February 17, 2025 • 33 mins
Is your mindset holding you back in dating and relationships? In this episode, Charles and Dan kick off a new series exploring Dating Essentials for Men by Dr. Robert Glover. They dive deep into the impact of core beliefs on dating success, discussing:
✅ The definition and characteristics of “bad daters”
✅ Common self-limiting beliefs that sabotage relationships
✅ How shame influences dating struggles
✅ The role of social confidence in romantic success
✅ Why challenging your beliefs is essential for personal growth
If you’ve ever felt frustrated with your dating life or relationships, this episode will help you identify and break free from limiting mindsets holding you back.
Key Takeaways
🔹 Your core beliefs shape your dating results. If you’re unhappy with your love life, your thinking may be the problem.
🔹 Self-limiting beliefs hold men back. Many men assume women have a "radar" for good partners—this isn’t true.
🔹 Shame plays a major role in dating struggles. Learning to separate guilt from shame can transform your confidence.
🔹 Being social is the key to success. Developing your social skills is more important than focusing solely on attraction.
🔹 Your mindset determines your outcomes. The first step to improving your dating life is being open to change.
Resources Mentioned
📖 Dating Essentials for Men – Dr. Robert Glover
📖 No More Mr. Nice Guy – Dr. Robert Glover
📖 The Man’s Guide to Women – Dr. John Gottman & Julie Schwartz Gottman
📖 How to Be a 3% Man – Corey Wayne
🎥 Brené Brown on Shame and Vulnerability
Join the Conversation!
👉 Visit mindfullymasculine.com for full episodes & bonus content
🎧 Subscribe & Leave a Review!
If you found this episode valuable, please rate & review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it helps us reach more men looking to grow in their relationships!
#MindfullyMasculine #DatingEssentials #MenAndRelationships #SelfGrowth #DatingConfidence #PersonalDevelopment #MenAndMindset
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Charles (00:00):
If you're in a position where you're like, no,
everything's fine, I'mcompletely happy with the
results that I'm experiencing inmy dating life, then, yeah,
don't listen to anything we haveto say or anybody else.
But the most frustratingposition I've ever been in is
when I'm not happy and I'm notsatisfied, but I'm also not
(00:21):
willing to let go of anythingthat I believe I already know to
be true.
Welcome back to the MindfullyMasculine Podcast.
This is Charles, all right.
In this episode, dan and I arestarting a new series.
We are going to review anddiscuss dating essentials for
men by Dr Robert Glover, and inthis first episode we will talk
(00:42):
about core beliefs and theirimpact on dating.
First episode we will talkabout core beliefs and their
impact on dating definition andcharacteristics of bad daters,
common self-limiting beliefs indating, developing confidence in
social skills, shame and itsrole in dating struggles, the
challenge of changing beliefs,the social aspect of dating and
happiness, practical steps forimproving social confidence and
(01:04):
our own commitments to personalgrowth and social interaction.
Please check out our website,mindfullymasculinecom.
You can find full audio andvideo episodes, as well as any
news that we eventually find fitto share.
Thanks and enjoy.
I need to do it, but I need to.
We'll see how it looks with thefinished product and hopefully
people who put our video podcaston their big screen TVs will be
(01:26):
able to take full advantage.
I don't even own a 4K.
My external monitor that I useat home is 4K.
Yeah, but I do not own a 4K TV.
I recently bought a new TV andput it in my bedroom in the
camper and it's only a 720p TV,so 4K.
I'm a long time away from usingany of that.
Yeah, we're going to try toupload this in 4k.
(01:47):
We'll see if it works out.
We're starting a new book today,the Dating Essentials for Men.
We're only going to do part one.
Part one is titled Masteringyour Mind.
I think it's a nice place to gofrom the man's guide to women.
Pretty much every good and badthing people bring into their
(02:07):
relationships are really aconsequence of what they believe
about the world, aboutthemselves, about the opposite
sex just all these core beliefsthat you walk in the door.
Whether that's a job,relationship or hobby, you're
bringing everything you believeto be true about the world and
(02:27):
how things work, how good or badof an experience that you have
is going to be based on thosebeliefs that you're walking in
with, and I would say I'd go astep further and say that the
root of all personal developmentis am I willing to say the
(02:48):
things I am certain about mightbe wrong.
If you're not willing toentertain the possibility that
all the stuff that I justbelieve on automatic to be the
fact of how the world works, Imight not be right about all of
it.
If you're not willing to saythat, I don't see how you're
going to make things better,whether that's your job, your
(03:08):
romantic relationship, yourhealth.
If you're not open to the factI'm wrong, I don't see how
things get better.
When it comes to men and theirromantic relationships, I think
our families and our society areencouraging us to walk in with
a lot of bad ideas that are notgoing to.
They're not going to benefit usor our partners.
Dan (03:30):
I absolutely agree yeah.
Charles (03:32):
Dr Glover takes the whole first part of this book.
So the book is datingessentials for men and he
basically says for the firsthalf of this book, all I'm going
to focus on is helping you getto the bottom of what do you
believe is just not true.
And I remember the first timethat I read this book I was like
, oh, I don't want to waste allthis time, I just want to get to
part two that teaches me how tomeet and date pretty girls.
(03:54):
But looking back at it throughthe prism of both successful and
failed relationships and upsand downs and stuff that I've
learned in my men's group, stuffthat I've learned in therapy,
no, the most important part ofthis book is the first half.
The first half is foundationalto any success or failure you're
(04:16):
going to experience with thestuff that you're going to learn
in the second half.
So I don't think we're going togo straight into the second
half.
I think we'll probably take abreak and hit some other book in
the meantime, but I definitelywant to hit the first half of
this book and help guys, let goof some of these self-limiting
beliefs that we all end up with,because if you let those go and
(04:40):
learn there's a better way tothink and a better way to feel
and a better way to act.
Then you'll have much moresuccess in the quality of those
relationships.
So he opens it up by talkingabout basically defining many
men, and certainly there's ahuge overlap with the men that
he intended to speak to, with noMore Mr Nice Guy and what he
(05:02):
calls BDs or bad daters.
No more mr nice guy and what hecalls bds or bad daters.
And there's a common threadthat runs through all men that
are bad daters.
And what is a bad dater?
I would say any man who findshimself either inside or outside
of a romantic relationship thatleads him to not feel satisfied
is a bad dater.
(05:24):
And so here are some of thosecharacteristics Isolation If you
find yourself the kind ofperson that shies away from
public spaces, especially publicspaces where you might be
called upon to talk to strangersor people that you're not super
comfortable with, maybe you'vegot some level of social anxiety
(05:47):
that can certainly contributeto you being considered a bad
dater.
In addition to that, someone whofeels like they've got a lack
of skills with dating, matingand maybe, most importantly,
breaking up If you're notpracticed at what it takes to
get dates and be inrelationships with potential at
(06:11):
least potential long-termpartners and you don't feel
comfortable with.
Okay, here's the right way way,the ethical way, the kind way,
the compassionate way, thedirect way to end a relationship
.
Then you're going to findyourself either avoiding
relationships entirely or beingstuck in relationships that you
should not be stuck in forlonger than you should be in
(06:33):
them.
And then, yeah, we'll get intosome of the specific
self-limiting beliefs that arevery common to men who are just
not good at dating.
Some of those and we'll startwith those first some of those
self-dating beliefs is this ideathat women have some sort of a
radar where they can immediatelylook at and decide who is a
(06:54):
good partner, bad partner, who'sa winner, who's a loser, and
that's just not true.
