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Set The Standard
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Set The Standard
Why Nice Guys Finish Last! Dr. Robert Glover
Nice guys never ask for what they truly want sexually, emotionally, or in relationships.
They overgive, avoid conflict, get resentful, and end up losing themselves and the woman.
In this powerful interview with Dr. Robert Glover (author of No More Mr. Nice Guy), we dive deep into:
• What is Nice Guy Syndrome
• Why giving without receiving leads to frustration
• How to lead in relationships without being controlling
• The truth about boundaries, resentment and masculine leadership
• Why men need embodiment work and nervous system training
• How to break codependency and reclaim your confidence
• Why Aussie and NZ men struggle with Tall Poppy Syndrome
• How to stop being passive and start leading in sex, business, and love
This is raw, honest, and packed with tools to shift your mindset, relationships, and personal power.
Want to meet Dr. Glover in person at my October 2025 retreat?
Apply for The Next Level Retreat here with Dr Robert Glover in Australia Gold Coast October 2025:
https://www.coreyboutwell.com/thenextlevelretreat
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Website: https://drglover.com
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https://www.amazon.com/dp/0762415339
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Chapters:
00:00 – What is Nice Guy Syndrome
02:20 – Why giving + not receiving = frustration
05:15 – Masculine leadership vs. controlling behavior
08:45 – How women respond to strong male direction
13:10 – Boundaries, integrity and emotional health
17:55 – Borrowed functioning and codependency traps
24:00 – Nervous-system work and group initiation
40:00 – The power of men’s tribes and retreats
48:00 – Why the Gold Coast gathering matters
Apply here https://www.coreyboutwell.net/speaksoon
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Why do you think men can't ask for what they want sexually or emotionally?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, we're talking primarily about nice guys or men in general, Because I'll speak to nice guys. Basically, most nice guys have grown up believing that they should not have needs or wants, that maybe they're even bad for having needs or wants, or everybody else's needs or wants are more important than theirs, or everybody else's needs and wants have to get met before theirs can get met, or they're going to get in trouble for having needs or wants. Right, and all of this was because of the inaccurate messages we internalized as young children. Maybe dad's needs were more important, mother was depressed and needy, so her needs. Or maybe we had a sibling who was a problematic child or a sick child and their needs were important. So many of us internalize this belief I'm bad for having needs, or everybody else's needs are more important. So many nice guys have consciously set out to never be a moment's problem to be needless and wantless. Go along, get along. Use covert contracts, which I talk about. No more, Mr Nice guy, giving to get. But the problem on top of all of that is we're terrible receivers. We think if we receive we're going to be in trouble. We owe people something.
Speaker 2:So many women in my life have said Robert, you're difficult to give to and I know, before I really began working on my nice guy issues in my second marriage, my wife would do something for me, give me something, and I'd turn around and give her right back and she'd go don't do that, Let me just give you something. Without you giving something right back, Then it feels like what I gave you didn't matter. Or during sex this is a pattern I've watched for a long time is that I always thought I had to give to the woman, make her happy, please her, make sure you know she had her orgasms and everything good with her. And so a woman might be doing something to me, pleasing me, getting joy out of giving to me, and like I would just stop it and because I thought I need to be giving to her and that would really frustrate the women and really rob them of their joy of giving me pleasure. So that's a piece I had to go to work on.
Speaker 2:And it is a very common nice guy pattern, this core belief I'm bad for having needs. Everybody else's needs are more important. I'll give to other people and then, once I give to other people, they'll give to me, but then we don't let them. And then on top of that, then, when we're not getting our needs met and we're not very good at meeting our own needs we get resentful, we get frustrated, we get passive, aggressive and we walk around kind of almost with a chip on our shoulder because how come I give so much and nobody gives back to me? Well, we don't fucking let them. We think that makes us bad, or we're going to be in debt emotionally, or we're going to give up control of our life to them. So yeah, it's a huge nice guy issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were just talking about beforehand. You have the book no More, mr Nice Guy, but you also have Dating Essentials for Men, and I remember reading that book and the one thing that I got out of it was masculine leadership. I did not understand how much women actually desire and crave to be led, and it isn't until that. I've been recently single and I'll be swiping on Hinge and I'll see women in their profiles. I'll say I want a man who can lead. I want a man who can lead. But what I realized was men can't lead if they don't know what they want, which is something like you mentioned something like that in that book.
Speaker 1:And then I remember, when it come to my dating life and my sexual experiences, when it was come to just having fun in hotel rooms or getting women to, um, you know, just enjoy, you know, like a weekend with me, and to really let go and surrender. It was like I had to lead, not just at the start but the whole thing. And then what clicked in my mind was I was like, oh, women, I always want to give, they're always going to be giving, and if I don't lead her, she doesn't know how to give. So then she doesn't know that I'm leading, and then she's giving to me. I don't know that she's giving to me, and then she gets resentful because she's like, well, I'm giving to you and you're not receiving, and we're scratching our heads going.
Speaker 2:What's happening?
Speaker 2:here, and this goes back to that thing that, well, for nice guys, we're trying to be nice, we want the people around us to be happy and to have what they want. So for you know again, I've struggled with this, I've worked on it for years, I've worked with so many other men is that we'll say, well, what do you want to do tonight? Or do you want to go out? Or what do you want to eat, what do you want to watch, you want to go to a movie? We don't say, hey, get dressed, we're going to a movie. Or hey, we're going to go eat. Or we're going to get Chinese. We don't do that because we're afraid.
