In this episode, I talk to Dr. Robert Glover, the author of No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan For Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life. We dive deeper into what NICE GUY SYNDROME is, total personal integration,
3 covert contracts of a nice guy, and so much more.
Show Notes:
(05:27): What is Nice Guy Syndrome?
(11:40): Unifying Factors for Men
(32:41): 3 Covert Contracts of a Nice Guy
(40:41): Show People Who You Really Are
(46:51): Resonating Someone’s Experiences
(52:06): Total Personal Integration
(59:21): Learning Your Habits: What Habit/s You Will Manifest Daily and What Should be Removed?
How to Connect with Robert:
Website: www.drglover.com
Books:
Transcript
Robert 00:00
Usually, the biggest challenge for most of us app is accepting I'm okay! I'm okay warts and all flaws and mistakes insecurities dark side, the inner animal and beast and toxic male in me what I'm okay I'm okay I don't have to get better I could just work at loving me more accepting me more being more What You See Is What You Get that is when things really begin to shift powerful but I found we have to do that with other people. We can't ship that I'm not okay into I'm fine the way I am without the support of people loving us just the way we are.
Athan 00:49
The Doing The Work Podcast is brought to you by the Bastrop Fitness Project Bastrop’s Hub for health and wellness. Check them out at www.bastropfitnessproject.com. Welcome to The Doing The Work Podcast. I'm your host, Athan Schindler and I am extremely excited to introduce you to the guest on today's episode.
Dr. Robert Glover is the author of No More Mr. Nice Guy a proven plan for getting what you want in love, sex, and life. And he's the author of Dating Essentials For Men: The Only Dating Guide You Will Ever Need. Dr. Glover is an internationally recognized authority on the nice guy syndrome. He is a frequent guest on radio talk shows and has been featured in numerous local and national publications. Through his book, Online classes, workshops, podcasts, blogs, consultations and therapy groups. Dr. Glover has helped change the lives of countless men and women around the world. As a result of his work. Dr. Glover has helped 1000s of nice guys transform from being passive, resentful victims to empowered integrated males, along with these personal changes have come similar transformations in these men's professional careers and intimate relationships. Dr. Glover is the creator of Dating Essentials For Men. and the director of the TPI University. Dr. Gloverr comes to us from Puerto Rico, Mexico, excuse me, he comes from part of IR to Mexico. And we're extremely excited to have him on the show. Dr. Gloverr I can't tell you how impactful your book is, in particular, No More Mr. Nice Guy has been for me, I recently found myself in a bit of a backslide or pretty dark place for myself personally. And through that, I kind of had this realization that I have what I call people-pleasing behaviors. I kind of realized where I've landed myself. And so through that, and your book is almost 20 We're hitting the 20 year anniversary. Getting close to it right?
Robert 02:57
This is coming up anyway, it'd be 2003. I guess we 20 years of the print version.
Athan 03:04
So I wish I had found this book far sooner. I found myself kind of searching for books on pleasing people and whatnot. And yours came up in the suggestions and I read it and I just devoured it and told everyone I knew about it. And so I just am so excited to have you on the show. I appreciate the work that you do. And I and I can't wait to share your message with the audience.
Robert 03:26
Thank you for the invitation. And yeah, I love hearing, that my books have an impact on people's lives. And I hear that a lot. So it's nice to know, it was worth the time and effort to write it and put it out there.
Athan 03:39
I recall from the book you said it took you about six years to write it.
Robert 03:44
Probably six, seven years to write it, three years just trying to get it published. And then a tad a real slow climb at first, but the last 10 plus years or so it's really done well. And awesome. Every year keeps getting translated into more languages. So yeah, it's having a real worldwide impact.
Athan 04:03
I love that. Again, in terms of just like someone who clearly spent a large part of your career, learning about all these things, I love when someone's passion and love and desire turns into something successful and productive for them. So it's exciting to see.
Robert 04:21
I tell people, that everything I write about or talk about is stuff I've struggled with. So I'm a recovering nice guy. I've struggled with that people-pleasing behavior, the conflict avoidance was needing everybody else's approval before I could make a decision, and then even like my dating books were because I became single in my late 40s and had to learn how to date. I had no idea how to do it, and I got good enough at it that people started asking my advice on it. So everything I teach I've struggled with so I usually can relate to people well and people that have the same struggles and they can usually relate to what I'm talking about.
Athan 05:00
I think some of the best experts in the world don't understand something just academically, they've had to wrestle with it themselves personally, that's how you become an expert at many things. Well, my audience may or may not know the kind of topical nature of your work. And so you talk about the nice guy syndrome in your book. And so can you give us just kind of like a brief overview of how you describe the nice guy syndrome?
What is Nice Guy Syndrome?
Robert 05:27
Just kind of gives the elevator pitch of the nice guy syndrome. And my book is written about men. And basically, I'm talking about codependency, I don't actually use that term in the book. And that was a conscious decision because I wanted to be able to talk about specific behaviors and models without people getting a preconceived idea of Oh, it's this, but I'll say that I get emails from women all the time thanking me for the book saying that they can relate to it well, so the basic theoretical concepts apply to women as well. But because I, for the last 20 plus years, really, since the books came out, I've mainly worked with men prior to my doctorates in marriage and family therapy. So I was a relationship therapist for 20 years before the nutshell version of nice guy syndrome, a nice guy is a person who, due to inaccurately internalizing emotional beliefs at a young age, believes that they're not okay, just as they are. And the kind of theoretical term we use for that is a toxic shame that I believe I'm unlovable, I'm not good enough. And so the nice guy or nice girl is constantly trying to do two things: become what they think other people want them to be, so that they can be loved and liked and get their needs met, and hide anything about themselves that they think other people might respond negatively to. And for most nice guys, as usual, their wants and needs and their sexuality, are the things we try to hide from the world. And unfortunately, those are really important things about your wants or needs and our sexuality and trying to hide or repress them or not let them be too visible usually means that come out in really not very healthy ways. And I talk a lot about that in the book of how nice guys often really aren't so nice because they're, they're inauthentic. They don't tell the truth. They can be passive-aggressive, they can actually be very resentful, rageful, and angry because they're not very good at getting their needs met or getting the love they want. So basically, it's the man or woman because they don't believe they're okay, just as they are trying to get everybody else to approve of them to be liked, loved to get their needs met and hide everything about them that they have, that they are fearful of, we'll get a negative reaction.
Athan 07:39
As I was reading the book, I had this experience with it. It's like this duality of never like I've never felt so exposed and kind of like raw and will say called out at the same time as feeling validated and affirmed. And it was these two things going on at once while I was reading it, which made it powerful for me. I mean, it was emotional to read it.