Now, that's different fromtalking about attraction.
When you walk into a room,there are going to be certain
things about the way you carryyourself, the way you style
yourself, that will givepotential dates, potential
partners, a little bit of a clueinto what you might be about
(07:18):
and what kind of things you puteffort into, and that could be
enough for them to not put outthose signals.
And, as we've learned in ourother books, women are pretty
much the choosers, and the waythey choose to signal is going
to be what determines whetheryou should or should not
approach them or open up to themfor a conversation.
(07:39):
And so, yeah, the way you walkinto a room and the effort that
you put in before you walk intothe room can certainly get you
that pass fail grade prettyquickly.
Dan (07:48):
Yeah, I think where a lot of guys run into problems and
confusion lies in ourinterpretation of how we
interact with women.
How we interact with women, Ithink a lot of times guys will
and I've been guilty of this tooassume too much out of not
(08:12):
enough information, so basicallythinking that this woman or a
woman would never be interestedin a conversation, dating,
whatever.
If they get some sort ofindication that they're not
initially attracted to the guyand spin that into just some
self-limiting beliefs and thenend up sabotaging what
(08:34):
potentially could be a goodrelationship or you could end up
going on a date with them.
I think a lot of that isprobably weight and the
difference where a lot of menvalue physical appearance and
its weight is a lot moresignificant to men than it is
typically to a woman for lookingto date somebody.
(09:00):
It's not just a physical thing.
There's a lot more value inother aspects of a man's life
and personality.
Sure, are immediately visiblefrom the surface.
And because I think we comefrom different types of
perspectives on attraction, interms of the weight of physical
appearance versus not, I thinkwe get confused and think, hey,
(09:24):
because we're getting someinitial indications of
disinterest that there's, youknow, stand a chance anymore,
and that's not necessarily true.
There's other things that youcan be doing that can actually.
That shouldn't stop you fromhaving that conversation and
just seeing, hey look there's.
And not just basing your ownvalue on an initial signal of
(09:46):
being of a woman not beinginterested in you.
Charles (09:59):
Right young men can learn that they're not being
taught by the fathers or mentorsin their lives is how do you
confidently express yourromantic interest in a woman
that makes her feel flatteredand safe?
And that's certainly nothing Iwas ever taught how to do.
Dan (10:16):
The thing that really struck me in terms of needing to
put work and time and effortinto this type of endeavor was
when Glover summed it up, whichis this whole idea of dating
really has only been about inhuman society for the last few
hundred years, and that's onlyin the West.
(10:37):
In the East, a lot of therelationships are set up by
families, and so that's notsomething that is born into our
DNA, whereas everything else ourbrains, our appetite, the food
that we prefer, just abouteverything else that we do as
human beings is coming fromthousands and thousands or
hundreds of thousands of yearsof evolution and our genes
(11:00):
dictating a lot of our behaviorsand our thoughts, and so this
is a new skill set.
This is think of it as a newtechnology.
You need to learn, and we'renot taught this in school and
you might pick up a little bitfrom looking around, from
friends, from family members, ormaybe online.
You might pick up something,but you really need to practice
this and you need to get it froma reliable source, a good
(11:23):
source, and we think Glover isdefinitely one of those.
Charles (11:27):
Yeah, I know he's definitely got a handle on that
and on this concept and that'swhy, as I've said in other
episodes, between the last bookwe did the Man's Guide to Women,
dating Essentials for Men andhow to Be a 3% man by Corey
Wayne.
Those are my top three as faras what you need to know about
being a successful dater.
And yeah, I just looked upwhile you're talking.
Romeo and julia was written byshakespeare 1597.
(11:49):
The whole point of that play islook how stupid it is to pick
your partner based on who youfeel love for.
That's what it was like.
Look how these two families arebeing destroyed because these
two little kids decided topursue relationships with who
they loved instead of who theywere supposed to marry yeah,
look at that, and that's thething too is I think a lot of
times that came from havingmultiple advisors.
Dan (12:12):
Right, I could try to take the, the burden and the weight
off of people who might befeeling really shitty about
themselves because of theseself-limiting beliefs that, like
, I'm not good at talking togirls no, you're not, and that's
okay Because you weren't taughtthat.
It'd be different if this wassomething that you were an
expert in your entire life.
(12:33):
You got a degree inrelationships and you were like
one of the Gottmans, and thenyou have bad relationships.
Okay, then you can feel badabout yourself.
Right, because you've beenspending your whole life
studying this and now you're notgood at it.
But we don't have thatexperience.
So, take that pressure off ofyourself.
Don't feel so bad, because thisisn't something that comes
natural and I think a lot oftimes we do that I know.
(12:56):
Sometimes, when I don't sleepwell, I start to get upset
because I'm not sleeping well.
The process of getting upsetmakes you sleep less well in the
future.
So same thing I think applieshere is take the pressure off of
yourself and realize, yep, youknow what you need to work on it
and that's okay, and take valuein the fact that you are doing
something.
(13:16):
You're listening to thispodcast, you're going to go read
this book.
Charles (13:19):
There's things that you are actively doing and then
feel good about that People thiswhole concept of for to make
yourself better at anything.
You have to admit that OK, Idon't have it all figured out,
and you also have to be willingto take a little bit of
responsibility.
Yeah, don't beat yourself upbecause you're not good at
something.
But you also can't say I'm notgood at dating because women are
(13:42):
trash, women are horrible.
Modern women are slutty.
You take responsibility.
No, don't blame.
Yeah, because if you're tryingto look outside yourself to say
the reason I'm not good at thisis everybody else's fault,
you're never going to get goodat it.
Dan (13:54):
Yeah, it's going to be a little bit of a challenge trying
to change everybody else.
I just feel like it's easier towork on yourself.
Charles (14:00):
Yeah, and there are good potential matches out there
.
There's good men, there's goodwomen there out there that are
looking to have romanticrelationships of all sorts with
other good partners.
If you're in a position whereyou're like, no, everything's
fine, I'm completely happy withthe results that I'm
experiencing in my dating life,then, yeah, don't listen to
anything we have to say oranybody else.
(14:21):
But the most frustratingposition I've ever been in is
when I'm not happy and I'm notsatisfied, but I'm also not
willing to let go of anythingthat I believe I already know to
be true.
I think I've got it all figuredout, but life's still not
working for me.
(14:41):
Then I must just be unlucky, orit must be everybody else's
problem, or whatever.
It's very hard to justify orrationalize the idea of well,
I'm not going to change anythingabout the way that I think, but
I'm also not happy with theresults that I'm getting, so
therefore it must be somebodyelse's fault.
So it sounds like you wentthrough something like that?
Dan (15:01):
Sure, Absolutely.
So then how did you end upfinding Dr Glover's work?
You told me I literally Iforgot.
Was it just the google searchor was it like was there
something that happened, or wasit, or did somebody mention or
refer him to you because he'sgot a lot of?
Charles (15:17):
he's got a lot of stuff I think I found no more, mr
nice guy.
I think I found it on reddit,where you know it was toward the
end of my marriage and I wasn'tfeeling good about the way
things went and I was lookingfor okay, so who's out there
talking about how relationshipsfail and what can be done to
(15:37):
either prevent the failure fromfinally happening or protect
yourself so that you don't findyourself making the same
mistakes or being in the samesituations again?
Dan (15:46):
So you already had the mindset of yeah, things were
already not great.