Speaker 2:Number one, that'll make us controlling assholes. And maybe many of us have grown up hearing messages from our mothers or other women about controlling assholes. Maybe our mothers thought our fathers were controlling assholes. Or when we got to junior high 14, 15 years old, and we wanted to make girls happy so they'd like us, they complained about those jerks. You know the jerks had only wanted one thing I won't be like that, I'll be the good guy, then they'll like me. So I won't have any demand, I'll hide my sexuality, I'll give them everything they want. And we thought that should work. But it doesn't because, as you're finding out, women don't want to be in control of everything. There's probably a few out there that do you know.
Speaker 2:I go with the 80-20 rule. The 80% of the women out there would love it to have a good man say let's go do this, take your clothes off and get in my bed, or meet me at 7. Or pack your bag. We're going somewhere. I'm not telling you where it is until we get there. 80% of the women would love to have a man do that. 20%. I mean they're going to hang on to control, no matter what. But I tell guys, you can't find out if a woman's an 80 or a 20 until you consistently lead, set the tone and give her something to follow. So I've been saying for years a woman can't follow where a man doesn't lead.
Speaker 2:Now we think we're being nice by saying what do you want? What do you want to do? No, I've asked women. How does that feel to you? They go. It feels burdening to me. I have to make too many decisions all day long. I don't want to come home and my boyfriend or my husband is like what do you want to do tonight, dear. I want to come home and my man says get dressed, or change your clothes or sit down, or here's a glass of wine, we're doing this, we're going to cook dinner or we're going out or we're going to do that. And even if the woman goes well, I'm too tired, I know, get dressed, anyway, we're going. And then you go, okay.
Speaker 2:So again, if we men think we're wrong or bad for having needs or wants, we're not going to lead, we're not going to set the tone. And if we've grown up being told oh, that makes you controlling, that makes you an asshole. And we think, well, I don't want to be controlling, I don't want to be an asshole, I don't want to be like those guys I've heard the women complain about. So we just get passive and we put the burden on the woman. And the woman she can take control, she's strong, she's powerful, she can open her own door, she can decide where to go eat. But they don't want to make all those decisions in the relationship with their boyfriend or their husband. They want to be able to show up, be the queen. He opens the door, say we're going here, he'll order for it.
Speaker 2:We walk into a restaurant and my wife's Mexican. We live in Mexico and the waiters always start handing menus to my wife because they see she's the Mexican, I'm the white guy, and they go should I give him a menu in English? And he goes no, he's in Mexico, he'll order in Spanish. And then they'll give her a menu and she'll say no, he's my boss, he'll order for me. And then I always joke, yeah, I get to be the boss when she says I can, and the waiters always laugh at that.
Speaker 2:But she wants me to order for her Before we go out. She'll hold up two dresses, right? Oh, which one? This one, the sexy red, one, sexy black one. Now I can kind of tell which one she. She likes both of them. They're both sexy. She wants to be sexy for me. But I've learned I can't say oh, whichever one you want, no, she wouldn't have held up two dresses, she would have just put on the one she wanted. Now I can kind of usually tell which one she likes the most, this one or this one and I go that one, that's going to look amazing.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she wanted me to tell her she could decide what to wear. But it felt more loving, more playful, more sexy for me to say the black one yeah. I want to see you in the black one.
Speaker 1:Do you like the black one as well?
Speaker 2:I'd like them all. This woman, if she has an addiction, is clothes and shoes. When I first met her poor Mexican single mother and that woman had more shoes than he had. How does this poor Mexican woman have so many shoes? So she loves looking sexy, she loves looking good and she loves me telling her what to wear or what we're going to eat or where we're going to go. It makes her feel taken care of, supported, sensual, and just asking her where she wants to go or whatever you want to wear is fine. It doesn't make her feel anything.
Speaker 1:So do you think, for men, in regards to leadership, that it's like a self-worth thing, it's like I'm not worthy enough to lead, like why aren't they feeling confident enough to lead like their women in general? Cause some guys can crush it at work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they go lead at work, they can direct this, but then, when it comes to their relationship, yeah, I don't know if it's self-confidence or worth it could be, but, like you say, if you can do it at work, I'm going to guess it's not a self-confidence or worth issue. I'm going to guess it's either a training issue or a lack of training issue. Here's what I mean by this Either you've been trained to be passively pleasing with women, usually starting with your mother, of course. Our mother's our first caregiver, our first love object, our first trainer. And if mother was dominant with us, controlling with us, and if mother was dominant with us, controlling with us. We're both in Austin, texas, right now, and I was driving around Austin yesterday in my rental Chrysler minivan. You've got the Dodge Challenger.
Speaker 2:That's the car I usually get when I ride. They were all out. So I got Pink Floyd on shuffle and a song comes up that I'd heard before I've heard them all and it's a song called Mother, and it's a song about mother keeping her son as her baby for always. I'll keep you healthy and clean. Basically, I'll pick all your girlfriends for you and I'll make sure they don't hurt you or break your heart, and I'll always know where you've been. And I'm listening to this song and, man, it just gave me the frigging willies.
Speaker 2:I actually started to get tears in my eyes because the story was about my mother, of controlling me. I had to be there for her, be her good man, because she didn't have a good bond with my father. She even told me she was raising me to be different from my father. She told my second wife one time I saw him naked before you did Kind of like he's mine, right, I possess him. So if I was raised that I've got to be there for mom, do it mom's way, go along to get along, don't rock that boat. Make sure she's always happy. I'm going to then go do that with other women as well, right, just okay, whatever you want, I'll do whatever you want. I just don't want you upset at me or I don't want you to ever leave me or be unhappy with me. So there's one reason why we might be passive and not lead.
