to decide which women to include it to your life It's always been risky at the margins and it's risky for women at the margins to bring the wrong man into their life But I think Anthony Johnson made a compelling case yesterday that the margins have encroached into the mainstream And this is a risky time to have the wrong woman in your world And I want to make the case today that The men in this room are particularly at risk because I sit across in my office from a lot of guys who are putting their lives back together After they've had their plans torn asunder by the wrong woman and I noticed Something interesting with guys who are successful and motivated. There's a particular blind spot they can't see with women and I want to give you today Something that hopefully will help you avoid this blind spot if you ever have the opportunity which hopefully you won't but The problem that I noticed With successful guys. Well, let's start with this question. What do women look for and cross cultures and throughout time? What do we know about what women seek in men? Well for complicated questions like that I like evolutionary psychology because it's a nice framework and there's a lot of numbers and math behind it research and What's evolutionary psychology teaches us is that women look for traits beyond physical parents and beyond social connectedness They look for personality traits and they look for traits that like intelligence kindness industriousness and the ability to provide those four traits show up over and over again in the evolutionary literature and Kindness by the way doesn't mean nice I think a lot of you guys have already read that book and if you've met dr. Glover this weekend That guy. He's not a nice guy, but he's very kind man So kindness intelligence industrious industriousness and the ability to provide so who am I describing when I say those four those four traits? We'll look around. It's you guys Because I've been talking to you the last few days. I've been taking some notes. I've been watching I've never seen a group of guys like this in my life hundreds of men in the same room Squared away Motivated ambitious moving forward you got your values in order or you're getting your values in order because your value should always be an Ongoing process right you don't values are not a destination or a process But I've never seen a group of guys like this you have whether you think about yourself this way or not You have what women are looking for So congratulations. Here's the bad news. You're vulnerable and there's there's an obvious vulnerability and a less Obvious vulnerability with successful men the obvious vulnerability And I know some of you guys don't think of yourself this way But maybe change your your your frame around that The obvious vulnerability is that when you have what women are seeking you attract a larger pool of women than the man Who doesn't have all of those qualities squared away and in that pool of women? There's gonna be your personal percentage of the opportunists and the gold diggers and the personality disorders These are the ones that are gonna make themselves very apparent to you. They're going to pursue you aggressively They're the ones that are gonna be right in your face. That's the obvious vulnerability Here's the less obvious vulnerability that I see in my practice over and over with successful guys who possess What women want it's that they're charmed See they're charmed with women women have never been much of an issue for them There's two factors are going to this I think number one is that women have always been present for them They've never had to work as hard as the guy who has to go out and really pursue and try to earn attention So it's easy for them and because it's easy for them Women are just sort of present if one goes away another one comes in and they don't have to work very hard And this leads men to think that they're charmed with women which they are and how do people behave when they're charmed Well Napoleon thought he was charmed so he marched to Russia now worked out for shit So these men who think they're charmed a Lot of times they're focused and they're driven and that's another quality that women are attracted to and as they're focused and driven They're not really paying attention to what women are telling them. And so some of these guys They reach a point in life where professionally they're squared away and they get into their thirties or fours They realize that there's something that they want they want that companionship. They want that family Maybe they want children. And so some of these guys decide to get married without having done the work that Men who don't possess those qualities have had to do and so this is like getting behind the wheel of a Bugatti And you haven't even read the owner's manual. Maybe you get lucky and probably most guys get lucky and they don't wrap it around a tree But for some of these guys problems crop up in their relationship Because they've been charmed and they haven't had to work very hard. They're not very skilled at handling those problems and More than that. They're very prone to doing what they've always done, which is retreating into their work So that they don't have to face the problem or they come up with a short-term solution that only makes things worse in the long term So what I want to give you today is Some ways to check your experience because this is really the blind spot that I see among these successful guys It's checking their own experience. I hear a lot of tips about things to avoid in women I think it's fine to have that checklist and women who take too many selfies and women who are seeking Attention from men It's good to have that checklist to look externally at a woman and check her behavior and have some rule out But the problem is you could have your top 10 list and a woman comes out a left field with number 11 that you never saw coming But if you are in touch with how you're responding to her