March 31, 2025 • 33 mins
Is your fear of coming across as “creepy” holding you back in dating—or worse, making you act less confident, less direct, and less attractive?
In this episode, Charles and Dan dive into the art of managing anxiety in social and romantic situations. Drawing from Chapter 6 of Dating Essentials for Men, they share powerful mindset shifts and practical techniques to help you regulate your nervous system, stop overthinking, and show up with grounded confidence.
Whether you're approaching someone new or navigating rejection, learning how to own your anxiety instead of hiding it is one of the most attractive things you can do.
🔑 What You'll Learn:
- Why diaphragmatic breathing instantly lowers anxiety and improves decision-making
- How visualization can rewire your mind for confident, positive outcomes
- The neuroscience behind your brain's obsession with worst-case scenarios
- Why trying to “figure her out” is a waste of energy—and what to focus on instead
- The surprising connection between anxiety, authenticity, and attraction
- What actually makes someone come across as creepy (and how to avoid it)
- How “testing for interest” increases both clarity and confidence
- The role of self-improvement in becoming rejection-proof
- Why therapy, coaching, or group support accelerates your dating growth
🧠 Key Quote:
“Anxiety is not your enemy. It’s telling you you’re doing something new—and that’s a good thing. That’s attractive.”
📌 Mentioned in the Episode:
- Dating Essentials for Men by Dr. Robert Glover
- How to Be a 3% Man by Corey Wayne
- The Man’s Guide to Women by Drs. John & Julie Gottman
- Habit tracking apps: Productive, Apple Reminders
- Importance of resting heart rate for focus and decision-making
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Charles (00:00):
Keep in mind in all of these scenarios, anxiety is not
your enemy.
It's telling you something, andin this case, what it's telling
you is you're willing to trysomething new that you're not
good at, and that's a good thing, and that's an attractive thing
.
So anxiety is, it's in thepassenger seat for a lot of
these things that we're talkingabout, and you're not going to
be able to kick it out of thecar, but you are going to be
(00:20):
able to keep it fed, keep ithydrated, stop for bathroom
breaks when you need to so thatyour anxiety is manageable.
Welcome back to the MindfullyMasculine Podcast.
This is Charles.
In this episode, dan and I willcontinue our discussion of
dating essentials for men by DrRobert Glover with Chapter 6,
all about anxiety and how tosoothe or manage it.
(00:42):
Soothe or manage it.
Topics covered includingmanaging anxiety through
diaphragmatic breathing.
Using visualization forpositive outcomes.
Understanding and overcomingthe negativity bias.
The power and importance ofhabit tracking.
Avoiding over-analysis andaccepting uncertainty.
Healthy mindset for dealingwith rejection.
Testing for interest inrelationships.
(01:03):
The relationship betweenconfidence, authenticity and
attraction.
Common misconceptions aboutcreepiness in dating.
The importance of externalsupport for personal growth.
Understanding and leveraginganxiety as an indicator.
Effective strategies forreducing anxiety in social and
romantic situations and othertopics.
(01:24):
Check out our websitemindfullymasculinecom for full
audio and video episodes, aswell as any news or developments
we find worth sharing.
Thanks and enjoy.
Dan (01:34):
Good morning Charles.
How are?
Charles (01:36):
you doing, dan?
Thank you, let me turn my soundall the way off.
Okay, I'm doing well, thanks.
We are still working throughsome of our sound challenges and
we've gotten a lot closer tofixing it.
We need one more piece ofequipment and then I think we'll
be in great shape.
You blame Amazon.
I bought two audio interfacesfrom Amazon and they sent me two
boxes with pictures of audiointerfaces on them, and one
(01:59):
contained a projector, which isnot.
I don't want to confuse any ofthe non-techies out there, but a
projector and an audiointerface are not the same thing
.
Whoa, whoa, slow down.
The box looks the same.
The box looks exactly the same,but they are not the same.
Yeah, okay, so we arere-recording chapter six from
Dating Essentials for Men.
This chapter is all about howto calm and soothe yourself.
(02:23):
We're asking our listeners andourselves to do some new things
that we may not be all thatcomfortable with, and so with
new things comes anxiety.
So let's go through some of thelittle tools and tricks here
that Dr Glover gives us, forwhen we are feeling our nervous
system activated, our anxiety iscoming up and we want to put it
(02:44):
back down so that we can do thething that we're trying to do.
The first one he recommends isdiaphragmatic breathing, meaning
breathing from your diaphragminstead of breathing from your
chest.
Singers and people who talk fora living probably already know
about this, but the idea is,when you breathe in, instead of
your chest going up, your tummygoes out and that tells you that
(03:07):
you're breathing with yourdiaphragm, which I believe
allows you to intake more CO2 oreven just a greater quantity of
air for breath.
Dan (03:16):
Yeah, and I also think it activates, maybe, the vagus
nerve that I was here, yeah yeah, with your parasympathetic
system, which actually is calmsyou, your whole nervous system.
So you've got the sympatheticand the parasympathetic and I
always confuse it too.
But I think parasympathetic Ithink of a parachute kind of
coming down a little bit.
I think that's the one thatmeans to relax you and by
(03:39):
activating that part of yourbody you're actually stimulating
that nerve and it helps calmyou down, also from a
physiological standpoint as well.
Charles (03:47):
Yeah, so when you're breathing from your chest, those
breaths are typically shorter,shallower and faster.
Dan (03:54):
And if you think about it, I think when you're upset or
excited about something, howdoes your body feel?
Charles (03:59):
And you're doing that short breath from up here, yeah,
and so I think it goes hand inhand with the same type of yeah,
if you're familiar with theterm or the practice of ugly
crying, but you're likestruggling for your breath and
you're hyperventilating andyou're like that's all coming up
here, I have to.
It's been a while, but yeah, Ido remember that and, yeah, that
(04:20):
that would be a check, the wayhe says to check in it basically
put a hand on your tummy and ahand, wait, a hand on your chest
and a hand on your tummy andthen see which one you're
getting the most, which hand ismoving the most, and that'll
tell you what kind of breathingyou're doing.
Again, if the goal is to, ifyou're trying to get ramped up
before a boxing match orsomething like that, maybe
there's a reason to get yourselfbreathing, doing your chest
(04:42):
breathing.
But if you're trying to calmdown, you want to feel that
breathing pushing out your bellyand so that's the way that you
do you actually do one or theother?
Dan (04:52):
because I naturally do the diaphragmatic, I need to force
myself mentally to do the.
I naturally do the, not thediaphragm.
The chest breathe I think I dothe probably chest, but daily
too, yeah, and I have to forcemy belly out and have to really
concentrate in order to breathethat way.
Charles (05:07):
Yeah, and I think naturally, yeah, I would.
Dan (05:10):
I think they also equivalent to like babies.
If you look at the way babiesbreathe, it's their tummies
going in and out.
That's true.
At some point, I guess, we gettaught or we just get the habit
of doing the upper chestbreathing more often.
Charles (05:22):
So that's yeah, that makes sense.
So I would say, yeah, you dosee babies breathing with their
tummy.
I think I, yeah, I think Iwould naturally be more of a
chest breather, which issomething to yeah.
If you're in a high stresssituation, either you're having
an argument with your partner oryou're trying to go talk to new
people.
Whatever that is, try torealize what you're doing and
(05:44):
try to get the habit of, becauseanother thing it does is it'll
lower your pulse rate anddiscussed previously the.
The pulse over 100 is not whereyou want to be if you're trying
to do anything that involvesyour brain making a difficult
decision.
And yeah, that, yeah, I toldyou that's what I use my metric
when I'm in the gym before.
(06:04):
The way I know if I've restedlong enough is not how much time
has gone on the clock, it'swhen my Apple Watch tells me my
pulse rate's gone down under 100, then I know, okay, it's time
to lift again.
Oh, that's true, because, yeah,your brain is more the front
part of your brain, as opposedto your amygdala is more in the
driver's seat when your pulse isunder 100.
And it's good to get your pulsethere by doing things like
diaphragmatic breathing, theother process that he recommends
(06:28):
here is visualizing positiveresults.