Speaker 2:Now, when I said maybe we've been trained to be that way, but maybe we've also not been trained, and what I mean by that is nobody ever taught me, yeah, open a door for a woman or tell her we're gonna go do this. Nobody ever trained me to tell don't ask. You wanna go out with me sometime? No, give me your number, I'm gonna give you a call, we're going out. Right, the difference between telling and asking. But nobody trained me to do that. I didn't know to do it. Of course, my father didn't teach me that. My father just bossed my mother around. I don't want to be like that, right, I don't want to be like him and those other bad men.
Speaker 2:But I remember after my second marriage. So I was married to my first two wives for a total of 25 years and I got out in the single world in my late forties and I hadn't dated since college. I sucked at it. Then I used nice guy seduction I'll tell you more about that in a minute and so I didn't know how to date. I didn't know how to lead, I didn't know how to create polarity with women or turn them on.
Speaker 2:And I went on a date with a woman. I met her in America, but she was from Germany. But she'd flown to America to visit her family, but she'd grown up in Germany. Her dad was American, her mom was German and I met her on Matchcom. We went on one date and then she went back to Germany and she sent me a message and she stayed in touch with me and we talked and she said well, I'm going to be moving back to America in a few months. In the meantime, do you want to come visit me in Germany? We'd been on one date, right? I thought, why not right? Second date I'm going to fly across the Atlantic and go to Europe to go on a second date with this woman.
Speaker 1:She must have been hot then.
Speaker 2:She was hot. Yeah, I was like she was.
Speaker 1:Good energy too.
Speaker 2:Her father was African American and so she had this beautiful brown color. She grew up speaking German, but her English had like almost a British accent to it, so just listening to her talk was hot. And she had a uh, her English was had like almost a British accent to it, so just listening to her talk was hot.
Speaker 2:And she had big fake boobs and yeah, she was hot and um, so I go, I go to Germany and, uh, she worked as a purser for an airline, so we got there, spent some time in Berlin and then she flew us to London for like a day and a half just to. We did the whirlwind tour around London and, and because she knew it, I'd never been to London and she was the person on the airline she knew I kind of followed right, she just led everything, she knew where to go and and I was on her turf basically. But she, she really didn't like that because she, you know, yeah, she, she was leading cause she knew the way. I didn't like that because she, you know, yeah, she was leading because she knew the way I didn't. But I remember we were going places and I think maybe we'd gone to Harrods to do, you know, just a little shopping for souvenirs and we'd gone in and out of some places and she stopped me. She said are you going to open the door for me or not, and.
Speaker 2:I thought, am I in trouble? She goes no, no, you're not in trouble. I thought, am I in trouble? She goes no, no, you're not in trouble. Says I'm not mad at you. She said, but sometimes you open the door, sometimes you don't. I don't know. Are you going to open the door or not? I don't know. Should I wait? Should I just open it myself? I thought for a second. I thought I'll open the door for you, she goes fine.
Speaker 2:And so from there on out since that day, I trained every woman I'm with wait for me, I'll open the door Trained my mother. She turned 90 this week. I've trained my granddaughter since she was two. She's now 18. Every woman I've dated, my stepson, who's 19, opens the door for his mother going in and out of places. So that was a way of me leading and setting the tone, telling the woman wait for me, I'll open the door. So that was training that I'd not gotten as a child. Now a woman helped give me that training.
Speaker 2:But I've been teaching that to men now and that really is what really opened my eyes that women want to be led, they want to be the princess. They don't want to be in charge, they don't want to take control. Many will, like I said, but they'd really rather have a good man say wait for me, I'll open your door or I'll order for you. It makes them want to open and I know these are some words that some people are uncomfortable with but it creates a sense of loving dominance and loving submission. But it creates a sense of loving dominance and loving submission Because, unless the woman can start letting go, submitting opening because she chooses to, not because she told she has to, she now wants to be opened even further by that man. She wants to be penetrated deeply by that man and once a woman starts experiencing that with a man, oh, it's like, you know, a schnauzer with cheese you know they'll get up on their hind legs and dance for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to add onto that as well. Like for a man being in the position where you're leading and you are coming with loving dominance is also so much fun. I was explaining to a friend at, like my house. I was explaining to him. I was like you know, I was asking him some questions. You know, what do you actually want? How do you like to lead in a relationship? And he's like I don't know.
Speaker 1:And we're just talking about Dom and King types. And we did like this BDSM like King type test. But what I think is really fantastic about it is it tells you like your different kind of energies and what kind of like King type you are. And I can't remember what he was I think he was a dom or something like that and I was like if you said to a woman cause he's like I'm not sure if I am a dom or something like this and I was like if you said to a woman I want you to do this, I want you to be here at this and I want you to do this for me, and she goes oh, of course, how'd that make of that as well?
Speaker 2:Well, david Data puts it this way Would you rather ravish or be ravished? Well, the feminine wants to be ravished, the masculine wants to ravish. Now, we all have a masculine and feminine side. And the beauty about leadership because I know this kind of idea of the man leading, the woman following, sounds kind of patriarchal and we're living in a culture that, oh, that's all bad, that's all evil, but and patriarchy had some terrible things about it but it was also about providing and protecting right, about the man looking and seeing what needs to be done and then taking accountability and responsibility for that. So this is a gift that a man can give a woman. They can give the world, they can give it to his partner, they give it to his children, and so this isn't a bad thing about leading. And we're not trying to control anybody, we're not trying to get anybody to do what we want. I tell guys, tell the woman to do what she already wants to do. It's not manipulation.
Speaker 2:No she already wants to wait for you to open the door. So just tell her wait for me, open the door. She already wants to be led, she already wants to be waited on. I'll say to guys give the woman the opportunity to put out without her having to feel like a slut. No-transcript.