No, you already had the mindsetof I have it all figured out,
because if you did, you wouldn'tbe searching for that
information, correct, so it'snot like you're like oh, it was
all her fault and I have nothingto do with this and I'm good,
I'm going to move on and try andfind somebody else.
You, there's something insideof you or something happened
where you're like you know what?
(16:06):
There's something, there'ssomething that I am a part of or
responsible for, and if that'sthe case, then that means
there's something that canchange.
Charles (16:15):
Yeah, there's a.
There's a phrase that Gloverquotes.
It's also pretty commonly usedin 12 step recovery programs.
Which is your best thinking iswhat got you here?
And it's that a succinct way ofsaying listen, you're.
You've tried to solve all yourproblems with the brain inside
your skull and here you arestill having problems, so that
(16:38):
must mean that the fixes for allyour problems they're not up
here.
You need other brains involvedin this If you're going to come
to two answers that you cantrust or information from
Correct.
Dan (16:49):
Yeah, your brain is just fine, just doesn't have the
right programming, just yetcorrect.
Charles (16:53):
Yeah, the, the, the library that exists in my head
does not have a book to solve myproblem, and at least it
doesn't yet.
It can at some point in thefuture.
But I've had multiplerelationships where things were
not going well and I tried tofigure out okay, what can I do
to fix this, what can I do tomake this better?
And as long as I was relying onmy own understanding, my own
(17:19):
self-limiting beliefs, my owneducation, then, yeah, I was
going to be whatever little.
Oh, let me try this fix, let metry that fix.
It's still coming from thebroken brain that got me into
the problem in the first placeand you won't be unlucky.
Dan (17:32):
It might have some of that, might have worked, but let me
try this, let me try that, butuse the shortcut for the people
who haven't figured out yeah,yeah, because your brain, if you
haven't spontaneously figuredout life all on your own, then
that's because you.
Charles (17:49):
You either have some of the false information that's
going to get you into moretrouble and eventually, even if
you do luck out and come up witha solution a temporary solution
to your problems, there's stillprobably other things bouncing
around up there that are goingto also lead to more problems.
So, yeah, I would say thebiggest thing you have to do is
just be open to the idea of okay, there's, I got some stuff I've
(18:10):
got to learn, because the stuffthat and with my first marriage
I did all the things that Ithought made sense to have a
forever long-term relationshipand then ultimately, a divorce,
so the stuff that I thought Iknew that it took to have a
(18:32):
forever relationship and be aforever husband, it's failed me,
and so now I need some newinformation and no More.
Mr Nice Guy was one of thefirst books that I came across
when I was making that search.
Dan (18:45):
Yeah, I know I didn't come from an upbringing where I know
what it takes to have along-term happy relationship.
You did not either.
Charles (18:53):
If you go through a book like this, especially the
first part, you're going to inall likelihood, hear some things
that you don't believe are true, and they will fly in the face
of what you already believeabout yourself, about women,
about relationships.
And then you've got to decideokay, I'm going to be open to
this doctor telling me thingsthat I don't already think are
(19:16):
true.
So either he's wrong or I'mwrong.
And look if, if you want todecide, okay, he must be wrong.
So I'm going to keep believingwhat I'm believing and I'm going
to keep doing what I'm doing.
Then keep getting what you'regetting, get what you're getting
, and okay, or you can say, allright, maybe he knows more than
I do, and maybe the science andthe community, maybe there's
(19:41):
some expertise here that I cantake advantage of that I don't
already have.
Dan (19:42):
Yeah, a lot of times us as humans, we just need to be aware
that we're doing something inorder for it to change Right.
And that's one of the benefitsof this book was he really goes
very specific, into a lot ofdetail about very common
self-limiting beliefs that weeither have or we have a flavor
of.
And sometimes it was just himjust mentioning and going oh
(20:04):
yeah, that applies to me.
Okay, yeah, I didn't realize Iwas doing that, and now I'm at
least open to doing somethingdifferent because I'm aware that
I need it, I'm aware that I'mdoing it, or now that I'm aware
that I'm doing it, now I go okay, I don't really like where this
is going or the results I'vegotten.
So that, in and of itself, justlistening to him list out the
(20:25):
self-limiting beliefs was a wayto open up and to realize hey,
there's some things that I'm notdoing at least in his opinion,
the right way.
Charles (20:37):
Right, and, yeah, if you're, if your results are also
not what you want them to be,then that's a good indicator
that there's things you could bedoing better.
Okay, so the the big part ofthis chapter, which I'm glad he
spent some time on this I it wasone of those things that I
think he said in interviews thathe wished he spent more time on
in no more, mr Nice guy whichis the idea of shame,
(20:59):
specifically what he calls toxicshame.
Um, and this is a place thatBernie Brown does a lot of work
as well, and I find the way theytalk about it to match up,
which is good, because whensomebody is talking about shame
and they sound like Brene Brown,that's probably a good
indication that they're right.
I like the distinction that andI believe that's something that
(21:20):
she has said in her work guiltis I did something wrong, shame
is I am something wrong, andguilt is good when you feel I
did something wrong, then thatcan prevent you from doing that
wrong thing in the future, andso you and the people around you
benefit from that where, withshame of I am something wrong,
(21:43):
that that feels yeah, any evenefforts of self-improvement,
feel like you're throwing awaygood money after bad.
Because why there's?
If there's something wrong withyou inherently, why waste any
time or money trying to makeyourself better?
Because you're just going to bewasting it?
And where does that come from?
So this is the tough part.
That kind of shame comes frombeing a kid who doesn't have
(22:06):
your needs met and what we'renot talking about.
You don't have to have parentsthat were putting cigarettes out
on you to get out of yourchildhood toxic shame.
It could.
Your parents could have beengreat people who did the best
they could with what they hadavailable, but because none of
us grow up in perfect familysystems, we have needs that are
not met.
And then, as kids, we try totell ourselves a story of why,
(22:29):
when I needed this whether thatwas to be held or a warmer
jacket, whatever the thing wasthat you needed and you didn't
get it.
What's the story you tellyourself about?
Why didn't I get what I needed?
And I thought about I wasthinking about this on the way
over this morning where, if youare, if you've been convinced of
something that's not true, thenyou can also be convinced out
(22:52):
of false belief If you've beentalked into or persuaded into
believing something that's nottrue, then you could be talked
out of or persuaded out of it aswell.
But the problem is, when you'rea kid and that frontal lobe has
not yet been formed, there's nota lot of persuading or
reasoning going on at that point.
There's just feeling You'rebeing field into believing
(23:15):
things.
And so if you've been fieldinto believing things about
yourself and the world that arenot true, you can't be reasoned
or persuaded out of thosebeliefs.
Dan (23:26):
Yeah, and I think one of the reasons for that is the way
our brains work is, once webelieve something, brains look
for evidence to support thatbelief?
Charles (23:37):
yeah, he calls it the paradigm effect.
We've also confirmation.
Dan (23:40):
Bias is another way to think about it, and so then,
once you're initially programmedas a kid to believe these
certain things, now there's timeand experience that is brought
into you as you age where you'relooking for those beliefs out
in the real world, and so it's alot more difficult then to take
that book off the shelf thatwas initially put on there,
(24:02):
because you've found evidence inthe real world, whereas before
you didn't have that to actually, like you said, real world,
whereas before you didn't havethat to actually, like you said,
evaluate and decide.
This is not an actual.
This isn't accurate for me.
And, yeah, the more time we goon believing these things and
that's the whole can't teach anold dog new tricks.