Keep in mind that your mind is aproblem-solving machine and
because of that, the riskmitigation process is going to
often have you focus on theworst-case scenarios more than
the best case scenarios or eventhe most likely scenario.
Which inefficient problemsolving machine is going to
(06:52):
spend the most time focusing onwhat's most likely to happen in
this situation?
But because we're walkingaround with a brain that was
designed to keep us alive undervery dangerous circumstances, we
do tend to focus on the what'sthe worst case scenario, what's
the most bad thing that couldhappen to us.
And again, I think awell-designed AI or computer
program would spend its timefocusing on what is the most
(07:13):
likely thing to occur and how doI mitigate that, or mitigate
that risk, where the humanemotional brain is not wired
that way.
Dan (07:21):
No, it's whatever.
I think it's just so manyfactors come into play when
we're thinking about what riskis coming to mind first, our
past experience, what we'veliterally watched on television
and movies, those things, thoseare ideas that are circulating
around in our head.
If we remember any of that partof that, those movies, I think
we've got to be real carefulwith what we're programming
(07:41):
ourselves with, because when youdon't want it to surface, when
you want to keep calm andrelaxed about something, we've
got all those other thingscirculating in our brain of
possibilities.
If we never saw, that, wedidn't even know something crazy
that we saw in a movie couldactually exist or happen, even
though we were visualizing itonly.
But then he talks about thepower of visualization right
(08:03):
here it only.
Charles (08:05):
But then he talks about the power visualization right
here.
Yeah, and the fact that yourbody's physiology doesn't care
if a scenario is real orimagined.
If it's getting enough cyclesin your CPU, your physiology is
going to react as if it's real,even if it's just something that
you're imagining.
Dan (08:19):
Yeah, he talked about the basketball players analogy,
where they had one team ofpeople playing basketball
practicing out on the court inreal life and another one
another group of basketballplayers just visualizing
shooting baskets, and when theywent to play, the ones who
visualized actually got more ofthe baskets in a higher
percentage than the ones who areactually out on the court.
(08:41):
And I think what he said wasit's because when you visualize,
you don't visualize yourselfmissing every time you manage.
You visualize yourself makingit in the basket every time.
The crazy thing to me is thatyour body is required to make
those baskets after the fact andyou were not literally, you
were not practicing that, youwere just sitting there, whereas
the people out on the court,their muscles are going through
(09:03):
those motions Also.
Maybe there, whereas the peopleout on the court, their muscles
are going through those motionsalso, maybe you're wearing those
muscles down and things likethat too.
So that could affect how muchyou're you're able to make it in
.
But I guess if you're alreadywell trained, you already know
how to make baskets.
If you're like a professional,you really don't need to train
your body to make thosemovements anymore.
Your body just knows how to dothat.
So probably it's more powerfulvisualization.
(09:24):
I'm wondering if you tookamateurs, kids who'd never shot
baskets before, and they did thesame thing.
I'm curious to see how thatwould work.
Charles (09:32):
That's true.
I mean it's got to be a baselevel of proficiency before
before this comes in.
But yeah, the lesson with thebasketball shots is that the
result that you visualize ismore likely to happen.
And so if you're visualizingthe negative result over and
over again, then you make thatmore likely to happen.
And if that comes to going outto a new social experience or
(09:56):
interacting with people or womenor whatever it is, if you are
focusing on the negative outcomethat could happen, that makes
that negative outcome morelikely to happen.
And the other side again fromthe basketball example if you
focus on the positive resultthat you're looking for, then
that makes that positive resultmore likely to happen.
Dan (10:15):
And I think the also lesson with the section before that is
that our brains will gravitatetowards the negative results
more often than the positiveones.
So just expect that this is notgoing to be an easy thing to do
to think of the positive thingsall the time.
Yet the more you practice it,the easier it gets, obviously
like everything else in life,but that's what our brains are
(10:36):
designed and wired to do, sodon't beat yourself up thinking
there's something wrong with methat I'm always thinking of
these horrible results orwhatever, but that's just.
Our brains are trained to leanin that direction.
Charles (10:46):
So feeling really wrong and so to lean against that
direction, be prepared for somework.
You got to have a system, yougot to have a checklist, you got
to have reminders, you got tohave something in place that
tells your conscious brain okay,yes, we understand what we're
going to do if we're just onautopilot.
But we don't want to be onautopilot, we want to do this
other thing instead.
Dan (11:04):
And remind yourself why you're doing it, got excited
about that.
A lot of times I fail because Idon't remember why I wanted to
do it, where I wasn't as excitedabout doing it as I was
previously, and so then thingsgo to the wayside and it's just
yeah, it's not worth it For methat's anyway you get to really
(11:26):
remind, like, why I want to dothis thing in order to get over
that hump.
Charles (11:28):
And look, I think the most, one of the most effective
tools we have that's free forall of us not free for all of us
.
Assuming you already have acell phone with a monthly plan,
which most of us do yeah, justget some kind of a habit
tracking app that will remindyou during the day hey, do these
.
You've decided these things areimportant.
You've decided you want to dothese things.
Now here's a reminder three orfour times a day to practice a
(11:48):
visualizing exercise or adiaphragmatic breathing exercise
or whatever, and just have itpop up on your phone and tell
you hey, look, you're the onethat told me these things matter
, you want to do these.
So here I'm going to tell youfour times a day to do these
things.
You have an iPhone app.
Dan (12:09):
I've been loving the new reminders function.
Charles (12:10):
They've integrated it really well.
I haven't done new.
I haven't done this with theirs.
Dan (12:11):
I I left apple's reminders a while ago for another app and
I haven't really looked at itagain I love it because they
integrate into your calendar aswell, and when you're making a
new calendar appointment,there's a little tab at the top.
You can create a calendarappointment or a reminder, so it
doesn't actually go on yourcalendar.
Okay, you can have it repeatevery so long.
Charles (12:25):
Are you using Apple's built-in calendar or Google
calendar?
Apple's built-in calendar Okay,yeah, I don't use.
Okay, but Apple's reminders ortheir calendar.
Dan (12:31):
But the reminders are great .
You can really flexible withstuff and it integrates.
You can have it also integrateright into your calendar.
So if you're on a differentmachine, if you're on pop,
whatever, you can see all thereminders potholes.
Okay, I want them to.
Okay, you don't have to yeah, Iuse smart.
Charles (12:47):
My habit tracking app that I've been using for a
couple years is calledproductive, and I like it a lot.
It will.
It'll pop up those remindersfor you as well, and also the
thing I like is it'll let yousee streaks for how many days in
a row you have that'smotivating completed whatever
task.
And yeah, but yeah, go aheadand leverage those tools.
They're free.
Most of us have access to them,so let them rip.
(13:09):
Okay, the?
The third step in soothing youranxiety that dr glover
recommends is stop trying tofigure out why women do what
they do and so many things inthis book.
This doesn't just apply towomen.
Really anything in your lifethat you want or need the
participation of another personto get your goal met, when they
(13:34):
are unwilling or unable topartner with you to meet that
goal, don't spend a bunch ofextra time trying to figure out
but why aren't they willing todo this?
Why didn't they do this?
For me, it doesn't matter.
Yeah, we all need to liveinterconnected lives where we
rely on other people to do thethings that we we want to do for
ourselves and we want to dowith others.
(13:55):
But the part where you getstuck in your head about this
analysis of but why didn't theydo it?
Why did they choose not to doit?
In so many cases, the answer isit doesn't matter, they just
didn't.
Yeah, and he does a good job oflaying out that case here.
Dan (14:08):
Another reason why you don't want to go down that road
is a lot of times, even if youwere to, in a magic land, get
that information as to why theydidn't want to do it, you don't
have the power most of the timeto control them, to have them do
something different anyway.
Charles (14:24):
Really any of the time.
If you're a dad and you've gota daughter, you can make her do
her chores, but you can't makeher want to do her chores, and
when it comes to healthyromantic relationships, you
don't want anybody doinganything they don't want to do
or doing on a sense of guilt orobligation.
You want to be in relationshipswith people that are excited to
have their needs met by you andmeet your needs.
Dan (14:44):
Now it might be a good prompt, an impetus to start a
conversation about why thingsaren't.
