What an honor to talk with the #1 bestselling relationship author of all time, Dr. John Gray!

This show publishes right after Valentine’s Day, 2019 in honor of learning how to be the best you can be in love relationships. John’s 1992 masterpiece, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: The Classic Guide To Understanding The Opposite Sex, became an immediate sensation and runaway global bestseller. It launched a Mars & Venus enterprise that is still leading the pack to this day. John’s 2017 book (and the centerpiece for this interview) is called, Beyond Mars and Venus: Relationship Skills For Today’s Complex World.  

Too young to have heard of Mars and Venus? Check this: “Now viewed as a modern classic, this phenomenal book has helped men and women realize how different they can be in their communication styles, their emotional needs, and their modes of behavior; and offers the secrets of communicating without conflicts, allowing couples to give intimacy every chance to grow.”   

Over the past 25 years, John has authored numerous sequels and ascended to the highest level of prominence as an author, speaker, therapist, and—most interestingly—scientist delivering cutting-edge insights on how innate gender differences and hormone balances affect relationships.  

John’s recent work is a real breakthrough because it breaks down relationship dynamics to the hormonal level. It also identifies ways in which we can achieve an ideal balance of testosterone, estrogen and numerous other hormones and neurotransmitters that help us become the best man or best woman we can be—especially in the midst of rapidly evolving cultural roles that make it difficult to stay in balance.   

After binging on the 10-hour audio recording and conducting this interview, I dare say the experience will be life-changing. You’ll have to listen to a future show with Mia Moore to find out what happened with us the day after the interview!   

Dr. Gray’s insights cover the stuff underneath the dysfunctional patterns that we get stuck in, the frustration and confusion of not being able to understand or connect with our partners, and the cultural prevalence for unhealthy distraction (Gray observes how males are addicted to porn and video games, and females are taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication in record numbers). One thing is for sure—with John Gray, you are in for a wild ride. This show is incredibly fast-moving and will compel you to read both his first book and current book very carefully if you want to thrive in loving relationships.   

At one point, John breaks down in describing the difficulty of losing his longtime spouse, Bonnie, to cancer in 2017. Soon after, he goes on an epic binge of profound insights for how men can rebuild their testosterone and feel valued and appreciated, and how women can reawaken their estrogen-dominant, nurturing selves who love to be heard and receive pleasure. This is a challenge because the free and progressive modern culture has allowed us to awaken all sides of ourselves, whereby in previous generations men played the breadwinner role and females played the caretaker role. From his basic premise, John takes us deep into the bedroom, describing how great sex can wash away lots of relationship conflict, the importance of female orgasm for both men and women, and how to have sex for 10 hours (sneak preview of a future book project!).   

John is an animated guy with a profound gift for analyzing relationship dynamics and telling you exactly how you can succeed, maintain passion and spark, become Soulmates instead of the dated concept of “Rolemates”, and escape from the frustrating patterns and repeated failures that seem to be the norm in modern culture. If you are not absolutely inspired and touched by this interview, email me for a full refund. This guy is a classic! Enjoy listening to this conversation (or watch it on YouTube!) with John Gray, Ph.D., author of Beyond Mars and Venus. Order it right now – it will transform your relationship.

TIMESTAMPS:

What was the original Men Are From Mars, concept and how has it changed? [05:05]

The big change came about in World War II where men were gone and women found out they could do much more. [06:42] 

Of course cultures vary in the way people communicate. [08:54] 

Set good balance of your male side and your female side. [09:19] 

Video grams over stimulate the dopamine in the brain and make you more dependent on high stimulation to experience pleasure. [12:19] 

How do you know when you’re out of balance? Look at the hormones! [14:07] 

Actually, men are more emotional when they’re not confident. [16:33] 

How we relate to the world stimulates different hormones in us. [20:09] 

For men, when you do what you ‘have” to do, it increases your testosterone. [25:16] 

For a man, you have to get your testosterone to a certain amount before you can really let love in.  [29:36] 

How do you define male and female power? [33:37] 

How can one learn to have real sex instead of just releasing their energy? [35:22] 

The angriest men are the ones who are not getting laid. [45:29] 

There is toxicity on both sides.. [48:42] 

Oxytocin is generated by affection, compliments, being heard, harmony, safe feeling, and here’s the biggest safety: somebody has your back.  [51:17] 

When men grumble, it’s over soon.  When women grumble, it’s a big deal. [52:12] 

All successful men and successful people are accountable for whatever happens in their lives. [58:12] 

LINKS: 

Beyond Mars and Venus: Relationship Skills For Today’s Complex World.   

Watch John Gray and Brad’s Conversation on YouTube

John Gray’s incredible life story 

John Gray’s Mars and Venus enterprise   

LISTEN:

Get Over Yourself Podcast

Brad: 00:00:02 Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author, an athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit and happy in hectic, high stress modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balanced that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show. Here we go.

Brad: 00:01:41 I’m your host. Learn more at the links on my homepage, Brad kearns.com I also have a new button called shopping with Brad for other cool stuff@bradkearns.com and here we go with the show. Hi listeners, it’s a great honor to introduce my conversation with John Gray. Author of men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and many sequels, including a wonderful recent book called Beyond Mars and Venus where he talks about the influence of hormones on relationship dynamics and absolutely fascinating read.

Brad: 00:02:14 I was so compelled to get him onto the show after getting into this book because I really feel like it’s a, a breakthrough and a transformation, uh, in our usual approach to optimizing our relationship dynamics and working through conflicts and trying to be good partners because he breaks it down to the hormonal level and Oh. Man, this guy is a firestorm of energy and inspiration and knowledge. This is a wild ride. So get ready and hopefully you’ve heard of John Gray if you’re too young to remember. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” “This book is now viewed as a modern classic, which has helped men and women realize how different they can be in their communication styles, their emotional needs, and their modes of behavior and offers the secrets of communicating without conflicts, allowing couples to give intimacy every chance to grow.”

Brad: 00:03:08 That book was out 25 years ago. Can you believe it? He’s been working hard ever since cranking out the sequels and doing his retreats and his lectures. And this new book is called Beyond Mars and Venus: Relationship Skills for Today’s Complex World. So in this show, oh man, we travel fast, but he talks about the inherent conflict between the progressive modern culture where roles are blended and men are taking maternity leave and women are kicking butt in the workplace and how we’re trying to navigate all this pretty rapid transformation of culture if you look at it on the evolutionary timeline. So we’re navigating all this progress and change and freedom and still trying to sustain and nurture these traditional romantic relationships where we have the ideal balance of male and female energies. And what’s cool about Dr. Gray is he has that straight up therapist’s approach, but he’s also a scientist and doing a lot of research and coming out with breakthrough insights about the influence of testosterone and estrogen, the predominant male and female hormones respectively and the other complimentary hormones and neurotransmitters that make us tick and make us be the best that we can be or the worst that we can be when we get out of balance and watch out, man, we’re going into some spicy territory.

Brad: 00:04:29 So this has an e on this show. He’s talking about the importance of female orgasm for both males and females and how great sex can wash away many relationship conflicts that plague you right now enjoy a fabulous show with Dr. John Gray.

Brad: 00:04:45 So I think maybe we should start with our younger listeners, maybe, maybe too young to know what, what Mars and Venus is all about. If you could give like a brief overview of, of that presentation and then we can transition into the latest book Beyond Mars and Venus where we bring in all the, the hormones and the uh, the undercurrent of how we behave and what we need.

John: 00:05:05 I think that’s a good idea. Also with the younger generation, a lot of the basic Mars, Venus ideas, we can review it quickly, but a lot of them don’t relate to it because the males have been sort of pushed over too far to their female side and the females more on their male side. So getting quickly into the new perspective is actually kind of very good. But we’ll do some review. Okay. So, you know, I wrote, Men are from Mars 25 years ago and we were in a more traditional society then and we were limited to a great extent by conditioning. Conditioning says men have to be a certain way and women have to be a certain way. And you know, we grew up in the 60s and that was sort of the freedom. Here I am growing up in a traditional Texas family and I’m wearing bell bottom pants.