That's part of I think that'swhat leads to that expression is
(24:23):
we've been doing something thesame way for so long.
It's very difficult to undothat.
Charles (24:29):
Yeah's where, again, it comes in to the how do those
ideas and beliefs come in andhow do they get out?
And the way they come in has tobe the way that they come out,
which, again, some.
When you're a small enough kid,some of this stuff happened to
you before you were even verbal,much less before you had a
reasoning mind, and you grew upfeeling, oh, I'm worthless.
(24:50):
Somebody coming along andsaying no, no, you're not
worthless, you're worth a lot,and giving you a thumbs up.
That's not going to undo whathappened.
And that's where other, lessconvenient, more difficult
things come in, like therapy andlike recovery groups.
And you, you have to feel yourway out of those beliefs, not
(25:12):
just be talked out of.
And, yeah, it all often doesstart with dialogue.
You have to have conversations,but it's not just about the
conversations, not just aboutbeing convinced.
It's about feeling what youneed, to feel that you didn't
feel back then, so that you canmove forward.
And that takes a lot of work.
And it takes a lot of work thatsome people not just men, but
men and women, they never get tothe point where they decide
(25:35):
okay, I'm going to put in thework, I'm not going to accept
that the things hanging aroundin my skull are what's causing
me to not have what I want inlife.
I'm going to just move on tothe next thing the next job, the
next relationship, the nextstate that I want to live in the
next country.
I want to live in the nextcountry.
I want to live in whatever itis.
(25:56):
You can just find lots of waysto run away from your problems,
but if your problems are in here, they're going to find you.
Dan (26:02):
Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why a lot of people
have to hit rock bottom becausethey feel worse keeping on doing
the same thing that they'vebeen struggling with.
That feels now worse thanputting in the effort to make
the change and doing somethingdifferently.
And you're right, it does takea lot of work, time and effort
and people don't want to do thatHumans and our brains.
Charles (26:25):
We're always trying to conserve energy, so it needs to
be really motivating andsometimes it's got to be that
pain level of feeling all of thebad, horrible feelings that
will actually get you toactually take action that will
stick into a me in a meaningfulway which is one of the things
in modern times that makes useven harder to get over, is
(26:48):
because it's the rock bottom isharder to hit, especially when
it comes to things likeloneliness, because there's
there are so many poorfacsimiles of love that you can
find now or ways to dullyourself from the pain of not
having those things makes itharder to to hit that rock
(27:09):
bottom.
Because, no matter how lonelyyou are, you can find moving
pictures and sound of a womanwho is making you feel things
that feel like intimacy, feellike sex, feel like whatever.
And yeah, you've got that.
You've got drugs and alcohol,you've got the stimulation from
TV shows and video games.
(27:30):
There's a lot of things thatwhen you start feeling bad about
yourself, you can distractyourself from those bad feelings
and that could often stop youfrom making these big changes
that you need to make.
And the other thing is, yeah,because of that paradigm effect
or that confirmation bias, everytime you think about going out
and trying something new,meeting new friends, meeting new
(27:51):
ladies, whatever it is thatvoice in your head can say just
don't bother, just stay home.
You can have more fun if bingethe new netflix show or download
the latest game for your xboxor your ps5 or whatever, and say
, uh, you know what, I'll just.
I'll just not risk somethingnew because, again, you've got
this idea that what's in it forme, what's in it for me to go
(28:12):
put myself out there and try tomeet somebody new or try to go
to a new activity or newwhatever.
I'm just going to meet peoplewho don't think I'm good enough
and I'm not going to getanything from them that I need
anyway.
So it can be tough and I listen, I'm a bit of a homebody myself
and so I not just in the datingspace, but just the do I really
want to do?
I want to shower, shave, getdressed up and go do something
(28:34):
new at a new place.
It's as simple as trying newrestaurants where it's like
there's so many places aroundthat I know that I like already.
Why would I want to go risktrying some new place where I
may be disappointed and, yeah,it really does come down to do?
I want to take on the identityof somebody who risks new things
, who risks the disappointmentof a new thing, because my world
(28:56):
can get bigger when it doeswork out that it's worth letting
(29:18):
go of your comfortable miseryfor things that could be
uncomfortably fun and amazing orthings that could be
uncomfortably awkward and scary,but that's what we're going to
do, so we're going to go throughand try to challenge some of
those self-limiting beliefsabout all the ways you don't
think you're enough for the nextrelationship or the next new
thing.
We want you to try, and you andI are already in relationships
(29:41):
but I'm gonna try to go throughsome of these things.
And one of the biggest thingsthat he talks about is spend
more time being in places wherepeople are and change your route
.
Linger in public yeah, andthat's one thing I need to
definitely do more of.
Because, yeah, not only forjust being more social, and one
of the things dr glover says inhis interviews I don't know if
(30:02):
he says it directly in this bookbut he also says I'm not trying
to get men more sex or evenlove.
What I'm trying to do is getmen to be more social, and I
will use their desire for loveand sex as motivation to get
them more social.
Because, honestly, I really dothink that when it comes to
crime, when it comes topolitical unrest, a lot of that
(30:26):
stuff could be fixed by men whoare more comfortable having
conversations and being socialhaving conversations and being
social.
Dan (30:32):
I just read the there's a Harvard medical school I think
it was a medical school studyThey've tracked people since
1938 and they've tracked kids ofthese people and they're
looking for like indications oflongevity and they said by far
it's clearly insignificant.
The biggest indicator of thelongest lifespan is your social
(30:54):
connections.
More than diet, more thanexercise, more than genetics,
anything else, it's the peoplewho have the most active social
lives live the longest.
So Glover's onto somethingthere in terms of human
happiness it's our socialconnections.
And yeah, basically he isselling people what they want
right which is the book ondating but he's giving them what
they want right which is a bookon dating but he's giving them
(31:15):
what they need, which is theself-confidence and the
awareness that being social andhaving these social connections
is essential to happiness andfulfillment.
Charles (31:27):
Yeah, and so I'm going to use it as an opportunity to
get a little bit uncomfortablemyself and spend more time.
My job is mostly work from home.
It's been on the road quite abit more lately, being busy
doing stuff, going to clients,but on those days when I can
just stay at home, I'm going totry not to just stay at home and
just be out there and workingin coffee shops and going to the
(31:50):
gym and doing stuff that Idon't feel like I need to do,
but I do.
It is a being.
Social is certainly a part ofyour overall health.
Dan (32:00):
I used to go to Starbucks and work regularly, but when I
did do it, I didn't say hi toanybody I didn't you know what
I'm saying.
I but I was.
At least I was putting myselfout there or whatever, and then
I'd see some of the same peopleover and over again, but it
never extended a greeting to anyof them or try to keep their
names or anything.
It's something I absolutelycould work on as well.
Charles (32:17):
Yeah, so I'm going to, I'm going to try, I'm going to
go through and do the thingsthat this book recommends.
We do the ones that make sense,since I'm already in a
relationship.
Most people who are readingthis and the guys who are going
to be very interested in hearingthis series on our podcast are
probably not the ones that arealready in a relationship.
But there's some stuff,especially in this first part,
about your self-limiting beliefs.
If you can let go of some ofthose, you'll be a better
(32:39):
partner for the relationshipyou're already in.
So that's something I'm lookingto get.
Well, for the next chapter thejoy of dating, uncover and
overcome your self-limitingbeliefs we will go down the
different types.