You guys are on different pages, but don't ruminate and just
try to come up with ideas of whysomething did or didn't happen.
Charles (15:00):
Yeah, because most human behavior, as he says, is
controlled by unconsciousfactors that we ourselves don't
even understand about ourselves.
So going to another person andtrying to say, yeah, they may
not even know, yeah, but whydidn't you?
Why didn't you want to go outwith me?
Why didn't you want to meet upfor the state that we arranged?
It's like they probably can'teven give you a straight answer
(15:23):
if they wanted to.
They probably can't even giveyou a straight answer if they
wanted to, and the fact thatyou've put them in that corner
where you're demanding thatanswer for them makes them even
less likely.
So let go of that over analysis.
Keep in mind that it probablyhas very little to do with you
and more to deal with her life,her situation, her circumstances
, her mindset, and she's justnot willing or able to meet that
(15:46):
need or that request of yoursin that moment and then just be
chill about it.
That's the only thing you cando to increase your chances for
that particular girl to be opento meeting up with you or going
out with you in the future isthe way that you react to
disappointment, because that isa thing that so many guys get
wrong so much of the time.
Dan (16:04):
Here's another way to think about it.
We were just talking about thisthe other day companies who
make it very difficult to cancelsubscriptions with them.
If they make it easy andpleasant for you to be able to
cancel because, for whateverreason, you're just either not
into their product, you don'tneed it anymore, whatever it is
if they make it easy, you're alot more likely to consider them
in the future and come back andgo oh hey, you know what?
They had great service.
(16:25):
I've got a favorable impression.
If somebody asks me about them,I'm going to give a oh, it was
easy to cancel or it was veryflexible and I had a good
experience walking away fromthat.
Whereas if you sign up onlinebut you have to call somebody or
get a fax somebody If youremember, like gym memberships
back in the day, they're likeyear long contracts, like the
(16:45):
vice president of gold gym inorder to quit.
I remember having to do that,basically, and then they still
took two months to respond backand charge me.
During those two months, I willnever join gold again.
Charles (16:55):
Bring it back to the material of the chapter.
It really is a mix ofinsecurity and over analysis.
That is really what's at thecore.
It's the I don't feel, I'm notsure that I'm good enough, I'm
not sure I can pull this offPlus.
But why?
Why is she acting this way?
Why does she think this?
Why does she feel this?
Why does she treat me this Like?
(17:16):
You put those two together andit's very hard to have a healthy
, fun, romantic relationshipthat people are attracted to and
people are looking for.
It's hard to pull that off withall, like you said, that
baggage and again, insecurityand over analysis.
You put those two together.
It's hard for people to behappy man, it's hard.
(17:36):
Even if one person'sexperienced those things, it's
going to ruin the relationshipfor both people I think that's
the whole.
Dan (17:40):
The whole theory around rebound relationships and why
they don't work is because youhaven't had enough time to
basically heal the wounds anddeal with all your baggage from
your previous relationship.
Charles (17:51):
Yeah, so you're pulling that along into the new
relationship?
And yeah, absolutely yeah.
So, like everything the I thinkMark Nansen said it the only
dating advice that works everytime is self-improvement.
So if you've got thatunderlying insecurity that
you're dealing with whether itgoes back to your childhood or
goes back to your most recentrelationship, whatever it is
(18:12):
hitting that stuff head on anddealing with it is really the
only way that's going to makeyou better at either walking up
to a pretty girl and asking forher number or trying to be a
good husband or a good father.
That stuff has to be dealt with, otherwise you're just going to
keep kicking the same can downthe road and deal with the same
problems over and over again.
Dan (18:32):
Yeah, you're literally by doing self-improvement, creating
and figuring out what tools youneed to handle those different
situations and your practice,you're practicing using them as
well on yourself and then atthat point, once you've vetted
the tools and how to use themand you're good at it, then you
might be ready to use them withanother person involved in the
(18:54):
mix, whatever capacity thatlooks like.
But you're right, if you don'tspend that time working on
yourself, you're just winging itagain and you're going to be
likely to repeat yourself and interms of the success or failure
of our last relationship.
Charles (19:08):
Yes, agreed.
Look at yourself and try tofigure out, okay, what are the
areas where I am fixating onother people's actions and other
people's behavior andoveranalyzing them to the point
where it's getting in my way ofjust being able to accept a yes
or a no and then moving on tothe next step, whatever that
happens to be for you?
Yeah, and.
Dan (19:29):
I'm going to pull a line that you repeat constantly is
get a therapist or a group orsomebody outside of yourself to
point that stuff out.
It's really difficult to figureout what you're doing Like part
of your brain, even if, likeyou're an expert in certain
areas, like the therapists havetherapists and coaches have
coaches, and because theyrealize there's so much that you
don't see and you don't seenearly as quickly as somebody
(19:50):
outside of you and I know withwhat you went through recently
in terms of some of your newtraining you ask people to give
you some feedback on on you andways to describe you, and that's
because a lot of times we don'tsee a lot of that stuff and
good or bad, and so it's reallydifficult if you're going to try
(20:10):
to wing this on your own and doall this self-improvement by
yourself and bite the bullet.
Yes, books are good, podcastsare good, but personalized,
one-on-one attention from atherapist, a coach or a group
therapy is going to get youthere so much faster and so much
more efficient path to gettingto where you want to be.
Charles (20:27):
Yeah, and it's.
There's some quote that I sawonline a long time ago.
I don't remember exactly, butit basically said something
about the the path to who youwant to be is through the work
you don't want to do, and it is.
It is.
It is intimidating to thinkabout hiring a therapist, hiring
a coach, go into a groupintroducing yourself and be like
(20:49):
and here's the problem thatbrought me here.
That is a hard thing to sitdown and do with a stranger.
Dan (20:54):
So it was easy.
You would already be doing it.
It was easy and enjoyable.
Charles (20:58):
Again, listening to podcasts is easy.
Reading books listen to anaudio book in your car is easy.
I'm an expert at that.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, I.
Recently I had gone um, I'd goneon the maintenance plan with
audible because I had so manycredits built up.
That was like man, if I keep 15a month, I keep adding credits.
I'm like seven, eight, ninecredits I haven't used.
So they have a plan where,basically, you can keep access
(21:18):
to all your stuff without addingmultiple credit, without any
new credits every month.
But I just went through alistening.
I've been spent a lot of timein my car, spent a lot of time
on planes, and so I recentlywent through quite a rack
listening to new books.
And so now I'm back on thepremium plus plan or whatever,
where I'm getting the creditsagain because I love audible so
much.
But yeah, it's easy to listen,to buy a new self-help book on
(21:41):
audible and listen to it.
And even even if you do workthrough the exercises which are
not easy some of them, but it'snot as hard as sitting down next
to a stranger saying here's theproblem that prompted me to
hire you or join you or sit withyou and, as a result that's
doing stuff like that is themost helpful because it's the
hardest.
Yeah, the next part he talksabout is getting to rejection
(22:04):
quickly, which I think there's abetter way to say this instead
of getting to rejection quickly,which I get the point that he's
making.
What I like to think of it, asis more, do what you have to do
to find out what a person'sinterest level is in you, and
it's almost like I want to drawa map with some very dark lines
(22:29):
that say here's exactly the kindof relationship or interaction
somebody wants to have with meand here's what they don't.
And the more clear yourrelationship is with someone
about what role they want you tohave in their life, what fun
activity they're willing toengage in with you, whatever
that is, the more clearly youunderstand that objectively, the
(22:51):
less reason there is to feelanxiety.
So that's where, when we getinto part two, we're going to
talk about testing for interest,like when you see a stranger.
Okay, particularly imagine astranger who's a pretty girl
that you might be interested ingoing on a date with.
Is she interested in havingsome small talk about the
weather?
Is she interested in telling meher name?
(23:12):
Is she interested in agreeingto go on a date with me?
Is she interested in going onmultiple dates with me?
Is she interested in kissing me?
Is she interested in going tobed with me?
Is she interested in being mygirlfriend?
Change this order as you needto for your own values.
Is she interested in marryingme?
Does she want to have kids withme?
It's like the more you knowexactly where this person stands
(23:35):
on what they're interested inand what they're not interested
in, the less reason for anxietyyou have.