Speaker 2:My bed and I said you're conflating a couple of different stories. That doesn't usually happen. But if the woman has been talking sexy, we've been making out, you know she, I tell you that's when I say take your clothes off and get in my bed. And they're, they're, they're, they're walking into my bedroom unbuttoning their blouse, going. I can't believe you told me what to do. I never let men tell me what to do. And I get in the red room, their clothes are off, right, but it's kind of a game.
Speaker 2:And again, many Western men and I expect where you're at too, you know, australia, new Zealand. Again, we think that makes us the bad controlling man if we tell the woman what to do. But here's the thing what we're actually doing is creating a reciprocal relationship where maybe we start the ball rolling and we lead and then the woman might say, okay, I want to do this for you now and we go okay, yeah, do me baby, and then you know we're going to flip it back again. We're on top, she's on top. In Western culture we've gotten so afraid of these words dominance, submission, leadership is that nothing happens?
Speaker 1:It takes the play out of it.
Speaker 2:There's no polarity, there's no energy, there's no excitement. And here's what I found. I live in an area in a town in Mexico where it's very accepting to gay men, so lots of gay men and now lots of lesbians come there as well, and it's like the gay men and lesbians get this idea of polarity there's a top and a bottom, there's a pitcher and a catcher, there's a dom, there's a sub. They know that going in and they don't tend to switch roles. They have a role, whether a gay man or a lesbian woman, and they're really okay with that.
Speaker 2:It's a kind of more, you know, white bread, western middle class. Oh, we can't have dominance and submission. But if you think about it, if you don't have a pitcher, a catcher, a top, a bottom, a dom, a sub, it's just two bodies lying next to each other waiting for something to happen. Somebody has to be the doer, somebody has to be the done to, and I teach guys get the ball rolling, be the doer, lead, give her something to follow. It's not about you getting what you want. It's not about controlling her, it's not about dominating her.
Speaker 1:It's about giving her the opportunity to open and be receptive, yeah, and I feel like being able to do that as a skill shows that you're really starting to work through nice guy syndrome and it's starting to go as a skill. And one thing that I know for sure with nice guys in general, especially when it comes to leading and we talked about that like beforehand or to being confident or being the person who makes the decision, there's a lot of people don't, especially in Australia with this tall poppy syndrome.
Speaker 2:I love you told me about that that tall poppy syndrome.
Speaker 1:And as you and I were talking, it's about a flower, right?
Speaker 2:I thought it was. In Mexico, poppy is what you call your dad, right, my, Because in Mexico, poppy is what you call your dad, right? My stepkids call me poppy, and so I thought this was about a tall dad syndrome. But tell that story again what is a tall poppy and why is it a syndrome in Australia?
Speaker 1:Well, it's the same story as the crabs in a bucket. So if one crab tries to get out of the bucket, all the crabs will bring it down. Pull them back in. It's the of like the role of the hero. You know like I studied a lot of the hero's journey and one thing that I find fantastic Joseph Campbell says the hero is simply the bringer of change, and then the bringer of change gets met with resistance. Resistance is usually fear, judgment of others, criticism and the hero's constantly challenged, always challenged.
Speaker 1:Yeah challenged, always challenged. Yeah, so with the tall poppies is one poppy will start to grow and then all of the other flowers. Flowers will essentially like, poison it to bring it back down. So that's why they're all at the same level, because it's like you know, the tall poppy is not allowed to get out and in a like it's definitely it's. It's everywhere, like I know Canadians have it, like Americans have it, the Western world is filled with it, but essentially it's just like bringing other people down, it's not allowing people to shine. So when you do play big, when you do have the attention on you, when you have eyes on you, when you want to lead or it's time for you to lead, you go. You know what. I'm not going to make that decision. I'm just going to hide here. And that's where the point which I loved in the book no More, mr Nice Guy, which are like nice guys are not nice guys, like secretly they got this resentful thing happening.
Speaker 2:Resentment, rage, anger, frustration. How come every envy, how come everybody else gets to, how come he's got a pretty girlfriend and I don't?
Speaker 1:Yep, which is that's tall poppy. And then what happens is if you, let's say, you have a pretty girlfriend and you go I'm so happy I've got this girlfriend and now she's so pretty, and then people just like okay, you know, my, my second wife was gorgeous, just beautiful, tall, naturally curvy, big breasted, just beautiful face, just very charismatic and engaging.
Speaker 2:And you know I'm a fairly ordinary guy and and people when I was married to her they go, that's your wife, I go. Everybody said the same word she's gorgeous and I go thank you and I know they're all thinking what is he like?
Speaker 2:rich, Got a big dick, what I mean? How? How did he get that woman? And everybody hit on her, Men hit on her, women hit on her and and yeah, I stayed in a relationship with her for way too long just because my ego, that was my identity. I've got a beautiful wife. I didn't think I could get a woman that pretty and I thought if I lost her, you know, I would never get another one as pretty. My identity was really wrapped up in that. Because of that, Not only did I tolerate a lot of bad behavior, but the good news is she was the big stick upside my head.
Speaker 2:She was so crazy. In so many ways. It forced me to grow, to learn to set boundaries, to learn to lead, to learn to make my needs a priority, to surround myself with people who wanted to treat me well and help me get my needs met. Because she wasn't particularly good at that, I used to tell her the surest way with you for me not to get my needs met is to ask for what I want, Because if I asked her what I wanted, it was never going to happen. She would do the opposite. But the good news was I was such this passive nice guy trying to keep this beautiful woman happy, trying to keep her with me, not lose her, never have to be alone, never worry about, could ever find another one and I put up with stuff. But it challenged me to grow and that's where no More Mr Nice Guy came from. I wrote the book in that relationship.
Speaker 1:With her.