Robert 08:06
That's a common dynamic. I spoke to one of my coaches online last night. And the first guy to ask me a question, Said, he just read my book a week or so ago. And he said this, he has turned his life completely upside down, which can shake up the old paradigm or roadmap that we've had since childhood, of who we are, how the world works. And all of a sudden, that just gets blown up that happens to any major life change. I mean, if you have a near-death experience, or you decide to stop drinking, or there are a lot of things that can truly shatter our old paradigm or old operating system, sometimes we have, we're able to find a new one that helps replace the old one. And sometimes we don't, sometimes we just wonder what do we do next? But either way there's a time period in there, where maybe a few years even where we go from the old paradigm has been ripped away from us. i What was now and then how do we start integrating this new paradigm into our life? And what's that gonna look like? And how do we do things differently? And it really helps if we have a good guide, maybe a written form, and good mentors and good coaches to help us do that. But what you experienced is pretty common is we realize, and basically whole Fuck, this doesn't work. And then all how cool there's something that will work. And it's a good feeling. And I think one of the things I say No more Mr. Nice Guy, don't try to do this work alone. We didn't become nice guys in social isolation. We're not going to get cured of it, just trying to figure this out on our own. Because a big part of doing the nice guy recovery work is getting around safe people beginning to reveal ourselves, release the toxic shame and getting more accurate feedback about who we really are. And I've seen it just over and over and over again when I was in private practice. I was leading five men's groups a week, and I've led lots of workshops. I've been in my own men's programs, I'm in my own men's program now that I attend as a participant. And there's something about finding out, you're not alone, you're not terminally unique. You're not the only one that has this frustration, this struggle, this fear, this shame, this self-limiting belief. And if you see these other people that have the same stuff as you and you go, not only am I not alone, but that person's okay, that person is okay. So maybe I'm okay to maybe, maybe there's nothing really wrong with me, I just was trying to follow the wrong roadmap, that's all that it really is.
Athan 10:36
And I think that's what's powerful about your work is that so like, it sounds like to other people who just go, like, I read a lot of books, I read a ton of books, and good, there's some good books, and there's some not so good books out there. But very few of them ever actually change you. They rarely do they change who you are, or how you do things, or whatever. And I think what's really special about your work and this book is that if you happen to be Mr. Nice Guy, if it's a correct description of who you are. And after you read the book, you can no longer. It's almost like you can't be the same anymore, you've now become a new level of awareness. And you're going to have to do something different, which I really appreciate, you've got the 46 Act, the action items to do break breaking free activities. Breaking free activities, which I'm currently working through myself, and not all the way finished with them. But I'm finding them helpful and again next step would be like you said, probably finding a group or getting involved in some other activities.
Unifying Factors for Men
Robert 11:40
I can't over encourage that enough to get at it, especially for men. We men tend to be pretty isolated. And when the book came out, my publisher sent me on a book tour across the United States. And I did a lot of interviews, and a lot of people said, asked me, Robert, do you think there'll be a worldwide men's movement like feminism? And I said, No, I don't really think so for a few reasons. But the primary one is, I didn't see one unifying factor to bring men together. Now, 20 years later, I've been saying, I was right and wrong. I was right, that there's not one unifying factor. But actually, maybe there is. But I was wrong. But I think there is actually a worldwide men's movement happening. It just isn't, it doesn't look like that. And what that is, I think that one unifying factor, men need tribe, we need connection, we need to be with other men, we need to work with other men, struggle with other men, be held by other men, be sharpened by other men. And men are looking for that. Even if they don't know that's what they're looking for. Maybe they go join a martial arts class, and they don't realize they're looking for a connection with men, but they go get it. Maybe they go to a 12-step recovery program, and they end up connecting with men more deeply, maybe they go to a divorce support group through their church and connect with men more deeply. Maybe they go to a pickup Bootcamp thinking they will learn how to pick up women, but the truth is, they meet a bunch of guys, all this go hang out together and do this thing. And maybe there's all kinds of different ways that men are going seeking out men. And often you don't really see that big picture because, well, that's just martial arts. Well, that's just alcohol recovery, or that's just divorce support group or that's just mankind project, or that's just pickup errs, but it's really men seeking men. So that's why I really stress our ancestors didn't go to Lone the lone wolf did not exist. A lone wolf did not get to pass on that genetic code. We're tribal by nature. And we need tribes. So yeah, I'm, I preach all the time. We men need to go find a tribe. And so men's groups. And luckily, with the internet, there are so many of them. Now, this is amazing.
Athan 13:52
And I think some guys stumble into it. I'm a Veteran. I'm currently in the National Guard. And you hear about a lot of guys who really struggle once they leave service, I imagine. And, and, and I'm wondering, we're hearing you speak hadn't really thought put two and two together. But I'm wondering if it's because they lost some of that tribe. And there's no doubt a large commitment.
Robert 14:13
They leave men struggling when they leave prison because they go number one from having their life very regimented. Which military does that too, but yeah, they go from having probably a depth of connection that we don't have on the outside. And so recidivism, men going back to prison, men getting out of the military.My son's a vet, he was involution AraC in the Marines, which has made me more sensitive to vets and their needs and more vets are killing themselves every year than have died in any recent war. And that's sad, a sad probably for many reasons PTSD, but maybe as much as any is lack of tribe and lack of connection and love. I can purpose.
Athan 15:01
I can say that's true for me. In fact, while I was reading the book I was finding myself contemplating. There are times when I'm not, when I'm not a people pleaser. I'm not Mr. Nice Guy. And it's like when I get to put on my uniform, it's like this. I'm a new person. I'm a different person. When I'm in uniform. I'm not, I'm not that way. And it's frustrating to me, because I know I'm capable of it. But in my own kind of personal slash civilian life. I'm horrible, I'm horrible, Mr. Nice Guy. And it's really problematic.