character That's a pretty reliable sign. So I'll get to that in a minute one of my favorite books is the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas and my little 11 year old daughter in her seventh grade class read this recently the abridged version you know a short version and She was telling me about the discussion that they had about this book in the very feminist environment of her feminine environment of her school and the very feminine nature of her teacher and they were discussing how to interpret a book like this Is it a there's a religious allegory? Yeah, maybe is it a story of redemption? possibly, I don't think so This very feminine lovely talented woman who's leading this class in this feminine environment missed the most obvious point This is the story of a man who starts out naive and idealistic and weak and then as the world has its way with him and evil people enter his life He chooses to make a transition he transitions into a man who is capable and resourceful Powerful and generous and very dangerous It's a story of transformation And I think Alexander Dumas would have fit in nicely with this crowd not so much with with my Little daughter's teacher, but in this crowd he would have fit right in because he understands Masculinity and he understands the transformation. It's not really why I bring him up. The reason I bring him up is because Alexander Dumas this guy who understands masculinity He wrote another book called the Mohicans of Paris and this is just a fun detective novel right as a guy has a detective agency and this detective has a thought as a theory that Whenever somebody comes to him with a case of intrigue or murder that if he digs far enough Toward the truth somewhere at the center of that story. He's gonna find a woman and The book starts with this line share say a lot them now. I grew up in a truck stop so I don't speak French, but I'm told I'm told that it means find a woman and this line appears throughout the book find a woman find a woman find a woman Now if you think of somebody in your life a Man in your life who's reached this mid stage of life and things are going well and he should have Life by the short hairs because he's done everything right made all the right decisions. He should have money He should have the house he wanted should have the success car he wants He should have everything and we want he wants in life, but for some reason he's not firing at all cylinder He's depressed. He's down. He's broke. You could ask yourself. Where's a woman? There's a guy who came into my office many years ago. We'll call him Dave and he was just such a man he was in his mid 30s and he had Built himself quite a business and it wasn't he wasn't run in the world But he had built something that was Reliably a provider for him and it would have seen him through through for the duration And when he got to his mid 30s, he decided that something was missing and he wanted that female Presence in his life in a meaningful way. You know if you had girlfriends, of course, but he wanted Family wanted children and so he went on a mission. He's a problem solver like so many of us He saw a problem. It's a clear solution to find a woman So he started working around and putting himself out there and the first woman that came along that really fit the bill man They were together. They were just peas and carrots like three months. Everything was just wonderful. They fit perfectly The sex was great. She was smart. She was intriguing. She was everything he wanted her to be Well as it happens About three months into their relationship. She had a little problem with her roommate And decided to move out. I had some kind of tiff. I don't know what it was whatever roommates fight about and Dave being a problem solver he saw a problem to solve and said well, I have a house paid for by the way and She needs a house. We'll just move in. It's perfectly rational solution All right, so a couple more months go by and as it happens This woman has a little tip with her employer and decides that she's gonna walk out on her job on a random Thursday Or whatever it was and so Dave saw another problem. Well, I've got this little company. It's not huge But I can squeeze one more employee in so he hires her. So here we are about six months into the relationship And already this woman is in his house and in his business and I don't mean in his business colloquially I mean having the hands in his till Well about nine months down the road right on schedule her character her real character starts to appear And she's not the agreeable lovely woman that he thought she was She's actually a little bit disagreeable And there are problems that never get solved and discussions and arguments that they can't get passed and About a year into the marriage He starts to notice that not only is she disagreeable, but these problems are growing and she's actually a little bit violent This is a bad situation There have been in this situation a violent woman in your life. That's no win for men You know what happens if the cops show up in most municipalities Bad situation So he's starting to get a little bit scared And about 15 months into the marriage and I don't want to paint him as a victim here because he contributed to the problem Of course he did Every you know in every couple it takes two people to to create hostility So he was contributing, but the violence. No excuse for that. No excuse for that And about 15 months into it. He realized this is really going to shit. I got to get out of this I'm headed for disaster Got to escape. Well, guess what she wasn't in the mood to just walk away Because she she felt entitled to this house that she'd been contributing to and this business that she'd been contributing to and so Being fairly handy with the legal system as he eventually discovered she put him in a position where he could either face this contentious What's the opposite of criminal court? Civil court this the civil court she he could she could