We'll go through the littlephrases you can read to yourself
, will expose thoseself-limiting beliefs and then
also see in the language thatyou use to talk to yourself,
(33:01):
what kind of language are youusing.
That is reinforcing those slbs.
So I'm looking forward to that.
And, yeah, this is a good bookand I like this kind of material
.
So I'm excited to go through itand I probably listened to this
book four times now and I candefinitely handle another listen
to it because it it is thatgood.
So I hope everybody.
(33:21):
We don't have any affiliatecodes, so go get it from the
library, go buy it from amazon,get it wherever you want to get
it and enjoy going through itwith us.
All right, thanks, dan.
We will talk to you next time.
See you soon.
Thank you so so much forlistening to the entire episode,
start to finish, dan, and Icertainly appreciate it.
We hope that you will check outour website,
mindfullymasculinecom, for ouraudio episodes, video episodes
(33:42):
and any other resources that wewould like to share.
Thanks very much, and we'lltalk to you next time.
If you're in a position where you're like, no,
everything's fine, I'mcompletely happy with the
results that I'm experiencing inmy dating life, then, yeah,
don't listen to anything we haveto say or anybody else.
But the most frustratingposition I've ever been in is
when I'm not happy and I'm notsatisfied, but I'm also not
(00:21):
willing to let go of anythingthat I believe I already know to
be true.
Welcome back to the MindfullyMasculine Podcast.
This is Charles, all right.
In this episode, dan and I arestarting a new series.
We are going to review anddiscuss dating essentials for
men by Dr Robert Glover, and inthis first episode we will talk
(00:42):
about core beliefs and theirimpact on dating.
First episode we will talkabout core beliefs and their
impact on dating definition andcharacteristics of bad daters,
common self-limiting beliefs indating, developing confidence in
social skills, shame and itsrole in dating struggles, the
challenge of changing beliefs,the social aspect of dating and
happiness, practical steps forimproving social confidence and
(01:04):
our own commitments to personalgrowth and social interaction.
Please check out our website,mindfullymasculinecom.
You can find full audio andvideo episodes, as well as any
news that we eventually find fitto share.
Thanks and enjoy.
I need to do it, but I need to.
We'll see how it looks with thefinished product and hopefully
people who put our video podcaston their big screen TVs will be
(01:26):
able to take full advantage.
I don't even own a 4K.
My external monitor that I useat home is 4K.
Yeah, but I do not own a 4K TV.
I recently bought a new TV andput it in my bedroom in the
camper and it's only a 720p TV,so 4K.
I'm a long time away from usingany of that.
Yeah, we're going to try toupload this in 4k.
(01:47):
We'll see if it works out.
We're starting a new book today,the Dating Essentials for Men.
We're only going to do part one.
Part one is titled Masteringyour Mind.
I think it's a nice place to gofrom the man's guide to women.
Pretty much every good and badthing people bring into their
(02:07):
relationships are really aconsequence of what they believe
about the world, aboutthemselves, about the opposite
sex just all these core beliefsthat you walk in the door.
Whether that's a job,relationship or hobby, you're
bringing everything you believeto be true about the world and
(02:27):
how things work, how good or badof an experience that you have
is going to be based on thosebeliefs that you're walking in
with, and I would say I'd go astep further and say that the
root of all personal developmentis am I willing to say the
(02:48):
things I am certain about mightbe wrong.
If you're not willing toentertain the possibility that
all the stuff that I justbelieve on automatic to be the
fact of how the world works, Imight not be right about all of
it.
If you're not willing to saythat, I don't see how you're
going to make things better,whether that's your job, your
(03:08):
romantic relationship, yourhealth.
If you're not open to the factI'm wrong, I don't see how
things get better.
When it comes to men and theirromantic relationships, I think
our families and our society areencouraging us to walk in with
a lot of bad ideas that are notgoing to.
They're not going to benefit usor our partners.
Dan (03:30):
I absolutely agree yeah.
Charles (03:32):
Dr Glover takes the whole first part of this book.
So the book is datingessentials for men and he
basically says for the firsthalf of this book, all I'm going
to focus on is helping you getto the bottom of what do you
believe is just not true.
And I remember the first timethat I read this book I was like
, oh, I don't want to waste allthis time, I just want to get to
part two that teaches me how tomeet and date pretty girls.
(03:54):
But looking back at it throughthe prism of both successful and
failed relationships and upsand downs and stuff that I've
learned in my men's group, stuffthat I've learned in therapy,
no, the most important part ofthis book is the first half.
The first half is foundationalto any success or failure you're
(04:16):
going to experience with thestuff that you're going to learn
in the second half.
So I don't think we're going togo straight into the second
half.
I think we'll probably take abreak and hit some other book in
the meantime, but I definitelywant to hit the first half of
this book and help guys, let goof some of these self-limiting
beliefs that we all end up with,because if you let those go and
(04:40):
learn there's a better way tothink and a better way to feel
and a better way to act.
Then you'll have much moresuccess in the quality of those
relationships.
So he opens it up by talkingabout basically defining many
men, and certainly there's ahuge overlap with the men that
he intended to speak to, with noMore Mr Nice Guy and what he
(05:02):
calls BDs or bad daters.
No more mr nice guy and what hecalls bds or bad daters.
And there's a common threadthat runs through all men that
are bad daters.
And what is a bad dater?
I would say any man who findshimself either inside or outside
of a romantic relationship thatleads him to not feel satisfied
is a bad dater.
(05:24):
And so here are some of thosecharacteristics Isolation If you
find yourself the kind ofperson that shies away from
public spaces, especially publicspaces where you might be
called upon to talk to strangersor people that you're not super
comfortable with, maybe you'vegot some level of social anxiety
(05:47):
that can certainly contributeto you being considered a bad
dater.
In addition to that, someone whofeels like they've got a lack
of skills with dating, matingand maybe, most importantly,
breaking up If you're notpracticed at what it takes to
get dates and be inrelationships with potential at
(06:11):
least potential long-termpartners and you don't feel
comfortable with.
Okay, here's the right way way,the ethical way, the kind way,
the compassionate way, thedirect way to end a relationship
.
Then you're going to findyourself either avoiding
relationships entirely or beingstuck in relationships that you
should not be stuck in forlonger than you should be in
(06:33):
them.
And then, yeah, we'll get intosome of the specific
self-limiting beliefs that arevery common to men who are just
not good at dating.
Some of those and we'll startwith those first some of those
self-dating beliefs is this ideathat women have some sort of a
radar where they can immediatelylook at and decide who is a
(06:54):
good partner, bad partner, who'sa winner, who's a loser, and
that's just not true.
Now, that's different fromtalking about attraction.
When you walk into a room,there are going to be certain
things about the way you carryyourself, the way you style
yourself, that will givepotential dates, potential
partners, a little bit of a clueinto what you might be about
(07:18):
and what kind of things you puteffort into, and that could be
enough for them to not put outthose signals.
And, as we've learned in ourother books, women are pretty
much the choosers, and the waythey choose to signal is going
to be what determines whetheryou should or should not
approach them or open up to themfor a conversation.
(07:39):
And so, yeah, the way you walkinto a room and the effort that
you put in before you walk intothe room can certainly get you
that pass fail grade prettyquickly.
Dan (07:48):
Yeah, I think where a lot of guys run into problems and
confusion lies in ourinterpretation of how we
interact with women.
How we interact with women, Ithink a lot of times guys will
and I've been guilty of this tooassume too much out of not
(08:12):
enough information, so basicallythinking that this woman or a
woman would never be interestedin a conversation, dating,
whatever.