Robert 15:31
I'm smiling. Let me tell you the story. I was working with a couple. It's been 20-plus years ago when I was in private practice and doing a lot of couples therapy. And I started out working with the woman in the relationship, she came to me first. And she was frustrated in her marriage. They'd only been married a few years. And her husband came in for a few sessions, and he was a cop. And how they met is that she was a dispatcher in the local police department, and he worked there. And that's where they met. And she fell in love with them, and they got married. And then I don't remember why. But she changed jobs. Maybe she didn't have to work anymore, whatever maybe had a kid I don't remember exactly. But she quit being the dispatcher. So now she's at home. And her husband comes home from work, takes his uniform off and puts on his civilian clothes, and does what he does. And she said, he changed when he was in uniform. When she saw him at work in uniform. She fell in love with this guy. And she said the only way I ever get to see my husband is the way I fell in love with him. If I go on a ride alongs with him that takes me out to his house. I'll see the way he interacts with people. He stands up straight, he's strong, he's assertive, he's powerful. He comes home to me and she goes, everything's yesteryear, whatever you want to do, what do you want to do tonight, okay, that'll be fine. Doesn't matter to me. And she's going, I want my husband back out only to see him when he puts his uniform on. And so that you're the same thing about that uniform energetically, he probably stands up a little bit taller, you're sharper, you've been, you've been trained to respect the uniform that you mentioned, my son was in the Marines. Even though I've never been in the military, when I would go visit him at Camp Pendleton in California, just driving on the base, going through the guard station, I would drive on the base to go visit him. I had a reverence for respect for the uniform, and board, represented. And I've never been in the military. And I still could feel that energetic state of being on a military base. And I liked it. It felt good.
Athan 17:35
I think it has something to do with expectation, like you mentioned like you're kind of indoctrinated into how you go through boot camp and other things.
Robert 17:45
Tear you down to build you back up.
Athan 17:47
So where are we also in our personal lives? So it kind of brings me to the next thing that I was wanting to talk about, the making of a nice guy. And how our nice guy is created in some ways. It's an expectation or something that is set through their lives. It's kind of nurturing. So in some ways nurtured into them. But also, the other part is kind of nurtured out of them in some ways. And so I was kind of curious. Could you talk a little bit about how a nice guy is created?
Robert 18:15
That was really the question that intrigued me when I started just kind of investigating this because I, basically my second wife told me after a couple of years of marriage, she said, everybody thinks you're such a nice guy, but you're not, you treat me badly. You embarrass me, you're passive-aggressive, you hurt me, show you, you gotta go get help. I'm gonna leave you if you don't go get help. And I'm thinking I was in my early 30s. And my second marriage, and I loved her. And I thought, well, I don't want to lose her. I thought I don't know why I'm the one going to therapy. She's the one who's unhappy all the time, angry all the time, yelling all the time, and doesn't want to have sex anymore. You moody and I think, and I'm the one that has to go get therapy. So I actually went to therapy, trying to find out why being a nice guy didn't make my wife appreciate me more and didn't make her love me more and wanted to have sex more like she did before we got married. So luckily, I landed in some really good situations, I got actually got into a 12-step group for sex addicts and my wife said, You're a sex addict. I quickly found out I wasn't I was enamored enough sex to be a sex addict. But for the first time in my life, I was in a safe group as all men, and I started revealing myself just sharing everything about me that I never shared with him. But I grew up in a fundamental Christian church. At that time, I had two degrees in religion. I'd been a minister for eight years. I wasn't at that time. But I was let go. The whole mate put up a good front look good for everybody. Don't let anybody see you make a mistake. I found a safe place to start revealing myself. I started working with a therapist. And in my very first session with her, she taught me about boundaries. I was in my mid-early 30s second marriage, I already had a PhD in marriage and family therapy. I'd never heard of a boundary before. And then I joined a men's group. And then I started hearing about things like making my knees a priority and taking good care of myself and my. And that's where I discovered the Concept of Covert Contracts. To get help I give this to other people they'll give back to me in return. And so I started being aware of these things. And I started noticing men coming to me for therapy, were saying the same things I was so might be the single guy, and I could relate quite so much to them. But I said, I'm a nice guy, I treat women well and talk about their problems. I'm different than all the jerks that they complain about their exes they keep going back to and women just told me Oh, someday such someone would be so lucky to have you as a boyfriend. And the guys are saying, How come? They don't want me as a boyfriend? How come? How come they wouldn't be lucky to have me and the guys are what am I doing wrong? And then the guys in the relationship are coming in with maybe by themselves or with their wife or girlfriend and saying, I'm a nice guy. I'm one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. I treat her better than her ex. I'm raising her kids. I do everything to make her happy. It's never enough, it's never good enough. She's never happy. When's it gonna be my turn when she won't have sex again. And I think I could finish their sentences. So I started No More Mr. Nice Guy, a weekly group. And I started writing, I didn't sound to write a book, but I just wanted to write things I was coming to understand about me. And one of those things was how does this happen? How do guys become like this? So that's always been a core question for me as well. And at first I thought most were like me. And that is maybe disconnected from Father overly connected to the mother trying to be the good man, the good boy. And I thought, and then I'm what I call the I'm so good, nice guy. I think I'm a really good guy. Everybody should like everybody should want to be like me, everybody should get an end. But I soon came to find out there are lots of other family configurations that boys grew up with. Some boys grew up with a nice guy, father, a controlling angry mother, some guys grew up without a father. Some guys grew up to be what I call the I'm so bad, nice guy. Maybe they started rebelling at an early age, they did drugs, they dropped out of school, they're always in trouble, maybe been in jail, a baby got kicked out of the military, whatever. And then something shifted. Maybe they got the military straightened out, maybe they got married, got strained, and maybe they found religion and got straightened out. But still up the service. They think I'm a terrible person. If people find that out, they're gonna find that out. All I can do is try to be nice, try to be good. So there's lots of different things that contribute to being a nice guy. And so there's no one formula that every guy will relate to. But here's what I see. I often find that many of the men who identify as nice guys often are pretty, easygoing, kind and generous people by nature. My mother would often tell women I was dating. Oh, Bobby never did like conflict. And I always went every time she'd say that I think she was saying it to the women to treat my son well. But I take it Who the fuck likes conflict I Why would anybody like conflict? I never did but there are people who do. My wife loves conflict. I think every woman I've been with his like conflict, they like to fight. I'm God. Why do we have to fight about this? Can you just tell him he would like more of this or less of that and we can work on it together. But know this fight about it first? Right? So but that's me, that's my temperament as how I am at this SOS my genetic inheritance to have that Tennessee's who I am. So that's part of it. I'll give you a little bit of what we'll just call Child Development 101. And this applies to everybody, not