Dan (23:40):
I think in this segment here I thought he mentioned it
here where people have atendency to not want to rock the
boat, so things might be goingwell in terms of a casual
conversation, and I think wherehe was talking about get to
rejection quickly, it's if youwent in for one purpose in terms
of trying to connect with thatperson you want to get to know
them and you have some, maybesexual interest in them, but
(24:04):
then you just get to the pointof some friendly, nice
conversation.
You might just go, oh, that'senough, I don't want to ever be
rejected, so I'm just going tosettle now for being friendly
with that person and then all ofa sudden, before you know it,
you're in the friend zonebecause you are acting like
you're too afraid to then takethe next step and actually get
(24:26):
to that rejection where you areactually asking them for what
you want, or you are getting tothat point.
You stop making progress interms of where you're talking
about the testing for interest.
You stop testing for interestbecause you don't ever want to
be turned down and your ownbrain is going, oh, there's a
possibility here, and so younever actually take that next
(24:47):
step, and so I think part ofwhat he's talking about here to
get your rejection quickly isturn your brain off and just
keep testing for interest.
Charles (24:55):
Right, keep moving things forward until somebody
says okay, but and the thing?
Dan (25:02):
Oh, this feels good.
I'm getting good feelings herebecause I've met this new person
and we have these things incommon, but then you never just
take that next step and you justhang out.
Charles (25:11):
And that might be one of the most valuable things I've
learned from this book andother good dating books be a
three percent man by cory wayne,and the book we just did most
recently by the gotmans, the theMan's Guide to Women.
Testing for interest inspiresinterest and it's like you about
.
Just come to that.
Naturally, that's not aconclusion that your brain would
(25:32):
just get to, but, man, it is sotrue Because you're showing
confidence.
You're showing confidence,you're showing honesty, you're
being direct and saying, hey,here's who I am, here's what I'm
about, and here's the thing isyou're being direct and saying
hey, here's who I am, here'swhat I'm about, here's the thing
is you're giving them acompliment.
Dan (25:44):
That's true.
Yes, I think there's a lot ofwiring that we've had, a
programming that we've had insociety.
Where it is creepy.
Where it's creepy becausethere's been a lot of the stuff
that's.
The stuff that is interestingto watch is, unfortunately, are
the scenes and TV and movieswhere the guy is being like
extra creepy or the otherextreme, like super, extra
romantic, the fun stuff to watch, not like a just a natural
(26:08):
progression in terms of interest.
You don't see it that much andso I think we're programmed to
like worry about again.
Our brains are like, oh, wecould go wrong here.
I don't want to come across ascreepy, but meantime, most of
the time, you're not.
It's I didn't put people.
A lot of guys don't realizethat now I didn't, when I'm I
was.
I'm talking to my younger froma younger.
Yeah, same, absolutely yeah, Iyeah the I'd never want to be
(26:32):
the creepy guy or whatever thatyou hear the girls complaining
and a lot of the time you don'thear them complain when it just
nothing crazy happened andthat's thing that may have
(26:52):
happened a lot more to from awoman's perspective than we even
realized.
Charles (26:58):
If especially if you've done that for so long that
you've taken yourself off thegame board as being someone who
has any kind of romantic orsexual interest, if you have
conditioned a woman to thinkyou're her friend or you're just
a colleague or you're just abuddy, and then at some point
(27:19):
when you can't stand it anymore,you make some sort of a
romantic or sexual gesture toher, that's when you come across
as creepy.
Dan (27:25):
Correct, because you present yourself in a false
light the whole time, and partof your brain knows that and I
think it gives it away in termsof your body language and
everything else, as you aregetting out of that comfort zone
and out of that normalrelationship status with
somebody, it's I think it'sdifficult then for them to for
(27:46):
you to be behave in a non-creepyway or a not or a way that is
relaxed and natural, right,because you're basically
admitting think about that.
It's just like I've been, in away, I've been lying to you for
years correct potentially foryears.
Charles (28:03):
yeah, and your angle the whole time has been maybe
someday, yeah, that is notattractive and that is creepy.
The least creepy thing you cando is really learn how to
express your attraction and yourinterest to a woman in a way
that makes her feel both safeand flattered, without, without
feeling tricked or withoutfeeling pressured or anything
(28:25):
like that, because you put herin the driver's seat and say,
hey, I'm interested in gettingto know you better.
You want to meet me for acoffee tomorrow?
She could say yes, she couldsay no, but the only, really the
only way that comes across ascreepy is if, part of your
strategy for the way you make itthrough life and through social
, if you don't invest anythingin your own appearance, your own
(28:48):
communication skills, anythinglike that, you don't care.
If you don't care about that atall and you're direct with a
woman, then yeah, you might seemcreepy, but you got to give a
crap about the way you look, theway you smell, the way you
dress and Not to say you have tobe a beautiful, attractive
matinee idol.
You don't have to be a 10 outof 10, but you do have to.
(29:10):
It has to be clear yes, I careabout my appearance and I'm
willing to put some work intothe way I present myself to
other people.
So even if you're just a fourout of five out of 10, but
you're willing to be direct andbe honest, you can still come
across in that interaction as avery attractive person and you
will.
Dan (29:26):
You're also conveying how you go about life, and if you
show that you care aboutyourself at least.
If you don't show that you careabout yourself, why would
anybody believe that you'regoing to put any effort into
them, into their relationship orinto anything else that you do?
Charles (29:39):
Yeah, or into providing for them, or whatever it is
you're ultimately looking for inyour relationship with a woman.
Dan (29:44):
That means everybody has their own standards of what
beauty is and of how well youneed to dress and everything
else.
Like that you don't need, likeyou said, you don't need to be
perfect at all of this stuff,but just make a little bit of an
effort, show that you care,Correct and, if nothing else,
that actually helps level upyour self-esteem.
When you do things for yourself, you're caring for yourself.
(30:06):
That subconsciously absolutelywill carry that.
You will carry that with youand you will express that in the
way you communicate with peopleand the way you present
yourself, the way you walk, theway you talk, your body language
, things that you're not eventhinking about, knowing that.
Hey, I cared about myself today, did these things got a haircut
(30:27):
, took a shower, took a coupleminutes to choose my outfit,
what I was going to wear for theday.
All those little things, yeah,they seem innocuous, but,
believe it or not, they make adifference.
Love each of your state of mind.
Charles (30:37):
Keep in mind, in all of these scenarios, anxiety is not
your enemy.
It's telling you something, andin this case, what it's telling
you is you're willing to trysomething new that you're not
good at, and that's a good thing, and that's an attractive thing
.
So anxiety is, it's in thepassenger seat for a lot of
these things we're talking about, and you're not going to be
able to kick it out of the car,but you are going to be able to
(30:59):
keep it fed, keep it hydrated,stop for bathroom breaks when
you need to so that your anxietyis manageable, or soothing
Trichology you want to use, butyeah, the only.
When you're way down the roadof this process or any process
of trying something new, can yousay, okay, the anxiety is gone.
I spent a fair amount of my timedoing public speaking.
I still get a little bitnervous, whether that's comedy
(31:20):
or giving a work presentation.
It's oh, I'm doing somethingthat I don't do all the time.
This is going to feel, yeah,uncomfortable, but not nearly.
I'm not so uncomfortable thatI'm going to feel like I can't
do this, and the more you do iton a daily basis, I would
imagine that lebron jamesexperiences very little anxiety
now coming out from the lockerroom to start a basketball game
(31:43):
because he does it so much andhe's so used to it and he knows
how good he is at it.
And I would say even the 12thman on some NBA team who you
might not even know his name,but he does this all the time.
He's probably not feeling thatanxiety either.
So you don't have to be thebest in the world to not feel
anxiety.
You just have to be somebodywho's stuck with it and gotten
used to it and you'll be able todo the same thing.
And so, yeah, practice thesetechniques the breathing, the
(32:10):
visualization, the letting go ofover analysis and trying to
figure out why everybody doeswhat they do and then also just
be willing to test people andjust get a beat on where they
feel in regards to you.
And to do that, you have to askquestions and do things that
will put you in a position forrejection.
Let go of the assumptions andbe open.