John: 00:05:53 I’m growing out my hair, I’m putting on beads, I’m free you and demonstrating for peace, you know, this was like peace and love. So that was a big deal. And what that is a symbol of his men feeling the freedom to move over to a part of us that has been culturally suppressed for center center for centuries, for thousands of years, we had a role, you know, you can’t go out into battle, you can’t go on long hunting trips, uh, all that kind of stuff and be so sensitive. So we had to be toughened up for that job. So now suddenly we have this new civilization and we’re free to move over to our, our, our softer side. Now women on the other hand, they were free to move over to their independent side. A lot of that happened in World War II and we needed people to, you know, to build the tanks and do everything.

John: 00:06:42 The men were gone, the women went into the factories and they did a great, great job. And so it was like, oh, you know, mom can also do all these things dad does because when mom was busy raising kids, you didn’t know she could do all those things. You know, when I go down and down to South America to indigenous tribes, uh, you’ll see women are pregnant, either pregnant or taking care of babies their whole lives. You know, their breastfeeding, they’re getting pregnant or breastfeeding and, and they’re always nurturing and the men are, you know, are doing sort of the dangerous stuff. They’re going into the jungle and the women are doing more of the gardening and it was a partnership based upon a level of civilization we have. Today we’re free. Now what happens is when you’re free, you get really excited. You can go overboard.

John: 00:07:25 And that’s kind of what’s happened is that men go, okay, I’m just going to go over and have a lot of fun and women are like, okay, I’m going to go over and run the company. And that’s going from the female side to the male side. And it that the challenge I see over and over and over and mostly who comes to counseling is women. So what you see for women is when they come in for counseling, they’re feeling overwhelmed. High levels of stress, high levels of dissatisfaction, feeling something’s missing in their relationship, feeling neglected and why they’re feeling neglected is they’re having a whole list of needs that men have never been expected to do. And yet women assume he’ll just do those things. Uh, you know, no father was like this great romantic guy when I was growing up. My father more traditional, he just had to have a good job and have some manners and not get angry when he’s home.

John: 00:08:14 So that three requirements, that when the woman was quite satisfied with her husband. But you know, today, you know, people often naively will say, well, where, where are the romantic men of the history? They didn’t exist. You know, Romeo and Juliet is like the romantic ideal. They died before they got the day after they got married. You know, so it, it, everybody knew romance doesn’t last, but why today is it something that we want to last? Maybe we haven’t figured out I’d do it. I feel like my message helps people to do that. But why do we want it is particularly women will say, I really want it. I want, I want to be heard. Communication is important to me. And, in indigenous tribes, women don’t complain, “My husband doesn’t listen.” He doesn’t listen and she doesn’t care. She’s with a bunch of women and they’re talking and they’re connecting.

John: 00:09:04 So she’s in a different world at that time. So when she basically, in that world, she’s, she’s at a culture that’s held her into her female side and men were held into their male side. Like my father, he did his work job. My mother did the nurturing job. But once women can break out and I feel it’s like a higher level of consciousness, you know, a retrieval, greater parts of our soul which says, you know, I have a masculine side and a feminine side and I can be both. And you know, when I talked to you, even in a minute, we’re just meeting you go into the flow. So clearly when a man goes into the flow or a woman goes into the flow, a common expression, now genius expressing her inner genius, that’s the flow. That flow is when the masculine and the feminine is balanced inside of us and simple ways. It’s when you love what you’re good at, you’re in the flow. The love part of it is the female side of us, the good app. I’m competent, I’m capable, I’m achieving a goal. I’m on my mission. So when we have our mission and we’re achieving our goal, that’s our male side. And when we’re loving it and we’re happy and we’re enjoying it, that’s our female side. And so we get both together. That’s where you’re in the flow and that’s what we are. We have this potential today, a higher consciousness. It said, I can be both.

John: 00:10:20 So what happened is I broke out of my male side going to my female side. And part of that was, you know, the whole hippie revolution and opening consciousness and going higher and all that good stuff, moving over to enjoy my life more instead of sort of sacrificing my own dreams. You know, a lot of men, they just, a lot of our fathers, you know, they had their own dreams, they had their own passions, but it didn’t pay. So you gave that up and you were happy because it made the woman happy. But now we have the potential of experiencing joy and happiness in our lives and our through creativity. And women were like starting to feel suppressed and repressed as their sole was going up. It says, I want to be both. So the women were all in their support groups, how we can be empowered, you know, power. And the men were all like, okay, what can we do? They experience higher consciousness or enjoy our lives more and have more fun in our lives. So we went both different directions to find wholeness and balance. And when you’re moving, we’ll take women when they’re moving from feeling and a box out of that box over to their male side, what’s happening is in the middle, like a pendulum going back and forth.

John: 00:11:28 As that pendulum goes to very feminine side of us to the masculine side, right in the middle is this kind of like empowerment. Excitement is the flow, but then if you go too far, then you’re feeling overwhelmed. You feel stressed, you lose your ability to love the moment, to be present in the moment. So what happens then is in the pendulum needs to come back. Now how does it come back is we need to recognize we’re too far on the other side. What are the symptoms that we’re too far on? The other side dissatisfaction, that’s it. Basically for women, they feel overwhelmed. There’s too much to do. I don’t have time for myself. You see, the female side is the receptive side of us. It’s about myself bringing in it. What do I need? What’s important to me coming back. And so many women will say, I don’t have time for myself.

John: 00:12:19 You don’t hear that often from men. We’ll take the time. We were designed to take the time because basically you know, you, you, you go out, you, you’re out there, uh, solving problems all day. We come home. That was one of the ideas of, of Men are from Mars. It was so popular is that every man has a cave. If you’re from Mars, you have a cave. You want to just come back, just decompress, forget your problems, don’t worry about anything. Maybe watch a football game, maybe meditate, maybe solve problems. Basically go online. And now it’s getting into play video games. And what happens with video games, unfortunately, is they over stimulate the dopamine in the brain. And when they overstimulate dopamine in the brain, that means you’re dependent on high stimulation to experience pleasure. And dopamine is linked in with testosterone a lot. So what happens is normal life can’t produce as much dopamine as video games.

John: 00:13:15 So what happens then is that normal life doesn’t stimulate our testosterone enough? And that’s where we move into my new work with. Women are busy working all day long, making money, sacrificing to make money. They can do that, but it doesn’t stimulate female hormones. It doesn’t stimulate estrogen. It doesn’t stimulate oxytocin. It doesn’t stimulate progesterone. So these are like hormones that are highly significant for women. Testosterone is particularly the most important for men and the difference between men and women. …Cuz many, many women who have gone to their male side, they say, what do you mean men and women are different? I have all these masculine qualities. Many men will say, what do you mean? You know that female, I have all these female qualities. They don’t experience the gender difference. There’s a fluidity today and fluidity is we actually are all a unique, different, their own unique balance of masculine and feminine.

John: 00:14:07 But how do you know when you’re out of balance? And when you’re out of balance, you have to know where do I need to go to be in balance. So when women are we on their male side, they have to know how to come back to their female side. Many to know when I’m, when I’m, when I’m unhappy. Basically if you look at a man who’s depressed, his testosterone is too low. Look at a man who’s angry. His testosterone is going down and his estrogen’s going up. Now most people don’t know that, that when men are angry or afraid defensive, their female hormones are increasing and they’re male hormones are going down.