just nice guys, nice girls. But every child comes into the world completely, totally needy, dependent and vulnerable. And our brains aren't even close to being finished developing. In fact, the only part of our brain fully online at birth is a part of the brainstem called the amygdala. And that survival is to fight flight freeze, and it controls respiration heart rate. And also the theory is that it internalizes emotional memory. So for our first two to three years of life before we have word memory, or even if we will have a picture of her memory in our brain, we store up emotional memory. So every experience a child has is uncomfortable, painful, frightening in any way. Doesn't matter if you had the best parents in the world. You're gonna have experiences where you recall where you're hungry and nobody fed you when your diaper was dirty and nobody changed it right away or worked. You didn't get picked up and held and maybe worse. Maybe you got yelled at, maybe you got shaken. Maybe you left for long periods of time. Maybe your parents were addicts. Maybe your mom was depressed. Maybe your dad was never in the picture. Maybe they're immature, maybe children are so dependent, but yet we're vulnerable to all these things that happen to all of that for every child, every human being gets internalized in the emotional operating system of a primitive part of our brain. Now children, even before they can think about stuff, have concepts, they have emotions. And emotionally, children are narcissistic. They are the center of their world, the center of the universe, they believe they are the cause of everything that happens to them for good or for bad. And so they're very grandiose every baby's this way. They're just narcissistically grandiose; the world revolves around them. Even before they have words to go with that, that's, that's, that's the emotional makeup of a child. So the child believes they cause everything that happens to them, for good or for bad. So every painful thing, I must be the cause of that, again, it's not words, it's a motion. That's what internalized toxic shame is an emotional belief system and emotional operating system wired into a real tiny little primitive part of our brain on the brain stem. Now, as the child develops, that amygdala, that emotional memory is wired into every other part of the brain into the prefrontal cortex, which doesn't finish developing in men to by 25 years old, which is a real good reason not to send men under 25 into war zones, because their prefrontal cortex their cortex, the decision making part of their brain isn't online. So they're more of the emotional parts of their brain that are affected by being in traumatic situations. So what every child does, even before they can think about it, they start developing a couple of things, defense systems to help try to make them feel better right now, when they're in pain, maybe they suck their thumb, I did I suck, my thumb dies in kindergarten, it probably says something about childhood trauma. Maybe they cry, maybe they withdraw, maybe they sleep a lot, maybe they eat a lot, they don't do something to feel good right now. And using a very primitive part of their brain, they try to do anything that would prevent these things from happening to them again, in the future. Again, this is a thought out is this purely instinctual, reactive type stuff that gets wired into our mobile operating system. That becomes as our brain starts becoming more online, we start believing this is how I am and how the world is. And we never question that operating system, that paradigm. For example, if you're a small child, and your needs seem to not be that important to the people around you, or other people seem to have maybe dad's an alcoholic. So he's gotten a lot of needs, maybe you have a sibling that is sick, and has a lot of needs. And so you're all needless and weightless. I'll never be a moment's problem, I won't ask for anything, I'll hide my needs and wants, I'll always try to if mom is smiling, I'll try to always do that thing that makes her smile. If mom's frowning, I'll try to never do that thing, again, that makes her frown. We start developing these survival mechanisms, and because we develop them at such an early age, we carry them in adolescence, where they tend to get more solidified. And then we carry that solidified version into young adulthood. And again, it often isn't till something comes crashing down around us that we start questioning, is there a different way of doing this? Maybe it's when we can't, we can't get women to talk to us. So we can't get into a relationship. So we go looking for answers. Maybe we're in a relationship. But we keep fighting all the time, or a partner never wants to have sex anymore, and we go looking for answers. Maybe it's when the relationships come apart, we go looking for answers. Maybe it's when we're struggling with addiction, or we're struggling living up to our potential, or we're broke or what? Or sick, something we're depressed about, whatever we go looking for answers. And fortunately, for many people, we could stumble onto something that gives us a different worldview than what we developed as the lymphocytes. And as you say, that can be like a shattering site, or you can edit this thing, the way I've been living for the last 20 years. 30 years, 50 years. 60 years, was all because I internalized some belief systems when I was three weeks old. That's true for everybody. Right? But the good news is that we can begin to rewrite our emotional operating system, maybe we won't, I don't know, maybe we can't completely change it. Now, there's some pretty intriguing new research using psychedelics and plant medicine to help actually create some powerful shifts around PTSD and things like that. So maybe, maybe there are some ages-old medicines that have existed forever, that used improper therapeutics, situations that really can't help us. Rewrite, overwrite and change that emotional operating system. So I mean, we really do live in a time right now that there are some really powerful things happening, to help us ship all of that stuff we internalized. And an oblique since we were a few weeks old.
Athan 30:07
That was the part that really hit me when I was reading it, like you gave different examples of how different people might end up this way. And you even in this conversation kind of described it and I really wanted the audience to hear it, maybe someone struggling with this, I wanted them to hear well, how might this happen to you? Because like, one of my questions is like, why didn't I know? Until things kind of crumbled down for me recently, why didn't I know it before? Then, like, Why? Why couldn't I put my finger on it.
Robert 30:37
You can't know. Because our ancestors grew up in a tribal context where children were initiated in what they needed to know, to live successfully, to live masterfully. And it's called initiation. And the closest thing we have to initiate nowadays is the military. And you're taught how to know what you need to know, to fight a war, or manage logistics or fix an airplane or whatever. But we don't have training and life skills for young children. It just, it doesn't exist. So we go to an educational system that teaches us to memorize a bunch of shit. And then nowadays, you don't even have to memorize anymore, because you can look it up and find it a lot quicker. But it doesn't teach life skills like it doesn't teach. What do you do with your emotional states? What do you do with insecurity? How do you make friends? How do you talk to people, anybody here ever had a class when they were an adolescent, of how to make friends? How to Talk to people, how to get along with other people, how to ask for what you want, how to surround yourself with people who want to help you get your needs met? I mean, I talk about this stuff to adults all the time. And they're like, going, Wow, this is a novel concept. Right? Oh, yeah. It'd be great if we got taught this stuff before adolescence.
Athan 31:59
I guess, life is a teacher, sometimes pain and suffering is the ultimate teacher, you have to kind of fall flat on your face.. So once someone has this awareness, someone understands, maybe they identify with what you just said, like what kind of makes a nice guy, you had mentioned, you also earlier, there's like you live with covert contracts. So if you're, if you've been living with covert contracts, and you're having some of the behaviors that are identified to be in line with being Mr. Nice Guy, how does a person reclaim their power? I know, I'm working through the six steps, but maybe there are some key ones that you could share.