Dan (32:24):
Yeah, exactly, and use that to prompt you to want to ask
questions because you don't havethe information and that you
don't soothe yourself intothinking you have the answers
for things that you haven'treally explored.
Charles (32:36):
You've got to give people the opportunity to say
yes or say no to you, and thatdoes cause anxiety, but it's
also where all the valuableinformation with how your
relationship could progress withthis person is going to be.
It's going to be in you handingthem the power to say tell me
whether you're interested in meor not, and then knowing that
you're going to be okayregardless of what they say.
All right, that's chapter six.
Thanks very much, dan.
I'll talk to you again soon.
(32:57):
Thank you so much for stickingin there and listening to the
whole thing.
We appreciate it again.
Please check out our websitemindfullymasculinecom for all of
our episodes, as well as anynews or updates that we want to
share.
Thanks,
Keep in mind in all of these scenarios, anxiety is not
your enemy.
It's telling you something, andin this case, what it's telling
you is you're willing to trysomething new that you're not
good at, and that's a good thing, and that's an attractive thing
.
So anxiety is, it's in thepassenger seat for a lot of
these things that we're talkingabout, and you're not going to
be able to kick it out of thecar, but you are going to be
(00:20):
able to keep it fed, keep ithydrated, stop for bathroom
breaks when you need to so thatyour anxiety is manageable.
Welcome back to the MindfullyMasculine Podcast.
This is Charles.
In this episode, dan and I willcontinue our discussion of
dating essentials for men by DrRobert Glover with Chapter 6,
all about anxiety and how tosoothe or manage it.
(00:42):
Soothe or manage it.
Topics covered includingmanaging anxiety through
diaphragmatic breathing.
Using visualization forpositive outcomes.
Understanding and overcomingthe negativity bias.
The power and importance ofhabit tracking.
Avoiding over-analysis andaccepting uncertainty.
Healthy mindset for dealingwith rejection.
Testing for interest inrelationships.
(01:03):
The relationship betweenconfidence, authenticity and
attraction.
Common misconceptions aboutcreepiness in dating.
The importance of externalsupport for personal growth.
Understanding and leveraginganxiety as an indicator.
Effective strategies forreducing anxiety in social and
romantic situations and othertopics.
(01:24):
Check out our websitemindfullymasculinecom for full
audio and video episodes, aswell as any news or developments
we find worth sharing.
Thanks and enjoy.
Dan (01:34):
Good morning Charles.
How are?
Charles (01:36):
you doing, dan?
Thank you, let me turn my soundall the way off.
Okay, I'm doing well, thanks.
We are still working throughsome of our sound challenges and
we've gotten a lot closer tofixing it.
We need one more piece ofequipment and then I think we'll
be in great shape.
You blame Amazon.
I bought two audio interfacesfrom Amazon and they sent me two
boxes with pictures of audiointerfaces on them, and one
(01:59):
contained a projector, which isnot.
I don't want to confuse any ofthe non-techies out there, but a
projector and an audiointerface are not the same thing
.
Whoa, whoa, slow down.
The box looks the same.
The box looks exactly the same,but they are not the same.
Yeah, okay, so we arere-recording chapter six from
Dating Essentials for Men.
This chapter is all about howto calm and soothe yourself.
(02:23):
We're asking our listeners andourselves to do some new things
that we may not be all thatcomfortable with, and so with
new things comes anxiety.
So let's go through some of thelittle tools and tricks here
that Dr Glover gives us, forwhen we are feeling our nervous
system activated, our anxiety iscoming up and we want to put it
(02:44):
back down so that we can do thething that we're trying to do.
The first one he recommends isdiaphragmatic breathing, meaning
breathing from your diaphragminstead of breathing from your
chest.
Singers and people who talk fora living probably already know
about this, but the idea is,when you breathe in, instead of
your chest going up, your tummygoes out and that tells you that
(03:07):
you're breathing with yourdiaphragm, which I believe
allows you to intake more CO2 oreven just a greater quantity of
air for breath.
Dan (03:16):
Yeah, and I also think it activates, maybe, the vagus
nerve that I was here, yeah yeah, with your parasympathetic
system, which actually is calmsyou, your whole nervous system.
So you've got the sympatheticand the parasympathetic and I
always confuse it too.
But I think parasympathetic Ithink of a parachute kind of
coming down a little bit.
I think that's the one thatmeans to relax you and by
(03:39):
activating that part of yourbody you're actually stimulating
that nerve and it helps calmyou down, also from a
physiological standpoint as well.
Charles (03:47):
Yeah, so when you're breathing from your chest, those
breaths are typically shorter,shallower and faster.
Dan (03:54):
And if you think about it, I think when you're upset or
excited about something, howdoes your body feel?
Charles (03:59):
And you're doing that short breath from up here, yeah,
and so I think it goes hand inhand with the same type of yeah,
if you're familiar with theterm or the practice of ugly
crying, but you're likestruggling for your breath and
you're hyperventilating andyou're like that's all coming up
here, I have to.
It's been a while, but yeah, Ido remember that and, yeah, that
(04:20):
that would be a check, the wayhe says to check in it basically
put a hand on your tummy and ahand, wait, a hand on your chest
and a hand on your tummy andthen see which one you're
getting the most, which hand ismoving the most, and that'll
tell you what kind of breathingyou're doing.
Again, if the goal is to, ifyou're trying to get ramped up
before a boxing match orsomething like that, maybe
there's a reason to get yourselfbreathing, doing your chest
(04:42):
breathing.
But if you're trying to calmdown, you want to feel that
breathing pushing out your bellyand so that's the way that you
do you actually do one or theother?
Dan (04:52):
because I naturally do the diaphragmatic, I need to force
myself mentally to do the.
I naturally do the, not thediaphragm.
The chest breathe I think I dothe probably chest, but daily
too, yeah, and I have to forcemy belly out and have to really
concentrate in order to breathethat way.
Charles (05:07):
Yeah, and I think naturally, yeah, I would.
Dan (05:10):
I think they also equivalent to like babies.
If you look at the way babiesbreathe, it's their tummies
going in and out.
That's true.
At some point, I guess, we gettaught or we just get the habit
of doing the upper chestbreathing more often.
Charles (05:22):
So that's yeah, that makes sense.
So I would say, yeah, you dosee babies breathing with their
tummy.
I think I, yeah, I think Iwould naturally be more of a
chest breather, which issomething to yeah.
If you're in a high stresssituation, either you're having
an argument with your partner oryou're trying to go talk to new
people.
Whatever that is, try torealize what you're doing and
(05:44):
try to get the habit of, becauseanother thing it does is it'll
lower your pulse rate anddiscussed previously the.
The pulse over 100 is not whereyou want to be if you're trying
to do anything that involvesyour brain making a difficult
decision.
And yeah, that, yeah, I toldyou that's what I use my metric
when I'm in the gym before.
(06:04):
The way I know if I've restedlong enough is not how much time
has gone on the clock, it'swhen my Apple Watch tells me my
pulse rate's gone down under 100, then I know, okay, it's time
to lift again.
Oh, that's true, because, yeah,your brain is more the front
part of your brain, as opposedto your amygdala is more in the
driver's seat when your pulse isunder 100.
And it's good to get your pulsethere by doing things like
diaphragmatic breathing, theother process that he recommends
(06:28):
here is visualizing positiveresults.
Keep in mind that your mind is aproblem-solving machine and
because of that, the riskmitigation process is going to
often have you focus on theworst-case scenarios more than
the best case scenarios or eventhe most likely scenario.
Which inefficient problemsolving machine is going to
(06:52):
spend the most time focusing onwhat's most likely to happen in
this situation?
But because we're walkingaround with a brain that was
designed to keep us alive undervery dangerous circumstances, we
do tend to focus on the what'sthe worst case scenario, what's
the most bad thing that couldhappen to us.
And again, I think awell-designed AI or computer
program would spend its timefocusing on what is the most
(07:13):
likely thing to occur and how doI mitigate that, or mitigate
that risk, where the humanemotional brain is not wired
that way.
Dan (07:21):
No, it's whatever.
I think it's just so manyfactors come into play when
we're thinking about what riskis coming to mind first, our
past experience, what we'veliterally watched on television
and movies, those things, thoseare ideas that are circulating
around in our head.
