(Breather) This show and the follow up part 2 breather show about John Gray will pull all of his life-changing insights—from both our podcast and his new book, Beyond Mars and Venus, together into a focused plan of action for both males and females to rid your love relationship of petty arguing, stress, and dysfunction and take it to the next level. Listen closely with an open mind as males get some in-your-face assignments to “man up” and “shut up” instead of turn into cranky bitchy boys when they experience a negative emotional charge.

That’s right, Dr. John Gray himself, the number-one bestselling relationship author of all time, is telling us to shut up and take some cave time instead of “express your feelings.” Your woman doesn’t wanna hear you bitch and moan. Her deep-seated biological drives want you to calm, cool, and collected and protect her from every danger in the world, including your negative emotions! WOW! Dudes, can you carry this assignment out? Or do you wanna trash your testosterone with negative, argumentative conversations that leave you feeling limp (literally) and drained?  

In this show, I cover Dr. Gray’s foundational insights men and women experience stress, love, and success in different ways, through different filters. With hormone balance absolutely essential to a relationship, males have to engage in testosterone-boosting behaviors (“cave time”), females have to engage in estrogen-boosting behaviors (“Venus talks”) and both parties have to strive for close connection, respectful communication, and taking full accountability for their roles in relationship conflict.  

If you are a wussy boy or a cranky chick, then this show will offend you and get you complaining about how both Brad Kearns and John Gray should mind their own business. If you have an open mind and open heart and want to improve your relationship, listen carefully and try these tips out! Especially the John Gray classic where he said males forget easily when they just take some time away, and female can settle any contention with a female by just taking matters into the bedroom! And be sure to tune in to Breather Show #2 to put all the insights together.  

Life changing takeaways that you MUST listen to and absorb :

• Be accountable for your actions, otherwise, you are a victim. 
• We respond drastically different to moderate external stress: males detach (analyze calmly) females get strong emotions (assessing support). Men misinterpret female emotions as needing a solution.  
• Most couples get stuck in a pattern of she’s giving more and he’s giving less, then she feels resentful and he gives even less since he’s not appreciated. 

Male takeaways: 

• Male’s main purpose is to make a difference and be appreciated for it. 
• Male is happiest when his partner is happy. This is a symbol that he has made her happy and respected her needs wishes and desires. He’s happy with his own success but only when it’s made a difference and has a meaning to others. 
• Males you DON’T need to complain, bitch n’ moan to your partner. If you’re too sensitive and emotional, needy and demanding, she’ll get turned off. JG says, “She wants your T, man! She wants you to solve problems, protect, keep her safe, understand her—and especially protect her from your own anger! Stop talking if you have a negative emotional charge.
• Females wanna be heard and understood. Venus talk!
• Males must NEVER express anger toward partner: expressing anger is damaging to the relationship (exacerbates testosterone/estrogen imbalance). Go into the cave instead. “As long as you have a negative emotional charge, don’t share feelings.”  
• Males can easily forget when matters are taken into the bedroom (also mentioned in the Mia Moore show).
• Males lacking cave “T” time: Suppression of male side causes internal heat and overexpression of female emotional side. “Sharing and caring leads to more stress”  Male develops exaggerated needs and sense of entitlement.
• Venus talk: Males must learn to just listen when females are venting (building estrogen), instead of trying to solve their problems (T).  Listen intently, don’t interrupt,  say “tell me more”. Validate their complaints. NOT about partner. End with positive/gratitude/ End with hug. Time apart after 

 Female takeaways:

• Female’s main purpose is to give and receive love from happiness, gratitude, appreciation, respect 
• The workplace is T dominant, so females must work harder to balance the female side outside of a kick-ass workday. At home, she will take on more and more and get further exhausted, when what she really needs is to be heard and appreciated, as well as take some “me” time.
• Female’s biggest stress today is too far on her doing side and not enough on her feeling side, due to evolving cultural roles. 
• Female assignment: Give males their “cave time,” (rebuild T, ball game, video game, tinker with the car, meditate, (Speedgolf). Male will return to the relationship and intimacy with fresh enthusiasm. Don’t chase after him and ask what’s wrong! 