take him to civil court and they could have this this try or this Disagreement that consumes an unknown number of dollars for an unknown period of time or he could liquidate and buy her out That was the position that she put him in no marriage. No kids No contracts. Just the wrong woman in his life And so what did he decide to do? Well, he consulted with his attorney and the best thing for him to do was simply to liquidate buyer off start over Long woman So last I heard he was he was doing okay. He built it once he could build it again. I'm sure he's thriving now But that was an expensive expensive lesson for him So if you were to meet someone like dave walking down the street Should have the world by the short hairs, but he's dragging along and he's depressed and sad and broke You could reasonably ask where's the woman? Well in dave's case, she's over in her new condo with half his shit Probably softening up her next victim All right, so dave's mistake. I don't want to beat up on dave, but dave made a mistake Dave's mistake was that he didn't pay attention to those little signs Of character that she was showing him early on and we've all made this mistake If you haven't made it with a woman you've made it with somebody else Somebody showed you what their character was really about and you had this little intuitive message and you ignored it Anybody ever done that? I've done that. I've done that many times. I try not to do it anymore So as I said what I want to give you today Is a way to check in with your own experience because I think that's a more reliable sign Sometimes than than what she's showing you particularly if you're a little bit smitten with her And she's a little bit smitten with you So I'm going to have to remember three things just just three things to look for within yourself When a woman is approaching you and you're actually considering bringing her into your life Like I said, I don't care if you're interested in notch count or marriage or anything in between Having the wrong woman into your life is destructive So item number one Is idealization Doesn't feel like to be idealized. Well when somebody's idealizing you it's it's not like the honeymoon the honeymoon You're not seeing each other clearly and there's been interesting research on this recently where when two people are in a honeymoon phase They're actually kind of altered state They're under the influence of their own brain and they're not seeing the world correctly They're not presenting themselves as they normally are they're not seeing the other person correctly But that's different than being idealized the idealization Is when a person refuses or is unable to see your flaws number one and number two and this is more important that You become the source of their emotional regulation. Here's what I mean by that Let's say that a woman is starting to fall for my buddy rich Cooper or is rich you back there somewhere and This woman is starting to idealize rich Cooper Which means that she's not seeing a rich Cooper as a three-dimensional person whenever he presents a flaw She just blows right past it and she thinks it's cute and charming or whatever She finds a way to dismiss it and maybe this woman is having some problems in her life like maybe she doesn't like her job, but She couldn't have a bad day at work if she tried because all she has to do is think Rich Cooper rich Cooper's in my world and that makes everything okay Because she's seeing rich Cooper as Some kind some kind of combination of who he really is and who she imagines him to be and do you see the problem with this illusion Well the problem with any illusion is disillusionment eventually. She's going to start to become disappointed Because nobody can live up to what she's built in her head and eventually as she starts to experience that disappointment She she experiences something else now She's lost that center of her emotional regulation and now rich Cooper is not He's no longer the source of her happiness now. He's the son of a bitch who's responsible for all her misery How dare you? So what does it feel like to be idealized? Well, you've all been idealized and maybe it's not by Maybe it's not by a woman Maybe it's a little cousin or maybe it was an employer who couldn't see and acknowledge your faults I want you to think about what that felt like So that when it crops up with a woman You know how to identify that feeling and maybe for some of you it feels kind of good Maybe you liked it a little bit for most of you probably felt a little creepy and weird Whatever that problem is or whatever that feeling is that felt experience Identify it for yourself because it's a red sign or a red flag. It's a warning That doesn't mean you have to run for the hills It just means you need to stop stop slow down and assess what's going on So that's number one idealization. What is it? Idealization very good item number two intuition Now as men we're not really trained to listen to our intuition generally and and we're actually kind of discouraged And it's not like anybody over little kids. It's not like anybody says to us Hey, you little crotch thing. You better stop listening to intuition. I'll smack you a good one It doesn't work like that. It's that we are taught to push through difficult situations We are taught to push through difficult emotions and set them aside and that's a wonderful quality You need that quality But the trade-off sometimes is that we turn away from what's going on inside And I find that a lot of guys need permission to listen to their intuition and permission An effective form of that is understanding how it works I'm going to give you a really quick rundown of what intuition is so that you have permission to listen to it There was a study back in 2000. It was one of my all-time favorite papers. It was by a young rock star researcher named Matthew Lieberman and he broke down How intuition functions? It's not that complicated. See our brains They process information on