If they get some sort ofindication that they're not
initially attracted to the guyand spin that into just some
self-limiting beliefs and thenend up sabotaging what
(08:34):
potentially could be a goodrelationship or you could end up
going on a date with them.
I think a lot of that isprobably weight and the
difference where a lot of menvalue physical appearance and
its weight is a lot moresignificant to men than it is
typically to a woman for lookingto date somebody.
(09:00):
It's not just a physical thing.
There's a lot more value inother aspects of a man's life
and personality.
Sure, are immediately visiblefrom the surface.
And because I think we comefrom different types of
perspectives on attraction, interms of the weight of physical
appearance versus not, I thinkwe get confused and think, hey,
(09:24):
because we're getting someinitial indications of
disinterest that there's, youknow, stand a chance anymore,
and that's not necessarily true.
There's other things that youcan be doing that can actually.
That shouldn't stop you fromhaving that conversation and
just seeing, hey look there's.
And not just basing your ownvalue on an initial signal of
(09:46):
being of a woman not beinginterested in you.
Charles (09:59):
Right young men can learn that they're not being
taught by the fathers or mentorsin their lives is how do you
confidently express yourromantic interest in a woman
that makes her feel flatteredand safe?
And that's certainly nothing Iwas ever taught how to do.
Dan (10:16):
The thing that really struck me in terms of needing to
put work and time and effortinto this type of endeavor was
when Glover summed it up, whichis this whole idea of dating
really has only been about inhuman society for the last few
hundred years, and that's onlyin the West.
(10:37):
In the East, a lot of therelationships are set up by
families, and so that's notsomething that is born into our
DNA, whereas everything else ourbrains, our appetite, the food
that we prefer, just abouteverything else that we do as
human beings is coming fromthousands and thousands or
hundreds of thousands of yearsof evolution and our genes
(11:00):
dictating a lot of our behaviorsand our thoughts, and so this
is a new skill set.
This is think of it as a newtechnology.
You need to learn, and we'renot taught this in school and
you might pick up a little bitfrom looking around, from
friends, from family members, ormaybe online.
You might pick up something,but you really need to practice
this and you need to get it froma reliable source, a good
(11:23):
source, and we think Glover isdefinitely one of those.
Charles (11:27):
Yeah, I know he's definitely got a handle on that
and on this concept and that'swhy, as I've said in other
episodes, between the last bookwe did the Man's Guide to Women,
dating Essentials for Men andhow to Be a 3% man by Corey
Wayne.
Those are my top three as faras what you need to know about
being a successful dater.
And yeah, I just looked upwhile you're talking.
Romeo and julia was written byshakespeare 1597.
(11:49):
The whole point of that play islook how stupid it is to pick
your partner based on who youfeel love for.
That's what it was like.
Look how these two families arebeing destroyed because these
two little kids decided topursue relationships with who
they loved instead of who theywere supposed to marry yeah,
look at that, and that's thething too is I think a lot of
times that came from havingmultiple advisors.
Dan (12:12):
Right, I could try to take the, the burden and the weight
off of people who might befeeling really shitty about
themselves because of theseself-limiting beliefs that, like
, I'm not good at talking togirls no, you're not, and that's
okay Because you weren't taughtthat.
It'd be different if this wassomething that you were an
expert in your entire life.
(12:33):
You got a degree inrelationships and you were like
one of the Gottmans, and thenyou have bad relationships.
Okay, then you can feel badabout yourself.
Right, because you've beenspending your whole life
studying this and now you're notgood at it.
But we don't have thatexperience.
So, take that pressure off ofyourself.
Don't feel so bad, because thisisn't something that comes
natural and I think a lot oftimes we do that I know.
(12:56):
Sometimes, when I don't sleepwell, I start to get upset
because I'm not sleeping well.
The process of getting upsetmakes you sleep less well in the
future.
So same thing I think applieshere is take the pressure off of
yourself and realize, yep, youknow what you need to work on it
and that's okay, and take valuein the fact that you are doing
something.
(13:16):
You're listening to thispodcast, you're going to go read
this book.
Charles (13:19):
There's things that you are actively doing and then
feel good about that People thiswhole concept of for to make
yourself better at anything.
You have to admit that OK, Idon't have it all figured out,
and you also have to be willingto take a little bit of
responsibility.
Yeah, don't beat yourself upbecause you're not good at
something.
But you also can't say I'm notgood at dating because women are
(13:42):
trash, women are horrible.
Modern women are slutty.
You take responsibility.
No, don't blame.
Yeah, because if you're tryingto look outside yourself to say
the reason I'm not good at thisis everybody else's fault,
you're never going to get goodat it.
Dan (13:54):
Yeah, it's going to be a little bit of a challenge trying
to change everybody else.
I just feel like it's easier towork on yourself.
Charles (14:00):
Yeah, and there are good potential matches out there
.
There's good men, there's goodwomen there out there that are
looking to have romanticrelationships of all sorts with
other good partners.
If you're in a position whereyou're like, no, everything's
fine, I'm completely happy withthe results that I'm
experiencing in my dating life,then, yeah, don't listen to
anything we have to say oranybody else.
(14:21):
But the most frustratingposition I've ever been in is
when I'm not happy and I'm notsatisfied, but I'm also not
willing to let go of anythingthat I believe I already know to
be true.
I think I've got it all figuredout, but life's still not
working for me.
(14:41):
Then I must just be unlucky, orit must be everybody else's
problem, or whatever.
It's very hard to justify orrationalize the idea of well,
I'm not going to change anythingabout the way that I think, but
I'm also not happy with theresults that I'm getting, so
therefore it must be somebodyelse's fault.
So it sounds like you wentthrough something like that?
Dan (15:01):
Sure, Absolutely.
So then how did you end upfinding Dr Glover's work?
You told me I literally Iforgot.
Was it just the google searchor was it like was there
something that happened, or wasit, or did somebody mention or
refer him to you because he'sgot a lot of?
Charles (15:17):
he's got a lot of stuff I think I found no more, mr
nice guy.
I think I found it on reddit,where you know it was toward the
end of my marriage and I wasn'tfeeling good about the way
things went and I was lookingfor okay, so who's out there
talking about how relationshipsfail and what can be done to
(15:37):
either prevent the failure fromfinally happening or protect
yourself so that you don't findyourself making the same
mistakes or being in the samesituations again?
Dan (15:46):
So you already had the mindset of yeah, things were
already not great.
No, you already had the mindsetof I have it all figured out,
because if you did, you wouldn'tbe searching for that
information, correct, so it'snot like you're like oh, it was
all her fault and I have nothingto do with this and I'm good,
I'm going to move on and try andfind somebody else.
You, there's something insideof you or something happened
where you're like you know what?
(16:06):
There's something, there'ssomething that I am a part of or
responsible for, and if that'sthe case, then that means
there's something that canchange.
Charles (16:15):
Yeah, there's a.
There's a phrase that Gloverquotes.
It's also pretty commonly usedin 12 step recovery programs.
Which is your best thinking iswhat got you here?
And it's that a succinct way ofsaying listen, you're.
You've tried to solve all yourproblems with the brain inside
your skull and here you arestill having problems, so that
(16:38):
must mean that the fixes for allyour problems they're not up
here.
You need other brains involvedin this If you're going to come
to two answers that you cantrust or information from
Correct.