Speaker 2:Yeah in that relationship Because once I started seeing my patterns of trying to make her happy, please her, going along to get in, getting along, putting up with things, Men were coming to me for therapy. I was a marriage and family therapist. They were saying the same things I was 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. They go to private school. I give her everything she wants. It's never good enough. She's never happy. She never wants to have sex anymore. She's angry all the time and I go. How could you be married to the same woman I am? You know that's my wife. And so I realized this was such a big pattern among men and the more I just started looking at that. I started a more Mr Nice Guy group 30 years ago and just started realizing this is a worldwide pattern. When I put up my very first website, I built my first website, I taught myself HTML, we, and the very first email I got was from a guy in Australia.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And my then wife looked at me, said, well, they call it the World Wide Web. And I go, yeah, but how cool is that? A guy in Australia sent me an email. So, yeah, I soon found out that Australians, folks in New Zealand, were a lot like the American people I was with this whole nice guy, tall poppy crab in a bucket. Don't stand out, don't be too good, don't be amazing. Get your validation from things external, like having a pretty wife or having a nice car or being in good shape. Even that became what I call our attachments. As long as I'm in good shape or have a pretty wife or make good money or have a good job or my parents are proud of me or I succeed, then I'm okay. But underneath all of that we didn't feel like we were okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like the safety that we're searching for externally that we didn't know we were searching Be good, but not too good.
Speaker 2:Don't be too good. Yeah, don't be tall poppy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's exactly what it is. And one thing for me that I didn't even realize, speaking on like tool poppy, cause I didn't know I was contributing to it and I was a victim. I had no idea that. You know, I was a nice guy. When I was reading a book I was like, oh yeah, I'm pretty, like I'm a nice guy, but you know, I got some boundaries. But then when I read your book I was like, oh shit. I was like, oh shit, we've got a lot more here to work with.
Speaker 1:But I remember even doing a course I was 29 and I was doing a course on boundaries and I remember I was the third module into the course and I still couldn't conceptualize boundaries. I'm like I need to listen to these first three modules again because I still don't get boundaries. I'm like, but what do boundaries mean? Because I couldn't articulate how they played out in my relationship, how they played out in my relationship, how they played out in my business, because my parents have no boundaries. They cross them all the time. Like I remember when I was in my early twenties I moved back in with my mom Cause I was like back and forth between you know, dad and mom was studying at uni and I was like I didn't know I could just go get a job, make money and leave, right. I remember I was living with my mom and she'd just come walk into my room.
Speaker 2:She'd just walk in, no knock, no, knocking, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Hey, mom, wait, wait, I was busy here, yeah, and I'm like mom, like you can't come into my room. I had to. I put a lock on my door because of cause she'd just come in, and that's not like there's no judgment on her on that. That's just how she must've been brought up or whatever, and I had no idea that was even a thing. Boundaries are crucial.
Speaker 2:I did not learn about boundaries either till I was in my mid thirties, in my second marriage, and I already had a PhD in marriage and family therapy and I'd never heard of boundaries. Wow. And what it was is when my second wife confronted me a couple of years in the marriage says everybody thinks you're a nice guy, but you're not. You're dishonest, you don't tell me the truth. I can't trust you. You're passive, aggressive, you're mean to me. I think everything's fine, and then you blow up at me.
Speaker 2:She said I'd rather be with an asshole, because at least I know an asshole is going to be an asshole to me all the time. She said you need help. I'm going to leave you if you don't get help. Well, I thought you're the one that doesn't like yourself. You're unhappy all the time. It's never good enough. How come? I need help, I'm trying to please you, and? But I didn't want to lose her. She was gorgeous, so I mean, on our honeymoon she announced aren't you a nice guy? I can fix this, I can fix this. So she'd already quit having sex with me. We're just two years into our marriage.
Speaker 1:How did she feel at that?
Speaker 2:point in time. Well, it felt terrible. I mean, without going into too much detail, even just stuff, like I would snuggle up behind her and she'd elbow me or I'd reach my hand around and put it on her breast and, like she'd, you know, put, kick me out of the bed physically. I mean my now present wife, lupita, and I have been married eight and a half years. If I snuggle up behind her, she takes my hand and puts it on her breast, right so? But I kept thinking, well, I can fix this, I can make it better, which just led me to be more passive, aggressive and indirect and resentful. But when she said I'm going to leave you if you don't go to therapy.
Speaker 2:So I got into therapy and I went to see this one therapist. I worked with her for a while, but in the very first session we had I remember this clearly, very first therapy session she says come here, we stand up. She puts a string on the ground. Does this little talk with me about boundaries? And she said that's your side. I'm going to come into your side, I'm going to put my hands on your chest, I'm going to push you backwards. Stop me when you begin to feel uncomfortable. Okay. So I stood about you know this, far behind the string she put on the ground. She comes in, puts her hand on my chest and a small woman older than me starts pushing me backward. And I'm backing up and I go okay, stop, she keeps pushing. I said stop. Now she keeps pushing. Finally, I remember my football training from junior high, high school. So I get down to my linebacker stance and I stopped her. I was about to the wall and she goes great and I go great. What was this? Why did we do this? And then she went to teach me about boundaries, about how we need to decide where's my line, where's my space, who gets to come into my space, what do they get to do when they're in there? How long can they stay? When is it time for them to go? We're the decider of that. Now, nobody had ever taught me that before and I don't know if she taught that to everybody in their first therapy session or just me walking in the room. She goes. He's getting the boundary presentation first session together. But here's the deal.