 TIMESTAMPS:
 

• The starting point for all manner of relationship conflict is the essential need to balance hormones (male and female hormones.) [03.23] 
• Men need testosterone-building activities. [05:46] 
• Women’s needs are more along the lines of connection with others. [06:50] 
• In Norway, they have the highest level of workplace equality. How does it work? [08:42] 
• John Gray lists some advice for relationships. Be accountable. [09:10] 
• Males should never bitch and moan to your partner.  [11:19] 
• If males don’t take their cave time, they don’t regenerate their testosterone. [14:19]
• Females want to be heard and understood. [15:12] 
• After the Venus Talk, it’s time for a hug and then the cave time. [17:19] 
• Females need to understand how being in the testosterone dominant world affects her. [19:18] 
• Females need to understand the importance of the male’s cave time. [20:09]  

LINKS:  

• Podcast with John Gray 

QUOTES:   

• “Men and women experience stress, love, and success in different ways as if through different filters.”  
• “Males like to solve problems. That builds their testosterone. Females like to vent and build back their estrogen after an estrogen depleting day.”

Brad: 00:08 Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author and 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.

Brad: 02:11 I want to tell you about my life changing acquisition of a personal, home-use SAUNA. I have a six by six barrel sauna in my backyard. Ready-made heat therapy, a fabulous unit from almost heaven. Check out their website. You can very affordably order your own sound for installation in your backyard or garage and have a sauna experience the fabulous health benefits accruing from exposure to hot temperatures. Get that sweat going. These are beautiful, traditional dry barrel sound does where you splashed the water on the rocks. Go in there and relax. It’s become a social centerpiece at my home. People traveling from far and wide to come check out the barrel sound, uh, turn the dial or set the timer and walk into 200 degrees in the Caribbean. For some reason, people like to come to the sauna more than my cold tub. Go figure, check out almost heaven.com and they’re beautiful natural wood designs and pretty soon surprisingly affordable, you will be in the home. Sound a business.

Brad: 03:23 Ah, a breather show to deconstruct the incredible message of Dr. John Gray, author of beyond Mars and Venus number one bestselling relationship, author of all time, one of the world’s leading experts, a high energy high-intensity guy. What a fantastic show. Please go back and listen to it. It will be life-changing. This newest book, this masterpiece 2017 “Beyond Mars and Venus.” Oh, what it was so great about it is it went to the underpinnings of relationship conflict and the essential need to balance hormones, male and female hormones, the Yin and Yang, the starting point for all manner of relationship conflict. When you ignore this and we get hit with so much relationship expert advice. Here’s what to do, here’s how to do these, control your emotions, do this, do that.

Brad: 04:21 But if your hormones are out of balance, it kind of goes to waste. So I love John Gray going to the heart of things here. I am going to try to summarize everything. This is from listening to the 10 hour audio book recording and then uh, going through the wonderful experience of the interview for the show. Men and women experience stress, love and success in different ways as if through different filters. That’s why hormone balance is essential. If you don’t balance male and female hormones, you spike stress hormones and you feel tired and irritable and become your worst self and the relationship instead of your best self. I mean really why bother learning relationship skills if your hormones are off? Men and women are different, right? They need to sustain hormone levels that are 10 times that of their partner, right? So the male dominant, dominant in testosterone. Estrogen is of course present, but the ratio of testosterone to estrogen is 20 to one. Female is dominant to estrogen. Of course, testosterone is president and plays an important role, especially when females are trying to tone up and delay the aging process. They need that testosterone, but it’s at a, is it a 10 times to one balance estrogen to testosterone. Okay, you get the point.

Brad: 05:46 So by following the Mars and Venus rules, males and females can maintain hormone balance. The man wants testosterone-building activities, like sports and problem solving. Going out in the garage to tinker with the car. Playing video games is a tremendous testosterone booster because you’re trying to dominate and control your environment. John Gray talks about cave time was one of the centerpiece elements of the first book. “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, and he says, men have to figure, actively go into their cave and chill and relax and solve a problem, watch a sporting event, go to the golf range and hit golf balls, have some buddies over to drink beer and watch Monday night football and speak in simple, short sentences. How’s everything going? Man, life’s given me a hard time. Okay. That’s all cave time. And that serves an important purpose to nurture and regenerate testosterone levels.

Brad: 06:50 Totally different than what the female needs, which is the connection and going to book group and Chitty chatting all night long and talking through problems in great lengths, the stuff that males, generally speaking, don’t like to do, but as critically important to balance female hormones and boost that estrogen that gets knocked down in the testosterone dominant modern workplace. Okay, pause here if you want to get a bent about these sweeping gender generalizations. Uh, John Gray makes the important point that this is patterns and there are male dominant behaviors like problem solving, competition and there are female dominant behaviors like nurturing and connecting in that way.