Brad: 00:14:46 No offense, females. It’s just just how it is. It’s science,

John: 00:14:50 It’s basic science. And so what, and you know a lot of guys, they kind of go, okay, I want to be strong. I want to be confident. I don’t want to fear. I want to have strength. And you associate that with, with basically testosterone. But when a man is in a situation of challenge, particularly that might threaten his self esteem, the woman he loves doesn’t love him or he’s being attacked either one, as long as he’s confident and he knows what to do. See the male side always has to solve problems. So it’s, if I’m confident and I know what to do, then I’ll be super calm, detached, and clear. Kind of like a Samurai Warrior, Kung Fu guy, you know, you see how they, they immediately do all their moves. Yeah, exactly. Just those boots and they’re calm, cool and collected. And I studied that when I was a kid. And part of how you stay calm, cool and collected is you practice every move and you have your train to see every possible approach that can happen.

John: 00:15:48 Kind of like a chess player, you know chess players, cool, calm and collected. You’re calculating cause you know what, what, what? You’re going to do three steps ahead. That’s real mastery. So when you have confidence that you can produce the result you want, then testosterone goes high and stays high and your the highest performance. But as soon as you lose confidence, you don’t know what to do, which happens a lot. And marriages and relationships, you, you know, you just feel like you went to this person, you’re so connected. Why aren’t they responding to me? Why are they saying that I’m doing the best I can? As soon as that happens, you lose confidence. Your testosterone actually turns into estrogen and you become overly emotional. This is why when you say men are not emotional, women are more emotional. Actually, men are more emotional when they’re not confident.

Speaker 2: 00:16:37 Women are more emotional. Basically, when there’s a minor stress, and this was amazing research I found, which is under moderate stress, if you measure the blood flow in the brain to the part of the brain that’s emotional under moderate stress, women’s brains will become eight times more emotional. She might have to suppress them, but she be, there’s this surge of emotion that she has to push down constantly. For men under moderate stress, there’s no surge of emotion. Men basically detach, you know, you just start thinking, you’re turn away and you think, okay, what am I going to do about this was small problems, but as soon as it’s a big problem, which means I’ve lost confidence. Men become emotional way more emotional than women. And women will start to detach. And that’s the sad truth of what happens in marriages is when women start to feel I cannot get what I need from this guy, then they start to detach and it’s very hard for her to open her heart at that point unless she understands how to open our heart.

John: 00:17:37 And that’s like my whole message, which it comes down to your hormones cause for a woman when her, when her heart is closed in the presence of someone, her estrogen levels have dramatically dropped. She says, I can’t depend on you see there’s a place and marriage and relationships and caring and in friendship where you feel I can depend on you, you have my back, you know, that sense of that and you know you have my back and when somebody has your back and then therefore your is constantly providing a level of stimulation for your female hormones, which makes a man for a man’s point of view. It’s not like we don’t want female hormones, we want female hormones. We just don’t want them to be out of balance. Everything is simply about balance. Because as I mentioned before, genius, uh, unlimited energy, health, vitality, all of these things come back down to competence and loving.

John: 00:18:31 What you do, you know, bring in are, are being a service. Part of what’s great about being a service, even though that is our purpose in this world, is when you serve someone and they respond to you. I’m talking to the men now, but when they respond to you with appreciation, what happens is that fuels the testosterone that allows you to be selfless. Testosterone is the selfless hormone. So everybody has it backwards about men. I mean, who was it that had selfless to go into battle? Who is it that’s a selfless that almost most men traditionally did a job they didn’t even like, but ironically they were happy to do it. They smiled and they didn’t complain. Why? Because they did that job. It was the only way they knew to provide for the woman they loved. And why was that such a big payoff? Because when you came home and a woman felt in her heart, I depend on you. I remember the day my wife said to me, my wife and I were married from, when was when she was alive. We are married for 33 years and tragically she died of cancer. It was just last year. So let’s take a breath, take a breath there. Um, kind of even hard for me to talk about relationships if I go there. So I’m just going to back up, ask me a question.

Brad: 00:19:47 Well, what you’re describing in this big picture is this battle between the advancement of society. Obviously we can all call this progress. When we stepped out of the indigenous hunter gatherer role where the, uh, the, the roles were so distinct and all the way up to industrial revolution and things have been that way all the way up to our grandparents’ time, like you described. And now with this explosion of, of culture and advancement of society, uh, we have underneath the surface, uh, this battle between our two hormonal nature. And you, you describe in the book how even if you’re a sensitive kind, soft male, you probably have 20 times more testosterone then the average female and vice versa. For the female. So it seems like we’re at war with the advancement of, of culture and society and our basic nature as either male or female. And you, you a reference, I think it was Norway, right? The most, the most advanced progressive country and the disturbing statistics that everything’s equal, that women have all the rights in the workplace and then the divorce rate is right up there as the highest.

John: 00:20:52 It’s amazing. And the other part of that in Norway is that it’s mandatory to have equal number of men and women and all government jobs, but non government jobs you’ll have women who have the freedom to do masculine jobs or traditional male jobs do not do them. The majority of women are still doing traditional female jobs. The majority of men are doing traditional male jobs, construction workers, drivers, you know, those kinds of engineers, those kinds of jobs. Unless it’s a government job and then it’s mandated and women can jump into that role. Also, it’s interesting, if you go to areas like India, uh, you’ll see where there’s poverty against survival. Women are way more in the male jobs. It’s not like mandated. It’s just like they can get ahead. But the problem is there’s more divorce, dissatisfaction, less women getting married. A woman cannot, uh, fall in love or stay in love if her estrogen levels are not 20 times higher than the man’s. Now typically when a woman main parts of the month, a woman’s estrogen levels will be 10 times higher than a man and that’s fine to love him, but to be in love and couples who are really happily married and have great sex, you understand that feeling of being in love and love is an experience where you feel a surrender to your partner. I’m yours and, and its attachment to it’s your mine. You know, there’s that sweetness. Often as a man, I was introduced to those feelings primarily during sex where my heart just fully open cause her heart opened. See women to a great extent, open a man’s heart. It’s hard to be fully open to someone who’s not loving you if you’re a man because the woman’s love keeps a man’s testosterone rising appreciation is the form of communication that raises testosterone. Caring when I demonstrate caring is the form of behavior that will raise estrogen.

John: 00:22:52 So when a man demonstrates caring, that’s why for romance, and he said, be so much foreplay and so forth, there needs to be dates and so forth. And that’s why women today, when you come into the counseling office, if they’re dissatisfied in their marriage, they’re saying there’s no romance. He doesn’t listen. He doesn’t care. I could be invisible. He doesn’t see me. I’m not getting compliments. Uh, he’s not considerate, he’s not helping out. He doesn’t see what I need. And basically these are things women in an indigenous tribe would never even think of, just not even think of. But why do women think of it today and why is it a necessity for them today? To a great extent is because they’re so far on their male side, those behaviors I just described stimulate huge amounts of estrogen. So if your estrogen is really low, you need those behaviors from your partner in order to raise your estrogen levels so that you can then feel your love. And if women are not feeling loved the’re not happy. If men are not feeling successful, they’re not happy, and of course every woman enjoys being successful and it’ll also is great, but it’s not a part of her need to balance her hormones. That’s the key. Success is wonderful. We all want it. Happiness and joy and love is what we all want, but primarily a man has to know how to keep my testosterone up. What behaviors, what communication style, and nobody’s done a lot of research on this yet. That’s been my focus, which is a talk about how we relate to others. How we relate to the world stimulates different hormones in us.

John: 00:24:25 When I put my needs to the side and do something for you without complaining, for example, my testosterone shoots up when a man sacrifices for a noble cause, if it’s acknowledged, if he anticipates this is going to make a difference is one of the best things for him. So a depressed man, you immediately want to get him in a situation that he doesn’t like doing. It shouldn’t be about pleasure. It shouldn’t be. I’m going to love it. It should be. I’m going to tough it out, but I’m going to get rewarded for it. Which means you get up in the morning, you know, sometimes you get, I mean I’m basically, I’m 67 years old, I don’t have to work, you know, so I could easily just go over to my female side, which is called retirement. Retirement. Just do what you like and you watch so many men die after they retired cause they’re not balancing that energy is saying, you know, I’m going to get up today and I’m gonna go do what I have to do.