Speaker 2:Culturally, children don't learn about boundaries, because in all cultures the big people get to do whatever they want to the little people. I mean the big people are in charge. The big people say eat this. The big people say you go to bed now. The big people say, eat this. The big people say you go to bed now. The big people say you're going to this church. Or the big people might be your bigger brothers or the neighbors that beat you up or kick you or steal your stuff from you. It might be the teachers in school, it might be the preachers, it might be the policemen, it might be the politicians. The big people always get to do whatever they want to the little people.
Speaker 2:And since we were all your mother was my mother, we were all little people at some point in life. None of us learned we could say no, stop, I want to, I'm leaving, I'm taking a break. You ever do that again, we're done. We did not learn that. And so what I find with most people have no idea of boundaries and, especially nice guys, no clue that we can say I want, I don't want to. We don't know that we can say yes when our yes is yes or no when our no is no. Most nice guys say yes when they'd rather say no, say no when they'd rather say yes, and we let people do things and we just hope and wish they'll stop doing that. Or they'll just know what our needs or wants are, or they'll quit being mean to us, or we just wait and hope and get manipulative and indirect. So boundaries are crucial. And, yeah, talk about boundaries with our mothers.
Speaker 2:Once I started learning about boundaries, like I said, it was in my 30s and my second marriage, and both my therapist and my wife saying your mother has no boundaries with you. That's the same time when my mother told my wife I saw him naked before you. He's mine, right? I belong to her, and when you own something, you don't have a boundary with it. You can do whatever you want with it, right? And that's how most parents are with their kids. And so I started setting boundaries with my mother and it really just won.
Speaker 2:Every time my mother and I talked, she wanted to complain about my father. Now, I'd been listening to her complain about my dad since I was two, right, and now I'm in my thirties, they're still married. I mean, they were married until he died in 2009. And every time she'd complain about my dad, I thought, okay, I'm going to set boundaries. Mom, I love you, but he's my dad, I don't want to talk about dad. We'll talk about anything else, just not dad.
Speaker 2:And every time I talked to her she'd bring up my dad. She complained about my dad. When I say mom, I'll talk about anything but dad, she'd cry or she'd get angry or she'd hang up the phone or she'd get manipulative and she would up the ante and start complaining about their sex life. She just kept going Like the more I said mom, no, mom, I'm not going to talk to you about dad, he's my dad. If you have problems you go to work on, I'll talk about anything, she told me. Her therapist told her I was being controlling because I wouldn't listen to her talk about my dad.
Speaker 2:I have such a similar story to you and so crazy because of that boundary, I did not talk to my mother for 15 years, didn't talk to either my father or mother for 15 years. I did start getting reconnected with my father before he had a stroke and died in 2009. I was on good terms with him, totally at peace with our relationship, but when he had his stroke so here my mother and I are in the hospital together, hadn't talked in 15 years and we had to talk. I mean two weeks while my father was in hospice before before he died we talked about everything and I was like going back 2009, it's 2025. This week I got a tattoo representing my mother and her 90th birthday is this coming Tuesday. I'm flying to Seattle today and I'll be with her for her birthday. We now have a boundaried, mutually supportive, loving, caring relationship, but it took 15 years of me holding firm at my boundaries and working. Finally, 15 years later, working through all of those core details, to really work through that piece.
Speaker 1:I'm going to shake your hand on that. That's amazing, because what I find a lot of people don't do is fight for their boundaries. I didn't realize for myself that, even in a relationship, that I could be the person who, if I want clear boundaries, it may get to the point where I actually have to end a relationship.
Speaker 2:Well, here's one thing I say the only power we have to set a boundary is our ability and willingness to remove ourselves Now. Maybe remove ourselves for 30 seconds, 15 minutes, 15 years. Walk the fuck out and never come back, whatever is needed. If you cannot or will not remove yourself Now, children cannot. That's why children can't set boundaries. They can't remove themselves. Many of us, as adults, can, but we won't.
Speaker 2:I wasn't willing to walk away from that gorgeous wife, so I had no power to set a boundary. It wasn't until with her, for example. It wasn't until we're on the phone. She's griping and complaining about something. I go, I'm going to get off the phone now. Call me back when you're in a better mood, that's when you hold phones like this, not like this, and I would lovingly get off the phone. 45 minutes later. She'd call back and said I think I know what the problem was. I had a boundary. I'm getting off the phone now. Did it with love, did it with consciousness, and it let her figure out why she was being a bitch right, and she'd call me back and say I'm sorry, I figured out what was bothering me, but I had to learn to set those boundaries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I felt for me. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. For me, what I didn't realize when I was a kid was I had to be a caretaker, essentially for my mom and my parents, because they split up. There was a lot going on, so I was holding a lot of emotional space. I didn't realize that at the time. So for me, I take on this role of and I only figured this out recently for all of my relationships it was like I was always trying to fix I would be-.
Speaker 2:That was your job, that was your value in the relationship I did not feel like a man.
Speaker 1:If I wasn't helping them heal and if I wasn't the one responsible if they got healing somewhere else, I'd experience this like jealousy and this envy. Somewhere else I'd experienced this like jealousy and this envy. So I really became this like Mr fix it guy and if I wasn't fixing, I didn't feel safe, I didn't feel loved, I didn't feel anything else, which I think, allowed me to cross my own boundaries and not stick up for myself, cause I'm like well, if I'm not fixing you and I'm not helping you, then who am I?
Speaker 2:Yeah, who are you?