Brad: 07:36 Uh, he makes the point in his earlier books that same sex couples, uh, these insights still apply because we fall into these patterns such as going to work and performing in a competitive workplace that you can call male dominant and then connecting, nurturing and talking and doing things that are characterized as female dominant. So onward we go with the insights. And what’s interesting about the modern culture, progressive, modern workplace is, of course, it represents fantastic progress for the world from going back to the more traditional gender roles where the mail was the breadwinner out in society and the female was the homemaker. So progress forward for society, but it does cause challenges because we get out of our natural hormone balance dating back to a hunter gatherer times, right? The males, the stronger physical specimens went out there and hunted and tried to score the big, uh, the big game and the females, uh, gathered and nurtured the, uh, the children. Right? Interesting insight about Norway, which is the highest level of workplace equality in the world. They have wonderful social policies like the males get paternity leave, all kind of stuff. They also have a really high rate of divorce because they’re trying to be equal across the board, equal with child rearing, equal in the workplace. And it sets up a inherent difficulty in achieving this hormone balance.

Brad: 09:10 Okay. Here’s some takeaways. Some emphatic advice from John Gray. Be accountable for your actions, man. Otherwise, you land in the victim role. Look at your responsibility and your contribution to relationship conflict. Rather than always blaming. Realize that we respond drastically differently to moderate external stressors. The males like to detach. That helps them to calmly analyze the situation to see how they can solve the problem. Females get a strong emotional reaction, an emotional spike, for example, when your partner forgets something at the store. What did Nicholas Cage forget in that classic scene in the fabulous movie “Weatherman?” What did he forget at the store that his wife begged him to get and reminded him over and over? It was tartar sauce, of course. Okay, so understand that males and females respond drastically differently. Don’t tell your female partner to calm down EVER bad idea. That’s not what they need to hear. At that point, they need love and support and understanding that that is their programmed default response to moderate external stress. Females, don’t expect to enroll your male partner in your emotional reaction. They need to detach and commonly analyze things when faced with moderate external stressors. That alone is a life changing insight for couples. Thank you, John Gray. Most couples unfortunately get stuck in a pattern of she giving more and he giving less. That’s when they fall out of hormone balance. The man retreats to his cave more often. He doesn’t feel appreciated, so he stops giving. The female gives more and more and more. She becomes a martyr. Then she feels resentful. He feels unappreciated, and they lock into this very common relationship dynamic.

Brad: 11:19 Okay, males first this time. Here’s your takeaways, man. Here’s your marching orders to be the best you can be in a relationship. First, understand your primary genetic drive. Your main purpose in life is to make a difference and be appreciated for it. A man is happiest when his partner is happy. This is a symbol that he’s made her happy and respected. Her needs, wishes and desires. He’s happy with his own success, but only when it’s made a difference and has meaning to others. I guess only if people are clapping right when you score the touchdown in the stadium. Okay. males, you do not need to complain or bitch and moan to your partner ever. If you come off as too sensitive and emotional and needy and demanding, she’ll get turned off. Man, she won’t want any of that action. She wants your testosterone, man. She wants your A game. She wants someone who’s going to solve problems and protect her. Those are her baseline hormonal genetic drives, solve problems protector her, keep her safe and understand her. Understand that females want to be heard and understood. They require what? John Gray calls Venus Talk. I’ll explain that shortly. So bullet point number one, males never need to complain or bitch and moan to your partner. Don’t act like a Wussy boy. Understand that females want to be heard and understood. That’s their basic primary drive. Males, you must never express anger towards your partner. Expressing anger is damaging to the relationship every time. What it does is it exacerbates testosterone, estrogen imbalances. Instead, you go off into your cave quote, as long as you have a negative emotional charge, do not share your feelings end quote.

Brad: 13:36 WHEW! Can you imagine executing this assignment for the rest of your life? I’m just reading on the medium today. Dr. David Caruso of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence says, quote, there are situations when spilling your guts may exacerbate negative emotions. Instead of assuage them. Whew. Then John Gray with this spicy follow up, he says, guess what? Males will easily forget what they’re angry about when matters are taken into the bedroom. Exactly what Mia Moore said on her show. Oh mercy.

Brad: 14:19 Okay, next bullet. When you don’t take your cave time, when you don’t bother to regenerate testosterone with male dominant activities, suppression of the male side causes internal heat, an over-expression of your female emotional side, sharing and caring leads to more stress. And then you get a male who has, who develops an exaggerated sense of entitlement and exaggerated needs. He turns into a complaining, bitchy, high maintenance type of human rather than that desirable male who knows how to take his cave time, go off and do male testosterone nurturing activities and then come back to the relationship bringing his best self.