Dan (16:49):
Yeah, your brain is just fine, just doesn't have the
right programming, just yetcorrect.
Charles (16:53):
Yeah, the, the, the library that exists in my head
does not have a book to solve myproblem, and at least it
doesn't yet.
It can at some point in thefuture.
But I've had multiplerelationships where things were
not going well and I tried tofigure out okay, what can I do
to fix this, what can I do tomake this better?
And as long as I was relying onmy own understanding, my own
(17:19):
self-limiting beliefs, my owneducation, then, yeah, I was
going to be whatever little.
Oh, let me try this fix, let metry that fix.
It's still coming from thebroken brain that got me into
the problem in the first placeand you won't be unlucky.
Dan (17:32):
It might have some of that, might have worked, but let me
try this, let me try that, butuse the shortcut for the people
who haven't figured out yeah,yeah, because your brain, if you
haven't spontaneously figuredout life all on your own, then
that's because you.
Charles (17:49):
You either have some of the false information that's
going to get you into moretrouble and eventually, even if
you do luck out and come up witha solution a temporary solution
to your problems, there's stillprobably other things bouncing
around up there that are goingto also lead to more problems.
So, yeah, I would say thebiggest thing you have to do is
just be open to the idea of okay, there's, I got some stuff I've
(18:10):
got to learn, because the stuffthat and with my first marriage
I did all the things that Ithought made sense to have a
forever long-term relationshipand then ultimately, a divorce,
so the stuff that I thought Iknew that it took to have a
(18:32):
forever relationship and be aforever husband, it's failed me,
and so now I need some newinformation and no More.
Mr Nice Guy was one of thefirst books that I came across
when I was making that search.
Dan (18:45):
Yeah, I know I didn't come from an upbringing where I know
what it takes to have along-term happy relationship.
You did not either.
Charles (18:53):
If you go through a book like this, especially the
first part, you're going to inall likelihood, hear some things
that you don't believe are true, and they will fly in the face
of what you already believeabout yourself, about women,
about relationships.
And then you've got to decideokay, I'm going to be open to
this doctor telling me thingsthat I don't already think are
(19:16):
true.
So either he's wrong or I'mwrong.
And look if, if you want todecide, okay, he must be wrong.
So I'm going to keep believingwhat I'm believing and I'm going
to keep doing what I'm doing.
Then keep getting what you'regetting, get what you're getting
, and okay, or you can say, allright, maybe he knows more than
I do, and maybe the science andthe community, maybe there's
(19:41):
some expertise here that I cantake advantage of that I don't
already have.
Dan (19:42):
Yeah, a lot of times us as humans, we just need to be aware
that we're doing something inorder for it to change Right.
And that's one of the benefitsof this book was he really goes
very specific, into a lot ofdetail about very common
self-limiting beliefs that weeither have or we have a flavor
of.
And sometimes it was just himjust mentioning and going oh
(20:04):
yeah, that applies to me.
Okay, yeah, I didn't realize Iwas doing that, and now I'm at
least open to doing somethingdifferent because I'm aware that
I need it, I'm aware that I'mdoing it, or now that I'm aware
that I'm doing it, now I go okay, I don't really like where this
is going or the results I'vegotten.
So that, in and of itself, justlistening to him list out the
(20:25):
self-limiting beliefs was a wayto open up and to realize hey,
there's some things that I'm notdoing at least in his opinion,
the right way.
Charles (20:37):
Right, and, yeah, if you're, if your results are also
not what you want them to be,then that's a good indicator
that there's things you could bedoing better.
Okay, so the the big part ofthis chapter, which I'm glad he
spent some time on this I it wasone of those things that I
think he said in interviews thathe wished he spent more time on
in no more, mr Nice guy whichis the idea of shame,
(20:59):
specifically what he calls toxicshame.
Um, and this is a place thatBernie Brown does a lot of work
as well, and I find the way theytalk about it to match up,
which is good, because whensomebody is talking about shame
and they sound like Brene Brown,that's probably a good
indication that they're right.
I like the distinction that andI believe that's something that
(21:20):
she has said in her work guiltis I did something wrong, shame
is I am something wrong, andguilt is good when you feel I
did something wrong, then thatcan prevent you from doing that
wrong thing in the future, andso you and the people around you
benefit from that where, withshame of I am something wrong,
(21:43):
that that feels yeah, any evenefforts of self-improvement,
feel like you're throwing awaygood money after bad.
Because why there's?
If there's something wrong withyou inherently, why waste any
time or money trying to makeyourself better?
Because you're just going to bewasting it?
And where does that come from?
So this is the tough part.
That kind of shame comes frombeing a kid who doesn't have
(22:06):
your needs met and what we'renot talking about.
You don't have to have parentsthat were putting cigarettes out
on you to get out of yourchildhood toxic shame.
It could.
Your parents could have beengreat people who did the best
they could with what they hadavailable, but because none of
us grow up in perfect familysystems, we have needs that are
not met.
And then, as kids, we try totell ourselves a story of why,
(22:29):
when I needed this whether thatwas to be held or a warmer
jacket, whatever the thing wasthat you needed and you didn't
get it.
What's the story you tellyourself about?
Why didn't I get what I needed?
And I thought about I wasthinking about this on the way
over this morning where, if youare, if you've been convinced of
something that's not true, thenyou can also be convinced out
(22:52):
of false belief If you've beentalked into or persuaded into
believing something that's nottrue, then you could be talked
out of or persuaded out of it aswell.
But the problem is, when you'rea kid and that frontal lobe has
not yet been formed, there's nota lot of persuading or
reasoning going on at that point.
There's just feeling You'rebeing field into believing
(23:15):
things.
And so if you've been fieldinto believing things about
yourself and the world that arenot true, you can't be reasoned
or persuaded out of thosebeliefs.
Dan (23:26):
Yeah, and I think one of the reasons for that is the way
our brains work is, once webelieve something, brains look
for evidence to support thatbelief?
Charles (23:37):
yeah, he calls it the paradigm effect.
We've also confirmation.
Dan (23:40):
Bias is another way to think about it, and so then,
once you're initially programmedas a kid to believe these
certain things, now there's timeand experience that is brought
into you as you age where you'relooking for those beliefs out
in the real world, and so it's alot more difficult then to take
that book off the shelf thatwas initially put on there,
(24:02):
because you've found evidence inthe real world, whereas before
you didn't have that to actually, like you said, real world,
whereas before you didn't havethat to actually, like you said,
evaluate and decide.
This is not an actual.
This isn't accurate for me.
And, yeah, the more time we goon believing these things and
that's the whole can't teach anold dog new tricks.
That's part of I think that'swhat leads to that expression is
(24:23):
we've been doing something thesame way for so long.
It's very difficult to undothat.
Charles (24:29):
Yeah's where, again, it comes in to the how do those
ideas and beliefs come in andhow do they get out?
And the way they come in has tobe the way that they come out,
which, again, some.
When you're a small enough kid,some of this stuff happened to
you before you were even verbal,much less before you had a
reasoning mind, and you grew upfeeling, oh, I'm worthless.
(24:50):
Somebody coming along andsaying no, no, you're not
worthless, you're worth a lot,and giving you a thumbs up.
That's not going to undo whathappened.
And that's where other, lessconvenient, more difficult
things come in, like therapy andlike recovery groups.
And you, you have to feel yourway out of those beliefs, not
(25:12):
just be talked out of.
And, yeah, it all often doesstart with dialogue.
You have to have conversations,but it's not just about the
conversations, not just aboutbeing convinced.