Speaker 2:The term for that? The term I like is called borrowed functioning In no More, mr Nice Guy. What we're really talking about is codependency. Now, I did not use the word codependency in the book and I did that on purpose, because the word codependency originally came out of addictive work where you had a dependent person the addict, alcohol, drugs, gambling, whatever and often a partner who was dependent on the partner. So they call it codependent because they're dependent on fixing this partner, getting them off their drugs, enabling even and so that's where the word codependency came from is that the person got their value and identity in relationship to the addicted partner they were trying to manage or fix. And then that term then became used quite often for women, because women would often get into codependent relationships where they were the fixer, the giver, the caretaker. And when I wrote no More, mr Nice Guy, nobody had ever addressed the same dynamic in men, so I didn't want to use the word because I didn't want men going. Well, I'm not a codependent, you know, I'm not with an addict or I'm not a woman, and so I didn't use the word.
Speaker 2:Now, the term I like, even better than codependent, is that word borrowed functioning, meaning I only have value or identity, or I only exist in relationship to this thing outside of me. For me, with my second wife, it was having a pretty wife. All right, I only have value because I have a pretty wife. For me, and you as well, it was also being that caretaker and fixer. I only have value if you have a need, if you have a problem that I can meet or that I can help you solve. And if I'm not meeting your needs or solving your problems, why do you need me? What value do I have?
Speaker 2:Now here's where it gets really interesting. If you and I are in relationship and I'm with you because I think you have a need that I can fix, like you said, if you like get your need fixed without me, well, why do you need me? Or if somebody else is helping you get your need met, well, wait a minute, that's my job. Yeah, that. And, ironically, if you get better, I'm out of a job. So, even as I think I'm trying to help you solve your problems and get better, I also have an investment in you not getting better, because then, what's my value? What's my function? There's no borrowed functioning anymore. You don't need me because I don't have a self-identity, I don't know who I am, I'm not here taking care of me and getting my needs met and valuing me. That only happens in regard to you. So that borrowed functioning is so common among nice guys In fact, it's a core part of that nice guy syndrome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I felt for myself, speaking for myself personally it was like when that would happen, my nervous system would get so activated and I would feel so much stress and like panic and overwhelm, as if I was going to like lose someone. And it wasn't until that I started doing men's work, embodiment practices, going to retreats, like you know, taking action on you know men's work stuff. And I just kind of want to know from you like what's the importance of doing the embodiment work, of being around men's group and being around men and doing like initiatory practices, so that you can get that out of your body, so you can start stepping into masculine leadership?
Speaker 2:Yeah, about eight years ago I had just married my present wife, lupita. We've been married now eight and a half years and I was living in Mexico and feeling pretty isolated, pretty disconnected, and I had about one and a half good guy friends and I say a half because one I needed to set a boundary and move him out of my life. He'd crossed too many lines with me in the past and so here I was kind of isolated, no good guy friends, already struggling. In my marriage with my wife we only had one issue, but that one issue kept getting repeated. She's a jealous Latina. She would keep accusing me of things I hadn't done. I'm a nice, I didn't do that. How come you're accusing me of good Again? We nice guys don't like being falsely accused or really accused of anything, and so I would try to fix her, get her over it, talk her down, talk her through. When that didn't work, I'd blow up and get mad and say hurtful things. So we were stuck in this pattern. I thought I can't do this by myself. So I shared in a workshop I was leading that I needed to find a men's program, and one of the guys in my workshop said Robert, I'm in this program with this coach. He studied with David Data like for 10 years. I go, I'm in, he goes, we have these retreats, these intensives and we're online. And so I connected with that coach and joined his program. A few months later Was it John Weiland? John Weiland, it was yeah, john Weiland.
Speaker 2:And the men's program that I was in for five, six years that he still leads is called. He calls it EMLT embodied men leadership training. I jokingly would tease him. I said it's emasculated men's loser training. But I remember about about two months into this program we're having calls and stuff and I just asked him on a call I said John, what's embodiment? I had no idea what it even meant. I mean I'd done work with David Data, I'd been to a couple of workshops with him. I'd read Way of the Superior man probably 20 times by that time.
Speaker 2:But I didn't know what embodiment was. And I mean because I came into men's work through therapy. I was a therapist, I worked with therapists in 12 steps and so embodiment is where we basically take, not just the idea of something or the mental message of something. Like we may say okay, you need to set boundaries. Okay, when that therapist taught me about boundaries. She did it in an embodied way. She actually said stand here, push on me, push back when you're ready. She wanted me to feel it in my body what it meant to be solid and be strong.
Speaker 2:So in working in that men's program we did a lot of practices together physical practice, some where we actually tussle against each other, some where we stand still and breathe and look in another man's eyes, some where we call up deep feelings inside of us. Sometimes we would do a practice You're looking in another man's eye and he says give me more lover and you would embody love energy. You wouldn't say a thing, you just feel love energy. Then you'd say give me more killer. And then you'd bring up that depth of darkness. I could kill you, I could pull your arms, I could, you know, eat you, I could do that. And then you train that to do that with your woman more lover, more killer. You know they, they love that dark energy, that love energy.
Speaker 2:And so doing those practices whether it's getting grounded, feeling solid, breath, work is getting the message into your nervous system, into your body, to not just think it. I know I need to set a boundary here to where it becomes reflexive. It's like you're an athlete and in any sport you train to prepare yourself for the competition, whether it's baseball, american football, rugby, soccer, football, even bodybuilding right, you train yourself over and, over and over again for the competition. Now you can't just like watch videos or read books about baseball or tennis or Brazilian jujitsu. You got to get down on the floor and grapple and grapple and grapple until everything becomes reflexive to your body.
Speaker 2:Your body feels your opponent making this move and you're already doing what you need to do. That's true in life as well. So important and and so embodiment work, initiation work, I mean throughout all, all of all of humanity. The, the wise warrior, hunter, gatherer men have initiated the young men into the world of the scary world of the masculine through taking young men through initiation processes that were scary, that were painful, like the movie 300, where the boy's in the cave with the spear and the wild animal is out there. That's happened throughout history. The men initiated the young men to embody into their physical nervous system.