If we remember any of that partof that, those movies, I think
we've got to be real carefulwith what we're programming
(07:41):
ourselves with, because when youdon't want it to surface, when
you want to keep calm andrelaxed about something, we've
got all those other thingscirculating in our brain of
possibilities.
If we never saw, that, wedidn't even know something crazy
that we saw in a movie couldactually exist or happen, even
though we were visualizing itonly.
But then he talks about thepower of visualization right
(08:03):
here it only.
Charles (08:05):
But then he talks about the power visualization right
here.
Yeah, and the fact that yourbody's physiology doesn't care
if a scenario is real orimagined.
If it's getting enough cyclesin your CPU, your physiology is
going to react as if it's real,even if it's just something that
you're imagining.
Dan (08:19):
Yeah, he talked about the basketball players analogy,
where they had one team ofpeople playing basketball
practicing out on the court inreal life and another one
another group of basketballplayers just visualizing
shooting baskets, and when theywent to play, the ones who
visualized actually got more ofthe baskets in a higher
percentage than the ones who areactually out on the court.
(08:41):
And I think what he said wasit's because when you visualize,
you don't visualize yourselfmissing every time you manage.
You visualize yourself makingit in the basket every time.
The crazy thing to me is thatyour body is required to make
those baskets after the fact andyou were not literally, you
were not practicing that, youwere just sitting there, whereas
the people out on the court,their muscles are going through
(09:03):
those motions Also.
Maybe there, whereas the peopleout on the court, their muscles
are going through those motionsalso, maybe you're wearing those
muscles down and things likethat too.
So that could affect how muchyou're you're able to make it in
.
But I guess if you're alreadywell trained, you already know
how to make baskets.
If you're like a professional,you really don't need to train
your body to make thosemovements anymore.
Your body just knows how to dothat.
So probably it's more powerfulvisualization.
(09:24):
I'm wondering if you tookamateurs, kids who'd never shot
baskets before, and they did thesame thing.
I'm curious to see how thatwould work.
Charles (09:32):
That's true.
I mean it's got to be a baselevel of proficiency before
before this comes in.
But yeah, the lesson with thebasketball shots is that the
result that you visualize ismore likely to happen.
And so if you're visualizingthe negative result over and
over again, then you make thatmore likely to happen.
And if that comes to going outto a new social experience or
(09:56):
interacting with people or womenor whatever it is, if you are
focusing on the negative outcomethat could happen, that makes
that negative outcome morelikely to happen.
And the other side again fromthe basketball example if you
focus on the positive resultthat you're looking for, then
that makes that positive resultmore likely to happen.
Dan (10:15):
And I think the also lesson with the section before that is
that our brains will gravitatetowards the negative results
more often than the positiveones.
So just expect that this is notgoing to be an easy thing to do
to think of the positive thingsall the time.
Yet the more you practice it,the easier it gets, obviously
like everything else in life,but that's what our brains are
(10:36):
designed and wired to do, sodon't beat yourself up thinking
there's something wrong with methat I'm always thinking of
these horrible results orwhatever, but that's just.
Our brains are trained to leanin that direction.
Charles (10:46):
So feeling really wrong and so to lean against that
direction, be prepared for somework.
You got to have a system, yougot to have a checklist, you got
to have reminders, you got tohave something in place that
tells your conscious brain okay,yes, we understand what we're
going to do if we're just onautopilot.
But we don't want to be onautopilot, we want to do this
other thing instead.
Dan (11:04):
And remind yourself why you're doing it, got excited
about that.
A lot of times I fail because Idon't remember why I wanted to
do it, where I wasn't as excitedabout doing it as I was
previously, and so then thingsgo to the wayside and it's just
yeah, it's not worth it For methat's anyway you get to really
(11:26):
remind, like, why I want to dothis thing in order to get over
that hump.
Charles (11:28):
And look, I think the most, one of the most effective
tools we have that's free forall of us not free for all of us
.
Assuming you already have acell phone with a monthly plan,
which most of us do yeah, justget some kind of a habit
tracking app that will remindyou during the day hey, do these
.
You've decided these things areimportant.
You've decided you want to dothese things.
Now here's a reminder three orfour times a day to practice a
(11:48):
visualizing exercise or adiaphragmatic breathing exercise
or whatever, and just have itpop up on your phone and tell
you hey, look, you're the onethat told me these things matter
, you want to do these.
So here I'm going to tell youfour times a day to do these
things.
You have an iPhone app.
Dan (12:09):
I've been loving the new reminders function.
Charles (12:10):
They've integrated it really well.
I haven't done new.
I haven't done this with theirs.
Dan (12:11):
I I left apple's reminders a while ago for another app and
I haven't really looked at itagain I love it because they
integrate into your calendar aswell, and when you're making a
new calendar appointment,there's a little tab at the top.
You can create a calendarappointment or a reminder, so it
doesn't actually go on yourcalendar.
Okay, you can have it repeatevery so long.
Charles (12:25):
Are you using Apple's built-in calendar or Google
calendar?
Apple's built-in calendar Okay,yeah, I don't use.
Okay, but Apple's reminders ortheir calendar.
Dan (12:31):
But the reminders are great .
You can really flexible withstuff and it integrates.
You can have it also integrateright into your calendar.
So if you're on a differentmachine, if you're on pop,
whatever, you can see all thereminders potholes.
Okay, I want them to.
Okay, you don't have to yeah, Iuse smart.
Charles (12:47):
My habit tracking app that I've been using for a
couple years is calledproductive, and I like it a lot.
It will.
It'll pop up those remindersfor you as well, and also the
thing I like is it'll let yousee streaks for how many days in
a row you have that'smotivating completed whatever
task.
And yeah, but yeah, go aheadand leverage those tools.
They're free.
Most of us have access to them,so let them rip.
(13:09):
Okay, the?
The third step in soothing youranxiety that dr glover
recommends is stop trying tofigure out why women do what
they do and so many things inthis book.
This doesn't just apply towomen.
Really anything in your lifethat you want or need the
participation of another personto get your goal met, when they
(13:34):
are unwilling or unable topartner with you to meet that
goal, don't spend a bunch ofextra time trying to figure out
but why aren't they willing todo this?
Why didn't they do this?
For me, it doesn't matter.
Yeah, we all need to liveinterconnected lives where we
rely on other people to do thethings that we we want to do for
ourselves and we want to dowith others.
(13:55):
But the part where you getstuck in your head about this
analysis of but why didn't theydo it?
Why did they choose not to doit?
In so many cases, the answer isit doesn't matter, they just
didn't.
Yeah, and he does a good job oflaying out that case here.
Dan (14:08):
Another reason why you don't want to go down that road
is a lot of times, even if youwere to, in a magic land, get
that information as to why theydidn't want to do it, you don't
have the power most of the timeto control them, to have them do
something different anyway.
Charles (14:24):
Really any of the time.
If you're a dad and you've gota daughter, you can make her do
her chores, but you can't makeher want to do her chores, and
when it comes to healthyromantic relationships, you
don't want anybody doinganything they don't want to do
or doing on a sense of guilt orobligation.
You want to be in relationshipswith people that are excited to
have their needs met by you andmeet your needs.
Dan (14:44):
Now it might be a good prompt, an impetus to start a
conversation about why thingsaren't.
You guys are on different pages, but don't ruminate and just
try to come up with ideas of whysomething did or didn't happen.
Charles (15:00):
Yeah, because most human behavior, as he says, is
controlled by unconsciousfactors that we ourselves don't
even understand about ourselves.
So going to another person andtrying to say, yeah, they may
not even know, yeah, but whydidn't you?
Why didn't you want to go outwith me?
Why didn't you want to meet upfor the state that we arranged?
It's like they probably can'teven give you a straight answer
(15:23):
if they wanted to.
They probably can't even giveyou a straight answer if they
wanted to, and the fact thatyou've put them in that corner
where you're demanding thatanswer for them makes them even
less likely.
So let go of that over analysis.
Keep in mind that it probablyhas very little to do with you
and more to deal with her life,her situation, her circumstances
, her mindset, and she's justnot willing or able to meet that
(15:46):
need or that request of yoursin that moment and then just be
chill about it.