3 Covert Contracts of a Nice Guy
Robert 32:41
Let me just say something about the covert contracts, because you brought them up again, a lot of people have told me that's one of the most enlightening parts of the book, and that that information was for me, as well, when when I was going to immense group and started realizing Wait a minute, how I'm living in the world is fundamentally manipulative, and dishonest. So basically, I'll just spell this out clearer than it is in the book. Most nice guys have three fundamental covert contracts with themselves, with people around them, with the world, with God. And the three are simply this covert Contract Number one, and they're all if-then propositions, and that is, if I'm a good guy, I will be liked and loved. And for most men, that means and the woman, the woman, I want to have sex with me will want to have sex with me. I'll be a good guy. And then of course, people will like me love. All of these have many fallacies, all three covert contracts have a number of fallacies built into it. Number one, what does it mean to be a good guy? Who's whose rules whose guidance book are we following? And even the greatest people out there, the highest quality, whatever that looks like? Does not everybody like them? Some people think this person's amazing. And other people think it's a spawn of Satan. Yeah. So not everybody's going to be liked. But nice guys think that if I'm just a good guy, everybody will like me, especially the people I want to like me. Right. So that's covert Contract Number one, covert contract number two, and this is really, really insidious. If I meet other people's needs, without them having to ask, then they will meet my needs without me having to ask, and this is all the giving to get the nice guys to do, oh, I'll, I'll help you do this. Or I'll listen to you talk about that. Or I'll fix that for you. Or I'll do this and we're thinking and return to like us to appreciate us to value us and they'll then be there for us when we have needs. Now, unfortunately, nobody else knows these contracts exist because they're covert. People don't know that we're doing these things to help them. And because of the covert contracts, nice guys tend to often pick some pretty broken people. Because we got to have people that need help for us to help them right. People with financial problems with moods with relationship issues. Oh, I can help, I can help me. This is me. That's kind of my number one subject, the technique my superpower, I'm a good help work. But we're giving all this to other people hoping they'll give appreciation back the value of us love us and they'll help us meet our needs. But the problem is we nice guys usually rarely ask for what we want. So people love them. Nobody knows what our needs are, they're not going to read our minds and try to figure it out. And often nice guys are terrible receivers. We think we're doing something wrong if we let people do it for us because everybody else's needs are more important than ours. People are going to hate me, people are going to think negatively if I have needs. So this covert contract doesn't work for many reasons. The third cover contract is if I do everything right, whatever that means, then I will, I will have a smooth problem-free life. Now this is really Peter panish. Because number one, you can't do anything right? Every great guide the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, they all say nobody gets it. Right, right. Nobody's perfect. But the nice guys think I can be perfect, I can get it right, then I'll have a smooth problem-free life. Unfortunately, life isn't smooth and problem-free. Never has been never will be. The nature of all existence is chaos and change. But nice guys, because it makes us anxious, anxious, to not have everything smooth that we're always trying to smooth everything out. That's why we don't have conflicts. Well, we can't resolve problems in relationships. At work. We don't speak up for ourselves. We don't rock the boat we go along to get along. So these are all core stuff that nice guys struggle with dude or covert contracts. And people say what do you do with those? Let's say you make them over. You ask for what you want, you be yourself, you be what you see is what you get kind of guy, you surround yourself with people that want to help you meet your needs. You acknowledge your flaws and shortcomings and mistakes rather than hide them. You become real. Now get back to your question of what are some things to do. And I've already said this, but it but I just repeat it. Go find safe people. Don't try to do this work alone. What I've noticed about nice guys, most of us are in our heads a lot anyway, like, like you a lot of men I work with go read a lot of books, I sometimes have to give guys the assignment, no new books for 90 days. No, no, don't, don't, don't don't put that on me and I usually tell the guys, you probably already have enough information to change your life. And what I found is that people that do read a lot perceive self-help books often have what I call a ruminating brain, where their brain is always spinning, rehashing the past, going into the future measuring comparing always in negative ways. And this creates a real internal angst. And we think there's an answer out there. If I can find that answer. Then another Tony Robbins seminar, another workshop and other self-help books, another hypnosis thing, another meditation program another year, then then everything will feel normal. But the wall that really actually does is after you've done all of that, read all those books and done all those seminars, you still have that urge inside of you, that doesn't feel right, and you go, how come everybody else gets better when they do these things? I don't, there's something wrong with me. So actually, that is all it can become an addiction of seeking more and more help and information when the truth is here, okay. You're okay as you sit right now. And that's usually the biggest challenge for most of us AB is accepting. I'm okay. I'm okay. Warts and all flaws and mistakes, insecurities, dark side the inner animal and Beast and toxic male and me what, I'm okay. I'm okay. I don't have to get better. I can just maybe work at loving me more, accepting me more, being more what you see is what you get. That is when things really begin to shift out. But what I found, we have to do that with other people. We can't ship that I'm not okay into, I'm fine the way I am. Without the support of people loving us, just the way we are affirming us just the way we are. And again, that can happen with a coach a therapist, therapy group support group 12 Step group, be anywhere where you can go, practice revealing you and getting more accurate information about who you are, and learn to build relationships with other people based on you being you and then being them not based on something we're going to try to be so people will like us. So that's where I tell people to begin. Go find those safe people.
Athan 39:36
And that makes a ton of sense because The thing that I can identify with what you said is that if I reveal these parts of me, I'm the bad guy version of what you were talking about.
Robert 39:48
I saw your tattoo on your arm.
Athan 39:53
Who caused trouble as a kid. I couldn't get my act together. I was always in trouble. And somehow I did. Out of the concept of like, I'm just a bad person. I'm not good. So in order for me to overcome this somehow I need to, I need to be the nice guy I need to make I need to please people, I need to do it that I need to show them No, I am a good guy like, like, but inside like, I didn't really feel that way. And so it makes sense. What you're saying is because if I can expose myself if I can, if I can expose those things about myself, I find it to be dirty or shameful or whatever else. And then there's a group of people who sit, who see that and hear it and they don't shun me, they don't run me off or think I'm some sort of disgusting person, then you realize, oh, okay, I like you mentioned I am okay. There's nothing horrible about me.