John: 00:25:16 So there’s this sense in masculinity, when you do what you quote have to do, it increases your testosterone, particularly if you anticipate being successful. If you don’t anticipate being successful, it’s also, it doesn’t raise your testosterone. But for women, when I analyze women who come in and who are depressed, who are stressed, who overwhelmed, who can’t, climax, can’t have orgasm, can’t stay in love, can’t fall in love, they just can’t juice up. What’s missing is this feeling in their mind? It’s a little conversation going on. I have to do this. I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this. That feeling of have to that pressure. That’s one of the symptoms of being on your male side, so I have to, it’s beneficial for a man not so beneficial for a woman. If she’s out of balance, it’s fine if she’s in balance because that’s what you know life is about is the masculine and the feminine and we’re moving into an era where we get as individuals, we can find both and we can find our unique balance of both because not every man’s needs the same amount of testosterone, estrogen. Not every woman needs the same amount, but there is this polarity and when you discover you’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed or unhappy and you’re a woman, pretty much your objective is to do things, to come back to your female side and not listen to the part of yourself that says, I have to be masculine.

John: 00:26:41 You have to just say, okay, I’ve got to go back and for me, if I’m feeling low energy depressed or have any anxiety at all or I have worries anytime of the man’s in that place, he just has to get them too far on my female. Anytime we actually have negative emotions and you’re a man, you’re too far and you’re female, if your hormones are in balance, you’ll have emotions as a man and there’ll be all positive emotions. If you’re having negative emotions, one of the few minutes, I mean negative emotions come up. That means you just got the wind blew and your tipped out of balance. So you need to come back to balance and let go of those negative emotions and men can do that quietly. We’re designed to do it quietly.

Brad: 00:27:19 You want to say that was a big one when you said that a male expressing anger to his partner is damaging to the relationship and instead he should go off into his cave. And I think that’s my favorite example of getting back to balance because you feel the opposite urge is to continue down that path or down that slippery slope downward. Just like the woman coming back from a hard day at work where she’s doing her thing and feeling fulfilled and, and having the maximum expression of her talent in life and then coming home and looking at a home cleaning to do list and plunging into that, uh, that depth of more and more male out of balance. And I guess with the male expressing anger, he’s getting into a female imbalance. Right?

John: 00:28:02 Exactly. I love, that’s what my favorite points in the book. And you think of it as a pendulum. Okay, I’m over here. I’m my male. I’m constantly sort of going a little on my female, a little more male side, but then suddenly I’m out of control and I go way too far to my female side. Then I just keep going out of control. Just like if you’re on a tight rope, you now you’re just going to fall down on the other side. And so a man needs to recognize, first of all, if you want to, woman to love you. And most men don’t even know how important that is until they get maybe a little older and they realize, you know, this life is meaningless because a lot of, if I don’t have love, it’s kind of a growing up for men to recognize how important love is to support him. Because primarily because we first want to feel lovable and men feel lovable. Meaning I’m worthy of love by being good at something. Look what I can do. Look what I can do. You know? Um, I was recently on a vacation with a bunch of friends and we’d go on vacation twice a year together and we don’t care

Brad: 00:29:01 what kind of friends?

John: 00:29:03 Well we’re all authors were all bestselling authors, males or females, males and females. This is a group thing and we all have the same occupation, similar occupation. So, and we always have these competitions on one of the day, I’ve never won any of them. It’s a one won first prize. All right? I was so happy. I mean, we just, it’s like winning, winning, accomplishing achievement. It was all play, but it was really quite wonderful and even though I feel very worthy of everybody’s love and so forth, I could let him more love. It’s just the, you have to feel worthy. It’s to let it in and recognize it’s there. And so for a man, a lot of it is is you have to get your testosterone but a certain amount before you can really let love in. For Women, they don’t. A woman, basically it doesn’t. Theoretically, if you look just on the female, they don’t need to earn love. One of the hardest things for women is to let go of trying to earn love. See, that’s when you’re on your male side, you want to earn love and when you’re on your female side, you have to get, I deserve love. I am beautiful. You know, beauty is the face of God expressing itself. Women and body beauty, whether they’re perfect they don’t need to be perfect. They need to be feminine. One of the qualities of femininity is beauty and beauty is attractive and it attracts.

John: 00:30:22 She doesn’t have to go out and earn love. She needs to just recognize I am the receptive force of the universe. I tracked it in, you may not attract it from everybody. You don’t need it from everybody, but when you don’t get it, then you feel as a woman, if you’re not feeling love, you’re on your female side. You have to love from the world, helps a woman feel safe to open up to feeling worthy, to receive the love. When she receives the love, that’s when she gives love. You have to receive and then you can give. If you don’t have, you can’t give. So women, when they receive, that’s the female element, then they can give what they’ve received. The problem for women is when they don’t get love or what they need, then they feel I haven’t received, they go onto their male side and think I’ll have to earn it.

John: 00:31:12 And so again, as a therapist, what you see all the time is women giving and giving and saying, I gave too much. I gave too much. It didn’t come back and, and that’s this. That’s this. The foundation of resentment and resentment is what kills relationships is when you think you get up in the morning and you feel like, Hey, I’m not getting what I’m giving. Well stop giving so much. That’s what I tell women. Stop giving so much, but don’t withhold love. Just stop over giving. And how do you stop over giving is you start giving yourself what you need. Stop expecting men to give you everything you need. Stop expecting the world to give you everything you need because the truth is what you need is always present. You just looking in the wrong direction. And quite often what you’re looking for, what you’re missing is doing things for yourself.

John: 00:32:04 So women are constantly doing things for others, which feels good. You know, the brain gets excited for a woman when she’s giving, because in the brain it says, Oh, if you’re giving, you must have received. Because when women are in harmony with their balanced hormones, they feel motivated to give what they receive, not to give from emptiness. Giving from emptiness is, unfortunately, a free in balance. It’s an imbalance happens all the time. Well, it’s the basis of relationships that, because if a man gives from emptiness, you’ll fill up. See on your male side, I got nothing. So I’m just going to go out there and do what I don’t want to do for somebody and they’re gonna love me, I’m going to fill up. So if you give an empty out, it is whatever you got. Just give it empty. Then we fill up. We have to give and then get back.

John: 00:32:55 But women need to recede and then give back. I mean you, you feel like you know a lot of men who had all given to them, they become weak. I won’t say every man, but you got a, Rockefeller did a book or one of those guys on children of rich men, male boys of wealthy fathers often have difficulties. You know, we had a phrase a long time ago called playboys. If you are rich, you were a playboy. You didn’t have to work. You just had fun and having fun couldn’t make a commitment and you became a drug addict. He became a food addict. You got divorced. All of these problems would happen and rich to males, a rich families, not always the females because females there were

Brad: 00:33:37 Females can handle it. Paris Hilton’s group and no problems.

John: 00:33:41 Yeah, no problem. Because the femininity is not about earning it. It’s about having it come to you. Let me, let me define male and female power for a moment. This is another idea in the book. I just love it because so many women are all about empowerment and I’m going to be in power. Look whatI can do look very good. It feels really good and they feel very powerful, but that’s masculine power. Masculine power is the ability to accomplish, to achieve the organize, to put it together. Look what I can do. That’s masculine power. We all know that feeling. It’s like when I won the competition, look what I did. Look what I did. Softer, just doubled. You know?

Brad: 00:34:16 Are you going to tell us what you, what the competition was? I mean you’re, you’re a bunch of bestselling authors. I’m sure these big timers are competing at a high level. What did you do?