different levels. There's this high level that we're using right now this verbal level I'm talking you're listening or engaging That's one level But then there's there's all kinds of non verbal levels that our information that our brain is processing information on And where intuition is concerned There's one part of the brain in particular that's kind of interesting It's called the particular activating system And what this little part of the brain way down deep inside is responsible for is Consciousness arousal and where you focus your attention It's pretty important stuff And then this reticular activating system There's a there's a little bundle called the ascending reticular activating system or your arast And what the arast does is it takes information that's coming in from all of your senses Not your olfactory sense. That's a little different, but all of your other senses Even your immune system they're starting to think of as a third sense, but anyway The arast is taking all this information And the information is traveling up your arast as one of my professors used to say And is getting sorted and some of this bubbling up all the way to this verbal awareness But some of it stays nonverbal. It's information. That's all it is. It's just information Potentiations and little neurons It's all it is. It's nothing magical. It's nothing feminine just information Now how does the brain communicate nonverbal information? With nonverbal cues So maybe you get a little upset stomach or maybe you get something You know a little hair stand up on the back of your neck Or maybe you just get irritable or or something that you just can't drop There's something back there going on. You don't know what it is or you can't sleep at night Whatever it is for you I want you to be able to label that because There's been some interesting studies on intuition And some studies say that the information you get from intuitive nonverbal signals is more reliable than not And I read another study that said that intuitive signals are are less reliable It doesn't matter because here's how you handle an intuitive signal Whatever shows up physically or emotionally or cognitively Cognitively with you when your intuition is speaking to you step number one is just to recognize That your brain is processing something You don't know what it is and then step number two. This is important stop Just stop so that you can ask yourself. What's going on? What's what is your brain trying to tell you? What's happening? Something weird is going on and everyone in here who's motivated and ambitious, which is all of you guys You have some way of processing information You have some men that you talk to or you go on a hike or you smoke a cigar Whatever it is that helps you sort out some kind of problem that you're struggling with apply that to your intuition So number one idealization number two is what? Right number three confusion And this is one that successful men are particularly prone to this is a trap being confused in the relationship So what have you been at? I mean that she's giving you mixed signals or you're in no-win double buying situations So she asked you to come over and you want to go over and you get there and then On the phone she sounded like she wanted to just get there and she's not talking to you get in the silent treatment Or she's upset And whatever you do makes things worse There's little issues of confusion and what happens with very successful guys sometimes is That they'll push right past that because it has shit to do not time for this So they'll push past that confusion. They'll set it aside Don't do that as a huge mistake that confusion is telling you something and I think one of the one of the um Couple ways to recognize this one is you just have the sense that Everything in the relationship is just a little harder than it needs to be this relationship is work That's one sign another sign that I've heard I've heard guys tell me as fatigue I imagine I don't know if it's ever happened to you But you're a little kid you're like 80 or 10 year old boy and your big sister takes you to the mall With all of her big sister friends because they're going to go clothes shopping and here you are you walk into this environment It's it's all feminine There's all these raps of clothes and the energy just drains out of you with a little puddle on the floor You know i'm talking about that that kind of fatigue like I just I just don't want to be here This is sucking the life out of me If you get a little hint a little hint of that feeling That might be an indication that this is a confusing relationship Or it's just taking more time and energy that I should And if that's the case again, you slow down don't ignore that shit slow down Ask yourself. What's going on? What is my brain trying to tell me? And I told you there's three. There's actually four. There's a there's a linchpin here that makes all of this work In fact, it doesn't work without this and that's the element of time risk management is some people define it as Reducing uncertainty On your goal to reducing the effect of uncertainty on your goals and ambitions And one of the most efficient ways to reduce uncertainty without the human beings Is to just take time and let their character show up and actually listen to what they're showing you All right, so what are the three we got? idealization Intuition confusion and then the element of time and see this is there's this push and pull between men and women because women Like my friend Mike and he's one of these going to get married women are always pushing to keep things moving they want to keep the relationship going forward they want to get that commitment and I don't have any illusions about the genetics and the biology of that I know what that's about but I also find it kind of endearing because I have a soft spot for women Your job is to push back Use the element of time to your advantage so that you can find out who she really is and again I don't