Show People Who You Really Are
Robert 40:41
When you hear other people tell stories that they think are horrible about them, and you're listening, going, that's not so terrible. I like them. In fact, I like them better now that they told me that story. That's maybe a paradox that people just don't see coming when they get into some kind of support system, support group or practice. People practice being themselves, if you start finding out the more that person tells me about their inner demons or their past mistakes or their insecurities, the more I like them. And that is the truth, the people that let you see who they really are the easiest to get close to, and that goes all, maybe they'll still like me, if they know all these things about me. I'll tell you a quick story. This was an early experience for me in my own recovery. That was like, I tell it because it just shifted everything. For me moving forward, I said, I grew up fundamental Christian Church, a critical, angry father, I grew up during the era of angry feminism in the 60s and 70s, I grew up with a lot of external messages. Hide everything. Don't let anybody see anything bad about you or anything negative. So I was pretty good at hiding her, which made me really inauthentic and a liar. I'd said I started going to a 12 step group and therapy early on, after my then the second wife said, I'm gonna leave you if you don't go get help. I had an experience, or pretty early on where I had a pretty dark sexual impulse, that I didn't act on it. But it scared me to even think, Wow, I can't believe I even bought that. And now the old me would have pushed that way down. Oh, no, no, no, don't let that ever come up to the surface. Again, that's scary. Now, the new me that was beginning to evolve, because going to a 12-step group and being open, I was going to therapy and being open. And believe me, I never would have revealed that to a partner in the relationship, that dark sexual impulse. And I thought I think I need to just go talk about it. So I write to my 12 Step group, and I shared this dark sexual impulse. I said I didn't act on it, but it kind of scared me that I even thought it. And I think I'm a bad person. Because I've been thinking that. And this is a group of men that are like can't quit picking up hookers on highway 99, or a molested her stepdaughter, or, these are guys, maybe one step away from prison for their sexual behavior, right? And then I'm gonna I had this impulse. And they're probably in the 12-step group, they say, thank you for sharing, Robert. So I'm thinking, as all I said, Nobody thought I was a terrible human being nobody chased me out of the group. Nobody even like looked at me like, Oh, you're really fucked up, man. I have nothing then they go on to tell their stories that are even worse, and I'm going, I don't think they're bad as Okay, so I had a therapy appointment with a woman therapist, right after that, that meeting. So I thought, okay, that would actually be pretty well, I told it nothing bad happened to me. And back, I feel better having told it. So I went and sat down with my therapist. And I said, I had this really dark sexual impulse this week. And I said, Here it is. I said that it really scares me that I had this impulse. And my therapist looked at me kindly with this gentle kind of older woman's face. And she said, Well, let's talk about that and see what that's about. So we just kind of explored it, what were the origins of that impulse? And what does it mean, and what do I need to pay attention to? And I didn't get shamed or scolded or told I was bad as, Wow, this is kind of cool stuff. This has been open and transparent. Feels good. So I'm driving home and thank you know, I'm batting 1000. I'm a baseball fan. I think I need to tell my wife this too. I'm batting 1000 Even if she goes off, I'm still bad. 666 I mean, that's not bad at all. It's Hall of Fame numbers, as all of it nobody's even ever had those numbers that's beyond Hall of Fame. So I used to say to my men the second wife that her middle name ought to be overreacting because that's what she did. In every situation. He just blew everything about her proportions. Got like my father did. So I'm driving home the thing that scares me but I gotta tell her, so I get home. She's at home. I said I need to talk to you about something and took her back to the bedroom. I remember sitting down on her bed and I said, I need to tell you, I've already talked about this with my 12 Step group, I've already talked about it with my therapist, and I need to tell you, and I told her what the dark sexual impulse was, and what I talked about what I explored with my therapist, and she just listened. And I got done. And she said, That doesn't surprise me, it kind of scares me. And I'm glad you told me. And she never brought it up again. I mean, that was it. I'm thinking, How come I didn't figure this out a long time ago, that just be real, right? Let people see who you are just because I'd already released a lot of the shame about it in those safe groups. And I could go tell her without a lot of shame. And I could just tell her the matter, faculty, and what I had done to look at it and address it. And she felt safe because of that, rather than feeling only good or good as I'm married to a pervert of some kind. So that was such a powerful experience that said, the benefit of safe people to just reveal you, be you be accepted, get more accurate information, that you're not bad, you're not evil, you're not sinful, you're not going to hell, here's this human, here's just you, you're perfectly imperfect. You're just a perfectly flawed human being. And that's what we all are. And that's so liberating.
Athan 46:17
I think most people, I'm definitely guilty of this, and maybe a lot of other people are, but we know that people are inherently flawed. We're just human beings. That's just part of being. So if someone isn't being forthcoming and honest about it, I'm sitting here thinking like, I know something's wrong. And so I'm probably making up stuff. What aren't they telling me? I'm making up a story about what it might be or something like that. And it is really, really it. There's a lot of relief that comes when someone just lays it out there for you. You're like, oh, I don't have to guess anymore. I knew it was something. I just guess what it is.
Resonating Someone’s Experiences
Robert 46:51
I have got a buddy that as I get to know him, he'd come down to visit Aaron porta Viar toe and come over to my house. We'd have dinner and some drinks and swim in the pool, play with the dog, whatever. This buddy. Everything was ah, it's a beautiful day. Everything's great. Isn't life. Great. And finally, one time I said, I don't believe you. I don't believe your life could be that fucking great. He said I can't really know you because of everything Oh, isn't life great. Isn't life amazing? Another wonderful date? He goes, I've actually had a pretty crappy day. I go, Oh, thank you, I can actually relate to you now. And he goes, I said. What was your crappy day about? And he started telling me the stuff he was dealing with. And I go, I could see where that was a real struggle and I can relate to you because I've had those exact same struggles myself. And then it's okay, here's something else that you've never skirted the issue. I've never, there's something missing here and what you're telling me what what is missing, that I know Somoza and then he like told me like some stuff about, some marital issues from his past and how we even hit the fact that he'd been married one time to he's been married a few times where we he like, hides completely one of the marriages from people even knowing about it, because he'd been unfaithful at it. So he didn't ever go. I can relate to you, man, that the marriage didn't word you were unfaithful, blah, blah, blah, you're human. I can relate to that. I've been down that road. And once he started being real, it's kind of like, Hi, now I liked you coming over now. Now. No, I actually enjoy that with you. I say No more Mr. Nice Guy, I refer to nice guys as Teflon men. And we want everything so smooth. We don't want any but I said people relate to each other's rough edges. If we trim off all our rough edges, there's nothing for people to really relate to, to get close to have a connection with. And so again, this work isn't about becoming better people. It's not about becoming good. It's just becoming ourselves loving ourselves the way we are in being more open, visible and transparent. And letting people like the US that we are just as we sit warts and all, then now that that feels good, that feels connected. So like you mentioned you have the I'm so bad, nice guy pattern. What if you were in a group of people and you were safe enough to just reveal everything in your life you'd ever done that made you feel like a bad person? And what if other people then told similar stories of doing the same thing? Or other people said. I wasn't so terrible or hey, you don't do that anymore. What have you just got accurate feedback and all of a sudden you realize these guys wanted to hang out with you and you don't want to go camping with you, want to shoot guns with you, and want to have a beer with you and watch a game with you? You go wait a minute, why did I hide all this stuff? Now that they know everything about me is kind of like they want to be with me. They want to know me more, but he can't most of us can't. It takes something to really shake it up to actually start realizing everything works better. If we just put it out...