John: 00:34:25 Okay, I’ll get to it. I’ll get down to that. It’s a fine cause I’m so proud of myself. But what is female power? Masculine power. Look what I did. Okay, and that’s this. And that’s why women are always like, oh men are so and ego and everything cause cause we need that. That’s testosterone. Stigma is, look what I did. And testosterone doesn’t seek to control others. It seeks to serve others. It’s only low testosterone. Men, they want to control others. All that negativity of what people often associate with the negative ego is, I’m feeling so insecure about myself. I have to control you as opposed to detachment. The Buddha, you know that’s testosterone is being able, I don’t need to control anybody. I got it. You know, that’s walking around like a stud. Look what I can do, which I’m going to do a book coming up probably in a few years, called 10 Hours of Sex.

Brad: 00:35:18 Can we take a break?

John: 00:35:20 During the 10 hours?

Brad: 00:35:22 Yeah.

John: 00:35:22 It’s generally about an hour of in and out. And then you take a little break and then another hour did an out and a little break that out and try to figure out a way to help these young guys get motivated to learn about how to have real sex instead of just releasing their energy all the time. Because if you learn how to have orgasms without ejaculating, then you just want more and more sex. You never lose your desire, but you’re not frustrated about it. And this is something that’s been, you know, not taught to the masses because people couldn’t do it. But this new generation of males who have both male and female, if you balance it, then you orgasm, but you don’t ejaculate. And then you just keep, every morning you got a cucumber.

John: 00:36:00 I mean, it’s the best, but you know, I’m 67 and it’s, look, I like my God, this is so wonderful to learn these things that we’re just not taught. And what young guys don’t know is that they’re losing all their power with over and over ejaculating several times a day to porn. What’s happening is they’re losing their interest in real women. They can’t sustain interest with a real woman. They can’t get that excited with a real woman cause the the, the Internet sex, and I’m not against anything, I just looking at the brain here, which is when you have high stimulation, like cocaine feels really good. When something feels really, really good, you want it again and again. What’s happening in the brain is that you’re overstimulating the brain with dopamine. That’s pleasure. Then the brain says, oh, that’s so much pleasure. We’re gonna. We’re gonna close the little dopamine receptor sites so that now that’s not so exciting, but just, just exciting enough.

John: 00:36:57 But then normal stimulation, which is not porn, which is not digital, normal stimulation will do nothing for you. Because see, when you have sex with a real woman, you’re not just making dopamine. See a naked woman in front of you says your number one. You just won the prize and all the women are naked for you, so you’re dope. You’re dopamine shoots up really high. That raises your testosterone cause you have dopamine stimulation. What happens with, with real sex is you’re having dopamine stimulated by having a naked woman next to you, loves you. You’re the one, and you’re also producing serotonin, which is simply because you feel at ease with her. You have a history with her with the more history you have with someone which is harmonious. You’ll have serotonin, serotonin and keeps your dopamine from going too high. They counter each other. You have oxytocin, which is a whole energetic field which keeps your testosterone from going too high.

John: 00:37:52 So you’ve got these counterbalance weight. So you’re connecting with real feminine energy inside yourself rather than just pure testosterone, which happens when you’re, when you’re solo with a fantasy. And so, you know, these are all like new lessons for guys to understand and I was talking about 20 years ago, but now the guys are having the experience. I can’t get turned onto a real girl. You know, it’s just not, not happening or I can’t stay, stay interested. So guys can sometimes still be interested in women. That’s an easy kind of unconscious instinct. But once you get to know her and the oxytocin gets produced, the estrogen goes up. You don’t have enough testosterone to fight that. So you lose it and that you, you just, you’re there and then you’ve got to recoil back. Then you need somebody new and different. New and different always stimulates more dopamine so that a sustained relationship, you have to have healthy dopamine, healthy testosterone levels, and a woman has to know she wants a man to stay.

John: 00:38:48 How do you keep a man to stay? You gotta be on your female side if you’re a man is going to go look for a female because if he doesn’t feel he can contribute to your life in a meaningful way, coming home to you, he will become passive and lose interest in you. And she has to be able to communicate. I need you. And that’s what female power is. Female, male powers. Look what I can do. You need me? I got the answer. You’ve got to fire. I’m a fireman. I’m on top of the world. So that’s solving problems. Female power is not having to do it. You get, look what I can do, female towers. I’m look when I get somebody else to do for me. I don’t have to do at all. That’s female power. That’s grace. That’s,

Brad: 00:39:30 You know, John, I’m, I’m seeing like these tiny little examples in daily life that I would imagine add up to a lot of trouble over time is you’re trying to sustain the magic in a relationship and you’re describing that it, that it is possible to have that had that spark going for years and years and years. But then when you have a, a simple household encounter like, uh, there, there’s a mess left over and someone said, and you did a great job, uh, stating these examples in the book where, uh, Hey, you spilled this I’ll, clean it up. Uh, you’re, you’re messy. Uh, let’s say the, the woman’s side is talking to the man where the man would be overjoyed to jump up and not only clean up the, the small mess he left but, maybe polish the, the counter with the new solution that makes it shine. But when we have these engagements where the resentment comes out on both sides and then the, the, the walls come up. That’s what I think the, the magic of the book is that you can, you can transcend that. Just by that example you just said, where the female sits back, puts her hands behind her, behind her neck and says, hey, why don’t you do this room while you’re at it and the male actually, the male part of you. Uh, we, we can switch. Uh, we could switch genders if, if we want, but just to get back into balance and allow someone to be of service rather than trying to do it all in and be at all.

John: 00:40:51 Nicely said. And that kind of comes down to the bottom line of a female should have a wisdom of how to communicate what you need in a way that doesn’t make somebody feel like they’re being criticized.

Brad: 00:41:04 Ooh, there’s the, there’s the show quote. What I got, I shout out to my audio engineer. That was it right there. That’s beautiful. Keep going. Yep.

John: 00:41:11 That’s a new, a new wisdom. And the past culture basically told man what you’re supposed to do. So women did need to ask and when a woman picked a man, it was a man who was already doing those things that she would want and value most, which was be a good provider, don’t be angry, be present for her romance, good communication, those kinds of things. Helping out around the house. Those weren’t the requirements. You know, women at all day doing nurturing activities. Men were away the whole time. There was this balance but so they wouldn’t,

Brad: 00:41:45 It seems like in a lot of ways things were easier. Maybe they weren’t reaching level nine of fulfillment and deep connection. But uh, until we get up to the highest levels, it seems like, you know, simpler times we didn’t have the, the porn addiction in the dopamine overdose and all those things that just, we, we got to navigate some trouble here, Huh?

John: 00:42:06 Yeah. We have a lot of problems today and what you’d see is they weren’t, and previous generations relationships, they weren’t at level nine, they weren’t having ecstatic sex and ecstatic sex is, you know, it’s still, our society is quite sexually repressed. But think about it for a moment. Do you pick a partner today who’s just got a good job in harmonious? No. You pick a partner who’s turns you on, you know, in couples, get a few years of great, great sex, and that’s what pulls us together. In the past it was you, your mother would say, don’t worry whether you’re sexually attracted, that’s going to go away. That’s it. I mean, sexual attraction went away for couples. And you know, I teach in other cultures today where where they’re not as advanced as us and women don’t even know they can enjoy sex. Sex is really for women and men are serving women, but today it’s in the more. In traditional relationships, sex was something women did to serve the man. But most men today, they’ll lose interest in a woman if she doesn’t enjoy sex more than him. See his pleasure, pleasure as feminine. What sex was for men in the past was sex as a way to connect with a woman and experiencing pleasure to get to his female side. Well, we’re way on our female side, man can easily just relax and enjoy pleasure. But what we want is the woman to enjoy pleasure. And then of course we’re number one. We won the prize, or orgasm is number one for us and half the women in America. I’ve never experienced an orgasm. One half of the women who do can’t have an orgasm from a man being inside of her, and probably half of those we don’t have all these details, only can have a clitoral orgasm. And you know, if you go back to some of the hidden teachings of six thousand six thousand years old, you understand that and the vagina, all the different organs are linked to different areas of the vagina.