It's about feeling what youneed, to feel that you didn't
feel back then, so that you canmove forward.
And that takes a lot of work.
And it takes a lot of work thatsome people not just men, but
men and women, they never get tothe point where they decide
(25:35):
okay, I'm going to put in thework, I'm not going to accept
that the things hanging aroundin my skull are what's causing
me to not have what I want inlife.
I'm going to just move on tothe next thing the next job, the
next relationship, the nextstate that I want to live in the
next country.
I want to live in the nextcountry.
I want to live in whatever itis.
(25:56):
You can just find lots of waysto run away from your problems,
but if your problems are in here, they're going to find you.
Dan (26:02):
Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why a lot of people
have to hit rock bottom becausethey feel worse keeping on doing
the same thing that they'vebeen struggling with.
That feels now worse thanputting in the effort to make
the change and doing somethingdifferently.
And you're right, it does takea lot of work, time and effort
and people don't want to do thatHumans and our brains.
Charles (26:25):
We're always trying to conserve energy, so it needs to
be really motivating andsometimes it's got to be that
pain level of feeling all of thebad, horrible feelings that
will actually get you toactually take action that will
stick into a me in a meaningfulway which is one of the things
in modern times that makes useven harder to get over, is
(26:48):
because it's the rock bottom isharder to hit, especially when
it comes to things likeloneliness, because there's
there are so many poorfacsimiles of love that you can
find now or ways to dullyourself from the pain of not
having those things makes itharder to to hit that rock
(27:09):
bottom.
Because, no matter how lonelyyou are, you can find moving
pictures and sound of a womanwho is making you feel things
that feel like intimacy, feellike sex, feel like whatever.
And yeah, you've got that.
You've got drugs and alcohol,you've got the stimulation from
TV shows and video games.
(27:30):
There's a lot of things thatwhen you start feeling bad about
yourself, you can distractyourself from those bad feelings
and that could often stop youfrom making these big changes
that you need to make.
And the other thing is, yeah,because of that paradigm effect
or that confirmation bias, everytime you think about going out
and trying something new,meeting new friends, meeting new
(27:51):
ladies, whatever it is thatvoice in your head can say just
don't bother, just stay home.
You can have more fun if bingethe new netflix show or download
the latest game for your xboxor your ps5 or whatever, and say
, uh, you know what, I'll just.
I'll just not risk somethingnew because, again, you've got
this idea that what's in it forme, what's in it for me to go
(28:12):
put myself out there and try tomeet somebody new or try to go
to a new activity or newwhatever.
I'm just going to meet peoplewho don't think I'm good enough
and I'm not going to getanything from them that I need
anyway.
So it can be tough and I listen, I'm a bit of a homebody myself
and so I not just in the datingspace, but just the do I really
want to do?
I want to shower, shave, getdressed up and go do something
(28:34):
new at a new place.
It's as simple as trying newrestaurants where it's like
there's so many places aroundthat I know that I like already.
Why would I want to go risktrying some new place where I
may be disappointed and, yeah,it really does come down to do?
I want to take on the identityof somebody who risks new things
, who risks the disappointmentof a new thing, because my world
(28:56):
can get bigger when it doeswork out that it's worth letting
(29:18):
go of your comfortable miseryfor things that could be
uncomfortably fun and amazing orthings that could be
uncomfortably awkward and scary,but that's what we're going to
do, so we're going to go throughand try to challenge some of
those self-limiting beliefsabout all the ways you don't
think you're enough for the nextrelationship or the next new
thing.
We want you to try, and you andI are already in relationships
(29:41):
but I'm gonna try to go throughsome of these things.
And one of the biggest thingsthat he talks about is spend
more time being in places wherepeople are and change your route
.
Linger in public yeah, andthat's one thing I need to
definitely do more of.
Because, yeah, not only forjust being more social, and one
of the things dr glover says inhis interviews I don't know if
(30:02):
he says it directly in this bookbut he also says I'm not trying
to get men more sex or evenlove.
What I'm trying to do is getmen to be more social, and I
will use their desire for loveand sex as motivation to get
them more social.
Because, honestly, I really dothink that when it comes to
crime, when it comes topolitical unrest, a lot of that
(30:26):
stuff could be fixed by men whoare more comfortable having
conversations and being socialhaving conversations and being
social.
Dan (30:32):
I just read the there's a Harvard medical school I think
it was a medical school studyThey've tracked people since
1938 and they've tracked kids ofthese people and they're
looking for like indications oflongevity and they said by far
it's clearly insignificant.
The biggest indicator of thelongest lifespan is your social
(30:54):
connections.
More than diet, more thanexercise, more than genetics,
anything else, it's the peoplewho have the most active social
lives live the longest.
So Glover's onto somethingthere in terms of human
happiness it's our socialconnections.
And yeah, basically he isselling people what they want
right which is the book ondating but he's giving them what
they want right which is a bookon dating but he's giving them
(31:15):
what they need, which is theself-confidence and the
awareness that being social andhaving these social connections
is essential to happiness andfulfillment.
Charles (31:27):
Yeah, and so I'm going to use it as an opportunity to
get a little bit uncomfortablemyself and spend more time.
My job is mostly work from home.
It's been on the road quite abit more lately, being busy
doing stuff, going to clients,but on those days when I can
just stay at home, I'm going totry not to just stay at home and
just be out there and workingin coffee shops and going to the
(31:50):
gym and doing stuff that Idon't feel like I need to do,
but I do.
It is a being.
Social is certainly a part ofyour overall health.
Dan (32:00):
I used to go to Starbucks and work regularly, but when I
did do it, I didn't say hi toanybody I didn't you know what
I'm saying.
I but I was.
At least I was putting myselfout there or whatever, and then
I'd see some of the same peopleover and over again, but it
never extended a greeting to anyof them or try to keep their
names or anything.
It's something I absolutelycould work on as well.
Charles (32:17):
Yeah, so I'm going to, I'm going to try, I'm going to
go through and do the thingsthat this book recommends.
We do the ones that make sense,since I'm already in a
relationship.
Most people who are readingthis and the guys who are going
to be very interested in hearingthis series on our podcast are
probably not the ones that arealready in a relationship.
But there's some stuff,especially in this first part,
about your self-limiting beliefs.
If you can let go of some ofthose, you'll be a better
(32:39):
partner for the relationshipyou're already in.
So that's something I'm lookingto get.
Well, for the next chapter thejoy of dating, uncover and
overcome your self-limitingbeliefs we will go down the
different types.
We'll go through the littlephrases you can read to yourself
, will expose thoseself-limiting beliefs and then
also see in the language thatyou use to talk to yourself,
(33:01):
what kind of language are youusing.
That is reinforcing those slbs.
So I'm looking forward to that.
And, yeah, this is a good bookand I like this kind of material
.
So I'm excited to go through itand I probably listened to this
book four times now and I candefinitely handle another listen
to it because it it is thatgood.
So I hope everybody.
(33:21):
We don't have any affiliatecodes, so go get it from the
library, go buy it from amazon,get it wherever you want to get
it and enjoy going through itwith us.
All right, thanks, dan.
We will talk to you next time.
See you soon.
Thank you so so much forlistening to the entire episode,
start to finish, dan, and Icertainly appreciate it.
We hope that you will check outour website,
mindfullymasculinecom, for ouraudio episodes, video episodes
(33:42):
and any other resources that wewould like to share.
Thanks very much, and we'lltalk to you next time.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.