Athan 49:54
I think it takes one of your courageous friends or a courageous person to be the first one to break the ice. I think again Going back to what I know about the military is like, there's always the one guy who just doesn't really care that much. And he puts all his stuff out there on the table and he breaks the ice and it makes it okay for you to everybody everyone else to, to kind of do that.
Robert 50:14
That's one reason I love groups. I love men's groups because one guy will share, I have so much shame about this by Xen to say, I am addicted to porn guy will, you'll say that, and maybe nobody in the group has ever brought up porn fact, even what I used to do, I say, alright, you want to work on that. And I would say this, go sit down on my computer. And I would have the guys show me the porn they look at, and we talk about the porn, like, we're talking about cars or sports, just like in release nobody wants to show the porn they look at to their therapist, let alone a group of men behind them looking over their shoulder, right. But it releases so much shame that all of a sudden that compulsion just begins to disappear. But one guy will say, yeah, and one guy will have the courage to show me and the other guys the porn they look at. And then the other guys will go, hey, check out this website, or you log into that web, or all of a sudden, everybody in here is an expert on porn, they all know that their favorite, but nobody ever even said a word about having issues around porn, they kept it secret, they kept it hidden. So one guy encouraged me. And next thing we're spending weeks helping these guys, take the shame out of looking at naked pictures online and begin to release the compulsion around it. Because one guy had the courage to do it.
Athan 51:29
Which is why I'm seeing the power where again, like I think that group work is massively important, and I hope people listening, choose to, to engage in that themselves. I'm going to shift gears just a little bit. The ice I was, as I was researching, getting ready for this, this talk, this phone call, I saw the total of a personal integration Institute on your website. And that term, total personal integration is very intriguing to me. It's like, and I'm just curious, what is that? How would you define that? And what's the institute?
Total Personal Integration
Robert 52:06
Well, it is basically, I call it TPI University where I have online collaboration. Many different subjects, all the way from relationship to dating, to ruminating brain to, to work and career, where I've just created a number of courses. And actually, I'm in the process of just starting this week, looking at how I'm going to revamp a lot of things and create a membership program where everything I've ever created, written, recorded. Shot bid, everything's going to be involved and contained in this one container of a membership program. But that's gonna be a slow process, pulling all that together. Total personal integration is as much as anything is probably just a name. When I wrote No more Mr. Nice Guy, identifying the quote, nice guy, was easy enough. And everybody's used that term. No more Mr. Nice Guy, we've all said it. And so it's a common term, the nice guy, and I just gave it my own spin. But when I wrote this, I thought I was pretty close to finishing writing the book, I sent it off to a professional editor. And he told me a couple of, well, three things, maybe that really helped a lot. All three of which I didn't like hearing when I first heard him, what he said was the books were way too long. It has too many illustrations, you repeat yourself a lot. Okay? So you're about halfway done. He says You got to tell people what to do. This is a self-help book, I go, I'm a therapist, you don't tell people what to do in your therapist. And he goes, it's a self-help book. That's where the breaking free activities came from, is that that was not in my original writing that that came after the fact. And of course, that's what a lot of people really liked a lot about the book and those activities. The third thing was he said, if you're helping people not be nice guys anymore, you've got to let them know what it is they're becoming. Oh, you're right. That's a good point, too. So I struggled with Well, what do we call these people? And, nowadays again, there's a lot going on out there with coaches on the internet, a lot of embodied man, conscious man, authentic man, integrated man, there are so many different terms that don't really describe kind of the same thing. It's just being more conscious and self-accepting. So I came up with the term integrated male, that the integrated male is comfortable with his dark side, he's comfortable with this part of it, he's just comfortable with all aspects of himself and can be that what you see is what you get kind of guy and so I just kind of kept using that term integrated in various things. So the TPI has total personal integration. I started creating classes. I want to give this university a quote, university, and name, TPI University. That sounds good enough. And in my workshops, I call them TPI workshops, total personal integration, mainly meaning. We'll talk about anything and everything. But the C Seems like the core kind of pillars of, of really having the kind of life we want a masterful life integrated life, it usually involves some form of social mastery, some sort of personal mastery, some sort of relationship mastering some sort of career profession, professional mastery. And I found that if men can really address those issues using concepts like teach from No more Mr. Nice Guy, we can live pretty good lives. And it's worked for me anyway, I've seen it worked for a lot of guys, people recently when people said, Robert, how are you doing? And my answers have been, I think I'm doing the best I've ever done in my entire life. I'm the happiest that I can recall being in my entire life. I'm 66. And your body's getting older, but mine still works. And I'm still creating new projects to probably make me busier than I need to be. It will all be with the idea This will let me retire at some point, but I don't want to retire. I like what I do. My relationship feels great. I have a wife that loves me dearly, that treats me well. business is going well. Book royalties are great. I get to travel and have adventures. I have lots of guide friends, I'm in a men's program. I just like, life is good. And I believe life is good, because I've been following the principles that I layout and you and again, those principles for me have it. Be honest, be transparent. Make your needs a priority. Surround yourself with people that want to help you get your needs met, be that what you see is what you get kind of guy, live life on your terms. Ask yourself, what do you want, what's important to you, be true to that, follow through on that. Find people that can help you achieve your goals, your passions, your desire, don't give your freedom away, which is another thing I do a lot of, I get in relationships and it's kind of like I put a handcuff on one wrist on my putt, but the other hand cup on the woman's wrist, hand her the keys and say, Okay, you have control over my freedom now, and then I resent her because I'm not free anymore. And it's ironic. I live in Mexico and I've had to learn Spanish because my wife doesn't speak English. I got to learn Spanish because I wanted to so it's good. In Spanish, the word for wife is a sposa. And so plural would-be spouses. And ironically, the word for handcuffs in Spanish is espoused. And you can say that to a Spanish native Spanish speaking person, they'll go here, right? They could say never put that together. Wives, handcuffs, same word. But the wives are not the fault if we walk out, we go give another person free. So as I've worked on doing that, I'm not giving my personal freedoms away to anybody to say I'm here. I'm faithful, I want to be with you. And I'm not giving you control of my life. Because I've done that too many times. And they don't want it well, some do some really do want to control your life but don't give it to anybody. Keep saying yes. Say yes to opportunity, say yes to all these good things that keep coming. Usually, we don't see all the open doors around us, because we got these blinders on. But this is terrible, or I want this or I don't want that. But all this good stuff is all around us. And an old friend of mine passed away a few years ago used to say, so send us a note when we should have said yes. So I've been using that as my personal mantra. I say yes, a lot. And life just keeps getting better. So there's no one-trick in all of this. But there are some pretty basic fundamental principles, like I said, they should have taught us before we were 12. Let us have just the most amazing life. It will keep saying yes.