That's the only thing you cando to increase your chances for
that particular girl to be opento meeting up with you or going
out with you in the future isthe way that you react to
disappointment, because that isa thing that so many guys get
wrong so much of the time.
Dan (16:04):
Here's another way to think about it.
We were just talking about thisthe other day companies who
make it very difficult to cancelsubscriptions with them.
If they make it easy andpleasant for you to be able to
cancel because, for whateverreason, you're just either not
into their product, you don'tneed it anymore, whatever it is
if they make it easy, you're alot more likely to consider them
in the future and come back andgo oh hey, you know what?
They had great service.
(16:25):
I've got a favorable impression.
If somebody asks me about them,I'm going to give a oh, it was
easy to cancel or it was veryflexible and I had a good
experience walking away fromthat.
Whereas if you sign up onlinebut you have to call somebody or
get a fax somebody If youremember, like gym memberships
back in the day, they're likeyear long contracts, like the
(16:45):
vice president of gold gym inorder to quit.
I remember having to do that,basically, and then they still
took two months to respond backand charge me.
During those two months, I willnever join gold again.
Charles (16:55):
Bring it back to the material of the chapter.
It really is a mix ofinsecurity and over analysis.
That is really what's at thecore.
It's the I don't feel, I'm notsure that I'm good enough, I'm
not sure I can pull this offPlus.
But why?
Why is she acting this way?
Why does she think this?
Why does she feel this?
Why does she treat me this Like?
(17:16):
You put those two together andit's very hard to have a healthy
, fun, romantic relationshipthat people are attracted to and
people are looking for.
It's hard to pull that off withall, like you said, that
baggage and again, insecurityand over analysis.
You put those two together.
It's hard for people to behappy man, it's hard.
(17:36):
Even if one person'sexperienced those things, it's
going to ruin the relationshipfor both people I think that's
the whole.
Dan (17:40):
The whole theory around rebound relationships and why
they don't work is because youhaven't had enough time to
basically heal the wounds anddeal with all your baggage from
your previous relationship.
Charles (17:51):
Yeah, so you're pulling that along into the new
relationship?
And yeah, absolutely yeah.
So, like everything the I thinkMark Nansen said it the only
dating advice that works everytime is self-improvement.
So if you've got thatunderlying insecurity that
you're dealing with whether itgoes back to your childhood or
goes back to your most recentrelationship, whatever it is
(18:12):
hitting that stuff head on anddealing with it is really the
only way that's going to makeyou better at either walking up
to a pretty girl and asking forher number or trying to be a
good husband or a good father.
That stuff has to be dealt with, otherwise you're just going to
keep kicking the same can downthe road and deal with the same
problems over and over again.
Dan (18:32):
Yeah, you're literally by doing self-improvement, creating
and figuring out what tools youneed to handle those different
situations and your practice,you're practicing using them as
well on yourself and then atthat point, once you've vetted
the tools and how to use themand you're good at it, then you
might be ready to use them withanother person involved in the
(18:54):
mix, whatever capacity thatlooks like.
But you're right, if you don'tspend that time working on
yourself, you're just winging itagain and you're going to be
likely to repeat yourself and interms of the success or failure
of our last relationship.
Charles (19:08):
Yes, agreed.
Look at yourself and try tofigure out, okay, what are the
areas where I am fixating onother people's actions and other
people's behavior andoveranalyzing them to the point
where it's getting in my way ofjust being able to accept a yes
or a no and then moving on tothe next step, whatever that
happens to be for you?
Yeah, and.
Dan (19:29):
I'm going to pull a line that you repeat constantly is
get a therapist or a group orsomebody outside of yourself to
point that stuff out.
It's really difficult to figureout what you're doing Like part
of your brain, even if, likeyou're an expert in certain
areas, like the therapists havetherapists and coaches have
coaches, and because theyrealize there's so much that you
don't see and you don't seenearly as quickly as somebody
(19:50):
outside of you and I know withwhat you went through recently
in terms of some of your newtraining you ask people to give
you some feedback on on you andways to describe you, and that's
because a lot of times we don'tsee a lot of that stuff and
good or bad, and so it's reallydifficult if you're going to try
(20:10):
to wing this on your own and doall this self-improvement by
yourself and bite the bullet.
Yes, books are good, podcastsare good, but personalized,
one-on-one attention from atherapist, a coach or a group
therapy is going to get youthere so much faster and so much
more efficient path to gettingto where you want to be.
Charles (20:27):
Yeah, and it's.
There's some quote that I sawonline a long time ago.
I don't remember exactly, butit basically said something
about the the path to who youwant to be is through the work
you don't want to do, and it is.
It is.
It is intimidating to thinkabout hiring a therapist, hiring
a coach, go into a groupintroducing yourself and be like
(20:49):
and here's the problem thatbrought me here.
That is a hard thing to sitdown and do with a stranger.
Dan (20:54):
So it was easy.
You would already be doing it.
It was easy and enjoyable.
Charles (20:58):
Again, listening to podcasts is easy.
Reading books listen to anaudio book in your car is easy.
I'm an expert at that.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, I.
Recently I had gone um, I'd goneon the maintenance plan with
audible because I had so manycredits built up.
That was like man, if I keep 15a month, I keep adding credits.
I'm like seven, eight, ninecredits I haven't used.
So they have a plan where,basically, you can keep access
(21:18):
to all your stuff without addingmultiple credit, without any
new credits every month.
But I just went through alistening.
I've been spent a lot of timein my car, spent a lot of time
on planes, and so I recentlywent through quite a rack
listening to new books.
And so now I'm back on thepremium plus plan or whatever,
where I'm getting the creditsagain because I love audible so
much.
But yeah, it's easy to listen,to buy a new self-help book on
(21:41):
audible and listen to it.
And even even if you do workthrough the exercises which are
not easy some of them, but it'snot as hard as sitting down next
to a stranger saying here's theproblem that prompted me to
hire you or join you or sit withyou and, as a result that's
doing stuff like that is themost helpful because it's the
hardest.
Yeah, the next part he talksabout is getting to rejection
(22:04):
quickly, which I think there's abetter way to say this instead
of getting to rejection quickly,which I get the point that he's
making.
What I like to think of it, asis more, do what you have to do
to find out what a person'sinterest level is in you, and
it's almost like I want to drawa map with some very dark lines
(22:29):
that say here's exactly the kindof relationship or interaction
somebody wants to have with meand here's what they don't.
And the more clear yourrelationship is with someone
about what role they want you tohave in their life, what fun
activity they're willing toengage in with you, whatever
that is, the more clearly youunderstand that objectively, the
(22:51):
less reason there is to feelanxiety.
So that's where, when we getinto part two, we're going to
talk about testing for interest,like when you see a stranger.
Okay, particularly imagine astranger who's a pretty girl
that you might be interested ingoing on a date with.
Is she interested in havingsome small talk about the
weather?
Is she interested in telling meher name?
(23:12):
Is she interested in agreeingto go on a date with me?
Is she interested in going onmultiple dates with me?
Is she interested in kissing me?
Is she interested in going tobed with me?
Is she interested in being mygirlfriend?
Change this order as you needto for your own values.
Is she interested in marryingme?
Does she want to have kids withme?
It's like the more you knowexactly where this person stands
(23:35):
on what they're interested inand what they're not interested
in, the less reason for anxietyyou have.
Dan (23:40):
I think in this segment here I thought he mentioned it
here where people have atendency to not want to rock the
boat, so things might be goingwell in terms of a casual
conversation, and I think wherehe was talking about get to
rejection quickly, it's if youwent in for one purpose in terms
of trying to connect with thatperson you want to get to know
them and you have some, maybesexual interest in them, but
(24:04):
then you just get to the pointof some friendly, nice
conversation.
You might just go, oh, that'senough, I don't want to ever be
rejected, so I'm just going tosettle now for being friendly
with that person and then all ofa sudden, before you know it,
you're in the friend zonebecause you are acting like
you're too afraid to then takethe next step and actually get
(24:26):
to that rejection where you areactually asking them for what
you want, or you are getting tothat point.
You stop making progress interms of where you're talking
about the testing for interest.