John: 00:43:54 And if you just do clitoral stimulation for orgasm, you’re basically only stimulating your kidneys and your kidneys is what filters water. So a lot of weight gain that women had is too much clitoral stimulation, too much clitoral, orgasms. It’s basically all the energy’s going there and it’s coming from the other organs rather than going through your whole body. You know, we really need to understand one of the greatest things for health is great sex and orgasmic experience with someone you love. You can’t get to these higher levels of 10, nine, eight, nine, 10 like that, unless you experience real love. That’s the whole key to this. And that’s where you can be both hard, which is your masculine energy and feel love. You know, this is the two things together. And women after, you know, there’s certain exercise where women have to learn to keep the Regina tight.

John: 00:44:43 You know, they’re there. You just have to do the Kegels and, and, and contract. So there’s a real connection because it’s that stimulation in the vagina. It allows full energizing of her body. If it’s the whole vagina, not just the clitoris. And now we have, you know, we have men addicted to porn. We have women more and more addicted to their, their vibrator. Now vibration overstimulates the clitoris and overstimulates the kidneys, it’s going to be hard to lose weight. Uh, it’s, you gotta throw it away. You need to have a man do it for you. You need to have real touch to do it. Does it energetic sharing that happens where you joined with a man when we start opening up to realize these things and we’re getting there because we’re letting go of all this Victorian sexual suppression stuff where, you know, sex is the most beautiful spiritual thing you can do on this earth.

John: 00:45:29 And it’s awesome because it’s so powerful. It’s the most destructive thing, you know, is like the atomic. Yeah. You know, we’re in an age where we’re so powerful. It can be in there for good or for bad, but that’s what we’ll keep couples together. Personally. and I’ve couple thousand, I have counseled thousands of couples, only a few cases where we’re a couple wanted divorce when the sex was great. Always, you know, couples and you know, don’t see they have all these other problems. They’ll complain about this and complain about this, but if they just had great sex, they wouldn’t be worrying about those things. They wouldn’t have gotten in those arguments. And a man would not be angry. The angriest men are the ones who are not getting laid. That’s where it comes from. You look at all these, you know these terrorists and people like that, you know, they didn’t have fathers.

John: 00:46:14 They have no role model of what it means to be a man. They’re all fatherless. They grew up without fathers and this is research we’re seeing is happening today. What half of the boys in America, I wrote a book called Boy Crisis was Warren Farrell have the boys in America growing up without fathers. What happens is they have no role model of how a man can provide for a woman. Therefore when a woman’s unhappy and women are always going to have ups and downs and their and their mood and so forth, and if he doesn’t know how to deal with that, he goes to his female side cause he doesn’t have confidence, hasn’t seen it over and over with his dad. He doesn’t have confidence of how to make a woman happy. Then suddenly he loses confidence. His testosterone levels convert into estrogen. He becomes angry and depressed. We have to understand that when a man is angry or unhappy or depressed or irritable, argumentative, defensive, all those things that kill relationships, he needs immediately know I’m out of control.

John: 00:47:08 Whatever she says, it’s not her fault. I’m pushed her over the edge. She depends on me to keep her grounded and her love and I just went to my female side. It puts her on her male side. She pulls her sword and she loses her ability to say loving things and says really mean awful things. Mistrusting things ask, why would you do that? How could you say that? Why would you, why did you do this? How could you forget this? All of that stuff that just like a punch in his stomach cause she’s not on her female side, but a man can push a woman to her male side. A woman pushes a man to his female side. That was the example. When women do it all at home, men are going to sit back on the couch and have no energy to do anything.

John: 00:47:47 We’re waiting for the emergency. We need to feel needed. Women need to feel trust that they can get what they need. And these are, this is the new art of communication. Previous generation did not have this culture kept everything in balance, but now our goal is no longer to be in balance in relationship and that old fashioned way. We want to go to a higher level self actualization, you know, transcending the ego, becoming spiritual beings and service and harmony. This is a big task. You know, this is a whole nother challenge for society and it comes through relationship. It comes through recognizing gender roles today, outdated gender roles. We transcend that, but we have to recognize gender is real and it exists. And very few people would acknowledge that. That’s why I love this new book, which talks about the hormones because nobody can say, you know, if you take, if you take the extreme, you know what we might say, toxic feminism not toxic.

John: 00:48:42 Toxic feminism that hates men. That’s an extreme. I’m totally feminists myself. I love women. I’m all standing for women. I love for men, but there’s toxicity on both sides. And so when you get the toxic feminist, what they talk about is that there is no gender difference and that is only created by culture. And the truth is it’s opposite. Culture has always evolved. Culture is something we create in order to support people in being authentic to their level of evolution. And the past, we did not have the level of evolution capable of being both male and female at the same time, having the masculine and the feminine. But that’s only in consciousness. It’s only in spirit. In spirit we are both masculine and feminine. But in this physical body, we have to respect the temple of the spirit, which means that I have a need as a biological creature to balance my hormones very differently from a woman.

John: 00:49:37 So I need to have support to be on my masculine side if I’m too feminine. So what would that look like? Well, let’s say I’m stressed out. If I’m stressed, that means I’m low. Too much estrogen, not enough testosterone. So I need to do something to build testosterone. Well, I have to stop doing anything that will create estrogen. Well, what are the things that create estrogen? Intimacy? I need to withdraw. I need to detach. I need to pull away. I need to, and my wife, I love my wife. She’s an estrogen machine for me. Every time I get close to my wife, my estrogen is going to go up. So if it goes too high, my testosterone goes too low or that’s why after you’ve had sex, if you’re a guy, many guys, you have sex with your wife or your partner or whatever and you, you ejaculate.

John: 00:50:24 When you ejaculate, you’re going to your maximum female side. That’s pure female. That’s surrender as this kind of like, oh my God, I love you forever and then I want to leave you, but it’s too much estrogen. A huge amount of oxytocin gets produced. What are the functions of the oxytocin that creates those contractions? Is oxytocin through affection, through touch. It creates safety, and when you’re saying your testosterone goes down, danger increases testosterone. Okay, we know that. You know, problem. Got to solve it. Urgency, get out there, raise your testosterone, safety, the message. We’re saying everything’s fine now we’re just going to relax and cuddle there. No sex there. Okay. Just obviously Towson, so what are the functions of oxytocin is it lowers testosterone and allows estrogen to go up. Now that’s not known fully yet. I found some little bits of research to back it up, but I have to pick and choose.

John: 00:51:17 What happens is about 20 years ago we learned through science that oxytocin was highly significant and helpful for women to regulate stress. Now what I’ve found is oxytocin and oxytocin is generated by affection, compliments, being heard, harmony, safety, feeling, and here’s the biggest safety. Somebody has your back. Somebody has your back and what happens in the beginning? Women feel he’s there for me and then he forgets. He doesn’t do this, he doesn’t do that. He gets angry a few times. After a while she just go, I can’t ask him. I can’t ask him. I’ll have to do it myself. And why is that? That’s a whole other dynamic. I talk about men’s grumbles. Let’s say I’m on the computer, I’m focused and let’s say my testosterone is not like really, I’m not fully confident. Okay. If I’m not fully confident on focusing my, they really solved the problem, I’m really into it.

John: 00:52:12 So I’m fully trying to maintain my, my, my focus. And then my wife walks up and says, John, did you do this and this and this. Now to shift my focus, hyper focus over to her has a symptom of irritable. I’m going to be a little irritable. Okay. Cause I just let go of my focus and I’m shifting over to estrogen land. Too much estrogen in that moment. So there’s a grumble that men have kind of irritation, annoyed and women feel that. They don’t know that once the grumble is over, it’s over. It’s not a big deal. When women grumble, it’s a big deal. They don’t forget. If you ask a woman to do something, she goes, well I don’t want to do it and oh please do it. That’s going to be like in the history books. Okay. So when women grumble it means it’s a big problem when men grumble, just ignore it. And then reward it.. Just give a lot of love and it goes away and it’s like a dog who has a tail. You know, some dogs will bite and have growl, but they’re got their tail up. That means they’re not going to bite you, but they’re wagging their tail. They’re happy to stay barking, but they’re wagging their tail. But if they’re not wagging their tail and they’re barking, then watch out. That’s a woman. So when men bark, women, women project, oh my gosh, I better not ask again. Otherwise he’ll hold on to all these feelings of resentment, but it made it very quick to let it go. Only if she rewards him. That’s the whole key for men. Remember I did this selfless thing, something I didn’t want to do, but if I anticipate you rewarding me with love, appreciation then it’s okay. I guess I should give a few examples here.