Speaker 2:I can handle danger, I can face my fears, I can stay strong, I can be bold, I can risk, I can deal with people criticizing me, shaming me, attacking me. I can go for what I want. I can be bold. That takes training. We have to train our nervous system to be able to handle that, and you've been working on it. I've been working on it. I shared with you just this week here in Austin, I did a day-long therapy session with MDMA and the whole purpose of that session was about expanding my nervous system for greater impact and greater visibility, because I'd been trained don't make an impact, be small, top-up syndrome.
Speaker 2:And so here I am, at 69 years old. I've been working on this stuff for 30 years and working with men for 30 years. I'm still working on my nervous system to embody it, to just reflexively, in the moment, right now, respond in the most bold, powerful, energetic, grounded, conscious, open-hearted kind of ways. But we have to practice that. Just like you have to go to the gym and train, or you got to get out on the turf and do the moves over and over and over again, or on the mat and practice over and over and over again, we have to train our bodies, our nervous systems, our emotions and our mind to do this without having to think about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is so powerful, especially in groups of men. So why is it important for men, especially guys in Australia and New Zealand, to get to Gold Coast in October 2025?
Speaker 2:What's happening in October 2025?
Speaker 1:I think there's a little something going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, of course you've invited me to come join you. I'll be there for a couple of men's events on the Gold Coast. I'm so excited. I've never been to Australia. It's been on the bucket list.
Speaker 1:So why should men come? Why should? We got the gathering of men and we've got like my retreats, the gathering of men. There's going to be a couple hundred men there, all the men's leaders meeting up in Gold Coast. Fantastic, you're going to be a keynote speaker there. Then we've got my retreat, the next level, so that's like 25 to 30 men. It's like a little bit more intimate. But why would men want to come to these events? Why do this?
Speaker 2:I'm working right now with a marketing company, new me, and they reached out to me and so we watched some of your podcast, your videos, and we made Grant Cardone a star, we made Mel Robbins a star. We want to make you a star, and so I've been working with them for a few weeks now and they've really honed in on trying to find a core hook, core message and my message is all about we men need men to level up to our best selves, and what they've really honed in on is a message is, as I'm a marriage relationship therapist, is that the foundation that a man builds an amazing relationship with, say you know, say I love women All right, I want an amazing relationship with a woman. I have to have a foundation of good men in my life. You know, I mentioned seven and a half eight years ago when my marriage was struggling. Just a year in, I went and found a men's program and I went to work on building my tribe of men and just developing connection. And so, just for the example, now, seven and a half eight years later, been in Austin, texas, this week.
Speaker 2:Monday night I had dinner with a group of five other guys that I met in an entrepreneur's program that I'm in and I didn't know two of the guys, two of the guys I'd actually met in Japan when I was there speaking at an event. Monday night dinner. Wednesday night dinner I had dinner at a man's house that you were there and he met me here in Austin a year ago. He loves my book. I walk in the door Wednesday night, robert. I set a record this week I recommended your book to 12 guys. That's a record for me.
Speaker 1:That's.
Speaker 2:Eric yeah, it was Eric. There was eight or 10 guys there. You met a bunch of these amazing guys. I didn't know these guys a year ago, right. So here I am with a dinner Wednesday night, eight to 10 guys. Last night I had a dinner that I kind of helped pull together with my Austin buddies and there were like 15 guys there that I didn't know seven years ago, that men I met in my men's program or met here in Austin. And so I come to Austin and I came to Austin so many times last year three times in total, you know to interview with Chris Williamson, be on a lot of great interviews, be guest speaker at men's events, men's programs.
Speaker 2:My wife asked me are you sure you don't have a girlfriend in Austin? You keep going there a lot and I go no, I don't have a girlfriend there. I said I got a bunch of guy friends there. I got a bunch of dudes there, I got my brothers there. The studs are in Austin. And so here's the deal, because I've been building this foundation with good men, not only has my marriage really grown and gotten strong, my wife is supportive of me being here.
Speaker 2:Last month I was gone from home for a month. I was in Florida at a David Data workshop. I was in Japan speaking at an entrepreneur workshop. My wife didn't see me for a month, did not melt down one time. She was loving and supportive when she took me to the airport, said I'm so happy for you that you get to go do this amazing thing. And now I'm here. She's thrilled to meet me up in Seattle tomorrow.
Speaker 2:She sent me naked pictures of herself last night, just telling me how amazing I am. I'm sending her pictures and videos of all the men I'm hanging out with and she, just, she just is so in love with her big, powerful man. Why? Because I've gotten connected with men and I've gone through that initiation of learning to be that strong man, that strong leader that my wife loves and is so attracted to. So, yes, we can't do this by ourselves. So many men try to go the lone wolf, do it themselves. We need men to level up the relationship we want to have, the most amazing relationship with the most amazing woman. We need men to level up our business, to level up our physical health and wellness, to level up our finances, to level up our emotional well-being. We need men to make the big fucking impact on the world and put a dent in the universe. We can't do that alone. We need each other.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. There's this thing that I always see with men in general you look at a guy and you're like why is this guy absolutely crushing it and killing it? And it's like, well, he's just been doing the work. And for's like, well, he's just been doing the work and for anyone listening, if you guys want to do the work, you can just message me on Instagram. If you want to come to be a part of the retreat and meet Dr Robert Glover and be involved around what we're doing in October, send me a message at Corey Boutwell on Instagram or there's a link to apply. Just hit that and we'll see you guys there. Thank you, robert, for coming onto the show. Boom, see you.