You stop testing for interestbecause you don't ever want to
be turned down and your ownbrain is going, oh, there's a
possibility here, and so younever actually take that next
(24:47):
step, and so I think part ofwhat he's talking about here to
get your rejection quickly isturn your brain off and just
keep testing for interest.
Charles (24:55):
Right, keep moving things forward until somebody
says okay, but and the thing?
Dan (25:02):
Oh, this feels good.
I'm getting good feelings herebecause I've met this new person
and we have these things incommon, but then you never just
take that next step and you justhang out.
Charles (25:11):
And that might be one of the most valuable things I've
learned from this book andother good dating books be a
three percent man by cory wayne,and the book we just did most
recently by the gotmans, the theMan's Guide to Women.
Testing for interest inspiresinterest and it's like you about
.
Just come to that.
Naturally, that's not aconclusion that your brain would
(25:32):
just get to, but, man, it is sotrue Because you're showing
confidence.
You're showing confidence,you're showing honesty, you're
being direct and saying, hey,here's who I am, here's what I'm
about, and here's the thing isyou're being direct and saying
hey, here's who I am, here'swhat I'm about, here's the thing
is you're giving them acompliment.
Dan (25:44):
That's true.
Yes, I think there's a lot ofwiring that we've had, a
programming that we've had insociety.
Where it is creepy.
Where it's creepy becausethere's been a lot of the stuff
that's.
The stuff that is interestingto watch is, unfortunately, are
the scenes and TV and movieswhere the guy is being like
extra creepy or the otherextreme, like super, extra
romantic, the fun stuff to watch, not like a just a natural
(26:08):
progression in terms of interest.
You don't see it that much andso I think we're programmed to
like worry about again.
Our brains are like, oh, wecould go wrong here.
I don't want to come across ascreepy, but meantime, most of
the time, you're not.
It's I didn't put people.
A lot of guys don't realizethat now I didn't, when I'm I
was.
I'm talking to my younger froma younger.
Yeah, same, absolutely yeah, Iyeah the I'd never want to be
(26:32):
the creepy guy or whatever thatyou hear the girls complaining
and a lot of the time you don'thear them complain when it just
nothing crazy happened andthat's thing that may have
(26:52):
happened a lot more to from awoman's perspective than we even
realized.
Charles (26:58):
If especially if you've done that for so long that
you've taken yourself off thegame board as being someone who
has any kind of romantic orsexual interest, if you have
conditioned a woman to thinkyou're her friend or you're just
a colleague or you're just abuddy, and then at some point
(27:19):
when you can't stand it anymore,you make some sort of a
romantic or sexual gesture toher, that's when you come across
as creepy.
Dan (27:25):
Correct, because you present yourself in a false
light the whole time, and partof your brain knows that and I
think it gives it away in termsof your body language and
everything else, as you aregetting out of that comfort zone
and out of that normalrelationship status with
somebody, it's I think it'sdifficult then for them to for
(27:46):
you to be behave in a non-creepyway or a not or a way that is
relaxed and natural, right,because you're basically
admitting think about that.
It's just like I've been, in away, I've been lying to you for
years correct potentially foryears.
Charles (28:03):
yeah, and your angle the whole time has been maybe
someday, yeah, that is notattractive and that is creepy.
The least creepy thing you cando is really learn how to
express your attraction and yourinterest to a woman in a way
that makes her feel both safeand flattered, without, without
feeling tricked or withoutfeeling pressured or anything
(28:25):
like that, because you put herin the driver's seat and say,
hey, I'm interested in gettingto know you better.
You want to meet me for acoffee tomorrow?
She could say yes, she couldsay no, but the only, really the
only way that comes across ascreepy is if, part of your
strategy for the way you make itthrough life and through social
, if you don't invest anythingin your own appearance, your own
(28:48):
communication skills, anythinglike that, you don't care.
If you don't care about that atall and you're direct with a
woman, then yeah, you might seemcreepy, but you got to give a
crap about the way you look, theway you smell, the way you
dress and Not to say you have tobe a beautiful, attractive
matinee idol.
You don't have to be a 10 outof 10, but you do have to.
(29:10):
It has to be clear yes, I careabout my appearance and I'm
willing to put some work intothe way I present myself to
other people.
So even if you're just a fourout of five out of 10, but
you're willing to be direct andbe honest, you can still come
across in that interaction as avery attractive person and you
will.
Dan (29:26):
You're also conveying how you go about life, and if you
show that you care aboutyourself at least.
If you don't show that you careabout yourself, why would
anybody believe that you'regoing to put any effort into
them, into their relationship orinto anything else that you do?
Charles (29:39):
Yeah, or into providing for them, or whatever it is
you're ultimately looking for inyour relationship with a woman.
Dan (29:44):
That means everybody has their own standards of what
beauty is and of how well youneed to dress and everything
else.
Like that you don't need, likeyou said, you don't need to be
perfect at all of this stuff,but just make a little bit of an
effort, show that you care,Correct and, if nothing else,
that actually helps level upyour self-esteem.
When you do things for yourself, you're caring for yourself.
(30:06):
That subconsciously absolutelywill carry that.
You will carry that with youand you will express that in the
way you communicate with peopleand the way you present
yourself, the way you walk, theway you talk, your body language
, things that you're not eventhinking about, knowing that.
Hey, I cared about myself today, did these things got a haircut
(30:27):
, took a shower, took a coupleminutes to choose my outfit,
what I was going to wear for theday.
All those little things, yeah,they seem innocuous, but,
believe it or not, they make adifference.
Love each of your state of mind.
Charles (30:37):
Keep in mind, in all of these scenarios, anxiety is not
your enemy.
It's telling you something, andin this case, what it's telling
you is you're willing to trysomething new that you're not
good at, and that's a good thing, and that's an attractive thing
.
So anxiety is, it's in thepassenger seat for a lot of
these things we're talking about, and you're not going to be
able to kick it out of the car,but you are going to be able to
(30:59):
keep it fed, keep it hydrated,stop for bathroom breaks when
you need to so that your anxietyis manageable, or soothing
Trichology you want to use, butyeah, the only.
When you're way down the roadof this process or any process
of trying something new, can yousay, okay, the anxiety is gone.
I spent a fair amount of my timedoing public speaking.
I still get a little bitnervous, whether that's comedy
(31:20):
or giving a work presentation.
It's oh, I'm doing somethingthat I don't do all the time.
This is going to feel, yeah,uncomfortable, but not nearly.
I'm not so uncomfortable thatI'm going to feel like I can't
do this, and the more you do iton a daily basis, I would
imagine that lebron jamesexperiences very little anxiety
now coming out from the lockerroom to start a basketball game
(31:43):
because he does it so much andhe's so used to it and he knows
how good he is at it.
And I would say even the 12thman on some NBA team who you
might not even know his name,but he does this all the time.
He's probably not feeling thatanxiety either.
So you don't have to be thebest in the world to not feel
anxiety.
You just have to be somebodywho's stuck with it and gotten
used to it and you'll be able todo the same thing.
And so, yeah, practice thesetechniques the breathing, the
(32:10):
visualization, the letting go ofover analysis and trying to
figure out why everybody doeswhat they do and then also just
be willing to test people andjust get a beat on where they
feel in regards to you.
And to do that, you have to askquestions and do things that
will put you in a position forrejection.
Let go of the assumptions andbe open.
Dan (32:24):
Yeah, exactly, and use that to prompt you to want to ask
questions because you don't havethe information and that you
don't soothe yourself intothinking you have the answers
for things that you haven'treally explored.
Charles (32:36):
You've got to give people the opportunity to say
yes or say no to you, and thatdoes cause anxiety, but it's
also where all the valuableinformation with how your
relationship could progress withthis person is going to be.
It's going to be in you handingthem the power to say tell me
whether you're interested in meor not, and then knowing that
you're going to be okayregardless of what they say.
All right, that's chapter six.
Thanks very much, dan.
I'll talk to you again soon.
(32:57):
Thank you so much for stickingin there and listening to the
whole thing.
We appreciate it again.
Please check out our websitemindfullymasculinecom for all of
our episodes, as well as anynews or updates that we want to
share.
Thanks,
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