Brad: 00:53:47 One them I give example of a couple that has great sex. There’s, there’s rewards going on. Everyone feels rewarded. And so these, these nit picking arguments are turned out to be trivial.

John: 00:53:58 Absolutely. I think of one story, but I’ll try the big story, but I shorten it down. So one day I’m listening, my wife and she just had all these complaints and all these complaints and I said, okay, I’m just going to listen. And it was like went on for 50 minutes almost now. I said, now can I talk to you about what I feel because I’m ready to give her 50 complaints back tit for tat petty stuff. You know, but if you’re going to be petty, I’m going to be putting, this is ridiculous thing couples do. And then you said, if you’re happy, I have no problem. But if you’re going to complain, why got count complaints and make it fair? So I said to my wife, after listening all this time, now you feel hurt. She said, yes. I said, well, would this be a good time for me to tell you how I feel?

John: 00:54:35 And I was just ready to go on all my defensiveness, you know all about well, for every problem she has I got to. Okay. So I can, I can complain to if you let me do it. So as I said, would this be a good time? And she says, no, and then I just listen for a good 30 minutes and you’re not going to let me. It’s like it really quick, the other. But that was my female side. Got It. Okay. So then so I say, well, when would be a good time? And she says, I don’t know, but right now I want to bask in the sunshine of your love. I was like, what? How can you feel loved by me when you just criticize me for fucking 30 minutes? But it was, I didn’t fight back. I was able to sort of detach and hold my feelings over there, but I still had them.

John: 00:55:17 That was my estrogen over there. It was still, I’m still upset. So let’s call it a 100 degree upset. Then she said, you know, I’m gonna make you your special dinner tonight. And she was smiling and she was happy and she started singing in the kitchen. I mean, I thought it was in a Disney movie, little blue birds going around. So again, happy woman made me feel successful. So my testosterone starting to rise, my estrogen starting to go down, but still I was feeling a bit angry, a little bit resentful. You know that, hey, I share. I listened. She didn’t listen to me. Then that night I’m in bad baby to go to sleep, turned over and she goes over to the drawer with the sexy lingerie and she puts on some sexy lingerie and I’m going, why a woman who had 50 minutes of criticizing complaining about me and her life, how could she wouldn’t have sex with me?

John: 00:56:02 But I certainly didn’t mind. And she came and gotten bad and I kind of felt a little anger, but then somehow she just started reaching down south and touching me. And it’s the, the thing about men is we forget everything is forgotten when the blood flows south. So then we made love and it was wonderful. I forgot we were upset, but then went to sleep. Then the next morning she just sort of woke me up and John, this might be a good time if you want to tell me how you feel. I have no complaints at all. Those things were petty. It was nothing. All we want as men is they want to feel that we have been successful in making a woman happy and there’s nothing more powerful than a great sex life.

Brad: 00:56:38 Oh, what a story, man.

John: 00:56:40 It is a good story.

Brad: 00:56:41 So back to a common situation where we’re not supposed to get angry when we’re out of balance and we’re holding onto, Huh,

John: 00:56:51 Let me, let me back up. You’re going to be angry when you’re, when you get angry and you’re a man, when you’re out of balance, then you will be, one of the things is you’ll be anger is a sign that you are out of balance. So what you do is on judge the anger. Nobody’s wrong for being out of balance, but what you do as a man, as you recognize, don’t speak. If you talk, talking about feelings increases estrogen, talking about solutions, my create testosterone. If your partner said, oh, what a good idea, but they’re not going to say that right now. So if you’re angry, you need to take distance. Distance creates testosterone and do something that increases testosterone. Now, you know, my book has a lot of things, but basically exercise, meditation, anything you’re good at, will build your testosterone levels up.

Brad: 00:57:38 So then you go ahead and do that and then you come back and you’re still holding on to something. Maybe it’s an important matter that you really do need to address. Unlike unlike John Gray who forgot the next morning, whatever is his petty things where it, but maybe it’s, oh a, we looked at the, the credit card bill and, and we’re, we’re over the max limit and we already had a talk about this and I’m still upset even though we just had great sex last night. Uh, then I guess there’s a safer, more strategic time to really make progress because you’re, you’re back in testosterone balance is that you’re a recommendation?

John: 00:58:12 The recommendation, one of the qualities of masculinity now talking to the man is accountability. All successful men and successful people are accountable for whatever happens in their lives. Do you look at it and you go to the, you know, somebody can hit me, okay, I’ve been affected, but then I have to be accountable. How did I set myself up to get that blow? How would I put myself in that situation where that was going to happen? You, that’s accountability. If you don’t have accountability, you’re always in a victim. If you’re a victim, your estrogen levels are going to go up, and that’s one of the problems today is one of the things for women who have low estrogen, which is rampant. Now they’re all going to doctors to get estrogen, and that’s not the answer. When the women have low estrogen, one of the ways is complaining and being a victim.

John: 00:58:59 When you express, talk about negative emotions and negative feelings and talk about what you’re missing inside, what you’re missing in your life, estrogen levels go up. That’s why. That’s why therapy is 90% women. They come to therapy as you get to complain by somebody who empathizes and connects with you or ray who brings your estrogen levels back up. So back to men when pull away, and my whole thing is, first I need a bump my testosterone up. Then I need to reflect on what happened and look, how did I contribute to what happened? So I’m not coming back to point out to her what she did. I’m seeing my mastery in life. Is it? How did I connect? How did I contribute to it? And I don’t ever tell her how she contributed unless she’s really just having one of those nice after sex conversations.

John: 00:59:48 So if you’re still hurting inside, you don’t talk to your partner. If you’re a man, you go to another man and you make jokes about it. That’s another thing that men have to learn. Women need to go heavy to come light men need to go light to come back to opening the heart again. And you can learn this from like firemen who really see the worst of life, you know? And when they leave a fireplace, they don’t want any women around. They’ll just make jokes about what they saw. They have to because they saw the worst. And soldiers will do the same thing. You become irreverent and you talk about, you lighten it up. You have to disconnect from your emotions. Now, Buddha, I, I’m a big meditator. Okay. I teach meditation as well, and that’s my major way to disconnect from my estrogen. Basically, Buddha was teaching to men who are like criminals, and so when he taught them, empty the mind stop thinking. That’s the worst thing for women to do. They need to talk about what’s going on inside, but for men it’s about learning to forget temporarily what’s bothering you and feel good. Then when you feel good, look at the problems and how you can solve them without making other people, without not communicating criticism. That’s the whole thing. And those are communication skills. But what we’re focusing on here is you need to get to the place where you don’t have to talk about what you feel to feel better. Your heart is open again.

Brad: 01:01:05 Wow! That’s being accountable. That’s big.

John: 01:01:09 Yeah. That’s being a man.

Brad: 01:01:10 Right from your book. You said, suck it up,

John: 01:01:14 Suck it up. And of course there’s all the poor men, poor men, they’d been taught to suck it up and push their feelings down. So just talk about your feelings and not get an arguments and I’ll go get in fights. That’s what happens. There’s a place that I talk about my feelings all the time, but when they’re loving, when my heart is open, that’s what women are really, when they say, what are you feeling? They’re hoping what you’re feeling is positive. They don’t want it. They, you know, talking about negativity, if you’re a man, why your charge is the worst thing you can do. Analyzing and talking to another guy or talking to a woman therapist is fine too, but never from the point of view of trying to change the person. See when you’re upset, usually we’re trying to change somebody. If you’re upset and you’re trying to just st change somebody. You’re pushing at them, they’re going to resist you. You know, you will always get more of what you, what you don’t want. If you resist it, you push at it rather than open up and provide understanding and that’s a whole nother part of the book, which is understanding what women’s primary needs are and men’s primary needs. It’s a big picture. This has never been taught before.