care if it's a one-night stand. I don't think anybody should be having one night stands in this environment That's just me. I think it's an incredibly risky thing to do. I think even for that you better be vetting women carefully evolutionary psychology Well, let me back up a little bit already told you how I feel about evolutionary psychology. It's like my religion It's wonderful But there's this idea that's that's floated around In the vernacular for a few decades it's the idea of the gatekeeper and we hear that women are the gatekeepers of sex Or yeah, women are the gatekeepers of sex and men are the gatekeepers of relationships. You ever heard this? Yeah, okay good. It wasn't just me and um the idea Is that there's this rigid barrier And on one side are women And on the other side are men and in order for a man to have sex He needs to meet this list of criteria and then he can pass through the gate It's a very binary way of thinking about how men and women interact and I've never really liked it and evolutionary psychology doesn't seem to like it because One of my favorite books another one of my favorite books is david bus's handbook of evolutionary psychology It's like my bible even comes in two volumes like the old and new testament is very exciting You should check it out. It's a it's a great framework for human behavior And do you know that nowhere in these entire two two volumes you find the word gatekeeper? Except once there's one place where it appears and it's in dismissive quotation marks And it's in a passage about women's motivation to pursue polyandrous sex That's that's more than one guy in quick succession So it's hardly an endorsement of this gatekeeper idea that you hear about in the vernacular What you find instead in evolutionary psychology over and over again is some version of the word choosy I like that word because as binary as gatekeeper is choosy has shades of gray A person can be a little choosy or a lot choosy and you can put a lot of map behind this this idea of choosiness and that's exactly what evolutionary psychologists have does now the idea of the gatekeeper You can trace that all the way back to darwin because he noticed that in a lot of species It's the males that compete for the women And then in 1948 a researcher a guy who spent a lot of time in the basement were fruit flies He was an evolutionary psychologist I guess they didn't really have that term then but he noticed a similar thing and he came up with this idea that eggs are expensive And sperm are cheap and then that sort of morphed into this idea of the sexual gatekeeper and the relationship gatekeeper but what evolutionary psychologist says actually is that Choosiness Is a behavior that's moderated by a couple of major factors one is operational sex ratio, which is the ratio of men to women or males to females And also the variability of quality in in each one So that's how those are the two factors are going to female choosiness And factors are going to male choosiness are those factors plus parental investment. That's a big one for males across species So we have this idea of choosiness and what it tells us is that even when it looks like females Are being Passive and receptive and just opening or closing that gate. Actually, they're still participating. You know, they're still participating in the game They're still competing. We all know that I've been talking about it all weekend But if you're a researcher with some fruit flies, maybe it takes a while to figure that out And in fact with fruit flies and you notice something simple Something interesting that males who spend too much time in courtship have shorter lives And females who spend too much time being choosy have shorter lives And neither one gets to procreate if they're stuck in this condition. So natural selection gives us some really interesting Push and pull and risk management about choosing this and we know that women are not just passive Passive Receptors, you know, they're actually engaged in the game and we know some interesting things about the way Males across species Compete like you have those mountain goats, you know the the rams you've seen pictures of them hitting each other With their their big horns and they're going through this ritual and it's a pretty violent Pretty violent competition for territory and women giraffes do something similar chimpanzees sort of very very hierarchical and very Competitive among the males and if you're a mid-level in the hierarchy and you're a male and you pursue a woman That or a woman a chimpanzee female chimpanzee who has been I that was not a Freudian sliver He's being sloppy So I actually I actually really like women a lot if you pursue the wrong Female you might have your gonads ripped out but not by her by another male And that's the interesting thing about the competition that that exists among males across species is that it's actually a cooperative act That when males are competing they're not trying to kill each other When those rams are doing this those giraffes are banging their heads together They're not trying to kill each other Those are males who are actually Cooperating and trying to sort things out because it doesn't pay to destroy or kill a member of your tribe Or your troop or your herd or whatever you live in if you're an animal And uh human male competition is very much the same way So this idea of choosing this Kind of lost my train of thought there because I started talking about chimpanzees and giraffes and and rams I was I wasn't going someplace like this and where I was going is that There's a question that evolutionary psychology doesn't answer. It's really troubling to me and the question is what happens when the mere act of pursuing a woman or female becomes dangerous and not because you're contending with other men or other males but because The female now has the power to destroy It's a devastate any male who pursues her that she doesn't like You don't see this anywhere else You know, I