Athan 58:41
I love that you talked about having your most amazing life because that's really what this project is. For me, this podcast is about. It's about talking to people that educate me so that I can share their message and help other people that live their most amazing life. And so, in doing that, I'm having a big-time on habits. There are things that if I do these things every single day, they certainly helped me to make sure that I have set myself up for success on that day. And so I'm curious, maybe in closing, do you have habits or things that you do every single day? Or let's just say regularly? That helps you to have the best life?
Learning Your Habits: What Habit/s You Will Manifest Daily and What Should be Removed?
Robert 59:21
I agree with you. I think habits are crucial because we all were habitual creatures, which is good. You and I don't want to reinvent shaving every day. It is good that we have a habit that tells us to shoo me out of shape. But our habits can become detrimental to us without us knowing it. And I think actually, a really powerful recovery process is just to stop and take a look at your habits and say, what is one little habit I could incorporate into my life every day that would be the fractal of the bigger picture of how I want to live. Or what is one little habit I could remove from my life every A day, that would also be a fractal of changing the direction of our law, my life to go. Now one habit that I started about a year and a half ago before we started recording, I let my dog into my room and she's lying right down here at my feet but she's an apple Pitbull named Nala. And it's like, when this dog came into our life in our family's life everybody's like, how did we ever know love before we had this dog in her house, she just, she's just an amazing creature. When she was a puppy. She needed to go outside a couple of times a night to use a bathroom and then it kind of got to were okay, if we got up at seven o'clock that works. So for a year and a half since we got her going to coming up in two years. I get up every morning at seven o'clock. Go out. I live here in Mexico, so it's always warm. Wintertime is warm. And may I make my coffee. I go sit outside, often I can watch the sun come up, I hear the birds, I can see clouds. It's the world coming awake. I have a recliner chair. She has the recliner chair right next to mine. She knows her chair, I get to scratch her ears. She always lives next to me. I drink my coffee. I read the daily meditation book I wrote in my journal. I can breathe, meditate a little bit, maybe start the work of my day. But it's just my time. It's just quiet, meditative affirming. Just me and Nala. And it's not till about 815 830 that my wife will come out with her workout gear on. So you ready? Take the dog to the barking? Let's do it. So then my day begins up doing but prior to that, that's a habit that, oh, man, I won't give up for anything. I mean, even if I was up late at night, and the alarm goes off at seven or I'm too tired. I get up because if I don't do it, I noticed it if I don't get up and don't if I miss that and like my day actually starts at nine or 930. Go, something's missing in my day. Yeah, just doesn't feel right. That's a habit that has really been beneficial. Another habit I've made over the last few years is I make time to talk to my guy friends. I love that Zoom exists. I talked to guy friends every day, I'm in a number of different small groups where I meet with different guys. Tomorrow I talk to I'll talk to my best friend. Tomorrow evening, a guy that was in my program a couple of years ago is going to drop by and have dinner with us. Another friend of mine sent me an email this morning him, and his wife are coming through Puerto Vallarta in June, could they come by and he said, come by for dinner, spend a night with us. So I make time to have men in my life. And that's just that's that's transformed my life. It's transformed my relationship with my wife, she sees all these good men that I have in my life. I do workshops in my home here. So she'll see the men that come to the workshops. And she'll see, these are good men, these are good men, and they look up to my husband so that that that's been beneficial to have that the other habit that I like to be fit, I like to be healthy. But I'm not a gym rat. In fact, I started writing a book last year that I'm about three quarters through that it's on hold for a little bit called gym rat mindset, to where you can have a minimal maximal approach was the least amount you can put in on a regular basis to get the most results out of it. So my wife's a gym rat. She'd be happiest if she'd spent two hours a day in the gym, working. She's a killer, that's her therapy. That's not me, I gotta make myself do it. So some little habit that I do is, when I start working every morning, I have a stand-up right there. So I'm usually standing up to work. So that's a good habit to get out of the chair. By the time I start working, I'll do about four or five minutes of Chi Gong exercise of pounding on the door of life where you swing your body and pound on your body a little bit. It's a habit to just kind of wakes me up and energizes me. And then I recently started something with another so a couple of buddies of I will do 101 crunches and 101 Push ups every day, no matter what. And we check in with each other on it. And it's funny that it takes all of five minutes, maybe, maybe longer, depending but it's like just that habit. 101 is sometimes I'll do 101 dumbbell curls and 101 Squat, stationary squats. And it's kind of like 10 minutes a day. But just doing that I feel the difference in my body. And I feel more energized, more alive is a habit, drinking more water, you fill in one of these up four times a day habit. So sometimes it's such small habits that make such a big impact because the big picture of our life is made from a bunch of small fractals. What are the smallest components of the greater picture of our life for good or for bad? So if we can just change those little fractals in a consistent way and that's all a habit is a repeated behavior over time. And so if we start changing those for good, life just keeps getting better. And you can't just do it in little ways.
Athan 1:05:02
I love that. I love that. That essential as that minimalistic kind of approach to it's like people often want to jump to, like the most perfect version, the most idea of this big, huge extreme thing and they don't realize that they would get similar results by just doing the minimum of the basics. So I love that message.
Robert 1:05:25
I remember reading what, or my knees went bad when I used to run. The doctor started the aerobic clinic in Dallas. It gave me his name right now. But he said, if you're running more than two miles a day, you're running for some other reason than health or fitness. That's all you only need two hours or two miles. Two miles a day is all you need to be perfectly healthy and fit at least heartfulness. So we tend to overdo it. And what happens? That's where most procrastination comes in. We think well, if I do it, I have to do it all right now and I have to do it perfectly. No, you don't. What if you just do a little bit right now and be done? And then do some more later makes it a lot easier?
Athan 1:06:04
Absolutely. Well, Dr. Glover, you are in your amazing wealth of knowledge and information. I have benefited personally from your wisdom. And I know that listeners and anyone who kind of checks in on this episode are also going to benefit from your wisdom. And I just appreciate you so much for being on the show today. And thank you so much for your time.
Robert 1:06:30
Thank you for the invitation. It was fun. And hopefully, your listeners get a lot out of it.
Athan 1:06:34
I know they will. I appreciate you so much. And thanks for being on the show. I'm so grateful that you joined us for this episode of Doing The Work Podcast. Providing you with value is why I do this and I hope you got something out of this episode that you can put into action in your life. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please share this episode with your friends and family who are looking to level up in life. Sign up for our email list at www.doingworkpodcast.com. To receive special offers and discounts from our sponsors. subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, and anywhere podcasts are hosted. Thanks again for joining the doing the word podcast and we'll see you on the next episode.
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