Brad: 01:02:22 That’s why I loved it so much. I want to take some tidbits away, like what we can take those baby steps back to getting out of these bad patterns. And one of them is the the Venus talks. So you can describe a, when the woman comes home from a stressful day in the workplace, the modern workplace, where to, it’s a new thing for females anyway, on the evolutionary timeline. And what’s a, what’s a Venus talk? What’s the man to do there?

John: 01:02:45 Okay, here’s a practical, that is when this is something couples need to discuss. This doesn’t work if we don’t understand the concept that women need help to come back to their female side. They need that help. And men can provide that help. We’re not talking about what help men need. We’re talking about what women need help. Who are the guys who are always saving women? We, that’s our job. We’re supposed to save the women and women are the most unhappy people today at all history. So much depression, so much divorce, someone dissatisfaction. They need our help. And one of the biggest problems for men is as women become more independent, they don’t need us. So many men out of work. We don’t have a job. And when a man doesn’t have a job, he’s somewhat depressed. He sits there and watches TV, plays his video games. He doesn’t have any juice. Every guy who thinks he’s about to get laid has got a lot of juice. He’s happy to do cartwheels for her. That’s who we should be. We should wake up that guy every day. But women have to need us and after that, appreciate what we provide for them. But women don’t need men for money anymore to a great extent. And that was a major thing. That was the major need women had. He’s going to provide. And if you did, you’re providing come on and go to sleep and your wife was happy. She didn’t mind. She, you did. The big thing that she didn’t have to do, didn’t want to do even. And now today she’s doing that herself. So why are we needed? And if you’re not needed, you’re testosterone levels are low. This. This is like a crisis we’re in, so being a stock is for women to recognize what they need more than anything.

John: 01:04:17 If they’re feeling stressed is the race or estrogen, and to raise your estrogen, you need to talk one of the most efficient ways to do it. There’s lots of ways. Go do something you love to do is going to raise your estrogen, go to your doctor and ask for help. That’s why women see doctors more is whenever you need help and you’re trusting, you’re going to get it, your estrogen goes up, but you need to realize one of the beautiful things where being a star is the recognized. Talking about your feelings, nitpicky things, the little things talking about it will actually raise your estrogen. Go to indigenous tribe. You’ll see women talking about nitpicky things all the time. Oh, she didn’t do this. Oh, they didn’t want my child’s not doing. Just little things, talking about not big things, little things, nitpicky things about at work.

John: 01:05:01 They didn’t do this, they didn’t do this, but that produces a little estrogen. More estrogen is what she can talk about, the emotions she’s pushing down all day long. So that would look like I was in traffic. I was so frustrated because I wanted to go here. I was disappointed because I got to, the computer was broken again. How many times I have to ask these guys, but to feel emotions, uh, concerns, disappointments, frustrations, and that’s a whole a section, you know, that’s, that’s like learning how to speak English, how to speak language, you know, emotional intelligence, how to communicate your emotions and the way you do it. Or you communicate your emotions but not about him. That’s the art you have to say, this is not about you. I’m not looking for a solution. I just need your, I need your presence. I need you to just be there and not speak and not offer advice.

John: 01:05:46 Do nothing, just don’t speak. I’m going to do this for five or six minutes. That’s it. Practice sharing emotions about your day, about little stuff. But you’re revealing what’s inside. So the intimacy is about men going into women. It’s about women having to open up and share. And it’s a powerful estrogen stimulators cause you’re sharing nit picky things, which you would never let anybody know. You’d be always seen as a weak person. I don’t want us to be that needy person. I don’t want to be seen as overly sensitive on top. Those emotions are there. And so she has to learn to soften and open up talking about little things and over time, more and more estrogen gets produced as opposed to holding it in until becomes big things. See we were in this place of the problem has to be really big before we get emotional.

John: 01:06:34 And that’s a masculine quality. You know, I’m standing in front of an audience and cry and everybody has huge respect for me because I’m talking about my wife who died of cancer and you know, I feel like I don’t want to live then, oh my God, that’s very manly because it’s a big problem. But if I say, you know, God my, My, my book, I didn’t meet my book deadline or they didn’t pay me enough, you know, it was like, oh I like that line and get out there and do it. You know? So there’s a distinction here. So Venus Talk is learning how to express frustration, disappointment, concerns, worries, and ideally get deeper to the emotions of it. And his job is only to listen, listen. And then after you’re done like six, seven minutes and then talk about, but you don’t need to say anything. I love my job, I love my life, I feel great. I just didn’t need to get that off my shoulders and I’ll feel better. And then he come and then go in for the hug and then let them know a three second hug, six second hug just feel so good. I’m just feel so glad I can come home to you. You’re such a grounding influence in my life. Boom. It goes like, Hey, I didn’t have to do anything. And I did that. That’s like pure Zen. You know, that that’s not doing, doing it’s enlightenment,

Brad: 01:07:40 Right? Cause we have to suppress the, the burning desire to solve the problem. So when you hear these crazy, uh, complaints about, uh, the, the, the workplace dysfunction, you, you have a quick solution, but you have to suppress that and just listen and nod and tone down that the male side. Otherwise you’re going to bring those hormones out of balance.

John: 01:07:58 That’s right. That’s right. So that’s a good practical and I another practical one just to walk away with men. Anytime you’re angry, stop talking, walk away. Women, if a man is angry, don’t ask him more questions. Don’t follow him. That’s how you create worst relationships. And most women do that. I see it. And over, a guy’s tendency is just to walk away and the women’s bar following him asking questions. It’s just like taking a wound and pounding on it and bringing out the worst of them. And it will just bring up more estrogen. He’s out of control and then they’ll do things. It’s awful. And women, you know that their nature is to keep talking and what are asking questions. Are real strong man. If he understands this doesn’t answer them. He just says, look, I need to take time to think about it. Well, why do you do that? Don’t you love me? I just need time to think about it and walk away. Don’t let her engage you into more conversation.. These are like, and what gives you the power to do that is to know you’re destroying your relationship. If you talk when you’re emotionally upset,

Brad: 01:08:54 well, both. Both parties can be accountable in that example and no, no. What makes people click and tick?

John: 01:09:01 You know how I learned that one is Bonnie used to say I would start getting defensive and her, she said, my tone sounded angry. I didn’t think I was angry, but she said, you’re getting angry or something like that and I know I’m just making a point here again, right or wrong here, clear as day. You know, as soon as I would get into that tone, she would just say for us, this is what works. He says, you’re being mean. I’m going away. And she would just walk away. She wouldn’t listen to him. I said, no, no, no. I can be. Well, let me see. You know, it was just talk from your heart. I’ll listen to you otherwise on love listening and it was, she said that boundary and and after. The truth is no man has the intention of being mean. You know, I don’t want to be mean to but some men, maybe kid, that’s not the right expression, but a woman’s should just say not. Don’t talk to me that way and now you’re controlling him. Instead. I need some time. I don’t want to talk. I need some time. I don’t want to talk. You’re owning yourself.

Brad: 01:09:54 But wait, I’m, I’m the bestselling relationship author in America. You have to listen.

John: 01:10:01 Timing.

Brad: 01:10:02 John Gray. What an absolute privilege. Thank you so much. We have to go get this book. It’s a mandatory read for everyone beyond Mars and Venus. I appreciate you spending the time. Good luck with all your, your future happenings.

John: 01:10:16 I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much fun with you.

Brad: 01:10:18 Thank you John.

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