don't know of any any animals where if the male grunts in the wrong way The female is going to rip his balls off I don't know I've not heard of this But that seems to be the situation That we're facing right now. It's very unique And so evolutionary psychology with its notions of choosing this and all its ideas of math and its risk management It doesn't have much to say about a condition where the mere act of pursuing the mere act of of being in the presence of the wrong woman can destroy you evolutionary psychology doesn't have much to say about that but I do You see I didn't like that word gatekeeper for a while, but I'm starting to come around Because that image of the gate It suggests that there's something valuable Something precious that needs to be protected Against an invading force And that thing that needs to be protected is your future Your family's that that's where you're going Your contribution Your dent in the universe as rich cooper says And that invading force I don't know you could call it gender feminism if you want. I think that's sloppy, but I don't think it's wrong And I'm coming around on the word gatekeeper because I've sat across from too many men who've had their lives destroyed Because they invited inadvertently unintentionally invited the wrong woman into their lives And pat Campbell stood up here a couple of days ago and he told you something very important And I hope you remember it You're the prize Not them you And I hope you act accordingly because it's a fucking dangerous world if you don't So you guys I don't want to leave it on a somber note like that. Let me tell you Let me give you a little something a little ray of sunshine here. Let me tell you what happened with Mike on the finish that story When we left off the world was upset with Mike. His world was not a happy place And he agonized over what to do for quite a while because he actually loved this woman Really like the way he talks about her still today He's talking to him a few weeks ago about this this tore him up because he actually really Found her to be captivating and he still does But here's the problem He saw this trait in her And it wasn't about So much the fact that she would lose control of her emotions because he recognizes that happens to all of us The trait that troubled him was her unwillingness to examine that question And he spent months trying to get her to examine the fact that that she was the one Who was losing control of her emotions and and not seeing it and it was rare You know, it's not like she was she was not borderline nothing like that. She was just a little traumatized. It's understandable And so after months of trying to get her to see this And and saying, you know, look if it's if it's just about the issue we can work with it If it's just about uh, you getting anxious once in a while we can work with it But what do you do with somebody who's who's saying, you know, I'm not the one who's dysregulated You're the one You know, you're so dysregulated. You're you're going to lose your noodle and off some people someday. It's not me What do you do with that? He knew that that kind of process was going to happen over and over again And it wasn't going to get better and so as much as it broke his heart He broke it off with her Still says happy birthday to her because he loves her. He couldn't be with her Because he took his time. He did exactly what i'm talking about. He listened to his reaction to her And he took his time Against everybody's wishes. He used time to his advantage and time Showed him something that he didn't want to see But there it was So if we fast forward a few years Mike has been in a different relationship and this time with a woman who has a long unbroken track record Of stability and good humor and insight And all the things that make a relationship work with a woman if that's what you're after because um Is destructive as it can be to have the wrong woman in your life having a right woman by your side That's pretty sweet As somebody out here. I'm just on the elevator told me it's the force multiplier that can take you Further than you thought you were Further than you thought you could go And what did uh donovan just say about women in your life? I forgot how we put it. I thought it was kind of poetic But same idea having the right woman by your side It elevates you or it levels you up forgive me donovan if i'm getting it wrong, but Elevate thank you. All right But that's another story Probably for another day because I think i'm running out of time here So we'll leave it for that with that for now and I guess we could open up the questions if you want I Everybody's getting tired. I can't see any of you. So just shout them out right here in the middle Okay, thanks for your question. I appreciate the speech and all that you contributed to the red man group On the saturdays that you did up here What happens to the brain During the first three to six months of a new relationship you kind of touched on Your brain is under the influence as i'm unplugging myself I realize what has been happening to me with the things i've been learning What happens to your brain when you're in that infatuation stage and what the research that i've read is Kind of interesting but it's a little bit non-conclusive and and What people what some researchers have noticed is that there are some serotonin signatures In the bloodstream for somewhere between nine and 16 months kind of depends on the study you look at but somewhere around Somewhere in that time frame where your your brain chemistry is literally altered a little bit and It's not very precise science. It's kind of like looking at mars through a telescope bouncing off of a mirror as an indirect measure, but It's enough of a measure to know that people are a little nutty when they're infatuated You know, you're literally a little bit drunk. That's not a great stage to be making decisions in So my advice when I talk about how much time to take my advice is get