Brad: 15:12 Uh, earlier, one of the bullets I mentioned that females want to be heard and understood. They require Venus talk. So you have to give them venous talk. What is that? That’s when the male sits there and listens when females are venting after a tough day at work or a tough day out in the big, bad world, when females are venting, they are connecting and they are rebuilding their estrogen, returning to estrogen dominance, it’s very, very important to sit and listen and tell the female that she is heard and understood instead of trying to solve their problems. As is such our common knee jerk reaction when we hear someone venting and complaining, you instantly come up with a solution because that is your testosterone dominance kicking into gear. Males like to solve problems that builds their testosterone. Females like to vent and build back their estrogen after estrogen depleting day.

Brad: 16:17 They do not want to hear their problems solved. They just want you to listen. So the male’s job with Venus Talk time is to listen intently. Don’t ever interrupt. Say things like, tell me more and validate their complaints. Oh, there’s some rules, Venus Talk. It can’t be about you. So the female is allowed to complain about anything and everything in their life. But never directed at you. That doesn’t work for male, female hormone balance or for a winning relationship. So just like the male is not allowed to communicate when experiencing a negative emotional charge, females are allowed to vent freely to their supportive male partner, but it can’t be about you. We can deal with that later and then encourage the female to always end their discussion, their venting with a positive statement or a statement of gratitude. And then your job, uh, at conclusion is to give them a hug.

Brad: 17:19 And then after the Venus Talk is over. So you can imagine here comes the female arriving home after a tough days work. She wants to go off about what happened with Johnny and Jimmy and Billy and Reggie. And then after it’s over, and I think there’s a five or 10 minute maximum, John Gray said, ask him to say something positive or express gratitude. Give him a hug. And then the couple takes time apart after. The male has to retreat into his cave to regenerate testosterone after being involved in the Venus Talk it. Pretty awesome, Uh? Unwittingly it works well. Right after the females venting for awhile. You quietly go off and do a few sets of your bench press out in the garage and then you come back. You feel okay. Okay, so that was the male assignments. In summary, you never need to complain, bitch and Moan to your partner. Otherwise you become a little wussy boy too sensitive and emotional, needy, demanding. The woman will get turned off. She wants your testosterone, man.

Brad: 18:33 Understanding that females want to be heard and understood and they need Venus Talk. That’s bullet number two. Bullet number three, males must never express anger toward their partner. And finally, you have to be sure that you take your cave time every day as much as you need it. Otherwise, you’ll generate internal heat and overexpress and of your female emotional side. No Bueno. Here are the female takeaways. Understand that your main purpose in life is to give and receive love from happiness, gratitude, appreciation, and respect. That’s what makes you tick. Remember, in contrast, the males main purpose in life is to make a difference and be appreciated for it.

Brad: 19:18 Okay. Bullet number one for females, understanding that the modern workplace is testosterone dominant, so the female is obligated to work very hard to balance her female side outside of her kickass workday at home. She will take on more and more and get further exhausted because she’s in that testosterone dominant mindset, right? She’s been begging her to do list all day at work, checking off the boxes, getting shit done. Comes home, gets into the same mode with her cleaning to do list or home chores to do list. But what she really needs is to be heard and appreciated and take some me time, some time for self care. Enjoy a show on the television, go sit in the bath with the bubbles and the candles.

Brad: 20:09 Second bullet, the females biggest stress today is getting too far out on her doing side and not enough on her feeling side. This is due to evolving cultural roles where females have ascended out of that strictly caretaker role. So here’s the female assignment. Give males their cave times so they can rebuild their testosterone, watching a ball game, playing video games, tinkering with their cars, play in speed golf, the male well returned to the relationship with intimacy and fresh enthusiasm. If you feel like something’s wrong with your male, don’t chase after him and ask what’s wrong. Give him his cave time.

Brad: 20:54 Okay, let’s cut it there and this will be the male and female assignments and obligations for a winning relationship. Deconstructing the John Gray show and we’ll do a second breather breakdown show about John Gray, where we talk about how we get into trouble and get out of balance with relationships, how to correct it and some final summary thoughts. So keeping it in your head. Hopefully you honor your assignments, males and females. Go out there and make it work. Thanks for listening.

Brad: 21:25 Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback. It get over yourself. podcast@gmail.com and we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars, and it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves because they need to. Thanks for doing it.