past That that infatuation stage and the way you know that you're getting past that infatuation stage Is that you each start to look like actual humans to each other again and little things start to annoy you And when you start to see that other person there's a fully three-dimensional person Then you're probably out of that stage and then the clock starts then you get to see what shows up Take your time Hey over this side which side who's time on your left? Is that God? Yeah Love your book. I highlighted so much of it. I shouldn't have highlighted So as a broad question, I'm sure you see all sorts in your clinic So the broad question is what do you do when there's sexual incompatibility in terms of more desire on one side than the other And the instance is my female friend came to me You know her and her partner in mid 20s and You know she wants a lot more than him and they talk about it They're uh committed Been together for two years. I'm sure you see this in your clinic. What do you normally do? What you normally do is weed that out beforehand Because I guess it depends on how important it is to you But if it's a no go then it's a no go I mean you've got it Everybody has a list of things that they're willing to tolerate and not tolerate and a problem like that There's there's three things kids money and sex and if you start out on the wrong foot, it ain't going to get better So I guess you get to the side. What do you want to do with the situation that ain't going to get better? Thank you. Yeah, how's it going Sean? Hey We're at Hey, so uh right here. Yeah. Hey, so psychology major checking in my question for you and your speech was awesome, by the way My question for you is as the the leftist feminist juggernaut has infested the media academia, etc How do you feel about the future of the field of psychology and the field being potentially compromised by this leftist Crazy thing. It's fucking doomed No, no it isn't because there there are two divisions of psychology There's the academic branch where all this nuttiness is just taking hold and then there's clinicians And I know clinicians who are feminist, but they're not nutty because the reason they're not nutty Is because they're in touch with human beings every day. And even if they have these ideas about men When they meet an actual man as they do over and over It pulls them back toward reality And I know one I'm in a consultation about I shouldn't say who it is but I know one Uh therapist who Brands herself as a feminist, but she doesn't hate men. I don't know how she's working that out in her head I actually got the youtube I'm working on with about feminism, but um, yeah I'm not sure how she's working that out, but she doesn't hate men So the clinical side will always be fine because the clinical side always pulls people in the direction of human beings It's the academic side where people can start Echoing themselves with their stupid ideas. That's where the danger is and so How do you fight that? Well, I'm I'm pretty loud mouth about it. And I hope that after you finish I hope you'll be a loud mouth about it too Thanks, man. Yeah Hey doc. Hey this side wish side It's much easier when it's not on a podcast quick question. So obviously Cindy Mistin doctor bus My impression of uh, your profession you're essentially giving somebody a psychology degree that's narrowly specified to their problem So it's a proactive measure other than those two authors. Who would you recommend for somebody to uh, I guess there get their 101 level psychological chops and learn this stuff before they have to pay you 500 an hour I just realized this may not be the best question to ask No Your psychology 101 My favorite books. Well, Robert Glover's book. I mean, I know you most of you guys have already read it But it's you know, it's like gospel for men Steven Pinker is great Yeah, I think those Steven Pinker will probably be my my top recommendation even though he's a neuro linguist He's not a clinician but he Can he has a way of taking concepts that that you can apply to yourself about how you work and about how the world works and I give myself a little plug too. I wrote a book called the user's guide of the human mind and What I did with that book is I wrote a book that the folks where I come from could understand The book that I could understand basically I took behavioral Behavioral information and evolutionary information and how it connects with treating anxiety and depression and so forth And I wrote a book for myself and I've gotten a lot of good feedback on that Thanks, doc. Yeah Who's next? Hi Sean. Yeah Could you elaborate on how to think about emotional Newness I'm so excited again. Yeah, could you elaborate on how to think about emotional nuance In relation to dealing with passive aggressiveness In a relationship Now passive aggressiveness and emotional nuance emotional nuance is one of my favorite topics because if you want to avoid The borderlines of the world. This is the one thing you need to look for. It's very easy emotional nuance So how do borderlines see the world? Well, you're good or you're bad. It's it's complete emotional dysregulation It's painful. I feel bad for people at the motion with a borderline personality disorder, but they veer from You're a good person. You're an angel to your bad person. You're a devil And so emotional nuance is simply the ability to say I I'm mad at you right now, but I still like you You know a person can say that then they have emotional nuance and then passive aggressiveness I don't know you all know what it looks like. I think you know somebody's being indirect They're being obstinate. They're being resistant When they don't get their way, they're taking jabs. They're doing these little things that are rebelling against you But they're not overtly rebelling against you. I don't know. I don't have time for that and if You shouldn't have time for it either in my estimation All right, everybody, let's give it up for Sean Smith Thank you